The Dream and The Diva

I know people always rag on Mariah Carey for being a huge diva and her slutty wardrobe, but I still think she is an amazing vocalist. This song doesn't quite stretch her vocal abilities, but it is quickly topping the charts.

"My Love" - The Dream featuring Mariah Carey



Hear it on my new favorite station - 97.1 AMP. No commercials!

Quick Hits for the Tummy!

So last week Shana and I hit up two pretty nice restaurants, both of the small casual variety. One is the Auld Irisher which is located in Orange, CA and the other is an okonomiyaki place called Gaja which is located in Lomita, CA (near Torrance). Here are some quick thoughts on both Restaurants...

Auld Irisher

* Post St. Patty's Day, Lora and Teresa invited us to join in on all the Guinness and Boxty action.  To the right you will see our drinks: Guinness/Irish Cider Mix, Irish Cider and Guiness.

* We had puffed pastry stuffed w/ sausage dish and all I have to say is: how can you go wrong w/ flaky and crunchy w/ some delicious Irish sausage..?  You CAN'T

* Shana had the Fish & Chips which I've had before.  She felt it was too oily but it's to be expected with everything being deep fried.  The fish isn't bad but it could be a crispier.  I like the fries there and they taste very good with the curry you can order on the side

* I had a corned beef and swiss cheese boxty.  If you don't know, a boxty is a potato pancake that is filled with various goodies.  Imagine gnocchi, smashed out into a crepe, grilled, and then stuffed with corned beef and topped with swiss cheese.  I really enjoyed it.

Final Verdict - This place was definitely a nice place to just hang out and have some beers.  That coupled with the very filling food makes it a wonderful location for a small group of friends to reminisce of old times.

Gaja

* Okonomiyaki is the Japanese "Healthy Pancake".  All I can say is it is delicious but very hard to explain so follow the link.

* This place is great for a few people but we would avoid big parties.  There's a grill right in front of you but unlike Korean BBQ, it does take some focus to cook and you're not passing stuff around, you have to have space to work.

* Gaja is great because they have the okono/manja - yaki dishes plus izakaya style food.  Their Takoyaki was amazing and although Shana didn't like it, the Karaage with cheese on top is great!  Cheese makes everything better!

* The okonomiyaki was delicious!  Crispy with great ingredients and you can cover it yourself with the toppings YOU want.  Customization is key.

* Cooking yourself is a lot of fun but make sure you OIL the pan enough and that the pan is hot enough.  We had neither of these requirements in place which lead to epic fail okonomiyaki.

* Fortunately, if you screw up, they bring out a fresh order made by the chef.  So no matter what, make sure to try cooking because it's a lot of fun!

* The desserts here are crazy.  They have an endless selection of parfaits and we ended up getting the "Deluxe Japanese Parfait" which was very good at the start but as we got to the bottom we realized, you need to mix the ice cream into the condense milk and vannilla-choco flakes.

Final Verdict - This place is a lot of fun.  Great food and you get to cook a very creative dish yourself.  Then season and sauce as you like!  Finally, end the night with one of their very innovative parfaits.   Next time we are definitely conquering the grill!

Cheers!

~ 平安 \/. ^_^

Takin' it back...

Netflix, how I love thee. You give me endless entertainment and now, a blast from the past. So I was watching Eddie Murphy be a playboy in "Boomerang" this evening and what should start playing but one of my favorite classic R&B songs of the 90s.  So here's P.M. Dawn singing "I'd Die Without You".  Enjoy!

~ 平安 \/. ^_^

Good friends and good food at Musha

Okay I decided to stop being lazy and post about our latest culinary adventure. This past Saturday, Andrew and I partook in a triple date with friends I hadn't seen in a long time due to distance, grad school, etc. Anyways, the place for this triple date was at a quaint little Japanese restaurant in Santa Monica called Musha. 

I am definitely one to do my research so I went on Yelp prior to the dinner and mentally noted the 3 most raved dishes from Yelpers: brown rice risotto, mackarel and stone grilled beef. 

When we arrived at the restaurant at 6pm, we were told that there was another reservation at 7:30pm so we'd only have an hour or so to eat. Good thing is that we were served quickly with every drink and dish. We didn't mind too much since we already had plans after dinner regardless. It is a pretty small establishment, so I wouldn't say it's ideal for parties above 6. But definitely an intimate and quaint setting for smaller groups. 

Musha is an Izakaya type restaurant, meaning they specialize in Japanese tapas or appetizers. The food is best shared with amongst good company. Here's a list of dishes we ordered (I may be missing some since I failed to take pictures):

Tofu salad

Soybean chicken

Tuna tartare with ricecakes

Brown rice risotto

Mackarel

Stone grilled beef

MFC (Musha Fried Chicken)

Dynamite scallops

Octopus omellette (similar to Okonomiyaki)

The tuna tartare, brown rice risotto, and the mackarel were the items that stood out the most to me. The tuna tartare was served with 4 pieces of asian rice cakes (the dry crunchy type). The texture of the tartare was perfectly spreadable on the rice cakes and they complemented each other very well. As for the brown rice risotto, it wasn't as fabulous as I thought it would be, but interesting because it was creamy, cheesy, and chewy because of the brown rice. My favorite was definitely the mackarel - it was seared right at our table with a blowtorch, which charred the exterior of the fish, but left the middle slightly raw. I love raw fish so I was very happy with the half cooked/half raw mackarel. I usually don't like very fishy tastes, but the mackarel was seasoned just right.

I absentmindedly forgot to take pictures (again!) so I leave you with food photos taken from Yelp. If you're ever in the West Los Angeles/Santa Monica area, check Musha out!

Torched mackarel

Tuna tartare with rice cakes

Brown rice risotto

MFC

Stone grilled beef

I Need a Love Song

And as always, Babyface provides. This is a recent song by Babyface called, "I Need a Love Song". There are few who do it better.

Enjoy!



~ 平安 \/. ^_^

Brandy

I've always been a fan of Brandy - one of my favorite songs of hers was and still is "Have You Ever?" from her Never Say Never album.

Brandy recently released her Human album which is very comparable to the above mentioned one. My faves include "Right Here (Departed)" and "Long Distance", which I've included the link to the video for below (unfortunately embedding is not allowed for this video).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYJXna1Z3co

Here's the song without the music video so you don't need to follow the link to hear it :-)

In regards to Andrew's post below, we may be going to Josh Hoge's concert at Knitting Factory in May. If you liked what you heard, come join us! Tickets are only $10!

Josh Hoge

One of our new favorite artists, he's got a very distinct voice and a nice laid-back R&B feel.  My favorite song of his is called "Butch Cassidy" off of his album "Everything She Was".  However, there are very few quality recordings of this song on youtube and I have no idea how to stream music in a post.  So I'm posting a fan video with "360", along with the crappy quality "Butch Cassidy", which is also one of my favorite songs off of his album.    

Enjoy!

~ 平安 \/. ^_^

Daikokuya Ramen

When you walk down 1st Street in Little Tokyo, you are treated to a wide array of Ramen/Donburi shops for your dining pleasure.  However, if you're smart, you will walk straight to the yellow awning and enter into the world of Kurobuta pork.  This is to pork what Kobe Beef is to the almighty cow.

The layout of Daikokuya is typical for a ramen shop.  A long counter with limited table seating.  The hosts are exceptionally polite (as you would come to expect at a Japanese restaurant) and fortunately for us, it was not as busy as what we're accustomed to seeing.  I will say that it would be quite a challenge to seat a large party at this restaurant so I would encourage a more intimate small-group setting when dining at this particular establishment.

There are many items to choose from on the menu but Shana and I came for one reason and one reason alone: Tonkotsu (pork broth) ramen.  We ended up ordering the following

 items: Daikokuya Ramen, Daikokuya Ramen Kotteri Style, Gyoza and Small bowl of Shredded Grilled Pork.  You can see all of the items ordered in the picture to the right.

The gyoza was excellent.  It had a nice crisp yet chewy skin and the pork/vegetable mix inside was juicy and not overly seasoned.  In my combo, I also got the grilled pork bowl.  The pork was great but the shredded nori overshadowed the taste of the pork with the rice and I feel that they could have toned down on this particular topping for the dish.  On to the ramen -  I ordered the kotteri ramen which is made with extra pork fat and the broth was definitely the high point of the meal for me.  Compared to Shana's, it was very rich, almost creamy, because of the pork fat.  The quality of the meat made the flavor superb.  Also, it provides for a much more filling soup.  The pork itself was amazing as well.  Each bite had just the right amount of fat attached at the top so that it would be melt in your mouth but not be slimy as it went down.  The hardboiled egg here is the best I've ever had at a noodle house.  Excellent flavor in the marinade and it's cooked just enough to be done.  The yolk is still a bit orange and this makes it taste much more delicious than the average marinated egg at a ramen house.  My only problem with the ramen is that while the soup is definitely exceptional, the noodles don't quite sit in the same class.  It's very tough to put into words but they didn't have the chewiness that I like from my ramen.

Beyond the food, I liked that they provided both pickled ginger and hot mustard right at the table instead of forcing you to request either of the items.  At other restaurants, I'm always forced to ask for extra ginger and here, not a problem!  Also, the tea was good, but never served scalding hot which is how I like it to start.  However, it was tasty and easy to drink as it did not burn your throat going down.  

If you like tonkotsu-men, then look no further because no other ramen shop I've been to does pork as well as Daikokuya.  We also filled up for $15/person which is not too bad considering the quality of food that they serve.  Definitely one of the best ramen shops you'll find in the So-Cal area.

Cheers!

~ 平安 \/. ^_^

The Definitive Turkey Leg

If there was ever a debate about where to get the most delicious, juicy and, dare I say, legendary turkey leg ever... the debate is now over. The best turkey leg (besides what your mama makes) is definitely at the Happiest Place on Earth. For those of you who don't know where that is, that's Disneyland.

The various local fairs have got nothing on this tasty beast of succulently epic proportions. This bad boy is so juicy that our buddy Stefan's UNDERSHIRT (as in, through his dress shirt, onto his undershirt) was soaked by the turkey grease. I am needing to dry clean my Docker's jacket because the juice dripped down my arm all the way to my elbow despite it's wrapping. But this is not the only reason why it's the best, please read on.

Turkey is dry, you know it, I know it. Greasy as it can be, once you get past the skin, it's usually a rather tough meat to swallow without dousing it was some liquid. This holds true in turkey legs at the fairs. NOT at Disneyland. It is juicy skin to bone. And, the taste/seasoning, is amazing but simple - let the meat do the talking.

Some cons that are turkey leg related (and not related to Disneyland) is that turkey leg bones are a pain to eat. Also, turkey skin is quite resiliet and is not as easy to remove or chew as chicken skin.

I shall end this post with this statement:

"I will never again eat a Disneyland Turkey Leg or DTL while standing up ever again. I must be sitting with plenty of napkins around because it is so deliciously juicy that it is nigh impossible to devour without the assistance of a wetnap. Despite these challenges, it is the BEST Turkey Leg I've ever had."

The proof is in the picture...

~ 平安 \/. ^_^

1,2,3,4

New song I discovered while listening to KIIS FM the other day...it will now replace me and Andrew's previous song: "With you" by Chris Brown as "our" song. I don't need to explain why, do I?



The music video is way cute!

First post

This is the first post of Shandrew's Meals and Music! This blog will be used to share our experiences with two of our favorite entertainment mediums: food and music. We will update this periodically with reviews (good or bad) of restaurants within the Southern California region and musical musings that we feel would be appreciated by all.

Enjoy!