California Chirashi Wars

I’m a chirashi fiend, but not for the normal reasons (and there are plenty of normal reasons to love chirashi, like, oh, I don’t know, that it’s fucking delicious*).  No, I’m a chirashi fiend because – this is embarrassing – but because my mouth is too small for nigiri.

It’s ridiculously awkward to be seated all primly and silently in front of some perfect-postured, kindly-eyed fish-slicing wizard who’s spent his whole career polishing his arrangement technique, to be handed an aquatic work of art, and then to spill the whole thing in a waterfall of shame down my chin and onto the front of my shirt when I try to either bite it or force the whole thing in.

I touched on this briefly here and I won’t comment further except to say that I’m being overdramatic for effect (although the description of the waterfall of shame is not an exaggeration): of course I still eat and greatly enjoy sushi.  But I am less inherently stressed by chirashi, where I can bite my fish in half in peace.  To me, a good chirashi place is like a neighborhood diner.  I go there to relax and enjoy the closest thing to a Cheers-style diner, only with the kind of food that refreshes and invigorates me.

I have an unequivocal favorite chirashi place in the Los Angeles area, and that’s the implausibly located and discouragingly named Toro’s Japanese Fusion Seafood.

It sounds like it could be a wacky-roll emporium, but despite the giant-screen TV set up behind the chefs that constantly plays deep sea or aquarium slideshows, it’s not.  It’s the purveyor of what are almost certainly the thickest, pillowiest, most flavorful and oceanic slices of tuna in Los Angeles. 

The restaurant is called ‘Toro’s’ for a reason – it’s owned, and likely kept afloat by, tuna.

It’s sliced thick, fatty, and looks absolutely nothing like the archetypal dark maroon maguro.  You know the kind: you see it, darkened and cloudy, stuffed next to cucumbers and browning avocado in supermarket sushi, and more often than not, it’s mixed with and camouflaged by ‘spicy sauce’.  Old, it’s smelly, but even fresh, in my opinion, it’s usually flavorless.

Not at Toro’s – the tuna here is a bright salmon pink, striped with fat, and snuggles into the rice’s nooks and crannies like a blanket.  They cut it huge and thick, at least the width of my finger.  It’s not only the tuna they cut thick – the hamachi is thick enough to see its shiny, cream tinged white sheen, and the salmon to count up to ten striations in its rich orange flesh.

Those three fish may be the predictable three ‘chirashi fish’, but they sure don’t taste the same here.

Toro’s will also put in, depending on the season, scallops, ikura, spicy albacore, squid, lotus roots, hirame, or masago… but there’s always ample seaweed, a beautiful triangle of sweet tamago, and perfectly vinegared sticky rice.

For dinner, the restaurant is outrageously expensive – although probably still worth it.  I wouldn’t know, because I would never pay $60 to fill myself up on even the best quality sushi when I can roll in at noon and pay $16.

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Toro’s takes the top spot in my heart, so it will take up the majority of the text space, but I have some honorable mentions to award, too, in case you don’t want to drive all the way out to Alhambra (but, just saying, you should drive out to Alhambra).

Murakami Sushi in West Hollywood has the casual ambiance that I crave – its breezy outdoor seating is paired with compact, ideally proportioned, and customizable bowls of fish that are impressively fresh for the price (though nothing compared to Toro’s and the fish is certainly not sliced as generously). Murakami specializes in build-your-own chirashi – you choose 4, 5, 6, or 7 types of fish and the price goes up in increments, starting at $12 for the 4 ingredient bowl. My favorite combination is mackerel, hamachi, scallops, and salmon. The scallops, tender and marinating in a masago-flecked white sauce, really are outstanding.

Tamon Sushi, in the Miyako Hotel downtown, is way too fancy for my taste, but if you’re a presentation junkie, you’ll love the ornate, double-layered chirashi (top dish, sorry for the blurriness). It also boasts the best ikura in town, with pops so dramatic you’ll swear you’re eating pop-rocks (or those weird fruit-burst things they’ve got in Yogurtland now).

The fish itself, in my opinion, is unexciting – fresh, clearly, but unexciting. The joy lies in the variety – taking turns surprising your tongue with the pops of ikura, the gum-like tako, the crunch of lotus, the tacky slips of sea bream, and the accompanying pickled salads and sticky mochi. If you bring a friend, force them (I mean, cajole them nicely) to order the Tamon Bento, whose shiso dust-topped rice, giant juicy mushroom, and greasy, charred, and flaky black cod make an excellent accompaniment. The shrimp hiding within the tempura is springy, but the time I went, the oil was a bit stale.

Though Tamon sounds like the weakest of the the three options I listed – and it is – there are a couple reasons to choose it. The first is if you are on a date and you want something darkened and formal. The second is that Fugetso-Do is across the street, and you can you stop by for some 101-year old mochi. I mean, the mochi isn’t 101 years old. The shop is. And the instant your teeth sink into one of their creations – silky, soft, fluffy clouds that envelope your tongue in joy and happiness – you’ll know why.

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*I have noticed that the only way I can be positive that Anthony Bourdain REALLY likes something is if he calls it ‘fucking delicious’. He might have written 4000 words on its preparation or the bumpy third world train ride he took to reach it or the artistry of the chef that dreamt it up, but if the words ‘fucking delicious’ are not present, all bets are off. So please take this phrase in the manner in which it’s intended: to convey that chirashi is something I love, crave, and aggressively seek out on a regular basis.

It's loquat season in L.A.!

I'm 6 years old and being held aloft by my rib cage, just under my arms.  Just beneath me is a black, slightly spiked metal fence, its points just grazing my knees as I stretch, stretch, str-e-e-e-e-tch towards a tantalizingly out-of-reach cluster of fruit on the neighbor's tree.

My parents and I are stealing loquats.  I am complicit in an act of fruit thievery.

Even though I grew up in Chicago, my family would spend its spring breaks here, in Echo Park, Los Angeles, and spring break was loquat season (late March to late May).  Chicago during that season was a wasteland of slush and icy dirt, occasionally punctured by prematurely hopeful crocuses.  To fly off to a different land and steal fresh, juicy, tangy fruit directly off trees while all my friends at home shivered and ate out-of-season red apples was a source of great joy.

My memory may fail me here, as my memory has a tendency to invent dramatic additions to childhood experiences, but it tells me I'd fill my sweatshirt pockets with handfuls of the strawberry-sized loquats before my mom or dad or I would hear some noise, some gate slamming, some dog barking, and they'd hastily hustle me back over, my clothes snagging on the fence, and we'd sprint back down the hill, loquats jiggling out of my pockets and leaving a telltale trail.

As an adult, living on the same street as the former site of my crime, the trees look eminently (and disappointingly) reachable. I barely have to stand on tiptoe.   The tree behind the spiky fence is gone.  The new nearest tree, only two houses away, is owned by an amiable man who relaxes in his deck chair and watches me gather them.  His dog presses herself against the fence for a scratch, and that's all they ask in return.  A few more trees, further down the hill, hang over the sidewalk as if to say, "Here I am.  Look how easy this is.  Your days of excitement and petty theft are over."

Strangely enough, even the loquats coat backyard trees all over the city, most people I meet don't know what loquats are, and if they do know what they are, they don't know that they're edible.  This is changing, slowly - I've occasionally seen bunches of loquats on sale in markets, and there have been a few blog posts about them in recent years.  But when I was a child, no one I knew was eating them.  They felt like a family secret.

We'd run into the house with our smuggled booty and empty it out onto the living room table.  The fruit would roll all over the table like soft marbles as we grabbed paper towels from the kitchen.  Then, whoever had the best thumbnails would pierce the skin at the steam and start peeling.

Loquats taste like a cross between an apricot, a grape, and a pear.  They range from tart to sticky-sweet, yellow to orange, and oblong to spherical.  They're one of those labor intensive fruits with a low flesh to skin/seed ratio (see also: pomegranate, coconut, mango, rambutan, pineapple, mangosteen...), but note that those types of fruits are usually insanely delicious, otherwise people wouldn't bother.  Loquats are no exception.

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So.  How can YOU find some loquats for yourself before the short loquat season is up?  There are two ways: the lazy way and the right way.

Lazy Way: Go to a market.  Try your local farmers market or any Middle Eastern, Eastern European, or West Asian grocery.  Wholesome Choice or Super King are probably good bets.  But I hope you're OK with paying out the nose for something you can probably pluck off a tree right on your block.

Right Way: Take a walk.  Keep your eyes peeled.

Look for this.

You will see them.  By blog-law I am probably required to advise you to ask your neighbors before gathering their fruit, so consider yourself advised.  Also consider the dubious source of this advisement.

Traveling through Thai Town

Thai Town and Little Armenia are squished right up close to one another in the grid of East Hollywood, sometimes overlapping, their mingling tendrils making for some very strange-looking blocks indeed.  There have been times when I've been devouring a soujouk sandwich or dissecting a new box of almond cookies on the curb in front of some Armenian grocery when the scent of basil, turmeric and chilies comes wafting out of the restaurant next door, making me hungry all over again in a wholly new way.

I haven't yet explored the Armenian corners as much as I would like, but I've thoroughly ravaged Thai Town.  This is not to say, of course, that it's been ravaged enough.  Nothing ever has.

I've never been to Thailand.  I've glimpsed it in the Thai corners of Ruili and Phnom Penh, eaten countless plates of pad kee mow in the basement of a food court in Boulder, and that's about it.  I welcome its influence in Burmese, Khmer, and Vietnamese cuisine, and bow down to its ability to make me cry from spiciness.  But, like other Southeast Asian cuisines, it always soothes the fire it wrought with coconut juice immediately afterwards.  So I forgive it.

Although it's not in Thai Town proper, I find myself most often at Watdongmoonlek Noodle.  This used to be a microscopic place with 12 seats, no bathroom, and these uncomfortable wobbly stool-like chairs that left my long legs dangling like a child's.  They'd always fall asleep by the end of the meal, since I'd linger so long sipping their bizarre smoothie concoctions.

Its food has always been magical, and recently they renovated, expanding into the space next door.  Now they have a bakery AND a bathroom.  That's awesome in and of itself, but why else does Watdongmoonlek get my vote?

1. It's right smack between Silver Lake and Los Feliz and is affordable and doesn't suck, which is a miracle in and of itself.  (Aw, come on, 'Eastsiders' [and that nomenclature is another can of worms, I know], I'm sorry, but I wish one of you would successfully prove me wrong about this generalization.)

2. It does 'street Thai' and 'fancy restaurant Thai' equally well.  Want a plateful of sweetly charred pad see ew, and also perhaps an artfully arranged rambutan salad with swirls of coconut milk and precisely placed clusters of peanuts?  You don't have to go to two different restaurants anymore!

3. When it renovated, it left its low prices alone.

4. It's the first restaurant that picky me and my equally, but polar oppositely, picky uncle have ever agreed is delicious (with the possible exception of Western Doma Noodle).

5. It has lychee mint slushies.  It has pickled plum slushies.  It has pineapple basil slushies.  It has watermelon ginger slushies.  Mountains of icy slush topped with chilly fresh fruit.

Here's a slushy story: my ex-boyfriend was (and is) a vegetarian.  I tried in vain for years to get him to fall in love with food, but his perpetually stuffy nose, refusal to compromise his morals regarding animal flesh, and inordinate love for food like cereal, mashed potatoes, and steamed broccoli made this difficult, if not impossible.

However, he gamely tried his best, and we were a competitive pair, so whenever we'd go to places like Watdongmoonlek, or, say, Mil Jugos in Santa Ana - anywhere with an extensive and crazy drink menu - he'd quickly claim the craziest drink for himself, looking at me slyly as if to say 'who's the adventurous one now?'  At Mil Jugos, he ended up with something called a lulo, which tasted like someone took a lime and a jicama and spliced it with a cherry tomato.  At Watdongmoonlek, he ended up with the pineapple basil slushy.  (I had to take second place with my pickled plum slushy.)

And I've ordered just that slushy almost every time I've been back.  Even if I order basil-heavy dishes like the jungle fried rice.  You can't have too much basil!

Watdongmoonlek is delicious and reliable, and occasionally surprising, but when I want something that will force into existence whole new colonies of tastebuds on my tongue, I go to Jitlada.  I've written extensively on Jitlada before, so I won't reinvent the wheel by finding new ways to gush about it, but their dishes are so carefully and precisely balanced, with handfuls of perfectly complementary mystery herbs and spices, that each bite feels like a stop on a journey through a wildly exotic land.  Whenever I think I'm plateauing, that most of the tastes available to human beings have already touched my tongue, Jitlada disabuses me of that notion.

While fascinating and adventurous, Jitlada is also pricey, maddeningly crowded, glacially slow, and totally lacking in parking.  More often than not, I just want a quick bite, packed with flavor, for under $10, no pretensions.

For noodles - soup noodles and dry noodles, respectively - I have two go-to places.  For soup noodles, my pick is Rodded Restaurant for their excellent duck noodle soup.  It's dark-brothed, with duck textured as though it came right off a grill or out of a broiler.  It's tender, the fat is practically liquid, and very silky, and it still has its color.

For dry noodles, I go to Hoy-Ka Thai Noodles, which packs its namesake bowl with ground pork, pork liver, BBQ pork, pork meatballs, fish cake, and herbs and allows me to shoplift it from them for the ridiculously low price of $3.99.  Even though 90% of the bowl consists of different types of pork, each slice, ball, and chunk tastes unique.

For rice, Ruen Pair does a mean Cha-Po combination - its duck, pork belly, and BBQ pork are all cooked to their respective levels of perfection - and Pa Ord's crispy pork with holy basil is tooth-crackingly, greasily wonderful, with a spice chart so elevated that all but the most hardened diners should stop at 'medium'.  The deadly little pepper circles that look so innocuous blending into your basil are not innocuous at all, so treat them with respect.

In a category all its own is Spicy BBQ Restaurant, south of the meat of Thai Town, a place smaller than even the old Watdongmoonlek, with a sweet, friendly owner and a menu that starts out pedestrian but slowly morphs into mouthwatering at the Northern Thai end.  Its Northern special pork patties inspired me to go home and try to make a Thai fusion hamburger (this did not work, but the pork patties come close enough), and the spicy jackfruit has a back-of-the-throat kick that that distracts you from the oddly meat-like texture of the fruit.  The pork and the jackfruit are so indistinguishable that were I a terrible person, I could have easily fooled my vegetarian ex into eating this dish.

However, Spicy BBQ's Northern Thai Noodles did tempt a dining companion into taking her very first bite of blood cubes!  Usually, when someone points to the burgundy square and says 'what's that?' and I oh-so-casually say 'oh, you know, it's just blood cubes', they wince or reel back.  This dish looked so inviting that she merely shrugged and popped one in.