A Taste of Home

After taking my first bite of this homemade pho by Lily's mom, I turned to Anh and said..."that's it, I can't eat any other pho." When people say, "oh this was made with love..." yeah, I totally tasted love in this bowl of pho and also time and also mad skills. I finished the whole bowl and drank all the broth. Super deep flavors that I have never tasted in any pho I have had in NYC.

We were lucky enough to get invited by Sydney to join her at her friend's mom's pho pop-up at Ramen Lab.

This really got me thinking about what I consider to be good and authentic. I have never been to Vietnam but definitely ate enough pho while growing up in LA. My family and I would drive to Westminster aka Little Saigon for our fill of Vietnamese food. After moving to NYC, it's rare to drive to Little Saigon when I'm visiting home. (I guess I should do that next time when I'm in LA.) When I was a kid, I didn't doubt the pho that I was eating wasn't authentic. Actually, I didn't know much about food until I moved to NYC in 2003. I went on a food journey when I first moved here, trying to find good pho. Pho that reminded me of LA and not Vietnam.

What does it mean to be authentic? Or traditional? And this isn't just about pho but almost every foods in every century, time and space, there are different variations. People grow up with different experiences and tastes which will affect the way they cook. Maybe the base is the same but with different hands mean different outcomes.

Now that I'm writing this (Hi! I didn't think about writing this. I'm more or less just letting my words spill out.), I guess I have never really searched for authenticity but I was searching for home or my life in LA. Nostalgia? Probably. Every time I eat a taco, I think about all the $1 street tacos in LA. When I eat Hainam chicken rice, I think about the version I had in LA.

This bowl of pho I had on Monday is like the true meaning of being home. It was made by someone's mom that really put care into it and maybe because I was eating in a crowded restaurant with mostly their family friends.

Breakfast Sandwich Crawl

Another successful food crawl, done. Back in April, we did a hot dog and tater tots crawl through Williamsburg. For June (sorry, we skipped May), I decided to do a breakfast sandwich crawl cause who doesn't love breakfast sandwiches? Also, I was pretty proud of myself. I was able to convince a bunch of food writers/bloggers/photographers that were all in town for the Saveur Blog Awards to trek out to Red Hook. Hello! There was like a dozen of us all crowding into Defonte's. Ah, good old potatoes and eggs with mozz and ketchup sandwich to start the crawl at Defonte's of Brooklyn.

Next we headed to Court Street Grocers and ordered all of their breakfast sandwiches. Someone was smart enough to grab their hot sauces since obviously we couldn't fit everyone inside. After that, I showed the out of towners the magnificent Gowanus Canal before heading to Four & Twenty for pies.

What happens when you have pies and a bar full of bloggers/writers/photographers?

Then 7 of us made it up to Mile End but it was 5p and no breakfast sandwiches were in sight. So we ate poutine! BUT the friendly people at Mile End decided to make us breakfast sandwiches so it was a glorious end to our crawl.

By this time, half of the people had to catch their flights so the rest of us went to Grand Army for cocktails and more eats.

Thanks to everyone that came out (Molly, Hannah, Talia, Sydney, Alana, Summer, Phi, Stephanie, Stella, Sari, Michelle) and wandered through Brooklyn. It was great seeing old friends and meeting new ones.

LA Eats 2015

Not sure if it was because I haven't been home for a long time or I wasn't as lazy to trek out but this time in LA, I definitely ate a lot of stuff....a lot of great stuff. Here's everything I ate in the 7 days I was home. Picture above, an early lunch at Madcapra, a falafel place inside Grand Central Market opened by Sara Kramer and Sarah Hymanson. Right after I landed in LAX and picked up my rental, I drove straight to In-N-Out (obviously). The next morning, had dim sum with the family at Five Star Seafood Restaurant. It was less than $18 for 4 people.

When I found out, about a month ago, that LA was getting their own Nashville style hot chicken truck, I quickly emailed the people at Howlin' Ray's. I saw that they were doing tasting events so I wanted to check if I can get a sneak taste! They said yes and that's how I ended up at the home of chef and owner, Johnny Zone. Afterward, I visited my friends, Chris and Katy, and we walked over to Churro Borough for some ice cream.

Took my parents to get dumplings at Luscious Dumplings in Monrovia for lunch and then had fried chicken happy hour at Tokyo Fried Chicken in Monterey Park before driving out to Mid-City for tacos.

Met up with my sister in Mid-City for Leo's Tacos Truck. This truck is parked in a gas station all day but to get their famous tacos al pastor that are freshly made, you gotta visit them at night.

I spent the majority of Friday doing my taco crawl/Instagram takeover for Saveur. I started the crawl with 2 crispy shrimp tacos at Mariscos Jalisco, a Jonathan Gold approved taco truck. Then it was steak and uni with smoked soy sauce taco at the Guerrilla Tacos truck in front of Blacktop Coffee.

Then tacos at Guisados in DTLA, followed by a half shrimp/half fish taco from Ricky's Fish Tacos.

I took a break from taco crawling to eat a quesadilla stuffed with cheese and chicharron from the Blue Corn Quesadilla Lady near Echo Park. On Sunday, I drove down to Irvine cause I promised my friends I take their family portraits. We met up at the Great Park and there was a farmer's market where I ate a bacon wrapped dog topped with fries.

Going back to Saturday, I met up with my two sisters to eat at Bob's Big Boy in Burbank. It was my first time! Also, they have chicken and waffle so of course I got it.

Sunday night the whole family went to Ji Rong Restaurant for their popular Peking Duck and pork belly with mustard green.

On Monday night, the whole family went to Ledlow in DTLA for their fried chicken dinner, which is only served on Monday nights. Besides fried chicken, we also ordered the corn bread with bacon and the duck confit with Brussels sprouts salad.

Hot Tot Dog Crawl

This past Sunday, Molly, Sydney, Talia, Hannah, me, and few other people did a hot dog and tater tots crawl through Williamsburg. My original idea was to try and get people to do a photo crawl but somehow it has morphed into a food and photo crawl. Which is fine with me! I love to eat and gave me an excuse to eat way too many tater tots. We went from Kent Ale House to Crif Dogs to The Grand National (Jell-O shots and photobooth and BINGO!) to Burnside for fried cheese curds.

The main point is to have fun and hang out with friends. Next month is wings crawl.