Kazoku Sushi

After running 7 miles, there’s nothing better to do than to eat. Craving sushi, I decided to give Kazoku Sushi a try since it got good reviews, and they have Happy Hour until 7pm on the weekends! Kazoku Sushi is in Thai Town…and on Sunday it happened to be the Songkran (Thai New Year) Festival, so it was a real bitch getting there as Hollywood Blvd was shut down. I didn’t realized that Kazoku is in the same strip mall as Red Corner Asia, and I should have known better that the chefs are most likely Thai…It’s a small sushi bar. I sat at a bar and to the left were a bunch of drunk, loud frat boys. They were so fucking loud that I made it my mission to get the hell out of there really fast. They were buying the chefs drinks, so it's not like they could tell them to shut up. Happy Hour ended in thirty minutes so that made it easier for me to order. I ordered…
A spicy tuna hand roll, which was gross. My best bet is that they use sriracha in the sauce, which is too spicy for me.

A yellowtail sushi, which was the pinkest yellowtail that I have had in awhile. Do not order their yellowtail.

An albacore sushi, which was not fresh. In fact none of the fish tasted fresh.

an unagi sushi, which was the best item I ordered because it’s fully cooked.


My total came out to around $22. The sushi cost $2.95 and the roll was like $3.50??? I don’t know why people like Kazoku Sushi so much…sure I guess it’s inexpensive, but Sushi Don and Noshi Sushi are way better.

Address:5259 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027
Phone#: (323) 817-1002
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RCA (Red Corner Asia)

Last Wednesday was the monthly “entertainment” foodie event. One of the members arranged an amazing pre-fix dinner for $21 (includes tip & pop) at RCA. At first, I was like where are we eating? RCA is like a pop or a media electronic company like Sony? I hate when people use acronyms. RCA stands for Red Corners Asia, not that would help me since Thai is definitely on the lower totem of my food preference. When I was younger I would eat Pad Thai or Thai fried rice every day for lunch and dinner. I Thai’d out.

Since most of the items on the menu were food that I could eat yet haven’t tried, I gave RCA a go. RCA is another strip mall restaurant but try to find parking on the street because it’s valet parking only, which cost $5 for me –could have bought a pad Thai with that! The décor is petty simple and Thai. RCA is good for large groups--there were about 25 of us.

Our starters were the Angel Wings ($6.95)

and the Thai Style Beef Jerky ($6.95).

The Angel Wings were good. It’s made out of chicken and despite it being fried, it wasn’t oily. The sweet & sour sauce wasn’t as sweet as the Chinese's version. The Thai Style beef jerky was interesting. I forgot to mentally prepared myself that I was eating beef jerky. I’m so used to eating juicy meat. Its sauce was surprisingly not spicy at all.

Our salad was the Papaya Salad ($6.95, sliced green papaya, tomato, green beans, peanuts, garlic, fresh chili, lime juice…and dried shrimp). I was told that there were no crustacean in any of the dishes…clearly he was wrong.

A couple people loved the salad. They thought the fiery dressing was addicting. Yes, I learned quickly RCA is really good at dressings/ curries. The Crispy Duck Panang ($10.95) was our first entrée, and I ate it.

I know I’m shocking everyone that I ate Donald Duck right now. I usually don’t eat duck because it’s too gamey, but shit, when you cover it up with yummy sweet curry, I guess I could possibly eat Kermit the Frog, Bambi, etc. Obviously it can’t look like the actually food either. If I squint my eyes, the Crispy Duck Panang looks like chili cheese fries.

Everyone really liked the next entrée, the chicken noodle ($5.95). It had a sweet sauce to it.

Our next dish was the eggplants with fried tofu.

I don’t like eggplants. The tofu was ok. I don’t think tofu is a dish that I would normally order at a Thai restaurant anyways unless it’s a vegetarian Thai restaurants. Our last dish before dessert was the Hawaiian fried rice ($7.95).

I was expecting the rice to be sweeter with the pineapples and raisins. At this point, we were pretty full and digesting more carbs would not help at all. So for dessert we had rice. Seriously. Sticky rice with Mango.

I called the Thai sticky rice the lazy Asian rice dessert because other Asian rice desserts do not look like “rice.” It was a bit odd eating rice “rice” for desserts. It would be like the Italians adding icing to noodles and serving it as a dessert. Weird. The mangos were fabulous. Fresh, ripe and untouched.

The best things about RCA are that they don’t serve crickets, and it’s cheap.

Address: 5267 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027
Phone#: (323) 466-6722
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MELANEE

++Delivery only

I thought I reviewed Melanee...that's what happens when you're a hungry, hungry, hungry hippo like me. Melanee is better than Natalee Thai Cuisine but Joom Bangkok Cafe and Bulan Thai Vegetarian Kitchen are better than Melanee.

We couldn't find the lunch menus the other day, so my colleague picked Melanee (our usual Thai place before I stepped in with Joom & Bulan). The good thing about Melanee is that it offers lunch specials, but Joom's lunch prices are cheaper and better. I ordered their Garlic Chicken with Brown Rice (ok, chicken was a little chewy..); the lunch portions are generous --lasted me for lunch and dinner. I've also tried their Orange Tofu, which is a hit or miss. Their Pad Thai is Pad Thai--nothing special.

Delivery time is usually around 30-45 minutes.

We found the menus...they were on the cabinet behind my desk...oops. Thank goodness --we can order elsewhere.

Address: 9562 W Pico Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90035
Phone#: (310) 273-4066
Rating: 3 out of 5

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EIKO

1 star for the nice people
0.5 star for the cheap prices
-3 stars (should be -5) because now I want to throw up after eating their spicy tuna roll and eel avocada roll.

I had their rolls before and was disgusted. I don't know what I was thinking, just lazy (closest sushi place to my work) and craving sushi and hoping the rolls weren't as bad as I recalled...there are two ways of eating sushi: 1) eat it w/out soy sauce & wasabi because the fish is so yummy and fresh 2) douse it with soy sauce & wasabi so you don't have to vomit your lunch back up. I forgot to douse it --not that's going to help much...gotta find some chocolate now to rid this taste. Oh, they serve Pad Thai there....

Address: 6357 Wilshire Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90048
Phone#: (323) 655-8060
Rating: 1.5 out of 5

VEGAN GLORY

Can I say "yuck" or "very gross" --V.G.? Ok, I am not a vegetarian, but I have had much better soy chicken, soy beef, soy whatever than at V.G. The soy chicken tastes like a wet cardboard. The soy burger tastes really funky as well. The whole point of soy meat is so it would taste like the real thing. I've ordered food from there four times since my boss is a vegetarian, and each time I ask myself, "why do I keep ordering there if I hate the food?" Oh, because it's free lunch for me, but I have learned my lesson and know now to never order food from there--even when it's free.

Address: 8393 Beverly BlvdLos Angeles, CA 90048
Phone#: (323) 653-4900
Rating: 1 out of 5

Photo credit: Dave C. (top photo only)