Vietnam House

The airsoft store was having a Wednesday/Thursday Black Friday sale, so I decided to check it out after work, and as it just so happened to be mere blocks away from Vietnam House, that was where I ate. However I should preface this review by saying that my favorite Vietnamese restaurant is a little place called Dakao in San Jose. Whenever I'm in San Jose, which used to be four days every year for the past five years, I would eat there one or two times a day. While a large part of that hinged on its proximity to the convention center, they have a variety of dishes and their food is also good. My favorite thing to get there is the shredded pork and baked egg pie on broken rice. So back to Vietnam House, as there aren't an abundance of Vietnamese restaurants in my area, I know of few options for decent Vietnamese that isn't pho. And of those, I don't know of many that have baked egg pie. But Vietnam House does, and they also have some excellent egg rolls, so onto the meal.

Now read reviews anywhere and people will tell you the service is nothing to write home about. I concur, so don't expect a lot of assistance in that area. Just be pleased if you get what you order, and remember to pay your bill at the register (they don't bring the bill to you so remember your table number). Also it's noisy and they have several Billy Bass on the walls that kids love to play with, so be forewarned.

As for the food, I ordered the egg rolls to start as they are very good. They're grease bombs though, so hold off on taking a bite until they've cooled down a bit. I know it's hard, but better to exhibit patience lest ye suffer a burnt tongue and shot taste buds. From what I understand their egg rolls are atypical of Vietnamese egg rolls which are usually more petite. These are deep-fried, meat, veggie, vermicelli- filling morsels that serve as a substantial appetizer. Accompanying them is a plate filled with lettuce, mint, and beefsteak leaves meant to be wrapped around the egg rolls, but no one should hate you for neglecting the veggies. There are also two dipping sauces, but as I only partook of one, I can only say that the one I had was a light, sweet, fish-sauce based dipping sauce with carrot slices that pairs well with the heavier egg rolls.

For the meal I ate, what else—shredded pork and baked egg pie on broken rice. I also got a pork chop with it. Vietnam House formally calls this plate, "Pork Chop, Shredded Pork & Baked Egg w/ Steamed Rice," or number 77. The dish pretty much says what it is—the pork chop is a soy-sauce-marinated fried pork chop and the shredded pork is that slightly sweet and gelatinous shredded pork mixture used in banh mi. The baked egg is like an Asian frittata, slightly sweet with bits of meat and veggies baked inside. Perhaps it's the Japanese in me that enjoys the baked egg pie which is not too dissimilar from Japanese dashimaki tamago, a layered Japanese scrambled egg seasoned with slightly sweet soup stock. This is what I miss when I'm not in San Jose, so I'm glad I have a suitable replacement for it in L.A. I also enjoy the broken rice, which is less glutinous that Japanese rice but still moreso than Chinese Jasmine rice.

There are plenty of other things on the menu that look good, and perhaps I will try their pho or banh mi at some point. But for right now I'm satisfied with their baked egg pie and delicious egg rolls. And should they ever offer snail soup, I might try that again after a not-so-joyful meal at Dakao. At least I can't complain about them being stingy with the snails.

Some other notes about Vietnam House:
- I really hate those Billy Bass fish. Why would you put any more than one of them on the wall? And why do kids think it's so great to get all of them to sing at once?!

Vietnam House
710 W. Las Tunas Dr. #5-7
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 282-3630

Undergarments

The other day I had to buy some undergarments at my neighborhood Target. I needed some briefs to replenish my underwear supply, and selected a set of Hanes lowrise briefs. Lo and behold when I brought them home that I found that they had no windows. Moreover, they were quite sheer. They were manties! I don't know when Hanes started making manties, but boy was I surprised as I never considered myself a manties type. Panties maybe. They are actually quite comfortable. Manties that is. And so a toast to manties!

Red Hot Kitchen

Today was one of my coworkers' birthdays, and on days such as these we all usually order out. My coworker wanted to order from Red Hot Kitchen, an Asian-Mexican fusion restaurant nearby. She recommended the kalbi (Korean barbecued short ribs) chimichanga (Mexican fried burrito).

First off, holy crap! That's a lot of food! Each of those four pieces pictured were absolutely massive. I'm a big guy, and I can eat a lot, but I couldn't finish this chimichanga. I managed to eat three of the sections, and even then I overate. So now we know it's generous, but what did it taste like?

If you've had kalbi (or read my earlier parenthetical), then you know it's barbequed short ribs marinated in a sweet soy-sauce base. Short ribs have a little bit of fatty goodness, and on which Red Hot Kitchen didn't skimp. There was also white rice which was also lightly drenched with the marinade, kimchi, and some sweet refried bean mixture. This was topped with cheese, spicy mayonnaise, and hot sauce. That might seem like a strange combination, but it all worked well together. Think of it like fried mushu pork, which is similarly sweet and also wrapped with veggies inside. While it was sweet, it wasn't dessert-sweet, more like Korean barbecue sweet. And it was also decently spicy, enough so that people who have trouble with spicy foods should probably ask for the spicy mayonnaise and hot sauce on the side. It was strange how well the spicy mayo worked with everything, and how the sweetness didn't clash with the cheese.

If there was one thing I could complain about, the chimichanga was a heart-stopper. I could feel my arteries clogging and my heart working harder to keep me alive. Of course I didn't have to eat that third piece.

If the kalbi chimichanga was any indication, Red Hot Kitchen is definitely worth revisiting as their menu has plenty more offerings, all of which sound enticing. Perhaps next time I'll try their Korean BBQ burger with sweet potato fries, or their Teriyaki Torta.

Red Hot Kitchen
4625 Valley Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90032
(323) 222-6900

Some other notes about Red Hot Kitchen:
- 1 out of 7 on my mess-o-meter. Use a fork.
- 7 out of 10 on my spice-o-meter. It's pretty spicy.
- Not only was the food good, not only was the portion generous, but it's incredibly cheap. The chimichanga will only set you back about $6. You're practically robbing the place!

Celebrity Sightings - Mark Pender

Keeping on the topic of Conan this week, I'll recount the time I met Mark "Loveman" Pender from the Basic Cable Band (formerly the Max Weinberg Seven). Mark Pender is the bald guy with glasses that plays the trumpet, and is often included in bits where he overzealously gets into singing songs.

I met him at New York Comic-Con three years ago shortly after NBC had announced that Conan was taking over the Tonight Show. He was there for the day with his young daughter. He stopped by our booth so both Queen Poo and I mentioned how we were big fans of the show. Even if we hadn't know who he was, he was also wearing a Late Night with Conan O'Brien jacket for staff only. We chatted with him for a bit and asked whether or not he'd be moving to Los Angeles (at the time it wasn't clear whether Conan was going to take the Max Weinberg Seven with him). While he loved New York, he didn't love the harsh winters and said he looked forward to warm Southern California.

He was very friendly and cordial and we had a nice conversation. He mentioned his daughter was a fan of manga, so we gave her a copy of one of our books.

I'm glad he's back with the band on "Conan," as his presence would have been greatly missed. No one can hold a note like he can on the trumpet during the pre-show, except maybe La Bamba.

Taste Chicago

After watching Conan, Jokekilla and I were pretty hungry, so he took me to Taste Chicago, a restaurant specializing in Chicago-style cuisine. They serve deep dish pizza, Italian beef sandwiches, Chicago dogs, pasta, and ribs. It's a cozy place with perhaps a couple dozen tables and some flat screen TVs so that you can watch whatever game is playing.

The menu was a little bit intimidating because of the numerous options, all of which sounded delicious. Not being able to decide between an Italian beef or sausage sandwich, I luckily didn't have to and got the beef & sausage combo. It was huge! It came with a sizable sausage topped with even more thinly sliced roast beef, topped with sweet peppers and au jus. I was tempted to pick it up and eat it, but it was safer using a fork and knife. It really hit the spot and was delicious to boot. My only complaint was that I didn't have a big enough mouth to get a bit of the bread, beef, sausage, and the pepper in each bite.

On the side I got smothered wedges, potato wedges covered in buttery garlic sauce. It was pretty killer, with a generous amount of butter and garlic. There was more than enough leftover to serve as a dip for other things.

After a night of laughs, a hearty meal was enough to knock me out. Next time I'm obligated to try the deep dish pizza, since the actual Chicago is a little out of the way.

Some other interesting notes about Taste Chicago:
- 7 out of 7 on my mess-o-meter if you try to pick up the sandwich and eat it, otherwise it's a 1 out of 7 with a fork and knife. For some reason I still needed a napkin.
- The restaurant is owned by actor Joe Mantegna's wife.

Taste Chicago
603 N. Hollywood Way
Burbank, CA 91505
(818) 563-2800

Welcome Back Coco!

Nearly a year ago to the day, I found myself standing in line to see a tall, gangly redhead make a fool of himself, and boy was I excited. Conan is back on television where he belongs, and because my friend the Jokekilla was able to procure tickets, I was lucky enough to be there for his second show on TBS. I was so excited to see his new show that I watched the first episode, "Baa Baa Blackmail," on the east coast feed (which airs three hours earlier than the west coast feed), plus I also DVR'd it. I wasn't expecting the show to be totally different from his last show, or even the show he had before that, and I was glad to see a lot of familiar faces in front of and behind the cameras.

Conan O'Brien had been on television pretty much uninterrupted for seventeen straight years, which constitutes the majority of my life, so to have him gone from the airwaves for the past few months seemed quite strange. But now he's back, albeit off network television, and I can rest easier at night knowing that he's out there on the TV entertaining all those insomniacs and stoners.

As for the show I saw in person, the guests were Tom Hanks, Jack McBrayer, and musical guest Soundgarden. Tom Hanks has always been a good friend of the show, and I fondly remember Conan sharing screentime with him in one of the few "SNL" sketches where he appeared on camera, the classic "Five-Timers Club." Jack McBrayer was also very timely as I had just finished watching the first four seasons of "30 Rock" on Netflix. We even got a bonus performance by Soundgarden which will appear on Team Coco's website. Unfortunately that resulted in us missing the "End of the Show Song" which Conan usually sings at the end just after television feed cuts out. Oh well. We did get to see him cut a promo in which he berated writers off camera for incorrectly using "historical" instead of "historic," which was pretty funny.

So after what seemed like a long wait, Conan has triumphantly returned to television where hopefully he will remain for many years to come. All is right with the world.

Some other interesting notes about "Conan":
-The set moves back and forth to allow more room for the monologue.
-The moon really does move a lot, and it's mesmerizing. Although I don't understand why it moves.
-Andy still looks huge in person, while Conan has slimmed down quite a bit.
-The set looks really good, although I'm not crazy about the Basic Cable Band's podiums.

Bacon & Garlic Chocolate Cake

I've been thinking about this for a long time, maybe two or three weeks—how could I improve on my bacon chocolate cake? See, about a year ago I was inspired to make a bacon chocolate cake (the same inspiration also led to beer-batter, deep-fried White Castle sliders and beer-batter, deep-fried bacon, both pictured below).


So for two weeks I've been planning how to approach making a new bacon chocolate cake. And my answer—add garlic.

Chocolate is good, bacon is good, and garlic is good, right? So why not throw all that goodness together? I decided on frying chopped garlic and garlic chips to garnish the chocolate cake along with the bacon. This time I also went with a thinner, low sodium bacon. I also used a cast iron skillet as a bacon press to ensure that the bacon wouldn't curl and so I could render most of the fat. Then I let the bacon rest and dried it of excess oil.

For the garlic I roasted two heads and chopped and sliced a third. Using the bacon drippings I fried the chopped and sliced garlic.

For the chocolate cake, I used a standard chocolate cake recipe without doing anything special. It was from scratch though, and not out of some Betty Crocker/Duncan Hines box, although wouldn't it be ironic using one of those classic Americana box cakes and bastardizing it with all sorts of weird things like I was about to do?

For the chocolate ganache, again I use a recipe. But I separated out the chocolate ganache into two parts so that I could blend some with the roasted garlic to be used for the middle layer.

Assembling the cake was a bit of an ordeal, but in the end there it stood, triumphant. A bacon & garlic chocolate cake worthy of This Is Why You're Fat. A chocolate cake topped with fried garlic and bacon bits with an inner layer of roasted garlic chocolate ganache.

I'm not going to lie to you—it was weird. Like sex with an ill-advised hook-up weird. What seemed like a good idea in the end didn't turn up like everything for which I had hoped. It wasn't bad, and surely was edible. I finished the sizable piece I cut for myself. But some of the elements didn't work as well in the end. The bacon was still good, even better than last time, but there should have been more of it and less of the garlic.

The garlic was overpowering. Perhaps it was a little too burned. Deep-fried, thinly sliced onion petals would have been a better fit maybe. The roasted garlic chocolate ganache was probably unnecessary. I think it could still work, but I would used milk chocolate next time and add more sugar, and reduce the amount of roasted garlic.

I could see something like this being served at the Stinking Rose which specializes in garlic dishes. But this cake was akin to their garlic ice cream, which while good, still makes you wish it was just plain vanilla. Or in this case, just a regular bacon chocolate cake. I'll probably get the hankering to make another bacon chocolate cake next year, so in the meantime if you have any suggestions, please pass them along. Apparently it is possible to have too much of a good thing, and that good thing was garlic.

Ocean Seafood

For a while it seemed like I was eating Chinese food every other week, then *poof* ... a dry spell. Well Chinese food is back with a vengeance. We're having a family gathering in a couple of weeks so we've already booked a reservation with Ocean Seafood, but we wanted to test some of the dishes in the banquet selection.

My family has been going to Ocean Seafood for years, back when it was stilled called Miriwa. We mostly go there for dim sum, so we weren't sure how the dinner menu would be. We weren't able to sample all of the dishes off of the banquet as some of them are exclusive to that menu, but we were able to try a lot of dishes.

We opened with the B.B.Q. combination platter, but unfortunately I was unable to take any pictures on account of our hunger. I can tell you it contained pickled jellyfish, char siu (barbeque pork), roast duck, and soy beans. The char siu and duck were expectedly good, as we regularly get char siu to go. I don't often eat jelly fish, but it was good, like salty, sour gelatin noodles. The soy beans were a surprise, literally, as they were hidden underneath.

The next dish up was braised shark's fin with shredded chicken. I've only had shark's fin a handful of times in my life, and while it's good, I've never felt it too be worth the value. I find that reconstituted scallop can offer a similar texture, and flavor-wise it pretty much takes on the identity of the stock, which in this case seemed to be chicken or a chicken/seafood blend. The soup was good, but no shark's fin dish will ever compare to the one I had in Japan. I shouldn't be biased, but I judge all shark's fin dishes by that dish (which wasn't a soup by the way) because it was that good. Adding the vinegar did add an extra bit of dimension to the flavors which in turn made it stand out a little more.

Baked crab with ginger and green onion came out next, and was the clear MVD (Most Valuable Dish) of the meal. I find Chinese crab or lobster to be difficult to eat, since it's usually coated in cornstarch and pan-fried with the sauce making it increasingly difficult to eat. But one couldn't deny the wonderful marriage of flavors involved in bringing this dish together. The was the bite of ginger and the roundness of the green onions which came together in a savory blend with the naturally sweet crab meat. We also benefited from an incredibly large crab that itself was meaty and succulent. God bless that crab. I should mention that there were only four of us, but the minute that crab showed up it was a goner. In fact, there was nothing left to take home, and I'm only halfway through describing the meal.

We also ordered steamed cod. We picked one with a disproportionately large head. Or rather make that a disproportionately small body. It was still good, cooked just right so that it was still juicy and just flaking. Where the flavors in the crab were bold and up front, the cod was a more subtle and balanced well with everything else. I also made the mistake of trying to eat the eye (which was chalky) rather than the area around the eye (which was slimy, but in a good way).

The last two dishes out were braised abalone with black mushrooms and house chow mein. After having had mediocre chow mein the last three or four times, I was finally reminded of how good chow mein can be. There wasn't anything particularly different in this chow mein when compared to the others, but the execution was far superior. The noodles were genuinely crispy with a gravy that wasn't thick or goopy so that it consumed the noodles. Both the noodles and the gravy managed to retain their identities while also combining as one, and that's how a good chow mein should be. Once the dish takes on the identity of one or the other completely, it becomes lost, as either a mushy mess or a never-ending chewy, crunch fest. As a house chow mein, it came with the requisite bok choy, char siu, squid, cod, and shrimp, all of which were good and distinct like the rest of the components.

While the chow mein was clearly good, the abalone did not fare so well to put it mildly (which it was). Like with the shark's fin, I guess I'm just not that big a fan of abalone. It's not that I dislike the taste or the texture, but I feel that there a similar things out there that cost considerably less, like clams. It didn't help that the abalone was accompanied with bok choy and shiitake which themselves are commonplace and uninspiring. A good shiitake is a good shiitake, but still when they're in pretty much every other dish, they're not special. And the same goes for the bok choy. Still, abalone is a delicacy and it is different from clams or squid. I'd still eat it gladly if put in front of me, as long as I don't have to pay for it.

Because of our decadent meal the restaurant manager comped us dessert, a plate of gelatin and a plate of coconut and taro gelatin. I especially enjoyed the coconut and taro gelatin, as I am quite fond of taro.

If I wasn't already full (which I was), then the gelatin was the straw that broke the camel's back. After that I was done, and from then on I can't recall much. But I do recall the delicious crab that I'll be looking forward to eating come the actual banquet. Yum!

Some other notes about Ocean Seafood:
- We were probably one of only four or five parties dining that night in the large serving area. However one of those parties was a thirty person Asian tour group that took up 15% of the restaurant. The group brought me back to my youth, as about half of them were wearing plaid over-shirts. Sister C would have totally blended in if she went over. She just needed to feather her hair more.

Ocean Seafood
750 North Hill Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 687-3088

Celebrity Sightings - Chris Parnell

So in my life, I've had the good fortune of running into three cast members of "In Living Color," one member of "Mad TV," and two from "SNL." Today's story is about one of the "SNL" people.

Chris Parnell came into Mail Boxes, Etc. once needing help with a package. After offering him some suggestions on what he could do he eventually opted not to send the package. He wasn't exactly cool about it, but then again he wasn't a complete dick. I chalked it up to the stress of commuting between L.A. and New York. Or maybe it was because he had gotten fired from "SNL" only to be rehired the season after.

It's fine though, since he went on to play Dr. Spaceman on "30 Rock" and Cyril in "Archer." Watch "Archer" everyone!

Shitty Movie Review - "Space Truckers"

Well, it's been a long time since my last shitty movie review. But to be honest, "Killdozer!" is a pretty tough act to follow, so I had to take a break. But now I'm back with more shitty movie reviews and hopefully you'll find something to your liking.
___



"That was some of the best driving I've ever seen."
-Mike Pucci

With the passing of Dennis Hopper earlier this year, my friends and I wanted to do something to honor him—so we had a mini-movie marathon of some of his greatest films. "Space Truckers" is one such film. A classic staple of late night television unwatched, many have heard of "Space Truckers," some have seen parts of it, and fewer have sat through all 95 minutes of it.

It starts out promising enough, with an opening setup reminiscent of the rebels lining the hall of the Tantive IV right before the slew of stormtroopers busts in and starts ripping shit up. But instead of an army of stormtroopers, it's one incredibly cheesy looking robot that looks like the lovechild of the xenomorph from "Alien" and the predator's shoulder cannon from "Predator." It's pretty hard to take this sophisticated, state-of-the-art war machine seriously when it has a pincer for a left hand. Really, did the scientists not want it to be able to pick things up with its left hand? Is pinching the future's answer to this century's Brazilian jujitsu? Good thing it's a got a switch blade built into it's left arm. And if that's where the film starts ... you really shouldn't expect a whole lot in the way of serious cinema, but that's okay.

See, "Space Truckers" is one of those movies you'd swear came out in the mid 80s. It reminds me a lot of "Robot Jox" in terms of its aesthetics (read crappy special effects), and even that movie was released in 1990. But no, it's not from the 80s, it's not even from the early 90s. This movie was released in 1996. By comparison, "Jurassic Park" came out in 1993. Hell, "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope" came out in 1977, and the special effects in that film blow "Space Truckers" away. But the lack of believable special effects is not really a detriment to the film, as it's more of a charm point. The effects are quaint by today's standards, even by yesterday's standards. This movie isn't trying to be a blockbuster special effects movie, and on that note it succeeds. For example, vector graphics are all over the HUDs in this movie. It makes me want to play that old PC tank game I had back in the day.

There are plenty of bright spots in the film. The gates and trucking lanes are pretty cool, and one can see the influence that "Space Truckers" had on "Cowboy Bebop," especially in Session 7's "Heavy Metal Queen." I also have to give a lot of credit to the set designers who really put a lot of work and effort into all the little background details, like the advertisements and the signage.

As for the characters, Dennis Hopper as John Canyon delivers as good a performance as a completely sober Hopper can, as a character who is neither a drug addict or an alcoholic. Debbie Mazar plays a space version amalgam of pretty much every other character she's played, and Stephen Dorff is Stephen Dorff, getting topless and showing off his body in the almost nude and sweaty second act. I was surprised to see Charles Dance of Numsy in "The Golden Child" fame in a fairly comic role as Nabel/Macanudo, the half-human, half robot scientist that created the abomination mentioned earlier. Most people who've seen part of the movie will remember that he looks like Hacker from "Centurions" and that he has a pull-start robo-penis with blinking blue LEDs (hey, it's just like my 'puter). Oh, and hey, there's Norm from "Cheers!"

If this still isn't enough to get you to watch the movie there's also this: square pigs.

Dennis Hopper left behind a legacy of films, and "Space Truckers" is right up there at the top, along with "Hoosiers," "Speed," and "Super Mario Brothers." As his character John Canyon puts it in the movie, "For a son of a bitch gimp racist murderer, he died okay." Indeed, indeed.

My shitty movie rating: 6.5 out of 10. It's worth watching, especially with group of friends, but unless you're a Dennis Hopper fan or Stephen Dorff fan, you may not want to watch it multiple times within the year. Maybe a once every one or two year dealy.