Back Where I Belong: Wonton Forest, City of Industry

It sucks to be lost.

Like the time we got lost in the Northwestern tip of Maui and were driving on a one lane road on the side of a mountain next to the ocean.

Like the time I made one wrong turn and got lost in Downtown LA's skid row for the first time. (*Disclaimer: Notice I said first time. Don't think I'm I big ol' priss; I drive through it all the time with no problem now.)

Like the time I got lost in Anaheim for oh, 27 months???

OK fine, so what if it's only figuratively speaking? Sue me. Since October 2007 until the day I was let go, I took at least two hours out of my day to drive to this place where I worked around beach people all the time (sorry beach people, I love the beach but I'm a city girl at heart so I've never understood the whole beachy lifestyle thing), where with the exception of a few friends the people I worked with were complete two-faced assholes, where all these two-faced assholes' idea of real Mexican food is Chipotle, and where the nearby dining options were limited to chain restaurants and one mediocre pho joint. I mean, where the hell was I, the Twilight Zone??? Two fucking years I was lost in this hell hole! Two fucking years!

With one hand on the steering wheel and one hand holding my Google Map (I don't do Nav- Systems either--I'm a map girl. Nav-Systems are for sissies), I exited the 60 Freeway across from Diamond Plaza in Rowland Heights on my way to my first job interview for the company I work for now. I think I felt my heart jump out of my mouth when I saw the Chinese restaurant signs. Could it really be true that this potential employer was located close to some actual non-chain Asian restaurants? With the much improved food choices as my incentive, I pushed myself to do extra, EXTRA well at that interview. And guess what? I nailed it and landed that job in three days. Sweet.

So yeah, you bet your ass that the first thing I did upon getting that job offer besides going on a rock star lunch tour was do some serious web-tective work as far as where to eat near the office. Thanks to a four star review on Yelp, an inquiry on Chowhound and a very favorable post from the blog Go Ramen, Wonton Forest would be the first of a long list of local restaurants to try. This little restaurant, located in a railroad-track adjacent Smart & Final mini-mall in the City of Industry, would also represent all the positive change that was happening in my life.

When I was lost in Anaheim, I felt like I had the life sucked out of me. Constantly angry. Always tired. Never had time for myself. Looked like shit. Felt like shit. Every day that I was there could have been tagged with the infamous FML. Since I found my way out, er, I mean got booted out, I feel like I've gotten a piece of my life back.

When I was lost in Anaheim, I became somewhat disconnected with my passion for food for a few reasons. One, as I mentioned before, there was nothing great to eat around the office, at least nothing that I could drive to, eat, and drive back from within reasonable time limits. And two, my job was wearing me out so badly that I lost both time and desire for much of my gastronomic pursuits.

When I was lost in Anaheim, the simple goodness of a bowl of wonton noodle soup was nowhere to be found. A few visits to Wonton Forest later, and I realized what I had been missing.

Being Chinese-American, wonton noodle soup is and always has been a staple for me. Maybe it was because my parents secretly put the stuff into my baby bottles, but whatever the reason, I've looked to this dish to warm my stomach and soothe my soul since childhood. Sometimes, my parents would treat me and my brother to a steaming bowl of wonton noodles soup at some Oakland Chinatown restaurant (usually Gum Wah) after we spent the morning lugging several plastic grocery bags and following our parents closely as they weaved in and out of Chinese markets. But more often, my parents would make noodles for us at home. Everything, with the exception of the noodles, was homemade--the soup, the wontons, the toppings--all made from scratch and all made from the heart.

With its minimalist modern decor, Wonton Forest looks more like a mainstream fusion sushi roll joint than a place I'd be able to find a bowl of noodles that is not far from those noodle lunches at home with my family. Like anything made by hand at my family's house, there's always something about small batch operations that lends a certain coarseness to the final product; the wontons that Chef/Owner Paul makes fresh daily are no exception. At my parent's house, no food grinders or mills were used to make their wonton fillings; the pork and shrimp were chopped by hand at my house and though I'm not sure of the exact method to Paul's wonton madness, his wontons' textural imperfections (which trust me, are a good thing here) tell me that there's minimal machine or mass-produced intervention here.

Same goes for their soup which, rather than tasting of MSG and being strained to the hilt as is the case at many larger scale restaurants, has the clean, pure taste of chicken or a beef/chicken combo and made even better by the tiny bits of meat or luscious fat globules that made it past the strainer.

Sit at Wonton Forest's counter and watch as Paul preps each bowl of noodles himself, separating and plumping up the springy egg or rice noodle strands with long chopsticks. Each bowl of noodles' toppings are carefully arranged atop the noodles (something that my parents also always took the time to do) before the soup is poured in. Order their signature Wonton Forest Noodle Soup and you'll get an array of goodies including wontons (duh), yau choy-sum, a soy infused boiled egg, tender slices of pork, scallions and cilantro and fried garlic bits atop the noodles. Or, you can order the Chiu-Chow Noodles and get a slew of meaty and seafood-y goodness arranged carefully around your bowl: shreds of chicken, minced pork, plump shrimp and springy fish balls. Add some of Chef Paul's homemade chili garlic sauce (which is supposedly made in a three-day process and is actually available for purchase, by the way) to your steaming bowl of noodles before you start slurping and add in extra dabs as needed. It's an extra kick that actually enhances the flavor of the soup and all the tasty bits within rather than detracting from or overpowering it. Really good stuff.

Food-aside, this little City of Industry gem has played an important role in bringing me back to my blogging life. The delicious food and super friendly vibe of the first restaurant in my must-try-restaurants-near-work list helped to kick start this part of my life that I had become so detached from. "This is totally doable," I thought to myself after my first visit to Wonton Forest, "Back in Anaheim...not so much." Subsequent lunchtime visits to Wonton Forest for me would include an interview for a foodie documentary (story for another post) and a meetup with fellow bloggers Go Ramen and Pepsi Monster. Would I have ever been able to do that in my previous LOST life and still get all my work done? Hell no.

I was lost, and now am found. Thanks, Wonton Forest, for bringing me home.

Wonton Forest
18230 Gale Ave.
City of Industry, CA 91748
(626) 435-1430
Cash only

I Am...The Cheesecake Factory???

If I had a dollar for every I'm-going-to-slit-my-throat-because-this-is-so-boring professional seminar I've attended, I'd be a rich, rich woman. If I had a dollar for every one of those seminars that I actually enjoyed, I'd be damn broke. You know which ones I'm talking about, right?

Diversity Training.

Respect In The Workplace.

Change Management.

Train The Trainer.

The Voice Of Leadership.

Sound familiar???

Of all the cockamamie professional development seminars I've ever been forced to attend, "People Styles" had to have been the lamest. In this particular seminar, each member of the organization had to send questionnaires out to at least three random people they normally work with, and those people would in turn use a scale of 1 to 5 to rate how they felt that you dealt with various issues in the workplace in everything from how closely you followed the dress code to how open you are to new ideas. Based on those peoples' answers, you would then get categorized into one of four "People Style" profiles that show how assertive people think you are as well as how emotionally responsive people think you are.

Drivers are more assertive at the workplace and less responsive to people. They are usually very direct and like fast paces. Translation: Asshole or bitch. Cold-hearted tyrant.

Expressives are more assertive but also more responsive to people. They tend to be energetic and talkative and are generally good team players. Translation: Scatterbrain. Also that guy that won't shut up and rambles in meetings.

Analyticals are less assertive and are less responsive to people. They are critical thinkers who are very systematic and need alot of data and facts. They also prefer to work alone. Translation: Nerd with no social skills.

Amiables are less assertive but more responsive to people. They are great team players and are very people oriented. They also tend to avoid conflict and be more indirect in their behavior. Translation: Pushover who tries too hard to please everyone.

And if getting forced into the confines of four defined categories wasn't bad enough, each quadrant is split into four subquadrants. So not only would you be stereotyped as a fascist dictator at work, but you might be a scatterbrained fascist dictator.

My personal People Styles' profile, you ask? Amiable-Amiable.

The Head Honcho of our department's People Styles' Profile? Driver-Driver.

The point of this whole exercise is to identify how you best work with people (i.e. your People Style), how other people in your workplace like to work, and how to flex your style to work better with those people. Sounds good on paper right? Well yeah, but not when it's literally on paper. The people who ran this thing made a chart thingamajiggy with the quadrants, subquadrants, and people's names within their assigned subquadrant and passed the thing out in a meeting where we went on to have a bullshit discussion about what we learned and how we've applied this to our jobs and how we would use what we learned going forward, yada, yada, yada. So there I was, Ms. Amiable-Amiable--supposedly the person in the department who was the nicest but who also possessed the least backbone--sitting there on paper all by herself, complete extreme polar opposites of our fearless leader, Mr. Driver-Driver--supposedly the meanest, most oppressive asshole of the group. The paper spelled it out: we were not meant to get along.

And then a funny thing happened as time went by: all but one of those people from that particular seminar who were forced into the Amiable category got let go. Including me. Gee, what a coinky-dink.

Fast forward a couple months later when my unemployed broke ass thought it'd be an opportune time to use that gift card I'd had sitting around from none other than the infamous chain restaurant of all chain restaurants, The Cheesecake Factory. Not usually my first choice for a night out with my family, but it was paid for so hey, why not?

As I was flipping though their 150 page menu and trying to decide whether I should play it safe and go with one of their staples like the Chicken Madeira or take a risk and try something new and a little less mediocre sounding, I came across their mantra: "Something For Everyone."

Something.

For.

Everyone.

And then it dawned on me that I was dining at the equivalent of my assigned People Style of the restaurant world. Cheesecake Factory is clearly an Amiable: aims to please everyone at the expense of taking risks. Plays it safe and avoids being too bold. The huge Thai Lettuce Wraps appetizer was tasty but nowhere near as exciting as say, wrapping up Vietnamese cha gio in lettuce and herbs or wrapping up some piping hot kalbi in some lettuce smeared with ssam jang. We ordered some breaded chicken with proscuitto and arugula dish that I can't even remember the name of that was good--good, but not great. Our burger was, well, just a burger. And the cheesecake is the kind of dessert that certainly satisfies any sweet tooth, PMS, or pregnancy craving but is so cookie-cutter that sometimes I'd rather just have a cookie.

And then elsewhere in town, the Expressive restaurants were enchanting their diners with complete sensory overload, the Analyticals were busy being no frills and precise, and I'm sure there were more than enough take-it-or-leave-it Driver restaurants out there pissing some customers off while also maintaining a loyal following. (I'll let you choose the examples since Amiables can't seem to make quick decisions) In a perfect People Styles world, all these types of restaurants and their patrons would learn to flex their behaviors and learn to work well with one another because, after all, it should be one big happy dining community. But really, who are we kidding, right?

As we were finishing our massive, decent-but-nothing-to-write-home-about dinner, I looked around. Despite being a cookie-cutter chain restaurant that plays it safe, lots of people like it. The service is, for the most part, friendly and efficient. Lots of people wait to get a table and gee-guess-what, this place has been in business since 1978. Maybe the Cheesecake Factory and uh, by the way, Amiables in general ain't so bad after all.

So fuck you and your fucking People Styles. Take your typecasting bullshit and shove it up your Driver ass. The Cheesecake Factory is here to stay.

Rock Star Lunch Tour, Final Stop: I'm Just A Wannabe Cover Artist, Corner Chicken Cafe, Koreatown

Sometimes as much as you wanna be a rock star, you just can't. Maybe you don't have the money. Maybe you don't have the talent. Maybe you don't have the looks. Whatever the case, you're just never going to be the real thing.

But if you live in LA, there might just be a place for you even if you're not the real deal because where else have you ever seen so many posers, wannabes, knockoffs and straight up keeping-up-with-the-joneses? Let's be honest, you know you secretly want to grace the homepage of Perez Hilton one day. You made reservations at Geisha House on a weekend night wanting to be seen in the slinky top you just bought from Forever 21, and then the next morning you head out to brunch at Toast Bakery Cafe on 3rd, not so much to eat, but to be seen waiting amongst all the other young starlet wannabes in their perfectly messed up bed head-do's and velour track suits. You can hardly afford to pay your bills every month so you've considered buying that Prado, Louis Wuitton or Channel bag the last time you were at the Alley, but are afraid someone's gonna see you for who you really are.

Same thing goes for the food world. One minute there's Red Mango and Pinkberry. Next minute there's Blue Apple and Green Peach and a thousand other fro-yo knockoffs. One minute there's Kogi BBQ truck, the next minute we'll be seeing lines of people outside of Chinese-Puerto Rican fusion or Japanese-Ethiopian fusion trucks. One minute there's Corner Bakery Cafe and California Chicken Cafe, next minute there's...

...Los Angeles Corner Chicken Cafe???? Or is it Los Angeles Corner Kitchen Cafe???

Based on lots of positive reviews on Yelp including raves about their naeng-myun, My girfriend H and I had originally wanted to have the fifth and final stop of my Rock Star Lunch Tour end on a cold-arrowroot-noodle-note at Yu Chun in Koreatown. To our surprise, however, Yu Chun was nowhere to be found when we arrived at the 6th and Alexandria corner minimall. We asked the valet guys where Yu Chun had gone and they told us that it had changed ownership, and that the new place was good. (Really, Valet Guy, really???? Or do you just want our tips?) Hesitantly, we walked into the sterile, next-to-no-atmosphere cafe and paused.

"Uh, is this place trying to be Corner Bakery or something?"

"Yeah, but it's Korean"

"Wanna try it?"

"Yeah, I don't feel like driving anywhere else. And they do have bibim naeng-myun. But the Corner Bakery thing kinda weirds me out."

"I know, right?"

I suppose the small variety of noodle and rice dishes such as naeng-myun and bibim-bap along with roasted chicken are to Corner Chicken Cafe as what sandwiches, soup and salads are to Corner Bakery Cafe. Although the roasted chicken is what this K-town wannabe chain restaurant seems to be promoting, H & I went straight for the bibim naeng-myun.

And just like the food at Corner Bakery Cafe is, in my opinion, mediocre at best, our bibim naeng-myun was certainly nothing to write home about. Its flavor was probably its best asset, with a nice balance of spicy, sweet and sour notes coming from gochujang, garlic, sesame and vinegar. The black arrowroot noodles, on the other hand, were too tightly packed into a tangled lumpy mess. Chilled beef slices that have a slightly drier texture are to be expected in this spicy cold noodle dish, but beef slices that have the texture of thawed-out freezer burn and that are pretty much grey in color are a whole other nasty ballgame.

Aside from the great company, I was pretty bummed that my Rock Star Lunch Tour Week had to end this way. Corner Chicken Cafe just didn't have that star quality for me, at least not in their bibim naeng-myun. Sorry, Corner Chicken Cafe, maybe if you stop trying to be something you're not and just try to be yourself, you'd have much better food. That's not to say I'd never give you another shot, but for now there's just too much competition in this town--and especially in K-town--for you to make the cut this time.

Thanks for following me on my week long Rock Star Lunch Tour! It's back to the grind I go!

Los Angeles Corner Chicken/Kitchen Cafe
3470 W. 6th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90020
(I can't find their phone number anywhere because it's not listed anywhere yet. C'mon yelpers, get on it!)

Rock Star Lunch Tour, Day Four: I Am So Money, Kiriko Sushi, West LA

So the ten dollar Sapp Coffee Shop Thai boat noodles and Scoops ice cream lunch was really good and all, but who am I kidding?

Rock stars spend money.

That's just what we do. It's in our blood. I don't care if I'm spending the whole advance on my album sales, I gotta have a cool crib, fly threads, a nice ride--wait, i mean nice rides (plural), and expensive lunches. My Money Manager loooved when I went to Sapp & Scoops the other day and had lunch and dessert for cheap. But when I went to Kiriko Sushi on Day Four of my Rock Star Lunch Tour??? Not so much.

This time instead of dining solo, I lunched with my girlfriend C who, being a rock star herself, loves to buy lots of things too. And that's probably the reason why after settling in at this tiny Sawtelle sushi bar, we decided not to go with some of the more moderate lunch choices like the sashimi, nigiri sushi or hand roll lunch combinations which hover around the $20 range and went straight for the bling: a $36 omakase lunch.

Now most normal working folk would certainly gawk at a thirty-six dollar lunch (more like forty-five after you add in tax and tip, and even more if you get drinks) since that's pretty much lunch for an entire week spent in one day. But c'mon, when you have money to spend like all us rock stars, big time producers, B-movie actors, actor-model-waiters and trophy wives, thirty six bucks for an omakase lunch coming from a quality restaurant is nothing! A mere drop in the bucket for ten pieces of melt-in-your-mouth sushi which on this particular day included bluefin tuna, toro, Japanese yellowtail, Japanese red snapper, Spanish mackerel, sea scallop, house-smoked salmon with caviar, sea eel and a blue crab handroll, all extremely fresh and of excellent quality. Heck, even if you're not a C-list celebrity or above, it's still worth getting considering the same type of meal would probably be at least twice as much at dinner time.


After getting ripped a new one by my Money Manager for living such an extravagant lifestyle when my debut album hasn't even dropped yet, I told him not to worry 'cause I'm the shizz. I'll sell so many records I'll be able to afford lunch and dinner at Kiriko every day.

Kiriko Sushi
11301 Olympic Blvd. #102
Los Angeles, CA 90064
(310) 478-7769
www.kirikosushi.com

Rock Star Lunch Tour, Day Three: Rockstars Are People Too

Today I did not go anywhere.

I took a break from my Rock Star Lunch Tour and stayed home to clean because my house is a mess.

I ate a salami sandwich for lunch. It was good.

Hey, rock stars are people too.

Rock Star Lunch Tour, Day Two: Partying Like A Broke-Ass Rock Star, Sapp Coffee Shop and Scoops Ice Cream, LA

I may have a paycheck in my future, but I certainly ain't gonna pre-spend it all at one restaurant. What I love about LA is that you can one, have a good lunch at Spago, and two, have about four even better lunches for the price of that Spago lunch. The economy sucks, yo. You gotta stretch your dollar as far as you can; have that Spago lunch and you may not be able to afford those Christian Louboutin's you've been eyeing, especially since your company just slashed salaries by 10% across the board. And God forbid you wear your Payless Shoe Source platform pumps to the next big meeting--you'll surely be the laughing stock of the department, which could lead you to get fired. Then what???

For Day Two of my Rock Star Lunch Tour, I'm going to show you where you can party like a rock star (and with dessert) for a little over ten bucks after tax and tip!

You've probably seen Sapp Coffee Shop a bajillion times when the Travel Channel repeats the LA episode of No Reservations. Hell, you've probably even gone there so that you can sit exactly where Tony Bourdain sat. (Oh, you mean only I did that???) Whatever the case, go there and order what my noodle-whoring friend recommended to everyone's favorite bad boy chef--the Thai Boat Noodles--and you can't go wrong. It's quality and quantity all for under six bucks--a smorgasbord of tasty animal goodies like beef flank, brisket, tripe, meatballs, liver, tendon, and fried pork skins doing some synchronized swimming with rice noodles in a most savory blood-thickened soup. If this genius composition of spicy, salty, sweet and bitter flavors and crunchy, chewy, snappy, and creamy textures doesn't float your boat (pun intended), Sapp's got a boatload (another pun intended) of other Thai dishes for dirt cheap.

No doubt you'll need something to cleanse your palate after all that funky noodley goodness, so take your warm belly a couple miles south to Scoops in the Hel-Mel area for some very innovative gelato. Sure, it's been blogged and yelped about close to six million times over the last three years but I don't care. It's good, the flavors are like none you'll ever have and owner-creator Tai Kim is as sweet as can be. On this particular Tuesday afternoon, I treated myself to a scoop of Brown Bread, texturally interesting with bits of Grape Nuts, and a scoop of Strawberry-Lychee, light and refreshing. Unless you go absolutely ape-shit here and gorge yourself with gelato, Scoops should only set you back a few bucks. (But don't forget to leave them a little something at the counter!)

So there you have it, folks, a rock-star worthy lunch with dessert for next to nothing! Pretty soon you'll have cut your monthly expenses down so much that you'll be strutting down the aisles at Big Lots in your sexy red-soled Louboutin's in no time.

Sapp Coffee Shop
5183 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 665-1035

Scoops Ice Cream
712 N. Heliotrope Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90029
(323) 906-2649

Putting the "Fun" Back In "Unemployment": Kicking Off My Rock Star Lunch Tour Week With Mancha Manteles, Moles La Tía, East LA

I am happy to announce that as of about a week ago, this bitch is no longer for hire.

I got a job!!!!

The bad news is the job is not in the career field of Professional Food Blogging and that I will have to continue playing number-and-data-tetris for a living, at least for now. The good news is that I will be receiving a pretty decent regular paycheck as well as all the other benefits and goodies that all us corporate whores are used to getting. Wheee!

Sure you may have thought that the entire month and a half that I've been without work has been all fun and games, but what this blog hasn't told you is that outside of the few fun food excursions I've already shared, most of my unemployment was spent eating crap while searching job boards on the web and watching Real Housewives of Orange County marathons on Bravo. I could have written about slapping some cheap-o ham, French's mustard and Best Foods mayo between two slices of white sandwich bread, but I decided to spare all of you the details.

So after all the thank you's and congratulations and other formalities of accepting a job offer, I got off the phone with Corporate Recruiter Lady and realized I had one week of freedom before becoming chained to a desk again. After a month and a half of borderline ghetto-frugality, I said enough. Fuck the extra week of boring sandwiches and instant ramen for lunch, I'm gonna put the "fun" back in "unemployment" by partying like a rock star, weekday lunch style!

Living in a neighborhood that's just a stone's throw away from East LA, I've always kicked myself in the ass for not having explored more of the neighborhood's Mexican options. Well, since I had one more week of funemployment, there'd be no excuses this time. I've been wanting to try a restaurant that fellow food-blogger Javier, aka the (Teenage) Glutster, had written up so beautifully a while back, and that my friends, is how Moles La Tía became the first stop on my Rock Star Lunch Tour Week.

Mole intrigues me. It's as complex as a symphony with its hints of spices, chiles, chocolate, nuts, and other goodies all coming together to form a melody of flavors. It's one of those foods whose creators I have always given special major props to when done well not only because it's so ingredient intensive, but because whoever makes it has to concern themselves with the proportion, balance and pairing of those ingredients as well.

The thing that sucks about dining solo is that it's impossible to try all the things you wanna try. Should I go for a dish with one of Chef Rocio Camacho's fruity concoctions like a passion fruit or tamarind mole, or should I go for something more tried and true like a mole poblano? After a long perusal of Mole La Tia's menu, and being in the mood for spicier flavors that day I settled on their mancha manteles, a mole which literally translated means "tablecloth-stainer." Bring it on.

The pork tenderloin under which the glossy mole lay was tender but also teetering on being borderline dry. If I were eating the pork by itself, I'd for sure wonder what all the fuss is about this place. The mole, however, was a different story altogether and entirely worthy of pursuit. I like my mole like I like my men, and my mancha manteles mole was no exception: tall, dark, and handsome with a personality to match. Only one date and already its complexity of spicy, sweet, bitter and smoky flavors made me want to get to know this mole better. I could taste hints of cinnamon and a nuttiness that perhaps came from almonds. Like a shy girl on the prowl, I had to resort to asking my waiter what kind of chile made my mancha manteles tick. Chihuasqle, a chile imported from Oaxaca, as well as guajillo, were what gave my newfound crush its fiery side.

Mancha manteles left me wanting more, as demonstrated by the fact that I had wiped my plate clean with the restaurant's homemade corn tortillas. I definitely plan to go back to Moles La Tía, but I don't think I can commit to a monogamous relationship with Mr. Mancha Manteles just yet. We're just dating right now, and there are lots of other moles to be had.

Moles La Tía
4619 E. Cesar Chavez Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90022
(323) 263-7842
www.moleslatia.com

Livin' The Life: Umami Burger, Los Angeles

Ever have those conversations with friends or coworkers about what you would do for a living if you won the lotto? I'm pretty sure you'd be lying if you say you never have.

Like most of us out there, I cannot truthfully say that I would have chosen my current career if I had my choice of any job in the world. Yeah, like I actually like crunching numbers and pulling data out of my ass? Like I like having my eyes glued to a computer monitor for over 8 hours a day? Like I crave going to boring meetings that are sometimes held to discuss other meetings? Yeah right. If I won the lotto, I would not, yes I repeat, WOULD NOT be whoring out fancy- shmancy analyses like I do now. Would not.

So let's say I won the lotto, then. But not a huge mega-ball-or-whatever-they-call-it drawing for like 200 billion dollars. Let's say it was a small-to-medium-ish lotto that would allow me to buy a bigger and nicer home, stash away my kid's college fund, do some traveling and buy some cool stuff but was still not big enough that I had to stop working completely. Big enough, though, that I could stop being a corporate wage slave and so something that I really love. Like...

...professional food blogging!

I've always dreamt of a job that would let me be somewhat free to roam about our city without the rigid schedule and walls of the corporate world. You know all those people who you see just hanging out at a café or out shopping on a weekday afternoon when you're taking a "mental health day" from work? Well I want to be one of those people. Now I don't know exactly what professional food blogging would entail since I only do this for fun right now--heck, I don't even know if such a career exists--but I imagine it to be a job where I could eat at lots of different restaurants, hang out at coffeehouses to write, and not have to be back at my desk by 1:30 everyday.

Now as some of you might already know, I haven't been working recently, so I've been able to live out some aspects of my dream career life, delusional as they may be. For example, I've really, really, really been wanting to try recently-opened and much-talked-about Umami Burger, so I got ready, threw my camera in my bag and made my afternoon all about the restaurant currently at the top of my go-to list.

In a previous life, er, I mean in a life I lived just a month and a half ago, I would have been stuck in a boring meeting in BFE Orange County staring at the clock. But on this particular day at 11:30 in the morning, I was in my car, feeling liberated, driving north on La Brea on my way to what I was hoping would be burger heaven.

Upon pulling up, the observations of this wanna-be-professional-food-blogger went full force. Small parking lot is a pain in the ass. Friendly greeting upon entrance. Small space with a very zen feel. Beautiful mosaic tiled counter. Order at the mosaic-tiled counter and they bring you your food. Lots of natural light. Cute but awkward little alcove toward the back with more tables and counter-like seating. Cake Monkey treats available for purchase at the counter.


I sat at a two-top in the corner for maximum photography lighting and snapped away at the tall bottle of Mexican Coke I was enjoying while waiting for my food. I would take a swig of the cane- sugar-instead-of-high-fructose-corn-syrup-sweetened soda and think about stuff. Nothing in particular, just stuff. And then I'd take another photo and then repeat.

There were two guys sitting behind me dolled up in the typical LA casual-chic uniform of faded t-shirts, designer jeans and flip flops talking about nothing in particular. These guys, I assumed, were part of this out-and-about-on-the-weekday crowd that I am so envious of. Another diner walked in who, after sitting down and pulling a camera out of her purse and exchanging glances with me and my big ass DSLR, revealed herself as a Yelper out on the prowl for good eats. In my make-believe professional foodblogging life, I imagine meeting lots of other food loving people: other bloggers (professional or not!), Chowhounds, Yelpers, and all levels of restaurant staffers from wait staff to chefs to owners. It was totally appropriate, then, that I ended up having lunch with Yelper Chick and talking about all things food.

But what I was really there for, what motivates my inner food blogger in the first place, was the umami. The fifth taste. The taste outside the realm of salty, sweet, bitter and sour that one can only describe as "delicious." From what I could taste, Umami Burger's burgers are aptly named.

I would have ordered one of each burger if I could--Umami Burger's eight current burger varieties like the "Port and Stilton Burger" with blue cheese and port-caramelized onions and the "Triple Pork Burger" with fresh ground pork, chorizo and cob-smoked bacon, aged manchego and pimenton aioli sounded like they'd invoke some serious umamification. But if it was serious umami I was after, then the restaurant's signature burger, the "Umami Burger," would be my guy. The house-ground beef was texturally divine and deep on flavor. Shitake mushrooms, oven-dried tomatoes and caramelized onions added yet another dimension of taste and texture. And the proverbial cherry-on-top was a delicate yet crunchy house-made Parmesan crisp. Also delicious was the gleaming Portuguese bun that tied the whole umamification process together. Hand Cut Fries, boiled and twice-fried, are stacked Jenga-style and ordered separately. They're a little skimpy on quantity but high in quality, and definitely do not overshadow the star of the show.

As I was focusing in on my lunch, owner Adam Fleischman approached our table and told me he charges $5 a photo. Uh, ex-squeeze me? Baking powder? Who dares talk to a professional food blogger that way? But he was just kidding of course. And he was also so gracious that Yelper Chick and I were showing such an interest in his restaurant that he brought us a sampling of his Roasted Garlic Potato Salad made with Russian Blue and fingerling potatoes. I much preferred the fries as a side, but it was an extremely nice gesture from a guy who obviously knows good food and takes such great pride in what he does. Schmoozin' with restauranteurs--that's what I'm talking about. This professional food blogging gig is something that I could really get in to.

Of course when I do end up getting a job--meaning a regular, corporate job--the coach will revert to a pumpkin and the horses will revert to mice. Unless I play hooky or am on vacation, leisurely weekday lunches amongst LA's daytime crowd will be almost impossible. My dreams of being a professional food blogger will have been a figment of my imagination, and I'll be that number-slinging, data-whoring cubicle dweller once again 'cause unfortunately, that's what pays the bills and can afford me more trips to Umami Burger. Until I win the lotto that is.

Umami Burger
850 S. La Brea Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 931-3000
www.umamiburger.com



These bloggers also got their umami on recently: A Hamburger Today, The Foodinista, Eating LA, Alli 411, LA Times' Daily Dish

Tortas With A Twist: Cook's Tortas, Monterey Park

There always seems to be a direct correlation between the way life is treating you and the way your food is working with you. At least that's the way things seem to work for me. I mean, don't you notice that when life hands you lemons, one of the lemons squirts you in the eye as you're trying to make lemonade?

It never fails that your burrito falls apart at the seams after you've had a crappy day. You can always count on burning your chin and staining your pants when you pull the whole sheet of cheese off a slice of pizza with your teeth, leaving you with a sorry piece of sauce laden crust on the very same day that your boss ripped you a new one.

On the flip side, good food experiences seem to coincidentally go hand in hand with good days, and I'm pretty sure that my recent discovery of Monterey Park's Cook's Tortas is a sign that things are indeed looking up for me. And let me tell you, they are.

Yes, I'm still unemployed. But my resume is getting noticed and prospective employers are starting to call back. I've gone to a few interviews and have done pretty well. I've been looking pretty damn fly in my perfectly tailored black suit jazzed up with a blue shirt, skinny zebra belt, and patent leather pumps. Things are just working.

Now Cook's Tortas may not be your usual tortas joint, but nevertheless, things have a way of working there too. And let me add, they work pretty darn well.

Owner Ricardo Diaz's tortas range from traditional--such as their Milanesa or Carne Asada--to nouveau--with options like Smoked Salmon with Cream Cheese, Bacalao, or Chicken Mole Verde. The restaurant's floor-to-ceiling chalkboard menu looks more like a team roster with each sandwich's key components listed underneath their respective sandwich captain.

It's fitting, though. Sandwich Teamwork is probably the most important element to sandwich success and Cook's Tortas definitely has it. Their in-house baked bread is nicely crusty on the outside, moist and dense on the inside, and more like a ciabatta than your usual bolillo. Most importantly, its size, shape and texture work so well at holding all its teammates together in a cohesive package. Inside that package, the ingredients team doesn't fuck around either: meats, veggies and other condiments combine to create tasty and interesting flavor combinations and hold on to each other to ensure minimal slippage--a sandwich phenomenon that I recall Tony Bourdain once comparing to sliding tectonic plates.

A "La Diabla" torta I had one day--with chicken slathered in chile de arbol and habanero and accompanied by jalapeño and guacamole--was moist and deliciously spicy.

The beef tongue inside my lengua torta was perfectly tender and tasted even better with the jalapeños and mayo that came with.

Though the breaded steak in my milanesa torta was a tad on the dry side, the sandwich as a whole was still fine.

All the little extras at Cook's Tortas also work to set this place apart from the rest. All tortas come with one of the restaurant's creative sides such as their yummy "Red Fries" (shichimi togarashi-sprinkled sweet potato fries), watermelon pickles, or new potato salad. Huge jars or brightly-colored and freshly-made aguas frescas sit atop the counter tempting each customer with creative flavor infusions such as cucumber lime and pineapple celery. There are freshly baked pastries and Illy espresso served here, with cute little diagrams of the different drinks and their foam to espresso ratios drawn on the chalkboard wall.


Life is getting good again, and I'm so glad I found Cook's Tortas. If life were slinging me more suckage, the insides of a Five Dollar Footlong would be sliding out onto my lap for sure.

Cook's Tortas' mascot Monkey Lady here thinks so too.


Cook's Tortas
1944 S. Atlantic Blvd.
Monterey Park, CA 91754
(323) 278-3536
www.cookstortas.com



Here's what other local bloggers have to say about Cook's Tortas:
Eating LA wonders why they aren't everywhere.
Food GPS shows a photo of owner Diaz's thoughts on a pig's rightful place.

"B" is for Burgers, Bar Food, Beer, and Boredom: The Yard House, Long Beach

"What are you doing?" I asked my fellow unemployed friend and ranter R on the phone.

"Nothing," he replied.

"Wanna have lunch?"

"Sure!"

If you've ever been unemployed, the drill is probably all too familiar. The first week or so are spent clearing your head of sadness or anger or whatever emotions your former employer's actions hath wrought upon you. The second week is spent getting down to business on updating the resume you hadn't updated since you started the job you just got fired from, applying to every job that's out there regardless of whether or not you are qualified, and writing cheesy cover letters that are borderline brown-nosing. The third week on out, all the job postings start to look the same. Why? Because they are the same. OK, maybe one or two new ones show up each day, but those resumes and cover letters are surely not flying out at the same speed they did the week prior. More importantly, no one is calling.

And so begins the boredom.

I've already cleaned my house, done all my laundry, compiled all my tax return paperwork, organized my desk. All that was left to do was take advantage of the weekday afternoons that had previously been spent in an office cubicle, which is pretty much how R and I ended up at The Yard House in Long Beach one Thursday afternoon.

Located in a tourist-trappy part of Long Beach near the Queen Mary and the Long Beach Aquarium, it's a surefire bet for mainstream-and-mediocrity as far as food is concerned. Something which on this particular day, however, was totally fine with me. There we were, my ex co-worker and I, relaxing on a lovely Thursday afternoon on the restaurant's outdoor patio overlooking the Long Beach marina, just ranting away--about the job market and the economy, about people back at the office, about getting old, about his dating life--something that any of us at that office only wished we could have done on a weekday afternoon. My BBQ Bacon and Cheese Burger was just fine, as was my friend's Classic Cheese Burger and our sides of fries, cut not-quite-as-thin-as-shoestring style and fried to a nice golden crisp. And with about 250 beers on tap, we just couldn't go wrong.

Cheers to unemployment! (While our severance is still in effect, anyways)

The Yard House
401 Shoreline Village Drive
Long Beach, CA 90802
(562) 628-0455
www.yardhouse.com

Holy Mother Of God: The Godmother Sandwich, Bay Cities Importing, Santa Monica

Besides getting a fucking job, perhaps the only good thing to come out of driving out to Santa Monica to meet with a headhunter is a trip to Bay Cities Deli.

After having spent the last five days or so in my finest house clothes with hair and face au naturel, I had to get all dolled up in my best Banana Republic-esque Biz-Caash wear. I certainly looked like I meant business. I think I sounded like it too, rattling off to these middlemen, these resume passer-arounders, that I can do this, that, the other, and even then some.

It wasn't a real interview, but it wasn't an ordeal that called for a meal for pussies, either. I needed substance, and a Godmother with the Works would do the trick. Layers of genoa salami, mortadella, coppacola, ham, proscuitto, and provolone cheese topped with an array of condiments which includes a delicious hot pepper salad all on Bay Cities' own freshly baked crispy-on-the-outside-chewy-on-the-inside roll proved that this was not a sandwich to be fucked with--an attitude that I surely want of myself during my job hunt.

It was a great sandwich--its parts working together for the good of the whole--but it obviously had nothing to do with my job hunt. Headhunter lady emailed me that afternoon saying that the lead she thought was a great fit for me didn't think I was all that great of a fit. Back to the drawing board.

Bay Cities Italian Deli
1517 Lincoln Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 395-8279
www.baycitiesitaliandeli.com

Opening Rant: Getting Laid

Off, that is.

Laid off.

Yes, my friends, just recently I became yet another statistic in this jacked-up economy of ours.--one of the almost ten percent unemployed within California's population. It was a Wednesday, I had just come back from a doctor's appointment, and while I knew in advance that some unfortunate souls would be getting their fate handed to them that day, I was naive enough to think that I wasn't one of those unfortunate souls. No, not me. I worked hard. I did alot for the company. I was smarter than so many in so many ways. I was also cute and fun to be around. You get the picture.

It already happened. I am late so I'll just get the story from my buddies later. Poor people.

Undercover Security Guy was sitting in our lobby with pages of photos of the newly unemployed in one hand, walkie-talkie in the other. His eyes followed me as I walked toward the elevator.

Wow, they're really being extra cautious that people don't come back in and go postal.

Not two seconds after I put my bags down did she come over to find me. "Can I talk to you for a minute in my office?"

Shit.

Next was something about the economic climate, and the company cutting costs, and how several people were let go that morning via email (yes email) and something about how I unfortunately was one of those people.

Me? Me?????? Why me???

Something about how this was a really difficult decision and how I was definitely a valuable part of the team and if I ever need anything.

But I have a baby at home...

Something about how that just makes it all that much harder and it was a really, REALLY difficult decision and again if I ever need anything.

I even gave you people a Christmas card with my kid's picture on it.

And then something about how I was only supposed to get my purse and any "essential" things and go downstairs where HR would be talking to us about our packages and something about how I can arrange to have my things packed up later.

OK, whatever you do, do NOT let them see you cry.

The next hour or two were spent in the big conference room with all the other poor saps who were let go waiting to get our packages and walking papers. A little selfish on my part, but I was glad to see a few other people from my department already down there because after all, misery loves company, right? Alas my name was called, my ties to the company were officially broken and I was escorted out to the lobby. I kept the promise to myself not to let them see me cry, but after getting in my car, this little piggy cried wee, wee, wee...all the way home.

And then all I could think about was writing again. Because while I sat and stared for two days, suffering from a bad case of mental diarrhea, still angry and offended from the fact that I was chosen to be let go, thinking back to different happenings at the office during the last few weeks of my employment that would have pointed to me being laid off and kicking myself in the ass that I didn't pick up on it sooner, worried about the fact that we are a dual-income-dependent family with a 7 month old baby and a mortgage, and depressed by the fact that all our investments and retirement accounts are worth less than half of what they were just a few months ago, there was one word that made me feel grounded again...

Home.

Because the truth is that the job I had just lost kept me away from it. It kept me away from my husband and baby from at least 7 to 7 Monday through Friday, it kept me away from the physical dwelling of my home which was always in disarray because I was hardly in it. It kept me away from LA because I had to drive to fucking Orange County everyday. It kept me away from writing...

It feels good to be home again.

Now why not just continue writing for Daily Gluttony, you ask? It's a symbolic move on my part, I guess. The loss of my job, although scary, signals a fresh start for me in more ways than one. It's still me, but with a slightly new look and a lot less disposable income to spend for the time being on eating out. While food is still my primary passion, I think this new angle will give me a little more wiggle room to write about other things I love, because after all, eating (craving) costs money. Complaining (ranting) does not.

Thanks for reading. I'm planning on sticking around this time. I hope you do too.