Having lived in Los Angeles the last 5 years including the South Bay/Gardena/Torrance areas, I’ve always sought after my personal BEST ramen place. The best ramen place to me must have a tasty well balanced broth and good tasting thick noodles.

Per recommendations, I checked out Ramen Hayatemaru in Torrance partly because they have half bowl sizes, so you can try more than 1 flavor.

I typically like my ramen noodles thicker because I like to slurp (excuse my manners) my noodles like Naruto. The noodles at this place are pretty good. They were cooked well where they weren’t chewy but were slightly more cooked than al dente.

Earlier this week, I reviewed the Ink tasting menu that appeared approximately 2 months after open. Today I went to Ink again to sample his food again. I will be blunt and say tonight was by far the BEST LA expensive food that I’ve had. Let’s get straight to what was on the menu.

Note for 2022 migration: this is an old post from my other defunct blog. On this night, Michael Voltaggio was helming the meat station, so my friend and I were in awe that he touched our beef course. I vividly remember that the course was sublime, and if this was the future of the LA food scene, I was super excited to see this restaurant’s future and contribution. Unfortunately and understandably, this restaurant closed in 2017 because he had outgrew it.

Burger Bar is a small burger chain by French chef Hubert Keller. This place is basically a higher scale build-your-own burger restaurant where just about every ingredient costs some extra money.

Note for 2022 migration: this is an old post from my other defunct blog. Las Vegas, even back in 2012, was pretty cool for a food haven. They had a ton of options, and they go through turnover pretty quickly. This restaurant as of this edit is surprisingly still open. I remember they were infamous for having a $100 burger which had lobster and truffles on it. It was definitely too rich for me though I had a $70 white truffle burger in New York City in 2017.

This is a very small restaurant in the lower east side, so be prepared to share tables if necessary. In my blog of NYC eats, I totally forgot to blog about this one. This place is supposedly known for their spicy margaritas. My party each ordered habanero margaritas, and they were delectable. They were spicy with a kick, but not overbearing. For many, habaneros are already daunting. But once you soak the habanero into the tequila, it’s really not that bad in terms of spicy.

In preparation for my second visit to Ink, I’ve finally got off my ass to review and post my original Ink experience. If you don’t know already, this is Michael Voltaggio’s first restaurant that he opened up here in West Hollywood. It’s his take on modern LA cuisine. I was looking forward to try some of his creations, so let’s see what it’s all about.

Note for 2022 migration: this is an old post from my other defunct blog. I recall molecular gastronomy being a very hot thing at this time, and after watching the Voltaggio brothers compete on Top Chef, I was super excited to try out this restaurant. On this night, I remember seeing him directing traffic in his kitchen.

This was a special night where Top Chef Marcus Samuelsson creates a culinary experience with the dynamic duo of Son Of A Gun. The menu was nothing like their normal menu. Marcus Samuelsson greeted most, if not all, of the guests during my visit. You can tell he was very appreciative for us patrons to experience this. Not only did he prepare food for us, but he also presented a signed copy of his memoir book “Yes Chef”. I read the first chapter before I decided to write this. The book seems to document his journey through life and show how passionate he is with the culinary arts.

It was my cousin’s birthday, so she wanted to try this place because of all the rave Yelp reviews. Took the train to downtown LA and then hiked about a mile to this place. I hadn’t seen any of the reviews yet, but I personally take Yelp reviews like a grain of salt because from past experiences my palette seems to be very much different than the majority (or maybe it’s just that I’m picky?). I jumped into this restaurant without much thought, so let’s see what came out of it.

In Las Vegas, Rick Moonen’s Seafood at the Mandalay Bay is suppose to be pretty good. There are 2 restaurants of his here: one is the fixed course meal higher end restaurant, and the other (this one) is just a middle tier restaurant. The menu is a little strange as they have your typical American no frills seafood AND sushi. My buddy ordered the sushi portions, and he was quite unimpressed. Then again, I would never order sushi from a restaurant like this.

This will be my last NY food post for a while. For the last day to cap off the trip, we went to Rice To Riches in Nolita. This was actually really close to our Blue Ribbon meal a few posts ago. Rice To Riches is basically the equivalent to Baskin Robbins 31 flavors in LA. Instead of many choices of ice cream, you have many choices for tapioca. You also have the option of sampling any flavor that you want. I’m not a huge tapioca person, but I was willing to give this a try

The SAAM at Bazaar by Jose Andres is well known for its take on molecular gastronomy. It’s located in the SLS Hotel off of La Cienega near West Hollywood. It’s filled with your typical pretentious and superficial Hollywood crowds. If you can get past that, there are 2 restaurants here of note: the regular restaurant where you can order tapas and the SAAM restaurant where it’s a 22 course prix fix taster. Since I’m more than likely to not go to the same high end restaurant again, I decided to go big.