Something New Something Old at Cafe Bora

There is a import to LA of a famous desserts shop that was a rage in southeast Asia, predominantly South Korea.

Now, why do I even cared about gushing on a place that maybe just a trend for most people?

Of course, it's all about the social media! Just kidding, but still..... it's pretty to look at.

Purple Yam Tiramisu with drinks

This is the dilemma of course. Majority of our pics always wound up on Instagram, short captions or bylines wound up on twitter or FaceBook, visual videos wound up on YouTube, and paragraphs worth of words would wound up here on personal blog or get reposted on publications.

The question we all faced was that if the materials or contents are worth posting on different segments of social media? (ie does the pic look instagrammable or if we can rave about this on Yelp or on our blog?). I wound up facing the same exact question sometimes because of deluge of photos of the same place. This is where I was promised there'll be new stuffs to post.

Strawberry and Sweet Potato Tiramisu with extra toppings on the side, Purple Sweet Potato Chips

Digress, I waited. It took me some time to think about it if it is worthy to post on here or on my instagram account.

After a year of doing Instagram, I met quite a few new users who are passionate about food and some older users who are more into competitions than anything else. It's funny because I don't feel the difference between this segment of the group than the blogging world that I pretty much abandoned for a decade vs this new wild wild world of capturing the moments.

I was quite relieve to start over and meet a ton of new friendly faces who are eager to shine on a stage that is more suited to them than getting ones who are moving on to here from previous platform, but yet cannot adapt to the new frontier.

Persimmons Patbingsoo (shaved ice)

To see the excitement and enthusiasm was the sole reason it bought me here to Cafe Bora. I can get the feeling of the trend of making something excitable from this newer class of "influencers". We called the previous class "media". Both the words of "media" and "influencers" are now met with funny smirk these days. This is a label being used as though you can differentiate the age group with one of those words. haha

As you can see some of the popular and colorful tiramisu, shaved ice, and soft serve are being presented here from the original location that was made popular in South Korea. This brings up to me is what the current trend is calling for... enticement for the younger generation with visual eye-catcher, while making it classy for the elder crowd.

Which asked another harder question: who better to do it? A "Media" with old style ways or the younger crowd with the new "influencing" ways.

The funny thing was, I can tell the marketing efforts on both are a tad different, but it's something both can strive for and still works out in the end for both of them.

The reason I'm here: Sweet Potato Brick Toast

If you ever visited Cafe Bora in heart of Koreatown on the 3rd floor of a shopping center, you will see the divide on the old vs the youth. With that, there's one thing that can combine them together in the ever popular trend of food halls, expansions of aesthetically pleasing background set for selfies, and other dubious creation of glorify colorful food... 

.... something they can all agree on: As long the food is good, it doesn't matter how beautiful or ugly it looks.

For one afternoon, it was glorious.

Cafe Bora (on 3rd Floor of California Market)
450 S Western Ave #308
Los Angeles, CA 90020

Tea Master Matcha Cafe & Green Tea Shop

There were things to contemplate now that I am somewhat back.

First, I looked over some of my old...very old...posts I had written years ago. I do admit some were super outdated. For an odder reason, I even have posts "draft" of old places I was going to publish and never did. Now I definitely won't publish those. C'mon 7 years later and majority of those places are dishes were cease to exist.

I even now asked if it is worth putting posts as a musing, straight on review like I did before, or go totally in different format? It's a toughie for me and I still can't shake the rust I had completely.

To be quite fair, I'm a lone wolf now with maybe a few colleagues I kept in touch with. Majority of them venture off to something else altogether. They all seemed to disappear around the same time as I do. Which was quite a bummer for me. Not depressing, but more to a fact of "oh well".

Coming here to this dessert/coffee/tea joint, a very minimal kind of store that probably can probably swapped to a donut shop in a quick hurry if things were going down. The Tea Master as a name gave an indication that they are a tea shop.

Yeah...... good luck with that. 

Tea shops selling tea leafs are going to get really tough as it is, but I realized that that's not what kept this shop going. It's the soft serve matcha ice cream (dairy flavor). With a topping of matcha powder and hint of green tea flavor, this was an online sensation among people looking to share photos. They don't show the latte (no latte art to show off), definitely won't show off any tea (no fancy tea cups to show off), and no pastries to speak off.

No, their attraction is just one simple thing. This matcha soft serve comes only in one size and one flavor. It's a take it or leave it kinda deal and was a sensational phenomenon that gets volume of small foot traffic sporadically throughout the day.

Hence that's why I was thinking of doing something similar to what Tea Master is doing. Going small until you can really grow or expand. If a donut shop type store can make it in an expensive lease plaza in little tokyo with just one minor dessert, it gives me a bit an array of upbeat feel for the day.

Cheers. May the little guy grow!

Match Soft Serve - $3.75

Tea Master Matcha Cafe & Green Tea Shop

450 2nd St

Los Angeles, CA 90012

A Dessert to forget @ Bon Gelato (Cerritos)

No new info to offer on shaved ice to anyone. However, I just want to show everyone what I got for dessert in my recent trip to my old neighborhood.

After a very dissatisfying meal at a Shabu Shabu place, a couple of my lovely dining companions and I decided to cleanse our tongues from an unfortunate disaster. We hoped that by ordering desserts at an ice cream shoppe that was about 20 steps away will end the night more properly.

Boy, when our luck is bad, it continues to go bad.

Bon Gelato as it was called was more of a tea shop/ice cream/whatever desserts they can come up with for their teenage clientele. Everything from frozen yogurt to shaved ice would be sludge away for our fine young future minds. When I walked inside, a fear hits me that there's a possibilty that I will be the oldest citizen in this establishment. Luckily for me, no one else was here except for our party.

Then it did get me nervous on why we're the only ones here at 8pm when the shop would be closing at 10pm. We will find out why very quickly.

Looking at our shaved ice below, you can see that it comes in a Pyrex measurement cup. The monstrosity included Pebble cereal and some chewy candy mixed in with fruits (strawberries, watermelon, melon, kiwi, and mango) and a scoop of ice cream being lavished by slob of condensed milk. You say "yummy", I say "wow".

Actually I was speechless.

It was an utter disaster that lacked creativity in making this shaved ice. Yes, there is creativity involved and some real thought process on constructing a shaved ice with more plausible ingredients than a Pebble cereal that Fred Flintstone would not approved on a shaved ice.

It only cost me $6 to find it very unpleasing. The two lovely gals didn't want to finish that as I was the only trooper that didn't want to waste his $6. One of us also ordered a frozen yogurt that was no way near Tart. That was very forgettable as well.

I can't say this was the worst dessert I ever had in 2008, but it was such a weird concoction that only a picture can speak for itself.

Bon Gelato
13309 Artesia Blvd
Cerritos, CA 90703
(562) 407-2474

Grade:

Exciting flavors of Ice Cream @ Scoops (Hollywood)

One of the great success stories to come out of 2007 was about this little ice cream parlor next to a sleepy community college that came out of nowhere to be recognized as one of the most talk about place in all of 2007.

Recalling back from last year, not quite sure to whom the credit should be given to for creating the buzz for this place. On one hand, the LA Times article got the ball rolling. Then the chows from Chowhound put up a few topic on the board. Next thing you know, reviews starting to pop up on Yelp.com where users are raving about this place. In a fair and impartial way, everyone deserve equal credit for helping Tai Kim to get where he is today.

For those who didn't know about this place, let's try to recap on what it is special about Scoops.

Tai Kim is what you call these days as the Mad Scientist. He told me that when he started the business, he would try to mix different ingredients for a breed of different taste into one flavor. For every two weeks, he would come up with a menu for different flavors that would be in the store until it runs out. To answer the question, yes, flavors had been known to be sold out before closing time.

In the very beginning when the place just got started, he would be working by himself and the shop would closed on Sunday. Now, he hired a few staff members (I'm guessing from the neighboring LACC) and open for business on Sunday because it just gotten too busy. There is one thing that remain constant though. He briefly told me that the most popular flavor in his shop was Brownbread. Just like Potent Portables on Celebrity Jeopardy, Brownbread would be the only constant in that establishment.

When I first started coming here a year and half ago, the most bizarre flavor I ever got was the fig & wasabi. I wish I was kidding about that. It tasted like peppermint and was very "spicy", but yet it worked pretty well as an ice cream flavor. I don't know how it was possible, but it just does. Spicy ice cream? Believe it.

Over some time, there would be more flavors that would also include vegan soy base for the natural tongues who does not want allergic flavors. That would include flavors that does not include nuts or any additives for those looking for natural base desserts.

What brings me around this time was a promotion of 10 flavors for $10 that Scoops was doing for charity for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Here's what I got out of it:

1. Coconut Horchata
2. Vanilla Jasmine
3. Kobacha Japanese Squash
4. Strawberry Tarragon
5. Coconut Lemon Grass (Vegan Soy Base)
6. Salty Chocolate (Vegan Soy Base)
7. Oolong Tea Maple (Vegan Soy Base)
8. Goat Cheese Lavender
9. Lingoberry Basil
10. Greentea Egg Nog

My favorite one out of that whole group was the Lingoberry Basil. That is something you got to try for yourself and let me know how you proceed to tell me how trippy this whole line-up was. The Salty chocolate is a very good description. It was salty, but the chocolate ice cream still have the unmistakable smooth texture of an ice cream. The salt naturally is an appetite killer and should be eaten last. Not every scoop of flavors will work as an ice cream flavor (noticed the Goat Cheese Lavender?) and then something would surprised you (Coconut Horchata & Kobacha Japanese Squash).

Regular price is $2.75 per scoop, but every scoop includes two flavors. Essentially you get two flavor of ice cream for one scoop. It is an experience you must have for an ice cream dessert. Sometimes I feel like Jackson Pollack would walked into the kitchen and put all the fruits in the blender to see what he can make.

Many people have made the pilgrimage to this store every other week just hoping to get an exciting new flavor they hope to try. Since my fig & wasabi flavor, I had been coming back here checking to see what's new. It never ceased to amaze me, even that day with 10 flavors!

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

Grade:

Park Avenue @ Stanton

As I was looking for a far out dining I have never in the OC, I was never quite prepared for Park Avenue that was located in the sketchy part of Beach Blvd in the city of Stanton. It was surrounded down the street with strip joints and adult book store. You would just never imagined if you were quite in the right neighbor hood for some fine dining.

For a fine steak, I was willing to take that risk!

When you walk in, it's totally a different atmosphere. Very posh of a classy joint. It left me breathless a bit because I didn't expected to be this upscale where the place looked very fancy with some their elegant dining silverware. They even have a person playing romantic songs on the electronic keyboard for soothing decor.

It is totally unexpected and a total polar opposite from what it looked like on the outside and what it presented itself on the inside. Plenty of dining tables and booth seats. I was expecting a burger joint as the generic picture was shown on the main picture of this profile reviews. In a bit, I felt we a little under-dressed, but casual wear is acceptable.

This place does have burgers on their menus, but I would not recommended that unless it's lunch. They have three different menus at dinner time. They have an extensive wine list on one menu, another menu for burgers, and a third menu for the dinner specials. The dinner menu consist of meat and potatoes items such as seafood and steak. It's the one menu I would suggest in ordering from.

Complimentary Bread

In all their dinner special, you do get complimentary bread which at the time it was a Hawaiian sweet roll. The soup of the day was the D'Anjour Pear with Parsnip which has an interesting bitter taste, but have pearl additives to sweetened the taste of the soup. Very interesting mix for that combo for a soup.

Soup of the Day: D'Anjour Pear with Parsnip

I ordered an 8 oz. filet mignon served on top of mashed potatoes and asparagus.

Filet Mignon with mashed potatoes & asparagus

I can honestly this was a beautifully decorated and well presented dish.The steak was also cooked just right with the right amount of serving to leave you full, but not bloated. My friend ordered a Flat Iron Steak on mashed potatoes which was also an excellent choice.

Flat Iron Steak on Mashed Potatoes

As our steak was delicious, one of my friend's gf ordered a salmon with spinach and Spanish fried rice. That was not bad, but I think she missed out couple of very good dish. My filet mignon was on a special, but still will set you back at $32. Yup, very luxe for a place like this and that was a SPECIAL. With a glass of wine and dessert plus the the tip, you can bet I'm putting a $$$$ for this rating. Not cheap, but definitely will worth it.

Salmon with Spinach & Spanish Fried Rice

The service was pretty good for us that night with the place being festive for many people. It can be a great place for romantic dining as the place is lightly dimmed. If they can upgrade the keyboard player to a violin musician, it'll be all good.

For dessert, I suggest getting the creme bulee. It was an excellent choice at this location.

Creme Bulee

Even though the location is very obscure. Don't let the appearance fooled you. It's a very classy upscale place. After the dinner, my friends was still raving about the place and they wanted me to thank me and others who did a great job at pointing out this place.

Especially in a weird shady neighborhood next to a trailer park.

Park Avenue
11200 Beach Blvd
Stanton, CA 90680
(714) 901-4400

Grade:

Gourmet Burgers @ Bouchees Bistro (Long Beach)

Coming to Long Beach sometimes would meant that a compromise would need to be made.

It's hard to convince anyone to come down to the Marketplace plaza unless you're looking for a bargain at Walmart. The area around downtown Long Beach had revitalized a bit in the recent years with more upscale shops that replaced the run down empty spaces of the seedy side of the town.

So it was a breath of fresh of air to see a very nice looking bistro opened up on this side of the town. It's not frequented often, even by some of my companions who lived in the Long Beach area.

I can see how there was no wait service originally. It seemed like when you walk in to the place, there's a cash register with a staff getting ready to take orders. However, I think they changed the format of the restaurant with table napkins and silverwares with a very nice looking glass for water.

Here is the interesting concept I noticed they offered on their menu. A lot of the reviews mentioned mini burgers and smaller portions of the item listed in the menu. This reminds me of either a tasting menu or tasting sample you can choose before getting the real mccoy.

The idea which was straightforward was that you can choose the smaller burgers and sandwiches in a cute miniature version of the original that will set you back anywhere from $2.50-$5.50 each. It is like you taste a nibble of your companion's plate to compare the dishes and next time you will know what to order. Tasting Menu is popular with many of the restaurants because you want to try a taste of everything or a lot of things where you can get the feeling if you like the taste of the food or not.

Jumbo Lump Crab Cake with lemon caper aloli , sautee wild mushroom, vegetable medley and parmessan herb fries

It works great for me because I definitely have a strong feeling on what to order from this place.Some of my highlights of what was in store for me:

Jumbo Crap Lump Sandwich

The Jumbo Crab Lump Sandwich was my sandwich or burger of the night. This was the most satisfying item I had as it was fabulous to stuff down. It felt like a crab cake in a bun that was devoured within two or three bites. It was fresh and hot off the grill and should be eaten right away.

American Beef Burger with Cedar Cheese

The American Beef Burger with Cheddar Cheese is the most seasoned burger I had for the night. I think of all the dishes I would ordered for a gourmet burger at full size would be this one. Burgers are very contemporary and a classic that often can be easily made without a regards. This one took some care to it.

Turkey Burger

Apple Bacon Chipotle Bacon Chiptole

I also ordered two other burgers like an Apple Bacon Chipotle Cheeseburger and a Turkey burger. All four of these mini would go well with the garlic Parmessan fries. Very well seasoned and worth getting it on the side.

Garlic Parmessan Fries

They also have some wonder milk shakes that goes well the burger. It would be a shame not to include that with the meal. The one big thing that goes great with an All-American meal like this would be the dessert and nothing says it better than an awesome Peanut Butter Oatmeal Gelato Ice cream sandwich.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Gelato Ice Cream Sandwich

If you were not full before, this will test the stretchy pants you forgot to wear. I heard the cupcakes were excellent here also as the chef made the frosting with his own unique recipe. That cupcake wowed the entire table.I like the service at this place. Even if we have a good number of people in our table, our waitress pretty much worked all the tables that day and still wound up catering to everyone's need. On a slow night, it's still pretty good job considering she manned the register and wait on every table.

Parmessan and Herb French Fries

The place at least put some imagination on what to do with a burger with some unique twist. Getting the mini on all the burgers, sandwich, and soup is a good idea to get the people to try out many items on dish. The whole purpose was to sell and in a way on that I would wind up spending more by ordering a bunch of the minis than I would have if I only one full size burger. That was a brilliant strategy in my mind.

I would definitely come back to this very inviting place and try out the rest of the mini items. I have more fun doing it this way than just ordering one thing on the plate.

The only thing that is needed to be super-size would be the ice cream sandwich. That will bust the gut!

Bouchees Bistro

515 Long Beach Blvd

Long Beach, CA 90803

(562) 951-8222

Grade: