Archive for December 2012

Hannosuke Now Offers Chicken and Crispier Tempura

It was inevitable. Because even in the most Japanese of Japanese food courts, man cannot live on seafood and vegetables alone. In L.A., there has to be chicken. Because even though Hannosuke, the tempura specialist in West L.A.’s Mitsuwa Market, added a vegetable tempura bowl earlier in the year you knew the menu wasn’t going to be complete until chicken made an appearance. And sure enough there it was on my visit yesterday: chicken tempura. But the joke’s on you Los Angeles chicken lovers! Check out the big surprise after the jump…

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KTown’s Toe Bang Has a Pretty Great $10 Lunch Special

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Between Koreatown, Thai Town, the South Bay, Westminster, and the SGV, Los Angeles has no shortage of hilariously unfortunate, lost in translation restaurant names.  Of course when you discover one such place you have two options: be an adult and try to make sense of what the owners could have possibly meant (“It must be pronounced Toh Bahng, right?”).  Or just spend your entire lunch making foot based happy ending jokes.  I chose the latter.

But the truth is, it wasn’t the potential comedy that drew me to Toe Bang, the popular late night drinking spot in the same Koreatown plaza as Ho Dong Baekjeong.  It was their too good to be true sounding lunch specials, which I had read about here. That, plus I wanted to see if I could get a foot massage with my spicy pork. (Wait… that  doesn’t sound right. Or does it?)

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Lunch Links (The “RIP Robot Sushi” Edition)

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RIP U-Sushi. We might be the only ones… but we’ll miss you.

  • BEVERLY HILLS U-Sushi has closed [Eater]
  • CULVER CITY A katsu specialist is coming to Washington next month [Grub St.]
  • CULVER CITY Hello Cafe Creole! [Squid Ink]
  • DTLA People are really excited about The Melt [Eater]
  • DTLA Urbano Pizza Bar is moving [LAT]
  • KTOWN Kalbi Burger has closed [Eater]
  • SAMO Hole in the Wall Burger Joint is expanding [Eater]

Your First Look at the Food From ROC Star Dumpling

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Apparently the grand opening of ROC Star Dumpling happened over the weekend on Sawtelle, but they’ve actually been open and serving food for well over a week.  Last Monday they “soft opened” for lunch with a fairly decent sized menu of dumplings, appetizers, entrees, a rice dish, a noodle dish, and a bunch of vegetable dishes all priced from $7 to $16.  Apparently the chef used to work at The Slanted Door, and words like “elevated” “local” “sustainable” and “fresh” have been thrown around.  But most of us have just one question… When the soup dumpling craving hits, is this place going to save west-siders a trip to Din Tai Fung?

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