LA - Day 1 (Furaibo)
Sat, Jul. 1st, 2006 01:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterI am in LA! I managed to not lose my luggage at the airport or have the flight be delayed for too long (it was delayed for an hour, so I spent the extra time in the airport spamming everyone on LJ, as you all probably noticed).
And then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rachelmanija picked me up, and we had dinner at Furaibo, a Japanese izakaya, which is a very casual type of restaurant where you gather with friends after work and drink beer. We didn't have beer, because there was a small table ad for sparkling sake, which didn't taste bad, but wasn't spectaclarly wonderful either. But it was worth trying, just for the novelty.
We got sweet potato croquettes, which Rachel informed me that most people don't get. I completely don't understand this -- they were absolutely delicious and smooth and slightly sweet, with the panko deep-fried outside. We also had garlic greens and pork, which were in a wonderful buttery lemon sauce, and I discovered that garlic greens are very much like very dense green onions, cut into inch-long pieces and sauteed until tender with a whole lot of bacon. So good. I snuck a lot while Rachel was out reparking.
Then there was the beef tataki, which were slightly seared strips of beef, enough so that the insides were still rare and wonderfully tender, with bonito flakes and mashed turnips on top, saba shioyaki (mackerel broiled with salt), which is one of my favorite things, because the skin turns crispy, and it's salty, then you squeeze lemon all over it, and it's got that darker strip of meat next to the skin that tastes wonderfully fishy and oceany, and it's delicate and juicy and the salt and the lemon makes your lips sting.
We also had yaki onigiri, which are just grilled rice balls with soy sauce. It sounds incredibly plain, and yet, it was delicious, crispy and slightly burnt on the outside, with chewy, plump rice, and the slight saltiness of the soy sauce to set it all off. Then there were the chicken wings, which is apparently the specialty of the place. They were delicious as well, fried enough so that the skin was crispy, but not so fried that it was falling off the meat. I love the thin, crispy, salty, slightly sweet skin, and the meat was tender and juicy as well.
I licked my fingers a lot during the meal, and Rachel and I agreed that we would both eat like barbarians.
Then I ogled over all the bookshelves and her pictures of India, and then we mutually ogled over Salty Dog IV and the brain-stopping potential of Hakkai and an orange.
Tomorrow, off for dim sum!
And then
rachelmanija picked me up, and we had dinner at Furaibo, a Japanese izakaya, which is a very casual type of restaurant where you gather with friends after work and drink beer. We didn't have beer, because there was a small table ad for sparkling sake, which didn't taste bad, but wasn't spectaclarly wonderful either. But it was worth trying, just for the novelty. We got sweet potato croquettes, which Rachel informed me that most people don't get. I completely don't understand this -- they were absolutely delicious and smooth and slightly sweet, with the panko deep-fried outside. We also had garlic greens and pork, which were in a wonderful buttery lemon sauce, and I discovered that garlic greens are very much like very dense green onions, cut into inch-long pieces and sauteed until tender with a whole lot of bacon. So good. I snuck a lot while Rachel was out reparking.
Then there was the beef tataki, which were slightly seared strips of beef, enough so that the insides were still rare and wonderfully tender, with bonito flakes and mashed turnips on top, saba shioyaki (mackerel broiled with salt), which is one of my favorite things, because the skin turns crispy, and it's salty, then you squeeze lemon all over it, and it's got that darker strip of meat next to the skin that tastes wonderfully fishy and oceany, and it's delicate and juicy and the salt and the lemon makes your lips sting.
We also had yaki onigiri, which are just grilled rice balls with soy sauce. It sounds incredibly plain, and yet, it was delicious, crispy and slightly burnt on the outside, with chewy, plump rice, and the slight saltiness of the soy sauce to set it all off. Then there were the chicken wings, which is apparently the specialty of the place. They were delicious as well, fried enough so that the skin was crispy, but not so fried that it was falling off the meat. I love the thin, crispy, salty, slightly sweet skin, and the meat was tender and juicy as well.
I licked my fingers a lot during the meal, and Rachel and I agreed that we would both eat like barbarians.
Then I ogled over all the bookshelves and her pictures of India, and then we mutually ogled over Salty Dog IV and the brain-stopping potential of Hakkai and an orange.
Tomorrow, off for dim sum!
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