int64.org

Little Tokyo

Check out Cuba Central

There’s this nice lit­tle Cuban place in Lit­tle Tokyo called Cuba Cen­tral. I don’t know if it’s just the times I’m going there, but every time I grab din­ner I’m amazed the place isn’t packed. The ropa vieja — holy crap, it looks so de­cep­tively sim­ple but what­ever they throw in to make that sauce is in­cred­i­ble. Give them some busi­ness, grab some good food!

Kendo and Ramen

Today I went down to Lit­tle Tokyo to grab some ramen for lunch, and hap­pened upon the Cherry Blos­som Fes­ti­val. I only stayed a lit­tle while, to see some sumo and kendo per­for­mances.

I got there late for the sumo un­for­tu­nately, but I did get to see a few matches where Dan Kalbfleisch wiped the floor with some other guys.

The kendo demon­stra­tion started with sen­sei Cary Yoshio Mi­zobe per­form­ing tameshi­giri—cut­ting a tatami omote with a katana. His stu­dents went on from there to show off their moves with shi­nai. Sen­sei Mi­zobe was ex­plain­ing one of the moves: tsuki, a stab to the throat ap­par­ently dif­fi­cult enough that he only lets his black belt stu­dents per­form it, to lessen the risk of not hav­ing enough pre­ci­sion and in­jur­ing the op­po­nents. He said he was hired to train Brit­tany Mur­phy to per­form it for her new movie, The Ramen Girl. The only prob­lem is, they wanted him to train her on this ad­vanced move in eight hours. His only ad­vice was to to­tally fake it out with cam­era tricks, or risk in­jury. Thought that was funny :)

Nabe shuts down, in comes Shabu Shabuyo

Nabe en­tered Lit­tle Tokyo about a year ago, bring­ing with it a new choice for shabu shabu. I often went there in­stead of Shabu Shabu House sim­ply be­cause I didn’t want to brave the per­pet­ual 45-60min lines. The food was good, and they had lots of de­cent ap­pe­tiz­ers. De­spite hav­ing great food, Nabe was void of cus­tomers every time I ate there. Alas, no­body can com­pete with Shabu Shabu House: they where the first shabu shabu restau­rant in the USA and have had a lot of time to grow buzz and per­fect their fla­vor. It was only a mat­ter of time. The mon­ster has killed yet an­other com­peti­tor.

I went down­town last night and was woe­fully dis­ap­pointed to dis­cover some­one in their place: Shabu Shabuyo. A small menu, split ce­ramic pots, elec­tric heaters that don’t bring the water to a boil, crappy cheap chop­sticks, and re­ally re­ally bad music play­ing. This place bet­ter find some­thing good to pro­vide quick or they’ll be going out of busi­ness in record time.

Odd new ramen place in Little Tokyo

Just tried this new ramen place in­side Weller Court called Chin-Ma-Ya of Tokyo, right below the in­fa­mous Oro­chon Ramen. Their spe­cialty is tan tan men, a fu­sion of ramen with Chi­nese dan dan mian. They serve it with three lev­els of spice, and I or­dered the spici­est “orig­i­nal”. The broth was good – very thick and murky, lots of good fla­vor, and ad­e­quately spicy. It lost a bit in the top­pings, com­ing with ground beef, ground pork, and only a few stray bits of spinach. I got a side of gyoza, which while not the worst I’ve had where def­i­nitely far from the best.

But where it re­ally failed was the noo­dles. The first bite im­me­di­ately made me think of some­thing I never thought would come to mind in a ramen place: my mom bak­ing cook­ies. Cu­ri­ously tak­ing an­other bite, I tasted it again. The fla­vor was al­most like unsweet­ened cookie dough. I’m usu­ally down for try­ing new things, some fla­vors need to just grow on you. But after eat­ing half the bowl I couldn’t take any more – the heav­i­ness of the noo­dles com­bined with such a strange fla­vor was too much for me.

Looks like Daikokuya gets to keep their crown, with San Sui Tei com­ing in sec­ond if the Daikokuya line is un­bear­ably long. Last time I went to San Sui Tei, they cooked up some fresh choco­late-filled mochi balls for me. Not sure if they will be the norm or if they where test­ing them on me as a re­cur­ring cus­tomer, but they where good!

68th Annual Nisei Week has begun!

Nisei week is a fes­ti­val oc­cur­ing this week in Los An­ge­les’ Lit­tle Tokyo. If you’re in the area and look­ing for a good time, check it out—most of it is free! I will be at­tend­ing the REMIX con­cert on Sat­ur­day, and the Taiko Gath­er­ing on Sun­day. UCLA’s Kyodo Taiko and NSU Mod­ern will rock the house :D.