Yakitori Taisho

by Jinxi // 01/23/2015 // No Comments

One of S and my new “obsessions” is yakitori… Hinotez and Yokohama Yakitori Koubou are part of our regular rotations now (we love Yakyudori, too, but it gets quite crowded so we visit less often). So when we saw rave reviews of Yakitori Taisho, the newest sister restaurant of Yakyudori and Hinotez, we made plans for a visit.

Located in the Smart & Final strip mall on Clairemont Mesa Blvd, Yakitori Taisho wasn’t exactly in the nicest part of town. But it’s the food that matters to us.

After reading Kirk’s posts as well as the review by the guys at San Diego Food Net, we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to order.

Tsukimi Tororo: grated nagaimo yam with quail egg [$5.5]

Mekabu Natto: mekabu seaweed and fermented soybeans with quail egg [$5.5]

Our friend A wanted the tororo – I tried it for the first time and quite liked it, although I still preferred the natto, which was a pungent, savory, and perfect way to start my meal.

One of the nice things that we discovered was that even though the menu says each order is two skewers, we could actually order 3 since we had 3 people.

Bara (pork belly) [$2/ea], Sunazuri (chicken gizzard) [$1.75/ea]

Pork Belly (bara) [$2/ea], Chicken Gizzard (sunazuri)[$1.75/ea]

The pork belly was nice and fatty, with plenty of smoky flavor from the binchotan (well, everything did). It tasted quite similar to the version at Taisho’s sister restaurants. The gizzard had a nice “crunch” and “chew”.

Pork with Shiso (butashiso) [$2.5/ea], Chicken Thigh with Onion (torinegima) [$2.25/ea]

The butashiso here was outstanding – we all agreed that it’s the best butashiso we’ve had in SD so far. The pork was moist, tender, and flavorful, and the shiso was subtle but added a nice, noticeable layer. The chicken thigh with onions – instead of the usual green onions – was definitely interesting. I think I still prefer green onions, but the chicken itself was quite delicious.

Chicken Heart (hatsu) [$1.75/ea]

I was hoping to try the chicken vein, but alas they ran out. Chicken heart is one of S’s faves, so of course we had to try it. It was pretty good, although not super memorable.

Grilled Scallop (hotate yaki) [$7.50]

This was from their “Appetizer & Salad” section – scallops grilled over the binchotan charcoal. I LOVE that they give you the entirety of the scallop instead of just the inner part (I do not know what the technical term is…). It was smoky, tender, and had plenty of that “fresh seafood” flavor (which I don’t think S actually liked that much. He just likes the normal scallops. But I liked this a lot!).

Chicken Skin (kawa) [$2.4/ea]

Our last skewer of the evening was chicken skin. It was grilled perfectly, with the right amount of crunch. Even S, who doesn’t normally enjoy chicken skin, liked this.

Grilled Sliced Beef Tongue [$10]

Grilled sliced beef tongue was on the specials board that night, and after some deliberation we decided to try it out. I really enjoyed it!

Fried Chicken Cartilage [$6]

At this point, we were getting full, but I was craving something deep-fried, so we ordered the chicken cartilage off of the specials board. These were crispy and crunchy and satisfied my craving.

Nori Chazuke [$5.5]

Last but not least, rice with seaweed in a green tea broth. This was simple but a perfect way to end a delicious meal!

Overall, we really enjoyed our dinner at Yakitori Taisho. Many of the items were similar to Yakyudori or Hinotez, but some of them definitely stood out – such as the butashiso. Although its price point is slightly higher, I liked it so much here that I’m sure a revisit will be happening soon!

Specials Board

Yakitori Taisho
5185 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, San Diego, CA 92117

Trinitea

by Jinxi // 01/21/2015 // 1 Comment

S and I are always on the lookout for new milk tea shops, so when we read about Trinitea on Kirbie and CC‘s blogs, we decided to try it out. Although we’re rarely in Hillcrest, we found an opportunity to visit after having lunch at Streetcar Merchants.

The place was quite spacious, with the ordering counter tucked away in a corner and lots of tables. I think they’re trying to make it into a cool “hang out” spot, with board games and wifi and whatnot.

Close-up of the menu. They have pretty much the “standard” milk tea offerings as well as a bunch of coffees, blended drinks, and flavored teas. Continue reading →

85C Bakery Cafe

by Jinxi // 01/19/2015 // 4 Comments

A couple of months ago, the famous Taiwanese bakery 85°C Bakery Cafe opened a location in San Diego! I’ve visited the Irvine location (the first store in the U.S.) several times in the past, and I was really excited to finally see a store here in SD.

85°C is located near the intersection of Balboa Ave & Genessee Ave, in the Vons shopping center. There wasn’t much of a line during our first couple of visits, although I’ve read accounts of really long waits to get inside!

I wanted to get some pictures of the interior, but it was really crowded which didn’t make for good photos. I’ll just share some pics of my haul from my first 2 visits:

Egg Tart

Coconut Custard Roll

These are two of S and my go-to’s – the egg tarts from 85°C are better than all other ones I’ve had in various bakeries around San Diego (Paris Baguette, Pangea, 99 Ranch Market). The shells are flaky, and the center is a smooth and rich custard. S also really loves the coconut custard roll cake, simply because he’s a fan of vanilla and coconut.

Pork Sung Bun

Cheese Dog Bun

Continue reading →

Streetcar Merchants of Fried Chicken, Doughnuts & Coffee

by Jinxi // 01/14/2015 // 5 Comments

We recently learned about Streetcar Merchants of Fried Chicken, Doughnuts & Coffee through Eater SD. Unfortunately, getting sick over the holidays meant that fried chicken plans had to be put on hold, but we made a visit as soon as we started feeling better, hehe.

I’m not sure why they picked such a mouthful for the name, but at least it’s quite clear what they sell.

The first word that comes to mind to describe this place is… hipster. So we were actually initially quite skeptical about the fried chicken. There are three “styles” – Southern fried, Korean twice-fried and glazed, and Nashville “hot” chicken. I really wanted to try the hot chicken, but since I still had a cough, it probably wasn’t a good idea that day. So we got “quarter birds” of the Southern and Korean styles. The fried chicken is made to order, so there was a slight wait, but it wasn’t too bad.

Southern Fried Chicken – Quarter Bird Dark [$8]

I was a tad disappointed that quarter bird only meant two pieces, so we had to split them between three of us (we were dining with our friend). However, the fried chicken itself did not disappoint – the batter was perfectly crunchy, the chicken was juicy and tender and flavorful – I really enjoyed it.

K-Town Twice Fried Chicken – Quarter Bird Dark with Molasses Wasabi BBQ [$10]

The K-Town twice fried chicken was less spectacular in my opinion. There were a variety of sauces to choose from, and we picked the molasses wasabi BBQ – initially we had asked for it on the side, but they messed up and gave it to us already glazed. Oh well. I didn’t like this as much.

6 Whole Wings – Southern style [$12]

Continue reading →

Sea & Smoke revisit

by Jinxi // 01/12/2015 // 8 Comments

I first visited Sea & Smoke shortly after its opening – along with fellow bloggers Mary and Faye – and really loved it, but haven’t found the time to return until recently. This time, I brought S and our friend A, both of whom haven’t been here before. The menu has changed quite a bit since my last post, so I was quite excited to try some new things.

Ode to Oaxaca [$9]

A decided to try the Ode to Oaxaca cocktail, which is made with mezcal, amaro bitters, citrus, and ginger syrup. It was quite good, with plenty of smokiness from the mezcal.

Basil Cream Biscuits with garlic herb butter [$7]

We had a hard time deciding whether to try the biscuits or skillet cornbread – but since S and A both aren’t huge fans of cornbread, we chose the biscuits. I remember really liking the biscuits at Urban Solace, the sister restaurant of Sea & Smoke, so it was no surprise that these were so good – a nice golden crust, with fluffy and buttery layers. The garlic herb butter spread was also quite delicious.

Grass-Fed Beef Tartare: shallots, chives, capers, parmesan, black pepper crème fraîche, poached egg [$12]

I enjoyed the poached egg but thought that the seasoning on the beef was a bit light.

Vanilla Scented Beet Salad: orange, arugula pesto, pistachio, garlic goat cheese, cress leaves, citrus vin [$10.5]

Continue reading →

Thanksgiving in Texas: Seven Mile Cafe

by Jinxi // 01/09/2015 // 4 Comments

Over Thanksgiving, I visited my family in Texas – it was a really nice long weekend filled with delicious food and fun times (many of which I documented on my Instagram). One of the special things that I did during my trip was spend some time hanging out with my big sister in Denton, where she lives. Her boyfriend is a manager at Seven Mile Cafe, one of the city’s popular brunch spots, so of course I had to check it out.

There are actually two separate buildings to the cafe – a coffee shop and restaurant, and we stopped by the coffee shop first.

The cafe serves both a house roast and Stumptown Coffee. The baristas, who are friends with Sis, recommended the Stumptown rotating single origin, which happened to be Guatemala.

NOLA Iced Coffee and Pour-Over Coffee

Sis got the NOLA, which is sweetened cold brew with milk. I don’t have much experience with cold brew, but this was nice and refreshing.

After getting our coffees, we walked over to the restaurant, where we were presented with the difficult choice of what to order! Sis was really excited and wanted me to try everything.

In the end, we decided on…

Pulled Pork Breakfast Tacos

These breakfast tacos were awesome – stuffed with tender and flavorful pulled pork, scrambled eggs, cheese, and hash browns – yes that’s right, hash browns. Really crispy ones. So good!

Benny Sampler: Eggs Florentine and Chicken Apple Sausage

One of the things that I thought was really neat was the “benny sampler” – you can choose any two from their selection of Eggs Benedicts. I tried the Eggs Florentine, which had sautéed spinach and tomatoes, and the Chicken Apple Sausage – I enjoyed both of them but preferred the chicken apple sausage a bit more! Both were served on a toasted biscuit instead of English muffin – the biscuit was great, but I still think that I prefer my benedicts on the muffin. The hollandaise sauce was served on the side and was rich but not overpowering. Finally, the benedicts come with a side of hash browns, or an upgrade to smoked gouda grits for an extra 75 cents. Oh boy, that was a really hard decision for me… in the end, I chose the grits. It came out a bit dry – sis and her boyfriend said that the grits are better first thing in the morning – but it was still super yummy. I loved that they sprinkled green onions on top!

Pineapple Upside-Down Pancakes

Lastly, we had to try some of the famous pancakes. Sis and I had the HARDEST time deciding what flavor to get, and in the end, we picked the pineapple upside-down. I loved the caramelized pineapple chunks inside and the cinnamon butter that was served alongside. Initially I was also worried that it would be too sweet, but it turned out to be perfect. I haven’t had such good pancakes in quite a long time.

Overall, I had a really wonderful time at Seven Mile Cafe. It was great to finally get to know my sister’s city a bit better, and this was just one of the several great meals we had together. Many thanks to Sis for bringing me here, and Sis’s boyfriend for cooking some delicious food for us! For any DFW-area readers out there, if you’re ever up in Denton, be sure to check out this place for brunch!

Seven Mile Cafe
311 W. Congress St, Denton, TX 76201
http://www.sevenmilecafe.com/

Sushi Mura

by Jinxi // 01/07/2015 // 2 Comments

Sushi Mura, located in Liberty Station, opened about a year ago and has been recommended to me several times. Finally, S and I decided to go check it out along with our friend who’s been here before.

The place wasn’t too big, but also didn’t have many customers that day. I briefly thought about sitting at the sushi counter, but decided that I wanted to have a good view of the TV, which was playing the Chargers vs. 49ers game. (I’m still sad about the Chargers’ season. But go Cowboys! Also, how many readers did I just lose from that?)

Their menu included a bunch of sushi options, as well as rice and ramen. We got an assortment of different items, but mostly focused on sushi.

Miso soup

Our meals came with miso soup… I didn’t enjoy it too much, though – I remember it being really salty.

Tonkotsu ramen [$10]

S’s tonkotsu ramen arrived first – we had heard that the broth was pretty good and wanted to try it. The broth was pretty rich and flavorful, not too salty (in fact, I thought it could have used a tad more salt), and the noodles were decently spring-y. The toppings were fairly standard, and overall we thought this was a good, but not super exciting, bowl of tonkotsu ramen.

Mura Mini Omakase [$29]

S chose the “mini” omakase, which includes 10 pieces of nigiri. I can’t exactly remember what all of them were, boo, but I know that S really enjoyed the salmon, amberjack, and halibut.

Monkfish liver (ankimo) [$5]

Continue reading →

Blue Korea House

by Jinxi // 01/05/2015 // 10 Comments

S and I recently tried out Blue Korea House as part of our “try-every-Korean-BBQ-restaurant-in-SD” quest. We saw that it had high reviews on Yelp, but didn’t know anyone who had actually eaten there… so we decided to check it out, along with a couple of our friends.

The first thing that we noticed was that the menu design looked super similar to Dae Jang Keum’s… I wish that I had gotten a picture of it. It made me wonder whether they had the same owner? Or perhaps someone who previously worked at DJK decided to open Blue Korea House?

Anyway, this place is also a non-AYCE Korean BBQ joint – over the past year, S and I have gravitated towards those instead of the all-you-can-eats, since we tend to overstuff ourselves too much, and the experience becomes less enjoyable.

Shortly after ordering, we were presented with the usual assortment of banchan (side dishes):

Continue reading →

Chicago Trip Recap, Part 5: Honey Butter Fried Chicken

by Jinxi // 01/02/2015 // 6 Comments

Another Chicago recap post… while writing my 2014 year-in-review, I realized that I still have several posts left from Chicago that I haven’t written.

We visited Honey Butter Fried Chicken not once, but twice during our short 5-day trip, because yes it was that good. At the time we were there, S’s sister V was working there as a line cook, so we got some extras along with our meals.

The restaurant is located a bit out of the way of city center (although still quite easily accessible by the metro and bus). It’s actually right down the street from the ever-famous-but-now-closed Hot Doug’s… which we didn’t get to visit because the lines were crazy long. Sob.

S and I have really missed good fried chicken since moving to California, so we were both ultra excited. V told us that basically everything on the menu is good, so we ordered a variety of items to try out (good thing we had four people).

4-Piece Fried Chicken [$15]

The special thing about the fried chicken here is that it’s de-boned. Sounds blasphemous, I know, but HBFC (sort of) makes up for that by brining the chicken so that it’s still juicy as ever. The batter is perfectly crisp and has amazing flavor – we especially loved the smoky paprika. V didn’t tell us beforehand that we could ask for all dark meat, so we got a mix of white and dark here, but obviously the dark meat was better.

We also didn’t know that we were supposed to slather their house-whipped honey butter ONTO the fried chicken… Sounds like a heart attack, but trust me, you need to do this. The light sweetness of the honey complemented the smoky fried chicken really nicely, and of course, it added some extra juiciness. It was so, so good.

The Original Fried Chicken Sandwich [$8]

We also tried the fried chicken sandwich. To be honest, I’ve always been a bigger fan of straight-up fried chicken than the sandwich version, but this was also really good – the candied jalapeño mayo was super yummy.

Finally, we also shared an order of the honey buffalo wings.

Honey Buffalo Wings [$5]

The flavors were good, and the wings were fried quite nicely. I sort of wished that we had ordered a few more pieces of fried chicken instead, though – just couldn’t get my mind off of them, hehe.

On that visit, we tried several of their sides – collard greens, creamed corn, roasted sweet potato salad, and watermelon salad. I really loved the creamed corn and watermelon salad – unfortunately, my pictures didn’t turn out so well…

Anyway, on our last full day in Chicago, S and I insisted to V that we make another trip. She was kind enough to go with us, even though I’m sure she was looking forward to having her day off from working there… Continue reading →

2014 Recap

by Jinxi // 12/31/2014 // 6 Comments

What a year it has been! I’ve been thinking about this recap post for quite some time, and to be honest, I’m not sure how to quite capture it all in one manageable blog entry.

S and I started 2014 in Taiwan – we were in the beautiful city of Kenting, the southern-most tip of the island. Here was the first sunset of 2014:

I wrote a series of posts about this Taiwan trip – check them out here: parts one, two, three, four, and five.

After returning to San Diego, we had one of the best meals of our year, at George’s California Modern. My favorite dish from that meal was actually a salad, with chanterelle mushrooms and a perfectly-cooked soft egg:

Earlier this year, S and I were ecstatic to discover that one of our favorite sandwich chains, Firehouse Subs, has come to the West Coast! Firehouse was basically one of our college staples, and we really love this restaurant’s dedication to high quality ingredients, as well as the Southern flair in their flavor profiles. We were so excited to meet one of the founders of the restaurant, Robin, and we’ve been regular customers at Firehouse for the past year!

Speaking of sandwiches, Supernatural Sandwiches opened up a shop on Miramar Road – it’s also quickly become one of our favorites!

Throughout the year, we’ve also made several trips up to LA/Orange County. Just a few of the yummy things that we ate there included…

…this yummy marinated beef sandwich at Four Sea Restaurant in Irvine…

…the famous Iced Milk Drink at Half & Half Tea House…

…and this delicious bowl featuring four types of uni from Maruhide Uni Club.

Our big trip this year was to Chicago, which quickly became one of my favorite cities (yes, I’ve only been there in the summer). I had so many amazing meals there, but the highlight was definitely Topolobampo, by Rick Bayless. S and I still reminisce about that mole negro:

You can read about my Chicago trip recaps here: part one, two, three, four. I’m still not done posting, by the way!

Over the summer, a snow-shaved ice pop-up shop called Iceskimo opened up on Convoy St, and we became frequent customers!

They now have a brick-and-mortar shop, which I actually haven’t had a chance to visit yet (I blame it on the cold weather). Hopefully it will warm up soon enough for me to crave some ice!

One recurring theme on this blog is S and my love for Korean BBQ. This year, we decided to venture out of the all-you-can-eat realm a little bit and checked out a couple of non-AYCE KBBQ places around town.

First up, Dae Jang Keum, which actually uses a charcoal grill instead of gas. I loved that you can order an entire ribeye steak!

We also paid a few visits to Buga Korean BBQ, which had the best brisket in my opinion, out of all the KBBQ places that I’ve visited so far.

We also checked out Gyu-Kaku, which is a Japanese BBQ place, for my birthday!

We also had a few fancy meals in addition to our Restaurant Week outings, which included an anniversary celebration at Juniper & Ivy:

And also a spur-of-the-moment, super fun date night at Table No. 10!

In addition to dining out, I also tried to expand my cooking and baking repertoire this year. Looking through my posts, I realized that lemon was featured in several recipes. My favorite was this Meyer lemon cream cheese coffee cake that I made as part of a campaign for Alex’s Lemonade Stand:

I also finally got a mini donut pan! The first thing that I made with them were these mini cinnamon sugar donuts:

I also finally acquired some high quality matcha powder and made these cute little matcha shortbread cookies!

In addition to baking sweets, I also shared a few simple dinner recipes, including a round-up of some of my favorite slow-cooker dinners:

Another simple recipe that I shared was spaghetti with meat sauce – my personal version of it.

And, I’m also quite proud of the Valentine’s Day dinner that I put together for S and me!

You know we’re carnivores… so of course I was particularly happy with the steak that I made.

There are so, so many more moments that I wanted to include in this round-up, but I think I’ll end with one of my year’s highlights, the South Bay Food Crawl hosted by CC of Pink Candles at Ridgemont High!

S and I loved getting to know a little more about this city which we now called ‘home’. The food and culture in the South Bay is often overlooked when thinking about San Diego, but we truly loved how simple yet rich and vibrant it is! We are definitely planning to do another food crawl there soon.

So with that, I will leave you with the best wishes for the new year! May your 2015 be filled with happiness, success, and of course, lots of good eats!

« Older posts

Jinxi Eats

Food adventures in San Diego and beyond

Yakitori Taisho

Trinitea

85C Bakery Cafe

Streetcar Merchants of Fried Chicken, Doughnuts & Coffee

Sea & Smoke revisit

Thanksgiving in Texas: Seven Mile Cafe

Sushi Mura

Blue Korea House

Chicago Trip Recap, Part 5: Honey Butter Fried Chicken

2014 Recap

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: