Bulgogi Sunrise

Hodori is a 24/7 korean restaurant in the corner of Olympic and Vermont.   A staple to a lot of late night clubbers wishing to let the spicy foods sober them up closer to a lucid state. The service can be really awful when the place is busy but terrific when there are only a few customers. 

The array of banchans served.   The seaweed soup is served hot and very welcoming on a cold winter morning.

One of the things I love about Los Angeles is the immense diversity of food at anytime of the day, and any day in the week.  In Koreatown,  you can have bulgogi anytime even for breakfast.  Hot steamy and sizzling on a bed of onions served in an iron skillet.   Delicious.

Hodori

1001 S Vermont Ave.

Los Angeles, CA 90006

(213) 383-3554

Chicken Day: A Damn Good Chicken

Located in the middle corner of a strip mall on Western in Koreatown is Chicken Day.  A Korean style chicken place.  Parking is strictly valet in the basement for a buck.  Free if you can find street parking after hours.  The place is spacious with indoor and patio seating.  Several paintings on the wall with a common theme, chicken :).   There is a counter on the right side when you go in, this is where we made our orders and proceeded to get seated to wait.  There is a large flat screen TV on the wall playing Korean shows, some with English subtitles.  The owner was the one who took our orders and served our food, she was very friendly, conversational and accomodating.  Not afraid to speak English.  Eventhough, I know it was a little difficult for her to do so.  She gave us something in a plate, three, one for each of us, white and small which I thought were marshmallows.   It was the wet towelettes  for our hands :).   

Chicken Day Salad $ 3.45, this is delicious, the sweet pineapple puree was a surprisingly good dressing.  Very refreshing.  It compliments the spicy chicken very well.

Special Spicy Sauce Chicken Boneless $ 14.90,  this is a lot of chicken 22 pieces.  Almost like Bufallo chicken,  it is sweet and sour, very garlicky and a little spicy.  I was expecting to get toasted on the spiciness level like in Kyochon and Bonchon but here it is quite mild.   I wonder if you could ask them to up the spiciness level, maybe next time.  

Fried Chicken Drumsticks $ 13.90, again, this is a lot of chicken, eventhough it is hard to scale with the picture.  This is a huge plate with over 12 pieces of drumsticks stacked on.  This is the one I liked best,  cooked to perfection.  Crispy light aromatic batter and falling off the bone meat inside.  A damn good chicken, reminds me of Sunburst chicken growing up. 

People have been comparing the chicken here with Kyochon and Bonchon, so here is my two cents.  Kyochon and Bonchon to me are so similar in so many ways that even in the name they differ only by two letters.  Both I think are really good chicken, crispy caramel glazed skin and spicy enough to make you cry... for more.   At Kyochon and Bonchon, 20 pieces of  drumsticks will set you back around $ 30.  Their spicy and soy garlic chicken,  are more expensive, but better than Chicken Day.   Of the three Kyochon is my favorite.

In the simple fried chicken area,  you can't really compare Chicken Day's to both places.  I would however, compare it to Roscoe's or Honey Kettle chicken.   Chicken Day hands down is the best.

Chicken Day

301 S. Western Ave. #107, 

Los Angeles, CA 90020

(213) 387-9933

Food & Grog

Named after "Her Majesty's Ship" the Bounty, immortalized in Nordhoff and Hall's 1932 novel "Mutiny on the Bounty".  HMS Bounty is located in Koreatown right accross the now demolished Ambassador Hotel where Robert Kennedy was shot.  And right next to what used to be the Brown Derby converted into a strip mall.  Ramon  who started working as a teenager at the place as a dishwasher now owns and operates the place.  A real  "American Dream" success story, the previous owner Gordon Fields even paid for his English lessons.

The HMS Bounty is as rich in stories and history as the novel.  My favorite story is that Sir Winston Churchill regularly went here for a nightcap while staying at the Ambassador Hotel.  This place is a throwback to Old Hollywood, you can almost relive the era while sitting in one of their red booths.  The dimly lit interior, the nautical theme complete with portholes on the wall, and thick hardwood beams on the roof, adds to the process.  You can even choose the exact booth where Churchill used to sit. 

I sat in one of the booths sipping a Dirty "Gin" Martini  while waiting for my dinner, and listening to oldies music from the jukebox that still plays the old 45s.

Their Ribeye Steak is great and always consistent, I've been coming back here for years and I am never disappointed.  

HMS Bounty

3357 Wilshire Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90010

(213) 385-7275

Cassell's Burger Buffet

Right smack in the middle of kimchi and bulgogi paradise of Koreatown is an easy to miss place, Cassell's Burger. It's also easy to miss that the "Hamburger" sign painted on the window is missing an "R".



Inside is a cafeteria style line where you order by the number and how you want you burger cooked, where "23 medium" means you'll be getting a 1/3 pounder cheeseburger cooked medium in a monstrous double broiler. 33 is an upgrade to a 2/3 pounder.


You then go through the "buffet" line to add your condiments of choice: ketchup, mayo, mustard, thousand island dressing, Roquefort dressing, pickle relish and slices, onion, beefsteak tomato, and lettuce. There's also some potato salad, cottage cheese, pineapple chunks, and pear halves for sides. It's all about customizing.



Kind of sloppy but I made it stacked and fully dressed. The beef patty is ground fresh daily using Prime USDA beef. The mayonnaise and salad dressings are made in-house. The burger is delicious.


The Cheese burger, fries, and medium drink set me back $11 and change. If I had a Cassell's 23 Medium in my left hand and an In-n-Out Cheeseburger animal-style in my right hand and I could only keep one, I will gladly hand you my left hand even if it's double the price. You can't really compare both, it's a matter of preference.

I guess the whole appeal of Cassell's Burger is that it reminds people of burgers that mom used to make elevated to the nth degree. Simple, straightforward, using great ingredients.

Cassell's Hamburgers
3266 W. Sixth St.
Los Angeles, CA 90020
(213) 480-8668

Chabelita Tacos

Late night hankering takes me to a Mexican food hut called Chabelita on Western just off the 10 freeway. It is located right next to a fire station and is open 24/7.

Al fresco dining on tables and benches outside, where you are constantly looking behind your back for anything/anyone who might creep up specially on really late nights/early morning.


I had two huge Tacos Cabeza (left) and Lengua (right), both deliciously spicy, soaked in salsa, chopped onions, cilantro, and avocado. I spent around $ 5.50 for two tacos and a regular drink. Now why would you go to McDonalds when you can have this?

Chabelita Tacos
2001 S. Western Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90018

LA Greek Fest 2008

I went to the LA Greek Fest, at the Saint Sophia Cathedral in the Byzantine Latino quarter in Los Angeles, for lunch. It was a very festive atmosphere lots of Greek food, wine, music and dancing.


What caught my attention was a line of 10! vertical gyro grills. It's a gotta have one moment.


The gyro with the Tsatsiki sauce was delicous.


I had a Greek beer called Hillas a pilsiner type of beer. This was the highlight of the whole event for me. The aggressive hops seem to hit your whole palate at first gulp, very good beer, ranks up there along Checvar and Pilsner Urquell.


For dessert, there were a lot of Baklava's and Filo dough sweets, I chose to have some Greek doughnuts called Loukomathes almost like beignets but very crispy on the outside, soaked in honey and drizzled with cinnamon and hazelnuts. Very good and very light.


A lot of the food items they have at the festival you can actually buy across the street at Papa Cristo's and much cheaper. I went there to get a few more of that wonderful Hillas beer.

Fe fi Pho Yum!

There's nothing like some steaming hot soup early in the morning. I love Pho (pronounced like "fuh" rather than "faux"), a Vietnamese rice noodle soup with meats or seafood. The delicious clear broth is made by boiling and hours of simmering beef bones. Cinnamon, star anise, almonds, and fresh ginger are all toasted then added to the broth. There are numerous variations to this, the Vietnamese God has a simple recipe for this in his blog.

There are no really good Pho joints in Koreatown, and only a few are open 24 hours. For really good Pho you have to venture out of LA and go to the SGV or Westminster. I work mostly at night and go home fairly late in the evening. So my choices are really limited. There is Pho Western and Pho LA both open 24 hours and Pho 55 open until 3 am. These are all owned and operated by Koreans and not Vietnamese. The prices are much steeper too. The place I most frequently go to is the Pho Western. I find their soup base to be more flavorful and the tendon pieces more generous. Second is Pho LA, even though it is not the best they still make decent Pho.

I usually get the Dac Biet, which is a mixture of meats rare beef, brisket, tripe, and tendons. This time I got the Pho Oxtail $8.35, which is served with the meat and some soup on the side, cilantro leaves, mung bean sprouts, thinly sliced onions, Thai basil, and some lime wedges. I like to add a lot of cilantro, bean sprouts, and Thai Basil into the soup, and some sliced onions and a little Siracha for heat. The bean sprouts adds a little crunch and freshness to the dish.

The thin rice noodles in the Pho will absorb the soup and quickly become soggy, so you really have to eat fast. And you don't want your soup to get cold either.

After I finished the big bowl, I was left with the small bowl of soup where the Oxtail meat was separated. The soup in this bowl tasted richer and meatier with a lot of the essence of the oxtail imparted into it. You can see tiny bubbles of fat floating on the surface. A good end to a Pho trip.

Pho LA
3470 W 6th St # 5
Los Angeles, CA 90020