Nov 22

Halal Guys – Part 2 – Costa Mesa, CA

3033 Bristol St

Costa Mesa, CA 92626

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

Having tried their original cart in New York City, we had to try out their new Southern California location in Costa Mesa. With a long line inside the restaurant and room for a potential line outside the restaurant, the Halal Guys serves up classic sandwiches and platters with chicken, rice, and gyro. The line was moving fairly slow at first, but it picked up quickly. Ordering here is a bit different from at the original cart, as you walk through the assembly line of sorts as people behind the counter create your order. When we ordered, they did originally screw up with the meat choices, but quickly corrected the issue.

Today, I ordered the Halal Classic platter with chicken and gyro and no tomatoes. After lettuce, rice, and meat are scooped onto the platter, someone behind the counter asks you how much sauce you want on the platter. You can let the person with the squeeze bottle know how much white and red sauce to put on. I had a lot of white sauce and a little red sauce on mines. After the top the platter with sauce, they cover it with a clear plastic cover instead of the classic paper cover. After mixing the rice, meat, and sauce together, I was able to finally get a taste of this New York classic. There may have been too much white sauce, but that is OK. The rice is a bit different here because it is more orange instead of light brown. The rice was also a bit dry and flavorless. The chicken was not as shredded as the platter in New York and was not tender. There was a good amount of gyro, but that was pretty flavorless as well. The dish only tasted better with the white and red sauces. The red sauce was still as hot as before. Even when mixed in with the sauce, the platter just didn’t taste the same.

Overall, Halal Guys still serves up a good platter of food, but it did not taste as good as the original cart in New York. If you have never tried the platter before, it is still worth trying. Prices at this brick-and-mortar location is also higher than the cart coming in at just under $10 per platter. If you want additional sauce packets, they charge $0.50 each. Considering that Halal Guys has another location opening in Long Beach and then one in Berkeley, I am willing to give them another chance to see if there is better quality food at the other locations. Otherwise, you will need to go to New York City for the original cart.

Nov 18

Bachi Burger – Part 2 – Pasadena

61 S Fair Oaks Ave #110

Pasadena, CA 91105

Rating: ★★★★½ 

Located in the heart of Old Town Pasadena, this Bachi Burger location serves up your favorites found from Las Vegas. Parking is horrible at times with limited street parking, but a few parking lots are available in the area that require payment. The restaurant was around half-capacity when we arrived, and we were seated near the front of the restaurant. A server took our drink order while we reviewed the menu.

Today, we ordered the Ox Tail Chili Cheese Fries, Banh-Mi Burger, and Miyagi-San Burger. The Ox Tail Fries were topped with a fried egg that went perfectly mixed in with their fresh chili and garlic aioli. Jalapenos add heat to the savory dish. Each bite of the fries were filled with savory goodness and adequate amount of meat. The Banh-Mi burger came with similar ingredients as a banh-mi sandwich with the addition of a burger patty. Unlike the last banh-mi burger ordered in Las Vegas, there seemed to be more ginger in this burger. The meat was fresh and well seasoned. The Miyagi-San burger was huge and came with onion rings and fried egg on top of a delicious Wagyu beef patty. Strips of bacon accentuate the burger and added another layer of deliciousness. Both burgers were huge and were hard to finish, especially after eating  the Ox Tail Fries.

Overall, Bachi Burger serves up innovative delicious burgers that are worth trying. Prices are a bit high for burgers ranging from $9-$26. Service was a bit slower as we were nearing the end of our meal. If you are in the area, you should give Bachi Burger a try. They now have a few more locations now with two in the LA area and three in the Vegas area.

Nov 15

CREAM – Elk Grove, CA

8469 Elk Grove Blvd

Elk Grove, CA 95758

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Cookies Rule Everything Around Me. CREAM is located in the Wal-Mart shopping center off of Highway 99 and Elk Grove Boulevard between Golden 1 and Fuji’s. As you walk into the whimsical restaurant, you cannot help but to breathe in the smell of freshly baked cookies. With a large variety of cookies, ice cream, and toppings, you can really make your own ice cream sandwich the way you want it.

Today, we decided to order an ice cream sandwich with white chip macadamia cookies and cookies & cream ice cream, an ice cream sandwich with chocolate chip cookies and salted caramel ice cream, and a strawberry shake. The cookies were extremely fresh and tasty. The cookies and cream ice cream was delicious and tastes homemade. The salted caramel ice cream was super caramely and delicious. The strawberry shake was a bit bland and was mostly milky, but consisted of very fresh strawberries.

Overall, I really like the idea of making your own ice cream sandwich. Prices are reasonable at $2.99 per sandwich, but the shake was a little pricey at $5.99. We decided not to get any toppings on this round, but we will definitely get toppings next time. If you love ice cream and especially if you love cookies, you should definitely try out CREAM in Elk Grove.

Nov 11

Asian Pearl – Part 2

6821 Stockton Blvd #165

Sacramento, CA 95823

Rating: ★½☆☆☆ 

Located in South Sacramento near SF Supermarket, Asian Pearl serves up popular Hong Kong style dim sum. On this visit, we decided to try and arrive closer to 1PM to avoid the crowd. When we arrived, there was still a crowd of people waiting and we ended up waiting for over 20 minutes for a two-person table. After being seated, we gave our tea order for our usual Chrysanthemum Bo-lay tea, which arrived quickly. The tea tasted good and was made with real blooms and tea leaves.

Unfortunately, the tea was the highlight of the meal. After bringing the tea, we were able to order the BBQ pork cheung fun, when was brought over to us five minutes later. The cheung fun was fairly thick but did not taste that fresh. A while later, we were able to order the pork turnover, but there was no flavor and the crust was too thick. After sitting around for over 10 minutes, we never had a cart of steamed dim sum come by. The only carts that came by were for light desserts, rice porridge, and other random stuff. The most important cart is the steamed dim sum cart, which never came by. After flagging down a server, we asked him to get someone to come over. He did proceed to find someone to push the cart over, but the lady with the cart was completely sidetracked by a table where another guest was having a long conversation with her. After another five minutes watching her talk, I asked the same server to come by to see what the heck is going on. Eventually, the lady got to our table, but she was out of most of the dim sum including har gow and the chicken sticky rice. When I asked when they would be ready, she just said they were still being steamed. The sui mai tasted OK and the pork was fresh, but there was a lot of water coming out of the dumpling. After another 10 minutes or so, we were able to flag down a cart of fried shrimp balls. The shrimp balls were extremely oily and did not taste fresh. The sweet and sour sauce also tasted odd.

Overall, Asian Peal completely failed this dim sum presentation. Not only did we wait an exponential amount of time to get seated and then get food, the food wasn’t even all the good at all. Also, the prices were fairly high for what you get. I simply cannot recommend anyone coming here for dim sum. The service is horrible and staff just don’t know how to do their job.

Nov 08

Jiao Jiao Hand Pulled Noodle – Flushing, NY

New World Mall Food Court

133-43 Roosevelt Ave, Ste 12

Queens, NY 11354

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

Located inside a bustling food court, Jiao Jiao Hand Pulled Noodles serves up fresh noodles cooked to order. With a large picture menu board sitting near the ordering counter, we decided to try out their Fried Hand Pulled Noodle with Chicken. The order took around 10 minutes to cook, and we were able to watch the chef make fresh noodles. Once we received our food, we quickly scored an open table. The noodles were extremely steaming hot. The noodles were very savory, but had an odd taste. After eating the noodles for a while, the odd taste could possibly be coming from the lightly spiced chili oil. The chicken itself was well seasoned and tender. The noodles were also quite a bit thicker than normal chow mein noodles. For $8, the meal tasted OK, but was not amazing. Service was mediocre, and they only accepted cash. Since the noodles were not amazing and the taste odd, I cannot recommend eating here. There were a lot of other food options in the food court that now seems more appealing.

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