Hiro’s: Yummy Specials! (February Edition)

Since we’ve been trekking down to Kendall almost every Monday for skating, we’ve also been frequenting Hiro’s Yakko-San every evening also. So I’ve just decided to update a monthly post with the new specials that we try. ^_^ Mmm…now onto the yummy goodness!


Seafood Kushi Katsu: Chilean Sea Bass, Scallops, and Shrimp.

What I imagined this dish to be and what it actually was were on completely opposite sides of the spectrum. I was thinking this was going to be some delicious amalgamation of sea bass, scallops, and shrimp mixed together into a patty shaped croquette. However, it was just each item separately breaded and lightly fried. I was sort of disappointed, but the dish was decent. The different types of katsu were good (nothing spectacular) and the accompanying horseradish sauce was nothing short of amazing. I typically hate horseradish sauces, but this was light in flavor without the lingering sour aftertaste that usually accompanies horseradish. However for the price we paid, I think we’ll pass on this dish the next time around.


Salmon Kama Miso Yaki: Grilled Salmon cheek, marinated with miso sauce.

The salmon was perfectly cooked and considering the cut was the collar, the meat was extremely tasty. The flesh was buttery, moist, flavorful, and even seemed to melt in your mouth. Wow, is all I have to say.


Okonomiyaki: basically a Japanese “pizza” made with cabbage and batter, topped with okonomiyaki sauce and special mayonnaise.

This item isn’t on the specials menu or their regular menu. However, if you ask really nicely and the kitchen isn’t busy, they will make this traditional Japanese dish for you. There’s a special batter and the base is made with cabbage traditionally, what they add after that is up to how they feel. ^_^ As I said it’s a “Japanese pizza.” When I make it at home, I usually add scallops and shrimp to my batter. It’s not bad and you should definitely try out the dish if you have ever wanted to see what all the commotion over it is about.


Kimchee Hotpot: shredded daikon radish, tofu, pork, sesame oil, ponzu.

This dish is always on the menu, this is just the first time I’ve tried it out. The hotpot is a single serving ceramic bowl filled with semi-spicy goodness. There’s enough to eat to satisfy one person or to share with a few people, if everyone just wants a small bowl of soup to taste. To be honest the kimchee isn’t as spicy as I expected it to be, but it definitely has a slight kick. I was cold that day, so it was a great way to warm up. ^_^ Would I order it again, maybe, but probably only if it was cold day out.


Batan Ebi Heads Kara-Age: Simple crispy fried shrimp’s heads.

This isn’t your average dish and definitely caters to a more sophisticated palette than usual (only because your average person would cringe in fear). But those who brave enough to try this dish will probably find themselves pleasantly surprised. Most Asians eat shrimps with their head still on and depending on how it’s cooked, sucked the oishii goodness out of their heads rather than eat them whole. The “head meat” is rich in flavor and has a creamy texture, definitely one of my favorite parts of the shrimp. Since it’s fried you can just pop these right into your mouth and eat it all! The shell is crisp and light enough to be easily chowed down upon.


Kabocha croquettes: Japanese sweet pumpkin with beef

Sadly this dish was one of the few that we’ve had at Hiro’s that was not to our liking. The pumpkin croquette was overwhelmingly pumpkin in taste and had very little beef within. We were hoping for a bit less pumpkin and a bit more beef to add a bit more complex flavor.


Black pork belly grilled

As described above, but definitely was left wishing for more pork on the dish. =) Was pretty yummy as an appetizer to share with everyone.


So those are my experiences this month with Hiro’s. ^_^ Hope you enjoy hearing about them!

Hiro’s Yakko-San
17040 W. Dixie Hwy.
North Miami Beach, FL 33160
(305) 947-0064

Pizza Rustica: Late Night Pizza Cravings (Delray Beach)

After we closed up Phas3 and before we went to pick up our friend from work, we stopped by Pizza Rustica on Atlantic Boulevard for food. It was around 11pm and most eateries, besides some fast food chains, were closed.

Thankfully, Pizza Rustica is open until 2am everyday of the week! Sweet, no? The specialized in Roman style rectangular pans of pizza with tons of toppings, both traditional and exotic.

A slightly more detailed shot of some of the pizzas:

The HUGE oven that they bake their pizzas in!

So even though we came in during the late evening, the place was still bustling! It’s just a testimony to how good their pizza is. Ok, that and the pizza place is right by the beach so after a night stroll by the water it’s a great place to grab a bite.

So, this isn’t your typical take out pizza. The quality is great, the dough is made fresh every day. If you come in late enough in the evening, like us, you can even watch them toss and prepare the dough for the coming day. The crust has a slight herby taste to it, it’s pretty delicious even if I do prefer thin crust (which they don’t do).

I’m sorry for the sad quality of pictures to ensue. We ordered to go and the pictures were taken of the pizzas in their boxes. XD Gomen nasai…

The pizzas range from $3.50 to $5.00 for a slice and the slices themselves are pretty large. I never end up eating an entire slice (which is always cut into fourths for you) and take half of it home to eat it for lunch the next day.

Today I wanted to go for something a bit more on the healthy side, so I tried out their salad pizza.

It’s a regular slice of cheese pizza topped with mixed greens, spring mix, or spinach tossed with tomatoes, onions, and your choice of dressing. I picked mixed greens (my favorite!) with their homemade balsamic vinaigrette. Honestly this has taken the cake as my favorite slice of pizza from Pizza Rustica. The salad is light, refreshing, and the balsamic vinaigrette was the perfect punctuation to the salad.

My love ordered the Cajun shrimp pizza.

He’s such a sucker for corn and they even put extra corn on the slice for him! The pizza had shrimp, mozzarella, parmesan, roasted green peppers, red onions, corn, and cajun seasoning. It’s a delicious combination and just slightly spicy (which we usually accentuate with more hot pepper flakes ^_^).

So for late night noms on Atlantic Avenue, Pizza Rustica is pretty oishii!

Pizza Rustica
1155 E. Atlantic Ave.
Delray Beach, FL
(561) 279-8766

M&H Café: Because sometimes you just want bubbles! (Boca Raton)

There are several places in South Florida that I know of at which to purchase bubble tea: Lan’s Pan Asian Café (Miami), Lollicup (Palm Gardens), and M&H Café (Boca or Davie). My love and I frequent M&H café the most since we live close by.

The store is right outside of the Town Center Mall in a small shopping plaza. The café itself is so cute, decorated with bright and vibrant colors!

There isn’t a ton of seating, but there is never a lot of people there at one point in time, so it usually isn’t an issue.

As usual, we brought a friend with us (because it’s more fun that way, sharing good food and drink with those around you ^_^). My boyfriend and I ordered our regular bubble teas and our friend had a chocolate bubble tea.

The coconut bubble tea is outstanding! My boyfriend always asks them to put extra powder in his for a stronger flavor. I’m not a huge fan of boba, the tapioca bubbles on the bottom of the teas. They aren’t really packed full of flavor, but they do have a fun slightly chewy texture. However if they are too chewy and tough, they haven’t been cooked thoroughly enough. Thankfully at M&H café, they’re really great at cooking the boba correctly!

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My favorite has to be the taro bubble tea though. Yes, I’m aware it’s a non-standard American flavor, but in terms of an Asian flavor it’s a staple. =) Even my non-Asian friends who have tried it have fallen in love with the taste!

As you can see I opt for the lychee jellies, which are not as fun to eat but definitely have a pleasant sweet flavor. Sadly they are a bit harder to suck up through the straw than the boba.

M&H café’s boba tea is definitely oishii noms!

M&H Café
2200 Glades Road
Boca Raton, FL
(561) 544-1008

California: Half and Half Tea House (San Gabriel)

Back Blogging #7:

Our last stop before the airport was for bubble tea at Half and Half Tea House in San Gabriel. The allure of honey boba was just too much for me to resist!

We had a bit of a rough time finding the place, but I place that squarely on the gps! Ok…it was really me, I input the wrong address. =( I actually started freaking out a bit, thinking that we might not make it back to LAX in time for our flight, all because of bubble tea.

Anyways, we made it there despite some setbacks! Like most of the places we went to eat this vacation, it was a small café tucked away in a strip mall. There were a bunch of people just hanging around outside and some gamers inside playing DOTA (woot gamers!). The atmosphere was easy going and very laid back, I’d go here just to curl up with a book and a cup of bubble tea.

Another one of those infamous pictures where if you squint really hard you can see me in the reflection! …And yes, that IS a penguin hat that I’m wearing.

I ordered a honey boba tea and my boyfriend had an almond boba tea. (Almond Boba tea pictured below)

The almond tea was great, it had a great flavor and wasn’t overwhelmingly sweet. The honey one was a mixed bag. The tea itself was a bit bland, but the honey boba was AMAZING! Heck, if I could just order a cup full of the honey boba itself I would have. They solve the entire problem I have with boba, the tapioca balls are usually just bland and add a chewy textural element to bubble tea. But the honey boba truly had flavor, an attitude of their own! In the end I should have ordered an almond bubble tea with honey boba. ^_^ Next time Gadget, next time!

I also ordered a piece of milk toast (no, it wasn’t called that, but it’s the best description that I can think of).

This was also pretty yummy, like a piece of French toast, just probably slightly drier (not to say this toast was dry, it really wasn’t). I’d kill for some honey boba in the bubble teas here in Florida…


Half & Half Tea House
120 N. San Gabriel Blvd.
San Gabriel, CA 91775
(626) 309-9387

California: Wurstkuche, speciality sausages (Los Angeles)

Back Blog #6:

We wanted to visit Royal/T but once again we were thwarted because I didn’t pay attention to hours/days of operation and they were closed on Mondays. Instead, we then headed to Wurstkuche for lunch. Specialty sausages, for the win!

Don’t let this brightly colored front fool you into thinking that you can’t possibly drive by this place and miss it, because you can. In fact we did and I was specifically looking for that striped door!

Parking is pretty bad here, it’s all street parking and some of it you aren’t allowed to park by. One of the patrons let us know that we were parked in a “no parking” spot, the first time we stopped the car.

We went in and I started to stare intently at the display case full of specialty sausages.

So many choices, but eventually I decided to try the rabbit, veal, and pork sausage seasoned with white wine. My boyfriend bought an alligator, pork, and smoked andouille sausage. Our friend tried out the duck and bacon with jalapeno peppers. We also got two different sauces, the pesto and curry ketchup.

Clearly we needed liquid refreshment, so we bought a bottle of sarsaparilla and sweet blossom soda.

The sweet blossom wasn’t too great, just a forgettable sweet soda. The sarsaparilla tasted like root beer, but less sweet. Next time though, I would just opt for a regular soda. ^_^

Anyways, with our drinks in hand we took our number and moved down the long bricked hallway to the dining area. Someone made an analogy of walking down that hallway to walking down a dark alleyway from a horror movie. XD If only I wasn’t afraid of the dark…but never fear, the light of the dining area was not too far off!

I thought the dining area was quite breath taking. But then again I like the clean, slightly modern and industrial look. Seating was like eating at a picnic pavilion at a park, long tables with butcher paper covering the top. There were also some smaller tables along one side of the wall on a slightly raised platform.

If I was a beer lover, I probably would have been in heaven judging my the multitude of choices offered just staring at the beer tap. Alas, I don’t drink and neither do I intend to start (which some people see as a killjoy, but I just don’t enjoy alcohol =( ).

So we sat down, had a nice conversation and waited for our food. About 10 minutes later our sausages and fries arrived!

They even write on the parchment paper the type of sausage that it is! Pictured in the image above are the rabbit/veal/pork and the gator/pork/andouille. We ordered the fries with truffle oil, but the oil was so subtle that we couldn’t taste enough of a difference to warrant the extra money spent (as compared to our friend’s French fries).

The rabbit sausage though it wasn’t lacking in flavor was sadly a bit too dry for my tastes. The gator was a bit chewy, but still yummy! The best hotdog however was our friend’s duck and bacon sausage which was tender, juicy, and succulent. I guess we should have known, since the age old saying is that “bacon makes everything better.” However, I’m guessing that the duck was the key ingredient here!

Overall it was a fun visit, the ambiance was great, the food was moderately priced, and you don’t get the chance everyday to try sausages with meats like alligator, duck, rabbit, rattlesnake, etc.


Wurstkuche
800 E. 3rd St.
Los Angeles, CA, 90013
(213) 687-4444

California: Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles (Long Beach)

Back Blog #5:

Our last day in California and there was still a lot of eating planned! The entire weekend was a food marathon basically. ^_^ Anyways, we wanted to check out a Roscoe’s chicken and waffles while we were in the area. Apparently there’s a ton of Roscoe’s about, but we were told to frequent the one in Long Beach. This was also convenient since it was also on our way back to the heart of Los Angeles.

It was a quiet Monday morning when we arrived and the establishment wasn’t terribly busy. The place was really cute though, decorated with lots of chickens. XD

I really liked the fireplace they had, but only because there were these pretty pieces of tinted glass in it, in the place of firewood.

To me, putting chicken and waffles together seems like a strange idea. They really don’t seem to go together, especially if you intend to eat your waffles with syrup! So being the traditionalist I am (and also not a fan of breakfast), I simply ordered three chicken wings and a side of potato salad.

My boyfriend on the other hand, absolutely LOVES breakfast, and could not pass up the opportunity to try chicken and waffles!

The fried chicken here is superb, honestly they have the best fried chicken I’ve ever had. So by my tally, this makes California the home of the best crème puffs, udon, and fried chicken so far. The batter tastes great and more importantly the chicken isn’t dried out!

I had a bite of the chicken + waffle + syrup and let me tell you, the flavors did not clash at all like I thought they would. I was pleasantly surprised that the sweetness of the syrup didn’t overpower the taste of the fried chicken, but rather added another enjoyable facet to its flavor profile. I’ve had chicken and waffles together at Gladys Knight’s Chicken and Waffles in Georgia, but this was much better all around.

Roscoe’s taught me to embrace the combination of sweet and savory. Oh Roscoe’s how I miss your fried chicken so! Maybe move on over to the East Coast, South Florida perhaps? Please? =D

Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles
780 E. Broadway
Long Beach, CA 90802
(562) 437-8355

California: Shin-Sen-Gumi (Gardena)

Back Post #4:

After a day filled with pastries and fresh soba noodles, we ended the evening at Shin-Sen-Gumi Yakitori in Gardena. There’s no such thing as a restaurant that specializes in yakitori in Florida anywhere (I’ve looked!). So when I heard about this place, I knew we had to stop by.

Once again I had made reservations a month in advance so we could sit in a private room in the back. It’s an extra fee of $1 per person to use the private room, but it’s worth it in my opinion since the front room is a bit cramped for space. However, one day I’d like to go back in order to sit out front and experience the atmosphere.

When you first enter Shin-sen-gumi you are warmly greeted by the entire staff. Everyone shouts out greetings and it’s a very welcoming atmosphere. If you want, you can buy a drink for the staff and they’ll come by and share a toast with you with an enthusiastic “Kampai!”

The service here is stellar even though it’s always incredibly busy. The wait staff is attentive and knowledgeable about the menu and the specials. ^_^

So they brought us a menu, which is analogous to your traditional dim sum menu.

They also had a whiteboard conveniently placed in our room with the specials of the evening.

Halfway through our meal we figured out the trick to eating at Shin-sen-gumi. If you’re new there and don’t know what you want to eat, order one of each thing you want to try right off the bat, then order seconds of the things you do like after your first round. Even better, if you’ve been there before, order what you want straight away. Why? Because stuff sells out and things even an hour into service can go missing from the menu sadly. We learned this the hard way because around 5 items we wanted to try throughout the course of the evening just went “poof.” It’s not their fault; I solely place the blame on us not ordering fast enough. =)

I ordered the nankara, which is deep fried chicken cartilage.

Yes, I wanted to know what chicken cartilage tasted like. =P I like crunchy textures, so this was right up my alley. Honestly, I was the only person in my party to enjoy this dish. It wasn’t anything special and tasted entirely how it was advertised (lols?). It was even better when dipped in a little bit of salt mixed with lemon juice, Mmmm!

The boys ordered some roast duck, which I didn’t really touch so I can’t comment on.

However, I can tell you that dish of roast duck multiplied into four by the end of the meal. The boys really liked their duck!

I ordered a piece of mackerel off the special’s menu. I’m such a sucker for mackerel!

Mackerel is an oily fish and always has this subtle smoky flavor which I love. <3 Then came an order of takoyaki!

I’ve tried so hard to actually like takoyaki and I have come to the conclusion that’s it just not for me. It’s not that it isn’t made well; I just don’t really enjoy the taste of it. =(

My boyfriend also ordered this dish and it was delicious!

I’m not sure what it was called exactly, but it was an omelet with meat inside, garnished with bonito flakes. ^_^

Next came the parade of never ending yakitori! We ordered SOOOO much and I took SOOO many pictures, so I’m a bit lost as to which picture goes with which description, but I’ll try my best.

Eel livers:

I like liver and I love eel, so I thought that eel liver might appeal to me. Apparently, it really doesn’t and has a very fishy aftertaste which I didn’t enjoy at all.

Tofu:

We didn’t really enjoy this one either, the tofu was just sort of bland…

Onigiri (rice ball):

Sadly, once again, the rice ball suffered the same fate as the tofu and though I enjoyed the crispy texture, the flavor was just lacking.

Meataballs:

These were delicious! Absolutely delicious! So savory, tender, and extremely addictive. I can’t count how many rounds of these that we had.

Simply Grilled Shrimp:

Delicious, just lightly salted, and grilled.

Chicken Wing and Skin:

The chicken wing was good, but we were hoping for a bit more in terms of a serving. The skin was awesome, but then again, when is grilled chicken skin not awesome?

Chicken thigh with special sauce, Chicken thigh lightly salted:

The chicken with the special sauce was superb, definitely a must try if you go here. ^_^

Chicken Liver:

I love chicken livers, so I was happy with their rendition of chicken livers. Mmmm! Not really for those who don’t like the taste of liver already though…

Pork Sausage:

Honestly, once again, forgot what this tasted like. However, it was good enough that we got a second order of it. =)

I know I also ordered some chicken heart, onion, potato, chicken cartilage, and flap meat…but I’m not sure where those pictures went. C’est la vie! I can definitely say that the meat selection beat the pants off the grilled veggies.

I was honestly hoping to try some more daring pieces, such as the special heart, tail, special skin, gizzard, intestine, and feet…but sadly they sold out. *sniffles*

At the end of it all, this was our damage…

Look at all those sticks! Think of our bill! ^_^() It was soooo worth it though! Dinner took about 2 hours in total, as food came in small waves. But since our drinks were never empty, the awesome service, great good, and wonderful company we were blissfully happy the entire time.

If you’re looking for a casual night out with friends, good food, and don’t mind a bit of noise, I’d suggest trekking out for some yakitori. Food on sticks, never tasted so good before! ^_^ Oishii!

Shin-Sen-Gumi Yakitori
18517 S. Western Ave.
Gardena, CA 90248
(310) 715-1588