We were definitely in for a treat in our visit to Los Angeles. My cousin raved about this place, and we were finally able to join for a lunch meal. They made a reservation for 4 around lunch time on Christmas eve, and it was fairly busy. For $125, you get a curated selection of omakase sushi that had a lot of interesting fishes that you would not typically have in New York City.

Lamplight Lounge was one of the few in-park Disney restaurants that we wanted to try because we heard some decent things about. I was able to nab a reservation pretty easily for 2 for 7:00 PM on a Friday night. The food is similar to a gastropub, and in the winter if you get a late enough reservation, you can actually watch the water show from your counter without cramming onto the bridge or other busy viewpoints.

Napa Rose is located in Disney’s Grand California Adventure hotel and is known for its award-winning wine list and exemplary service. The food has a lot of inspirations from California’s fresh, farm-to-table qualities. This is arguably Disneyland’s premier restaurant that many, including some of my local family and friends, visit just for the food. I wanted to try this out to see how it compared to New York City.

Carthay Circle is located fairly close to the front of California Adventure. You do need an admission to the park in order to access this restaurant which is basically in the square at the end of the main road from the entrance. This was actually our second time visiting. I remember the first time being fairly underwhelming, so I felt it was wasteful to even spend the time to document it.

I’ve always felt Los Angeles has better Mexican food, and I was offered a choice of eating hot pot or going for Mexican food. The hot pot choice would’ve been a place that we have a chain of here in NYC, and since we don’t know when we’ll be back in LA, I thought the answer was pretty easy. We decided on the Mexican joint because this is a local favorite for my cousin.

We’ve finally arrived in Los Angeles to kick it with family before heading up to Mammoth for a wedding. This restaurant was suggested because it has modern Taiwanese American tastes to it that is seemingly becoming a trend in the Alhambra areas. Unlike NYC, I’ve always felt LA had better Asian food in the low/mid price ranges, so let’s see how it tastes. We were able to wait list on Yelp for about 5 minutes around 10:15 AM.

Without getting too much into the history of the origins of this restaurant, the food here generally was just OK for me. The crispy shrimp is what everyone wants to get. The shell is super crispy, crunchy, and delightfully edible. It’s comparable to the Cantonese style salted pepper shrimp with shell. However, this also has a tangy sauce on the outside of it. For me, it was a little TOO tangy, but some people at my table love it.

This restaurant is out in the Pasadena area and is suppose to be pretty decent. After going here, I am convinced that many people just have bad taste in food. The clams were decent. Not great, but not bad. I can’t really describe this because it tastes exactly how it looks. If you think good, then it’s good. And if you think bad, then yeah it probably tasted bad.

If you are ever looking quality Peruvian anywhere, this is the place to be. The ceviche was by far one of the best I’ve ever had. The fish was very fresh, and it was plentiful. The lomo saltado here has always been my favorite so far. I’ve always used this place as a benchmark for other Peruvian places that serve lomo saltado. The meat is really tender, and for the price/serving ratio, it’s one of the best out there.

For this month, it was TRUFFLES. I’ve never eaten a full blown truffle set meal. At $250 a pop and 600 consecutive phone calls over a span of 2 hours, I was able to get this reservation. Coupled with wine pairing, the meal was superbly awesome. Note for 2022 migration: this is an old post from my other defunct blog. This has 1 Michelin Star. I remember that after this dinner, I was getting tired of blogging all my Maude meals.