The feature for Maude this month is corn, and it was way more awesome compared to last month. I like corn a lot, so I went in with some expectations, and I wasn’t disappointed. It really sucks to get reservations here. To get this particular reservation I called about 100 times in a given hour. If you look on my cell phone bill, you will see at least 60 5-second calls to them coupled with 40 some calls from a desk phone.

I wasn’t planning to go to this. I really wasn’t. However due to some ridiculous circumstances, I was asked to go, and I had to go. It’s been barely 2 months, and I went back to my favorite LA restaurant. One would expect and hope for the same experience considering how recent their first trip here was. So really, how was it? It was awesome. For comparison, you can also read my 2 month old review.

This could very well be my last post for food for a few weeks. Doing a special restaurant each week is getting rather grueling right now. I’ve decided to soften the blow, so I’ll go to Maude each month for the remainder of the year. This is #26 of 52 (or 26?) of my 2014 LA food expedition. For this month, the special ingredient is berries. Like my rhubarb meal that I went to 2 months ago, I was expecting this to be similar in that every dish would have strong presence and usage of some berry.

I’m getting very full. We’re now on #25, and my ridiculous challenge is starting to take its toll. I’m starting to get a little fatter and a little less motivated. It’s getting harder to find restaurants, get people to go, and to make the trip. Alas, at least I made it to this point. This is #25 of 52 of my 2014 LA food expedition. Did I mention I really don’t think I can make it to 52?

This is a hole-in-the-wall place that is a real hidden gem in the Palms neighborhood of LA. It’s Japanese cuisine served kaiseki style. There are only 10 seats per night as the meal lasts just about 5 hours. There is no sign on the front. There is simply the address. We got there at 6:50 PM, but the door was locked. It actually does not open till 7 PM on the dot.

Smoke.Oil.Salt is another one of those many tapas shareable places that has been popping up all over Los Angeles. Unlike the other restaurants I’ve been to in the past few months, this is Spanish style featuring some traditional spanish dishes. It was surprisingly good. This is #23 of 52 of my 2014 LA food expedition. Note for 2022 migration: this is an old post from my other defunct blog. This restaurant unfortunately is now closed.

I have a few “safety” cards for those days I just don’t feel like making a reservation or finding a place to get fat at. I decided to use one of those safety cards tonight at a place called Phorage. This restaurant replaced Roy Choi’s Chego location in Palms and features Vietnamese food sourced with high-quality locally grown produce. This is #22 of 52 of my 2014 LA food expedition.

So a few weeks ago, I went to Tsujita for dinner. I wanted to come back for lunch to try the tsukemen style ramen, which is what it’s most known for. Across the street nearby is its sister store, Tsujita Annex which serves ramen the entire day. This one for the time being only serves ramen for lunch, and it does have a slightly different menu. For a Sunday morning at 11 AM, there were no lines or wait.

Pine & Crane hasn’t been around for very long and is located in the Silver Lake area on Sunset where a plethora of restaurants sits. It’s generally difficult to find decent Chinese restaurants, let alone Taiwanese, outside of the San Gabriel Valley. So I thought I would trek here to see what the hype is about. This is #21 of 52 of my 2014 LA food expedition. I’m almost half way there.

Tsujita is known for their ramen, particularly at the location where the dinner menu is different than their lunch menu. I was curious to try it for dinner to see how it compares to other Japanese restaurants. Note that this is not the Annex location. The Annex location at the time of this writing is the only Tsujita location that serves ramen for dinner. This is #20 of 52 of my 2014 LA food expedition.