Papa Walk Has More Than Shaved Ice

I have been to Papa Walk a few times before. I've always loved their shaved ice as dessert. But this time I ended up going for the actual meal. I did crave for their shaved ice, but since there were only two of us, we didn't order it. I had been eating a lot recently and I wanted to cut down a little.

(Beef With Spinach Noodle Soup)

(Spinach Noodle)

I had tried a few of the Taiwanese dishes Papa Walk offered on their menu before. This time my dad went for the Taiwanese beef stew noodles, which contained spinach noodle instead of egg noodles. The soup was not overly heavy, which is to my liking. I don't like my food to be way too heavy and very often Taiwanese soups can be like that. The noodles were firm and chewy and was flavorful. Spinach noodles are supposedly healthier for you. I did enjoy them whether or not they are healthier for me. In fact I think I do prefer them over egg noodles, which I never liked to begin with.

(Sizzling Beef with Rice)

(Rice & Veggies for the Sizzling Beef)

The sizzling beef however was a bit too oily and slightly sweet for my taste. I'm not a big fan of Taiwanese food mostly because of the enormous amounts of sugar they tend to use in their foods. It does taste good, there's no doubt, but then what food wouldn't taste good with excess amounts of oil and sugar in them. It was definitely not the healthiest thing I could have eaten. Once in a while I suppose is acceptable.

(Tin Tea Pot)

I am old school when it comes to tea. Something about tea being served in these tin canisters just hits the right spot. I suppose a lot of this is just childhood nostalgia. Nevertheless the old school tea, despite it being very generic and boring tea, gives Papa Walk a street side dining feel indoors.

Papa Walk is hidden behind the stairways inside the Hilton Plaza. It's a bit hard to find if one wasn't really looking for it. But it has built its reputation mainly on their dessert. But the true gem of this place is really the fact that I felt slightly transported away from the cold hard feel of metropolitan Los Angeles, and back to a simpler times on the streets of Taiwan.

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Crazy Toppings With Crazy Pricing At Mulberry Street Pizzeria

New York or Chicago?

I had seen all those Travel Channel shows debating the merits of each style. Up until now, I hadn't given much of any thought since I never had real authentic New York or Chicago pizza. So when my friends suggested that we check out Mulberry Street Pizzeria, I jumped on this chance to try some supposedly very good New York style thin crust pizzas.

(Lemon Iced Tea)

Like most of my meals, I had a cup of lemon iced tea to go with my food. Mulberry Street's tea was just your standard teabag type brew. There really wasn't anything special about it. It was at least flavorful and not watery and that's pretty much all I can ask for. There really wasn't any expectation there.

(Half Eggplant Parmesan & White Spinach Pizza)

We had a pretty large group so we were able to share three pizzas with six different toppings, which gave me a great idea of what all the different toppings tasted like. I don't know too much about how authentic is this thin crust. A few of my friends started talking about whether they preferred thin crust or deep dish. A few of them had been to New York or lived in Chicago and know them first hand. I think I had come to the conclusion that sometimes I would like a soggy deep dish, while other times I would prefer a crunchy thin crust.

Mulberry Street's pizzas although are thin crust, are not very crunchy. It's closer to the chewy side. I don't have too much problems with it, I just would rather it be a little crunchier. The edges of the pizza were crunchy while the center was doughy. In fact I almost would prefer the flatbreads at Westside Tavern, which in essence is a thin crust pizza with a different name. Those were crunchy all the way through.

The toppings however I did enjoy tremendously. The eggplant tomato side of the pizza was excellent. I almost forgot that I was eating eggplant at all. They were very thinly sliced which was complimentary to the thin crust. The spinach white was good too, but personally I'm not a huge cheese person. The flavors were very strong inside my mouth making the pizza very juicy.

(Half Pepperoni, Half Hawaiian Pizza)

The pepperoni was pretty much a pepperoni pizza. I don't think I would ever pay over twenty dollars for this pepperoni pizza. It may be on a thin crust, but it's not so amazing that I would pay this much more for it when I would be happy enough with a cheaper version. Perhaps I just don't care for pepperoni to begin with.

I love pineapples so I wanted to order the Hawaiian style. I suppose this is definitely not authentic to New York pizza since pineapple isn't a readily available ingredient up in the northeast. Just like the pepperoni, it wasn't something I would pay that much money for again. It was good, just not impressive for the cost.

(Half Lasagna, Half Tomato & Artichoke Pizza)

We were still hungry after two pizzas so we ordered a third one to finish off lunch. The lasagna pizza really did taste like lasagna spread over the pizza dough. It kind of played tricks on my taste buds, confusing me with whether I was really eating a pizza or lasagna. I thought this was actually a very pleasant and fun experience on a subconscious level. I really did in fact enough this one, even though it wasn't the tastiest of the six toppings I had. It was the most interesting mentally speaking. I would go with the eggplant as the best flavored of the six.

The tomato and artichoke topping didn't do it for me. The artichoke was just too clunky for this pizza. It was hard to eat the artichoke with the pizza. When that big chunk of vegetable entered my mouth, it overwhelmed everything else. I felt like I was just chewing on a giant piece of artichoke rather than eating an artichoke pizza like the way the eggplant one was made. It was just too much.

(Hello Kitty Exhaust Pipe)

I think the only pizza I would ever pay this much money for back at Mulberry would be their eggplant. I did find some of their more interestingly toppings titillating to my tongue. It was a good novel experience, but not good enough to warrant the cost of a repeat experience for the most part. The crust of the pizza wasn't crispy enough for me. To top it off, it was a thirty-five minute drive for me. I would much rather go elsewhere for flatbread or thin crust type pizzas.

Lunch this day did end with me seeing a Hello Kitty exhaust pipe in the car parked in front of my car. An interesting sight after an interesting hour of pizza and friends.

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Scavenger Hunt Potluck - Part I

It's not often that I could talk about dishes from multiple restaurants in one sitting, especially if these restaurants span the radius of twenty plus miles. Last Sunday night was one of my best friend Christine's big birthday bash. She had contemplated for a while where she would be dining with all her friends that night. But because there were over twenty guests many of which are rolling in at different times of the night, it was difficult for her to find a restaurant to accommodate the situation. Instead she decided to have each of her guest in leu of bringing a present, to bring a specific dish from a specific restaurant and have a potluck at her house instead. Well some of us brought a present anyways. She provided the drinks including alcohol and the utensils.

(Brodard Restaurant - Pork Spring Rolls In Dipping Sauce)

A little over a week before the party, she sent out a rather comprehensive list of a wide variety of dishes she wanted to have for the night. Thematically speaking the dishes didn't link together in the traditional sense. It was her birthday so the theme was literally anything the birthday girl wanted. It turned out to be a rather festive and fun way to have a dinning experience.

(Lunas Restaurant - Stuffed Mushrooms) 

The guests rolled in at various hours of the night mostly between 6pm and 8pm. Being one of her best friends, I was among first to arrive. I signed up for a dish that was local to where I live since I didn't want to drive somewhere far to pick up food and then return. Lunas Restaurant in San Gabriel was the closest restaurant to my home, and the item desired was the stuffed mushroom appetizer.

I called in and placed my order ahead of time. In fact I called in a week ago to make sure they were open on the 26th and also to confirm the price for the dish. Christine tried to get all the dishes to be around $25 so that we would all spend about the same amount. But of course nothing in life is truly fair. My mushrooms were slightly over $30. Nevertheless I told the woman on the phone that I would pick up the order in thirty minutes. I was on time. Being an actor had made me punctual for the most part. When I arrived thirty minutes after the call, the woman on the phone was there at the podium and my order was ready. It's always great to have my orders ready on time. The woman, who was probably the owner, was happy that I was right on time to pick it up and pay for it.

(To Go Boxes)

We decided to put all the food onto nice serving plates. The key to making a potluck buffet look, feel and taste less like a potluck was to have the food served on fine china. It instantly made the meal felt more elegant and expensive. The food were not the cheapest around to begin with, so eating them out of the box would simply have cheapen the experience and do the food injustice.

The mushrooms came with rice, chips and salsa. The drawback to this kind of potluck was that the foods weren't at their hottest when they were served since there was a lag time for takeout. Despite that, the mushrooms were still very appetizing at room temperature. The portion at Lunas was generous; three orders were enough to appease the entire group. The mushrooms were creamy, juicy and popping with flavors. It certainly would have been better if they were hotter, but that's the tradeoff in having a potluck style buffet with foods from across the county and beyond.

(California Pizza Kitchen - Spinach Artichoke Dip & Hummus)

It was still early so only a few other dishes had arrived, among them were the spinach and artichoke dip and hummus and pita bread from California Pizza Kitchen. Christine actually only asked for the spinach and artichoke dip so the hummus was actually a bonus, and a delightful one. Personally I much prefer hummus and pita over chips with spinach and artichoke dip. Especially in a potluck situation, hummus is great at room temperature; I prefer really hot spinach and artichoke dip. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad at room temperature, I just have a strong preference on the temperature on this dip. Generally when I eat this at a restaurant, I loose interest after the first ten minutes once the dip is no longer hot. The pita bread was also nice and soft and was just the perfect carbs to have at a mostly carb-less potluck.

(Ruen Pair Restaurant - House Special Raw Blue Crab Papaya Salad)

Next was an amazing house special raw blue crab papaya salad from Ruen Pair Restaurant in Hollywood. I had actually never heard of this Thai restaurant. But then there were so many amazing little places in Los Angeles, it wasn't a surprise that I didn't know. The salad was provided in a few separate boxes to keep the salad from getting soggy, so we had to toss it ourselves. This dish was beautifully balanced. It actually has been a very long time since I had blue crab as it's not readily available at most local markets in Los Angeles. I much prefer blue crabs then dungeon crab. But this was the first time I had them raw and they were devine. The meat just melted in my mouth as it was sucked out of the shell. The sweetness of the crab mixed elegantly with the lightly spiced papaya salad, a perfect combination.

(Brodard Restaurant - Pork Spring Rolls)

(Brodard Restaurant - Pork Spring Rolls Dip)

The last couple of weeks, I've had a ton of spring rolls at various parties. I am a big fan of spring rolls and I can eat a ton of them in one night. They were generally light and leaned on the healthier side of the food spectrum. Of course I refrained myself from gorging down spring rolls at this party because I wanted to eat everything else. I was just happy to be having spring rolls from a restaurant I had never tried. I was told beforehand that the spring rolls from Brodard Restaurant were the best. After trying them, these spring rolls were the best only because the sauce was amazing. The spring rolls themselves were good and well made but not the best if they stood alone.

Although it may not be the most environmentally friendly practice to wrap each individual spring roll in plastic wrap, it was necessary to keep the rolls from sticking to one another. The rolls were wrapped with pork and crispy egg roll skin inside along with a few other condiments. Personally I much prefer rice noodle and shrimp in my rolls, but these were still very delicious. The sauce was what made the big difference. It was a lightly sweetened tomato based medium thick sauce with egg flowers in it. When the rolls were smothered with the sauce, the complexity between the juicy sauce, the elastic tapioca skin, the chewy pork and the crunchy egg roll skin made a beautiful little symphony of textures inside my mouth. These were definitely fantastically fun spring rolls to have at a party.

(Blair's Restaurant - Truffled Mac & Cheese)

(Blair's Restaurant - Bread and Butter)

The final piece to the appetizer menu of the evening was the truffled mac and cheese from Blair's Restaurant. The portion was very small so I tried not to take too much and give everyone else a chance to try it. When the box with the mac and cheese was first opened, the aroma of the truffles came whooshing out. That by itself was well worth the money. Of course as the mac and cheese sat and cooled down, it was hard to smell the fragrant of the truffles. That is really the only reason to get this dish, without which it's just good mac and cheese. But good mac and cheese is still just mac and cheese. The truth is if you can't smell the truffles anymore, it's not much of a party.

Continue to Part II...

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