Restaurant Name: Shabu Shabu House
Specialty: Hot dogs
Location: Little Tokyo, California
Company: Mother, Liwen Ai-yi, Peter, and Sharon
Overall Experience: weeeee delicious shabu shabu!




It was a cold and raining day in Los Angeles, one of the few, which made this dinner exceptional! You enter the restaurant and are greeted with a man in a cute chef outfit making fresh slices of beef! (look at that marble!) You are seated with a boiling pot of water into which you put the veggies into the water to flavor the water and to cook. There were two condiments that you could choose from to flavor your delicious beef: a ponzu sauce which you add grated radishes and a sesame sauce which you add grated garlic as well as green onions. What made this shabu shabu place was the freshly sliced beef. Instead of having the beef pre-sliced, these pieces of beef were extremely fresh and not dried out in any manner. Whenever I make, or assemble, homemade shabu shabu (hot pot), I would use broth, making the soup very pleasant to drink after the meal. However, in this case, the broth was filled with the fat that boiled out of the meat and not as flavorful as my homemade shabu shabu. Thus, I did not drink the broth. HOWEVER, the meat was extremely pleasant ( :

Truck Name: Bostons Speeds
Specialty: Hot dogs
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Company: Best friend Joanna! ( :
Overall Experience: BEST HOT DOG EVERRR




This is not your Costco hot dog. The first thing about a Costco hot dog is the price. At $1.50 plus tax, a Costco hot dog is extremely cheap for the size of the hot dog. This hot dog was $8.00, but without tax! Even without tax, this hot dog is exceptionally pricey! But it was soooo soooo good! If I had another $8.00 to spare and a ticket to Boston, I'd definitely wait in line for this. We got all the toppings (at the lady's recommendation). The barbeque sauce is amazing! It's sweet which complements the salty-ness of the dog. The bun is grilled for a bit of toasty texture which is nice. The onions give it a spicy and fresh flavor which also accompanies the mustard and relish nicely. So good.

Restaurant Name: Capt. White Seafood City
Specialty: Maryland Blue Crabs
Location: Washington D.C.
Company: Third Aunt, Fourth Aunt, Aunt, and Father!
Overall Experience: Crab everywhere!



This area in Washington D.C. is inundated with vendors floating magically on concrete structures that support their enormous loads of fish and, most importantly, Maryland blue crabs! We drove around half an hour from Rockville to get to Washington D.C. for these crabs, and boy were they worth the drive! The whole experience was amazing. It's like San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf but on steriods, tons and tons of fish and shrimp along with their fellow friends, these gorgeous crabs, on the stands. There were various vendors, but after careful inspection on the liveliness of the crabs, my father and I decided on Capt. White Seafood City's crabs (pst, I think we made a good choice). You purchase these crabs in BUSHELS. A bushel is a way to measure dry goods and is equivalent to 8 gallons. We ended up purchasing 2.5 gallons, which is the the same as 20 gallons of crabs. The center photo is the guy placing our crabs into the wooden bushels and then placed in line to be steamed. The (directly) bottom pictures show these sleek blue crabs being steamed red!






I guess that this was more of a photo post rather than a writing post. ( :

Restaurant Name: Bluefin
Specialty: Sushi!
Location: Crystal Cove, Newport Beach, California
Company: Parents, Chu Parents, Peter!
Overall Experience: Interesting..



We ordered two types of rolls. The first roll is Bluefin's self-titled roll, the Bluefin Roll. It is a king crab tempura topped with seared Albacore and paired with a creamy spicy sauce. Whenever I visit a sushi resturant, I typically do not order rolls. However, Bluefin is not a traditional sushi bar/restaurant but incorporates fushion flavors. So, we gave ourselves the green light and order the two rolls. The Bluefin roll is extremely delicious. You can definitely taste the freshness and quality of the fish and the tempura is done just right. The red dot on the top of the roll is actually Sriracha sauce which gives it an interesting kick to it. The other roll that we ordered is called the Tuna Tuna Tuna Roll which is a spicy tuna roll topped with seared tune and seared albacore and complemented with a spicy ponzu and scallion sauce.





We ordered a total of nine different types of sushi. This is the first plate which included the more typical fish that you can find at any sushi resturant. We started eating the fish in accordance to the strength of the flavor, leaving the more flavorful fish last. Thus, we started with Toro. I was a little disappointed paying $16 (thus $8 per sushi piece) for an order of Bluefin's Toro. It did not have the melt-in-your-mouth feeling and wasn't as sweet as I had wished. All the times that I've been to Angotei, their Toro has never let me down which led me to believe that there is not such thing as not-as-good Toro. However, Bluefin proved me wrong. The next fish that we tried was their Snapper. In contrast to the Toro, I was extremely pleased with the snapper. It had a nice, slightly tough texture that was fragranced with the shiso leaf that was sandwiched between the rice and fish. The third fish that we tried from the plate was the salmon. It was paired with a special sauce and topped with bonita flakes. I was slightly disappointed having been spoiled by Antogeti's extremely fatty and delicious salmon. Nonetheless, the fish was still noticeably fresh and tender. I believe was the best serving on this dish was the unagi. Surprised right?! Me too. I guess all the unagi that I had tried before (though not many) have just been typical. This is how all unagi should taste! The eel is extremely extremely tender. Noticeable tender. Whenever I eat unagi, I usually taste the sauce more than I taste the meat, but in this case, I definitely focused on the eel meat. But it does not go without notice how delicious and delicately prepared this sauce must be! It was just the perflect blend of sweetness and eel-ness (is that a word?). So good. I think that this unagi dish might actually be the dish that brings me back to Bluefin. All that is left is the Tamago. I love tamago and I love tasting how each sushi resturant does their tamago for it is a very difficult art to perfect. You have to balance the flavors, but the difficulty comes in the actual making of the tamago. I felt that Bluefin's tamago was a bit too sweet for me. Texturely, the tamago was very delicious but the flavor for me (it being too sweet) was a bit off for me. But the UNAGI!



This dish was super interesting. It's the Giant Clam prepared three ways. The sushi nigiri style is the muscle part which is the best part of the giant clam, so it is prepared sushi style. The selection was my favorite because had a really good, refreshing, crunchy bite to it, but it lacked the stinky-ness of the ocean. It ended up tasting very refreshing and cool. I least preferred the part wrapped in seaweed. But in general, I am not a fan of this style of presenting fish, which is usually the case with uni and roe. The seaweed overwhelmed the clam and I was too busy focusing on breaking it down in my mouth that the clam was totally lost. The small rolls are (I think) the least best part of the clam. It tasted good, but the clam was just in small chunks so it was a bit difficult to taste it. But the rice was extremely delicious and it was a nice and simple way of presenting this part of the clam. Overall, I was extremely happy with the dish. I've never been given different parts of a seafood creature and been able to enjoy sushi in this way. It was extremely entertaining!


This platter of sushi was Bluefin's special fish of the day sort of types of fish. They are the harder to find fishes. Fish that I haven't even heard of and therefore not tired yet! On the plate, from top to bottom, are the following fish: Buri, Japanese Wild Mackerel, and Nodoguro. The Buri was very faint in flavor and had a typical sushi fish texture. It was paired with freshly grated ginger, but I felt it was sort of lacking in a unique flavor. But it was extremely sweet and light. The Japanese Wild Mackerel was the most bounty in flavor. It was surprisingly very salty and had a steak-like texture to it that outcasted it from the other sushi. The last fish, the Nodoguro, was my favorite of the three. Like the Buri, it was light in flavor, but what I loved most about the fish was its texture. It felt fatty but without the oily feeling. Some part of the skin was still attached, but it was incredibly tender and a delectable treat!



Bluefin's Monk Fish Liver was interesting. I am confused now. Is the monk fish liver that I'm eating at Angotei steamed as well? We had asked for raw monk fish liver and the waitress looked confused and mumbled something about that not "being possible." So, this is Bluefin's STEAMED monk fish liver. Although still confused, I'll disregard this uncertainty later when I visit Chef Hiro at Angotei (hopefully soon!) The way to tell good monk fish liver from great monk fish liver is the color. I argue because that liver was steamed that it came out to this pale tan color rather than a vibrant orange which indicates creamy, delicious, monk fish goodiness! I do not know what the sauce was, except the red dot is sriracha again (they do love their sriracha!). The liver was very creamy despite the color and was also topped with cavier and gold! It made me laugh ( :



Wasabi Panna Cotta, featured above, was on Bluefin's dessert list, so I definitely had to order it, knowing the risks involved. Although I didn't extremely like the dessert, it was definitely an interesting experience. I did have wasabi ice cream while visiting Japan, so I thought I'd give wasabi panna cotta a go. It was interesting. There was definitely a wasabi flavor going on but it made the panna cotta grainy, which was the reason why I didn't like the dish as much. However, the green tea ice cream that accompanied the panna cotta was so good it would have been worth ordering another just to get the ice cream. The flavor of green tea was not overwhelming but still present. It was so good!



We also ordered their moch ice cream that came with Strawberry, Mango, Green Tea, and Red Bean. I forgot which ones I had eaten but they were pretty good! And look! We got a heart-shaped strawberry ( :