Eat Drink Style Let's Be Frank, Culver City - A Sweet Lady & Her Little Hot Dog Stand in Culver City

The many restaurants sprouting in the nouveau Culver City area, or as Delicious Life refers to as 'CuCi', give you the license to empty the wallet and fatten the waistline from low-priced food at Honey Kettle to higher-end food at the wonderful Fraîche. That's great, but I find myself at the lower end of the spectrum, scrapping away at quality places like Del Taco. I was driving around one time on my lunch break, spying out Sang Yoon's long-awaited project known as Father's Office, a much larger sister to the favorite Santa Monica spot. In the corner of my eye, I spotted out a hot dog stand in full operation, with a few people littered around on it. And then I remembered my friend telling me about her new culinary fad... a place called Let's Be Frank. Ah – this must be it. But what's so special about this hot dog?

How about a hot dog that is actually made from grass-fed beef, uses lamb casing, contains healthy stuff like 600 mg. of Omega-3 fatty acids which can lower the risk of coronary heart disease and are nitrate-free? When's the last time you thought about that while chomping on your $4 danger dog in a drunken state on the corner of Western and Pico Blvd? I certainly don't remember.

So I was sold – parked my horse and carriage in the lot and ran up to the modest red and yellow stand. One look at the 2-item menu, and I knew I had a slight crush. I love places with small menus, like Best Fish Tacos in Ensenada. I ordered one of each and stood back to watch Sue Moore, the owner, grill my $5 sausage.

Sue Moore brings her sausage-making skills down to Culver City from NorCal, where she worked as a meat forager for the renowned Chez Panisse in Berkeley... one of the first places in California to focus on seasonal ingredients and offers a different menu every single day. And Sue is one sweet lady. She made sure I got onions the way I liked them, super caramelized!

Let's Be Frank offers the simple yet substantial condiments for maximizing the sausage experience. In addition to the usual suspects, she offers her own homemade mustard, sweeeeeeet relish and sauerkraut. On this day, she had already run out of her pimiento de padron peppers. Boo.

The Brat Dog $5
I tried the bratwurst first and immediately tasted the essence of lamb on the sausage. Very nice. I never knew that lamb could be used for encasing the sausage and it really took the standard pork sausage to another level. While she was grilling the bratwurst, I asked Sue to grill it a little bit longer but told me that the lamb casing is more sensitive to heat and could possibly explode. Wouldn't be too fun. This was good.

The Frank Dog $5
But my favorite was the grass-fed beef. The beef definitely had a different taste due to being grass-fed, and again the lamb casing took this to another level: a slight aroma of lamb and some of the best 'snap' I've ever had. Every time I bit into this, the pieces came off like log bits. Excellent.

If Sue can set up her little cart till 7 or 8 pm, she'll definitely get a lot of customers waiting in line at Father's Office. You can't resist the smell of lamb and grilled onions. The prices are steeper than your usual Costco, Pink's or Danger Dog cart... but quality never goes unnoticed. You get what you pay for at Let's Be Frank. Next time I come, I'll be bringing my own Valentina hot sauce, mayonnaise and maybe some Maggi sauce.

No jokes about the 'happiness' level of the dogs please.

Let's Be Frank Dogs (Dogs Gone Good)
Washington/Helms Avenue @ Helms Bakery Complex
Culver City, CA 90232
Tuesday - Sunday 11 am - 3 pm???

Eat Drink Style On the Road to Japan #2: Chicken Karaage and Cold Tofu

If you’ve been reading my blog over the last two weeks, you’ll notice my sudden trend for all things Japanese. Why? I got a killer deal on American Airlines for $499! I’ll be going to Tokyo and Osaka for the first time and I couldn’t be more stoked. To prepare myself for my trip at the end of this month, I decided to whet my appetite by cooking all things Japanese. A few days ago, I attempted to remake a favorite at Musha’s over in Torrance. Tonight, I made the Japanese chicken McNuggeturu: Chicken Karaage. This heavenly delight is most commonly served at Izakaya-style restaurants. An ‘izakaya’, as defined by Wikipedia is a Japanese bar that was originally catered to businessmen who wanted to drink and eat after work. We all know that as ‘happy hour’. They typically serve skewered food that’s grilled over a charcoal pit. Yakitori, grilled chicken + extraneous parts, is most commonly served in ‘izakayas’.

Anyway, I checked out a few recipes on the eGullet forums and wanted to try my hand at this. This came out sooooo good. I had to stop myself from eating the whole batch after 6-7 pieces. I was like a monster. Here’s how I made it:

(1) Using chicken leg meat, I chopped them into 2” x 2” pieces. I threw them in a large Ziplock® freezer bag with soy sauce, mirin, Chinese Shao Xing rice wine, grated ginger, chopped garlic, scallions (the Japanese use a leek called ‘negi’ – expensive), sugar and a few drops of sesame oil. I let them make love in the fridge for about an hour, flipping the bag over every 15 minutes.

(2) I then made the batter mixture by mixing a bowl with 50% flour and 50% corn starch. Added salt to season.

(3) I got the pan hot at around 130-140 degrees and added ONE DROPLET of water in it to see if it was hot enough. Be careful with this, you could look like an entirely different person the next day if it splashes on your face. Once ready, I battered the pieces of chicken in the flower/corn starch mixture – shaking off the excess.

(4) I then fried the chicken pieces, flipping them over every few moments, for about 1 minute and took them out. Why? Because if you want to achieve that extra crunchy texture, you have to do the Double Fry. Skip this if you have high cholesterol like me. After about 5 minutes of resting, I threw the chicken back into the oil for a 30 second fry to harden the batter.

(5) Make sure you don’t fry more than 5-6 pieces of chicken in your pan/pot. The more food you add in, the faster the oil temperature will go down. The batter will not be fried quick enough and will crumble. No goohr.

(6) Serve with tonkatsu sauce, Japanese mayonnaise or with a simple squeeze of lemon. Serve over chopped cabbage and enjoy. I had to eat a box of tofu just so I wouldn't feel so guilty about the Japanese McNuggeturus. I simply added soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds, scallions and katsuoboshi (bonito fish cakes). Light, delicious and devoid of guilt.


Thanks for reading.

Eat Drink Style On the Road to Japan #1: Okonowhathehellisthatshitmiyaki

Once again, I paid another visit to my new favorite restaurant, Musha in Torrance. This time, I sat at the 'bar' in front of the chefs and got to see what they were brewing. Chef totally knew I was trying to sneak out with some recipes haha. I was asking him questions left and right about each dish that we had. Each time, he would look over at his coworker, to make sure he wasn't listening in on the top-secret conversation. Anyway, I looked at the menu and saw that this dish was described as Musha's most popular dish. The chef said it was kind of like okonomiyaki, but served on top of soba buckwheat noodles, which he called Hiroshima Okonomiyaki. Hell yeah.

Okonomiyaki means 'as you like it' in Japanese and is a mixture between a pancake and pizza and includes shrimp, eggs, katsuoboshi (the bonito fish flakes that look like pencil shavings from a No.2 Ticonderoga pencil). And served with brown sauce or mayonnaise. Love Japanese mayonnaise.

Musha's adds sauteed octopus in their version. I love watching bonito flakes dissolve over hot food. Gives a feeling that it's alive haha. The dish was excellent and here's my version of it, which looks almost exactly like Musha's. Here are some other links regarding okonomiyaki:

http://www.japan-guide.com/r/e100.html
http://www.greggman.com/japan/okonomiyaki/okonomiyaki.htm

Party time:

(1) Boil soba noodles till al dente and shock in cold water. Strain and set aside.
(2) In a pan, start boiling some chicken broth and add a little soy sauce, sake and some instant dashi stock powder (dashi no moto). Once it's hot, add 6 scrambled eggs in there and cook till they are done.
(3) In another pan, pan-fry the soba noodles in hot oil over medium heat. It's ok to get them crispy if you like that. That's how i cooked mine.
(4) Once the noodles are crispy on both sides, carefully slide the egg omelette on top of the noodles. Add a nice coating of teriyaki/brown sauce (recipe to follow) and throw it in the oven for about 10 minutes on 350.
(5) Garnish with red ginger, green onions and bonito flakes. Add more sauce if you like it to be tastier.

My Ghetto Teriyaki Sauce
(1) In a small pan, start reducing soy sauce and sake.
(2) Add a few drops of Worcestershire sauce and balance out the saltiness/tanginess with sugar.
(3) Add corn starch to thicken. If there are starch lumps, pour the sauce threw a small sieve or strainer.

If anyone knows where I can get good okonomiyaki, I'd love to try it out. Thanks for reading.

Eat Drink Style Musha, Torrance - The $435 Dinner: Tax, Tip and Traffic Violation Included

Besides going out for food and drinks, I have to say that a large proportion of my paycheck-pesos go to concerts, which is also spent on food and drinks before, during and after the show. I am a huge concert-enthusiast. Just last week, I went to three shows - The National, We Are Scientists and Sia of the wonderful UK-based, Zero 7. And by default, my partner in crime for all shows is KY, my college friend. Before we even tell each other about a potential show coming up, we’ll buy them and automatically assume that we’ll be going. We just have an understanding.

KY: “Hey, I always come up to West LA from Torrance to meet you up for a show. When you coming down here?”
Me: “Well that’s because there are no concert venues in Torrance.”
KY: “Still. I always come up. You should come down and eat with me in the 310. There’s tons of excellent Japanese restaurants. You’d love Musha’s in Torrance.”
Me: “I really hate the 405 though.”
KY: “Now you know how I feel you selfish bastard.”
Me: “Haha.”

I trust her taste in music, so I should trust her taste in food. After 7:30, I headed down the 405 to the South Bay towards Torrance. I was born in Gardena, yet I’ve never really hung out there. I always wonder how different my life would be, had I grown up in a pre-dominantly Japanese area. Where I grew up, it was mainly Chinese, Taiwanese and Vietnamese. Instead of playing soccer all my life, would I have been into the Japanese basketball association, J-League? Regardless, one thing’s for sure - my love for food would’ve remained stet.

I picked KY up and before dinner, we headed over to the 98-cent Marukai store. Ever been here? It’s like a Japanese Pic n’ Save and it’s a riot. You can buy all kinds of Japanese dinnerware, cups, glasses and kitchen utensils all for 98-cents, or ~5,000 pesos. Whatever your company pays you in. I needed to buy a few sushi plates for future dinners. Definitely check it out if you’re in the South Bay. Good time-killer.

We left and headed towards Musha in Gardena. Here’s how I started the night out on a bad note. With no rush at all, I saw an intersection I needed to make a left on. I’m used to running yellow lights and usually cautious about photo-enforced intersections, but this was Gardena – a new territory. Just as I passed the crosswalk into the grid, I was suddenly flashed by immensely bright lights. First flash. Second flash. Third, and final flash. I thought I was in a techno club. I looked over at KY who looked like she was dancing under a strobe light as she turned to look at me. What the hell? Shit, I’m fucked. After we crossed the opposite crosswalk, we looked at each other and I immediately sighed in disbelief.

Me: “How much you think that’ll be?”
KY: “I don’t know. Few hundred.”
Me: *Sigh. “My fault. That’s it, you’re drinking with me.”

We got to Musha’s, which was located in a shopping center. It was one of those shopping centers that had uniform business signs. There’s really no way of telling if the restaurant is good by judging it from the outside. You just have to try it. The owner of this shopping center obviously liked green. Even if it was a McDonald’s, it would’ve had to follow the strict ordinance of having green business signs. This would be ideal for piece-of-shit restaurants like the Green Burrito or Souplantation.

Good thing we made reservations, there were a few people already waiting for tables. Musha’s holds about 60 people and has nice solid-wood tables. The kitchen/sushi bar is open and the place is well-staffed. I liked the warm ambiance: people were talking, drinking and eating and the servers were running around. A good sign of course. We were immediately seated and given the menus. Pam was right, the menu was truly difficult to look at. Like a hieroglyphic tablet exhumed from 400 B.C. Egypt. KY even warned me, the menu is busy. Good thing she was there. I told her to just order whatever. She ordered five dishes and I was concerned because my pre-conception of an izakaya-style restaurant involved very tiny plates. I was wrong. Musha's was definitely more than I expected.

To start off my unwinding of stress from the previous disco-ball moment in the intersection, we ordered cold sake which came in a baby bucket with ice. Forgot what it was called – all I know is that it was $14 and dammmmn good. For once, I actually drank it like a cup of tea versus throwing it down. With that, we ordered a large Sapporo and some sochu/tea drink. FYI, sake is made of rice and sochu is made out of barley. Koreans also have a barley drink, known as ‘soju’. In any case, both will cause major damage in the morning. Take a test drive by putting your head in a vise and keeping it locked in that position for a good 8 hours. Funlicious right?

The food came in after about 15 minutes and my eyes lit up. I busted out my camera and did the usual. It was funny because the table next to us spotted me 'working' and asked if we were 'Chowhounders'. No, just a human pig. Here’s what we had:


A. Sapporo, Sochu and Sochu/Tea - What can I say? I really can't turn down any drink.

B. Yellowtail Sashimi Salad - A nice way to start a meal. Cold, melt-in-your-mouth pieces of Yellowtail, radish sprouts and cold, crisp lettuce with a nice dressing.

C. Kabocha Croquettes - My last experience with Japanese croquettes was at Blue Marlin on Sawtelle Blvd. They were ok, but these Japanese-pumpkin tater-tots were excellent. Crispy breading with sweet Kabocha. Surprisingly, the center wasn't cold and nicely fried. Two sauces were offered: a teriyaki-like sauce and what I thought was some kind of Miso-mayonnaise dip. Goohr goohr!

D. Musha's Fried Chicken - I'm not a big fan of fried chicken. If I do have to pick a place, it would be Mrs. Knott's Restaurant outside of Knott's Berry Farm. The chicken pieces had nice crunchy batter and were moist inside. They probably marinaded the chicken in yogurt and lemon to tenderize it. This was served with some kind of soy-sauce/caramelized onion sauce. I thought it tasted fine with just a twist of lemon juice. Another goohr goohr!

E. Musha's Braised Pork Belly - I wasn't too impressed that this was served on a Chinese dish. Did you guys run out of dishes? I stabbed my chopsticks into the pork cut and with ease, pulled the meat apart. Very nice. This was similar to the Chinese braised pork cooked in soy sauce, rice wine, star anise, ginger and five-spice powder. I'm gonna try to make this. This was my favorite dish of the night.

F. Pork Tongue - This was my first time trying beef tongue and using the mini-charcoal pit you'd probably find at places like Gyu-Kaku. I was afraid that the meat might have a 'bumpy' texture to it but it didn't. It was chewy, somewhat fatty and absolutely delicious. I just wished they hooked it up with more pieces. This was my 2nd favorite.

Besides getting the $351 ticket, this was truly a complete dining experience with good food, good drinks and a good friend. KY, you DO know good food. It's rare that you'll like the food from beginning to end. Musha's was immaculate. Buzzed and full of goodness, KY and I then headed over to the karaoke joint and sang the night away. A week later, I was back at Musha's. After my last catering event, I treated my friend CK to Musha's for helping me out - he loved it. There's also another location in Santa Monica, but I heard that the Torrance location is MUCH better.

And that's why I'm suggesting Musha for our first, long-overdue meeting of the Los Angeles foodbloggers. It will definitely be a night of good food, good drinks and good company. See you all in a few weeks.

Musha
1725 Carson St., Suite B
Torrance, California 90501
(310) 787-7344

Thanks for reading.

Eat Drink Style Random Food Stuff #2

Next time you're on Sawtelle Blvd. for some ramen, don't forget to bring a pair of these suckers to cool down your piping-hot bowl of Chashu ramen. This is one of many hilarious clever and not-so-clever devices known as 'Chindogu', from the book Useless Japanese Inventions.

Eat Drink Style Random Food Stuff #1

Jeni from Oishii Eats inspired me to create a new section dedicated to videos, particularly in the realm of cooking. This first clip is one of many Japanese instructional tips and tricks. Enjoy.

How to Peel A Cooked Potato

(1) Score potato with paring knife and boil till desired doneness.
(2) Shock in cold, icy water for 10 seconds.
(3) Slowly pull apart the skin. Voila.

Eat Drink Style Kitchen Confidential #5: Crabcakes and Champagne-in-Styrofoam-Cups

It’s been nearly a month and a half since my last catering event. I had never felt so much pain after my careless finger incident, so it took me quite a while to get accustomed to the knife again. Not just a cut, a CLEAN chop off the tip. Like starfish, we have the amazing ability to regenerate. This past weekend was definitely a fun and special event – Kristy of Best of LA asked me to cater her friend’s bridal shower in LA. Mos def.

From the last event, I learned that although you can count on your two loving parents to help out as sous chefs, prepping/cooking food the same day of an event is pure madness and sheer irresponsibility. This time, I called upon my good friend CK to lend a fine and skillful hand. CK recently got into cooking and holds bi-monthly dinners at his apartment. And he is proof that when you give 110% towards something you love, you can truly excel. His food looks great.

Me: “Hey I need your help for a catering event.”
CK: “What? I won’t know what to do.”
Me: “You’ll be fine. I won’t yell at you like I did with my parents haha.”
CK: “I’m down. You want me to make anything?”
Me: “Your heavily sought after crabcakes.”
CK: (Vince Vaughn in Wedding Crashers) “Crabcakes?! I love crabcakes!”

CK headed down on Friday night all the way from behind the Orange Curtain, equipped with gear for the next day. I had already told him that we’d be up all night prepping and that it would make things way easier for the day of the event. Most importantly, you’d reduce the risk of losing a part of your finger. As soon as he got to my place at 9:30, we chopped, minced, diced, and boiled the food away. At about 2:30, we were finally done with prepping and a little bit buzzed. Some people, and midgets, whistle while they work, I prefer to drink while I work in the kitchen with some beats. Makes everything go by quickly. If we hadn’t taken so many cigarette breaks and drank glasses of wine, we probably would’ve been done at around 1 am. Oh well.

Fast forward 5 hours. Snore snore snore ramble ramble snore snore snore random noise #1 stretch snore snore nigtmare flip flip dream of a hot chick twist flip random noise #2,3,4 flip twist snore snore snore yawn.

Rise and shine. You ever get so little sleep that your eyes sting like lemon juice has been wrung over them? It’s what a poor snail probably feels when he gets the Deadly Kosher Salt storm. Well that was me, and I hate that. I used to get that every time I had to take a fucking midterm or final back in college. We both got up right away and loaded up the car with all the food and equipment. Drove over to Western Bagel on Santa Monica Blvd. for some delicious garlic bagels and headed out to K-town.

We got lucky this time because the bridal shower was held at the bride’s parent’s Korean pre-school – so we had access to a commercial kitchen. I thought about the food that I ate back in elementary school and wondered why they would need such a fully-equipped kitchen. After all, it was canned Sysco food that needed a simple re-heating. The kitchen had a four-burner Imperial stove with a large griddle, which was probably only used to fry Sysco burgers. There were also three, sub-zeros used to store Sysco milk. Behind me were three other standard refrigerators. I took a peep to find a nice supply of kimchi and dokpokki, a popular dish consisting of fish cakes, spicy red bean paste, green onions, carrots and rice cakes. Maybe Sysco should consider making instant dokpokki for the little munchkins instead of the Mac n’ Cheese.

About 20 minutes into cooking, a Korean woman entered the kitchen and immediately froze. CK and I both stopped in our tracks and stared at her. We all looked like deer in headlights.

Chinese Deer: "Uh...."
Korean Deer: "Uh..."

Say something, say something before she calls 911. I figured she was the bride's mom, the pre-school owner. Great, did Kristy not tell her that I would be utilizing her kitchen? She was probably thinking, "the hell are these guys using my kitchen for???"

Chinese Deer: "Hi, I'm Kristy's friend."
Korean Deer: "Ohhhhhhh! Ok! Hello!"

*Whew, she left. I made the stupid mistake of buying an ‘As-Seen-On-TV’ product from Costco: The George Foreman BBQ Grill. It was in fact – not a grill, but a hubcap with a power outlet. It seemed promising to me initially because my friends had used the Foreman grill to make Korean bbq ribs. Tasted great. After about 20 minutes of heating, the grill was still not hot. Piece-of-motherfucking-shit. I immediately jumped over to the griddle which resolved my problem instantly. At around 1:30 pm, CK and I brought the food up to the room and were greeted by eight, hungry women. Here’s what we served:


A. Korean Pear, Goat Cheese and Candied Walnut Salad - I initially wrote down on the menu card that I would be using Bosc pears, which are delicious, but I forgot to get them. I figured, Hey, it's a korean party, why not use Korean pears, which are even juicier. I dressed these mothers in a Lemon & Honey vinaigrette.

B. Retarded Spring Rolls - When it comes to rolling up anything, I'm lowsy at it. These were rolled with Vietnamese Nem Nuong pork, basil, romaine and served with sweet n' sour sauce. Light and healthy.

C. Hawaiian Poke with Avocado Mousse on Wonton Crisps - After my trip to Hawaii, I fell in love with poke, which is basically a tuna sashimi salad mixed with soy sauce, sesame oil and Maui sweet onions. These had three different textures which I thought went very well together.

D. Roasted Spring Vegetables - I have no idea if these are in fact Spring vegetables; they are most likely year-round. I figured that since they were roasted this day in Spring, the most sensible name was "Roasted Spring Veggies". Requested by Kristy.

E. CK's Crabcakes - These delicious Tater-Tots-of-the-Sea were a hit according to Kristy. We served it with a roasted red pepper and caper remoulade. We even gave some of these to the janitors working that day. They devoured them. Oops! Sorry Kristy.

F. Grilled Shrimp with Thai Sauce - As I spent the good hour skewering these prawns, I pondered their method of a 'second' death. If I were a shrimp, would i rather...

(1) Be impaled on a stick from Point A to Point B WITHOUT a head
(2) Be mashed into an unrecognizable pulp and be used for Thai papaya sald
(3) Be breaded in a Sysco italian bread crumb mix and then be frozen in a -30 degree refrigerator of the local Applebee's, ready to be eaten by the next fratboy?

I don't know, but it sucks to be delicious shrimp.

G. Portobello Mushroom Ravioli in Butternut Squash Sauce - This was good but so ugly that it didn't deserve a photo. Even my camera refused to snap away at it and said "siccccckkkkkkkkkk".


As soon as we left the room, CK and I headed back to the kitchen and we popped open the bottle of Chandon champagne I bought. I thought to myself, hey maybe Charles Shaw should make a $1.99 champagne. Poured ourselves a nice 6 oz. cup of Chandon in Sysco styrofoam cups. CK did a killer job for his first under-pressure culinary event and I decided to make him my Sous chef haha. I let him keep his coat that I got from Surfas and he agreed to work with me on the next few events. At about 3:30, we finished packing and cleaning. My reward for CK: a nice copy of the great, Italian cookbook The Silver Spoon and a tasty Japanese-tapas dinner at Musha's in Torrance. We got pretty trashed, naturally. Thank you to Kristy for giving me the opportunity to work her friend's bridal shower and of course, thank you, to my Sous chef CK. A job well done buddy.

Thanks for reading.