Nanciful’s Blog

After hearing about the bacon chocolate dessert at Animal Restaurant, I was intrigued. Bacon+ chocolate is the hottest couple right now so I had to get the inside scoop myself. Animal Restaurant takes reservations over the phone starting at 2pm everyday. I was feeling hopeful and called on Good Friday to see if I can get a same day reservation. I did. I proclaimed my love for the lady over the phone and hung up giddy.

The restaurant is literally doors down from Canter’s in Hollywood. There is no sign outside the restaurant though. We were greeted by the lovely hostess (I think she’s the one that got some Nanciful lovin’ over the phone earlier.) The restaurant only seats around 40 with a small bar in the back. They serve the full menu at the bar as well. I love the lofty feeling of the space and eclectic choice of music from 70’s/80’s/90’s

Our very nice waiter handed us our menus on parchment type paper. The menu changes daily and everything is bought local. They have a extensive list of starters. Hubs and I made a pact to have a dinner of appetizers on our next visit. We end up choosing the pork belly with kimchi, peanuts, chili soy and scallions and the melted petit basque with chorizo and garlic bread.

I’ve had pork belly from various higher end restaurants and Animal has THE best pork belly hands down. The dish was a good crossover between American pork belly and Asian flavoring with the kimchi and scallions.

The melted basque was a good glop of gooey goodness. The garlic bread is made how garlic bread should be made.with chunks of garlic embedded in the bread.

Next are the entrees. Hubs ordered the pork chops and I order the Mexican shrimp.

After a bite of the pork chop, Hubs gasped and claimed: “THIS IS PORK??!”

“Of course this is pork! You ordered pork chops!”

Hubs takes another bite. “IS THIS BEEF?!”

“Let me try! MMM..let me try one more bite to make sure.”

After much discussion, we came to the conclusion that the chefs at the Animal Restaurant are geniuses! And yes it IS pork. Hubs continues to be incredulous at the juicy texture of his entree and proclaims that these are the BEST pork chops ever.

grilled pork chop, farro, apple, cipollini, grainy mustard

Does that look like pork to you?

I’m a seafood fiend. So I had to order the Mexican shrimp with beans. It was a generous dish with a very zangy broth.

By this time, Hubs and I were STUFFED but glowing and happy. We were full. However, we will fight on and do what we came here for originally, the bacon chocolate crunch bar. I had to take a shot with flash since I wanted the bacon to show up in the picture. Isn’t she a beauty? The chocolate bar even looks like a slab of bacon. Love it! I usually do not order anything chocolate as my dessert because chocolate can get too sweet. But the salty bacon counterbalanced the sweetness of the chocolate filing. I wish Animal Restaurant would package it like Snickers.

Hubs chose Joe’s Caramel Donuts. Look, you get 4 donuts! They were lightly coated with caramel sauce and the texture was amazing. Slightly crunchy outside and semi spongy, semi banana bread texture inside.

There are always hits and misses with trying a new restaurant. However, everything at the Animal was a HIT. The bill only came out to $140 including 2 glasses of wine, tax and tip. It is a steal for the quality and quantity of food and service you get.

Next time we plan to come with a big group so we can try more starters. Animal has officially made it to my top five.

Breakfast and/or brunch is my FAVORITE meal of the day. It is also the only  “regular” meal of the day that is okay to have only sweet goodies as your main course.

One of my favorite B/B dish is the waffle with warm banana and walnut topping at the Omelette Parlour in Santa Monica. The gooey topping is so tasty that syrup is not necessary but of course provided for you.

This delicious deserves a close up.WORK IT BA-BEY!

Truth be told, I have never had an omelet at the Omelette Parlour. They do have a variety of omelets and other breakfast choices such as ham steak and french toast and blah blah blah. But it’s the waffle with warm banana and walnut topping that keeps this diner going back. A note for pancake lovers, they do NOT serve pancakes on the weekends. Yeah I know..strange. But even more of a reason to try the waffle!  But if you are a pancake lover as much as I am a waffle lover, they have pancakes at the Farmers Market down the street on Sundays.  Other topping choices includes strawberry and blueberry but the warm banana and walnut topping is hands down the best.

Omelette Parlour

2732 Main St
Santa Monica, CA 90405
(310) 399-7892

My favorite t-shirt that I own has Cookie Monster on it along with the words Me Love Carbs. I do love carbs but I try my darndest to stay away because carbs just makes me BIG. At 5′0, BIG is not a good look on me.

Anyways, there should be a t-shirt with my face on it, sinking my teeth into the delicious crustacean along with the words Me Love Crabs. I was organizing files on my laptop the other day and there are pictures of me devouring chili crab in Singapore, pictures of me finishing up the dungeoness crab in the whole schbang sauce at Boling Crab, pictures of me posing happily with my bucket of crab legs at Rockin’ Baja. However, my all time favorite crab dish is the typhoon shelter style garlic crab at Seafood Village in Monterey Park.

One of Seafood Village’s house specialties is the garlic crab. Crab is fried with chopped garlic and some green and red chili. Although there some chili in the dish, it’s not spicy at all. The surface of the crab has a buttery taste and is slightly crispy coating. The meat under that is tender and juicy. I can just go here and eat this dish only, straight up.

TA-DAH!

TA-DAH x 2!!

Another house specialty at this restaurant is their house chicken.  It may look like your run of the mill Chinese steamed chicken but the meat is so tender and glistens with whatever makes it glisten. It’s just yummy. The chicken is served with a scallion and ginger sauce for dipping.  This is also a must order at Seafood Village.

Another one of my favorite dishes here is the clam hot pot with glass noodles. This is a spicy dish so people who are challenged in that area should probably start out with a couple of sips first.As you can see from the picture, they do not skimp on the clams. The celery gives the dish a refreshing crunch and neutralizes the spiciness.

I apologize for the quality of these pictures since these were taken with my iPhone during the time my camera was missing. There are lots of other items on their menu that are pretty good but these are my top three dishes. Great, it’s almost midnight and now I’m hankering me some garlic crab.

I.LOVE.THESE.

I went to Whole Foods over the weekend to get some ingredients for my minestrone soup which turned out pretty good, worthy of a post for next time. I have not been to the one in Pasadena on Arroyo and is it a playground for health/organic nuts! I loves it! I love the tea corner, loose nuts/trail mix wall and beauty section on the first floor. I love the cafe bar, dessert cases and Mediterranean buffet on the second floor.

But what I love most about Whole Foods, for this week at least, is that they make Three Sisters Graham Crackerz. This is the healthy version and in my option tastier version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and it comes in a bag instead of a box. Three Sisters Graham Crackerz  doesn’t give you that sugary coating aftertaste like Cinnamon Toast Crunch does. The crunch texture is also a better than CTC. CTC has almost a fried shrimp chip crunch to it but Three Sisters tastes more like miniture graham crackers. (duh!)

Unfortunately, this is the first time and the last time that I will be buying this because I am just too addicted to it. I bought the bag on Sunday and with EXTREME will power, finished it today during lunch. I constantly think about it and plan my meals and calories so I can eat more of these goodies. In other words, it’s taken over my life and I have to put a stop to it before I regret doing something horrible.

So this is Hello and Good Bye, Three Sisters Graham Crackerz…. Ooohhh…but looky…they have 3 more flavors! Helooooo Sisters…….

Heloooooo Sisters.....

Call me superstitious but I think the last blog theme that I had was like bad feng shui or something. Because since I’ve changed the layout, I’ve found my camera AND the laptop screen fixed itself ! Well, the laptop screen will still need to be examined further.  Anyways, I think the new layout is better, no?

I mentioned a couple posts ago that I went to this awesome vegetarian Chinese restaurant that is not Happy Family. I managed to eat my way through everything without a single picture. I ahd to go back again to get the some pictures.

The Hubs and I are eating vegetarian about 3-4 days per month for religious reasons. Our vegetarianism restricts us from food with garlic, any type of onions, peppers and alcohol. So during the veggie days, we couldn’t just go to our favorite restaurants and order dishes without meat. Because chances are, those dishes will mostly likely at  least one of the forbidden ingredients.

This has prompted us to venture out and find vegetarian restaurants that follow these guidelines. My mom suggested this new place in the Focus Plaza in San Gabriel called Gourmet Vegetarian. This is one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants so far because the food taste like…well real food! And we don’t have to ask the waiter/waitress the ingredient of every dish because they are Buddist vegetarian friendly. They do not season their food with garlic or onions.

In my experience, Chinese vegetarian food tend to taste the same. It’s always chewy with some sort of skewed version of kung-pao tasting sauce slathered all over the said chewiness. But Gourmet Vegetarian restaurant has a refreshing take of Chinese vegetarian foods well as a good selection of Japanese dishes such as hand rolls and California rolls. The Chinese dishes are very much Taiwanese influeced and the taste is pretty close to their meatier counterparts.

One of the must orders on the menu is their hand rolls. They used lettuce, dried bean curd and pickled daikon (turnip).

vegetarian hand rolls

close up of vegetarian hand rolls

Next up is the fried “chicken” strips or nuggets. For those of you that read Chinese, it’s their vegetarian version of 咸酥雞, translated literally, it’s saled crispy chicken with basil leaves. This dish is made with gluten and fried in a light batter, sprinkled with some MSG salt.

"fried chicken nuggets"

My mom is a fan of their sesame pancake but I’m just meh about it. It’s just fried dough with a sprinkle of white sesame seeds. I rather waste my calories on another dish.

sesame pancakes

I think the best dish on their menu is the sesame-oil-wine chicken thin rice noodle. In Chinese: 麻油鷄麪綫. It actually taste like the real thing!  Gluten is used again for the chicken chunks but they got the ginger and the sesame oil essence of the dish down. Of course, there is no rice wine in it or it would not be vegetarian in Buddhist beliefs.

sesame-oil-wine-chicken noodle soup thingamageeg

close up

As I mentioned, the menu has quite a few Japanese inspired dishes. This  was one of them. Stir fried vegetarian udon.  It was a little over peppered and a tad on the greasy side. But overall, it’s a good dish for people who are a little apprehensive to try the before mentioned items and great for kids because it’s really just a normal dish you can get at a Hong Kong style cafe.

stir fried vegetarian udon on hot plate

he restaurant also offers many puff pastry selections. The one that caught my eye was the puff pastry almond soup which is more like dessert. However, I was stuffed that day and didn’t order it. My mom did order the puff pastry pumpkin bisque which is a savory dish.

puff pastry pumpkin bisque

Of course, what’s a vegetarian meal without vegables! Here is their take on the Taiwanese style of pairing vegetables with minced meat (meat made with mushrooms).

An Choy with minced "meat"

Gourmet Vegetarian is not your ordinary Chinese vegetarian restaurant. The restauarant is spacious, has nice decor and is clean. The price is not cheap though. A dinner for 4 will run you about $100, high in San Gabriel/Monterey Park/Alhambra vicinity. However, it’s definitely worth a trip.

(626) 280-