With only 3 hours of sleep last night and belly full of white wine, I am a little drunkz. So this calls for a photo laden post.

My friend C is one of the best cooks I know. Not only is her food delish, the presentation is unbelievable. When she invited us over for a nice sushi dinner, I knew I was in a treat but I wasn’t expecting a FEAST. Check it!

Shrimp cemetery!

Fish cemetery! Okay, I’ll stop. Isn’t it a beauty?

Tuna albacore tataki, just like how it’s served in the restaurants but much fresher!

Smelt fish

Chawamushi

The dinner also included miso with seaweed,shrimp heads and Japanese mushroom and spicy tuna hand rolls and of course, lots of sake. Check out the impressive HOMEMADE spread!

For dessert, C knows that Hubs does not like cake (Blasphemy I know!) so she prepared creme brulee, prepared tableside by C’s MR.

Some strawberries and fresh mint from the garden, powdered goodness and we’re done.

When we were about to cry UNCLE from fullness, C brings out..you guessed it..CAKE! YAYAYAYAY!!!! It’s her famous homemade chocolate cake roll with espresso cream filling. The cake was perfection, not too sweet,not too bitter, not too spongy and not too dense with just the right amount of fluffiness. I thought I could snag Hubs’ portion but before I knew it, he had polished it in a few bites. So there is hope.he can be converted.

Here is our lovely chef C at work. I’ve asked her several times to marry me but she’s already taken.

Thanks so much guys for such a fabulous dinner and wonderful night of pictionary! Should I post up pictures of our drawings? Skydiving? Macaroni?<———- ??? 

Back in the day, Tea Station use to be just a little tea store that sold packaged teas, loose leaf teas, ice tea, hot tea and various flavored boba. It use to be a place where one can pop in and pop out and get a drink to go. For you young’uns out there…once upon a time, their boba was $2.50 and buy one get one free! GASP! Yes, it’s not just a myth….it’s true!

However, over the years, Tea Station has turned into this boba conglomerate. The turned the stores into this big hang out place complete with Taiwanese tabloid  magazines, Chinese checkers and chess, cards for the patrons to play with. The one in San Gabriel near the Focus Plaza now has 20 something tables. Their menu has more than just dried squid and giant toast. There are full on meals like tea infused pork chop rice and curry chicken dishes.  Tea Station is now a destination, not just a stop over. People will stay there for hours on end, playing cards or reading magazines. I don’t understand why they can’t just do these things at home.

Men hanging out

Playing cards..why don't they just do this at home?! I don't get it.

Along with Tea Station’s  “improvements”, the prices has skyrocketed! I believe the boba is now something like $3.50-$3.75 a cup and the tea is $6 a pot!  And this was not the most expensive on the menu! This is the Hubs’ drink of choice at Tea Station. He loves it. It just taste like sugar water to me. Not even a whiff of tea anywhere.

Hubs' beloved mixed fruit tea

My mind was probably high from the euphoria that is Hama Sushi or I’m just weakling amongst peer pressure but I also ordered a pot of tea. Mine was infused with starfruit that was suppose to sooth my pulmonary system or something. (It said so on the menu so it must be true.) I wanted to kick myself for getting it. It tasted like they just melted a couple of Ricolas in hot water, put it in a fancy glass tea jar and charge you 6 DOLLARS! OK, that might not sound like alot to some of people. But around this neighborhood, you can get 2 meals for that price. So yes, it’s relatively pricey.

My Ricola tasting tea...blegh

The Sis decided to be adventureous and order a  hot barley milk tea with boba instead of a regular iced milk tea with boba. I had sip of it and it had a nutty flavor. Okay, I’ll admit it, the boba is pretty Q (FOB TALK!). In other words, nice an chewy to the core. So this drink was actually okay. Just a tad too sweet for my taste.

Frog eyes and hay sticks...just kdding. Just barley hot milk tea with boba

The San Gabriel population doesn’t seem to share my distaste for Tea Station because the place was packed when we left. Here their addy anways if you ever find yourself craving for some expensive Ricola flavored water.

Hama Sushi is my new favorite restaurant. It’s a tiny sushi joint located in Little Tokyo, right next to Sushi Komasa. I use to frequent Komasa quite a bit. However, sometime last year, I developed an aversion to sashimi. Every time I saw a piece of raw fish, I wanted to gag. It was truly a dark time in my life…..I was horrified at my distaste for one of my favorite foods. But now, my love for sushi came rushing back at me when we visited Hama Sushi and I want to eat sushi any chance I get.

Hama Sushi serves traditional sushi, sashimi type items only. There are no teriyaki chicken, curry udon or mabo tofu ramen etc. There are no dymanite rolls or Aladdin rolls or Jafar rolls and the like. Just good old sushi bar items.

This is my second time there and both times we sat at the bar. There is only about 18-20 seats at the sushi bar and a side room that has 2 tables, seating 4 people and 6 people. So yeah…very cozy. My favorite so far is the spicy tuna hand roll. Just plain rice and delicious spicy tuna.  The spiciness doesn’t overpower the roll so you don’t have to make that too-much-wasabi or Sricha sauce face. I love that the chef just hands the roll to us as soon as he is done. No stands, no pretty plates. Just….here ya go!

We also ordered saba (mackerel), uni, and tuna albacore.

My sister ordered the clam miso soup. It was delicious. Not too salty and not too clammy. The soup was written on the whiteboard outside the restaurant so I’m not sure if they have this everyday. We saw a whole bunch of people ordering the soup so we had to jump on the bandwagon.

The Hubs saw yellowtail collar on the whiteboard as well and wanted to try it. This took me completely by surprise because he is a chicken-strips-criss-cut-fries type of lad. But boy am I glad that we ordered it because it was out of this world. There is so much succulent meat in that thing and none of it was fatty. It was just lightly seasoned with ponzu, green onions and daikon.

Next up is the spider roll. I saw our neighbor’s plate and just had to have some. Usually the spider roll that I get from other sushi restaurants have to much batter, making it too crunchy. But this one was just the opposite. The crab shell was just slightly crunchy on the outside and the meat inside was nice and juicy. I saw the chef create it, he just took the crab, put it in the sushi roll while it was flat, added some maguro, cucumber, rolled it up and voila!

By this time the Hubs and my sister was getting full. But the spider roll was so good that I had to order the soft shell crab by itself. I could have eaten another dozen.

We had some sake and Sapporo with our meal and the damage came to around $95 including tax and tip for 3 people. Not bad for some world class sushi. Hama Sushi is currently on my top 5 right now. Try it, you won’t regret it.