Phil's BBQ. What a different style of bbq. It's not Texas, it's not Memphis, it's San Diego style! My friends first told me about this a couple of years ago, and ever since I first tried it, I never gave a review/blog on it, so this is the perfect time. This place is big, and yet still gets a long line outside of the door that it eventually curves outside and ends up being near the store next to it. It's just that good! It looks like a more BBQish style (if there is a such thing) with wood tables, wood decorations, Americana kinda feeling. The workers are quite nice and helpful if you have any questions about the food, but as for me, I knew what I wanted before I even got to the restaurant. Right when we got there around 11:30am (Opened up at 11:00am), there was already a line outside the door. When I asked one of the workers, she was telling me that the line was already long before they even opened! Truly a masterpiece! As you go through the line, you happen to see the menu above so that you can prepare yourself prior to the order. The menu and pricing is below: I would say their specialty here is the ribs. I always make sure I get the baby back ribs. For this time, I also tried the "El Toro" which has thinly sliced grilled Tri-Tip in it and hella dredged in their house bbq sauce. Also, you can't forget about those Colossal Onion Rings. They are quite the treat. The food is below: One word, BOMB. These were quite a surprise in your mouth. If I had to describe the taste of their sauce, it would be more tangy sweet sauce. It was really something. The tri-tip was thinly sliced and yet, quite juicy. The sauce was absorbed into the bread and made the sandwich soo messy that I used up a ton of napkins. Hahaha. The ribs were amazing! They would easily fall off the bone, and had that smoke ring that was desired. I even prefer the chard taste of the bbq, which gave it a smokey taste. Yummers! The onion rings, the one thing I was craving for a long time was good. Kinda of greasy, but good. If I was right, I think they are more on the sweet side than other onion rings, and they weren't bread crumbs for the batter. They were more flour, if anything. I would definitely recommend this place, but I personally, wouldn't eat here all the time because I wouldn't want to ruin the taste of it for me. It is definitely a place worth coming to multiple times a year, or if I could have that for parties....ohhh mannnn. Come on out to Phil's BBQ where you will definitely leave full and happy!
0 Comments
Torihei is located in Torrance, CA along Carson Street if you are not familiar with it. This is a Japanese restaurant, and if you are unfamiliar with Japanese street food, you are in for a treat. I feel like this place has been here ever since I was little, but I don't know actually how long this place has been around. I just could of sworn seeing the words TORIHEI in the plaza with Koji BBQ and Mitsuwa. Haha. This restaurant specializes in all sorts of Japanese foods, from Chicken Gizzards to Ramen, but their main thing is Yakitori Robata dining. As for our first experience, me and my friend walked in, not realizing that this place is pretty small. Not so cramped, but just smaller than usual. It was kind of hard to get the workers attention to get a table, but it was just so busy when we went, that it was kind of understandable. Once we got a seat at the bar, there was a cup with these sheets of paper that was"technically" the menu and you would write the quantity of each item you wanted. They have a wide array of Japanese foods available so there has to be something you will like. The foods that we ordered are in the slideshow below. They were all pretty delicious, but it was just a different experience for us, especially the Chicken Skin in Ponzu. I don't think it was cooked, but quite delicious. I think all the yakitori would of been good that I will probably try it next time. It will definitely be a different experience if you want to try something new, especially if you want those cheap foods. We got to try all these different foods and more for around $30. I would say that's quite a deal!
At a point, after drinking so much boba, you want to try something new. After doing some research, I found a hidden gem in Wilmington, CA, and this place was called, "Hojas Tea House and Cafe." If you're trying something new, but still feeling the coffee or tea crave, you should come here. It is a new kind of drink.
When you're driving down the road, you might pass it because it's in a small plaza off to the corner of the street so pay attention to your driving. It's a small tea/coffee shop that has everyone here line up for their delicious drinks. The line actually almost passed out the door, so you know there's something good here. They have a wide selection of teas and coffees here, so there are plenty to try. I've heard many recommendations of green tea and the house chai, but I wanted to try something new, so I asked the workers on some recommendations. Jade got the Green Tea Coconut Infusion, and I tried the White Tea Blend. We got them both iced, but you always have the option to have it hot if you're not feeling it. The White Tea Blend was pretty tasty. It had a clean black tea taste to it with a more floral scent. I think it would be better if I tried it hot, but that's always for next time. The Great Tea Coconut Infusion was just like green tea with some coconut milk in it. I think in Jade's drink, they added a bit more coconut milk because you could barely taste the green tea, but other than that, I thought it was good. The drinks are shown below. I think next time I go, I wanted to try something else. I saw that if you had your drink there, the hot teas would come with the actual tea leaves or fruit in your drinks with a filter on top that prevents you from drinking in all the leaves and whatnot. I think that's pretty awesome. They even have pastries, cakes, or sandwiches there too, but personally, I would just go for the drinks. It looks like a great place to hang out with friends and catch up, or even do some studying in here. So I would recommend this place, definitely for something new to try. Welcome to Fil-Am 2. If you can't figure it out by the title, it's a Filipino American restaurant, but I would so consider it just a Filipino restaurant. Unless, it's because a lot of cultures outside of Filipinos come here, then yes. Yes, it is a Filipino American restaurant. How did we discover this place?? What a great question! Well, it started off with us finally arriving in the bay and wondering where we wanted to eat. So...we just checked a street not too far from our stay and walked around. Without a thought, we just pointed at this place and walked in. This is one of the greatest decisions that was made all weekend. When we arrived, it looked like a normal Filipino restaurant, or at least the vibe reminded me of what you would find in Carson. Haha. They just all seem so similar, where you walk up to the counter, say how many items you want, and just point and point and point. The staff were really nice and welcoming, which was a plus for us, outsiders. We didn't really know what to get, so we got the usual. Well, sad to say, I forgot which ones we got the first day..and yes, I said first day. Continuing... we also got the bbq. Too be honest, this is the best Filipino bbq on the stick I ever had and that says a lot. The pieces were big! The picture in the slideshow below doesn't serve justice to how big they are. Also, they were quite flavor with the smokey sweet slightly salty deliciousness that we call Filipino bbq, and can't forget it's quite juicy. Because of the first day, we had to come back the next morning because if they have good food during lunch, they have to have great breakfast there. Day 2: So we went back to Fil-Am 2 for breakfast at 8, but later found out that they actually opened up at 9. Generously as they are, they let us in earlier because they knew we were from LA and it was raining outside. Since it was quite, the parents got to chat it up with them while they were preparing the food, and what was served in the morning is shown in the slideshow below. There was pork longanisa, chicken tocino (my favorite), fried eggs, caldereta, beefsteak, and something I forgot. Lol. Also, (not shown in pictures) were the smoked bangus and the regular bangus. If you guys don't know what that is, it's a marinated milkfish in vinegar and garlic deliciousness. They were all good, and I'm still in love with that chicken tocino. When I got my food, I, of course got the chicken tocino and the beefsteak (shown in the pictures below). She was so nice and gave me extra food. She hella packed it, haha. She knew I was going to post my review on food on Yelp and whatnot, but it's all good. It was well deserved.
Chicken Tocino = a sweet, salty chicken Beefsteak = a salty lemony beef After out breakfast, we bought some bbq to bring back to So-Cal because it was too good that we had to share it with the rest of the family. For people new to the area of SF and want to try really good Filipino American food, I would definitely recommend coming here. I know, forsure that I will be back. Thank you Fil-Am 2 family for such a tasty treat! Man, Salt & Cleaver...who would of thought that you are a gourmet hot dog restaurant, but you are! This restaurant is actually quite lovely inside with a more dim look and feel. In the center is the bar and all around are seating with tables if you want to have a more intimate time with your party. Since we didn't make a reservation, and just wanted to eat, we went for the bar seating. The menu has a range of different foods, more bar/gastropub kind of foods are there. They have more simpler foods like their S&C fries but they even "different" foods like their shrimp & crab based sausage. You even have the option of creating your own sausage sandwich. I got a premade one called DUCK! DUCK! PIG! sausage. The picture is below (btw, sorry for the flash, but there was no other way to take the photo in that dark place) : Duck & bacon sausage, crispy duck confit, bacon-aze, orange ‘marmalade’ in their House Bun. By the way, it's pretty delicious. Personally, I felt that the Bacon portion of the sausage kind of overpowered the Duck part because I couldn't taste it. The duck confit though....sooo tasty. It was a nice texture contrast and something simple with those greens on the sausage made it seem "healthy." Hah.
Their S&C fries were pretty good. They are twice fried that is served with their S&C sauce(which I can't even figure out still... :( but yeah.) They are nicely seasoned in salt & pepper, which is how it should be. Overall, I enjoyed my experience here. Def would eat more sausages! For once some of my roommates actually wanted to take a quick mini vacation out to San Diego and what a great way is to stop by to get some "drinks" going on. If you're under aged, sorry about it, but you can't enjoy the festivities. Might as well skip the blog completely, unless you feel rebellious, then continue on. We went to The Lost Abbey/Port Brewing Co. to try out some of their brew. They are located out in San Marcos, CA within the San Diego County. Right when you get that parking, and you smell the brew in the air, you encounter these giant wooden barrels outside. Below is both sides of the barrel: After you get carded (if you look hella young like me), you enter this great place. On the left-hand side, you have a bunch of paintings posted on the wall that represent the different drinks that Lost Abbey have on their bottles. If you are a Lost Abbey connoisseur, you probably have an idea of what drinks they have available, but if not, then you're out of luck (unless you can read the menu that I took below): They have both drafts for Lost Abbey and Port Brewing, but along with those, they have the seasonal draft for each. Since I tried some of their regular drafts already, I wanted to be adventurous and try one of their seasonal beers. In this case, I got the "Merry Taj IPA." It shows below: It gave a nice floral note with a slight fruitiness, which I liked. If you are into Hoppy Beers, you will like this. Even if you weren't too much into Hoppy Beers, it is a nice change because it's not ridiculously strong. What was interesting, is that it kind of gave a slight spice to it at the back of your throat. Other than this, I got to try a bunch of my friends' beers, but I can't seem to recall the names of each. I just remember once of them kind of tasted like Corn Flakes. I don't know, but it was interesting. If you want to find out more about the drinks, I suggest taking a quick trip there and hitting up the brewery.
**Side Note: $1 Tasters. :) Mo's Egg House is an American diner, located in Temecula, CA that gives you an old feeling of some comfort food from home. Right in the entrance, there are some of those metal wooden doors that is a classic to diners. Giving you a heads up, there is going to be a wait there because it is mainly open for breakfast/lunch, so come on in early. There is plenty of seating for the tables and even a counter to sit at. You are given some complimentary coffee cake here. What you know about FREE!? The cake is a light sweet with a great cinnamon flavor to it. The cake is not dry or anything, which made it quite delicious. The coffee cake is below: On the menu, there are a bunch of different things that you would find typically at a diner, except with a twist as well. There are different kinds of scrambles, omelettes, waffles, pancakes, etc. and their specialties as well. For my first time here, I ordered the Crab Cakes Eggs Benedict. The picture is below: The Crab Cakes Eggs Benedict is a nice seafood twist on the typical Eggs Benedict with Bacon. The crab cakes had a crunchy exterior with an actual crab filling, not that imitation crab. The hollandaise sauce was really creamy which complimented the crab cakes and English muffin. The potatoes were really good because they would be crunchy and soft inside at the same time. There was a good amount of salt on them, but wasn't overpowering at all.
Overall, my food experience was great and for being around $10, I thought this was a good meal. I would definitely come back here for more breakfast foods. I still want to try the different omelettes. I would definitely suggest coming in here. |
Food Porn.Restaurants, Shops, Pictures. Archives
February 2016
Categories
All
|