by Ellen Bannink -

Photoblog: Chinese Food Tour in the San Gabriel Valley

Chengdu Taste
Chengdu Taste

Hey guys, I’m trying something new here, I’m photoblogging today!
Last week I met up with my Meetup friends for a Regional Chinese Food Tour in the San Gabriel Valley, hosted by Clarissa Wei. Clarissa is a LA-based writer specialized in Chinese food and culture and she took us to 5 different restaurants.

Today I’ll be sharing the pictures of all the food we ate at this tour!

We started the tour with Sichuan food at Chengdu Taste, a restaurant that has been open for only 5 months now but is really succesful. There was a long line by the time we left!
Sichuan food means spicy food, so brace yourself!

Chengdu-Taste-2 Mung bean jelly noodle with chili sauce. Whoa! That’s a good way to wake up and open up your taste buds!

by Ellen Bannink -

Cheddar breadsticks

bread-sticks-3-inmyredkitchen

Last Tuesday I had an amazing evening with my LA Food Bloggers friends of the Meetup group. We where invited to a 8 Course Prix-Fixe Dinner at the Barbershop Pop-Up in Venice.

And boy, this was fancy! Chef Walter el Nagar served us delicious food, including the amuse it was 9 courses! I had foie gras for the first time in my life, ate some wild Scottish wood pigeon and fell in love with the candied eggplant.

It’s nice to have a dinner like this once in a while, but deep inside I’m more of a rustic food kinda gal 😉

by Ellen Bannink -

review: Palmilla Cocina y Tequila

With just four months of living in LA there is still so much of this city to discover, so many beautiful places and interesting restaurants to check out.

So when Palmilla | Cocina y Tequila in Hermosa Beach invited the LA Foodbloggers for a brunch on a Saturday I knew I couldn’t say no. I’d never been to Hermosa Beach before and you can always wake me up for Mexican food so that made me go jump in the car on an early Saturday morning two weeks ago. OK, 11am doesn’t sound early at all but to me it meant I had to leave around 10.30am and beat traffic… on a Saturday!

If you go there you have (!!) to order the avocado plate with plantain chips, it’s yummy!

Palmilla is located at the Hermosa Beach Pier and that area is really popular with tourists. You’ll find a lot of boutiques and eateries around there and I was surprised that Palmilla is so much different than the other restaurants.

by Ellen Bannink -

review: Hinoki & The Bird

I totally love the idea of Meetup.com! I found this website while I was looking for other foodbloggers in LA. So when Christine from Feed My Sole organized a Four Course Prix-Fixe Dinner at Hinoki & The Bird I immediately rsvp’d YES! Back in Amsterdam -while we already knew we would be moving to LA- I started to follow Hinoki & The Bird on Twitter and I really wanted to go there for dinner. So this was my chance!

And it was also a chance to do something social for myself since we’ve arrived in Los Angeles. It was so exciting, but I also knew I needed some time with like minded foodies 🙂
Hinoki & The Bird is a Silk Road-inspired restaurant which just opened 6 months ago in January. I got attracted by the Asian/Californian menu, like the corn soup with cilantro and hijiki (seaweed). It’s sounds great to me!

I'm a total sucker for delicate cutlery and tiny flowers.
I’m a total sucker for delicate cutlery and tiny flowers.

And wow, the whole experience at Hinoki & The Bird was stunning. The food was great and well balanced and the service was also perfect. Really friendly staff, the way it’s supposed to be!