Yanni's Best Charbroiled - Fillmore, CA

BIL's house is out there, and I'm told there aren't a lot of choices if you're trying to do the Doordash. 

Yanni's is one such choice and a rather enjoyable one at that. Their menu reminds me of Torrance's Y'Not, a diner-style place with a drive-thru and a very extensive menu. 

The Pastrami Sandwich is a good one, thin-sliced, hot on a hoagie. The fries are alright. 

The Gyro Sandwich is always a personal favorite of mine, and this one is exactly what I'd expect. The slices are seared, the pita is fluffy and warm, and the tzatziki tempers the salinity. 

The prices are high but reasonable in today's world as the portions are huge. Plenty of food, plenty of fun. 

King Mediterrano - Torrance

Think back to your 20s, the worst hangover you've ever had. Now think of the cure. 

If you lived in SoCal back then too, it would look exactly like the Chicken Shawarma Nachos. This Medi-Mex fusion creates unique concoctions like these crazy-good seasoned pita chips topped with chunks of chicken, rivers of sauce, and a handful of olives and tomato. It's a fun dish, perfect for watching a game but leaves you feeling a little less gross. 

The Falafel Plate is a bit more wholesome, 14 balls of falafel on a bed of white rice, invading both the baba and the hummus. The baba doesn't taste like eggplant and the hummus has too much lemon. Still, 14 falafels for under $14 was enough food for almost four days. 

Gotta get my Gyro Meat - they make theirs with beef and lamb. Even the side is so much, and I love how thinly sliced it is. 

They're a step above fast food and a smidge below fast-casual, but they're far from gourmet. Still, the food is fun, and the helpings are huge, especially at this price point, and in the days of inflation, it's pretty great to get multiple meals at this price. 

Pita Kabob Mediterranean Gastropub - Visalia, CA

Heading home from Sequoia National Park can be a bit of letdown. It's not the prettiest drive, and the towns you pass through on your way back to SoCal aren't exactly known for the food. 

Well this is a pleasant surprise. In the middle of a pleasant little town called Visalia sits a cool Mediterranean joint with a bar and a beer garden. 

The food tastes fresh, and the kitchen has savory-looking rotating spits of gyro meat and shawarma. The Babba Ghanoush makes a great starter. It comes out right away, a bridge for low blood sugar if you're starving while waiting for your made-to-order. I don't know much about babba ghanoush, but this one is thinner in texture than some others I've had. The eggplant and the smoke are still ever-present, and the I do think the flavors are good. Dip with the pita chips - they're literally the best part of this meal. 

Chicken Kabob Pita with two sides, a frugal lunch special that fills you up for the day. The chicken is tender and not at all dry, and you can't go wrong with hummus and fries. The Cilantro-Jalapeno Hummus is a wise choice if you're looking for a bite that bites you back. 

Gyro a la carte is better if you want more meat and less filler. The meat is tender, and the I love the onions too. 

Even after a weekend of easy car camping, I'm grateful to not have to make my own lunch. They know how to make a good lunch at Pita Kabob, and I would definitely pause for their beer garden next time I'm near Visalia. 

Taki's Place - Franschhoek, South Africa

We are so done with the red stuff right now. Not the wine, but the overarching theme of blood-dripping meatmeatmeat with an occasional slice of tomato has us craving absolutely anything else. 

We start with the Vegetable Spring Rolls, emphasis on the vegetable. Lightly fried, a lot of packaging for a few shreds of carrots and cabbage with a bit of sweet chili sauce, but we are ripping into those shreds like a hyena making a kill.

The Greek Platter is a hit or miss, but it still hits the spot. The dolmades  are strongly sour thanks to a wall of vinegar. The acid is overwhelming, but I'm actually enjoying the punch in the face - it's refreshing after all the fatty foods we've been eating. The feta cheese and olives are exactly what they say they are, and they are refreshingly delicious between bites of fried calamari and flaky spanakopitta. Jury's still out on the fried haloumi, which has a texture like microwave scrambled eggs. I've never had haloumi before so I'm not sure if it's supposed to be like this... It's better than the keftedes anyway. These are supposed to be meatballs, but they don't taste like much, and they're dry as bone.

Not too shabby but nothing special. Taki's Place is a welcome break from the heavy, meaty French foods, but I wouldn't go out of my way to try it either.

Neomonde Bakery and Deli - Morrisville, NC

The food at Neomonde is hardly the brave new world its name might suggest, but after a couple hours of hard core climbing all you want is old world wholesome.

My Beef Kabob Platter was just that. Simple, juicy chunks of well-seasoned beef, a soft pumpkin salad on the side, and a crisp kale and apple salad with minimal dressing, just the way I like it. Sure, salads sound way less impressive, but I was pretty impressed by the freshness of the food considering we showed up 30 minutes before closing. Even if they told me my food had been sitting out of day, I wouldn't have believed it.

The kabob and sides are a healthy ending to a healthy workout, but the Pistachio Baklava is the ultimate negation. With all those irresistibly fluffy pastry layers doused with honey and loaded with nuts, negativity has never tasted so sweet.

Speaking of things that are sweet, this week's theme seems to be saying goodbye to some of the sweeter things in life, and Raleigh might be one of them. They say there's no place like home, but I've always felt like Raleigh was the Neomonde of my life - a place I can rest when I'm tired of climbing the giant rock wall of life. Not a permanent place, but not one I can easily forget. And it'll be a long time before I can return to rest, but don't worry Neomonde, goodbye doesn't always mean forever.

Supping at Sesame Moe’s - Manhattan Beach

Let’s start with a disclaimer: Sesame Moe’s décor is a down-to-earth mood-lit middle eastern. The key word here is MOOD lighting. Don’t let my poorly-lit photos fool you. The food is prettily presented, and I swear it’s not all one color. Now on to my actual review…

When Ali Baba shouted “Open sesame!” he got a cave. When I shouted “Open sesame!” I got a restaurant in Manhattan Beach. And when you think about it, Sesame Moe’s wasn’t so different from sesame cave. After all, both hail from the Middle East, and when you think about it, both were troves of hidden treasure. One of them just happened to be the edible kind.

Since I’m spilling my guts about this buried treasure of a restaurant, I might as well start with some truth serum. The Almaza is a good authentic middle eastern beer, according to my friend who would know. It’s light like the Chinese beers but smoother and actually goes really well with the food.

If you’re hunting for a Mediterranean treasure of an appetizer, start from the west and work your way east. Remember the last time you had Spanish tapas? Did you like the patatas bravas of the west? If yes, then you’ll love the Fried Potatoes of the east. A crispier version of our beloved home fries plus some cool cilantro and a dash of garlic. Tasty but palate-neutral, this one’s a crowd pleaser all around.

The fried potatoes were sweetly familiar, but the Kibbi was like a precious stone I’ve never seen. Meat in a shell of more meat? Yes please! Just shout “Open sesame!” at the shell of beef and bulgar, dip it in the yogurt sauce, and take a bite to unearth the spicy, flavorful ground beef and pine nut mixture inside.

Enough with the apps, let’s move on to the meat of the story. We stuck to the classic entrees, but the value of every diamond depends on the quality, and the Beef Shwarma with thinly-sliced strips of steak and a side of heavenly Hummus is definitely not a diamond in the rough.

The beef is a stone that shines, and the Chicken Tawook glows just as brightly. These chunks are juicy off the skewer and covered in fluffy clouds of the greatest garlic sauce ever. If Ali Baba had found nothing but that garlic sauce recipe in his cave, it might have made him richer than all that treasure.

Like any good story, my meal at Sesame Moe’s has a strong beginning, a juicy middle, and a sweet ending that doesn’t leave you hanging. Ali Baba’s ending was a happy one, and for me, my ending of Pistachio Ice Cream with a flaky crust of Baklava left no room for complaints.

I may love the finer things in life, but I’m definitely a lot nicer about it than Ali Baba was. That guy found his treasure and shouted “Close sesame!” so that no one could ever claim what was now his. But I wouldn’t dream of letting something so special go unnoticed, which if why I’ll be telling everyone how much I love Sesame Moe’s. Don’t close Sesame, don’t ever close!

Kin at Kefi – NYC

According to Gus, the proud, lovable patriarch of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, “There are two kinds of people. Those who are Greek and those who wish they were Greek.” And thanks to this movie’s portrayal, it’s hard not to wish you were Greek, if only just to be a part of this boisterous but generous, meddling but embracing, scolding but accepting, nagging but loving family unit.

Kefi very much embodies the setting of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The two full floors of buzzing tables replicates the feel of a full family but is quiet enough to not make you feel like it’s assaulting your ears.

My dinner started like every meal with a Greek family:

 “Are you hungry?”

“Oh no, I just ate.”

“Ok, I make you something…Eat! Eat!”

So Eat! the Selection of Spreads, a vegetarian nirvana good enough to make me forget meat. The Tzatziki was cool as a cucumber, the Taramosalata was grainy with spice, the Melintzanosalata says “screw you” to Babaganoush, and the Revithia puts hummus to shame.

Vegetarian apps are awesome, but when it comes to the entrée, there’s bound to be a little friction. “He don’t eat no meat?! Is ok, is ok, I make LAMB.” Thanks for the Sheep’s Milk Dumplings with rich lamb sausage, Aunt Voula. You really are the best cook in the family.

The Tubular Pasta with savory Greek sausage, light veggies, and fresh feta was the flavor of the Mediterranean. “Give me any word in English and I’ll tell you the root of that word in Greek.” Give me any delicious food in the world and I’ll tell you its origin in the Mediterranean.

I was getting a little overloaded with all the movie references conjured by this meal so I started looking for a main dish that captured an important aspect of myself instead. The Flat Pasta did just that. The pulled braised rabbit in this dish must have multiplied like bunnies because I think there was more rabbit than pasta. I just considered it a gift and ate it. They say to beware of Greeks bearing gifts, but I’d never look a gift horse in the mouth.

When people ask us where we come from, well, we come from our families. My family is Chinese. I am Chinese by birth and American by culture. A no-longer-rare combination of eastern tradition and western innovation, I’d like to think I at least turned out marginally better than Americanized Chinese food. Few people are prouder of my heritage than me, but Kefi made me want to ditch it all to be Greek. 

Still Voracious at Vlora UPDATE – Boston

For the first time, I understand Vlora’s location across the street from Trinity Church. The inspiration for this Mediterranean mecca is nothing short of divine. My second of what will soon be many pilgrimages to Vlora was all I’d hoped for and more…

Every church holds a holy figure, and Vlora houses Aldo, the executive chef. Aldo's food is as amazing as his personality - he's as sweet as the Kompekai. I told him that my friend had a complaint about the beef kebab from his previous visit, and he sat down with genuine concern to ask for specifics. Let’s just say that our concerns were proven unfounded, thanks to our heavenly meal.

If your sweet tooth is as potent as mine, do as I did, and start with the Upside-Down Pineapple Cake Martini - your excuse to have dessert before dinner. It goes down as smoothly as its namesake cake. The bartender mixed another crazy concoction for my friend, and though I don’t remember its name, I’ll never forget how good it tasted. I’d come back just for the drinks.

We had a delightful display of appetizers, including the Watermelon with Feta. Impossibly light, ravishingly refreshing, and a shockingly scrumptious combination with a splatter of balsamic. Forget ice cream, this is the ultimate hot, dry Mediterranean summer treat.

The garlic yogurt was particularly noteworthy. The love-child of tzatziki and alioli, I initially neglected it because I expected glorified sour cream. One dip shut my mouth pretty fast…The kick of garlic made it so exceptional that I refused to let them take it away when I finished my appetizer plate. And as an anti-sauce person, I’m embarrassed to confess, we dipped everything into it, especially the sweetly roasted but still firm Pan Roasted Zucchini. These two were made for each other…like Sonny and Cher…pre-divorce…I think we also had the Yogurt Pie. Crispy “crust” with a creamy but not-too-much filling. And I dipped it in the garlic yogurt too because clearly, it lacked yogurt.

My dining companion had previously described the Beef Kebab as “like it had been frozen - mushy, not succulent, and drenched in barbecue sauce”. He gave it another try, and Aldo made him eat his words…literally. I confirmed that multiple times throughout this meal. And I needed all 5 bites to make sure... that’s what I told him anyway…

The Psaropita was ridiculous. No other way to describe haddock snuggled into flaky phyllo. Couldn’t taste the mint in the sauce, but the tomato was light and enhanced the undeniably fresh fish. The feta was the glue that held the couscous together, and it added an unprecedented richness to a usually light accompaniment.

The Kompekai remains the best dessert at Vlora IMHO, so order this…or else...This time, we were treated to the Crème Brulee, which was standard, but we all know my standards…And believe me, this creamy goodness topped with a lightly charred layer of crisp sugar bore my standards as well as any Roman legion. I’m going back to the Kompekai next time, but if you have a nut allergy, keep the crème in mind.

Unlike 224 Boston Street, Vlora held its ground. On my stringent rating scale, Vlora keeps all 5 stars, and believe me, I’ll be back to confirm that a few more times.

With my dwindling med student budget, it’s rare that I return to a restaurant that isn’t Toro, but Vlora solidly holds its own. Aldo is a master chef who doles out delicacies, and the bar brews drinks that taste like candy and go down as smoothly as the ice that they were mixed in. Last time I visited Vlora, I came away with the conclusion that it’s the perfect reprieve from a hot summer day. That opinion no longer stands. I now believe that Vlora is the place to be every day, of every year.