Panvimarn Thai Kitchen - Long Beach

It's just a random shopping center in Long Beach. A boutique, a specialty store, a pharmacy, but on a random Friday night, Panvimarn comes alive. 

There's so much going on everywhere you look. There's a line out the door, and people demanding tables all around. Inside every table is full, and every patron has something to smile about.

The busy-bee, trying-to-be-trendy vibe is everywhere, too. It's on the many-page menu, the range of food from noodles to sushi to soup, and it's apparent in every tricked-out dish.

The Appetizer Sampler, for example, is a crazy potpourri of all the things you could possible throw into a fryer. 

The Siam Spring Rolls, shipped straight from Siam. They're fried but they finish light, a lot going on, with silver noodles,cabbage, celery, and carrot squished like all the water in my tiny bladder because the bathroom is too far away. 

I didn't mind the Shrimp Blanket, despite having tired of all things fried. The tiger shrimp is incredibly fresh-tasting, and it shines through with a dab of sweet and sour despite being mummified in a thin wonton skin. 

They must use different skins because the Fried Wonton is thick. There's a generic gyoza filling of chicken and undetectable shrimp. 

Sometimes a house special can be right on the money...but the Money Bags are not. A hot mess of bland chicken and shrimp in yet another wonton skin; it's just a less salty version of the fried wonton except it's shaped like an airbag. Then again, this train wreck could use a good airbag.

Stick to the simple stuff. The best thing is a simple Chicken Sa-Te. The spices are right-on, and it finishes sweet under a curried dust. I love a good peanut sauce, and this one is close enough.

I need to take my own advice. Had I ordered my entrees after the appetizer, I wouldn't have gone anywhere near the Roasted Duck Curry. It's an indescribable crazy-soup, with expected ingredients like duck, pineapple, and basil leaves, but then they threw in grapes and lychee. The grapes are just strange, the way they cook into incongruent juice-bubbles, and the lychee has a preserved-in-a-can-aftertaste that permeates the rest of the curry.

The Soft Shell Crab Curry is better...kind of. It's just a heap of...stuff. Yellow-colored...stuff. Shreds of egg hang off like like cobwebs, a weeping-willow that covers the crab. The crab does taste reasonably fresh, and the yellow curry sauce suits it.

What a mess! Whatever frantic, stream-of-consciousness, grab-an-ingredient-off-the-counter-and-throw-it-in kind of innovative spirit is driving these people needs to be stopped! I love that you're trying to think, and I love that you're trying to be different, but there has to be some sort of filter, a tiger-mom to tell you when enough is enough. Panvimarn gets an A for effort, but they really need to reign it in. 

Da Pasquale - Beverly Hills

I love Italian, but when I heard that Da Pasquale was in Beverly Hills, I had serious second thoughts. The traffic is a nightmare, a wondrous weave of one-way streets preceded by a freeway that doubles as a parking lot. 

It takes a lot for me to even consider a trip in that direction, but Da Pasquale is WORTH IT.

Everything in Beverly Hills screams extravagance, and considering the prices, everything sure does feel like a luxury. Da Pasquale isn't cheap, but there's real value in their vittles, a genuine quality to the ingredients that makes the import fees and authenticity cost so WORTH IT. 

Take the Proscuitto San Daniele, for example. Those thin, salty-pink slices finish sweet, silky against a backdrop of soft-yet-bold burrata. The cream tastes like Tuscan sunshine, cold rays on a crisp bed of bitter baby arugula.

The Mezze Maniche alla Posillipo is their perfect pasta, floppy kaleidoscope-tubes spreading a colorful blend of spicy tomato, al dente sea-legs of dense crab and tender shrimp.

A river engulfs an unsuspecting Osso Bucco, a muddy gravy of peas and mushrooms in a hearty stew.

The spinach and potatoes come as a side, lest they drown.

The Lemon Sorbet comes not a moment too soon. Like much of Da Pasquale, this tangy, tart, feather-light delight doesn't forget where it came from. Sitting pretty in its original rind, it does double duty as a palate cleanser and a wake-up call for the osso-bucco coma.

The Panna Cotta is right on. A clean, blank slate dotted with a bright berry sauce, it finishes creamy and sweet, an exquisite texture as smooth as satin.

The Affogato al Caffe will keep me up all night. A potent shot of espresso will make even the most tired of hair stand on end, as it engulfs a scoop of a textbook gelato.

There's so much glitz and glamour in Beverly Hills; it's hard to tell what's real. Da Pasquale may be the only restaurants that continues to keep it real, and it makes them the only place I'll go. The ambiance is the kind of genuine warmth that usually gets lost under the harsh city lights, an old-school charm commonly dwarfed by the surrounding skyscraper. Yet Da Pasquale has it all: a cozy dining room as familiar as chianti, a server who learned her Italian before her English yet somehow masters both, and the most amazing thing of all, a chef who still cooks all her food. Walk by the kitchen and catch a glimpse of Anna, so engrossed in making every meal as perfect as the last that she may not look up all night. This is why Da Pasquale stands strong, and I hope it always stays like this.

Sushi Chitose UPDATE - Redondo Beach

After SushiStop, Sushi Chitose is exactly what I need. So on a random Thursday lunch, while someone was sniffing my car for fumes at the 76, I was sniffing all the sushi smells at Chitose's bar. 

My car passed its smog check, and Chitose passed its palate check. The Omakase is still on point, but the selections haven't changed too much so I'll try to keep my recap brief.

The Monkfish Liver starts things off, a creamy pat of liver-butter with a dash of acid-ponzu.

Maguro is a dense slice of sophistication - can't fight the bluefin!

The Yellowtail comes next, a whiter, lighter contrast.

Scottish Salmon is creamy and smooth,

And Halibut is a reliable palate-reset with the aftertaste of a crisp shiso leaf.

Amberjack is gooey and sticky in all the right ways,

and the lighter Snapper is dwarfed by the more-robust Albacore.

The Shima-aji, or striped horse mackerel, has a hint of the fishy mackerel I despise, but the chunky texture cuts down on the sting.

The Sweet Shrimp is so soft,

and the Japanese Scallop is tender and sweet.

To help you digest before the rest, there is a Miso Soup with your sweet shrimp's head. Do what the chef says and scrape out the shell. Mix those bits of mini-meat into the soup, and taste the texture-change. A little shrimp adds a lot of seafood-savor. 

Ikura is still not my favorite, but their preparation is very good; fresh and minimally fishy. 

The Blue Crab Hand Roll is still my fave, and it's crafted with a high-grade, crackly nori. The quality shows.

Always a happy ending with soft, sweet Eel,

And a taste of shrimp-egg Tamago. 

The omakase hasn't changed much - why mess with a good thing? Nothing needs to change at Chitose, and I hope this sweet, family-run restaurant sticks around.

SushiStop - Los Angeles

I'm annoyed before I even order. No one would call their prices unreasonable, but their advertising is a joke. “Everything $2.95” should really read “1/3 of the menu items for $2.95, 1/3 for $4, and 1/3 for $6” if they're trying to be honest. Seriously, just label the individual items, advertise them as "good value" or whatever and spare me the headache of trying to figure out what costs what!

Then again, at these prices, who cares?

I don't recommend starting with the nigiri. The quality is middling, and when it's just the fish with rice, there's nothing to cover that up.

The Bay Scallops are kind of tender...tender enough, I guess. Use wasabi and lots of soy sauce. The Uni is the big-spender item, $4 per individual piece. Not bad, but not as creamy and sweet as it should be, and definitely not worth the "splurge".

The regular Scallop is a bit lacking in flavor, though I'll always love the texture and the yuzu pepper on top. Eel sauce improves any cut of Unagi, and the Yellowtail Truffle Handroll is much edible than the nigiri was.

Put them side by side, and I'll always reach for the Baked Blue Crab Handroll first. The crab is baked in mayo, which enhances the flavor. A cheap thrill, but one I can still fall for.

My next selections are as boring as this review. There's a Spicy Scallop Roll with scallops that aren't that fresh, and the Spicy Tuna Roll tastes like finely-chopped Sriracha. 

It's not quite a roll, and thank goodness for that. The Tuna Crispy Rice may be the only thing to really hit the spot.

The one menu item less torturous than reading this bland review is the sashimi. Despite the 6-dollar price tag, it is worth way more for the slightly-better-than-mediocre quality. I assume it's because sashimi-grade fish has to be better. 

That said, I dig the Snapper Yuzu Carpaccio. The yuzu is a shot of super-citrus, and it makes the snapper...snappier. 

The Salmon Truffle Sashimi has a little sass as well, and it's just harder to screw up salmon.

The meal ends more eventfully than it began, but I'm not asking for an encore. In their defense, $2.95 for sushi is a steal on the streets of Sawtelle. but I think Kula is a little bit better. Honestly, the food isn't bad, and I feel bad bashing it as much as I did. At least you know you'll never get shorted at SushiStop...but you may want to make a shorter stop.