Boy, the years are just flying by!

So I came here to actually close this account. I had such a hard time remembering the username and password, I didn't think I was going to be able to do that. So before I deleted the account, I looked through the blog and it brought back good memories of the store and when I wanted to make an effort to blog about food. I thought about that rating system for a while and didn't want it to go to waste, so here I am writing again. Probably writing more to purge the useless things going through my mind than to actually write about food.

While I don't write about food, I am definitely eating. Man do I love to eat. Coming out of culinary school, I thought a good chef should not have a "style" of cooking because it would make them stale. But I have realized that everyone has a "style" of cooking or eating. We just like to call it different things like "preferences" etc..

I still get slightly annoyed when people ask me if I have a "specialty" or "type of food" I like to cook as I were a physician specializing in putting a scope up some persons ass and blowing air through it and listening to them fart and stink up the small exam room while you ask them questions. I guess I've been particularly grouchy my whole life, so I just don't do to well with those kind of questions. It reminds me of how narrow minded we can be as humans; that we don't have the ability to see past the superficial. I digress...

Speaking of my "style", I've come to realize that I just want to make good food. I've been eating so much crappy food, I realized that most restaurants have forgotten the basics. Food is rarely good anymore. It's about some kind of gimmick or having some famous person having eaten there or what kind of foam or molecular gastronomous this or that. Can't it be just about a clean table and silverware, a server that isn't rude, and food that you can recognize and enjoy? Too often food establishments are about one or the other, not all those things. You have to spend upwards of $50 per person to get anything that resembles a decent meal. It's the reason why I prefer fast food over anything else. At least you know what you're getting at what price you're getting it for without having to deal with some snobby, pretentious, patronizing waiter/waitress that calls you "honey" or "dear" when you know they are at least a decade younger than you. At fast food, you know exactly what you're getting. Del Taco: combo burrito meal, large, with a Diet Coke and 3 classic tacos without tomato. All for under $8. McDonald's: large #1 with a diet coke and a cheeseburger. $7. No guessing. I went to Lucille's with my sister and wife and got baby back ribs. Lucille's is known for their bbq. How are they gonna mess up my baby backs right? Wrong. Fricken shoe leather! I had the manager come by and complained of course. I told him they "sucked" and they were tough like "shoe leather". He asked me if I wanted another order. I rudely refused, shot him another insult, and he just took it off the bill. The best thing I had for dinner that night was the diet coke. These are the things that annoy me to no end these days when I go out to eat. Does anyone else feel the same way? My wife thinks I'm just angry, but I think it's more than that. Anyways...I digress.

Organics: It's been on Oprah so it must be important. Right?

It's about a 5-10 minute drive from the freeway before you reach your destination. The destination: Goodwin's. It's a great store with great products. It's a completely organic market with a little coffee shop and a prepared food section where they serve their own warm and cold foods. If you're into eating organic, this has to become one of your regular stops. It's not a huge store, but there are enough products to keep you eating, drinking, baking, and cooking whatever your palette craves. We have to keep local stores like this open so we can always have a fresh supply of organic items available. Check out their website and go visit the store!

www.goodwinsorganics.com/

Has it really been a year?

Wow! Another year has passed. Sadly, the store is no more and the days of the pantry are gone. It's been more than a year since I've written here and I decided it was time to return. Stay tuned!

James Beard says "mmmm"

My wife and I ate in LA for our 4th Anniversary. It has been a tradition to have an extravagant meal on our wedding anniversaries. Our first, Napa Rose (sure it's at Disneyland, but at the time they stole the executive chef from Auberge in Napa Valley), but it was one of the most tasty meals I have ever eaten. Our second was Sciorroco in Desert Hot Springs (i think). So this year we went to a restaurant called "Providence." Their claim to fame is that they recently won an award by the James Beard Foundation. This is a VERY big deal. They are also considered one of the top 50 restaurants in the country by Gourmet Magazine. If you'd like, you can visit their website: http://www.providencela.com/



Unfortunately, I don't have any pics to show you. I was not brave enough to take pictures of my food in a place like that. As nice as it was, it a "business casual" type of restaurant. After taking a look at their menu, you'd think otherwise. Believe it or not, it is small child friendly. We saw a family of 5 there having dinner. Sure it'll cost you an arm and a leg, but hey, that's why God gave us 2 of both. Right? So anyways. Let me start from the very beginning...



There is only valet parking. The restaurant is on Melrose and you'd be crazy to try and park yourself anyways. As we walked into the restaurant, we were greeted by a handsome man with a beautiful accent. We were then walked to a table by some young guy wearing a suit that was way too small and the knot of his tie was way too big (is that really the trend these days?). Our waiter was a nice older gentleman, no accent, that was very knowledgable of the menu. We were handed menus and bread was brought to the table.



The bread was incredible. A brioche with bacon bits. Enough said. The other bread wasn't all that good. It was like a focacia with pureed seaweed or something like that. It was not to my liking. Next came the amuse bouche. It was a jellee and foam of something. I don't quite remember. It was tasty. That's all I remember. My wife and I started off with japanese kanpachi. I had never had sashimi before this night. It wasn't bad. Then came the foie gras ravioli. Decadent! Fresh summer truffles were sliced right over the raviolis. It was nutty and crunchy and soft all at the same time. It was beautiful. And for my entree.....drum roll please.....Japanese Kobe flown in from Japan. I had to try it right? How often do you actually find a restaurant that serves true Kobe beef. So I had 3 oz. of Kobe (ribeye for those of you that want to know). The waiter brought it to the table and assembled the plate tableside. You can tell the Kobe had ben resting a few minutes before they had brought it out. It was a perfect medium-rare to medium, beautifully marbled, and it just melted in my mouth. I was very satisfied. No wonder they won an award!



This is a place you have to try if the proper occasion comes your way. This is not good food. It was a dining experience. The restaurant is slightly modern I guess. I'm not an interior decorator so I wouldn't know what to call it. As long as it doesn't offend me, I'm ok with it. The service was excellent and the food was cooked to perfection. So what kind of score will they receive?

taste: 5/5 stars

service: 4/5 (I've had better)

ambiance: 4/5

perceived value: 4/5

Total score of: 4(5+4+4)=

52/60 stars

Cook it yourself...

Ever eat at a restaurant where you have to cook your own food? For as long as I can remember, my family and almost every other family I know has been eating at this kind of restaurant. Now we have a place like this out here in the IE. It's called Gyu Kaku and it's all about the table grill. They're in Rancho Cucomonga, in Victoria Gardens on Monet Ave. If you've never heard of it, check out their website: http://www.gyu-kaku.com/.

Here's what happens. You walk in, everyone yells something in Japanese, and the host greets you. It's great fun! When you get to your table, you select from a variety of different all-you-can-eat menus. The premise is that you select a given menu which has a certain amount of items on it. You can eat all you want from that menu and that menu alone. If you want more of a selection, you choose another menu. It get's more expensive as your options increase. You can also choose items from an a la carte menu. Everything is then brought to you so you don't have to get up from the table.

You'll notice the grill in the middle of the table. This is where you cook everything. Yes, you have to cook everything. But it's ok, cause then it will be perfectly cooked every time. Right? If you like things raw and moving, you can have it that way. If you like to eat hockey pucks, you can have it that way too. Allow me to show you some photos.

Here we have a bowl of miso soup in the foreground. Circling the grill are an assortment of side dishes. This is what I like to call "waste of space" food. Because it wastes precious empty space in your stomach while you wait for the good stuff. Therefore, you get full on fillers when you should be filling your stomach with all the goodies that come shortly after. Taking that into consideration, some of these side dishes are actually tasty and you're gonna have to try them as you wait for the proteins.

Here on the right, you can see some of the meats that came to us. I believe this night we got kalbi, harami miso, and the yakishabu. Most of the meats are to my liking, but my favorite is the harami miso. It comes in approximately 3-4 oz. portions, all the sides, miso soup, and rice.

To our left, we have dessert. SMORES! It had been years since I had smores.

Ok, the score...Let's get our handy equation out.

PV x (T+S+A)=total score

Perceived value is average because I am not rich and I think buffets are always overpriced, particularly this one. If the prices were slightly lower, I'd give them a better score. So they get a rating of 3/5 stars.

Taste of the food gets an average score also. This is where things are kind of complicated. This restaurant is Japanese in name, but the cuisine is a combination of Japanese and Korean. So the confusion lies in the authenticity and presentation of the foods. From my point of view, the small side dishes are a very Korean component to the courses of the meal. If you go to a good Korean restaurant, they'll bring out many side dishes to accompany the main dish. And Japanese restaurants these days are very a la carte based menus. The food tastes good, but is not authentic to either Japanese or Korean cuisine. I think I'll call it Japanese-Korean Fusion. So based on flavor alone, I give them a rating of 3/5 stars.

Service is above average. The explanation of the menu takes a little while, and our waiter was more than willing to answer any questions. I give them a rating of 4/5 stars.

Ambiance is where this restaurant is above average. It's fun to sit at a table and have a conversation over an this meal. If you like people watching, this is a good place to go because the restaurant is very open. It's a very social place. The yelling of the staff, all the hustle and bustle, the heat of the grill, the sound of the food cooking, the smell of the meats, create a party like atmosphere. I give them a rating of 4/5 stars.

So my rating looks like this: 3x(3+4+4):33/60 stars!

First Review

Why has it been so long for me to put up my first review? Well, for one, I've been super busy with school, work, and life in general. And, this is my first review. I have to make sure it is a place of significance. A place that I haven't eaten at and forgotten. A place that, in my mind, is a staple of the Inland Empire. So here it is, my first review.

Miguel's Jr.

This is a place I've been eating since 1992 when I first came to college. I love this food so much, at one point, one of the workers there knew several of my favorite meals by heart. There are several of them around the IE, but the one I frequent the most often is the one in Grand Terrace. So I will base my review on that restaurant.

What you see are the chicken taquitos. They are deep fried and the quality varies. Sometimes they are done perfectly, and sometimes they are a little underdone. The good news: I have never gotten sick from eating theses. The guacamole is on the runny side and has decent flavor. This isn't something that you have to try. I give this a rating of 3/5 stars.

What you see on your right is the reason why I go to Miguel's. It is a bean, rice, and cheese burrito. The rice and cheese have excellent flavor. I'm told that if you get it with potatoes, it's even better. But this is the way I like to eat it. I always ask for a knife because I like to cut my burritos in half so they don't pop when you're eating them. It's a good size but I always get the taquitos so I'm full when I leave. You must have a burrito when you go to Miguel's. You can also have them "wet style" which is a red enchilada type sauce.

The restaurant in Grand Terrace is always clean. The staff is friendly and orders are out in an appropriate time. If you can, try to go there in off hours cause if you go for lunch, it will be crowded. You may have to wait, but every one there will tell you it's worth the wait.

So for my ratings:

Taste: 4/5 stars

Service: 4/5 stars

Ambiance: 4/5 stars

Perceived Value: 4/5 stars

So if we use our equation we get 48/60!

Feel free to leave a comment. Have a good day!

The Rating System

I've been thinking a lot about how I'm going to rate the places I eat. I've finally come up with a system with some help from my wife. So here it is:

Taste: 5 stars available.
Service: 5 stars available
Ambiance: 5 stars available.

To accommodate the fact that not every place I eat will be 3 star Michelin, the scale will be reflected as a "appropriate" to "inappropriate" in terms of its ambiance. Meaning, McDonald's will be loud and have a playground and a bunch of kids running around and stuff. But that is "appropriate" for a McDonald's. Versus going to a fine dining establishment, where you pay at least $50 dollars for a meal per person and being loud and having a playground and a bunch of kids running around. That would get a rating of "inappropriate" because that's not what you would expect from a fine dining establishment.

And finally, we have a multiplier in the equation that makes things more interesting. The perception of value is going to be our last value in this equation. So if you were to set this up as a mathematical equation, it would look something like this:

PV x (T+S+A) = total score

PV=perceived value
T=taste
S=service
A=ambiance

So there it is folks. That's the system. I'll be rating restaurants of all kinds so come back and read about them.