Sutha thai kitchen

This Thais restaurant is fantastic. Though the space is very small, there is only less then 10 small tables, but they are always busy busy and busy because of take out orders. Within 30 minutes, we counted there is at least 10 people came to take their food. If you are not too hungry, it's worthy to wait.

Sutha Thai kitchen 1161 Irvine Blvd Tustin

Finally, our food arrived. All the dishes are not salty but very tasty (I guess they don't use much MSG). The seafood tom yum are AMAZING: sour enough, hot enough, and sweet enough. The ingredients are very fresh and good qualify (also quantity for $13.00)

Curry fried rice

Red curry with roasted duck

Summer tea

I think this way of making tea is very popular in Russia: mix sour cherry syrup with black tea. It's a perfect match for a heavy dinner.
I bought this jar of cherry and cherry syrup at a Russian store in LA downtown.

Tea for summer: Adagio from Lupicia

This non-caffein tea you can find at Mitsuwa Torrance. 

This is how I brew it

Tasty noodle house

15333 Culver Dr
Ste 320
Irvine, CA 92604

We came here round 2 pm but still have to wait for 10 minutes. The restaurant is clean and all staffs are friendly.

This hot-sour soup is awesome!

Yellow eel stir-fried with mush room and yellow chive

Stingy tofu

And their best dish: Shanghai grill pork bun. These are the best grill bun I've ever tried in USA

Mochilato sweet shaved ice

If you visit Daiso in Irvine, you should also visit this store, especially in a hot summer day!, It locates right next to Daiso store. The restaurant is bigger than it looks from outside. They sell not only ice-cream but also tea, cake, food, and even more than that.

Fresh vanilla puff

I bought single size for 3 people. That was BIG enough! It had ice-cream in the middle of this bowl. The store even gave us an extra bowl of sweet red bean, because he thought there was not enough red bean in the top of shaved ice ~~~~~

Otafuku noodles house

The store locates at 16525 S Western Ave, Gardena, its own parking lot is behind the restaurant.

Rice with Aji and vegetables: A must try! 

Cold udon with sea eel tempura $13

After you finish the noodles, they will give you the soup (in this red pot) to mix with the remain dipping sauce

Hot soba with sea eel tempura $13

Rice with shrimp tempura

Taiwanese style BBQ baby squid

I love the BBQ squid at night market in Taiwan. I don't know which kind of sauce they use to marinate squid or calamari, so I try to imitate it as mixing the sauce by myself. It seems to be "converged". 

I bought a box of baby squid from Nijia, that's whole squid, so I need to clean them by myself (take time and it's dirty job). Next time I will by the cleaned ones from Wholefood!!!

OK, so all you need is:

1. Ingredients:

- Baby squids: 15 or 1 big calamari (I prefer remove their skin, bone and inner part)

- Sauce: 1/4 cups of rice wine (guess white wine is ok), 2 spoons of brown sugar, 1 spoon of soy sauce, if you have oyster sauce, add 1, some dried red chili, 1 spoon of oil (olive oil).

- Skewer (prefer the metal ones), I got these from Mitsuwa: made in Japan!!!

2. Method:

- Making sauce: Add all sauce ingredients into a small pot, heat until broil then simmer for 5 minutes, the mixture will be thinker. Cook it while you prepare the squid (either clean the baby squid or cut a calamari into smaller pieces)

- After the sauce gets cool (warm is ok), add the squids into the pot, mix well and marinate for at least 15 minutes.

- Preheat the oven to 400 degree, then skew the squids into skewers

- I use baking setting, for 20 minutes.

- Here is the BBQ squids, the flavor is great, almost similar to what I ate before. You can eat squid with rice, mix with salad, or just squid

How to make Homemade Inarizushi (稲荷寿司)

This homemade sushi is suitable for breakfast. I just need to prepare for 10 minutes with a bowl of rice.

All you need:

1. Rice

- Take the rice out of cooking pot, add a little salt, sugar, and 1/2 spoon of rice vinegar.

- Mix well and leave it there for 5 minutes to cool down

2. Tofu skin: I bought this one from Nijia market in Torance, I think it's the best one I can find there with the most natural ingredients.

3. Topping: I use chopped green onion and cooked salmon. I may try pickle daikon or ginger next time.

4. Stuff the rice into the tofu skin (they make it like a bag already) after 5 minutes. 1 small bowl of rice can make exactly 4 pieces.

5. Enjoin it!

Here is the best salmon I can find in Mistuwa. It's a little bit pricey compared to the other brands but it has 2 jars in a package, so you don't have to push yourself finished a whole jar in a short time. If   you dont have tofu skin, just prepare a bowl of rice, and 1 spoon of this salmon and chopped green onion, may some slices of dried seaweeds, your breakfast is ready!

Yamadaya ramen

The restaurant locates in a small plaza, at 1175 Baker street, Costa Mesa. At dinner, if you are lucky, you don't have to wait.... The price is very reasonable. around $9 for a bowl of ramen, or you can add ~ $5.00 for an extra bowl of rice with tofu or curry. If you don't like oily soup ramen, just choose the ramen with fish-based soup, the one with soy sauce is suggested.

Spicy ramen

 

The best spicy ramen I've ever eat in America. They don't use Vietnamese spicy sauce as the other stores. Here is the soup after mixing the hot sauce.

mapo tofu rice

Curry rice

Cold (not really cold) noodles with fish-based soup

626 night market