Cocohodo

Monster Munching, my guide to good food in OC reviewed Cocohodo a couple of weeks back. I didn't realize there was a Korean food/snack place I haven't heard of in OC and was dying to try this especially since the red bean pancake man outside Hmart stopped appearing many months ago.

I bought a mini box which was $5 for 12 pieces. In my haste to order I overlooked the prices for the paper bag packaging. For the same price, I could get 15 pieces in a paper bag. Since I was gonna be the one stuffing my face with it, there was probably no need to get them in a box, but oh well. They have many other sizes too and I'm pretty sure the next time I'm here I will upsize.

I realized I've rambled on for 2 paragraphs without telling you what Cocohodo sells. They sell hodo kwaja which is a batter-like pastry encasing a piece of walnut and sweetened red bean paste. The pastry is in a walnut shell shape and each pastry is individually wrapped in a thin tissue. The batter to filling ratio is low, the red bean paste is not too sweet and the walnut in it just makes me think this is healthy! So, hurry over there and get your little bundles of joy!

Cocohodo
5327 Beach Blvd
Buena Park, CA 90621
(714) 994 5965

Beach Live Seafood

After sitting for a grueling exam some time ago, I decided to pamper myself a little, so we headed to Buena Park for some Korean sashimi. I've never tried it before and so my love for Korean food compels me to try it at least once. Korean sashimi, hwe, differs from Japanese sashimi in the fact that the fish is still alive right up till you order it. I think fluke is the default fish, but I may be wrong.

When the waitress handed us the menu, I was uncertain which sashimi platter to order as there were 2 types to choose from and the English description was unfortunately not very useful. So, I whipped out my phone and showed the waitress the picture I saw on Yelp and she understood what I wanted and pointed to the second set of sashimi which was $60 for a small set. She added, in halting English, that the set includes rice and soup.

Within moments, she came back with a tray full of banchan (refillable side dishes you usually get at Korean restaurants). We were pleasantly surprised by the variety. There was miso soup, a small bowl of porridge with egg shreds, saba in a sesame citrusy dressing which tasted awesome, sea snails, sliced abalone and edamame. Whoa, I could fill up on these things alone! 

While we were happily filling our bellies with the banchan, our sashimi arrived. The serving was huge! Thin slices of fish sat on shredded radish. I took a slice, placed it on the lettuce they provided and added some dwenjang paste mix which included Korean soybean paste, scallions, garlic and some sesame oil. Mmmm, so good. The texture of the fish is different from Japanese sashimi. It was more toothsome but was just as delicious. Given the gigantic serving, I was barely able to eat my share of the fish and had to concede defeat, leaving hubs to clear the plate.

We were getting ready to pay when the waitress brought out 2 bowls of nurongji, charred bits of rice mixed with tea, a boiling pot of spicy stew and a beautifully broiled mackerel pike. Hubs and I looked at each other, wondering how we're gonna finish these. I took a sip of the spicy soup, despite protests from my bursting belly and widened my eyes, gesturing to hubs to try it too. They gave us a pot of muentang, spicy fish stew. It was so good I couldn't stop. The broiled pike was also good, but not spectacular. While we were unable to finish this last "course" we were definitely happily filled to the brim. For $60 (before tax) this was definitely a worthy meal.

Beach Live Fish Restaurant

5440 Beach Blvd

Buena Park, CA 90621

(714) 521-5555

Mon - Sun 10am - 11pm

Chong Qing Szechuan Mei Wei Restaurant

The temperature reader registered 100 degrees in my car, the sun was scorching hot, yet I was craving something spicy. It was a choice between our trusty Korean tofu pot place or this Szechuan restaurant I've been wanting to try. Decided to go for the latter.

It was around 530pm on a Friday evening, the restaurant was relatively quiet, but people kept coming in for their takeaway orders. We settled for the famed water boiled fish and the wanton in spicy sauce.

The food came out pretty fast and we happily doused the white rice with the spicy sauces. The wantons were huge and there were about 12 of them in one serving for $6.99. The sauce was spicy, sourish and hit the right spots. Our fave wanton with spicy sauce is from A&J restaurant across the street and we've not been able to find a strong competitor until now. While this sauce was not as tasty as A&J's, it was still v good and the value for money should not be overlooked. You get 12 big wantons whereas A&J's are on the smaller side and you probably get about 6 per serving.

The water boiled fish was a great choice as well. While the sauce looks pretty intimidating, it was not as spicy as I expected, though definitely not for those not accustomed to such fiery dishes. The sauce was made with hot bean paste, spicy oil, dried chillies and many other aromatic ingredients. I couldn't stop ladling the sauce over the rice. I would be contented eating just those 2 things :). The fish is most likely catfish. It was smooth and tender and complemented the sauce very well. The napa cabbage which soaked in the sauce's goodness helped eased the guilt of gulping down such a delicious albeit sinful dish. For $10.99 this was a huge portion and we had enough leftover for lunch the next day.

All in all, so happy to have found this place. It will definitely be on our list the next time we crave for spicy comfort food.

Chong Qing Mei Wei Szechuan Restaurant

5406 Walnut Ave
Irvine, CA 92604

(949) 651-8886

Mon - Sun 11am - 9:30pm

Amazing Pasta at Cucina Alessa

Hubs and I found Cucina Alessa about 2 years back when we were looking for an Italian restaurant to spend our Christmas eve.  I'm a carbaholic, so I'm naturally drawn to pasta dishes.  Also, I was hooked on Giada's cooking shows many moons ago and she made pasta look so delectable.  

I remember having a very satisfying meal that Christmas Eve even though we were seating in the cramp patio area with not much decor to speak of. I don't know why it took us so long to go back, but hopefully it won't be 2 years until our next visit.

Cucina Alessa has 2 locations, 1 in Newport Beach and the other in Huntington Beach.  We opted for the Newport one since there were more post dinner activities nearby.  Do note that if you go to the Newport location, you have to go about 20 minutes ahead of your reservations time to ensure you have sufficient time to find parking.  Cucina Alessa has only a few parking spots outside the restaurant and chances that they get filled up when you are there are very high.  It being a beach city also means you're competing with many other people for the scarce roadside parking.

Dinner at Cucina Alessa started with warm bread and a flavorful pesto.  I like that they serve pesto instead of the olive oil + balsamic vinegar combination you usually get at other Italian joints.  Don't get me wrong, I love olive oil + balsamic vinegar, but the fact that Cucina Alessa went the extra mile to churn out the pesto just made it extra special.  The bread was warm and pillowy with a hint of herbs (I'm guessing it is thyme). 

I was pretty bent on getting burrata as a starter as it was something we don't get to eat very often.  I had wanted to get burrata and prosciutto, but when our waitress was telling us about the specials for that night, both hubs and I decided that the fried burrata in marinara sauce was the way to go.  I mean, how can you go wrong with fried cheese?  This appetizer definitely did not disappoint.  The fried burrata had a thin coating of breadcrumbs on the outside.  Cutting into it yielded a soft stringy burrata that oozed out slightly.  And the sauce, oh, the sauce.  I was afraid it might be tart like most marinara sauces are, but this one was sweet and after we finished the burrata, I was sopping it up with the bread.  So so good.

For our main dish, hubs and I both ordered pasta and I must say we made very good choices although I think it may be hard not to at Cucina Alessa.  I chose the Pappardelle Bolognese which had homemade pasta with traditional bolognese sauce.  Hubs went for the Livornese which consisted of fresh fish, shrimp and scallop with white wine oregano tomato sauce and linguini pasta.  I apologize for the bad pictures, we were sitting outside where lighting was bad and I didn't want to keep taking pictures with flash and annoy other customers.  My pappardelle bolognese was a simple dish but hit the right spot. The pasta was rolled out thin and held the bolognese sauce well.  The livornese was chock-full of seafood.  The scallop was huge, with radius of around 2 inches.  The fish was very fresh as were the shrimps.  The sauce had a hint of spiciness to complement the freshness.  I wish I had a better picture for this!  The portions were pretty big, or perhaps we ate too much of the bread, so we doggy bagged around a pretty substantial amount for lunch the next day.

We enjoyed our meal thoroughly and I'm glad we are near this unpretentious Italian restaurant that serves such delicious food.

Cucina Alessa (Newport Beach)

6700 W. Coast Highway

Newport Beach, CA 92663

(949) 645 2148

Sam Woo BBQ

We watched a HK movie on Friday night and of course one of the scenes (insignificant one, but of course the one I remembered best) shows this old man buying egg tarts for this old lady.  I've never been one to be crazy about egg tarts, but that all changed a few years back when I travelled to HK and had THE MOST AMAZING egg tart that still has me salivating till today.  That scene set me ablaze on my Yelp app, searching for Cantonese style egg tarts.  Many dim sum restaurants came up, which included Sam Woo BBQ.  Despite having lived in OC for several years, I've only been to Sam Woo less than 5 times.  Somehow I've always associated it with a perpetually crowded and expensive place (I hate waiting for food when I'm hungry).  However, the pictures of Wanton Mee were too good to pass, so we decided to head there for dinner the next day.

Being the greedy peeps we are, and perhaps also because we only had a "just nice enough" portion for brunch, we were hungry at 5pm.  I figured this was a good time to go since we'll probably beat the dinner crowd, people who get hungry at regular times.  When you get to this Sam Woo location, you will notice it splits into 2, the "Seafood" section and the "BBQ" section.  The Seafood section will serve more banquet style food while the BBQ section has their signature Cantonese BBQ dishes and more homestyle cooking. True enough, we were able to get seats immediately.  It didn't take us long to decide what we wanted - Beef Hor Fun and Roast Duck + Wanton Noodle Soup.

Our food came pretty quickly, I slurped the wanton soup happily. While it was delicious, I can't help but think with much certainty there's MSG in it.  I added the pickled green chili to the noodles and ate happily.  For $7.95, you get a big bowl of noodles, 4 succulent wanton with whole shrimp and some ground pork and about 4 generous slices of roast duck.  This dish was definitely a winner.  We later discovered you can tell them to omit MSG for your dishes, will keep that in mind for the next time.

Next was the beef hor fun.  When the server brought it to our table, I was immediately captivated by the wok hei.  Wok hei is the trademark smokiness of good Chinese dishes brought upon by cooking dishes over a great heat.  I had high expectations of this dish which probably contributed to the disappointment even more.  While the sliced beef was tender, it severely lacked ANY taste.  The noodles were also just ok.  Don't know how you can get this dish wrong when the only seasoning you would need would be soy sauce and perhaps some white pepper.  At $7.95, this was a dud. 

Despite having a hit and a miss, I'm certain we'll revisit this place soon, I'm already planning my next order, which will include Chinese ham fried rice...mmm..can't wait!

Sam Woo Irvine

15333 Culver Drive Ste 720

Irvine, CA 92604

(949) 262 - 0888 (BBQ)

(949) 262 - 0688 (Seafood)

Breakfast at Cafe Cup in Huntington Beach

Craving pancakes a few days earlier I searched for a nice breakfast place for the weekend. Cafe Cup seemed like a good choice with a good balance of savory items and big fluffy pancakes. Most of the reviews recommended either the enchiladas or chicken chilie verde so we decided to go with one of that and an order of blueberry pancake to get a dose of antioxidant.

The restaurant was packed on this overcast Sunday. The seating capacity was probably under 40 and people were constantly waiting outside. The wait for us was short as it was only the 2 of us plus we went at a slightly better time.

Food took quite long but with the great conversation we were having time passed fast.

I wasn't expecting the pancakes to be this big ($7 for 3) and worried about finishing them all as the chicken chile verde omelette came with potatoes and 2 slices of toast as well ($7.95, we switched to egg whites and added $1).

The pancakes were warm moist and fluffy, worth the weekday wait. The chicken chile verde was full of flavor and the chili verde was a tad too spicy but didn't deter us. We drenched the dish with salsa they provided in small canisters on the table. The potatoes which we ordered well done was crispy on the outside, kinda like it had some batter, but soft n mashed potatoey on the inside.

Great breakfast place but would recommend you come with a party of 4 or less and try to be there before 9am. Parking can be tricky too as there's a 24 hr fitness in the same plaza and apparently many people like to workout on weekends *shrugs*.

Cafe Cup

5930 Warner Ave

Huntington Beach, CA

(714) 840-8991

Mon-Fri 7am - 2pm, Sat & Sun 7am - 3pm

Pizzeria Mozza Orange County

I can only attribute my absence for the last 3 months to sheer laziness. It is hard taking good pictures with the iPhone and I'm too lazy to take it with my digital cam or the dslr so I've been putting off many posts because of that.

Nonetheless, I feel compelled to share this meal because it was simply too good. I'm sure there are many fans of Pizzeria Mozza out there but just wanna contribute my 2 cents!

It was the eve of the Lunar New Year and so we decided to give ourselves a treat and make a long overdue visit to Pizzeria Mozza in Orange County. I was so excited about this meal because the last 2 times I tried it in Singapore, I left feeling so happy to have tried such yummy food.

We started the meal with their famed Proseco and we were served breadsticks. Wait a minute, breadsticks???!!!! What happened to the herby crusty amazing crisp bread I had in Singapore? Needless to say, I was disappointed in the plain un-creative breadsticks but that did not ruin my anticipation for the meal.

Knowing that their appetizers are as good as the pizzas, I suggested getting 2 appetizers and a pizza. I've read so much about the herbed fried potatoes I knew we had to have that. The baby potatoes were smashed flat and fried, with the outer layer crispy and the insides still soft and warm. They were served with a bunch of fried herbs (sage and rosemary) and chickpeas. Sea salt was sprinkled over to lend another layer of flavor. This dish was great, something I would order again and again. Would have preferred to have more potatoes and less chickpeas though.

Next appetizer was the mussels in a spicy broth. It was served with 2 slices of crusty bread. The spicy broth tasted vinegarish, reminding me of the chilli sauce for chicken rice. This dish was decent but did not have me awe-struck. I still prefer the Tasting Kitchen saffron mussels.

The star of the meal arrived next. I have to admit that when he ordered the brussel sprouts, red onion and pancetta pizza, I didn't have high hopes. I was not a fan of brussel sprouts (yet) and thought this might just be an okay pizza. Boy, was I wrong! The sprouts were cooked till tender and yet retained their lovely green color. The red onion lent a refreshing taste to the pizza and the pancetta gave it the saltiness and smokiness. Cheese was sprinkled sparingly over the pizza so as not to steal the show. The crust, Mozza's signature crust, so yeasty and crunchy at the right spot. This was perhaps the best pizza I've had at Mozza.

I'll definitely be back to try the other delectable items, but I really hope they will replace the ordinary breadsticks with the herby bread they serve in Singapore.  This will certainly kick it up a notch!