Eating adventures in L.A.

Since I forgot to take pictures of the food we ate in L.A., I'll try to paint a picture in words for you.

For lunch on Sunday, the sis and I went to East West Sandwich and had banh mi, which Aki calls the "Vietnamese hoagie." My sister got the Chicken Adobo, a Philippinewich, while I had the Charbroiled Pork, a more traditional banh mi. Both were excellent. Mine tasted like char siu, the Chinese barbecued pork. My sister's was milder and flavored with garlic, pepper, and soy sauce. Both sandwiches were served on crusty baguettes and had the lovely condiments that make them banh mi: pickled carrots, cucumber, onion, jalapeno peppers, and cilantro.

We walked off lunch by taking a tour of the medical center and ended up at the lab, where my sister did some work. On our way home, we stopped by Whole Foods and Diddy Riese, a bakery/confectionary where dollar ice cream sandwiches are served. That's 2 fresh-baked cookies with a generous scoop of Dreyer's ice cream (same as Edy's) in between. I had espresso chip ice cream sandwiched in between 2 white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. It was heaven rolled into one gooey, crunchy, buttery sweet bite.

For dinner, we had lo ba that my sister made that morning. She made it out of beef and threw in eggs and dried spiced tofu. We made it a meal with stir-fried yu choy and brown rice. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my sister can cook--this dish at least--quite well. ;)

The following night after watching Brokeback Mountain, we went to Shahrzad, an excellent Persian restaurant where we were started off with a basket of flatbread. It tasted like naan, and it was baked in a tandoor-style oven on the premises. My sister ordered the fesenjan, which was chicken sauced in a walnut-and-pomegranate paste, which I imagine is similar to mole in Mexican cooking. She had a side of saffron rice in which were buried all kinds of treasures: orange rind, pistachios, raisins, and the ubiquitous barberries (they taste like cranberries or pomegranate seeds). I had the lamb tahchin, a lasagna-like construction made with layers of saffron rice, yogurt, and lamb in an egg-based marinade. There was a simple salad on the side with a yummy yogurt-dill dressing. After dinner, we ventured into the Persian grocery next door, where we purchased a boxed assortment of cookies. One type of cookie resembled a Russian teacake, another was made of burnt flour, and a third contained chickpea flour. One section of the grocery was entirely dedicated to lavash -- moiji, you would've gotten a kick out of that.