LITTLE LA LUNE - LONG BEACH

I KNOW - I haven't posted one of these or much of anything in a while. Life, family, jiujitsu and maybe a little work and travel have gotten in the way. Admittedly, my first dip into modern social media (Instagram) has gotten most of my brainless spare time.

But fuck all that. You don't wanna hear my jibba-jabba. Let's talk about this place, my favorite lunch spot right now in this great city. 

You know me, I wouldn't take time out to talk about ANY old place. And with this place, I'm seriously a little infatuated, more than I had been with Phnom Penh Noodle on Cherry and Siem Reap on Anaheim. Maybe I just need to go revisit those, to rekindle those warm feelings.

Little La Lune tho - its nothing really that special inside. I'd say its on par with Phnom Penh down the street. Probably nicer than Siem Reap, yeah.

The headlining dish here, their version of the Phnom Penh Noodle (yes, the other restaurant on Cherry is actually called that). Thin rice noodles, shrimps, beef, pork liver, scallion, garnished with fried onions and garlic. And if you order if you order "dry style" like I did...

...it comes with the broth on the side. Included is this amazing pork bone in the mother fucker! Yes. Its beautiful. You get your spoon, pour a little hot broth over your noodles, eat, pour, eat, pour. Don't be doing something crazy and dumping it all in at once (just get it "wet style" instead). I highly recommend dry style. 

Last and least but very necessary, fresh bean sprouts and limes. Can't do it without it. 

You need to eat here. I highly recommend it. 

2054 East Pacific Coast Highway, Long Beach, CA 90804

(562) 856-5800

By the way, this place closes early. 8am to 5pm daily.

BEEF STEW PHO

Was excellent! Except some back splash got my white Rickson/Kron shirt dirty! wah.

Hearty beef chunks, not too fatty. Lots of carrots. Kaboom.

Mi La Cay
8924 Bolsa Ave

Westminster, CA 92683

(714) 891-8775

PHO

I love pho. I tried to get the O with the squiggly line above it but that was impossible to figure out. But anyway, I'm deep on the pho train right now and I'm not getting off any time soon.

Currently, I crave pho more than ramen or any other soup noodle. How is that possible? Well, I've had ramen my whole my life, being half Japanese and all. But pho, not so much. I think it might be my palette's changing - I'm enjoying more of a simple taste... turning into an old man (but far from cranky).

Pho's got a real nice, light taste to it with a real freshness too, you know, with a handful of basil and bean sprouts - that whole deal. I think subtle flavors get overlooked a lot these days, especially in the U.S of A. where more is better and covered in cheese with deep fried everything.

I like the customize my broth as I go. A little hoisin sauce here, a little chili sauce there. Then as bowl starts to empty I'll re-think what it needs. Maybe more noodles.

Oh, the one in the photo above is simply pho with chicken. It came with a nice little dish of ginger dipping sauce for the lean white meat, which was just fucking perfect. After I put the basil and sprouts in, I had to stop and take a photo. What a gorgeous bowl of food (and there's so many food blogs around lately, I try to sneak a photo without being seen these days... people even taking pictures of Big Macs and shit, posting it on instagram - nobody needs to see that!).

Reminds me of Hawaiian style Oxtail soup that always comes with a small dish of grated ginger sauce to dip.

And there's gotta be at LEAST a dozen pho spots around Long Beach. There's 3 spots within a half-mile from my pad. There's 2 near my work, too.

I've had pho more times than I could count, sure, but right now it's my go-to. Anytime for me.
 
note: it's more commonly pronounced as "fuh". Less commonly as "foe".

UMENOYA RAMEN - TORRANCE

Well, this place is good. It's a solid alternative to our usual spots like Yamadaya Ramen and Asa Ramen (which I can't believe I have talked about on pakajunk before). Umenoya, again, is good but I don't think it's on par with the likes of Asa.

Service was excellent. Japanese waitresses and cooks, in case you were wondering.

Fried rice was not greasy, it was pretty fluffy and tasty. Not so filling by itself but definitely get regular sized when eating it with ramen.

Gyoza's were fried to crunchy goodness too. They had this down to a science and were really good.

Even at 3:30pm on a Sunday, this place was packed.

I went with the Tsukemen, which is a dipping-style ramen. I always go for Tsukemen whenever I see it. Not as common. So all the ingredients are served in a bowl like this, separate from the broth. It came with a grip of raw diced onions which was kinda Onion O.D. Should've taken it easy on the onion.

Lastly, this is the Tsukemen broth. If you're not into Tsukemen right now, you soon will be after you've graduated through beginner Ramen Fundamentals! haha.. Some places have a fish base broth for tsukemen, but this place was more pork tasting. Lots of bits of pork fat in it too, which makes it THAT much more tasty.

Only complaint I may have about Tsukemen is that the broth can get cold quickly. So dip fast and eat! Some places will warm your broth up for you with a little extra if you ask nicely. 

Start ordering TSUKEMEN instead of your standard Miso Ramen and Tonkotsu Ramen. This way, you can get the jump on everybody and say you're O.G with the dipping ramen before it got popularized on SOA.

24222 Crenshaw Blvd
Torrance, CA 90505

(310) 530-3177

PHO HONG PHAT - LONG BEACH, CA

If you like pho and live in Long Beach, you must've eaten here by now.  

I wouldn't say its the best pho spot ever, but its good. I'd go across town to eat here any time. I'm into noodles so I'd across any town to eat any decent noodles.

The menu is pretty basic, just like all the other pho places around here. The usual basil leaves, bean sprouts, peppers and lime come out. 

My steamy large bowl of pho. I should've gotten extra large. In fact, I recommend all grown men to get the extra large. Let's not fuck around!

Stevie put too much hot sauce in his pho. But we ordered more noodles and broth so he brought his bowl back to a more stable level of spice. 3243 E Anaheim St Long Beach, CA 90804 (562) 498-3754 Mon-Tue, Thu-Sun 9 am - 5 pm

YAKISOBA

...Japanese fried noodles! with the standard nori (seaweed) sprinkles, cabbage, onions, pork, and little mayo-y sauce.

BEEN TRYING PHO SPOTS

...around my work. Nothing amazing to report but such a nice meal for $6 or $7. Yes, there are bits of cow intestine in there. Haha

PHNOM PENH NOODLE REVISITED

If you remember, I posted about this place once before. My mom was in town for thanksgiving and I brought her to Phnom Penh Noodle for a quick lunch before she had to get on a plane back to Oahu.

Went for the Phnom Penh dry style noodles again.

It was good as always. Definitely for the adventurous types.

Look at that huge knuckle-bone thing in the broth! Gnawing on that bone and pouring that broth over the dry noodles for a Cambodian delight. Most of my friends can't eat here. It's not for the burgers and fries guys; more for the "I like to eat a little intestine with my meal" crowd.  

Don't miss out on eating at this gem!

1644 Cherry Ave
Long Beach, CA 90813
(562)433-0032
Tues - Sun, 6am to 3pm only.
Street Parking... if you lucky.

THE NEW HAM SANDWICH

My mom sends me packages of stuff from Hawaii. Mostly Japanese stuff to cook with, whatever she thinks I need.

This time she included this two-pack of instant Korean style noodles. I don't know what it says on the package or what its called and there was no English instructions, but it looked like the standard deal where you pour in hot water and wait 3 minutes. So I did just that.

Damn, this is a spicy delight of goodness! It's the new ham sandwich!

Too bad I didn't have any left over meat or pickled anything to go with it.

PHNOM PENH NOODLE - LONG BEACH, CA

Sasha kept telling me about this noodle house that she ate at that was right in the middle of a residential area. Nestled on Cherry, between PCH and Anaheim, this little place would be easily missed. A little tip from a city official, we got the scoops on this place. It was the first time for me and I had to investigate.

"It's not pho... it's Cambodian style soup noodle. And you gotta have the dipping bread, too."

This made me very, very curious.

We walked in and the place was pretty busy, family owned restaurant.
I had to stand and stare at the menu for a while. Read it about 5 times but I couldn't figure out what the deal was... and just as I stood there, dumbfounded, a well spoken young man asked if it was my first time there and if I needed any help. The dude ended up being the owner's son, who's been trying his hardest to bring authenticity to this little family owned restaurant and to stand out in this city with among all the pho restaurants.


Me: Yeah, I could use all the help I can get.

Son: You guys have a seat right here. I would suggest you both get the Phnom Penh House Noodle, dry style... especially if its your first time.

Son: I'll start you guys off with a meat pie, a sesame seed bun, and a couple of breads that you dip into the soup.

I actually had all these breads before. What I did not know was those long breads are used to dip into the broth. I told my mom about it and she told me "you already knew that! you used to dip that bread into soup all the time in Chinatown as a kid!" Ok, ok, I didn't remember that.
That meat pie was excellent as an appetizer. Just a few minutes later our noodle delights were brought over. Just from the smell of it I knew I was about to have something different. I was pretty stoked already, before even tasting the noodles or broth. It had to be good. I knew it was going to be.
And it was VERY GOOD. If you've been reading my food posts, you know I like to eat all the "nasty bits" or the "grisly bits" that most do not have the taste for. And if you've been reading this far, you probably enjoy all the bits too. If you do, you would have no problems eating here.

The noodle is vermicelli style, served with pork, pig liver slices, shrimp, green onions and cilantro. The meats were excellent and the slightly salty pork brought it all together well. It did have a hint of sauce on the noodles too.
The broth comes with this big bone that's urging you to gnaw on it. It also wants you to eat the bone marrow out of it, if you're into that. I was pretty fucking stoked seeing this huge chunk sitting there in the broth. It was a huge bonus. I immediately went into my "where have you been all my life" speech with the food laid before me.
I wasn't sure how it was all supposed to be eaten, so I went back and forth with dipping the noodles into the broth like "somen style" then putting some broth over the noodles. I took a peek at how others were eating and it looked like they first put the bed of bean sprouts over their noodles then slowly pour broth into the noodle bowl throughout the course of their meal.

I'll eat it that way next time. Stoked to find places like this. So much going on, so many new flavors, that it was a pretty busy little lunch. All for about $12, before tip.
I was told by the Phnom Penh Noodle Son that this is the only Cambodian noodle house like this in all of Long Beach and possibly Southern CA and he only knows of one other in CA, which is in San Francisco.

So if you're into noodles and like eating the entire pig or cow (like the rest of the world does without griping about it), you need to check this place out. I give this place my highest recommendation.

Street parking sucks but who cares. Deal with it.

Oh, please note that this place is closed on Mondays and only open from 6am to 3pm!

Phnom Penh Noodle
1644 Cherry Ave
Long Beach, CA 90813

Hakata Ramen Shin-Sen-Gumi in Gardena, CA

Too much motorcycles and little silly vans on pakajunk lately, huh? lets get back to our usual affair. Jimmy Monk was in town, so Sasha and I hooked up with Brawny and Tani to take him to get a quick bite at Hakata Ramen Shin-Sen-Gumi. Just minutes away for us.


Even at 10 o'clock at night, this place had a short wait until we got out own table. No big deal.

The waiters here are very friendly and will help you through ordering if need be. So if you're new to the whole ramen thing, don't worry, just check this place out. You will not be disappointed.
To take the edge off the day, we started out with a couple of bottles of sake.
Gyoza here is pretty good. Not amazing, but pretty good. Definitely better than frozen stuff most of us eat at home, unless you've been lucky enough to have my mom's hand made gyoza bombs. Definitely order the gyoza if you're here. I've seen Jose eat 12 of them without trying.
I had been ramen'd out that week, so I got the Soboro Don. This is a bowl with ground chicken and egg over rice. The ground chicken is usually prepared with soy sauce, ginger, a little sugar and mirin I believe. It's an easy dish to eat. It also came with pickled ginger and 2 slices of takuan.
I recommended Jimmy to go with the "stock" ramen, the standard Hakata Ramen. Everyone else got variations of the same.
This actually wouldn't be the ideal place to order Takoyaki, but since I'm stuck here in Southern California (and not in Osaka, Japan) I gotta get when I can. Takoyaki is small pieces of octopus rolled into a battered dumpling.

There's a little bit of a criss-crossing action of a sauce that goes over the takoyaki. Then it's covered in fish flakes. I really like takoyaki. So did everyone else.
One bad shot of the pork belly special that Brawny loves. The gravy that's on this is pretty well done, making this fatty selection just superb. We all had to talk about how important good gravy is on loco mocos after we all had a piece.
If you live in the area, check it out:


2015 W. Redondo Beach Blvd., #C
Gardena, CA 90247
(310) 329-1335

Monday - Friday
Lunch 11:30am - 2:00pm
Dinner 6:00pm - 11:20pm

Saturday & Sunday
11:30am - 11:20pm

Pho America - Long Beach, CA

Just minutes from my pad is Pho America. Wish I knew how to put the squiggly line about the O in pho but I don't so too bad.
Haven't been to this place in a while.
Only come here for one thing though.
No, not the turkey and cheddar sandwich.
We started out with some hot tea. Sounds like the rest of the country is dying of heat but not so here. Nice and eazy breezy, actually. Oh, yes, I noticed the Xmas cup too. It wasn't Xmas. I just took these photos a week ago.
The place had a few people in it but I didn't want to bother them.
Just 10 minutes later though, at least 6 more people came in. Fairly busy.
We started with the shredded pork spring rolls. Very good.
Lots of veggies. Lettuce tasted fresh.
Basil, peppers and bean sprouts came out right away.
Then my large bowl of pho with well done steak and flank.
Sasha had the pho with chicken.
And she had a little more onions and basil too.
This desert came out. I have no clue what it is but I always eat it all.
Then we went home.
The end.