Monthly Archives: March 2009

Peking in on Chinese Cuisine

by Mikey

Yeah, I know the title is clever.  You don’t have to tell me. 

I hit up some Chinese food the other day and was in the mood to try some new dishes.  My girls had just finished a heck of a soccer game and one of the parents heard me talking about Chinese food.  They recommended the Peking Restaurant in Ventura.

Peking Restaurant – Telegraph/Victoria

First off, I think I counted eight “No Msg” signs.  Apparently MSG is not welcome here.  I definitely contain MSG, but I didn’t tell them. I just thought I’d see if they could detect it. Continue reading

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Filed under Ventura

Harold’s House of WTF?

by Brian

Yesterday morning I decided to renew my search for the world’s first good vegetarian omelette.  And what better place to go than a place that calls itself a house of omelettes, right?  Wrong!  In case you missed the first episode in my omelette saga, you can read about it here.

The first rule of being a good restaurant:  If it’s in the name, it better be good.

How cheated would you feel if you went to IHOP and the pancakes sucked?  Like I said, I went to Harold’s House of Omelettes in search of an OMELETTE.  Here’s what I got instead… Continue reading

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Filed under Thousand Oaks, Ventura County

Hells Kitchen and Cherry Dr Pepper

by Mikey

This last week on Hells Kitchen, we got what everyone has been waiting for.  Lacey was removed after failing at the meat station.  My question is, why was she ever on the show?  Shouldn’t they only have people on there who are real chefs?  She works a buffet line at catering gigs.  She was clueless for so many different things and it seemed like the only thing she could do was make origami swans.  She was by far the weakest of all the chefs, so she definitely needed to go. 

At the same time, it’s amazing to me how human nature works.  These other chefs, on both teams, act as if they are trying to help her, but the way they help and the way they act is more in the negative then the positive.  Sure she was a pain in the ass, didn’t know very much and was dramatic.  But you make it worse when you treat her like the fat kid who sucks at kickball.  We all know how well harping, nagging, and berating, work as human reinforcement devices.  Anyway enough human sociology.  By the way, for a fat person she wasn’t very jolly.  We are a very jolly people. Continue reading

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Filed under Everywhere

Fancy Pizza and Celebrity Chefs

by Brian

So I’m a big food TV fan, but I haven’t been watching much lately since Mikey has a good grip on Hell’s Kitchen and Top Chef is in hibernation for now.  I did manage to catch the new show called Chopped on NBC.  Guess what?  They cancelled that shizz yesterday. Oh well, there weren’t any interesting peeps on there anyway.

Back to my celebrity chef fetish… I don’t normally act on it by going to their restaurants (except TC Betty’s Grub in LA & Brian’s Oceanaire in SD).  I also tend to stay away from the store products that celebs schill for.  If you must know, I only buy Paul Newman tomato sauces.  Have you ever seen Cool Hand Luke?  What a badass that guy was.

So for the first time in forever, I bowed down to the cult of chef celebrity by having lunch at Wolfgang Puck’s L.A. Bistro in Westlake.  And it goes a little something like this… Continue reading

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Filed under Thousand Oaks, Ventura County, Westlake Village

Bottleworks Pizza

by Mikey

B and I hit up our third pizza joint.  A place called Bottleworks on the East end of Ventura.  Most of the pizza’s so far have been mediocre, so we were hoping Bottleworks would break the mold. Continue reading

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Filed under Ventura, Ventura County

My Raw Foods Adventure

by Brian

Yesterday I took the whole health food kick to a completely new high (or low, depending on how you look at it).  My little sister was down from UC Santa Cruz for spring break and suggested that we hit up this little raw, vegan, organic restaurant called Leaf Cuisine. 

Since I don’t like to hit a place completely unaware, I did a little research on Yelp and found out that they have been getting mostly good reviews.  In fact, a number of people were raving about the “Flying Falafel” which is what I ended up ordering.  Here are my thoughts on Leaf Cuisine… Continue reading

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Filed under Los Angeles Area, San Fernando Valley, Sherman Oaks

Camarillo’s Sumo Sushi

by Mikey

Sumo seems to be a popular name for Sushi places. I found that the Sumo in Camarillo and the Sumo in Ventura are completely separate joints. Which pretty much means there is a good Sumo and a bad Sumo. Unfortunately for Camarillo they have the bad Sumo.

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Filed under Camarillo, Ventura County