This slideshow requires JavaScript.

2361 East Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena CA. Phone: 626.793.7100

Worth visiting in a 10 mile radius.

Across America’s suburbs, college towns, and downtown city districts, a certain type of restaurant is ubiquitous: the gastropub. These places serve the American standard of soups, salads, and sandwiches, but with a classy edge and significantly higher prices. Although I’ve been to quite a few gastropubs in my life, I’ve always found the idea off-putting; the food at these establishments tends to aspire to be fancy, but the caliber of chefs and ingredients doesn’t reach the level needed to make their variations worth the high prices.

Plate 38 is located in Pasadena, the city north of Los Angeles best known for hosting the Rose Bowl. The setting is nice but not anything special, with a comfortable wooden interior and a small porch complete with heat lamps for (semi) chilly California winter nights.

Plate 38 uses locally sourced ingredients to make all its dishes, which is not uncommon in high-end restaurants, but always appreciated. The menu is mostly typical of a gastropub, with interesting appetizers, salads, burgers, and a few entrees.

The interior is equipped with a full bar, so I took advantage of this to get a Shirley Temple, which was a bit watery but had two cherries instead of the usual one. The adults in my party who ordered alcohol all agreed that it was good.

For appetizers, we ordered a yellowtail crudo and a grilled octopus dish. The crudo was simply amazing. The fish was tender with little skin or gristle, and it was served with a soy-based sauce and big chunks of avocado, giving it a taste reminiscent of California rolls. I didn’t care much for the octopus at first, but as the meal went on, it grew on me. This was in large part due to the chorizo, which I did not expect to be served with octopus. The smoky flavors of both meats ended up clashing. However, the rest of this dish made up for the strange choice of chorizo. The octopus, while not super fresh like the octopus I’d had in Greece, still retained tenderness. The fruits and vegetables alongside the octopus were well-picked to bring out a sour flavor in the meat (lemon, radish, pickled carrots), and the presentation of the dish was pretty.

The fried chicken was the standout of the meal. If you want to order it, keep in mind that it is only served on Sunday and Monday nights. The chicken is served in a generous portion which includes a good amount of both white and dark meat. The white meat was a tad on the dry side, but this was hardly a problem because the chicken was served with an excellent rich gravy. The dark meat was adequately juicy and required no gravy. The skin held on to the chicken and didn’t fall apart, yet it remained crisp. The sides served with the chicken were a cheesy jalapeno cornbread (very fresh and warm, but could use a bit more spice), mashed potatoes (these were superb, I appreciated that they left in chunks of mashed potatoes instead of completely pureeing it like baby food), corn on the cob, and an assortment of vegetables. If you like fried chicken and you come to Plate 38, this should definitely be your entree.

The steak was perfectly cooked medium rare, with a rosy pink center, and came with gorgonzola cheese sauce. My only previous experience with any sort of cheese sauce was the sickening orange sludge served on ballpark nachos, but the sharp, tangy flavor of the sauce on this steak changed any preconceived notions I had. On the side were garlic fries that weren’t overly salty and crunchy asparagus, both delicious.

After visiting Plate 38, my opinion on gastropubs has changed. I no longer see them as establishments trying to bite off more than they can chew. I now know that a gastropub can create a fine dining experience, without abandoning the comfortable food that many Americans know and love. For anyone in the San Gabriel Valley, I would recommend going to Plate 38 to get a new take on American food.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

5700 Rosemead Blvd. #100 Temple City, CA 91780 Phone: 626.285.9678. United States locations elsewhere in Los Angeles, New York, and New Jersey.

Worth visiting in a 7 mile radius.

Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong, also known as Baekjeong, is named after the owner, a Korean comedian and wrestler who owns an international chain of Korean BBQ restaurants. The location in Temple City, a suburb of Los Angeles, is plastered with cardboard cutouts of Kang Ho Dong and has walls filled with colorful cartoon pictures of him visiting all the places where he owns a restaurant. It might seem a little gimmicky at first, but when I tasted the meat, I knew I’d made the right choice coming here.

Baekjeong is extremely popular. You should expect a wait, and they do not take reservations. On a Monday night, we waited about 20 minutes for our table. The whole operation  is loud and bustling, with K-pop blasting from the speakers and young waiters with gelled hair shouting out things to one another such as, “More banchan (side dishes) at 33!”

We arrived at our table and were greeted by the entire wait staff in Korean, “어서오세요! 백정 입니다!” which means “Welcome! This is Baekjeong!” As with most Korean restaurants, the table was already laid out with banchan, which included: kimchi, kimchijeon (kimchi pancake), purple radish, sweet potatoes, spicy sprout salad, lettuce salad, and steamed egg. I didn’t eat much banchan, but members of my family who had more banchan said it was excellent. This was a good sign because you can usually tell how good a Korean restaurant is from the quality of its banchan.

Along the grill in the center of our table there was also a non-Korean item, cheese corn, which made us a little wary. I must admit, I wasn’t brave enough to try the cheese corn. However, my meal was fine without it.

The short rib, grilled at our table, was not overly  marinated, as some Korean BBQ meats are. The beef was nicely marbled, tender but not too fatty. The spicy pork belly, prepared in the kitchen, was a little too sweet for my liking. It also wasn’t very spicy, but it tasted good with the kimchi.

Baekjeong makes a good family meal, since you order for the table. Its meals are packed with good meat and manage to turn Korean BBQ into a fun, new experience.

 

 

400 South Baldwin Avenue, Arcadia, CA, 91007 and also in: Orange County, Seattle, Santa Clara, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, and Thailand. Phone (Arcadia): 626.574.7068

Worth visiting in a 60 mile radius.

While in Arcadia, a suburb of Los Angeles, my family had our sights set on another restaurant. Upon realizing it was closed, we drove around and found Din Tai Fung, not realizing it was an internationally acclaimed, world-famous Taiwanese dumpling house. We were hooked on our first visit and have been coming back for years.

Even getting into Din Tai Fung is an experience. We usually get there around half an hour before it opens, and there are still fifteen or so people ahead of us. If you go at high lunch time, you might be waiting for two hours. While you are waiting, you can look through the window and see the workers, dressed in white and wearing masks, making the dumplings in an orderly assembly line.

Now for a few of my favorites. Chicken soup here doesn’t mean a few scant pieces of chicken floating around in broth. Expect enormous pieces of chicken, clad in thick skin, in a warm, delicious broth. The fried rice is superb. Restaurant fried rice tends to be greasy, but not at Din Tai Fung. I recommend getting it with shrimp.

These dishes are enough to make one’s mouth water, but when I come here, I intentionally don’t gorge on them so I can make room for Xiao Long Bao, or literally, “small dragon dumplings.”  These round dumplings with a twist on top and filled with soup have stolen the hearts of many a patron. With each bite of Xiao Long Bao, there is an explosion of broth in your mouth, coupled with the succulent pork. There is only one small problem: you won’t want to eat the dumplings at your local Asian eatery anymore.

Din Tai Fung’s dishes may seem simple, but the quality will dazzle you if you are willing to sacrifice one or two hours for the wait.