West LA: Blockheads & Kogi

I bought these Google Offer to Kogi, the food truck, a few months ago, and never got a chance to use it.  Finally made up my mind to head out to Sawtelle, since the Rosita truck was actually gonna be there around 10pm.  Convinced Leonard to go with me so we went after work and ball!

We got there a bit early though so we decided to grab some dessert first at Blockheads!

Blockheads Shavery
11311 Mississippi Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90025
blockheadsla.com

Black sesame + red bean + rice cakes!

Black sesame is probably my favorite flavor at Blockheads.  It tastes just like the black sesame rice cakes!

Red bean is not too sweet and not too mushy.  Perfect with the nutty black sesame.

Leonard's green tea + red bean + walnut. 

After we finished, the truck did arrive with a long line... but dinner time!

Kogi BBQ

All over LA

kogibbq.com

The truck.  Too bad this is their "catering truck" and the guy handling the money was not "trained" to take Google Offers.  Psh... still ordered though.

My Blackjack Quesedilla and 2 tacos!

Seriously my favorite item on Kogi's menu!  Love the salsa verde with the spicy pork.

My short rib & spicy pork tacos.  Spicy pork is still my favorite out of the two haha.

Leonard's Sweet Chili Chicken Quesedilla.  The sweet chili sauce is usually on the calamari tacos but it is used on the chicken quesedilla here.  Kogi's actually taking this off the menu soon.

Calamari taco with the sweet chili sauce.  Another causality of the menu change that will be coming soon.  (Sorry for the blurry pic... hand was all messy from the tacos :P)

Been awhile since I've had Kogi and the tacos are still very tasty.  The Blackjack Quesedilla was a bit mushier than what I remembered or maybe it was because I didn't eat it fast enough?  Glad to try the two items that will be off the menu soon too, but I can see why they are taking it off.  The sweet chili sauce is good but not good enough to want to make me order them over other items.

Since I still didn't use my Google Offer for Kogi, time to hunt down the truck once again!

Taiwan: Here and There

Here are some of the random food/snacks/drinks I had around Taipei. There's something good everywhere haha. The best is just walking around Taipei and eating whatever you see :]

Popcorn chicken from 遼寧街夜市, just around the corner from my aunt's place!

So... apparently this place got first place in the annual contest for 魯肉飯. I gotta admit, it's pretty damn good. You can tell they used a lot of the 油蔥 (fried onion).

Goose meat from 鵝肉城. Looks plain but it's actually flavored. Amazing.

Oolong Milktea from 清心褔. Oolong milktea is similar to Jasmin milktea except it has a more robust flavor. It's now my favorite place to get milkteas and boba drinks. I hope they didn't use the poisonous milk from China cause I pretty much had one every day hahaha.

雞蛋糕 is pretty much pancake batter poured into a mold the shape of eggs. Plain and simple but I used to eat this as a kid all the time.

潮州胡椒餅 Chaozhou Peppered pork buns. The outside is flaky and crunchy but I still like the ones near 永康街 better.

Main ingredients: pork, green onions, salt, and a lot of pepper.

Tea eggs. Enough said :]

Beautiful!

Stinky tofu from the street vendor right around the corner from my grandma's place. This old lady there has been selling stinky tofu there since... as long as I can remember. She makes the best Chinese kimchi too. They way she mixes all the seasonings and the sauces together with the kimchi is just amazing haha.

Oolong milktea from 五十嵐, my 2nd favorite milktea spot.

蛋餅包油條 egg pancake wrapped chinese donut. Yea, not exactly the healthiest thing to eat for breakfast... but meeeeh. It's good, yay for traditional Chinese breakfast hahah :D

黑松沙士 and Assam Black Tea. Two of my favorite kids when I was a kid. 黑松沙士 is a sarsaparilla drink, kinda tastes like Dr. Pepper and root beer.

黑糖竽圓刨冰 Brown sugar taro balls shaved ice from 鮮竽仙. All 鮮竽仙 sells is traditional Taiwanese dessert items, like shaved ice, and grass jelly drinks etc.

Coffee bread from Baker's Boy. I saw people waiting in line for it so I had to do it too haha. It's only good when it's right out of the oven (which is always since they sell out so fast) and the smell is just amazing when it does. Not bad but too expensive for bread in Taiwan (30NT).

I miss Taiwan :[

Shanghai: Week 2 - Misc

I forgot my camera a lot of times during the second week, so I didn't get to document all the stuff I ate... but here's some haha.

So I was craving some Taiwanese food, and there happens to be a Taiwanese restaurant near Jiao'Tong so went with Lydia and Chris. I ordered 雞排飯 (chicken steak rice combo) with a sunny-side-up egg. It was better than I thought: decent food, wide selections, and it never hurts when the people in the restaurant speak Taiwanese :]

Hmmm... don't remember why the picture's crooked but... yay for shaved ice hahaha. We went to a restaurant next door that was mainly Hong Kong style. They called this "ants on a mango ice mountain" or something weird thing like that haha.

One night a bunch of us went to a vegetarian restaurant near the school called 五觀堂素食. I gotta admit, it was the best vegetarian food I ever had. They were really strict in there and didn't let us take pictures sooo no pics :[

麥芽糖 (malt sugar). Got it in Tong'Li. I used to eat these a lot as a kid. They start out as a real dark color, but the more you pull and twist on it to aerate the sugar, the lighter in color it turns.