Torrance: Fried food feasting at Kushiage Dining Horon

Found a little gem in Torrance!

Kushiage Dining Horon is a restaurant that Calvin and I have wanted to try for the longest time because it is a restaurant that specializes in fried food!  More specifically, fried skewers.  Kushiage is like yakitori, except that it is all fried instead of grilled.  The great thing is that most skewers here are only $1, so we just marked off whatever we wanted.  Not the healthiest thing but meh, feasting time!


Kushiage Dining Horon
2143 W 182nd St
Torrance, CA 90504
dininghoron.com

Izakaya menu.  We ordered a few things off this menu too.

Of course, beer + fried food is one of the best combo ever.  In this case, Asahi and fried skewers!  Also, from this picture you can sorta tell that it is a small restaurant.  We sat at the end of the restaurant.

Sunomono.  Cabbage not cured for that long, so it's quite crunchy and refreshing!

First item that arrived was the Tokotsu Ramen.  Very thick, rich, flavorful, oily ramen broth.  Chasu is very good too!  They also use straight noodles, but I do prefer chijire men more because the wavy noodles allows the broth to stick on easier.  Seems like during lunch, the place is a ramen bar.  Need to come here.

Two types of sauce: honey mustard and worcestershire-based.  The worcestershire-based sauce is pretty much a lighter version of tonkatsu sauce.

Different types of salt to try with the kushiage: curry salt, saffron salt, and Himalayan pink salt.  I used the pink salt much more versus the others.

Skewers arrive!  Scallops, salmon, quail.

Scallop with herb butter.  Fresh scallop fried with butter!

Salmon with salmon roe.  Thin piece of salmon.  Too bad I got a piece without much roe :P

A look inside at the soy-marinated quail eggs.  I love quail eggs so I liked this a lot.  Couldn't really taste the marinade though.  Very good with the honey mustard sauce.

Before the rest of our skewers arrived, our Sizzling Pork Jowl came!  Pork jowl is actually a really delicious cut of pork since there's tendon throughout the jowl so it gives it a nice bite, but tender at the same time.  The soy dressing was really good and filled the whole restaurant with the smell.

Sausages, pork belly, chicken meatball.

Black pork sausages.  A bit salty, but you get a great pop when you bite into the sausage!

Pork belly with Welsh onions.  Super soft pork belly!

Usually in yakitori places, chicken meatballs are grilled and comes in all sort of shapes and sizes.  Here, it is in a corn dog shape, then fried.

Inside.  Awesome with all sauces and salt.

More fried goodness!

Curry-filled bread and fried mochi with cheese.  The curry bread is essentially a small piece of toast, folded in half with some curry.

Cheeeeese!

Fron to back: chicken meatball stuffed shiitake mushroom, enoki mushrooms bacon wrap, garlic trio, and eggplant with miso.  Didn't try the eggplant since I don't like eggplant... but...

...  enoki mushrooms bacon wrap was awesome.  Bacon-wrapped anything is good, let alone fried haha.  On top of the shiitake mushroom, is a piece of the garlic trio.  Pretty much just fried garlic.  I liked it since I like garlic but it might be a little too boring for some.

Japanese Spring Rolls, with snapper, pickled radish & carrots, Japanese yam, and cabbage.  Forgot what the sauce was... but this was the most forgettable dish though :P 

So after the spring rolls, we wanted more, and instead of ordering from the $1 section, we decided to splurge a bit.  Some of these are around $2.50 per skewer.

Alice's soft shell crab with tartar sauce.  Sorry for the blurry pic.  I didn't take that good of a picture cause I was too excited to eat what I ordered haha.

Calvin's giant shrimp.

He gave me the shrimp head.  Yummy brains.

Soy marinated tuna.  Tuna is still best raw or rare.  It was a bit tough after it was fried.  The marinade was really tasty though.

My creamy crab croquette.  Could be without the mayo sauce on the top.

Ended our meal with some shishito peppers with ponzu sauce.  I like how they add bonito flakes.

Even though it was $1 for most of the skewers, we ended up spending $30 each... Quite expensive but it was a great experience and we had a lot of fun trying out all the different items!  Probably will have to be awhile before I come back.  My heart is probably hating me right now.

Torrance: Capricciosa Finally Opens!

There's always been a huge demand for Japanese Italian around the South Bay so it's not surprised that Capricciosa decided to open the first US branch in Torrance, where there is a good sizeable Japanese population and where Japanese Italian is widely accepted.

Capricciosa is a huge restaurant chain from Japan, with several locations worldwide. Essentially it is an Italian restaurant with the flavors and dishes tweaked a little to suit the Japanese palate while trying to stay true to Italian cuisine. Nothing is too heavy and all the pastas focuses on more of the ingredients. There's no fusion like bonito flakes or uni as part of a pasta dish.

Took us awhile to find the place though since it shares a restaurant space with Tony Roma's. A little odd, yes, but there's actually a good amount of seating. Just this past weekend was their soft opening but they had most of their menu ready when we were there.

Capricciosa

24301 Crenshaw Blvd

Torrance, CA 90505

www.capricciosa.com

Entrance to the restaurant! I was definitely very excited to try it out :P

Nice and elegant decor throughout the restaurant. It does get a bit loud near the back, where it is closer to Tony Roma's.

Since 1978!

Menu (click to enlarge).

Complimentary bread.

Strawberry lemonade. Meh, nothing special but it looked good haha.

Garlic toasts.

It's rolls spread with garlic butter then toasted. We were expecting more garlic flavor. The only disappointment of the night though!

Choi's Squid Ink Pasta. Calamari, sauteed onions, garlic in a tomato based squid ink sauce. One of the better squid ink pastas I've had in the States! I am not a fan of the squid ink pastas with cream sauce as a base, so I like that they use the tomato based. It's much more true to the Italian roots (Venice).

Vongole. Garlic, clams, and wine. As simple as it gets! It's more like pasta in a clam broth. Definitely drink up that deliciousness. They give you so many clams here as well!

Original Tomato & Garlic. This is Capricciosa's signature dish. Great Arrabbiata sauce with sauteed garlic & peppers. Arrabbiata sauce is a classic Roman sauce of garlic, tomatoes, and red chili cooked in olive oil. It is sweet and tangy while the garlic chunks provides a huge punch of flavor. Favorite pasta dish of the night!

Spicy Seafood Linguine. Clams, mussels, shrimp, calamari in spicy garlic cream sauce. Seafood flavor integrated throughout and even though it is a cream sauce, it's not heavy at all! This is a perfect example of a pasta dish that's more suited for the Japanese palate with the lighter cream-based sauce that allows the seafood to shine through.

Chicken & Mushroom Fettucine Alfredo. Marinated chicken, onions, mushrooms, with creamy alfredo sauce. Marinated chicken is pure awesomeness. Tender but slighly crisped on the outside from being pan cooked. A hearty and earthy pasta dish.

Gotta say, I'm a huge fan of their pastas! Definitely will be coming back to try some of the other items like pizzas, lasagnas, and desserts. Also, with the opening of Capricciosa, South Bay has officially become the land of Japanese Italian! Too many good spots with Spoon House, Akane, Italian Tomato, and Il Chianti.

Torrance: CoCo Ichibanya

CoCo Ichibanya has finally hit the States! Luckily, they decided to open one here right in Torrance! Well, actually there's already a location in Hawaii but that doesn't count :P

If you don't know what CoCo Ichibanya is, it is a huge chain that specializes in curry, similar to Curry House. It's all over Asia, from Japan to Taiwan to Thailand to Hong Kong. What makes CoCo Ichibanya so popular is that you are able to customize your own curry to be as extravagant as your heart desires or to be as simple as it could possible be. You want just curry? Sure. How about 4 different toppings? No problem! Mini, small, standard, large, or XL? Level of spiciness from 1-10? Everything has a set price, so it can be a cheap meal for less than $5 or a $20 curry plate.

I've actually been to CoCo around 5 times since it opened so below is just a compilation!

CoCo Ichibanya

2455 Sepulveda Blvd Ste C

Torrance, CA 90501

www.ichibanya.co.jp/english

CoCo! They are definitely using LED sign lighting :P Good job.

Menu.

Endless possibilities! Lots of toppings that's normally not expected like kimchi and cheese (click to enlarge).

History of CoCo and the locations.

They have salads there for around $3-4 and it always with the same base with different toppings, or you can just get a green salad.

The salad dressings here are so good! You get to choose between two kinds: shouyu-base and wasabi-base. The shouyu is your typical Japanese dressing using soy sauce as the base, while wasabi is more creamy and has a hint of wasabi. I actually like both so I'll add shouyu to the salad then drizzle some of the wasabi.

Calamari salad.

Karage salad.

With the dressings added :]

One of the simplest curry you can get there, shredded chicken curry. The curry itself is pretty good, about the same as Curry House, but not as good as Curry Club.

Curry with katsu and mushrooms. To add katsu it is $4, but they give you a huge piece and it's thick too! I also got these at spice level 4 and I gotta admit... I was sweating like mad. Don't think that because this is a Japanese place the spiciness shouldn't be anything!

Curry with karage, mini sausages, and gyoza. I was super hungry that night so decided to go 3-toppings. Gyoza as a topping! So genius!

The mini-sausages are great too since there's a great bite to it.

Curry with katsu, shredded beef, and spinach. Added spinach to make it a little healthier :P

This is actually a small plate of curry with mini-sausages and mushrooms. You can customize your curry, including the size.

A super close up of the katsu when I got it with fried calamari.

This is actually Leonard's curry with shredded chicken, katsu, and mushroom. Good combo!

Refillable iced green tea to wash down everything!

Ever since CoCo Ichibanya opened, I don't think I've been back to Curry House and other curry spots. Who doesn't like to customize their curry to their liking? Maybe next time I'll try a 5-topping combination :]