Loco Mocos – Page 7

Da’ Kitchen – Finally Good Local Kine Grindz in San Diego

December 5, 2005 mmm-yoso Local Kine Stuffs in San Diego, Loco Mocos, Plate Lunch

*** Da’ Kitchen is now Mo’s Island Grinds, same great people, the food is also the same!

Every few months or so, I either hear of a new Plate Lunch or "Local"(Hawaiian) style restaurant in San Diego, either through the "coconut wireless" or Emails, that go something like this:

"I just wanted to inform you of a new Hawaiian place that my husband and I ate at that’s soooooooooo good! they have the best Kalbi and loco moco I have ever had……." And while I really enjoy and appreciate the comments and recommendations (keep ’em coming folks), most of them usually end up being L & L knock-offs. Nothing wrong with L&L, but to me, a "real" plate lunch, has a certain vibe, taste, and character. While I do eat at L&L, I kind of equate them to the Starbucks of the plate lunch world. The closest we have to a plate lunch place here in San Diego, albeit mediocre, is Da’ Kines, until now that is.

You see first of all the name of this place was Da’ Kitchen, and years ago I ate at Da’ Kitchen on Maui. So now you’ve really got my attention.

Getting out on the Carroll Canyon Road exit off the 15 Freeway I got to Da’ Kitchen, and parked my car. First thing I noticed was just a simple sign over the entrance. Da’ Kitchen had just been open 2 weeks. I looked over the grease board "menu", and the first thing that struck me were the prices. Kalbi for $9.95? Sheesh! But I went forward and placed an order. While waiting for my order, I had a nice chat with Jocelyn, one of the Owners, along with her Husband who runs the kitchen. If these plate lunches were as good as Jocelyn was nice and friendly, it was going to be a pretty good meal.

Here’s the Kalbi ($9.95):

Well first off, there were 5 pieces of cross cut kalbi, 5 pieces! These were well marinated and fairly tender, which is what you want. Most times they are too tough and rubbery, or over marinated and mushy. The marinade was excellent, just slightly sweet, and the ribs were nicely grilled. The plate came with one large scoop of rice and a macaroni-potato salad, which was kind of bland, and in need of salt. Overall, a good example of "local style" Kalbi, which differs a bit from Korean style.

I also ordered the Hawaiian Plate($10.75):

As a whole this was just okay. The laulau was nice and moist with alot of luau(taro) leaf, but with very little meat. The Chicken Long Rice had too much ginger in it. The Kalua Pork on the other hand was very moist, with a mild smoked flavor, and was the best item on the plate. This plate came with rice and the macaroni-potato salad, which was put in a container of it’s own.

The Fish Tempura($8.95):

Imagine five pieces of fish(I think it was Mahi Mahi??), yes the plate has five pieces of fish. What surprised me the most, was that the fish was still very crunchy and moist after the drive home. The tempura batter has what looks like furikake(Japanese Seaweed condiment) in it that adds to the taste. I wasn’t too crazy about the tartar sauce, and ended up using malt vinegar, which made it delici-yoso!!!

But the plate that brought tears to my eyes was this:

Yes, it’s a Loco Moco($7.75). If you read this blog regularly, you’ll know that I love "loco’s". This was a good one! As explained by Jocelyn, a 10-12 oz. homemade patty, 2 extra-large eggs easy over, brown gravy, topped with mushrooms and onions, rice, and macaroni-potato salad. A true thing of beauty! And they sneaked in an extra scoop of rice under the Burger! So I thought I’d use the infamous Modified Rubio Scoring System developed by James of Big Island Grinds.

Here’s how it measured up:

BURGER: Handmade and moist, and pretty huge. Maybe a bit too much filler, but nicely seared and seasoned. 4.0

EGGS: Cooked well, easy over, and yolks still runny. Could have been more crisp around the edges. But extra large eggs means bonus points. 4.5

RICE: Perfect, not dry. And those sneaky Bugga’s wen stash one scoop unda da burga la’ dat! You gotta love that. 5.0

GRAVY: Very nice color and texture, velvety, deep and dark brown. The taste was mildly beefy, but could have been better flavored. 4.0

STUFFS: Not enough flavor in the salad, actually tasted better with the gravy on it. And I really didn’t think the mushrooms and onions brought anything other then a bit of eye appeal to the dish. 3.0

Overall 20.5 points, the most I’ve ever given a Loco (so far)! How I finished it, I’ll never know.

Today I though I’d try the Chicken Katsu($7.75):

This was a "triple-decker" Katsu monster, fried golden brown, moist and delicious. And best of all, real Katsu sauce, not that runny sweet sour, garbage that L&L serves up. And the macaroni-potato salad tasted better today, just a bit of salt, that brought out the potato flavor. I only made it through 1 1/2 layers. As I was leaving, Jocelyn asked me how I did, so I showed her. She gave me a smile of pitying disapproval; sort of a "you’re a girly-man" sort of smile.

I also got a plate of the Korean Chicken($7.75) to go:

These are pieces of chicken marinated in a sweet soy mixture, then battered and fried. It comes with a mildly spicy and sweet soy sauce concoction. Sweet, salty, crunchy, and slightly spicy, a nice combination of taste and texture(think almost mochiko); this is the Missus’s favorite by far. In fact, I think I’ll get the dipping sauce for the Fish Tempura next time!

The restaurant, though sparse, gives off a laid-back vibe. And I get the feeling that no matter how crowded it might be here, it would still feel very relaxing.

As you can tell, Da’ Kitchen has been added to our rotation. So bring your appetite and give them a try!

By the way Jo, they have a branch in Mountain View!

Da’ Kitchen
9823 Carroll Canyon Rd.
San Diego, CA 92131

Open Mon-Sat 10am – 8pm

Are You Loco?: The Great LocoMoco Shootout

September 27, 2005 mmm-yoso Local Kine Stuffs in San Diego, Loco Mocos, Plate Lunch

Me:"My name is Kirk, and I'm a Loco-holic"
Group: "Hel-lo Kirk"
Me:"I've been secretly munching on Moco's over the last four months, and have almost been caught with gravy on my breath several times….."

Actually, the Loco Moco, along with Portuguese Sausage, Eggs, and Rice are my breakfasts of choice. I really don't usually eat a very large breakfast, but when I decide to have a hearty breakfast (usually breakfast and lunch), the Loco or PCE&R are what I choose. For those who don't know what a Loco Moco is; in it's most basic form a Loco Moco is Rice, Hamburger Patties, Easy-over, or Sunny Side up Eggs, covered in gravy. Tabasco, or some other hot sauce is used to complete the dish. It's origins are much debated, but is believed to have originated in Hilo around 1949.

One day while sitting to get a haircut, I was reading one of those Car Magazines, you know the ones; they compare exotic cars that we could never afford, 500 horse power with a sticker price in 6 digits….. When it came to me. Instead of the great Porsche versus Ferrari Shoot-out, I'll do the Great Loco Shoot-out! Instead of torque and horsepower, I'd do gravy and rice! The ideas that come to you when you're waiting to get dead cells trimmed off your body! So I decided to compare 5 Loco's; 4 Domestic, and one imported, and even two of the same "model".

Of course I needed a way to measure the Loco's. So I decided on the "Modified Rubio Scale", originally developed by James "Da' Lord of Loco" of Big Island Grinds. The original Rubio Scale measured each item on the Loco, I decided to take the "base" items, the Burger, Gravy, Egg, and Rice. To this I added "Stuffs", that include macaroni salad, Spam, or any other item that comes with the Loco. All items are graded on a scale between 1 through 5, with 2.5 being average.

So before I have to donate my arteries to Medical Science, let's get started:

LOCO#1: HAWAIIAN ISLAND BARBECUE

*** HIB has closed

BURGER: Standard pre-formed mass produced patty, not dry though – 2.0
EGGS: Cooked almost perfectly, edges crisp, yolks intact, not seasoned – 4.0
RICE: Average, slightly mushy, but ok – 2.5
GRAVY: Nice color and texture, but no taste, not seasoned – 2.5
STUFFS: Macaroni Salad, too much mayo and no salt – blah – 2.0

TOTAL: 13 points for what I consider to be a below average Loco($6.39), luckily I had alot of Tabasco! Also shows how one really good item, in this case the egg, can bring the Loco rating up.

LOCO#2: RUTT'S CAFE – LOS ANGELES *** Update, Rutt's Cafe has closed

BURGER: Handmade, well seasoned, onions and green onions, make a good burger – 4.0
EGGS: Cooked perfect, crisp edges, nice runny yolk, I'd even say soft in texture. – 4.5
RICE: Well cooked – 3.0
GRAVY: Lumpy and too light, taste was ok – 2.0
STUFFS: Macaroni salad, good mayo, but flavored with relish, yuck. Didn't know what to do with the dinner roll – 1.0

TOTAL: 15 points for an above average Loco($6.35) for our one "import" model (from Los Angeles) previously posted on July 18th. A good example of how one or two weak links can bring a "good" Loco down.

LOCO#3: L & L HAWAIIAN BARBECUE – COLLEGE AREA

BURGER: Premade, but actually seasoned, not dry, doesn't taste like cardboard for a change – 2.5
EGGS: Totally average, no crisp edges – mediocre – 2.5
RICE: Average – 2.5
GRAVY: Pretty good flavor, I know it's packaged, or whatever, but savory – 3.5
STUFFS: Somebody remembered their salt shaker today! Nice amount of Mayo, I thought it was pretty good – 3.0

TOTAL: 14 points is about as good as I think a Loco($6.39) can be at one of these Hawaiian Barbecue places, maybe another point if the eggs were done better!

LOCO#4: DA KINE'S

*** Da Kine's has closed

BURGER: Grilled nicely, but tasteless, and dry, dry, dry – 2.0
EGGS: Yolks overcooked and solid, otherwise average – 2.0
RICE: This was a shocker, Dakine's always has mushy rice, except this time – well cooked – 3.0
GRAVY: Nice and dark, but tasteless, and not enough of it – 2.5
STUFFS: Macaroni salad; you'd think with all the carrots and celery, this salad would have some taste – but noooo, very bland. Why is everybody afraid of salt? 2.5

TOTAL: 11.5 What a disappointment. When I first opened the take-out container, my first thought was, "where's the rest of my Loco($5.75)?". Almost looks like 1/3 of the Loco is missing!

LOCO#5: L&L HAWAIIAN BARBECUE – SPORTS ARENA LOCATION

BURGER: Well seasoned, pre-formed burger, moist – 2.5
EGGS: I don't know if you can see it, but there are brown bits all over the egg. The main cause of this is that the frying surface was not cleaned or scraped after the last item was cooked. Threw off the taste of the eggs, and who likes biting into "mystery bits"? – 1.0
RICE: Actually very well cooked, you could count the grains of rice – 3.0
GRAVY: Too light, and not well flavored – 2.0
STUFFS: Somebody forgot the salt shaker when they made the macaroni salad, and too much mayo – 2.0

TOTAL: 10.5 Just goes to show, that all of these L&L's are not created equal. Funny thing is that this location is right next to a Starbucks, which I thought was so appropriate, being that L&L's are taking over the world!

Just in case you're not tired of Loco Moco's yet! Here's a menu with my Fantasy Loco Moco, would it be a 25 pointer? Who knows, I'll let you know when I go back home for vacation. Reid's got a few Loco Moco posts on Ono Kine Grindz. Want to see a nice homegrown Loco? Santos has one on his fine site The Scent of Green Bananas.

Alright, time to go, I'm feeling like an unemployed Sumo Wrestler after writing this. What did I have for dinner tonight? Cold Tofu! Man, I need a shower…….

Hawaiian Island Barbecue

July 27, 2005 mmm-yoso Local Kine Stuffs in San Diego, Loco Mocos, Plate Lunch

*** Hawaiian Island BBQ has closed

This clone of L&L is located pretty close to where we live and is the most accessible "plate lunch" place for us. So I usually head on down to Pacific Beach now and then for a plate lunch.

Hawaiian Island Barbecue is located in Pacific Plaza next to a Von’s Supermarket, the local "foodies" will know the mall as the location of the Great News cooking store. I’ve never really ever seen this place full, but there seems to be a steady trickle of customers flowing in and out. The restaurant interior goes for a Hawaiian Hut/surfer kitschy type feel.

The menu features all the usual suspects; Chicken Katsu ($6.29), Loco Moco ($6.39), BBQ Beef ($6.39), BBQ Mix ($6.99), you get the picture. You can also get some items not usually served in many of these places like Lau Lau ($6.99 – previously frozen kine), Limu Poke ($7.99), and Manapua ($1.79 – also previously frozen kine). Mini plates are available from $4.29 – $4.99 featuring 1 scoop rice, 1 scoop Mac, and your chosen protein.

I placed my order, waited a few minutes, and went home, ready to grind!

The first thing I ordered was the BBQ Chicken ($6.29), all rice, which they got right. The thing I forgot to do was to tell them to "86" the pineapple ring. For some reason this pineapple ring sends me into a bout of terrible flashbacks….of when Hawaiian Food was thought to be a Ham steak with a pineapple ring on it! Ugh, just the sight of a little ol’ pineapple ring on top of certain foods send these waves of nausea associated with all those negative connotations! So I removed the pineapple ring and all traces of it’s existence. Oh yeah, the chicken, back to the chicken. In this case it was under marinated, but still ok. I’ve had the same dish here when it’s been perfectly marinated, and I’ve had them almost "white". It’s sort of a crap-shoot, when it’s good, it’s pretty good, when it’s not, well…….it deserves the pineapple ring!

I opened the next dish and it was a beautiful little Mini-Chicken Katsu Plate ($4.29). Only problem was, I ORDERED a CHICKEN CUTLET! Where’s the gravy? The gal as she handed me my package even said "chicken cutlet", I guess she didn’t pass her plate lunch identification test yet? Well back to the problem at hand – the chicken katsu was cooked to a perfect golden brown, crisp state, and had a nice crunch to it. The problem was what to do with the icky, terrible, sweet, mistake of katsu sauce this place and all the L&L’s serve for that matter. That’s the reason that I order chicken cutlet instead of chicken katsu. If I wanted sweet sour I’d pour some La Choy on it, gimme some "katsu sauce" fer chrissake! Katsu sauce into square receptacle, ketchup, Worcestershire, shoyu, and horseradish, here I come. Whoever made the macaroni salad on this day forgot the salt and put in a little too much mayo, but it was edible.

So why did I come here? Usually the foods ok, I usually like the Chicken Cutlet, when they remember to make it right, and the gravy fries ($1.99) and Loco Moco are usually pretty good. Looks like today wasn’t my day……

Hawaiian Island Barbecue
1768 Garnet Ave
San Diego, CA 92109
858-483-9830

Located in the Pacific Plaza Mall – Pacific Beach

LA Road Trip Part 2 – Rutt’s Cafe

July 18, 2005 mmm-yoso Diner, Loco Mocos, Los Angeles County, Plate Lunch, Road Trip

*** Update – On a recent trip to the area, I noticed that Rutt’s Cafe has been replaced with another restaurant. Something along the lines of Don Carlos……

In the first part of the road trip I picked up some ogo from Marukai in West Covina, and went over the purchase of "stinky tofu" from Shau Mei Deli. I had initially, planned on picking up some "local kine grinds" from either Harry’s Aloha Chop Suey or Bruddah’s Hawaiian Food in Gardena. But since I ended up in West Covina, that was pretty much out of the question. While driving up Azusa I saw this sign:

So I drove up and did a u-turn on Azusa, and then did a right turn and went around onto Valley Blvd, under the Azusa overpass. In this no man’s land strip mall, with a Carniceria, 99 cent Chinese Food, and other businesses, stood Rutt’s Hawaiian Cafe on the corner. Now having lived a few miles from here for 4 years, I knew that this couldn’t be an optimal location – Valley Blvd, on the border of City of Industry and La Puente. This mall can be more than a little scary, especially at night.

So I went in and there were no "Hawaii kine" people to be found, but I had a seat at the counter, had a menu handed to me, and looked it over. There were a ton of "royales", that is, an omelet over rice, or over fried rice. This was definitely a "breakfast" kind of place. Many dishes came in Junior, Regular, and King sizes and ranged from$4.25 to $8.45. There was Portuguese Sausage and Kalua Pork on the menu. I went ahead and ordered a regular size Loco Moco $6.35. The waitress was apparently a bit new and had to check the menu herself to see what options there were – I chose the macaroni salad, and eggs over easy (is there any other way to serve eggs for a loco moco?). I also ordered an iced tea, which came in a very large cup. After about 10 minutes my "loco" was served:

The plate a had 2 easy over eggs over a large hamburger patty on gravy over rice, macaroni salad, and a roll (?). The gravy was country style, not what’s usually served with a loco – it’s usually a brown gravy. The gravy was lumpy and had ok flavor, though I’m used a more beefy brown gravy. The hamburger patty was tasty, with a hint of sweetness, and lots of onions and green onions – a plus in my book. The macaroni salad had a good amount of mayonnaise, but was also flavored with relish, yuck, one of my pet peeves, couldn’t finish the salad. And the roll, I really didn’t know what to do with the roll…. The eggs, well let me say this. If there was a College degree for Short Order Cooks, whomever cooked the eggs and the burger would have a Masters Degree, they were cooked to perfection. Nice and runny yolk, the whites crisp around the edges and yet soft, excellent!

The service was friendly and attentive, and a person who I think is the owner was helping to wait tables, and it seemed like it was his Daughters that were helping him out. I found out later that the owner of the original Rutt’s had sold the name and restaurant, and this location had been open for about a year, but it looks like they’re really trying hard here. Before leaving I saw a huge platter of fried rice with char siu in it, and was told it was the King Sized "Hawaiian" Royale with Portuguese Sausage and Char Siu, looked big enough to feed a family of four. So would I return? Sure, I consider this a pretty good diner, with excellent portions. The location is kind of strange, I really wouldn’t want to be around here at night, but I’d definitely return.

Rutt’s Cafe
17371 East Valley Blvd.
La Puente, CA 91714
(626) 839-6312