Dragon Whiskers Candy

We usually avoid Hawaii Supermarket in San Gabriel because the crazy busy parking lot is hell. But on one recent Saturday, we decided to brave the insanity so we could visit Alex Goh's dragon whiskers candy cart. That's one of the nice things about Hawaii Supermarket, the small line of street-food vendors outside the entrance. They make the food right there so the confections are super fresh.

What's dragon whiskers candy? A wonderful, delicate sweet made from honey. As you'll see in the video I found on YouTube, the honey is stretched into hundreds of thin strings until it really does look like "dragon whiskers". It's then stuffed with things like peanuts or coconut. Alex even did a live demonstration for us. It was unbelievable the way he turned a lump of cooked honey into "dragon whiskers", all in about sixty seconds. Now that's magic. Alex told us that he cooks the honey for something like eight hours in preparation for the whiskers. Sadly, very few people still make the candy this way. Today's young people just find the work too tedious.



I think Alex is at Hawaii Supermarket on most weekends. Here's the address.

Hawaii Supermarket 
120 E Valley Blvd
San Gabriel, CA

Vista Theatre

Yesterday, we went to see The Artist at the Vista Theatre. What a wonderful theater. Only one screen, beautifully restored, the Egyptian motif a time capsule back into pure Hollywood whimsy. I can't think of a more perfect theater to see The Artist, a modern silent film about Hollywood in the 20s and 30s. (Great, fun film, BTW.)

The Vista first opened in 1923 and it's had a rough history, according to an old LA Times article. At one point, it was a porn house! Now it's a lovely, romantic theater, a great place to have a first date. One caveat: we found their sound system a bit harsh, made worse because the sound was being played on the loud side.


Vista Theatre

4473 Sunset Dr
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 660-6639

Pasadena Cheeseburger Week

Pasadena is celebrating the cheeseburger next week. Why? Well, apparently the cheeseburger was born in Pasadena, way back in 1920 something...

Sadly, it's nothing more than a very noncreative way to promote Pasadena businesses. I mean, there aren't even any contests and just a handful of discounts. But I suppose it's not a bad excuse to eat more cheeseburger...

Santa Ana 2011

They're calling it Windpocalypse. And it was pretty bad. This poor ancient tree was one of the victims. It lived just a couple of blocks from where I live, and yet, I'd never really noticed it before. How could I not notice such a massive tree?

Sadly, there's a BMW underneath there somewhere. The tree fell right over the garage. I don't think anyone was hurt.

Moffett's

I love that SoCal still has restaurants like Moffett's. Opened in 1975, it's a time capsule back into another era. One that appreciated food like chicken pot pie. That's what Moffett's specializes in, pies from chicken to fruit. Of course they have other things like hamburgers and sandwiches, but just stick to the pies, which are single-portions of granny's-love-goodness.

Their lunch special is a particularly good deal. For around $6 you get either chicken or beef pie, gravy, whipped mashed potatoes, carrots and peas, and a choice of either a roll or biscuits. Get the rolls. Baked in-house, they're really, really good.

And before you leave, buy some fresh unbaked pot pies for your freezer. I try to keep four in mine at all times.

Arcadia too far away? If you live in Hollywood, Huntington Meats at the Farmer's Market on Fairfax sells the unbaked pies. That's actually where I first learned about Moffett's. I think the pies are a dollar or more at Huntington, though.

Moffett's

1409 S Baldwin Ave
Arcadia, CA 91007
(626) 447-4670

Bhan Kanom Thai

One of the things I love most about LA is all the tiny little ethnic delis and bakeries you find tucked away in strip malls. My newest favorite is the Thai dessert specialist Bhan Kanom Thai in Thai town. The little store is an irresistible treasure trove of Thai cookies, crackers and preserved fruit, along with ice cream, puddings and freshly made pastries. I loved their rice crackers which were drizzled in caramel. Their preserved golden kumquats were fantastic too. Can't wait to go back and try more things.

Bhan Kanom Thai
5271 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90027
323 871-8030

Pasadena Air Force Open House

Last June, the Pasadena Police Department’s Air Operations Section hosted an open house. We went and was impressed by how much hardware the police department so proudly displayed. Like their SWAT vehicle (in case there's a zombie attack), which was used in a demo of what the police department would do if there ever was a sniper in town. Here are some pictures.

Infrastructure Blunder

So noticed there was some serious work going on out on the street today. Went to investigate and found city sewer workers out in full force trying to correct a major infrastructure problem. Seems Pasadena hired some bozo contractors who put gas pipes straight through sewer pipes. I really hope these contractors are going to go to jail for criminal negligence but I'm sure they'll just get another contract from Pasadena.

We tried to take pictures for the blog but the workers wouldn't let us. Not that we're surprised.

Artesia's Little India

So what do you have to do to get good authentic Indian food in LA? Go to Artesia's Little India. We spent half a day there and had fun eating, shopping and just looking around. Little India isn't very big—just a couple of blocks centered around Pioneer Boulevard. But it's packed with restaurants, jewelers, sari houses, groceries, etc.

We ate at both Surati Farsan Mart and Udupi Palace. I thought Surati had by far the better food. Fresh, tasty, fun, Surati specializes in Gujarati street food. Although the name seems to imply that they're a market, they're really a delicatessen with a case full of pretty sweets.

In between eating, we shopped. My favorite store was Cottage Art, a kind of mini department store on Pioneer. They were having a sale on clothes so I bought this:

We ended the day with ice cream at Saffron Spot. They make their own ice creams and kulfi. The lychee ice cream was pretty fantastic.

Chong's Grocery

My LA discovery of the year is Chong's Grocery. A tiny little storefront in Koreatown, Chong's makes its own sesame oil! And it's fantastic! I had no idea fresh sesame oil could taste so alive. No hint of rancidity at all. Chong's sells both light and dark oil in a variety of bottle sizes.  I got the smallest, a 16 ounce bottle for $10, which is a bargain. They also have toasted sesame seeds, barley, soy beans, etc.

Warning: if you're trying to find the store, please be aware that they're on the phantom 8th street. Phantom 8th street, you ask? Yes. Because, it turns out that there are two 8th streets: the main 8th street and a tiny side street that parallels it for about a hundred feet which is also called 8th street. Chong's is on that parallel side street.

Chong's Grocery
3560 W 8th Street
LA 90005
213 387 0651

BTW, according to the Korean spelling, the store should really be called Jeong's Grocery. Just saying.

Bottlebrush Plant

Amos T Fairchild

This is one of our favorite plants in LA. It's called a bottlebrush plant, but we like to call it the toilet brush plant! The official name is Callistemon and it's really a native of Australia. That's what's really wonderful about SoCal—it's just one big botanical garden. Just wish the plants had labels!

Hummingbird Rescue

There was much excitement at our household today. We discovered that one of the birds on our feeder was terribly injured. It'd been sitting at the feeder for over twenty minutes, which is highly unusual, its feathers sticking out as if it'd been given a shock of electricity. I just thought it was a weird little bird until it dropped backwards and hung strangely before righting itself again. That's when I noticed that it was bleeding around its neck. Every few seconds the bird would close its eyes—it wasn't even feeding. So eerie how all the other birds were ignoring it, like they were smelling death.

Luckily, Animal Rescue very kindly said that they would come and pick up the little thing, but only after we'd safely confined it. Well, that turned into quite an ordeal. We aren't exactly experts on handling wildlife and the whole situation made us very nervous. As per a website's instructions, we put some paper towels in a small box and tried to coax the bird into the box. Nope. The bird wasn't going to cooperate. The grip it had on the feeder's leg was incredible. So we gently enclosed the bird in the box, plastic feeder leg and all.

We were hoping that the bird would relax while in the box, but that didn't happen. I couldn't believe how ferociously it was flapping its wings trying to get out. So I spent ten minutes talking to the bird while the Goldberg Variations played on the stereo. All became calm—I just hoped I wasn't literally talking the bird to death. Can't tell you how relieved we were when Animal Rescue came.

We wondered how the little thing got injured. Animal Rescue thought it was injured during a typical hummingbird fight. But I don't know. It's neck seemed to have been slashed and I thought of the cat that always hangs around the feeder, swiping at the birds. How strange that the bird was attacked on the Ides of March, the festival day of Mars (and we all know what happened to Cesare). Well, hopefully, the bird will survive to fight another day. Good luck, bird!

Jet Propulsion Lab Tours

Stream videos at Ustream

After talking about it for a year, we finally went on the Jet Propulsion Lab tour! Yay--another thing gone from our to-do list! I'm glad we went, but I have to admit that much of the tour was like being stuck on a date with an Asperger's sufferer. The tour began with a rapid-fire talk that lasted something like thirty minutes touching on various historical points to do with JPL and Caltech and NASA. And then a JPL promo video narrated by Harrison Ford which was like a very bad Nova program on space. Granted, the talk was given in the auditorium which housed replicas of Voyager and Cassini, but it was a lot of tedium to suffer through. Afterwards there was a brief visit to a small museum, the highlight of which was a thermal camera you can check your temperature on, and then the actual tour.

But was it a tour? We only got to see one of the "clean rooms" where the JPL guys assemble the rovers and the "Dark Room" at the Space Flight Operations Facility. The dark room is what you usually see on TV when a launch happens--you know, the room where all the scientist are glued to their computer screens hoping against hope that their mission is a success. Today, there wasn't a launch so we only got to see about half-a-dozen bored people sitting at their desks while the tour guide talked for some ten minutes about how NASA uses UTC (coordinated universal time) because time is relative, etc. The "clean" room was fascinating though. Up high in a viewing gallery, you get to look down at guys dressed in "bunny" suits building stuff (this is what you're seeing in the video). "Bunny" suits are these all-white, anti-dust suits that people have to wear in order not to contaminate the equipment they're going to send up into space (it made me think I was touring Willy Wonka's chocolate factory because there's a similar scene in the 70s movie). Today the JPL staff was working on the outer container for the newest rover, Curiosity, which should reach Mars sometime in August 2012. At the end of the tour you get to see a full-scale replica and that's pretty cool. And I was impressed by how much the tour guides knew.

So would I recommend the tour?

If you are a Super Geek: yes.

If you are a Tepid Geek: sure, why not?

If you are a Non Geek: only if you want to impress a Super Geek.

And if you want to take a child? Man, I would definitely not recommend you take any child under eleven. I felt so sorry for these little tots as they suffered through the first forty-five minutes or so of endless talk and senseless video. During the talk, the tiny tots were fidget bombs. And during the video, all I heard was a non-ceasing chorus of small voices crying, "What happened?" This is because the video is so poorly written that you can't figure out what they're talking about when they discuss the missions. It's really a shame that JPL doesn't have a specific tour program for the very young, one that is interactive and full of fun things to do because shouldn't part of NASA's mission be geared towards inspiring little children? After all, one day these little children are going to be voting on whether NASA gets funded...

Altadena Urban Farmers Market

What in the world is an urban farmers market, we wondered? Only one way to find out: drive all the way up there and check it out.  Which is exactly what we did last Sunday. The market was on the grounds of the Zane Grey Estate. It was only a few dozen stalls, mostly of people selling baked goods and marmalade (we couldn't find fresh produce anywhere). The smell of manure and hay was rife (the estate has a petting zoo, which was open). The atmosphere made me immediately think of the Women's Institute (UK readers will know what I mean), with a good layer of Bay Area hippie. Even the shoppers looked transported from San Francisco. Who knew there were so many Bay Area types in L.A.?

This venture is fairly new. We couldn't find a webpage but they do have a Facebook page. On this page there is a mission statement which reads:

To encourage more local food production, and make that food easily accessible to Altadena residents. Through partnership with the Arroyo Time Bank, to make buying locally grown food possible for those with limited financial resources.


The market takes place on the third Sunday of every month. To shop there you have to be a member, but I think anyone can be a member. Basically, you sign a "membership" form before entering, but the form was just a legal disclaimer which freed the market from injury suits. If you do go, check out the cookie lady with the most amazing butterscotch cookies. She's really nice, too.

House of Basturma

After talking about it for ages, we finally went to the House of Basturma in Pasadena and had a basturma sandwich!

So what's a basturma? Basturma is an Armenian cured meat that reminded me a lot of Spanish cured hams, except that it's intensely flavored with spices like paprika, garlic, salt, and fenugreek. Doing some research, I found out that basturma is found all over what used to be the Ottoman Empire and can also be called pastirma. Apparently pastirma has the same etymological roots as pastrami but the two meats are worlds apart, since pastirmas are not cooked. Armenians make basturmas out of beef or lamb, but it can also be made from goat or camel. I liked it, but a little goes a long way.

The House of Basturma's sandwich is very simple, but really good. Wonderful toasted Armenian bread, flavorama meat, two slices of tomato and voilà.  The House also has lulukebabs, shawermas, koftas, soujouks, and other Middle Eastern/Armenian specialties.

I really liked the House. Clean, spacious, with super nice, relaxed owners.

House of Basturma
2487 E. Washington Blvd.
Pasadena CA 91104
626 345-9090

Chasaengwon

We were wandering around Koreatown looking for parking (of course) when we found the nicest tea store in the middle of a strip mall. A branch of the Hankook Tea company, the tiny store is called Chasaengwon and it sells primarily tea from the Gwangju area of South Korea. But what I really loved about the store was the beautiful teaware they had on sale, exquisite teapots and matching cups that can tempt you into personal bankruptcy.

Chasaengwon also has some unusual food items and a small area to taste tea. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area.  And certainly a place to check out if you need to buy a gift for someone.

Pasadena Armed Forced

As regular readers of my blog know, I was amazed to find out that the Pasadena police uses old military helicopters to protect its citizen.  Now I'm even more amazed to find out that they have purchased a BearCat armored vehicle.  I found out this little tidbit from Pasadena PIO (click here for more info and picture).  So is Pasadena preparing for an explosion of zombies or something?  WTF.

Church of Scientology

I accidentally walked into the new Church of Scientology building in Old Town Pasadena. This is easy to do because, for all intents and purposes, the building and its lobby looks like a swank hotel.  I felt really tricked.  Now I'm started to get flyers from them with "I.Q" tests.  Looking at all the questions, it's clear to me that the test is really for their benefit, a way of identifying to most vulnerable and lonely people to indoctrinate.  Scary.

Kogi Truck at Altadena

In LA, the Kogi Truck is the mother of all Korean taco trucks. Originally it was just one truck, but the trucks grew in number and they now even have a small restaurant. One of the Kogi trucks makes it out to Altadena once a week on Tuesdays so we finally decided to try them out. What an experience. We got in line at 10:33.  The line was a block long.  And it didn't move for forty minutes. I mean, what the hell are they doing in that truck!  And the whole system was crazy. Like the line goes the wrong way around because you have to snake to the front of the truck to give your order and than snake back down to get your food. Oh, and you wait another half hour to get the bloody food after you order. Like I said, what the hell are they doing in the truck.  So we got in line at 10:33 and got our food at 11: 55. Gee, just in time for the truck to close. Of course, it was a cold, damp summer night and I caught a chill waiting.

I learned two lessons here:  1. food trucks with long lines aren't really worth it & 2. if they want your name with your order, make up a crazy name or give a number so that there's no confusion (like if you're named Mike, say your name is Mickey Mouse because there's going to be a dozen Mike's all waiting for their order).

So how was the food? Pretty good. We got two tacos, the spicy pork and the BBQ short ribs, and the kimchee quesadilla.

Oh!  Parked along with the Kogi truck is the Get Shaved shaved ice truck, and they make mighty fine shaved ice. We're talking real shaved ice and not chunks. Flavorings could be a wee bit better, but oh well.

The Kogi Truck is in Altadena on Tuesday from 10:30pm - midnight on 2029 N. Lake Ave. Their full schedule is on their website.

Intelligentsia Pasadena :)

Yeah! Intelligentsia finally opened in Old Pasadena this morning! Went exactly at 10 to find there was already a good hustle and bustle inside.  Pretty impressive as they'd only announced the opening yesterday afternoon.

The place looks great.  The decor is reminiscent of their Venice Beach branch, but with more seating; the staff was very friendly, and for Intelligentsia, strangely chatty.  The guy at the cash register went on and on about their strained opening and how they had the wrong cables for their cash register and blah, blah, blah. The Pasadena branch offers the usual coffee and tea selection.  In addition, they're offering individual siphon coffee makers.  AND they're going to start making real food, like grilled cheese sandwiches and lasagna.  Probably why they have all that lovely seating.  Just what Old Pasadena needed.

I also noted that Intelligentsia was right opposite Baskin-Robbins, which means that you can order an espresso from Intelligentsia and then fly over to Baskin-Robbins for a scoop of vanilla so you can make an affogato!

More excitement as we drove home:  just as we drove out of the parking garage, we got stopped at the intersection by a cop on a motorcycle.  WTF, we asked?  Turned out there was a police escort for two large parade floats.  Can this town get anymore exciting?