la v and jak travel the world

June 30 / July 1: Off to Los Angeles... at 3 a.m.?

At long last, vacation 2006 has begun! We started off with a 3 a.m. drive on Friday morning down to Los Angeles, where we would spend about a day and a half before heading out to Malaysia. This gave us a chance to hit the beach, shop a bit (EVERYTHING is on sale right now), finish up some last minute work (for Jack), and visit a museum (for La Verne).

There were some big plans for serious eating during our brief stay in Southern California. Dinner on Friday night was at A.O.C., and brunch on Saturday was at Joe's in Venice, but the meal that really gave us a proper send-off was an izakaya extravaganza, shared with our friends Ron and Joyce and their adorable 16-month old daughter Lorelei, at Yabu in West L.A.

We feasted on a bunch of favorites, among them: a silky bowl of homemade tofu (accented with the smoky tones of bonito flakes), super fresh ankinmo (Lorelei is officially the youngest person to ever gobble down two lobes of monkfish liver and enjoy it), good renditions of hamachi-kama and chawan-mushi, an avocado and crab salad, a sashimi platter of salmon, tuna and halibut, hamachi nigiri, a chicken rice bowl, and a fantastic bowl of slow-braised pork in a sweetened soy and ginger broth, accented by spicy mustard.

But the real notable aspect of the restaurant is its house-made soba noodles. We had one order of ten zaru soba and another order with salmon roe and grated daikon... both were perfect for a warm LA evening.

We had only enough time to hang out a bit at Ron and Joyce's home, lounging on the back patio and talking about sustainable, biodynamic food sources while sipping tea and pastis. And just like that, it was time to go to the airport.

Special thanks to Ron and Joyce for giving us a comfortable place to crash (take care of the Prius for us!), and to Caroline and Meg for feeding Bora while we're gone. Our plane is boarding in 5 minutes... next post will be from Malaysia!