LA Bound: Mini Trip Day 2

Foodie Day 2
A day trip visit to Little Tokyo and Koreatown. The weather was just as hot as the day before.

Cool lantern decor

Always a hello kitty when you're around Japan

We stopped by the Lette store for some macarons. The store really knows how to attract their customers with the popping colors.

Lette

Awesome wall decor

Macarons!

Sample display

More display

I bought some for a treat back home. I believe it was 6 macarons for $11. Pretty good deal.

A very white box

It wasn't my intention but the macarons I chose turned out to be really beautiful in terms of the range of colors. The macarons were soft and chewy and the filling were not too sweet.

From left to right: Hazelnut, columbian coffee, pistachio, earl grey, rose, passion fruit

We headed off to Daikokuya, that was right around the corner across the street. The place was very small so the wait was at least an hour long. This was a popular ramen place in Little Tokyo.

Really hot in here! Why no AC?

Started the meal with an appetizer of fried gyoza for $5.95. They were perfectly pan-fried to a golden brown topped with green onions and it contained pork and vegetables.

Fried gyoza

I ordered a daikoku ramen combo, which came with a side of cabbage salad and a small plate of fried rice for a total of $12.95. The salad was great with their special secret dressing but I wasn't a fan of the choice of vegetables they used...cabbage.

Cabbage Salad

The fried rice was mixed with onions, green onions, egg, corn, imitation crab, and chopped chashu pork. It may not look like it, but this was one of the best fried rice I ever had.

Fried rice

This is the store's famous tonkotsu soup base. Their soup based has their secret blended soy sauce, boiled chijire style egg noodles topped with kurobuta pork belly chashu, marinated boiled egg, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts and sprinkled with green onions and sesame seeds. The ramen was delicious and their creamy broth was great.

We did a quick stop at Koreatown and browsed around. There wasn't much so we decided to head out to our next destination which was a bit farther out, about an hour and half drive to Irvine spectrum, which is an outdoor shopping mall.

Nice rest place

Beautifully built fountain

More fountain

Carousel for the little ones

We did some light shopping. I didn't expect to see a ferris wheel in the mall.

It was my first time going on it as I'm dreadfully scared of heights! I believe the ride was $4 per ride.

Gigantic ferris wheel

I'm not sure if I can ever go on another one...eek. 

Irvine Spectrum Light Sculpture

The last meal of the day ended up being the best meal ever for the entire trip. It was to Boiling Point. They serve individual Taiwanese hot pot. Each pot cost around $12.99 or $16.99, depending on the flavor of broth.

The beef hot pot was served with napa veggy, beef slices, enoki mushroom, tomato, firm tofu, tempura, corn, meatball, kamaboko, fired tofu skin, and imiation crab stick. It comes with vermicelli or rice.

Beef Pot

The seafood and tofu pot that I chose comes with pork slices, enoki mushroom, iced tofu, calamari, clam, cuttlefish ring, fish fillet, and Foochow fishball. This also comes with either vermicelli or rice.

Seafood and Tofu Pot

Boiling Point has a variety of drinks and desserts to choose from. I'm not much of a drink person so I opt for water. As for dessert, they had macaron ice cream, which looked delicious. We didn't get it because we were going to go to Milk on day 3. I sort of regret not trying it. Instead, we tried their snow cube.

It was $0.69 each, 3 for $1.99, or 5 for $3.25. They come in these flavors: strawberry, sesame, matcha, chocolate, Hokkaido with brown sugar konjac.

I'm not a big fan of these snow cubes. They taste like hard flavored ice cubes. Even though the presentation and concept was good.

Left to right: Matcha, strawberry, and matcha flavor

Highlights of Day 2:

• Little Tokyo
• Koreatown
• Irvine Spectrum
• Boiling Point

Check out:
LA Bound: Mini Trip Day 1
LA Bound: Mini Trip Day 3
LA Bound: Mini Trip Day 4