LA Fleet Week, SOBAR, Luscious Dumplings, HEYTEA

Memorial Day

LA Fleet Week plus fooding

UCSG Terrell Horne, a Sentinel-class cutter.

Add in the USCG Halibut, a Marine Protector-class patrol boat.

USMC UH-1Y Venom.

Los Angeles Fleet Week.

Tuna poke bowl from Pinch of Flavor poke truck. Passable.

Plenty of food trucks.

I-405 has a lot of lanes.

Someone's 6th gen (S550) Mustang GT with big rear tires.

Absolute garbage tires in front. Does not seem like a good idea?

SOBAR in Mar Vista.

Menu at SOBAR.

Menu at SOBAR. They got rid of the scallop soba. ;_;

Menu at SOBAR.

Sunomono is good. Inside.

Inside.

Karaage was literally boneless skiness chicken thighs, whole.

Ribeye niku soba is okay. Soba was not as special as hoped.

Close-up.

Someone was doing a sake tasting.

Random M5 Competition.

Menu at Luscious Dumplings in Beverly Hills.

Modest collection of bottled sauces, napkins, plasticwear, and a water dispenser.

Two counter seating areas and several tables.

Lotus root was crispy, a bit sweet with the sauce, woodear mushrooms were quite traditional (and tasty).

Green onion pancakes perfectly crisp, quite thin.

Pork, shrimp, and cabbage dumplings.

Pretty standard. Good but nothing special.

HEYTEA is new in Beverly HIlls as well, not just Luscicous Dumplings.

Jasmine milk tea, large, half sweet. Got cold, not hot, so not sure why the insulated paper cup.

Huge crowd showed up 10 minutes after I arrived.

Not kidding about huge crowd.

Tea samples.

Started Memorial Day weekend off with a quick visit to Los Angeles Fleet Week in San Pedro. Got there a bit later than planned, the US Navy ship tour reservation system was a bit of a mess, ended up kicking me out saying that tours were full for the day. Convinced lost my spot in the tour queue (so said the website, ugh), I still around for a snack from the decidedly average Pinch of Flavor poke truck and to browse around the bits of hardware and displays setup in the parking lot of the cruise ship pier area/USS Iowa of the Port of San Pedro. Time killed, then walked a mile (!) back to my car... where it turns out the reservation system hadn't actually lost my place in line-- but I had to be back within ten minutes of notification, and I was way too far to make it back in time.

Maybe I'll set aside more time, show up earlier, and do a ship tour next year-- was have been fun to tour the USS Essex (LHD-2) this year.

Memorial Day weekend fooding involved a few different places. Right after LA Fleet Week was fresh soba dinner at SOBAR. Kind of underwhelming, their scallop soba was no longer available, the ribeye niku was thin-sliced and more ordinary than hoped. The soba itself, while it might have been fresh, was in the flat style and came out a bit clumped. The decor inside wasn't too minimalist Japanese, instead a nice harmony of minimal and modern, with pretty good service. Karaage was massive pieces, excellent quality, and perfectly fried. Between the more ordinary soba and the too large karaage pieces, honestly, no desire to come back here.

Lunch at the end of Memorial Day weekend was in Beverly Hills, hitting up the relatively new Luscious Dumplings as well as the even newer HEYTEA. Luscious Dumplings was kind of like SOBAR, solid enough but still kind of undistinguished, especially in the main course. The appetizer dishes, in particular the woodear mushrooms, were quite good, with the green onion pancake leaning more towards ordinary, but still more memorable than the pork/shrimp/cabbage dumplings.

Final stop was HEYTEA's brand new location, just a block from Luscious Dumplings. Managed to get lucky and beat the massive crowd that showed up ten minutes after I'd ordered, and their jasmine milk tea is excellent as always. No seating inside so basically order, wait, and go, but that seems to be how most HEYTEA's are.