Pearl's Visit: Gritz n Wafflez, Shabuya, Vicky's All Day, Kura Sushi

Pearl's Visit

Fooding writ large

Brunch at Gritz N Wafflez.

The spread.

Waffle with peach cobbler. Yum.

With bacon and cheese. Shrimp were okay.

Grits and cheese and shrimp, plus fried catfish. Very rich.

Mac and cheese was good.

LA Burdick chocolate cats. A bit worse for wear.

Dinner at Shabuya in k-town.

I don't want to know why they needed to install this sign.

Meat portions are small.

Sue and Pearl.

Lobster balls, fish balls, fish cakes, tofu, eggs...

That was some huge baby octopus. Had to ask for scissors.

Vicky's All Day for lunch.

Selfie time.

Vicky's Breakfast: scrambled eggs, pastrami, mushrooms, tomato, potato, toast, arugula.

Pearl wondering just how much food she ordered.

Food pictures for everyone.

Deep fried mushrooms are delicious.

Bananas foster topping on both waffle and french toast.

Blistered cauliflower surprisingly good.

Hawaiian pizza, super thin crust, cheese a bit different, but enjoyable in the end.

The spread. Pastrami was kind of salty.

More selfies.

Scallop sushi at Kura.

Aburi salmon.

Oh nooooo, gooey butter cake followed me here?!?

Spider roll was huge Only 2 pieces for a reason.

Spicy yellowtail hand roll in soy paper was meh.

Tuna maki.

Ama ebi with jalapeno.

Rare visit from Pearl over the weekend-- but first, an excellent brunch before her arrival at Gritz n Wafflez in k-town. Fried catfish, shrimp/cheese/grits, mac and cheese, and waffles, all delicious. The decor is on the modern side, there's a free valet, and everything, again, was excellent.

Squeezed in some board games before Pearl arrived, then somewhere in there was all you can eat shabu shabu for dinner at Shabuya. They're not the best, but you don't do AYCE for quality, you do for quantity. Once we made it a point to stay on our game for ordering meat from the server, the meal went well-- almost well enough to make me forget there was no tripe or pork blood. The valet is a major plus too, and then somewhere in there was European hot chocolate and some very, very tasty, very chocolately chocolate chip cookies at ChocoVivo. Add in some previously acquired chocolate cats from Burdick Chocolate and it was a weekend filled with sweets.

With Black Friday/Cyber Monday coming up, headed to the mall to take advantage of some early Black Friday sales. The crowds weren't too bad right at mall opening, and we managed to escape in time to catch Sue and Ophelia for lunch at Vicky's All Day, which is one of many newer, very homey places for breakfast now highlighting the food scene in Los Angeles. Turns out they were worth the wait and the limited parking, and the deep fried mushrooms were freakin' good. Actually everything there was tasty, even if execution was slightly different, just unique enough to give Vicky's All Day their own flavor. Pastrami instead of bacon and a super thin crust with slightly take on different cheese blends on the Hawaiian pizza seemed to be the signature differences, while the bananas foster for the french toast/waffle was also a worthwhile choice.

Final bit of fooding over the weekend was a late evening snack at Kura Sushi. Somehow at 8pm on a Sunday, we managed to snag a table without a wait. Conveyor belt sushi is more for quick eats than quality, but they had quite a bit of ama ebi (live sweet shrimp), scallop, and a few other morsels that were better than usual for Kura Sushi.