California Grubbin'

food: 4.5/5 experience: 5/5 overall: 4.5/5 Wow, it's been a bit, Queen Sheba. Queen Sheba is Sac's main source of Ethiopian food, located in Land Park down the street from Tower Cafe. If you've never had Ethiopian food, it's an experience in itself. Upon ordering, you will be served with a basket full of what appears to be spongey rolled-up dish rags. These are edible, and they are called injera. They are also delicious. This is what you'll be eating your food with, not forks. Bonus: it's gluten free. The last time I came here was when I was vegan; in other words, another lifetime ago. I ordered the vegetarian combo. Ethiopian food doesn't have dairy so vegetarian is also vegan. Be forewarned: like Indian food, you eat this for the flavor, not its visual appeal. This is their signature vegetarian dish. Yes, it looks like baby food. Definitely don't give this to your baby though because it can be spicy. The veg combo comes with red lenti...

food: 5/5 experience: 4/5 overall: 4.5/5 There are a couple India's Ovens in Los Angeles but this one is for the Brentwood location, which is actually upstairs in an office building. It's a place you gotta just know about. Insiders only, y'know. Now obviously it's hard to go wrong with Indian food. We did have a little mishap with the samosas though, apparently they were too spicy for mom. Bah. I thought they were perfect. The batter was so crispy and tasty, and the filling had only a hint of spice. I love samosas. Best Indian appetizer by far. That is, unless you count naan as an appetizer. So this naan. The first time I went I basically fell in love with it. We just got the plain naan. And let me tell you, it was wonderful. This was possibly the best naan I have had in my life. They put a bunch of spices in it including fenugreek and it's nice and fluffy. If you come here you have to try the naan, I don't care what kind of diet you're on....

food: 3/5 experience: 5/5 overall: 3.5/5 Funny how a chain called Mountain Mike's is primarily located in Cali. Well, technically we do have mountains so I guess. They also have a few locations outside California in Nevada and Oregon but primarily Mike's is a California chain. Since Mountain Mike's opened a location right by my house, me being a chain pizza aficionado at the time I had to try it out. Something about the name Mountain Mike's makes you think you're getting good quality pizza. Like some little pizza joint way up in the mountains run by a good ol' guy named Mike who... I dunno, cooks pizza by the fireplace? Or maybe you just picture a mountain of toppings. I have no idea. My first experience was not the best. Ugh, I hate mediocre food! Especially when it's my favorite, pizza. First, for some stupid reason you can't get a mini pizza with more than one topping, so I had to get a small. Second, their crust tasted really basic and generi...

food: 2.5/5 experience: 3/5 overall: 2.5/5 Since I was in the north area I decided to take the opportunity to try this highly-rated Indian restaurant. First time I came I thought a basic fish curry masala would be a good start. As you can see it turned out to be pretty damn watery. Surprising since I don't believe I've ever had watery curry; Indian curry is always thick and creamy. Putting that aside I still gave it a shot. They use swai fish, which is fine, I actually eat swai regularly. But this was bad. It's spicy, sure, but 1) the flavor isn't there and 2) it's essentially just fish soup like I said. It did come with a heaping box of their rice which is surprisingly delicious in spite of being plain old white basmati rice. It's spiced with cumin and potentially some other things. If the rice is the star of the show at an Indian restaurant you're doing something wrong. Ah well, I thought I'd give it another shot a few weeks later. This ...

food: 4/5 experience: 3.5/5 overall: 4/5 In 8th grade my friend Brent told me this place was a front for the mafia. Now if there's one thing the mafia is good at it's making pizzas. We all know that. Bonus points for making them on the sidewalk. Now that's innovation. A mini pizza here costs just over eight bucks. Good news! Bad news it's in a bad area. And it takes forever. I found myself eating cayenne pepper after waiting a half hour. Get delivery instead. Or don't. It wasn't that great to be honest. Their crust was on the thinner side which is not my favorite. Not sure if it was a fluke because their garlic bread sticks were damn tasty. It's just their pizza crust with garlic sauce and cheese but these were thick, gooey and scrumptious. Awesome. Also tried their chicken strips. They're spicy as advertised. The breading is thin. Not that good to be honest. And finally we tried their regular garlic bread. Again nothing fanc...

food: 2./5 experience: 3/5 overall: 3/5 Meh. It's a buffet. You can't go in expecting high-quality food in mass proportions. Most of it is bound to be past its prime and if you come for dinner it's been sitting out all day. And this one is in a mall after all. Yes they have unlimited crab legs. But they're possibly the cheapest crab legs you can find with hardly any meat in them. They do have oysters which are really good. But again that is negated by the fact that their shrimps are clearly very old and rubbery (ew!). The sushi is very standard. Most all of it has imitation crab salad in it. I tried pretty much all of them and only one was good out of about ten. For the price you can definitely make it worth your while. I guess you get a two-hour limit. Plenty of time to gorge yourself on average unspecified Asian food. If I were to you I'd just have sashimi and fish since that's the most bang-for-your-buck kinda stuff. I didn't try their d...