Rambutan

The Final blog of Long Beach/LA!!

Rambutan Thai
The official website. The music rules.
Yelpety yelp.

This was the last place we ate at before heading to the airport. We had the pleasure of spending our last meal in LA with our good friend Corey. So here it is, the last post of LA and then I can move on with my life!

A Rambutan is a small fruit that grows in Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka and South Asia. It is in the same family as lychee- Sapindaceae. It looks similar to lychee as well except that the their skin is much more hairy.

So lets get down to the food!

First I saw it fitting to get a Thai Iced Tea. Seeing that when David and I first went to LA a couple years ago, we met up Corey again and he took us to eat Thai at this really cute little place near his old job. The place was really small and quaint, enough seating for only like 35 people. When we walked in there was a lady preparing green beans at one of the tables. She was sniping the ends and putting them in a bowl. David loved it. Well that was my first Thai food experience and Corey got a Thai iced tea, which I had never had before and he let me taste it. I was HOOKED! I ordered my own and every time since then that I have gone to a Thai restaurant, I have ordered Thai Iced Tea.

The candle holders were filled with different colored rice.

One cool thing is that they use plastic reusable chop sticks.

Corey like the chopsticks too, he was drumming with them.

Next I ordered Tofu Tom Kha soup (one of my favorites)
 "A distinct flavor of Southern Thailand’s coconut soup with oyster
mushrooms seasoned with galanga, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass,
bird’s eye chili and lime juice." It was delicious and spicy.

 Look at those chilis!

mmmmm, oyster mushrooms.

Galanga.

Next I ordered Tua Kak. You can read the description.  The green beans were good, with a nice crisp and they had a sweetness to them from the sauce. You got an after kick of shrimpiness from the dried prawns.

  

Green beans and carrots, so simple, so delicious :)

David chilling in his booth.

David ordered his special fried rice with only chicken this time and a little spicy. Actually I ordered it for him.

Noel ordered Pad Thai

I don't remember what Marcela ordered but it looked good.

Corey ordered Panang Curr. He informed me after reading the post. :) Thanks Corey! I think I also remember David telling him he couldn't eat until I took the photo. Corey was like "hurry up take the pic!" HAHA, Corey is awesome.

I'm getting really frustrated with the new blogger settings. Every time I put in a picture and then try to press enter after it doesn't let me. UUGGHHH!!!! It's driving me crazy and I'm getting numerous typos because I'm getting so impatient!

My colorful meal again. :)

OMG I'm done, I need to get off of here I'm about to break my computer!

Rambutan

2835 W Sunset Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90026

Kind Kreme

I had to continue with "Vegan Day" in a second post.

This is Kind Kreme- a raw, vegan, organic ice cream joint in Studio City. They offer ice cream, shakes, juices, coffee and a few other things.
You can yelp it here.
I believe it is the only ice cream place of it's kind in the country, but you may have to research that.


I ordered a super green chocolate something or other. I can't remember the name- that's turrible. It was the flavor that had pretty much everything jam packed in there. Goji berries, raw cacao, agave, some sort of nuts, omegas, power greens? I don't know it was like the kitchen sink equivalent except not nearly as large as it should have been for the price of $3.99 a scoop.


I thought it was good, except for some bitterness that was going on and it was very over-priced.

David certainly wasn't impressed.

He ordered a vanilla milkshake made with vanilla honey Icekreme and almond milk. He didn't care for it both because it tasted strange and that it was $6.99 for 12oz. I'm sure that this place makes other fantastic flavors but it's really the novelty of it. And it probably goes over better with people who are actually interested in veganism or raw food. Otherwise the products they make would just taste weird.

3701 Cahuenga Blvd
Studio City, CA 91604
(818) 308-6758

Now for some other photos from "vegan" day. :)

The day started with yoga.
Yoga was on the bottom floor of a condo complex right on Ocean Blvd in Long Beach. Right next door is a cute coffee shop called Brew Haus. I can't seem to the find the yoga studio online but I think it may have been called Planet Yoga. Can't remember.

Took a quick visit to the beach.

Some strange sea veggie.

I don't know why this picture keeps loading the wrong way.

You can see the Queen Mary.

Not Vegan

Onward to Bodhi Tree Bookstore:

Thank you for reading!

Pure Luck

I think they need a new sign

I really need to get the LA blogs done with, I'm slow and I didn't want to overload readers with a lot of reviews in a short span of time. But I think it's been a month and I'm STILL not done. Then again we did eat at a lot of places.

This place is called Pure Luck and it was on our Vegan day agenda- the last day of our trip. Marcela and I had decided beforehand that there would be one day solely dedicated to all that is vegan. We had looked up some places before leaving Miami and we were determined to experience them. On the list of vegan things to do was yoga, Pure Luck restaurant, Kind Kreme raw vegan ice cream, and Bodhi Tree bookstore.

I will try to touch base on all these places in this post. I believe I will have one more full LA review after this. Then I can finally move on to what I've eaten around here since I've been back.

First we started the day off in search of Pure Luck. This restaurant was interesting and cute. It's a small place nestled on a block smack in the middle of a warehouse/industrial district of East Hollywood. It's pretty close to Echo Park and anyways the block was super hipstered out. We traveled with a friend who lives in LA and he let us know that that area is very desert scarf and bicycle friendly.

The block across the street

The parking lot

So the restaurant was pretty cool, their hot ticket menu item is "carnitas" which is made out of jackfruit. The jackfruit was a really good meat replacement, and it even shredded apart like pulled pork or ropa vieja would. It had a sourness to it but really it was good. I enjoyed my meal. David, not so much, but he went, he ate as much as he could take and he didn't complain. :)

The tables were had designs drawn on them
Strange portraits on the wall of people eating stuff.

A certificate of adoption for a chicken.

We started with fried gnocchi.

They were called potato pals- "Small potato dumplings (gnocchi), lightly fried in peanut oil." They were pals of mine for sure. So simple and so satisfying. They were served with like a BBQ mayo sauce that I didn't care much for.

I ordered the taco combo plate with 1 grilled tofu taco and 1 "carnitas" taco with pinto beans and rice. The tofu taco was mediocre, but the Jackfruit taco was pretty good. It tasted very fresh and the even the texture was good.

David ordered the burrito. He asked if he could just order a plain bean burrito, but the waitress said no, so he went with the "carnitas" burrito. Then he forgot to ask for no cilantro (he hates it) and it was loaded with it. He also kept complaining that there was something sweet in it, and we couldn't figure it out. I thought it could have been the wholewheat wrap. we're still unsure. Wel he ate about half of it before he could take no more. He didn't like it but he ate as much as he could.

Marcela ordered two tacos and a soup. The soup was made with hominy and a lot of lime and cilantro. I couldn't tell you what else was in it but it was good.

Noel ordered the Garbanzo sandwich. "Angélica’s Garbanzo Salad Sandwich
Need a comfort food fix? You won’t be disappointed by our Garbanzo salad. Served on a grilled rustic roll with tomatoes, onions, lettuce and pickles." As much hating as Noel did about this place when we got there, he ate his whole sandwich and kept saying how good it was. Hah!

A closeup of the soup.

A closeup of the "carnitas" taco.

So, what was I saying about hipsters before?

Pure Luck Restaurant
707 N Heliotrope Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90029
(323) 660-5993