Road Trip! ~Food Gaiden~

As with any trip anywhere, half of the fun is eating stuff you don’t normally eat.

Whether you interpret that as eating new foods or simply eating junk you wouldn’t normally eat, that’s up to you.

In New Mexico we came across a local burger chain called Blake’s Lotaburger.

Blake's Lotaburger

Burger’s weren’t bad, better than normal fast food fare at least. The seasoned fries were pretty good, reminded me of Arby’s curly fries (in a good way).

Lotaburger and Fries

Same night, our bellies full of beef and grease, we happened upon a frozen custard place called Caliche’s.

Caliche's

If you’ve never had frozen custard, it’s like ice cream except that it’s lighter and smoother. It also melts faster and has a different aftertaste. They didn’t have many flavors (vanilla, chocolate, and swirl, if I remember correctly), but they had a whole bunch of toppings to chose from.

Personally, I got a grasshopper sundae consisting of mixed-in mint-flavored syrup, oreo cookies, whipped cream, and a cherry, of course.

Grasshopper Sundae

Pretty damn good, btw.

In Vegas, we ate lots of steak.

Bill’s Gambling Saloon has this awesome deal for $5 steak and eggs between midnight and 8am. It’s simply a steak (around 8oz, I think?), eggs however you want them, and hash browns. The steak was surprisingly tender and tasty considering the price.

We went there both nights that we were in Vegas. (Unfortunately I was pretty wiped out both nights and didn’t have the presence of mind to take a picture)

There’s also this off-strip casino called Ellis Island that has a steak dinner for $7. It came with your choice of either a beer or a root beer brewed in their brewery.

Ellis Island Steak Dinner

Sorry, the picture is not very good…

The beer was pretty good, but the steak was kinda tough. Overall, still not a bad deal except if you consider the walking time required to get to the actual place.

Around California, In-N-Outs started to show up. Even in Texas, I’ve heard about In-N-Out and was excited to try it out. At a friend’s recommendation, I got an animal-style Double-Double and animal-style fries. Animal-style gets you grilled onions, pickles, and extra spread. They also cook the patties with mustard and place cheese on the fries.

It was really damn good for not too much money.

In San Francisco… we ate lots of tasty stuff.

Right when we got to our destination, we headed out for this Italian place called Pomodoro. Pretty good food, but my favorite part was going out to the patio and sipping Caffe Latte while eating dessert.

Pomodoro Desserts

The Tiramisu was great, good consistency and had that taste of alcohol that good Tiramisu has. The chocolate souffle ala mode was good too, the ice cream was especially good. The souffle itself was surprisingly thick and super-chocolatey. The third dessert’s name escapes me and had lots of fruit.

We also went to this ramen place called Maru Ichi.

Maru Ichi Ramen

Those people standing outside? They’re actually standing in line. That’s how you know this place is good.

Curry Set with Kuro Ramen

They had a whole bunch of combo sets like ramen + california rolls, ramen + gyoza, ramen + rice with roe, and the like. I had a ramen and curry rice bowl set.

They had a bunch of different soup types, like the normal soy-sauce based, miso-based, and pork-based soups. I had their house special, the kuro style that’s pork-based with garlic oil that darkens the soup (hence the name). I also paid a bit more and got the Maruichi-style that comes with roe and a huge hunk of pork and other stuff.

It was seriously delicious. I’m really glad I paid the extra money for Maruichi-style too if only for the huge piece of pork.

Nearby there was this Pho that had a challenge where you eat 2lbs of beef and 2lbs of noodles (dry weight). Looks interesting… perhaps someday in the (far) future I will challenge it.

Pho Challenge

We also went to a Yakiniku place in San Francisco’s Japan town. Grilling your own meat and vegetables is always great fun and delicious. Kinda pricey though, like these sort of things always are.

Unfortunately, I didn’t quite have the presence of mind to take pictures at the place.

So from hamburgers to yakiniku, we ate lots of different stuff. Some of it pricey, some of it really bad for you, all of it worth it.