Pie 'n Burger

The boyfriend and I decided to go here after a blog by one of my foodie friends (www.gastronomyblog.com). Pie'n burger (www.pienburger) is one of her two favorite restaurants in Pasadena, so the boyfriend and I wanted to give it a try.

From her recommendation, we just ordered the burger and skipped the fries. I ordered the turkey burger and the boyfriend ordered the traditional hamburger. They grill their buns and serve their burgers with a wad of lettuce and thousand island sauce. The combination of crunch, juicy patty, and savory sauce reminded me of a high-quality In-n-out burger--and In-n-out is already high quality in my standards! So these burgers below are spankin' good burgers.

The only recommendation I would have with this burger...is to make it bigger...because we both were still pretty hungry.

Since this place was called "Pie'n burger", and because we were still starving, we ordered the dutch apple pie with ice cream as our dessert:

I am a big pie crust person...I absolutely LOVE pie crust. This pie crust had a flaky, buttery taste, and probably a little too salty for my taste. However, the dutch apple was delicious, and probably can do okay with less ice cream (note the big wad of ice cream wrestling my pie).

I'd go back here again, but probably after spending some time trying other restaurants. It's not one of my favorite places to go to, but still makes the "good restaurant" list.

Luna Park

I had bought a $40 "groupon" for $20 (http://www.groupon.com/) for this place called Luna Park (http://www.lunaparkla.com/), so I decided to invite my cousins out for our monthly reunion.

This place is located right at the corner of Wilshire and La Brea in an area that I wouldn't expect to be "hip". It was across from blockbusters and away from other popular restaurants. To my surprise, my cousin who arrived first was asked if she had reservations. We didn't and had to wait 15 minutes for a table...not bad.

As usual, I was the late comer. As I stepped in, every seat at the bar was taken, and the wooden dining tables were filled with age groups ranging from mid 20's to early 40's. It was a happening place.

We started off with a large bowl of sangria:

I have bits of fruit in my sangria and be able to taste the wine in it. As you can tell from the bright cherry color, this was more like a fruit punch to me, and only had a lone piece of lemon to represent the fruit family. My cousin started to feel a buzz from 2 glasses, so it did it's job. :)

We ordered poke and a side dish of macaroni and cheese as our appetizers. The mac 'n cheese to me was my favorite out of all the dishes. I had a nice crusty topping and a cheese taste that isn't too overwhelming. One of my cousin's said she can make better mac'n cheese.

The poke, or marinated raw tuna, had tomatoes, ginger, poke, garlic, lime, and every ingredient necessary to make a salsa. It tasted good as a general dish, but if you order it, don't expect to get a traditional poke plate. I like to be able to taste more of the poke than it's supporting ingredients, and this one didn't really do it for me. "It's like a ceviche" said one of my cousins.

My cousin Lan got the pan seared Mahi Mahi with Morroccon couscous and baby bok choi. I thought the Mahi Mahi was good but lacked some flavor, and didn't realize that it was supposed to be "pan-seared" until I looked at their website. I always thought pan-seared meant "lightly cooked on the outside and raw in the inside"...but this one was cooked all the way. It didn't fit the bill.

My other cousin Thanh ordered the breaded pork cutlet, and I ordered the parmesan gnocchi bolognese.

The pork cutlet was very good...it reminded me exactly of the Japanese pork katsu...except this one had a dab of cranberries on it, making it more American.

My gnocchi were as big as big marshmellows and the texture of the gnocchi was almost as soft as marshmellows. It's with "ground Ninan ranch flat iron"...which basically means ground beef (I couldn't taste the difference if ground flat iron is supposed to be better quality). Overall, I think flavor-wise my dish was good, but again, it's not quite the traditional gnocchi I was expecting.

Overall, if you're looking for a happening place to hang out with your friends or a place to go out for a casual date, this is it. If you're looking for "the place" to go to for food, I'm sure there's better places out there. I had fun.