Native Taiwanese say that the Din Tai Fung (DTF) in Taipei is a tourist trap, mainly pandering to Japanese tourists. Its soup dumpling is a poor Japanese man’s version of a real soup dumpling from Shanghai. Most people agree that the Taiwanese DTF branch is better than the Arcadia branch. If that is the case, then the Arcadia branch serves a homeless American man’s version of the Shanghainese delicacy. Though still edible, the DTF Arcadia dumplings herald disappointment if you’ve ever had non-touristy shao long bao.

Shao long bao should boast a fine, translucent skin just substantial enough to shore in the velvety heartiness of seasoned meat bathing in its juices. The ones at DTF Arcadia don’t. In fact, the skin stuck to the basket, which is enough to make a dumpling advocate want to chuck the sticky offender at the chef’s forehead. Shao long bao should also be steaming hot; the DTF Arcadia ones were lukewarm and required a 45-minute wait. Worst of all, the filling of the DTF Arcadia shao long bao had a thoughtless, one-dimensional taste that let out a dumpling-curdling scream of “generic!”

I would not begrudge DTF Taipei and Arcadia so much if they were offering fast, cheap food instead. On the contrary, native Taiwanese consider DTF Taipei relatively expensive, and DTF Arcadia ain’t too cheap either. Yet, both restaurants still require lengthy waits. To me, DTF’s 15-minutes are up; it’s time to let a real dumpling house in on the dough to satisfy eager, hungry Americans. For a cheaper, tastier, and faster soup dumpling in Los Angeles, I recommend that you go try the Shanghainese restaurant (I forget the name) next to Dragon Mark in San Gabriel. You might have to bring a friend who speaks Chinese to go eat there, but you’ll be rewarded with truly inspired soup dumplings instead of the muted, monotonous Shanghai souvenirs at DTF Arcadia.

Honey’s Kettle Fried Chicken wishes it were Stroud’s. HKFC is tasty but tasty on the greasy side.

The crust is translucent because of the chicken chubbies and frying oil, which can be either a good or bad thing depending on which day you go. However, I believe that fried chicken should be lovingly pan-fried by hand in a heavy iron skillet, not rudely yanked from the commercial frier. Thus, I may be biased in this review.

The lemonade at HKFC tasted like it came from a Minute Maid bottle and not from an actual lemon, so it was just OK. The fries needed to be cooked in lard, not vegetable oil. The pickles, biscuits, and chicken sauce were fantastic. I also wish that HKFC had vegetable sides that weren’t mixed in with mayo and refrigerated.

That being said, I still think that HKFC offers the best fried chicken you can find in Southern California.

You stand in a long claustrophobic line for 30 minutes, and what do you get? 3-minute tacos as washed out as the perpetually unemployed actors insisting on Tito’s brilliance. The tacos had tasteless, cheap stringy meat, soggy shells, and balled-up processed cheese (as if a six-year-old had hand-shredded Kraft singles). You then top the taco with runny salsa that tasted as if someone stepped on a tomato with an old shoe and then watered down the mess. I don’t fault native SoCal folks for adoring Tito’s; I just highly suspect that they adore it for sentimental reasons. They probably ate it growing up, and it transports them back home to childhood. That’s respectable, and I myself am constantly on the lookout for Chinese restaurants that would induce similar Proustian reveries for me. What’s not respectable is the taco’s ability to pass an objective reasonable test of tastiness, not a genuine subjective one. Would a Tito’s taco send a non-native SoCal dude/dudette into euphoric bliss? I doubt it, especially if the non-native ever ate at a real taco stand…or Taco Bell. I went to eat at Tito’s on three separate occasions (foolish hippo!), and its tacos sorely disappointed me each time. On the plus side, I can now say that I have tasted wildly popular cardboard.

My business colleague, Nathan W., once let me take a bite from his burrito at Tito’s. That burrito was like the homely cousin of a Del Taco burrito, and I’m not even a big Del Taco fan.

Eating at Pancake Pantry or How I Learned to Love Pancakes:

I wasn’t a big fan of pancakes before I visited Pancake Pantry. From the plain-Jane pancakes in the college dining hall to the publicly-glorified pancakes at LA’s Griddle Café’, no tasty little flapjack had ever shaken me out of my pancake-apathy stupor. Until Pancake Pantry. Eating at Pancake Pantry CHANGES you. It transforms your perception of breakfast and how food can awaken your senses and broaden your awareness. These pancake meals unapologetically ignite your day. No, it’s not a hyperbole at all to say that eating at Pancake Pantry is a sensual reconnection with nature. For instance, how many of us can attest that we’ve held a cloud on our tongue? I can! A happy little cloud of pancake perfection.

I had the Caribbean buttermilk pancakes. A tantalizing lattice of coconut flakes and powdered sugar topped these pretty babies. A generous helping of creamy banana slices and crunchy pecans completed the pancakes’ tasty accessories. The pancakes themselves glowed a golden medium brown and offered a subtly, allusively crisp exterior and a tender, fluffy interior. They virtually floated on my tongue, so light and airy they were. They tasted divine, with undertones of vanilla and overtones of toasty butter. The pancakes’ natural delicate flavor and moist lightness merged extremely well with the strewn pecans, powdered sugar, and bananas. The dish really did taste fun and tropical.

I applied whipped butter and warm maple syrup to my pancakes. The syrup was bold and flavorful, neither too runny nor too gummy. The butter was unnecessary because the pancakes were THAT good. Delicious farm-fresh eggs beaming bright orange yolks, (not the drab pale yellow ones I loathe) and a slab of fried Tennessee ham also supplemented my pancakes. Though I will always be partial to Spanish cured him, I enjoyed the Pancake Pantry country ham. It had a big and complex salty succulence that danced a fierce hoedown in my mouth. Big sweet gulps of fresh-squeezed OJ with suspended pulp washed down my enormous bites of food, saving hippo2 from choking out of overzealous gluttony.

Nashville citizens repeatedly vote Pancake Pantry as having the best breakfast in Nashville. Vanderbilt students are some of the luckiest people alive (at least for the hours of 7am-4pm). Hence, If you go during normal breakfast/brunch hours, you should probably be prepared to wait about 1 hour for a table. But it’s, oh, so worth it.

Granted, it’s cheap fast food, but Lee’s Sandwiches offered some of the most vulgar food that I have ever eaten. There are so many more authentic, fresh, and delicious Vietnamese sandwich places around southern California (many selling sandwiches for even cheaper). In my opinion, Lee’s strength comes from its convenience, being such a commercially successful franchise. But convenience isn’t everything.

Hence, the vulgarity comes in. Eating at Lee’s Sandwiches is like sleeping with a 5-dollar hooker. It might feel great for a couple of minutes, but you quickly realize how cheap and dirty you’d feel afterwards. As a favor to friends, I have tried Lee’s special combination, cured pork, grilled chicken, and barbeque pork sandwiches. They all had extremely cheap, synthetic-tasting meat, flaccid veggies, and an overwhelming dressing of oily mayonnaise. The hard bread hurt the roof of my mouth on many occasions. The first few bites feel great when you’re a poor starving student, but subsequent bites demoralize and disgust.

Eating at Stroud’s is nothing short of an Event, a transcendental, mythic experience that absorbs the senses, stirs the soul, and seduces the tummy. Foodgasms abound! The Stroud Experience entraps you almost immediately. The setting of the restaurant is reminiscent of a mid-19th/early 20th century Midwestern family farm home. Tantalizing aromas waft your way as you walk into the rustic charm, allowing you to pretend that you time-traveled to a place/time when people could only serve REAL fried chicken, not the commercial deep-frier stuff or the fake healthy pap you’d find in California (ugh!).

I started with Stroud’s homemade chicken soup. Though not as achingly good as the addictive chicken soup at Las Vegas’s Sweet Tomatoes, Stroud’s chicken soup was nonetheless outstanding. Tasty vegetables, chicken, and homemade noodles swam in a golden broth flecked with sparse, shimmering chicken chubbies. The rich taste coats your tongue and caressingly comforts you to the core.

Then, the chicken came! Stroud’s pan-fries each piece by hand in a heavy iron skillet (be prepared to wait around 30 minutes for yo’ chicken), producing beauties to behold! Uniformly and expertly cooked, the chicken was crowned by a crust that defied science. The crust is delicately thin (not clumsily breaded at all!) but substantial enough to encase ALL the chicken juices. Seriously, ALL the chicken juices. The crust had an immensely satisfying audible crunch when I bit into it and tasted like luscious chicken-flavored bacon. And there was sooooo much juice trapped between the crust and meat. The most appropriate analogue to a Stroud’s chicken is a shao long bao…one with a skin of magical bacon instead of dough. Once you crunch through the crust, you find little rivers of chicken juices flowing down your chin, fingers, etc. Sooooo delicious! And needless to say, the meat was extremely moist and intensely flavorful as well. Stroud must serve the best fried chicken meal in America, so good it will make Southern grandmas cry because it’s better than their food!

The sides complement the chicken well. I had creamy, fluffy mashed potatoes and hot pan-dripping chicken gravy in their full fresh and peppered splendor. The green beans I had tasted just like the ones they serve in the South and did an honorable job cutting the heady richness of the other foods. But the Oscar for best supporting actor in this theatrical feast has got to go to the hot cinnamon rolls! Forget the chicken and waffles in LA! Cinnamon rolls are what it’s all about. Stroud’s serves you the cinnamon rolls right out of the oven, piping hot and pillowy soft. In lovely contrast to the yeasty softness, the roll’s carmelized cinnamon butter enhances its luxurious sumptuousness and its cinnamon sugar topping adds a faint crunch to further entice your palate. Pair it with the exceptional chicken, and you temporarily transform into a blubbering dork with chicken juice dribbling down your chin because the unparalleled food has shocked your mind into elevated oblivion (or Proustian reverie).

My business colleague had the chicken fried steak, which covered the entire plate. It was the biggest chicken fried steak I had ever seen. Business colleague, an endearing glutton, testified to it being the best chicken fried steak he’s ever eaten, and he’s eaten tons of them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. (fellow) Pig!

Lastly, I learned that the original restaurant, Mrs. Stroud’s, won a James Beard Award because critics deemed its fried chicken an American legend. Mrs. Stroud’s closed, but it passed down all its recipes to Stroud’s. Resultantly, even Southerners say Stroud’s is the last traditional fried chicken house in the Midwest and serves the best fried chicken in the US. Martha Stewart says that it will ruin you for all other fried chicken. I agree wholeheartedly.