Baby Elephant Thai Food

Located in the City Of Walnut, across the street from Mt San Antonio College, you can dine in or order to go and delivery from Baby Elephant Thai Food. You may have to call the restaurant ahead of time if you have a gluten intolerant or an allergy, but you can customize your dishes if you are vegan or vegetarian.

I had passed by this restaurant many times by car, bike and foot, but I never stopped by until more recently. Their sign for "Baby Elephant" was hard to read so it looked like the restaurant was just called "Thai Food". I liked the interior and thought it was cute, and it was quite clean. The service was friendly and professional.

I ordered Lychee Iced Tea, Golden (fried) Tofu and Thai Fried Rice (pork, chicken, beef and shrimp combination). I was curious to try out Golden Tofu and Thai Fried Rice. The drink didn't come with lychee cubes, but it did taste like lychee and the drink wasn't overly sweet. It came in a reusable cup so if you didn't finish the drink, you could take it to go. The food came in generous portions, so the prices seemed reasonable, and it came out hot and fresh and was really good.

I am also curious to try out Roasted Duck Curry so I plan to come back for another visit.

Lychee Iced Tea

Golden Tofu

Combination (beef, pork, chicken and shrimp) Thai Fried Rice

Tlayuda L.A. - Oaxacan Mexican Restaurant

Did you Know that Oaxaca is a southern region of Mexico? Oaxacan food is based on the Mexican staples such as corn, beans, and chile peppers. Tlayuda (tlah-you-dah) is a large toasted tortilla, covered with spread of black bean puree, fresh lettuce, tomato, onion, avocado, Oaxacan cheese and topped with meats or vegetarian. The tlayuda can be served open face like a pizza or folded in half. Traditionally, they are smeared with asiento, unrefined pork lard, they usually just stick with beans at Tlayuda LA! Tlayuda LA, located near Downtown Los Angeles, is a restaurant that Oaxacan flavors with a contemporary twist. You are greeted by a pleasing aroma and the affable, personable staff when you enter this small, yet very charming restaurant. While it has been here for three years, it is really making a name for itself and is becoming very popular with the locals in the area.

The space is small, but everyone still gets to enjoy their meals without feeling overcrowded. The kitchen is semi-open, so guests can somewhat see their meals being prepared.

Horchata

Sauces from very mild spicy (left) to very spicy (right). If you really love very spicy flavors, the far right one (yellow) is the one for you!

Home-made style chips with mole

Enchiladas de Mole

Chorizo and Egg Burrito

Thaitwist

Looking for an authentic Thai restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley? Visit Thaitwist in the Rowland Heights/City of Industry area. This restaurant is fairly new to the area and people are still getting to know about it. Thaitwist is  a quaint little restaurant with friendly and attentive staff. The manager was very sweet helping me pick out the dishes. Many dishes on the menu are very tasty.

Don't let the emptiness of the restaurant from the photos discourage you from visiting. I got here very early, few minutes after they opened at 11am for the day. Parking can be a struggle depending on time of day and day of the week as there are many other businesses sharing the same parking area.

Thai Iced Coffee

Rotti With Yellow Curry Sauce. 

Rotti is an Indian pancake and this is very popular dish with customers.

Crab Meat Fried Rice with real crab meat. Another very popular dish with customers

Thai Twist Salad, a signature dish.

Steak, mango, noodles, cilantro, peanuts tossed with mixed greens and spicy lime dressing

Khoa Soi, another signature dish

Northern style curried noodle soup with chicken, shrimp and egg noodle

Signature Kitchen at South Coast Plaza's Macy

Last month, I visited Macy at the South Coast Plaze in Costa Mesa, CA for Celebrity Chef Marcus Samuelsson's cooking demonstration. Because I got there early before the demonstration, I decided to try something at the store's restaurant, Signature Kitchen. I was very surprised that a department store had an in-store restaurant and this was the first time I saw one! It seemed that this restaurant served many signature dishes by various celebrity chefs like Chef Marcus Samuelsson, Cheft Cat Cora, and Nancy Silverton. From my understanding on yelp, this was a three in one type of restaurant.

The customer services overall was ok, just average. The staff was friendly, but I hadn't noticed them serve the food faster than other eating establishments. I didn't like how there were no areas for trash after you finish dining there and I didn't like leaving a messy table with an empty basket and used napkins on it, but I didn't have a choice. If there were trash areas here, it wasn't clear or obvious and I didn't see them.

I ordered the turkey burger with garlic fries and bottled water. The burger and fries also came with free condiments. I actually didn't care for the condiments. The burger was well-seasoned and I enjoyed every bite into the burger! While I did actually enjoy the garlic fries, I think I had better elswhere.

My overall dining experience here was ok, so I would probably come back to try some other items on the menu.

BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse

After having lunch/dinner at Famous Dave's, my friends and I moved on to BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse located a few hundred feet from Famous Dave's, although two of us from the group couldn't make it because they had a small child to care for. I could only comment on the customer service in the bar area and my dessert. The customer service was good overall. We thought that our server was ok with our weird sense of humor until she never came back from her lunch break and we were there for awhile. I never had a Red Velvent Pizookie before, and I enjoyed it.

Red Velvet Pizookie

Famous Dave's Bar-Be-Que

Famous Dave's is a barbeque restaurant in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. It's comparable to Chili's, TGI Fridays and Applebees. While I always enjoy the company of friends, especially friends that I don't see often, I think I like the atmosphere and environment better at Chili's. 

I had never heard of this place before until a friend suggested that we had our mini high school reunion get together here. We met up here recently for a late lunch/early dinner. At 3pm on a Saturday afternoon, the restaurant looked empty. I'm not sure if that's normal for a Saturday afternoon. But anyway, the customer service was pretty good. Our server put up with our weird sense of humor and seemed genuinely ok, laughing at our jokes.

While I do like BBQ food, I wasn't overly impressed with the food here. Probably because it's very similar to Chili's, TGI Fridays and Applebees in some ways. I wasn't able to photograph all the food that were ordered, and I can't remember the names to the plates that I did photograph.

Fundraiser At TGI Friday

I went to TGI Friday in Rowland Heights, CA for lunch yesterday. My friend's friend's son was diagnosed with Leukemia in May 2011 and he is six years old now. For every customer who showed a "Benefit" flyer to their server(s), 20% of the check was donated to the family and the child's treatment. I printed out the flyer from the family's website, but the family also spent many hours outside the restaurant for the diners that didn't know about the fundraiser. While the child has his moments with pain and feeling nauseous, he is doing good and making improvements overall.

I can't remember if I came to this particular TGI Friday before. It wasn't very memorable if I did and I also wasn't into food photography or general photography at the time anyway. At this recent visit, I came with another person. We didn't get greeted by a host right away so it took us awhile to get seated. We almost wanted to pick up the menus and seat ourselves. It wasn't busy at all either. The customer service was generally good and our server made sure our drinks were filled while making sure we were doing okay.

 Shrimp Cocktail

 Petite Sirloin

 Peppercorn Crusted Pork Chop
 Oreo Madness

Hong Kong Palace

In Rowland Heights, CA, there are a plethora of Chinese and Korean resturants to choose from. Hong Kong Palace is a Chinese restuarant. They serve Dim Sum during the daytime and family style dishes for dinner. It is one of the few resturants that have people pushing carts with dim sum items around during dim sum/lunch/brunch hours while many other dim sum places have started using menus to serve dim sum items.

I used to come here for dim sum many years ago, but stopped for who knows why. I wasn't into food photography at the time either. I hadn't been here in such a long time that I didn't know this place got burned down a few times! I don't remember coming here for dinner before, but I came here last month for the dinner service as my cousin made reservations to host his baby shower here. So I can only tell my experiences on the recent visits that I made here.

There wasn't a separate room for parties, so the wait staff closed off a small section and put up dividers for my cousin's baby shower. We reserved four tables with ten seats. The wait staff was friendly and the food came out quickly. The place looked generally clean and the staff cleared off the emty plates at a reasonable time. I don't know the Chinese or English names to some of these dishes.

Shrimp
Shallots with mixed vegetables
Mushroom on bed of vegetables
Steamed Fish
Lobster
Fried Rice
Mango Pudding

I also recently came here for Dim Sum with some friends. I didn't realize how "crowded" and close the tables were until I came here for lunch. It was almost like you were sharing a table with a group of strangers. The aisles were a bit "crowded" too, so the carts would run into the back of people's chairs or run over someone's toes rounding the corner. The customer service was typical for a Chinese restaurant. The servers looked unhappy to be there, but they were generally ok. They seemed ok with one friend who was opening the lids to see what was being served at each cart. While they were pretty good at refilling the tea, they kept forgetting to refill our water, even after we asked for it.

Beef Meatballs
Shu Mai (pork dumpling)Shrimp and Chives Dumplings
Har Gao (shrimp dumpling)
Flat Noodle With Shrimp
Steam Pork Bun
Fried Shrimp & Chives Dumplings
Shrimp & Fish Stuffed Bean Curd
Chinese Broccoli
Egg Tarts