January 3, 2004
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Shoes & Food…
Another cold wet day. We spent the afternoon in Santa Monica & West Hollywood doing some pre-travel shopping: Eddie bought a pair of John Fleuvogs, I got a pair of Skechers. (…on our previous trip to HK we were doing lots of walking) I fell in love with these boots at the Fluevog store but the pricetag made me wince. Some other time…
Mao’s Kitchen – Chinese propoganda posters on wallWe finally made it to Mao’s Kitchen, the Communist-Chinese-themed restaurant in Venice. Because I had read rave reviews on the internet, our expectations were really high. And that was a shame because after a long long wait*, when our “Mao’s Hometown Fish” and “Sesame Beef with Yam” (which had no yam, btw) finally arrived, there was disappointment to be had. It was funny we were both thinking the same thing: “This tastes like PF Chang’s”.
Should we have ordered something different?
For non-US readers: PF Changs is a chain of American-Chinese restaurants. (There’s one near WBA.) I haven’t yet gotten over the novelty of being in a Chinese restaurant where none of the waiters are Chinese. The food is tasty but not what you would consider real Chinese if you are used to Sydney Chinatown ‘homecooked’ food like we are. Almost everything at PF Changs is overcooked with too much sticky sweet sauce. Not that there’s anything wrong with sticky sweet sauce but you have to wonder how much nutritious value remains in the meat and vegies when they are so drenched that you can barely identify them on the plate….
* According to Chairman Mort ~ When restaurants give you a bowl of nibblies before your meal is served, this is an indication that you’re going to be waiting for ages for your food to arrive. They don’t give you that bowl because they are kind.
It will be nice to taste real Chinese food again, in HK.
On the subject of food, I found this eatLA blog (via bloggingLA). It hasn’t been updated since June 2003 but still very handy because we haven’t been to most of the places reviewed here.
