Joe E.'s Profile

Black bean chicken: excellent and spicy. Hot and sour soup: excellent! I've had a few other things here too and they've all been good. It's usually pretty empty because this mall has always been faulty but if you are in Seal Beach or Surfside or Sunset, or near the coast in Huntington this is a perfect place to eat good Chinese food with no hassle and easy parking.

I know of about 3 Chinese restaurants outside of San Francisco that I can tolerate. This is one of them.

I wouldn't normally order ceviche at a taco truck but one of my employees did it here and not only did he not die, he raved about it, so my wife tried it. She didn't die and said it was amazing.

I ordered the shrimp ceviche with avocado. I was blown away Soon we were all addicted to it. We now find any excuse to go near this place. Some people think you are crazy ordering ceviche, which is basically uncooked sea food, from a truck  but that's what makes it so much fun.

Recently, the Mrs. and I came here after a Mountain Goats concert at the Natural History Museum at about 10:30 on a Friday night. It was crowded with families and dates which was a relief because the neighborhood is semi-sketch; however, no sea food. At night it's only a taco truck, but the taco's were excellent and we spent a whopping $7.25 on a great dinner.

If you want great ceviche or if you just want to freak people out, find this truck and take people here. You will love the chairs -lettuce boxes placed over milk crates. And it's very dependable; always in the parking lot at the corner of Washington and Union in the Pico.

I know there are a lot of restaurants in Culver City, maybe too many, and more coming each month, but this Bruno's is a must. I've been there a few times now and everything is mouth watering. It's always one of those meals where you can talk about nothing else but how good the food is you are eating.

I'm a red sauce and checker table cloth guy, but my wife has to have more than that and we both agree that Brunello's is  the best Italian restaurant in Culver City and perhaps beyond.

The bread is home-made and worth whatever it takes to get here. There's an amazing dark chocolate ice cream thing that I'm thinking about right now and all the wines are a deal.

It's also big with plenty of room for a secret lunch conversation or breaking up with your boyfriend, etc. Go here now.

If you like Japanese pop art (Murakami, etc.), toys, Japanese atmoshpere, and the lolitas of Takashita street in Harajuku, this is the place for you. Lovely Japanese "French" maids serve coffee and tea in an awesome space in the Culver City gallery district. Food is coming!!! When it gets here I may add another star.

I've only been here once but I tried a bunch of stuff and it may be the est Mexican restaurant since Super Mex. The salsa is fresh and perfect, the fish tacos are superb and they have quail!!!

I ordered a plate with chorizo, carne asada, a bbq'd quail, beans and soem tasty corn.  Quail is my favorite food and they prepared it so well it reminde me of my childhood hunting with my step dad in Mexico. That sound creepy but if you were there, you know nothing weird happened.

The downside is this place is always crowded. There's also some room for improvement in the tortilla department. Order a beer here.  I like the tiny beer glass and for some reason it makes me think it tastes better

I always find myself driving on th 10 through these areas and I'm Hungry and I don't want to go to anything I can see off the freeway. I know there's a cute little downtown Claremont area but I where will I eat.

I will always go here now. The food was awesome but they had me at the peanuts.

I've been going here since I use to have to sit on the booster seats that they still keep in the same place. It was one of my father's favorite restaurants as well. He came for the ox tail. I come for the squab. It's not cheap but the experience is worth everything you pay.

The best thing to do here is to keep coming back. The more you come, the more you enjoy it. The waiters are great, and are not rude like some people say.

Watch the scene in "Ed Wood" where Ed meets Orson Wells and tell me you don't want to hang out here.  The bar is also an option. Just keep coming back and you will get it. It took my wife a couple times and now she loves it.

Highlights of my many visits here have been  George Lucas at the table across from us, having dinner with John Santucci of Crime Story, and the all time best when Huel Howser sat next to me at the counter and we chatted for 2 hours.

Park in the back and get validated. It's easy.

These burgers are not my thing, but I ordered some muscles and they were great. Would I go there again? Probably not unless someone made me.  Or if I wasn't hungry because it is not an enjoyable process to get your food here and find a place to eat it, and then go back to the bar again if you want something else. They aren't worried about it though. the place is packed. The novelty seems to be sucking the life out of all the restaurants around it.

One of the things that sucks people into this place is the cool sign. The arrow on it with the star  was built and designed by my father at his office in the 1960s coincidentally, Conrad Escalante. He owned a company called Superior Signs in Long Beach and that particular model was one of his hallmarks in the atomic age. It's called the "Astro--Star" and hipsters are finally giving it it's due.

I think they may have even had someone mold a replica to make this new one they got.

For what it's worth, my wife liked her burger but it was too fancy for me. The fries were awesome though. I hear they don't serve Ketchup but these fries are so good, you could do without the ketchup fatty. As for the beers, I ordered a Japanese ale on tap and it was excellent.

I'm glad I wasn't scared off by these reviews. Service was great. Waiter hustled to make our meal a great experience. I ordered the Carne Asada and it was absolutely delicious and authentic.  The fetching Mrs. Escalantova ordered a burger and sweet potato fries and she LOVED it all.  The diet Coke was  perfect, which doesn't always happen when they bring it from a bar.

The location is a lot of fun and the prices are about where they should be for this kind of experience. And if it keeps out the one star giving riff raff, so much the better; can't wait to go back.

This place is perfect; beer, burgers, chilequilas, fish n chips, all right on the beach at the river in Seal. It's not a quick meal. Go there to relax after surfing or stand up water boarding which is what I do.

This is O.C.'s answer to Paradise Cove in Malibu, but you can surf at this beach.

If you are lucky you will get there on  a day when "Classic" is playing music on their piano truck in the parking lot.