Ever since I got back from LA, the weather at home has been particularly dreary, wet, and depressing. It’s a good thing I escaped! The day before taking off for warmer and sunnier weather, I headed off to South Philly for a nice warm bucket of pho at Pho Hoa. I actually hadn’t been to this one before. The restaurant is fairly big on the inside, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell from outside. There’s booths and tables and flat screen tvs. It’s nothing exciting or interesting, decor wise. The summer rolls. These are pretty much a given. I wanted hot food though, so I didn’t partake. They were probably ok. I myself, I make a mean summer roll. And my sauce beats any restaurant sauce. I swear. Chicken pho. Kinda seems to defeat the purpose of pho, but it looks good, if not healthy. I still miss my unhealthy chicken pho from the long defunct Le Cyclo. Best. Chicken. Pho. Ever. Never to be tasted by these lips again. How sad. I went with my simple brisket pho. I wanted to see how Pho Hoa stood up against the other pho joints, so I made sure to taste the broth before I adulterated it with sriracha and such. And I do have to say that the broth was quite great. This was a great bucket of pho. I cleaned my bowl. Service was perfunctory, as usual. The food came out super fast, as usual. Even though it’s a “chain”, this is a good one.

For my last dinner in LA, I kept looking around and found a few things. Then I was watching Take Home Chef and he picked up someone from a brazilian market in LA. Then I realized that there would be brazilian restaurants here! So that’s how we ended up at Cafe Brasil. It also helped that it was only a few miles from the apartment.

The place is casual. You order up front and take a number and wait. Then you pick up your food when called. It’s super cute inside, with mismatched tables and chairs in all kinds of colorful primary colors. Everything is bright and colorful. Maybe a bit too colorful. There’s outside seating too, but that’s probably only recommended when it’s daylight out.
J got the red snapper. That came with rice, salad, beans, salsa, and plantains. It’s a good thing he ordered this and not me. For whatever reason, everything came with a mustard base. The snapper had a mustard crust. The salad had mustard dressing. Even the salsa had some mustard in it. It was bizarre. I don’t remember any of the food that I had in brazil having any kind of mustard slant to it.
I was feeling nostalgic so I got the feijoada. That was served with rice, farofa, collard greens, and oranges. We also got an additional side of plantains, which I gobbled up quickly. We also got a couple of pao de de quiejo (cheese bread), but these were not fresh at all and therefore cold, crunchy, and not that good. I enjoyed my feijoada very much. It had big hunks of meat in it, including fall off the bone pork. I’m not usually a fan of greens, but these were pretty good and nice and garlicky. The farofa? I dunno about this stuff. When I was in brazil, we always called it sawdust. Not because it tasted like sawdust, but just because it looks like sawdust. Well, this particular farofa tasted like bacon. Like bacon sawdust. I guess I just don’t get farofa. I also got a guarana by Antarctica. That was the brand we always had in brazil. I was very happy to get my brazilian food fix!

On my last day in LA I did lots and lots of walking. Around 4 miles actually. And with my short stumps for legs, just think about how many steps that is! As a reward, I treated myself to some frozen yogurt.
Red Mango was the choice this time. They’re a Korean chain that made it to the US last year. They don’t seem to have as many topping options as pinkberry. I liked the store though. Clean and simple and modern, yet warm and inviting.
I never get any of the cereal or nut toppings, I’m just much more of a fan of the fruit. Their fruit selection seemed a bit limited, but I went with blackberry and mango. For a place with mango in their name, the mango was quite unripe. And being in southern california, I thought it wouldn’t be too hard to find some ripe mango. At least the blackberries were good. The yogurt itself was good. There’s something surprisingly tasty about plain frozen yogurt. I think pinkberry is still my favorite.