After a short 2 hour drive from San Diego, we arrived in Rancho Cucamonga, which is about 45 minutes East of Los Angeles. I have a good friend who lives there whom I’ve known for nearly 30 years. Interestingly we met on a tour bus in Italy and have stayed in touch ever since, gone on vacations together, attended each other’s weddings, etc. Despite all of this, she had never met my son. I was working for the first two days and so we spent most of the day indoors. It was a blistering 108 degrees in the shade outside so this wasn’t a problem. It gave us a bit of rest in between adventures too. In the evenings though we ate well.
On our first night, I asked my friend who is of Mexican
descent, to take us to her favorite hole in the wall Mexican restaurant. I love California Mexican food so I had to
introduce my son to it. We went to Las
Cerritas near their home and as expected, the food was delicious. I had Chicken with Mole which was really good
something I haven’t had in a while. My
son loved his Carne Asada, but wasn’t crazy about the refried beans which he’d
never eaten before. Okay, it’s an
acquired taste.
The next night, I promised to cook Indian for my friend and
her husband. Since the rest of the trip
would involve many stays in hotels with kitchens, I traveled with many of my
important spices and masalas so this was pretty easy to do. A quick trip to the grocery store and I
pulled off a pretty good Chicken Curry, sautéed some Zucchini from their
garden, along with a coconut & cilantro rice. Her husband contributed Tangelo Margaritas
made from tangelos in their garden and a self-aged tequila. The added excitement of being really close to
the Blue Cut fire that was raging nearby made the evening even more
unforgettable as we ate and also planned our evacuation strategy.
The other two restaurants we visited during these days were
Ludo Bird in Universal Studios on our visit there and Bardot in the small town
of Claremont. Ludo Bird is a fast food
restaurant that serves only Fried Chicken with a few different options. Chef Ludo started in a food truck in Los Angeles
and now has made a name for himself. All
I can say is that the Fried Chicken sandwich, while likely not the healthiest
of meals, was really really good. It was
perfectly crispy and served with a cabbage & fennel slaw that was very
tasty. I added a bit of hot sauce of top
for extra flavor. We ate at Bardot that
same evening after walking around quite some time to burn of the calories from
lunch. Despite that, I was not very
hungry and opted to get asparagus soup and a tomato salad. Others ordered their food and the only two
meals that we liked were my tomato salad and my son’s burrata salad. The rest of the food was unimpressive and I
can make better cream of asparagus soup in my sleep. 
Before leaving Rancho Cucamonga, we stopped for an early
taco lunch at Tacocino where my friends insisted we must go. Well, they were indeed right – best tacos
I’ve ever had!! It’s a small place in a
mall with a few tables, but the tacos they serve on warm corn tortillas with
fresh cilantro and salsa are incredible.
I had the fish tacos because one can never have too many, while my son opted for the carne asada. Mind you, we were not really hungry but
devoured our tacos nonetheless. A quick
stop at BevMo for some wine & tequila and we were off to Riverside to visit
more friends. 
It’s always great to visit
with people I’ve gotten to know through various aspects of my life, but don’t
see very often. These friends just had a
baby and I loved spending time with their 5 month old daughter. My son got spoiled with hot breakfast every
morning from homemade waffles to scrambled eggs along with fresh fruit and all
the milk he could handle. I even got hot
oatmeal each morning to start my day. What
more could we ask for and proclaimed this to be the best B&B in
California. Immediately upon our arrival
and though we’d eaten our tacos only a few hours earlier, I asked my friend to
take us to Asahi for sushi. Just like
the Mexican food, I find sushi in California to be much fresher. My son has recently discovered sushi &
sashimi and I wanted him to experience it in California. He loved all of it and
we ordered far too much food including albacore tuna (my personal favorite),
salmon, shrimp tempura, spicy tuna and so much more. Mind you, I don’t eat sashimi very often but
here I ate it all. The albacore tuna is my favorite.
Other culinary highlights from the stay included my son’s
very first In-N-Out burger following an afternoon/evening at Laguna Beach. He loved it and had several more Double
Doubles before we left the state. We
also ate at a very nice restaurant in Santa Monica in the Casa Del Mar hotel
called Terrazza Lounge after our second day at Universal Studios. One nice thing about the West coast is that
most restaurants will let you in even if you’re not exactly in the right attire
for their ambiance. This makes it easier
to go from tourist destinations to dinner without trying to negotiate a
clothing change. We sat by a window
overlooking the beach and enjoyed some quiet time with good food and wine after
a hectic day. What was originally
planned as lunch became dinner due to traffic but we didn’t mind because we
were on no schedule. After our food, we
walked on the beach goofing around and finally made our way to Venice Beach to
goof around some more before heading back to Riverside to our temporary home. 
As we were leaving for our next leg of the journey, my friend realized that we hadn’t yet had Korean BBQ, something else my son had never eaten. And so it was declared that we couldn’t leave the LA area without having Korean BBQ for lunch. I knew it would set us back for time as we had a long drive ahead of us, but later in the evening I would be thankful we did as an accident on the I-5 had us at a standstill for 2 ½ hours, and didn’t get us to our rental in Yosemite until 2am. Leaving an hour earlier would have made little difference, but the decision allowed us to spend more time with friends. Yet again, far too much food was ordered between the shaved beef slices and kalbi (marinated short rib) and all the sides of kimchi, pickled cucumbers and rice. If you’ve never had Korean BBQ, the true fun is that you cook your food right on the table over a grill, and then enjoy it with all the side condiments which makes for a very interactive meal. My son thoroughly enjoyed the experience and will not forget it soon especially since we ate with friends of Korean descent making it all that much more authentic. Stomachs full, we said our reluctant goodbyes and started our journey north.
Though we stayed in the LA area for 5 days, I could have
easily spent five more. We are already
planning a return to our friends in Riverside as we didn’t get nearly enough
time together because they were hosting us and a couple from Holland also. What an amazing food and travel adventure
this was for my son as he discovered so many foods for the first time. For me, it was fun and different to enjoy it
through his perspective and was so happy that I could make the
introduction. I can’t wait to return
again soon…..
#californiafoodadventures #koreanbbq #losangelesfoodie #calmex
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