Food for one, food for all

In addition to an exciting first week of med school, this week proved to me how little tolerance I have for eating out continuously at cafeterias, fast food joints, and food trucks.  It is not that the food was particularly bad, but neither were they particularly good.  My GI tract was unhappy with the lack of homemade or gourmet foods. 

So I attempted to remedy this problem with dessert on Thursday at Mousse Fantasy/Beard Papa's on Sawtelle. While the red bean mousse turned out to complement the green tea mousse well, it was too sweet. The custard pudding tasted just like Purin (プリン), it, much like the green tea mousse, was unnecessarily sweetened by a layer of cream on top. I ended up leaving more of the cream layer and the whipped cream.  In conclusion, for the price, these desserts did not meet my requirements.  The store also did not have mochi ice cream at this particular branch, which was super disappointing.

Japanese desserts.

The real treatment turned out to be dinner at Takao Brentwood after my white coat ceremony on Friday.  Our meal had several highlights.  The appetizers, seared albacore and fresh Hokkaido scallop sashimi, went so quickly that I have no photos.  The yakitori was not particularly spectacular.  The yakiebi (shrimp) disappointed me as the shrimp had not been deveined properly, so my molars got a free sanding.  The highlights of the meal was definitely in the freshness of the sashimi entree and the mixed wild mushroom dish.  The eggplant extravaganza, with shrimp and albacore on grilled eggplant was quite tasty, but a bit too heavy, given that we had also ordered soft shell crab.  The meal concluded on a sweet note with one green tea and one manga mochi ice cream.

Sashimi, Chef's Choice

Mixed wild mushrooms with truffles

Eggplant Extravaganza

Soft Shell Crabs with thin potato crisps

And then today, a few friends are coming over for dinner.  So, I got lucky and managed to get the latest shipment of clams for spaghetti tonight.  Unfortunately, they did not get fresh Manila clams, so Little Neck clams were used instead.

BIG clams!

As physicians in training, we must also eat greens!