Tips for Dining, Eating, and Food Shopping in the Greater Los Angeles Area (including Orange & Ventura Counties and SW San Bernardino County)
Start New ThreadWho makes the best mashed potatoes in LA?
By Sloppy Joe
on Aug 3, 2001 03:17 AM
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The Canterbury Cafe on Melrose has amazing dill garlic smashed pots. I reccomend a large side dish. Cheers.
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The Yard House in Long Beach (www.yardhouse.com) makes great wasabi mashed potatoes. For those who faint at the thought of wasabi relative to sushi consumption, the wasabi is not overpowering and won't set your nose ablaze.
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But having your sinuses explode is the best part of eating wasabi!
I'll never forget the first time, when I mistakenly assumed that because it was generously slathered on my chicken the wasabi must be fairly dilute. I took a big bite and thought the top of my head was going to blow off.
Cool! Way better than roller coasters.
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I hear ya' Ruth. I love my wasabi/soy sauce mixture for sushi consumption to be a slightly brownish-green paste. I adore the fact that wasabi is mind- and sinus-blowing but at the same time brief, unlike chili pepper hotness.
One of my favorite wasabi stories was back when I waited tables, a wicked diner was being rude and just so happened to order an ahi salad with wasabi cones dipped in sesame. He had no idea what wasabi was and I grazed over his question just in time to see him pop one in his mouth. The expression: priceless.
The other story was when I first tried wasabi. I was with a friend who's Chinese and I was introduced to sushi. She mixed my dish to be of a paste-like consistency and I dipped my roll into it. The problem was that my chopstick skills were severely lacking and the roll ended up wading in the wasabi for at least a minute. The chef, my friend and her husband all watched me and got the giggles when I started breathing in and out through my nose, trying to figure which one felt better.
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Torturing a deserving person with wasabi is much kinder than with peppers. The pain can be even more intense, but as you pointed out, it doesn't linger and it's water soluble (unlike peppers, which are only fat and alcohol soluble).
You know, I've been thinking about the difference between wasabi hot and pepper hot, especially the "explosion" vs. burn sensation.
I'm going to take this over to general topics and see if some of the folks there can shed some more light on it.
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