Archive for April, 2009

Diddy Riese

April 13th, 2009

The other week I went to Diddy Riese which is located in Brentwood and a local favorite among UCLA students. Diddy Riese sells freshly baked cookies, brownies, and ice cream, but they are most famous for their build your own ice cream sandwiches. The line is always out the door, but I’m always willing to wait for ice cream sandwiches and especially since their prices are very recession friendly ($1.50 for an ice sandwich). They have a variety of cookies and ice cream to choose from and you can even mix and match cookies if you want. I got myself a chocolate chip cookie sandwich with cookie dough ice cream. I was surprised to see that they started selling Hawaiian Shaved Ice with ice cream (very rare to find outside of Hawaii), so we had to try it. I was happy to see that they had gone the extra step to make it more authentic with flavors like passion fruit. Overall, my ice cream sandwich was great and the shaved ice was good, but it will never beat shaved ice from Hawaii…the ice was just too hard.


Chocolate chip cookies with cookie dough ice cream


Hawaiian Shaved Ice with Vanilla Ice Cream in the middle

Kogi Tacos

April 5th, 2009

For those of you who don’t live in LA, there’s this new craze involving a truck that sells Korean Tacos (yes, Korean Tacos!). This Korean/Mexican fusion is the brainchild of Kogi BBQ. The interesting thing about it is that they use Twitter to alert their future customers about their whereabouts for the day. Its just like a treasure hunt and your map is your twitter and for all your hard work searching, you get delicious tacos! Sounds like fun, huh? Unfortunately, because of its popularity even if you find the truck, you’ll still have to wait 1 to 2 hours in line to get these tasty tacos. But, there is a way to get around this and cheat. People can head to the Alibi Room which is a Restaurant/Lounge Bar and order the infamous Korean tacos in addition to a variety of other items, but the catch is that the items are $1 to $2 more than the truck. So, last night we decided to skip the truck and head straight to the Alibi Room (I know we don’t get the experience of the treasure hunt, but its all worth it for me if I don’t have to stand in line in the cold for hours).

The Alibi Room was a very small, but modern looking lounge. Most of the restaurant revolves around the bar and there’s only a couple couches with coffee tables. The place was packed, but we were lucky enough to find seats at the bar. Their menu was filled with a variety of Korean/Mexican treats such as Korean Tacos, Korean Breakfast Burritos, Korean Sliders, Korean Hot Dog, Korean Torta, and more! I ordered the Kogi Korean Tacos, which were DELICIOUS! These tacos are filled with Korean Short Rib (a twist to Carne Asada), topped with:

  • sesame-chili salsa roja
  • julienne romaine lettuce and cabbage tossed in Korean chili-soy vinaigrette
  • cilantro-green onion-lime relish
  • crushed sesame seeds
  • sea salt
  • garnished with lime wedge, orange wedge and red radish wedge

My friends ordered the Kogi Breakfast Burrito, Kogi Hot Dog, Pressed Torta with Taro Chips, and Korean Spiced Fries (these were the best fries!). Overall, everyone loved what they ordered and agreed that these were the best tacos they’ve tasted. I only wish that I lived closer, so I could eat them more often.


Picture of the Alibi Room sign outside the restaurant


The Menu


They give you a large playing card as your order number.


My Korean Short Rib Tacos, top left are the Korean Spiced Fries which came with 3 different sauces to dip: ketchup, sriracha, and sesame mayo