Archive for the 'Review' Category

This past Thursday evening dinner choice was Little Village, located on Smith Street, downtown. A mid sized eatery for the area. Chinese food, Fabio was hard pressed to give it a style. When we arrived, it was fairly crowded, a little unexpected as past visits have been pretty quiet. Interior decor is a bit unusual, it seems the thought was to make it feel like you’re eating outside in a “little village”, in the comfort of airconditioning. It does give it a bit of a theme park aura. There’s a little faux oriental style bridge leading to a double door facade seperating the farther dining area. We were half expecting some kung fu fightin to break out and some various martial stunt man to come crashing through the round window.

Anyway, on to the food. As is common for somewhere like this, we  go family style and order Monoglian beef, seafood noodle, and the spicy steamed fish. Dave started of by ordering an iced milk tea. Warning, it seems you’ll be batting 50/50 on this. His first instance, he ordered a milk coffee, and found himself with a milk tea. He enjoyed it so much he orders that exclusively now, but now it seems half the time gets iced coffee, which is what he found himself with this time. The ticket from their computerized POS system even prints it out, go figure.   Continue reading ‘Spontaneous Orgasm’

So this monday everyone pulls out crotchety old man excuses to not do a St. Louis freeride downhill, even though the weather is great. So what do we do instead, we go eat! In fact when the event’s eating, the group becomes even bigger, with six of us converging on McCully Bicycle. The plan is to head to Hide-chan down the street for dinner. CKucky and myself have been there a few times already, and Scat is a well known regular. So much so that he gets showered with bonus freebies from Hide himself. We decide to walk, which is just as well since it’s ridiculously close by, and parking is small.

Hide-chan is located on the corner of S. King and Isenberg, right across from the Moilili Star market, with an unassuming appearance. Tug hard on the door, the spring is strong. Inside is small and bright, seating for around 30 people. A genuine familly run shop, Hide cooks, wife works the front, along with one other guy and occasionally the daughter. They’re from Okinawa so the menu is Japanese with a number of Okinawa dishes, most obviously the goya (bittermelon). You’re started with a simple salad of iceberg and some carrot slivers with a shoyu dressing that I find quite yummy. Then you can proceed onto the main course. Many Japanese standards on the menu, along with specials posted up on the walls. You know when people ask, what’s good, and you answer everything? Well, so far everything I’ve tried really has been good that it’s hard to pick. So far I’ve had the eggplant stuffed with pork and katsu styled, the menchi (hamburger) katsu, goya champuru, and this time around the special of kisu tempura. The food quality and preparation has been great every time. The tempura is wonderfully light and crisp. Really, if you were served the same thing in dim light, with candles, fancy booths, piped in koto bg music, in laquer boxes, you wouldn’t know the difference. Instead you’ll get a skillfully prepared honest family style Japanese meal at a great price.

Really gets the maximum gleeful monkeys from me. Perhaps the only slight negative would be it’s small, so I wouldn’t be in a rush. As far as I can tell, it’s Hide doing the cooking, and that’s it. Ask Scat, he always pokes his head into the kitchen to say hi. There’s also a sign on wall saying No Alcohol, haven’t asked to mean none at all or it’s BYOB. Would be nice to enjoy a good beer with meal, but it’s no problem going without, the great food more than makes up for that. They close fairly early, 8:30 Mon – Thursday, later on Fri-Sat, and closed on Sunday I believe. Definitely recommended.