Umami Dream

You know how sometimes you end up partaking in an adventure you want no part of? How you end up being dragged along (nearly) against your will but are entitled to embark on the journey because you don't really have a choice in the matter? How you may or may not vocally express your disdain in what's going on?

Well, that scenario will most likely end in one of two ways:

1. The story drags on and you find yourself getting impaled by boredom and horrible times.
2. The story takes a surprising twist in a new and better direction, and you feel like a jerk for complaining about getting dragged along.

Yesterday ended up becoming one of these stories, and if my completely vague and illogical ranting from yesterday didn't indicate to you how it ended, then you're in for a surprise as you'll see here shortly.

Last night, I had a burger. But this wasn't just any burger... it was a MANLY burger.

A rather tasty surprise, mind you. Heck, this surprise is so astounding that I need to put a disclaimer label on here right now.



WARNING: The White Knight would (at this time) like to warn you about the impending content of this entry. It contains graphic images and descriptions that will probably scar you forever (in a surprisingly good way). Reading and looking at this entry will probably cause various symptoms inside your body, including (but not limited to):

• sudden mouthwatering and hunger pangs
• a sudden urge to look up an address, business website, and/or your bank account/wallet
• ill-mannered emotions aimed towards Josh for making you think like a hungry fool
• soiled pants, assuming your foodgasms are grotesquely worse than Josh's
• the sudden urge to get in your car and try out this story for yourself, and
• revulsion in any and all vegetarians.

As such, The White Knight and any of his (nonexistent) affiliates would like to take this time to absolve themselves of any damages that this delectable entry may be responsible for. You have been warned, so if you dare to read on about tasty food today, then by all means: continue, and get your taste buds ready for an awesome ride.





CURRENT MUSIC:
Russell Brower and Glenn Stafford - "Public Enemy"
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Soundtrack

There's something about this that seemed to call to me this morning. I wanted a musical theme for today - something that wasn't too happy or sad, but a nice, roundabout middle that seemed to accentuate the feeling of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. (To be honest, I'm not sure why I wanted to aurally convey that feeling. It was just wailing to me like the instruments in the track.)

Anyway, "Public Enemy" is the second piece on the soundtrack, and it possesses a very heavy Southern drawl to it. Mind you, there aren't any lyrics to this one - the music just conveys that feeling itself. Considering how the Terrans are pretty much portrayed as rednecks in space (just guess what the Old Confederacy used as their flag), it's not really that big of a surprise to hear the StarCraft II leitmotif (and Raynor's leitmotif as well) being beautifully belted out by a southern guitar and a harmonica.

Now why do I have this urge to go to a bar by myself and drink my sorrows out? Damn you, good music, and your ability to make me want to do things! *smiles and hat-tips* I guess that's what I get for being such a video game music enthusiast. (I could say that it's also due to having lived in the Deep South for a few years when I was much younger, too... but since it's been ages since I've had some hearty Southern food, I can't say I have the same feeling as I did.)


The Go! Team - "Junior Kickstart"
Thunder, Lightning, Strike

Oh, man. I don't know what it is with this piece, but it gets me up and running. It's probably because of that "epic chase through a crowded area" feel I get whenever I listen to it. (The music video for this track - featuring Ms. Pac-Man running away from some Ghosts in the heart of New York City - probably is a bonus.)

Anyway, if you're into games, then The Go! Team is probably worth listening to. Some of you may know them and their debut album if you've ever attended a Video Games Live concert (as said music video is a staple they play to get the crowd psyched to listen to the amazing video game music the orchestra will be performing). Others may know of The Go! Team already if they've played LittleBigPlanet (as it features another track from the same album). Either way, it's a good listen, so give 'em a shot.



"Good food is like music you can taste, color you can smell. There is excellence all around you. You need only to be aware to stop and savor it."
- Auguste Gusteau
(Ratatouille)

And indeed it is. Every once in a while whenever I partake in the consumption of something very delectable, I get a short-lived dream of becoming a foodie and amateur critic. While that seems pretty reasonable of a goal, the reason I don't go along with it is the high cost of pursuing this particular line of hobby Let's face it: you need lots of money to enjoy all that food, and you can't really get this food if you have no money to begin with. *sigh*

Ah, well. Despite that, I still like enjoying great food. So, when I ended up going through this phase again last night, I told myself that this time, I have a blog. While nobody reads it (at least I think nobody reads it), I still want to get my experience and information out there to anyone with a patient eye and an open mind. *smirks* So, whenever someone accuses me of being a slow eater, I wholeheartedly nod in agreement, but not for the reasons they're thinking.





Good day, everyone! I'm Josh Blanco, and I don't believe in "boring food."

Now, what does that have to do with anything, you ask? Well, it has everything to do with it - because today's entry is pretty much food-centric. It's probably the first time in a while where I talk about food that I didn't make. Now, this is a story all about how my life got flipped turned upside-down. I'd like to take a minute - just sit right there - about how I came across an amazing place to eat that you simply must try out. (Yeah, that's right. I just Reverse Bel-Air'ed you.)





So yesterday I was off of work when I decided to hang out with some friends. It had been a while since I hung out with people (yes, I consider a week to be "a while") because of other events in my life. Such trivial events included work, work, more work, Persona 4 (I think I did a little too much level-grinding...), even more work, something involving the bank, and (you guessed it) work.

Is it just me, or do I look scared in this photo?

As a result, I was a bit frazzled out, and I didn't really feel like doing much apart from hanging out and having fun. That's what we did for the majority of the afternoon - we cooked a bit of fried rice, talked, played some Mario Kart 64 (which seems to be sped up on the Wii - makes me want to play the original version instead of the emulated one on the Virtual Console), and watched some NASCAR news tidbits (one of my friends is a racing fanatic, which comes as a complete surprise to anyone who doesn't know that he's Japanese). That got sort of boring, so we decided to come up with a plan for the day night. So at around 1800 or so, we decided to enact said plan, which looked something like this:

1. Check out some Asian store in Oxnard.
2. Dinner somewhere.
3. ???
4. Furious last-second blogging.
5. Sleep?

Admittedly, like the introduction stated, I didn't want to go do any of this - I had wanted to stay local and relax easily, but my friends would have none of that. So after some light pestering of me to get up and go (I had spent most of that planning time either sitting on the floor or lying down on it while typing up what could have been yesterday's entry), we went off to check out the market. It was okay - it was in a sort-of sketchy part of town (well, that whole section of Oxnard Boulevard seems sketchy to me to begin with), but no incident occurred. The prices were a little high as we expected (logic says that some people would prefer somewhat-higher prices over the task of having to drive all the way to Los Angeles to hit up the cheaper markets), so we didn't get anything (though getting udon noodles did sound somewhat-tempting).

We got back in the car, and that's when our stomachs decided to grumble in near-unison. So came the ten minutes where we logged on our cell phones and checked out the local Yelp recommendations. We included everything in our search - from local holes-in-the-wall (arguably some of the best food out there) to big, semi-fancy dine-in restaurants - so long as our stomachs could be sated and our wallets could escape without getting eviscerated, we didn't care for the food. However, after browsing through every single option, nothing really seemed to grab our attention as a whole like we were expecting. (We each had individual ideas, but none of them were universally appreciated amongst our group for the time being.)

And just when I thought my quest was over, it was only beginning.

So as we began to double back through Yelp, we came across a rather new entry: Umami Burger in Thousand Oaks. I had wanted to stay local, and going to Umami meant traversing two cities and scaling one car-killing grade. However, a vote was cast, and so off we went with us thinking neutral about a place we've only recently heard about.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term "umami," it is a Japanese loanword meaning "pleasant, savory taste" (often just shortened to "savory"). Recently considered by many scholars on the field to be a fifth basic taste, umami can be found in any food that just has a "savory" feel to it. Think of the last few times you've had any kind of Asian cuisine. Could you describe any of it as "savory?" If so, then compare that feeling with the flavors of your favorite Western meat dishes. If you've recalled anything similar, then you now know what umami tastes like on both sides of the world.

Now, knowing that, Umami Burger's main philosophy is fairly straightforward at this point - the name says it all. After parking, getting in line to get in (for a Thursday night it was pretty packed) and waiting for about ten minutes or so (we totally didn't mind, but the waves of pleasant smells were killing us, we were finally seated.

Utensils at a burger place!? What is this world coming to?

And that's where we met with our first surprise: a fork and knife. Let me say that again: a fork and a knife. At a burger restaurant. Mind blown. I began to ask myself if the burgers were going to be epic enough to warrant use of such utensils.

In hindsight, I had forgotten to take the ceiling lighting into account for some of these photos - namely the menu. I know you can't read all of it (particularly the middle), but don't worry about that.

So we were presented with our menus, which I have to say was simplistic for a sit-down restaurant yet complex for a burger place. My friends and I kept reading on and on, and as we looked over each entry, our mouths began to water. So many potentially tasty choices and so little money (and so little stomach room) to get all of them! What to choose, what to choose!?

I told you not to worry about the middle of the menu. My God, did my mouth water after reading all this.

While my friends were still debating, I found one particular option to lock me down: the Manly Burger. (Cue manly grunt.) For those of you having trouble reading the above image, the Manly Burger contains "beer-cheddar cheese, smoked salt-onion strings, [and] bacon lardons." Indeed, this burger sounded manly (what, with all that cholesterol-packed awesomeness and what not), and by reading that description alone I felt like a bit of a badass. *flex* Soon afterwards my friends got their ideas down, and we placed our orders and waited to see if our decision to come here was indeed a good one.

What really pained me in the interim was that Umami Burger offers their own blue cheese burger (listed below the Manly Burger as the "Port & Stilton" burger). For those of you who don't know me enough, blue cheese burgers are one of my favorite kinds of burgers, and I usually use that as a make-or-break in terms of liking a place I'm just trying out. (We've all done this before with other dishes in other places.) Ah, well. Next time, perhaps - maybe I'll even get some of you to join me?

And right when I began to "regret" not getting a blue cheese burger of some kind, our orders came in.

My Manly Burger. I swear to you that this picture doesn't do its delectable taste any justice.

As I got my burger, I was rather impressed with the simplistic-yet-fancy presentation. A burger served on a plate. A plate, ladies and gentlemen - no wrappers, no foil, no toothpick to hold the bun down. Just... a plate. And not even one of those circular/oval plates you're accustomed to seeing from diners and houses - rectangular plates you'd see at more decadent social gatherings. Wat.

But enough on that - you're not here to read about porcelain food-holding trays; you're here for the food, and so was I. The burger was surprisingly big in a subtle way - gargantuan enough to make you quickly regret how humans can't (normally) un-hinge their jaws, but petite enough to reassure you that it won't fall apart in your hand(s) as you keep biting into it. So I took a bite, and...

O.O

...well, to be honest, I don't remember the exact feeling, because I was in a state of euphoria during that first bite.

You know that one scene from Ratatouille where Anton Ego takes a nip of the ratatouille and is instantly taken back to his childhood? Where he relives the amazing taste of his home-cooked childhood cuisine with each bite? Picture that moment with me and replace the childhood memory with "times I've sat there in sheer shock over how amazing [insert dish here I'm trying for the first time] tastes," and you'll get the closest facsimile of my reaction.

(Author's Note: I miiiiiiiiiiiight have left out a paragraph or two where I go over how that first bite gave me a euphoric foodgasm. It's probably a good thing, too, because then this entry might've been accidentally classified as... let's just say "illict adult activities" on some soccer mom-operated web filtering service. But honestly, that feeling of savory bliss is better than most of the world's amazing burgers. It's better than ice-cold lemonade on a hot summer day. Hell, it's better than sex. (Probably not... but not really.))

Needless to say, I enjoyed every savory and delectable bite. The patty was cooked medium-rare (their standard operating procedure, but they'll be happy to cook to order), which I think was a major plus in getting the burger to be that savory. Usually, I prefer my meats cooked medium to medium-well, but after trying this, I think I might have to convert to medium-rare. The juices locked inside a medium slab of meat just don't compare to the juices inside a similar slab cooked medium-rare.

Umami Burger has given this burger a seal of approval. I'd give one, too, but I don't have a branding iron. =(

The bun actually surprised us - rather than the traditional sesame seeded buns typical of most burger places, they used a sweet, almost-Hawaiian style of sweet bread. It definitely caught us off-guard... and then suddenly inspired us to forevermore make our own sliders using only sweet bread.

The other ingredients in my burger only aided in making this amazing delectable more euphoric in my mouth. The beer-cheddar cheese (which, in case you haven't figured out by now, is cheese with beer mixed in) gave each bite a subtle sharpness... the smoked salt-onion strings added a touch of zing... the bacon lardons accentuated the already-savory bite and dialed up the meaty goodness even more... ohh, maaaaan, was I in heaven.

Some of the sauces that Umami Burger serves with all their stuff. From left to right: jalapeño ranch (which had a very mild kick to it), garlic aioli (with what I'd say to be the right amount of garlic), "Diablo sauce" (with habaneros a-plenty), and dijon mustard (which somehow tasted better than Grey Poupon). You think this all sounds good? Just keep reading...

Now, while the burger was amazing my taste buds, I need to tell you about the sauces. Dear Lord, the sauces. Accompanying our burgers was a little platelet of sauces in soup spoons. Each member of this quartet managed to keep the fries we ordered tasting amazing (sadly, fries are extra), and when we tried them with our burgers it seemed to bring out even more savoriness from the burger.

...because what you're going to learn about this ketchup will blow your mind.

HOWEVER! The one condiment provided to us oh-so-nonchalantly ended up being the best of all. We got a typical-looking red bottle and as we are in the Western world, we immediately identified it to be ketchup. However, when we had some with the fries... we were shocked. This wasn't your typical Heinz/Hunts/whatever crap-ass brand you use ketchup. No, no... this was much more. It had a savory, almost-hearty consistency to it, and after dipping our fries in it, we just had to have more. Dear God, they were even able to make the ketchup chock-full of umami!

I actually inquired about this ketchup, because I was pretty sure this wasn't ordinary ketchup. The waiter actually gave a smile as if to say, "You're not the only one to ask us this." He then proceeded to tell us that the ketchup (along with the other four sauces) was made in-house. The totally-superior red condiment was specially-made to provide and enhance any umami flavor, and was made using crushed garlic, soy, and mushrooms. MATRIX WHOA HERE. And here I was thinking "curry ketchup" was the most exotic the red sauce could ever get.

The Manly Burger is indeed manly. It somehow made me feel manly, and that's saying something.

Now, as our learning experience came to a close, I slowed down my eating - not because I was getting full (even though I was), but because I knew that with the last bite, my foodgasm would come to an end. It was a depressing thought that this moment of culinary bliss would end, but as I slowly chewed down the last of my burger, I knew one thing: I was so glad that I decided to go along with my friends here. Matter-of-fact, I think I got a bit more manlier by coming here. (Yes, the burger helped. Lots. Mmm.)

My burger came out to $11 before tax. Now, that may seem like it's a tad pricey for a burger (theme parks, I'm looking at you), but after you take a bite, you're not going to care - you'll sit there satisfied and thinking "That was so worth it." Indeed, many of the patrons I saw there would probably agree with this - I even saw some guys ordering multiple burgers because they were that good (in addition to being that hungry). I'd expect that kind of behavior over at a sushi bar, but for a burger place to be able to invoke a response like that in its customers? Geez, if you can't tell that the burgers are that good by that, then I'm not sure what else will convince you.





Now, I'm aware that some of you probably just skimmed this entry and only stopped to look at the pictures and maybe its alt-text (you lazy, unappreciative bastards), so to distastefully show my discontent (and to save you your "precious" time), here's a handy TL; DR:

HOLY. FRAK. Umami Burger is amazing and you should go try it if you haven't.

It's probably obvious that I dreamed about these burgers last night while I slept. It's also worth mentioned that I stayed up until 0300ish last night. Keep in mind that we finished our burgers at roughly 2045ish, and the more-important fact that I didn't feel hungry at all in-between those two moments of my night. Amazing.

Anyway, the moral of today's entry is this: go try Umami Burger. If you live in the 805 area (read: if you're local in relation to me), the closest location's going to be in Thousand Oaks next to the Civic Arts Plaza. If you're not in southern California and are probably going to visit the area sometime in the near future, this is definitely one burger place you need to try out.





Well, that about wraps it up for today's entry. It's a good thing I didn't type this up like I wanted to last night after leaving - I don't think it would've come out as coherent and as sensible as it did now. (Last night, I could've sworn that this could've looked like "ZOMG UMAMI UMAMI UMAMI BURGER FOODGASM BETTER THAN SEX" or something like that. Thank goodness I had enough alcohol decency to do otherwise.)

So, until the 'morrow, everyone! I hope you enjoyed this little delectable entry. I should know - if your mouth is watering at this point, then I know I've done my job in getting you to (want to) try Umami Burger. Take care, y'all!