I'm at MANPUKU, BITCH!

look out weekend 'coz here i come... the weekend came... i attempted to conquer... and utterly failed. but i had fun doing it.  part 1...

we kicked off the weekend friday night with dinner in the oc with eric & jane... two people we don't get to see enough... so this was a real treat! =)  we initially attempted to introduce eric to anjin, but the wait was 2 hours. that wouldn't give us enough time to enjoy the food and make it to his hotel to freshen up and to the club. we ditched our place in line and headed over to california shabu shabu... the wait was just as long. ugh. we were running out of time and our stomachs were running low on energy... we turned to yelp!

yelp! showed us the way to manpuku, japanese BBQ.

with 4 stars based on over 100+ reviews, we had to give it a shot... and not to mention, they were seating immediately!

to avoid any further delay, we opted for the party course for 4 for $100.  it included everything you see here.  food came out all at once and were quite overwhelmed with where to start.  i really enjoyed the yukkejan soup... it's like a spicy beef stew.  the only downside to the evening was our grill was turned on 'you like it well-charred, right?' high and the first batch of meat cuts, rib eye steak, was cooked too well done and kinda chewy.  oh well, one out of a dozen other plates gone wrong isn't so bad.  the pork short rib was delicious with the lettuce wraps and the salted prime short rib just melts in your mouth.  by the time we finished the salad, soup, rice, pork short rib lettuce wraps, and salted prime rib, we were about to throw in the towel until we looked up and remember we still had a whole plate of assorted meats and another plate of scallops & shrimp!!  time to move a notch on the belt and prep for another round.

we. were. stuft.  aside from good food, it was definite good company.  mike and i rarely go out to dinners with friends since most of his close friends either live up north or are unable to meet up due to scheduling conflicts and most of my friends live an hour away and now have kids to look after.  it was especially a real treat to be able to catch up with both jane and eric considering how rare it is we're free at the same time. thanks eric & jane for meeting up!  definitely will not be the last time we eat at (in eric's words) MANPUKU, BITCH! =)

 

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