June 2, 2007: Taiko and Yogurtland

Ray was craving sushi so we decided to go to Taiko in Irvine. Ray stopped by around 6:30 to put his name down on the list and was told that the wait was around 45 minutes. So he put his name down and left to come meet up with me.

Here's the sign at the entrance to Taiko. Sorry its a little dark.

It had been right around 45 minutes once we got back to Taiko and what do you know, that had actually already called our names! But, the let us know that we would be next and what do you know - in like two minutes, our name was called and we were led to a table in the back.
After looking over the longer sushi menu and the regular menu, we decided to start off with the sesame chicken appetizer (which is SO not an appetizer portion), get some fried calamari (one of my favorites!) and a variety of sushi.

Does this look like an appetizer portion of sesame chicken to you? =) What a fabulous deal!

Here's my favorite fried calamari. Crispy calamari on top a bed of cucumbers
with a light ponzu sauce. Yum!

Our order of a variety of sushi -

salmon, egg, yellowtail, sweet shrimp, california rolls and eel.

And here's the fried sweet shrimp head.
Taiko is the only place that I know of that does this!

We always like the sushi and other stuff at Taiko although we don't quite know why the line is always SO incredibly long. Maybe its because everything is good and pretty reasonably priced. Plus all of the portions are HUGE!


So, we left Taiko and were met with the sight of a brand new yogurt store next door. We peaked in and there was a HUGE line! We got in line and tried to figure out how this store works.
Its actually a pretty simple concept - its basically "Create your own yogurt." You first pick a container (plastic-smaller or styrofoam-bigger). Then you put as much frozen yogurt you want into your container - whats so exciting is the number of flavors! I think there were about 12 last night - strawberry, vanilla, mango, peach, blueberry, raspberry cheesecake, green tea, sugarless vanilla, chocolate.... i can't remember the others. And then you move over to the "toppings" area where you can choose your toppings. Here again, there are TONS of choices. Fresh strawberries, fresh mangos, fresh kiwi, black bean paste, mochi, chocolate, candy bars, cereals, etc etc!
Then you give your container with yogurt to the cashier, who weighs it and you pay. It is 30cents per ounce.

The store is bright and nicely decorated with glass partitions everywhere.
There's about maybe seats enough for maybe 30-40 people?

Here is our creation - mango, strawberry, raspberry cheesecake, blueberry
and chocolate yogurt on the bottom. Fresh strawberries and mangoes on the top!