The Park's Finest (Echo Park, LA, CA)

Located at:
1267 W Temple St
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Date of Visit: 10/3/13


     I live just a block away from this restaurant. I remember back when it was a Japanese restaurant named Matsu. Which i never got to try. Heck i didn't even know it was there. Then it became another Japanese restaurant called The Far East. It was borderline ok. Then that closed. Until one day i saw a banner that read The Park's Finest. I had no idea what that was until I got home and looked it up. Filipino BBQ! Boy was I ecstatic. But it took a while to open up. It may not have been that long but it seemed longer because i really wanted to try it and i was just too lazy to chase their food truck around. Then one day on my way home I saw people inside. Then some friends, my cousins and I made a long arduous block walk to this restaurant. When we got there the waitress told us they had a soft opening not long before. And that first trip just blew us away. Since then we tried going back but it was just packed. there hoards or people. So we just ordered take out. We just loved their food and couldn't seem to get enough of it. But as time went on our visits and patronage just began to dwindle and kinda just gave out. It was just mainly me who would still come here occasionally like every 3 months or so. But i'll get to the reasons why later. But for now i'll just focus on this visit.

      This place can be easy to miss. Especially since they don't have a prominent display of the restaurants name over the actual restaurant. Or at least they use to. But the sun did beat down on his rather harshly and washed out a lot of the color. So I hope another one is in the works. 

     Once inside me and friend were told that it was a seat yourself situation. Which I always loved. But i have a feeling that the whole seat yourself situation goes out the window when there is a ton of people here. And there has been a influx since Diners, Drive-ins & Dives covered them in an episode.  The waitress was really nice and attentive. She got our drink orders swiftly, made sure our drinks were full and made us feel like she didn't forget about us. So kudos!   
      Then our food flew out of the kitchen rather quickly I'd say it only took like about 5 minutes. 
    

      Beef Shortrib. "a smoked, seasoned, meaty beef rib paired with our own cream horseradish sauce." There is a wow factor that goes with this dish. And that its huge! Don't let the picture fool you. These suckers are a lot bigger in person. Whenever I tell tales of these ribs I'd compare it to the Flintstones rack of ribs in the intro. Aside from the wow factor though these bad boys are a bit... lacking. The flavors are very subtle so i can't call it bland. But i give it props for not drenching it in BBQ sauce like the other places however the flavors do need to be kicked up a notch. Texturally, it was a bit tough. It wasn't one of those "fall off the bone" situations. I wanted to try a piece of it and it took a while for me to hack off a piece of it. But it was still alright. And on the plus side you could always just save those bones for your dogs! :D

      Beef Tri-Tip. "tender season-crusted sirloin beef, cut deli thing and paired with home made horseradish sauce." I've ordered this dish time and time again. But this time the meat tasted rather bland. And it was on the dry and overdone side. I had to use a lot of the horseradish and their BBQ sauce to give it some flavor. Shame.

      Ann's Cornbread BiBingka. "a special take on cornbread - cornmeal is combined with rice flour, baked on a banana leaf bringing elements of a traditional Filipino dessert." Hands down all time favorite. I could just eat multiple orders of these things and be perfectly happy. They're incredibly moist and full of flavor. They're more on the sweet side and i love it. A must try.
     So after many visits and takeouts for over a year and a half period i would use the word "inconsistent" to describe this place. The temperature of the meat seems to be the luck of the draw and same goes for their portions. My first visit my tri-tip was cooked a PERFECT medium. Still pink and moist with a very good portion and you could really taste the rub they used. Which is night and day compared to my last visit and a few visits in between recently. Seems like they're dropping the ball a bit. And not to mention that their prices has gone way up compared to what they were. Though i understand you could raise your prices when you're becoming more popular or just to cover the cost of maintaining a more popular establishment. But as long as the quality could match the prices. In this case it didn't. And it's one of the main reasons why my cousins and some friends stopped coming back. They're just happy they got to try it and remember it for their earlier stage. Me? I may just drop in to pick up a couple batches of cornbread. Other than that... I'm rather 50/50 about this place because its served up some of the best and the most disappointing meats...