A Farmer’s Market with a View – Shopping at Yamashiro Farmer’s Market

Nestled in the Hollywood Hills is Yamashiro Restaurant. Originally built as a Japanese style mansion in 1914 it has been a restaurant for thirty years (check out it’s history – pretty fascinating). Now, I’ve been wanting to try this place ever since I saw it on an episode of “Visiting…with Huell Howser.” Unfortunately, it’s a bit out of my price range.

Lucky for me then that Yamashiro hold’s a farmer’s market on it’s property. The market is held every Thursday from 5-9pm during the summer months (April-September). As soon as I heard about this, I knew I just had to check it out. So, last night I did just that.

Now, since Yamashiro is in a residential neighborhood in the hills parking is practically non existent. They do have valet parking on site that’s $10. Luckily, for a cheapskate like me there’s another option. You can park in the Mosaic Church parking lot on the corner of Hollywood and LaBrea and take a shuttle up to the market. The shuttle is provided by the restaurant and is the best way to go. It’s a mere five minute ride and the driver is super friendly. And it leaves you with an extra $10 to spend at the market!

Now the market itself is rather small but what it loses in quantity it makes up in quality. There are an array of produce vendors as well as purveyors of food products ranging from homemade apple cobbler to pickles. In addition there are a few food trucks and a booth run by the restaurant itself. Since I made sure to arrive hungry, I made a beeline to this booth. To me it was a no brainer – I’d been dying to try the restaurant and here was my chance to sample it at a price I could afford.

The Yamashiro booth and a crappy view of the market

The booth offers 4 varieties of tacos: short rib, duck, cod, and chicken – all with fancified toppings. I went for the duck confit with hoison and blood orange agave salsa. The taco was $5 and came with chips, wasabi guacamole and pickled peppers. They also had a variety of salsas available – ginger pico de gallo, chili salsa roja and tequila salsa verde. I, of course, tried all three.

You can barely see the salsa peeking out at the bottom

The taco was delectable. So, so tasty. If you like wasabi, you’ll love the guacamole. I don’t so I didn’t care for it. The pickled peppers tasted like the bread and butter pickles my grandma used to make with a bucket of fire thrown in. Since I’m a lightweight when it comes to heat, I couldn’t make it past the first bite. Tasty, but too hot for me. The salsas were awesome (with the exception of the pico de gallo which was ok). I was so sad when they were gone.

Now every good meal deserves a great dessert. There were plenty to choose from including homemade s’mores to make at your table. That sounded tempting but I just couldn’t avoid one of my favorite trucks – Coolhaus! Have you tried it? If not, I highly recommend it. What I love about the truck is they have cookies and they have ice cream. Choose one of each and there you go – your own custom ordered ice cream sandwich. Everything is homemade and delicioso. I hadn’t had it in forever and was so excited I could barely decide what flavor to get.  I went for nutella toasted almond ice cream in a s’mores cookie (guess I had s’mores on the brain). The sandwich is $5 but…

who said this was upside down? It’s totally not upside down.

It’s ginormous!!! I had to contemplate it for a few minutes to decide how to eat it. It clearly wasn’t going to fit in my mouth. I finally just dug in. Yummm. So tasty! So messy! But who cares cus it’s so damn good!

So there you have it, a delicious al fresco dinner for a portion of the cost of eating at the restaurant itself. Combine it with incredible views and you have one great dining experience. I can’t wait to go again!

Yamashiro Farmer’s Market
1999 North Sycamore Avenue
Los Angeles  90068
Thursdays 5-9, April – September
free shuttle parking at Mosaic Church on corner of Hollywood and LaBrea