L. A. Food Crazy

Chili Dog Smackdown Part II

2011-10-06T16:08:00.000-07:00

At the end of my recent post on L.A. chili dogs, I asked you, my readers, if I'd left any of your faves off the list. Thanks to responses on Facebook and Chowhound (no one comments on actual blog posts anymore!), I was forced out of journalistic duty, to try all of your recommendations. Here's the roundup of other places I visited, and my final rankings. Will Carney's reign supreme?

Original Tommy's
2575 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90057
(213) 389-1682
www.originaltommys.com
Yelp It

And by Original, I don't mean any old shack that claims to be an Original Tommy's, even if it is part of the same chain; I mean the one and only original location of the Original Tommy's, on First and Rampart, in the no-man's land between Silver Lake and downtown. I've had a few dozen burgers here in my time, but it had never occurred to me to try their chili dog (in fact I don't think I knew they made one), recommended on Chowhound by malibumike.

Now I have. It's... fine. The chili is Tommy's: say no more. They make the perfect chili for dogs and burgers, dense but still fluid, full of all those secret savory spices that are a chili-maker's heart and soul. Simply delish. As for the rest of the dog, it didn't quite carry its weight. It's possibly the largest, messiest of the dogs I tasted. While it was flavorful, it was a little bit on the tough side, without being snappy. In a dog, one wants the resistance on the outside, tender juiciness in the middle. This was curiously reversed on my Tommy's dog (sounds weird, saying that!) Also the bun was a little stale... as if it had been sitting in the sun behind the streetside shack... oh wait, it probably had been. A possible disadvantage to the "original" location, or at least of the streetside service area as opposed to separate one set back from the street.

Cupid's Hot Dogs
9039 Lindley Ave
Northridge, CA 91325
Yelp It

This was by far the most-recommended other dog, and with good reason. I was told to go to the original branch across from the entrance to Cal State Northridge. On approach, I was immediately comforted that they make hot dogs, and nothing but hot dogs. This is the entire menu:

Hot Dogs - 2.50
Cheese - 0.25
Everything is - Mustard, Onions & Chili
Upon Request - Ketchup, Relish, Cheese

Chips - 0.75

Drinks
Small - 1.00, Medium - 1.25, Large - 1.50
Refills - 0.50
Bottled Water - 1.00
Milk - 0.75
Instant Coffee - 0.40
Hot Tea - 0.40

***Tax Included On All Items***

I love that when Cupid's makes you "One with everything," it's just the way I like it: mustard, onions, chili.

This is bare bones doggery, man. No indoor seating; three outdoor picnic tables. And it's an excellent chili dog. If I lived in the northeast reaches of the Valley, it would be my go-to. Cupid's chili is unique in this group. I'm no expert on chili, but this one is more of a fluorescent orange color than a brick red. My guess is it's greasier. It's also got more of tang; perhaps the presence of more tomato in the sauce? And although there isn't a lot of beef in it, it's what I consider a delightful texture: creamy. Mind you, this isn't the type of meat-forward chili you'd want to eat a bowl of; it's strictly a hot dog topping. The dog itself was good, but (especially after Tommy's" it seemed a little small; you'd definitely want two to make a meal here, where I'm usually good with one. The bun was steamed to perfection.

Skooby's
6654 Hollywood Blvd

Hollywood, CA 90028

(323) 468-3647

www.skoobys.com

Yelp It

This is also a dogs-only joint, a couple of years old, on Hollywood Blvd. It's a hipster/retro version of the Cupid's vibe. Which is fine.

What's unique and delicious about Skooby's is their buns: more a French sandwich roll than a bun, nicely steamed to a chewy but not difficult texture. The dog is snappy, tasty, but unfortunately, the chili here isn't in the same league as the others on this quest. It's bland and watery.

Papaya King
1645 Wilcox Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90028
Neighborhood: Hollywood
(323) 871-8799
www.papayaking.com
Yelp It

The new kid on the block in Hollywood, and the current "it" dog. A New York institution, but I gather it's more because of their papaya drinks and shakes (I tried one, too sweet for me!) than their dogs.

Their chili dog (by far the smallest of the group) is okay, flavorwise, but somehow it doesn't have the left coast balls to the wall panache that homegrown chili dogs do; chili is not, after all, a New York calling card. This pup just doesn't stand out against the rest of the group here. I plan to come back, though, and try a New York style dog along the lines of the ones to be found at the original Nathan's on Coney Island, with those orangey grilled onions. (Perhaps the next quest...after my triglyceride levels have recovered from this one.)

Fab Hot Dogs
Loehmann's Plaza
19417 1/2 Victory Blvd
Reseda, CA 91335
(818) 344-4336
www.fabhotdogs.com

This place makes a big to-do about hot dogs, with a vast menu of replications of regional hot dog types and toppings. As I say in my reviews, I don't post negative reviews, but I thought readers would like to know that I did order a dog here. Suffice to say I didn't finish it.

And finally, after all this tasting, I went back to Carney's on Sunset Strip, just to make sure. Yeah, I'm sure.

My final rankings in the great Chili Dog Smackdown of 2011:

1. Carney's
2. Cupid's
3. Pink's
4. Coney Dog
5. Original Tommy's
6. Papaya King
7. Skooby's
8. Fab Hot Dogs

Asian Invasion - Ikemen Dip Noodle and Soy Sauce Roll and Bowl

2011-09-15T16:06:00.000-07:00

I'm all a-twitter and a-flutter. I love Little Tokyo, to the point that I actually look forward to jury duty because it means I'll get to eat my fill of ramen at Daikokuya and donburi at T.O.T. Between rounds of public service, I make pilgrimages downtown, just to get out of the culinary wasteland that is central Hollywood and into some good Japanese food.

The options for a quick meal in walking distance of my house have been pretty grim: the big chains and awful pizza joints on Hollywood Boulevard; fair to middlin' Thai food; strip mall Hawaiian BBQ; El Pollo Loco. It's telling that even this Food Crazy, on those nights when my Better Palate is at an exercise class or whatever and I can indulge in take-out for one, usually settles for solid but unexceptional Singapore style Chinese from Le Mandarette.

But all that has suddenly changed, with the opening in the last two weeks of two genuine, delicious, Japanese holes-in-the-wall that would be worthy of Little Tokyo, right here in Hollywood. Did I mention I'm a-flutter?

Soy Sauce Roll & Bowl
www.soysaucebowl.com
7131B W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 876-7000
Yelp Info

I know, I know, it's an awful name for excellent and authentic Japanese lunch counter food. LA. Eater noted its opening with understandable lack of enthusiasm a couple of weeks ago. But then I received a menu in my mailbox, and I was mightily intrigued by the photos. Nearly half of the menu is a variety of donburi bowls (protein and vegetables over rice): spicy scallop, baked lobster, eel/avocado, spicy seared albacore, chicken katsu, Japanese curry. There are also izakaya-style skewers, miniscule but delicious tastes of things like grilled pork belly, baby octopus, and quail egg at miniscule prices ($1.95 for three bites of pork belly). True, there are also the ubiquitous "special rolls" with names like "Super Crunch" and "Japanese Burrito." Bot don't let the questionable nomenclature fool you. This is real Japanese/Asian Fusion food, made and served by Japanese people. And the quality of what I've ordered has been excellent.

The Spicy Scallop bowl ($7.50) comes not with the generic American broccoli and carrots pictured on the menu but a delightful salad of fresh greens; the bay scallops are plentiful and indeed very spicy, and made sans mayonnaise, with just a chili oil sauce. The bright red pickled ginger adds snap and color to the bowl.

Rainbow Bowl

The Chirashi ($8.50) features generous portions of fresh, tender fish -- yellowtail, salmon (raw, thank you!), tuna, albacore, and shrimp. The "Bake Lobster" ($7.50), is the dish that brings the mayo. If it's lobster, they're they're tiniest tails I've ever seen (think crawfish), but the creamy bake is rich and satisfying. One or two caveats: the "crab" in the Crab Bowl and Rainbow Bowls (pictured above... a chirashi with avocado and crab salad added) is actually Krab. And the fried "popcorn" scallops, by the time they're delivered to our door, are a bit rubbery.

But wait -- they deliver?! Oh, yes, my friends, they freakin' deliver. Promptly and courteously. When one of my orders arrives missing a baked lobster bowl, Brian (the chef? owner?) returns almost immediately with the AWOL bowl, but also three miso soups, a giant order of edamame, and a voucher for another lobster bowl next time I order. That will, I assure you, be very, very soon. Note that the "dining room" of the place is tiny, although clean and stylish in modern Japanese lunch counter style: three small tables and counter space for maybe a dozen. The staff is almost impossibly friendly and enthusiastic. I have yet to work through the menu to decide if the food is better than the comparable T.O.T on 2nd Street in Little Tokyo; but that I even am considering such a question, regarding a place in what we call "the Pollo Loco mall" makes it a great day in Hollywood.

And then, just a long stone's throw away, there's:

Ikemen Dip Noodle
1655 N La Brea Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 800-7669
www.ikemenhollywood.com

CASH ONLY

Yelp Info

In the same parking-challenged strip mall that houses our go-to takeout pizza (Raffallo's) and aforesaid go-to Chinese takeout, Ikemen quietly appeared in a soft opening a couple of weeks ago. The space formerly occupied by Casablanca (which was once our go-to Mexican but has for years been sad and inedible) is now home to a tiny, ultra-hip noodle counter serving black-belt ramen from a genuine celebrity Ramen Master. This little bit of Tampopo three blocks from Hooters and the Hard Rock is so wonderful and unlikely. This place couldn't be more Japanese-cool, from the "Urban Youth Smoking" art to the Louis IVX chandelier to the black painted tile to the chef and wait-staff wearing red or pink straw pork-pie hats. And the ramen might be the best I've had in L.A.

The "dip ramen" ($9.00) consists of thick, gloriously chewy noodles served cold, soba-style, with either chashupork tonkotsu (pictured below ) or grilled chicken on top and a bowl of richly seasoned hot broth, into which you dip the noodles bite by bite.

Zebra Dip with Chashu Pork and Onsen Tamago

The broth comes in four styles, from the garlicky "Zebra" to the heavily fish-powdered "Ikemen." My waiter recommends adding a "topping" of "Onsen Tamago," ($1.00) a perfectly poached egg, to my Zebra noodles. He's right... stirring the egg yolk into the noodles gives it a carbonara-like flavor and texture. This could be my new favorite dish within a three mile radius of my house.

The "Genuine Ramen," ($8.00) a manageable list of four varieties, is a classic thin rice noodle soup which I ordered with tomatoes (cherry tomatoes, to be exact, which were farmers market fresh and flavorful ). This is the real deal.

Genuine Tomato Ramen

The broth (a light chicken broth, not the heavy miso or salty soy sauce versions of ramen I'm most familiar with) is subtle and flavorful. The noodles are divine, and no wonder; Ikemen's "Ramen Master" (yep, that's what his business card says) is Sean Nakamura, who is currently in New York opening a Ramen Lab, teaching other chefs his mad noodling skillz. You can read about the rather baroque relationship between owner, chef and general manager, and their Japanese-cum-Torrance-cum-Beverly Hills foodie cred in an LA Weekly piece here. Again, I have yet to work my way through their menu, which promises other delights like grilled chicken and teriyaki pork sliders. But the lunch (or late night!) counter landscape is suddenly, and I hope permanently, altered in my 'hood.

Arigato!

Chili Dog Smackdown - Pink's vs. Carneys vs. Coney Dog

2011-09-01T15:11:00.000-07:00

For most of my formative years, the closest restaurant to me was an Orange Julius. My go-to item on their menu (Julius itself aside), was what. at the time. they called a California Dog. That would be a chili cheese dog to you and me. These days I'm more likely to dog it sans fromage, but I often get the hankering. Sometimes I make 'em at home. But sometimes, you gotta hit up a stand, and living in Hollywood, I have serious options.

Recently, two different friends from Detroit raved about the recently opened Coney Dog on Sunset Strip. Both told me that for lovers of chili dogs, it's the be-all and end-all. So, in honor of the upcoming Labor Day weekend, I set out with my Better Palate, Sa, and taste-tested three versions of the most American of all snack foods in the space of two hours: Coney Dog, Carneys and Pink's. The ultimate chili dog smackdown.

CONEY DOG
8873 Sunset Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Neighborhood: West Hollywood
(310) 854-1172
www.coneydogla.com
Yelp Info

My Detroit friends tell me that the Motor City -- not, ironically, from New York's Coney Island -- is where a true Coney Dog comes from. If Wikipedia is to be trusted on this, they are correct. There are two competing joints, originally operated by two Greek brothers and still family-run, next door to each other: Lafayette Coney Island and American Coney Island.

The two have engendered a rivalry that makes the Hatfields and McCoys look like the Brady Bunch. A Detroiter is born with a genetic allegiance to one or the other, and the fan of one never sets foot in the other, on pain of disinheritance. Both of my friends are Lafayette men (although American won a recent blind taste-off on Travel Channel's Food Wars), and they were over the moon when Coney Dog opened. It's owned by an ex-Detroiter who recreated Lafayette's look and feel, right down to the hexagonal off-white floor tile. Ingredients are shipped from Detroit for authenticity.

The service here is super-friendly; the menu is simple and to the point. Hot dogs. A "loose burger," which is actually a hot dog with ground beef in place of a frankfurter. And there is at least one ode to the L.A. location -- a bacon-wrapped L.A. Street Dog But I'm here for the real Detroit-style Coney Dog, or, as I'm told it's ordered in Detroit, simply a "Coney." A chili dog with onions and mustard ($3.95, but two-for one during their weekday happy hour).

I like that.

The bun is steamed and soft without being squishy. The sausage itself is casing-on, as all great dogs must be. This one is a blend of beef and pork, and it's tasty. This contest, I know, will be largely about "snap," the level of fight-back the casing provides when biting in. On the Coney Dog, it's considerable, and the dog itself is not-unpleasantly chewy; one fears there might be a structural integrity issue, but there is not. It;s possible to get through one without getting mustard and chili stains on your shirt.

Then there is the chili. It's rich, savory, just the right thickness to provide creaminess without falling off the dog. But I immediately notice a slightly sour note to it. It is my Better Palate who wrinkles her nose and says, simply, "I don't like the chili. It tastes like chicken liver or something." A little research back at home reveals that she was in the right organ-meat ballpark (no Dodger Dog jokes, please). One of the "secret" ingredients to Lafayette's chili, and presumably to Coney Dog's, is beef heart. Now, don't let that put you off. If you're eating a hot dog out in the world, you're already eating internal organs you'd rather not think about. But it does impart a very particular savoriness to the dog.

PINK'S
709 N La Brea Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90038
Neighborhood: West Hollywood
(323) 931-4223
www.pinkshollywood.com
Yelp Info

Love it or hate it, ya gotta love Pink's. Personally I love it, but the line, right? I usually go once or twice a year. Once, when I happen to drive by and the line looks less than 15 minutes. Once, when I visit the County Fair, where there are multiple Pink's outlets and you can step right up and get a dog. (incidentally, I posted about Fair food here. ) Today, I braved a fairly standard lunchtime line (25 minutes), just for the edification of you, my reader. You're welcome.

The frankfurter here, famously made "especially for Pink's" is Hoffy, all-beef, casing on. The bun is fractionally -- fractionally -- more firm than the one at Coney Dog. The chili dog ($3.45) is also fractionally more toothsome (a word that I use, incorrectly, as a synonym for "chewy'" I'm a novelist so I'm allowed): getting through the bottom casing without pulling out the dog or some chili is a challenge. Unlike Coney Dog, the mustard at Pink's is applied beneath the chili, which I find less pleasing aesthetically.

The dog is delicious -- I have decided I prefer all-beef. The chili is definitive: perfectly creamy, perfectly spicy, perfectly salty. I have noticed something while waiting in line with my camera. The stand is decorated with pictures of the stand in past days. The one from 1946 has a prominently displayed neon announcing that they use "XLNT Tamales and Chili."

RU kidding?!? I have loved XLNT Tamales since I was a teen with the munchies -- and both they and their chili are available by the brick in Southern California supermarkets. I asked the manager if Pink's still uses the same brand, and she told me "yes." With all the discussion about the Pink's chili recipe, it's been right there in your grocer's freezer all along, the bastard! (Although One Guy On the Internet says that Pink's adds water, flour, and beaten egg to the brick starter, so it must be true.)

Yes, this a fine and noble chili dog indeed.

CARNEYS
8351 W Sunset Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Neighborhood: West Hollywood
(323) 654-8300
www.carneytrain.com (currently down)
Yelp Info

Carneys on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood is where I generally go when I crave a simple chili dog with a snap. I love the Southern Pacific Railroad car ambiance, the view of the Strip, the easy, free parking (I should note that Coney Dog has free parking too, on the roof). I've always considered Carney's a reasonable, no-hassle alternative to Pink's. Unlike Pink's, with its chaotic one-person-handles-your-order-from-beginning-to-cashier workflow, Carneys' dog is in front of you practically before you order it. The guy behind the counter is invariably efficient, seemingly gruff, but then personable and funny. (When the Better Palate calls me "Honey," which I hate (in public), he asks what my last name is. He laughs when I respond "Bear. Or sometimes Pie.") We are sitting and eating within three minutes of walking in the door, having ordered the Carneys Dog without its Chicago-dog style sliced tomatoes: our benchmark chili-onion-mustard dog.

The bun is exactly the consistency of Coney Dog's: steamed soft, but with reliable integrity. Like Pink's, the mustard is applied before the chili. But the all-beef dog's snap is just right, popping juicily but not interfering with the bite; it's plump, slightly charred at the very tip, and delicious. The chili tastes a lot like Pink's; I'd be interested to do an actual side-by-side to see if, perhaps, they are the very same. This dog sings four-part harmony; bun, chili, mustard and onions are a perfectly composed quartet; the whole merges gracefully into a sum greater than its parts, and its parts are damn good. My Better Palate and I polish one off; I'm ready for more.

CONCLUSION

When I expressed fondness for both Pink's and Carneys to my Detroiter friend Danny over our Coneys, he nodded vigorously (Danny does everything vigorously) and said, "I'd eat any of those dogs!" He's right. They're all great. (Alas, I'll never be able to test these three side-by-side with a dog from the original Nathan's on Coney Island, which is certainly great.) And frankly (ha!), very little separates the competitors. It's just a freakin' chili dog, after all. But Sa and I agreed: for the simple chili dog, Carneys comes out on top. Still, I won't hesitate to chow down at Pink's when the line is reasonable. And if listening to the excited, anticipatory chatter of tourists while contemplating an endless variety of kinky dogs (most recently, the "L.A. Philharmonic Conductor Gustavo Dudamel Dog," a nine inch hot dog, guacamole, American and Swiss cheese, fajita-grilled onions and tomatoes, jalapeno slices, topped with tortilla chips) and maybe mugging for the camera in a Good Day L.A. shoot is what you're in the mood for... well, ya gotta love Pink's.

Wherever you choose to eat a dog, why not do so this holiday weekend? Raise one to the American worker, and remember that Labor Day comes from a time that unashamedly celebrated, rather than demonized, the collective strength of our workforce.

Posts like this always generate "Why didn't you include..." comments, so bring 'em on. Cupid's? Skooby's? Tommy's? Let me know.

Not Just For Thanksgiving - Turkey

2011-08-04T15:03:00.000-07:00

In lieu of a post about local food today, I'm sharing a link to a half-hour video I just posted to Vimeo of our trip last fall to Paris, Istanbul, and various sites around Turkey. It being me on the trip, there are plenty of yummy food shots. Anthony Bourdain's favorite purveyor of durum (think Turkish burrito) hole in the wall (if you look closely, there's a photo of him with the owner in behind the picture of Sa and me dining on the sidewalk). There's an array of Turkish mezes. There's a lovely fresh fish sandwich, served from a rocking boat on the Mediterranean. There's a breast of canard confit at a Paris brasserie. And that's a crepe that Sa's chowing down on in front of the Moulin Rouge. All you food crazies should know: Turkish food is utterly awesome.

Do expand to full screen if you wish. It's uploaded in splendid 1080p HD video. Hope you enjoy!

Jess and Sa Winfield in France, Istanbul, and Cappadocia from Jess Winfield on Vimeo.

Yes, It Rhymes With Mex - TAIX French Restaurant

2011-07-28T12:55:00.000-07:00

TAIX French Restaurant
1911 Sunset Blvd.,
Los Angeles, CA 90026
213.484.1265
Info on Yelp

You've driven past it a million times, on your way downtown or to Dodger Stadium or to your hipster friends' houses in Echo Park and Silver Lake. It looks like one of those old school L.A. restaurants that's been there for so long, unchanging, that that can't possibly be any good. You know the type: Little Joe's Italian restaurant still hunkered down in the middle of Chinatown (terrible!); The Buggy Whip on the way to LAX; the Smokehouse.

Taix French Restaurant shares a period-LA vibe and catacomb-y, sprawling design with those places, and I confess it made me afraid to eat there. I generally avoid restaurants that take up an entire city block. But after finally, trepidatiously going to check it out about a year ago, I've been a dozen times since and it's become one of my favorite restaurants, full stop.

Pulling up to the valet under the Smokehouse-like covered motor court ($2.50 charge - a sign of good value to come) you realize you can be nowhere but Los Angeles. The wide entryway features Flintstones-scale brick pillars -- one can imagine Fred pulling up and ordering a car-tilting sized side of Boeuf -- as accent to the Tudor building that is the home to "French Country Cuisine." You're not surprised to learn that although the restaurant has been in operation as a strictly family enterprise since 1927, the current location opened right in the Flintstones wheelhouse: 1962. Entering through heavy wood and wrought-iron doors, you ambulate down a long flagstone hallway past the restaurant's 321 Lounge, which is worthy of another post all its own. Suffice to say it's a comfy, intimate space voted "Best Free Music Venue" by the LA Weekly), with a spectacular long bar that pours long drinks and serves the restaurant's full menu.

A pleasant if comfortingly aloof maitre'd' takes you to the main dining room, which is a pastiche of a tourist's imagination of a high-end French restaurant. Gold and black marble-glass walls, baroque chandeliers, Art-Nouveau etched glass; it's a tour of styles from Belle Epoque to Art Deco that somehow manages to hang together... just barely. Every table in the main room is a comfy booth. Another plus.

But the food and drink are where Taix shines. Their dinner menu (they also have lunch, late-night (service in the bar 'til 1:00am weekends) and even children's menus) strives for, and achieves, classic French country cuisine with none of the attitude, obfuscation, or overcharging of most French restaurants. Cocktails are expertly made, generously poured, and reasonably priced. Appetizers run the socio-economic gamut. If you're feeling peasant-y there's a simple, tangy Ratatouille ($5.50) and a classic Gratinée a l’Oignon (French Onion Soup) ($6.95). If you're feeling bourgeois, there are two kinds of Moules Frites (steamed mussels), a classic white wine "Moules Mariniére" and a Moules Maison, featuring leeks, both of which are bread-soppingly tasty. If you'd prefer to let them eat cake while you pop escargots, Taix's snails are imported from Bourgogne ($16.95) And if you're feeling ugly American, there's an $8.95 Macaroni Gratin that is plain ol' mac and cheese, an entree-sized portion, that's become one of my favorites in town.

The dinner entree menu is a tour of delights. The Poulet Rôti au Jus (roasted half chicken, $13.95) is the best I've had in any restaurant anywhere. The Côte de Porc Grillé (Grilled pork chop with port wine and caramelized onions, $19.95) is tender, perfectly cooked, the onions an ideal complement. Plat de Côte de Boeuf Braisé (Braised short ribs in an exquisitely dark, reduced Cabernet sauce on garlic mashed potatoes) is heavenly and rich in the best French style. Trout almandine, rack of lamb, skirt steak... all have been yummed over by dining companions over several visits. On my last trip, on the waiter's recommendation, I had the Tagliatelles Aux Fruits de Mer ($19.95) a simple pasta with seafood, cream, and white wine that was simply splendid, despite its Italian roots. As you can see, the prices are ridiculously reasonable for Los Angeles. Most entrees are under $20.00, none is over $30.00, and, especially if you treat yourself to an appetizer or two, the portions are plenty. (although $4.00 extra gets you soup du jour and your choice of salad).

Also of note are the rotating "Cuisine Grand-mére" (Grandma's Cooking) specials. I've been back several times to get Thursday's heavenly Lapin a la Dijonnaise, a braised half rabbit with mushrooms, pearl onions and mustard sauce, and have in fact launched a personal campaign to eat more rabbit. So good. Tuesday's Braised Oxtail and Saturday's Duck a l'Orange are also exceptional. Basically, everything is good at Taix; I've yet to be disappointed with any dish I've ordered there. And the wine list is terrific, an array of both French and California wines, with loads in the $20-30 range (also lots of half-bottles, which is nice), and helpful and knowledgable waiters to help you choose one.

And yes, ladies, there is Mousse au Chocolate and Crème Brûlée to be had for dessert.

[Alas, my trusty point and shoot Canon Powershot 450 finally died while writing this, and I have no photos of the food. But somehow that seems right... firing flash photos against such tasty, classy dishes seems wrong, somehow. I'll try to fill in next time I go. In the meantime, there are some swell photos of a lamb chop and a review on the LAIST website.]

I never post bad reviews, and I don't generally give star ratings because of the difficulty of balancing quality and value. But Taix gets my strongest recommendation: a true LA institution serving outstanding food with excellent service and fun ambience at reasonable prices. It's my kind of place. And just today, as I was prepping this post, I received an e-mail that it was voted "Best French Restaurant" in an LA Times Readers Choice poll. Clearly, you should go dine there.

Bânh Mi? Bânh You! - Jenny Mai Fast Food

2011-07-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

Jenny Mai Fast Food

424 W. College Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90112
(213) 617-7638
CASH ONLY

Info on Yelp

[Note: this post has been edited to update the restaurant's name following a change of ownership.]

Between our matinee subscription series at Disney Hall, Sa's garment district shopping needs, and the seeming endless cycle of jury duty, we find ourselves downtown at lunchtime a lot. Lucky for us, this means FOOD. Of course, within ten minutes of the Civic Center there are loads of options, from the delights of Little Tokyo to the dim sum and seafood palaces of Chinatown. But you don't always have time for a full sit-down meal at lunchtime. One of our go-to tos for a quick grab and go is a handful basketful of taquitos from Olvera Street, which I discuss here. But lately we've been availing ourselves of the splendid and little known (outside the foodie community) Vietnamese sandwich they call bânh mi. Bânh mi literally means "flour roll" in Vietnamese: it's a baguette. You wonder why a baguette is an authentic Vietnamese culinary item, but as soon as you ask out loud, you'll remember that the French were colonizing Vietnam as early as 1850, and some elements of French cooking entered their cuisine.

So, a bânh mi is simply a sandwich made with Vietnamese ingredients on a light baguette. The ingredients are as variable as any sandwich, but you'll find a few common items: a choice of protein (maybe bbq pork, pork skin, chicken, ham, tofu, or more exotic stuff like head cheese); usually mayonnaise, sometimes with garlic; a slaw made of pickled daikon, shredded carrots and fish sauce; and cilantro, jalapeños, or cucumbers. Many of the "special" bânh mi combination sandwiches -- think Italian sub -- also come with a light smear of pate at the base of it all.

Yes, it's as delicious as it sounds, and surprisingly light. The bread is airy thanks to a high rice flour-to-wheat flour ratio, but still pleasantly chewy. My favorite bânh mi, the bbq pork with pate combo, is rich and savory at its heart, but lightened and brightened by the sweetness of the carrots, the tanginess of the pickled daikon, and the zip added by the cilantro. The sandwiches are nearly footlong, but it's entirely possible to eat the whole thing without feeling overfed. You'll see bânh mi offered at many Vietnamese and Vietnamese owned Chinese restaurants and delis in Chinatown; there are no doubt serviceable ones scattered throughout L.A. I find myself on La Cienega Blvd. quite often and have sampled a couple at Absolutely Phobolous. But our favorite sandwiches are at Jenny Mai's Fast Food (until recently Rainbow Bakery; ownership has changed but staff, menu, and prices remain the same) located in an alley-like strip mall that, unusually for Chinatown, actually offers free parking with validation.

Order your sandwich at the brightly neon-lit counter from the numerous pictures on the wall, and the freshly made bread is toasted for you, the sandwich assembled to order. Eat at one of the small tables or, as we usually do, take it over to the lovely garden outside Disney Concert Hall for a picnic.

The other excellent news is that bânh mi are generally inexpensive: Jenny Mai''s are a measly $2.95.

The lasting influence of French colonization and American war in Vietnam is one for historians to debate. But at least all of that misery and death had one pleasant result: it led directly to the multicultural culinary phenomenon of expatriates bringing tasty, tasty bânh mi to Southern California.

La Golondrina

2010-06-05T11:18:00.000-07:00

At the risk of turning my blog into a tweet fest, I thought my readers might be interested in this Patt Morrison interview with the owner of Olvera Street institution (and one of my favorite old-school Mexican restaurants), La Golondrina. Her ideas for giving the street a shot in the arm are excellent and necessary. Go buy a margarita and some taquitos to support her"

Good F&ckin' Tacos -- Pinches

2010-05-20T11:25:00.000-07:00

Pinches Tacos‎

8200 West Sunset Boulevard

West Hollywood, CA 90046-2414

(323) 650-0614

pinchestacos.com‎

Google Info

Open seven days. MC/Visa/AMEX. Free parking.

For much of my life, the corner of Sunset Blvd. and Havenhurst, just west of Crescent Heights was one of my favorite corners in Los Angeles. As a twentysomething cartoon geek, I'd make occasional pilgrimages there to visit the Dudley Do-Right Emporium, the only place (back in the pre-Internet era) where you could buy officially licensed Jay Ward merchandise. I'd load up on Mr. Peabody figurines and George of the Jungle t-shirts and worship the iconic statue of Rocky and Bullwinkle outside the doors..

Alas, the Emporium closed permanently in 2004 (though the statue blissfully remains), but I'm going back to that corner regularly again. Not to see and be seen at Bar Marmont across the street. I'm there for the stellar Mexican food at Pinches Tacos.

There is so much to love about Pinches. First there's the name. If you don't even speak that much street Spanish, well... you need to get out more, but it's translated in the title of this post. Suffice to say goes well with puta and cabron. Beyond the name, there's the pleasant corner location, where you can sit on the shady sidewalk patio and watch entourage-laden Escalades and Range Rovers pull up to the Chateau Marmont. And there's the fact that this tiny establishment offers... wait for it... free pinche parking! On the Sunset Strip, this is pinche rare and pinche awesome. Pinches is open til midnight, but stretches out to 3:00am Thursday-Saturday, for those late night post-club burrito needs.

The interior is perfect for a taco stand, and surprisingly down to earth for such a high rent location. Except for the Dayglo pink exterior with the bright blue neon sign on the side, it feels like any friendly neighborhood taqueria. Sombreros and the usual pictures of Mexican revolutionaries, artists and chanteuses adorn the walls. The menu is written on a white eraserboard, and features a deceptively simple array of tacos, burritos, tortas, sopes and enchiladas.

The food is perhaps best described as a meeting point between the Yucatecan stylings of the hip but overrated Lotería restaurants (at Farmer's Market, on Hollywood Blvd. and in Studio City) and your local taqueria. The servings at Pinches are larger, the offerings more kitchen-sink; my wife often complains that Lotería doesn't put enough "stuff" on their tacos and burritos. At Pinches, burritos ($7.50-8.95) come with the works: beans, rice, guacamole, onions, cilantro and salsa. Tacos ($2.00-2.95) come with whatever the chef thinks belongs on that taco. No overachieving salsa bar here: they give you what's good for the goose, not the gander.

Al pastor -- though a little dry for my taste; those who prefer a gooier, sweeter pork will want to go for the excellent marinated pork adobado -- comes with a sweetish red. The delicious Angus beef grilled carne asada comes with onions, cilantro and a fiery roasted salsa verde. The Veracruz style pescado comes with a well-matched slaw and an medium-spicy roja that adds a little heat without overwhelming the delicate fish flavor.

Ingredients are excellent and carefully prepared. The guacamole is tangy, chunky, perfectly seasoned; rice is fluffy, seafood items fresh and tender. Like Lotería, their rich black chicken mole is a star here, and especially nice to be able to get in that big burrito format -- with all the "stuff."

In addition to the standard taco and burrito fillings, there are California touches like optional wheat tortillas, and a unique array of unusual regional items: Oaxacan cheese enchiladas ($7.95), cactus tacos ($2.00), and taquitos or flautas filled with potato and Manchego cheese ($2.95-3.95), corn on the cob served street-vendor style, and homemade guava flan. But let's face it, you're probably getting a burrito or that 3-taco combo plate (a bargain at $8.95) pictured above.

True, prices may be steeper than your local taqueria, but hey they gotta pay the rent, and... isn't that pinche Lindsay Lohan naked in a window across the street?

And if you're like me, when you walk back to your freely-parked car, you can take a few extra steps and take a moment to bow your head to Rocky and Bullwinkle.

It's Chinatown, Jake -- Ocean Seafood

2010-04-22T12:15:00.000-07:00

Ocean Seafood

747 North Broadway

Los Angeles, CA 90012-2819

(213) 687-3088

www.oceansf.com‎

More Info

View Larger Map

Everyone knows that the best Chinese food this side of Hong Kong is in the San Gabriel Valley: Monterey Park, San Gabriel, Alhambra, Rosemead... You know that, right? It's true. But sometimes that extra five is just too many minutes on the 10. Sometimes you're stuck downtown. Jury duty, maybe. Who knows, maybe you're using public transportation, and Monterey Park isn't an option. Maybe you're like me, and you just like the vibe and the romance of L.A.'s original Chinatown. After all, San Gabriel doesn't have one of the great movies of all time named after it. To paraphrase Lucy Van Pelt, "How can San Gabriel be so great if it doesn't even have a movie named after it?"

Many folks will tell you that if you're having Chinatown Chinese food, you should go to Empress Pavilion. And if you were looking for dim sum, I'd say they might be right. But when I want dinner in Chinatown, I head for Ocean Seafood.

It's located on the top floor of the same arcade that houses Mandarin Deli, Pho 79, and Kim Chuy -- all utterly worthy restaurants. It occurs to me that if I could only pick one building in L.A. in which to eat, it would be this one.

Aside from the simple loveliness of its name (isn't "ocean" one of the prettiest words in our language?), Ocean Seafood serves awesome meals in classic Hong Kong Seafood style. Entering from street level, you're greeted by a mirrored foyer with a burbling, stone-waterfalled koi pond.

You're already feeling pretty blissed-out by the time you arrive at the dining room upstairs, where your first sight is of bubbling saltwater tanks full of the little and not-so-little sea beasties you're about to consume.

The room is what you want in a Chinese Seafood palace: huge, gilt, filled with lazy susan bedecked tables and a "full bar" that's as perfunctory as the typically crappy service.

We usually bring another couple, and get the same half dozen dishes here. Other stuff is good, but it's always these dishes that I crave.

Start off with the Peking Duck. I once got into an online spat with Jonathan Gold because I love the Peking Duck here, which he argued was like ordering pasta in a French restaurant. Screw you, I basically said, I've had some great pasta in French restaurants, and if you won't order the Peking Duck here because it's regionally not a authentic Hong Kong style dish, your loss, Pulitzer dude.

Peking duck, for those not familiar, Is a whole-or-half duck, roasted. Its skin and a layer of fat are sliced off at your table and placed on a fluffy pancake with a smear of sweet plum sauce and a scallion, and served on a small plate with a shrimp cracker, to be eaten as finger food.

The remainder of the fowl is taken away, cleavered into chopstick-sized portions, and brought back to you for further consumption.

This is just one of the best dining experiences there is, and at $14.50 for half a duck or $26 for a whole, worth the price of admission.

We then move on to the Crab in XO Sauce. The crab you will have formed a personal relationship with: they bring the live one you order straight from its tank in a plastic bag, to wave its goodbyes to you before hitting the pot. The XO sauce is kinda dated by now -- it was big in the 90s -- but I still love it. A family-secret concoction of finely garlic, onion, chilis, tiny dried shrimp, salt cured fish, and the like, it's spicy, tangy and oceany. Eating this dish is a freaking mess, but worth every stain.

The golden ticket on this plate are the crab shoulders, not the legs... put the whole donut-hole sized shoulder piece in your mouth and suck until it's empty. Then use the hot towel provided to clean up.

After that, a nice palate cleanser of Chinese broccoli, steamed with garlic.

Okay, the garlic isn't exactly palate cleansing, but the broccoli is fresh and crunchy. I could eat this stuff all day.

Finally, after all that protein, a traditional "filling-in-the-corners" carb dish, just to make sure you don't leave hungry. We generally go for the House Special Pan Fried Noodle, a mixture of chicken, pork, fish and veggies atop your crispy-browned-giving-way-to-saturated soft noodle.

For dessert... well, why have funky Asian dessert when you can just order the sweet honey walnut shrimp instead, smothered in a rich, creamy mayonnaise and honey sauce, with crunchy candied walnuts?

All this can be had for about $30 pp for four. Wash all this down with a Tsing Tao, and I guarantee you won't be hungry again in an hour.

They also do a fine dim sum brunch. There's free parking available underground; they validate for the parking lot adjacent.

A Boatload of Noodles - Sapp Coffee House and Thai Town Noodles

2010-01-18T12:10:00.000-08:00

Thai Boat Noodles at Thai Town Noodles

SANAMLUANG

5170 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 660-8006
On Yelp.com

THAI TOWN NOODLE

5136 Hollywood Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90027

(323) 667-0934

On Yelp.com

NOTE: CASH ONLY

SAPP COFFEE SHOP

5183 Hollywood Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90027

(323) 665-1035

on Yelp.com

NOTE: ALL THREE ARE CASH ONLY

Suddenly it's winter. The weather has turned from dry and brittle to apocalyptic downpour. It is a time when the cold, hard world chills the fires of the soul. We seek light, warmth, and spark. Recently, I've been finding spiritual and gastronomic solace in the strip malls of Hollywood Blvd. that make up the main drag of our Thai Town, where in utilitarian, but bright, clean and pleasant noodle houses, everything, for a few slurp-filled minutes, can seem well with the world.

I have long been a devotee of Sanamluang, a cacophonous and seemingly always-crowded favorite of foodie idol Jonathan Gold. As Gold notes, Sanamluang has the advantage of being open until 4:00 am, but with their giant, confusing menu and perfunctory-at-best service, it can be difficult to get at the admittedly delightful delights of their menu -- such as the General's Noodle Soup that Gold describes as "thin, garlicky egg noodles garnished with bits of duck, barbecued pork, crumbles of ground pork and a couple of shrimp, submerged in a clean, clear broth," and the dry, soupless version of the same dish that I actually prefer. But I haven't visited Sanamluang in some time... at my last visit, I nearly missed the beginning of The Two Towers at the Arclight because the service was so slow.

Then last year, when on his (also perfunctory) Los Angeles episode of No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain visited Sapp Coffee Shop with a local blogger who operates both the Eat Drink & Be Merry and Noodle Whore websites, I noted it: never been. when the first frigid days of December hit, and I found myself both in need of winterizing supplies at Home Depot and craving something spicy and soupy, I took myself to Sapp, tucked in the corner of an unassuming strip mall. I ordered the Bourdain-approved Thai Boat Noodles.

These may be my new favorite noodles, topping even the delicious Korean-style black bean and onion sludge served at House of Joy in Glendale. A pho-like blend of beef shank, tendon, tripe, liver -- almost every imaginable part of a cow -- simmering in a rich broth of beef blood and swimming with scallions and herbs -- this is a hearty as the heartiest beef stew, but leaves you feeling as light as a feather. Don't be too afraid of the ingredients. The soups are assembled to order, and the friendly and helpful English-speaking waitstaff will be happy to omit any ingredient that offends sensitive Western sensibilities. One even asked, when I ordered the "Noodle soup with Pork, Ground Pork, Pork Liver and Fish Ball," if I was cool with pork liver. Yes, but thank you for double-checking! Soups are only moderately hot even when ordered spicy, but an array of chilis, powders and sauces on the table make for endless customization.

Thai Boat Noodle at Sapp Coffee Shop

After some further research into the noodleries of Thai Town, I found myself going back less than 48 hours later to Thai Town Noodle, a couple of blocks away from Sapp, across from Jumbo's Clown room. Don't bother looking for the sign unless you can read Thai... only the address is clearly visible in the window.

This classic Asian lunch counter defines the term "less is more." It is, if anything, less conspicuous than Sapp, a tiny, clean, spare room with four or five tables and seating for another half dozen at the counter. Two kind, generous, friendly women, even less unapproachable than the staff at Sapp; a menu clearly written and with pictures in English above the kitchen counter. And it costs less too, all the noodle dishes here being five bucks. On my first visit, they threw in a free soda to welcome me. I sat in noodly heaven, watching some locals cheering on the Thai handball team in a grudge match against Vietnam, which led to a jovial discussion of Thai vs. Vietnamese noodles. The only thing not-less at Thai Town Noodles is the food. The Thai Boat Noodle bowl pictured above is treasure trove, bits of tender beef of various sorts lurking behind, around and under the perfectly cooked rice noodles. The Duck Soup... to die for. And when I went back a second time, to take my wife, one of the kind ladies smiled, said "you forgot this?" and handed me the Esquire magazine I had accidentally left behind two days before. (I was thrilled because there was a great interview with Mohamed El Baradei that I wanted to save.) Talk about service!

It is pouring rain this week. Perhaps your rain gutters need mending, or roof needs patching; you're headed to the Hollywood branch Home Depot or OSH, or perhaps a movie at the Arclight. You want something, quick, warm and comforting?

Get on the Boat.

The World's Biggest Feed Bag -- L.A. County Fair

2009-08-24T17:52:00.000-07:00

THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY FAIR

Wed-Sun Through Oct. 4

1101 W. McKinley Ave.,

Pomona, CA 91768

(909) 623-3111

http://www.lacountyfair.com/2009/

Apparently people are beginning to wonder if I still blog about food. I do. The late spring and early summer were totally taken over by producing and narrating the audiobook of my novel, My Name Is Will, and taking on a bit of work with my old friend Stitch, the little blue alien dude. Apologies to those who have gone hungry since my last post in April!

I hope to make up for it spades. Read this, and you will be primed to eat more in one day than you have all summer. Because that's what you're supposed to do when you go to the Los Angeles County Fair.

I freakin' love the County Fair. What's not to love? The crowds, okay. Aside from the crowds, what's not to love? The heat, sure. The traffic going in, yeah. And the parking, fine. Aside from the crowds, the heat, the traffic, and the parking, what's not to love? There's entertainment galore, hot tub sales, real trains to climb around on, livestock to marvel at, pig races, dogs jumping into pools, ferris wheels, miniature trains, the wine and beer pavilion, and most joyous of all, a racetrack where you can wager on the ponies if that's your perversion (it is mine!), all for your 17 dollar entry fee. (Sa and I got season passes for this year: 25 bucks.)

But for me, it's all about the food. I have been looking, on Chowhound and elsewhere, for a one-stop set of recommendations to "what to eat at the LA County Fair," and haven't found it. So this year I decided to compile my own, based on recommendations and research from all over the food blogosphere, and a couple of days of my own research on the Fair's final weekend last year and opening weekend this year. I'm including exterior shots of all the mentioned vendors so you can recognize 'em when you stumble upon them.

Of course the County Fair is notorious primarily for various deep fried foods-on-a-stick. You can, it's true, have Deep fried Snickers Bars, Deep Fried Coca-Cola (to answer everyone's question of "How...?", it's frozen solid, then battered and fried), Deep Fried Oreos, Deep-fried Krispy Kreme Chicken Sandwiches, or god knows what else Chicken Charlie's will come up with as a specialty item this year. And sure, you can get a pork chop on a stick.

Take my advice: don't waste stomach space on that crap. It's as awful as it sounds. Instead, try some of this.

If you're there early, and of a sweets-for-breakfast mindset, head straight to Old West Cinnamon Buns outside the Jurassic Planet exhibit hall. The bun served here, I guarantee, is the best you've ever had. Hot, sinfully buttery, cinnamony, not too sweet, and melt-in-the-mouth soft with just enough of a bake on the outside to remind you it's there. Order dry, without frosting, which would be truly gilding the lily.

Midmorning snack, or second breakfast if you're a hobbit: a bit of roasted corn on the cob. This stuff is everywhere, all over the fair, and is pretty much the same everywhere. We ate ours here, just east of the Clocktower.

Fire-roasted on the grill, husks pulled back but still attached, a few kernels slightly charred, tender and juicy and sweet inside. Most purveyors have a varied selection of condiments. I use 'em all. Why have corn with butter and salt when you can have it with butter, salt, pepper, lime juice, garlic powder, chili powder, and seasoned salt? It's delicious, California-grown, and healthy for your colon -- you're gonna need that.

It wouldn't be a trip to the Fair without two things: visiting the animals and eating BBQ. I recommend doing them in succession. There's nothing like sharing a moment or two with some cute, snoozing pigs to ratchet up your appetite for pork.

I'm not that great an authority on BBQ. I generally find it to be either too dry or too gloopy (yes, "gloopy"), too sweet even when it has a spicy kick, and generally a killer to the subtle flavor of the meat. Last year people I was with raved about the pulled pork (or sliced pork) sandwiches to be had from the stand that proudly trumpets "Pork Butts!"

Personally, I wish the bun were of more interest, and the pork required too much added gloopy sauce to make it interesting.

This year, I went with the suggestion of a post in the helpful Fair thread on Chowhound, recommending this Texas style BBQ spot conveniently located near the entrance to the big animal barn at the Blue Gate.

Sa's pork ribs were tasty and had a nice dry-on-the-outside, tender-on-the inside-texture.

My Beef Brisket Dinner Plate at 12.95 was pretty awesome. I rarely eat all of an order at the Fair, preferring to share and split to make room for more tastes later on. But I made "all gone" with this stuff.

Flavorful, the sauce tangy and not too sweet, and the meat cooked to falling-apart perfection. Slaw, good; Corn bread, eh; beans, canned and bland. Although they do sell a brisket sandwich, $7.95, I wish they sold the sliced brisket a la carte, as they do the ribs.

Instead of the bland beans as a side order, I suggest sending someone to find an order of Tasti-Chips, available in various locations.

These are amazing: freshly sliced potato chips cooked to order. They're like no potato chip you've ever had, and no two alike. They range from light and crispy to chewy and savory, like a basket of fresh-baked cookies that have come out of the oven at slightly different, but recent, times. Douse with salt, coarse ground black pepper, maybe some malt vinegar, and consume. Arguably the best single dish at the Fair.

If chips aren't your style, and you want something a little heftier, you could opt for fried artichoke hearts, or better, some fried sweet potatoes from around the corner.

And if you're the type who likes to have dessert after lunch, just down the road in the Fair View Farms area, is Dr. Bob's Ice Cream.

This stuff is usually delicious, the perfect antidote to a hot day.

But I'm officially warning you off their sorbets. My friend had one on Sunday, and, well-- I'm pretty sure this glutenous strap-like stuff is not the consistency they were shooting for.

By this time, you've probably laid down a good base and couldn't eat another bite for awhile. Time to head to the wine pavilion, where you can sample one or several of the (hundred or so) gold medal winning wines from the wine and spirits competition. $11 gets you a tasting of five wines of your choice, and it's a great opportunity to try wines from locales and countries that you might not otherwise. My favorite this year was an '05 Adelaida (Central Coast) Syrah, rich with intense berry flavors and a chewy mouth feel. After ordering a glass of Bordeaux (a dozen or so wind=es are available for reasonable prices by the glass) and sitting out on the wine pavilion's verandah and watching bungee jumpers for a bit, I was ready for a snack.

My favorite, available at any of the supposedly "Thai" food vendors, is this New York style eggroll, with a thick, chewy wonton skin, and a simple cabbage and carrot filling, and a delightfully old skool sweet and sour dipping sauce. And don't forget to eat those innocent looking cucumbers with your roll... they're spicy and delicious.

Really, that egg roll just warmed up my appetite, kinda got me ready for -- well, another egg roll. But THEN I was ready for the big guns. I was tempted to visit one of the Pink's outlets -- an opportunity to get a Pink's dog without waiting in line for a freekin' hour! But instead I opted for King Taco, the truly great chain distant East LA -- a great opportunity to get me some. There's one in Park Square, right around the corner from the Grandstand, and another at the Yellow Gate entrance. Maybe more besides.

Tacos ordered: two asada, two al pastor, and one chicken. At $1.49 each, and washed down with an horchata from the stand or a Dos Equis from nearby, there's no better way to end the day. The carne asada is a 9 out of 10, with a light char on the outside and tender and juicy on the inside. The al pastor is, perhaps, a little dryer than some might like it, but right in my wheelhouse of toothsomeness. Pardon the messy plate; it was late, and I failed to dress the set.

One warning: that red salsa that come "with everything" is wickedly spicy. L.A. Food Crazy loves it, but then, he's, you know, crazy! Saner foodies might wish to order it on the side.

Finally, the chicken, the best of the three, a wonderment, pieces of tender, stewed chicken with juicy onions and mild chiles and cilantro in a green sauce. If you haven't had a memorable chicken taco in a long time (I hadn't) this one will remind you what the bird is all about.

Next time, I shall surely have a torta if I have room; it comes with sour cream, lettuce, onion, and guacamole (which I've never had at the King).

Oh, and if you have room for another dessert after all this, three words: "hot gingerbread." Okay five words, with whipped cream. From the Gingerbread House right around the corner from the Grandstand on Birch, and across from King Taco. You can't miss it.

I'll go back next week and bring back some more ideas and updates. Recommendations, most welcome!

I wonder if my Fair Season Pass comes with a free rental of one of those I'm-Too-Fat-To-Walk motorized cart jobbies?

What Was YOUR Lunch Sandwich Today Like? - Greenblatt's Deli

2009-04-30T14:23:00.000-07:00

Greenblatt's Delicatessen-Restaurant and Fine Wine Shop
8017 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 656-0606‎
www.greenblattsdeli.com

Reviews, Map, Etc.

Sometimes I go so far afield in search of finding a new, "institution"- level eatery, I forget to mention the institutions in my own backyard. And sometimes, I forget to frequent them. Somehow, I recently went several years without visiting what is possibly the closest eatery to my house, and certainly the closest Bona Fide L.A. Institution: Greenblatt's Deli, at the eastern approach to the Sunset Strip, right next to the Laugh Factory.

Why, I thought, have I not blogged Greenblatt's? Perhaps because I assume most people have been there. But a quick poll of my friends tells me that's not true.

My poll also suggested that if you have visited Greenblatt's, the first words out of your mouth will be, "I love Greenblatt's, but it's so expensive." Now it's true, fourteen bucks for a Reuben sandwich is not cheap. But somehow it seems that Reuben sandwiches have ALWAYS been fourteen bucks there, and as prices everywhere else in the world have slowly crept up over the years, this doesn't seem so outrageous anymore. Especially when there are so many things to recommend said sandwich. In this case, I will let the picture above speak a thousand words.

Greenblatt's is simply the best Jewish deli on this side of the hill. It kicks all manner of ass over Canter's. There's free parking, first of all. True, it's always crowded and the spaces are tiny, but it seems like there's always one space left there when you need it. Second, location. Even if you don't live nearby, chances are you're headed to the Laemmle theaters across the street, and wondering where you should eat, a couple of times a year. Third, atmosphere. Seventy years old, it has a rare-in-L.A. genuine old wood-paneling wide-plank-floor creakiness that makes you feel like this town has some real history, after all. Fourth, open 'til 2:00 am, 365 days a year.

And then there's the extraordinary wine shop. It is, remember, Greenblatt's Deli and Wine Shop. They have a small but extraordinary selection of wines, mostly French, at extraordinary prices. A couple bucks more than the average selection at TJ's, perhaps, but you get what you pay for. These are quality, well-chosen wines.

And -- and this is the most exciting part -- I've recently discovered that next to Costco, they have the single best price in town on family-sized (as we call it Chez Winfield) bottles of Ketel One: $31.99. That, friends, is a bargain, and they know it. Witness the sign above the nearby Belvedere display.

And of course there's the food. I could go on describing the flavors of their hot pastrami, or corned beef, or their delicious Egg Salad Like Grandma Used To Make It, or this stellar BLTA I had yesterday.

But you know what you're getting: Jewish deli counter food, the quality of which I'd say compares favorably to even the best New York has to offer. The good stuff.

My only chronic complaints: the deli counter help tends to be distracted and either hard of hearing or lacking English skills. Orders need to be peated, repeated, and three-peated, then checked, double-checked, and thriple-checked. From which comes the corollary: delivery service? Fuhgeddaboudit. That's what they tend to do with your phoned-in order.

But for that quick lunch to take home, or a pre- or post- movie bowl of matzoh ball or kreplach soup in one of their comfy naugahyde booths? Drop in, chow down -- and don't forget to grab a bottle or two to go.

Ensenada-Style Fish Taco Smackdown

2009-04-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

The wife and I had been craving the unique fish tacos to be found in Baja, but we haven't been down that way in awhile what with all the murder, carjackings, and other hijinks going on in the border drug cartel wars. Then I had the idea to take my wife on a three-day Carnival cruise to Ensenada. We avoided the border entirely, got dropped off with 800 other people en masse at the dock -- strength in numbers, don'tcha know -- went for a horseback ride in the mountains, stuffed ourselves on tacos, and got out of town before we anyone could kidnap us and melt us in vats of acid.

We've been sampling the fish tacos in Baja for a couple of decades now, and we know where our favorite is. It's here.

On the corner of Lopez Mateos and Alvarado in downtown Ensenada. Out of all the many street stands, and all the competing vendors at the dockside fish market in Ensenada, these are simply the best. The same two women, Bene and Sandra, have been running this cart for years. It's a short walk from the cruise ship dock, and easy to find. There's a giant Mexican flag that flies over the harbor. From that flag, walk straight up the street into town. It's on the southwest corner of the street.

For those of you who don't know what makes an Baja Ensenada style fish taco, it requires: corn tortilla, heated on a grill; battered and deep fried (NOT grilled. Apostasy!) fish fillet, usually halibut or snapper; shredded cabbage; mild or tangy crema, a light sour cream-based sauce; hot salsa; a squeeze of lime; onions, cilantro, and other salsas optional.

What makes this humble stand's offering so superior? Like all tacos, it's an ineffable sum of parts. First, the tortillas are heated on the grill just so, to the point just before firmnessgives way to crunchiness. The cabbage is shredded neither too thickly nor too thinly. You dress your own taco from a condiment bar of excellent, creamy, fresh guacamole, onions, cilantro, pico de gallo, a smoky red and a mild but tangy green salsa. This baby has all the right textures and colors in all the right proportions, and it tastes like it knows exactly what it's talking about. All the flavors, from the delicacy of the fish to the woody guacamole to the tang of citrus, are distinct and yet harmonious. But what really sets this taco apart is the batter in that big pot, and the perfection to which it's cooked. The fried fillets come out light, crisp and perfectly seasoned on the outside, fish tender and flaky on the inside, and not the least bit greasy. It's a marvel, and my benchmark of THE REAL DEAL:

So, we ate about a dozen of these while we watched a thoroughly unexpected parade go by on this very corner, mixing up the fish with an occasional carne asada -- the only other item on their menu.

But then it was time to come back to L.A. Within a week I was craving those tacos again. I decided to try to find the best approximation here in the L.A. area. The good news is that there are several. The bad news is, that for a variety of reasons, they are all just that, approximations.

I did my research, and found that one of the most-approved local pescadorias is right here in Hollywood: the enticingly-named "The Best Fish Tacos in Ensenada" on Hillhurst and Prospect.

This place looks like it should have it right, from the funky beach-style decor to the minimalist menu: they have fish tacos, shrimp tacos, and drinks. That's it. But there are problems.

Do you see what's missing? Hint: red and green. There is no fiery red salsa and no lime. The condiment bar, in addition to a passable crema, and too-finely-shredded cabbage, features a number of salsas, with clever names like "mild mango" and "spicy guacamole." They're just okay on their own, but as condiments for the delicate fish taco, they are all, in various ways, overkill and underwhelming. Mango, too sweet. The spicy guac, too watery, and not spicy enough. Seriously, all a fish taco needs to succeed is a medium green, a hot red, and a simple pico de gallo. And of course, the lime. "Hey, do you guys have any lime squeezes?"

"Oh... um... no."

Now I can SEE, from where I'm standing, a bag of limes on a shelf in the kitchen. "How about those?"

"Those are for the salsa."

Surely you jest. Okay, no lime. Well, since I find even the hottest red salsa among the several at the bar to be too mild, I look around and find a single bottle of Tapatio in the restaurant. At least, that's the case on my first visit. On the second visit, said single bottle is empty. I ask the owner of the joint for another bottle. He says, "Sorry, I'm out. I gotta go up to the liquor store and buy some." Since he shows no intention of doing so immediately, I blandly consume my tacos without it.

This just doesn't make sense. Not providing lime and a simple hot sauce for Baja fish tacos is like running a hamburger stand with no ketchup or mustard. I might even forgive all this; but the fish itself doesn't impress. Although it looks like it should be crispy on the outside, coming straight from the oil and onto a nicely-grilled Guerrero tortilla, it is in fact squishy. No crisp. On the greasy side.

So proximity aside, I had to look farther afield.

The best fish taco in the Southland, by the accounts of many who care about such things, is to be found at Tacos Baja Ensenada, on Whittier Blvd. in East L.A. Sa and I made a pilgrimage there for lunch one day, and we were not alone.

Obviously, word is out about this place. And it's good. But it's still not Baja. First, your fish taco is handed to you fait accompli. They HAVE a condiment bar, from which I had eagerly gathered samples, awaiting my order. But then the tacos came fully dressed, with way too much crema for my taste.

And although slices of avocado are available on the menu for an extra .75, I found myself longing for Bene and Dorotea's delicious guac, which is the more authentically Baja way to present it. And again... I missed the crispy batter. It's tasty, but as Sa pointed out, it's more the consistency of a pancake than it should be.

Still, I suspect that the underlying ingredients here are correct, and that you could do pretty well here by ordering your tacos naked but for the cabbage, and dressing it yourself from the thorough condiment bar and the good choice of bottled table salsas. On the strength of all that, TBE gets the number one spot.

A couple of also-rans should be mentioned, lest you cry foul. First, Rubio's. Not happenin' for me. As fast food Fresh Mex goes, I'm generally well-inclined toward Rubio's, because they brought the Puerto Nuevo-style lobster burrito to SoCal. But now the lobster burrito is but a memory, and sorry to say the fish taco is, to me, just so much fast-food mush.

Second, Siete Mares on Sunset Blvd. in Echo Park (the stand, not the restaurant next door). I like Siete Mares, and I go there on my way to and from Dodger games every now and again. The problem with the fish tacos here? Too big. There's enough stuff on the poor overmatched tortilla for three fish tacos, including a veritable mountain of too-thick cabbage. And although their batter is nicely crispy, there's not much fish under it -- it's a grease bomb.

Finally -- and I know there are a lot of admirers out there -- Señor Fish, one downtown adjacent to Little Tokyo, and one on Figueroa in South Pasadena. There is much to love about Señor Fish. it was the first place I had scallop burritos and potato tacos, and to this day they're two of my favorite things. There's even much to like on their Ensenada Style fish taco. There's a generous amount of fish in a flavorful batter (although again, it's not crispy enough for my taste). There's a generous dose of crema with plenty of cayenne, which is a good thing. There's a generous dollop of delicious guacamole. But all this generosity is beyond the capacity of the poor, undergrilled tortilla underneath to withstand -- especially because the taco is inexplicably constructed with the cream sauce on the bottom, where it instantly turns the tortilla to useless mush. In my book, tacos are street food: one that needs to be eaten with knife and fork is no taco at all.

Which brings me to my last big surprise. Coming in second place after Tacos Baja Ensenada?

Yes, fast food. The Crispy Fish Taco at Del Taco is an absolutely solid iteration of the genre. Somebody did their research -- it's served in classic style: corn tortilla, battered deep-fried fish, shredded cabbage, salsa, crema, even a squeeze of lime (take note, "Best Fish Tacos In Ensenada!"). And note the judicious addition of chopped onion and cilantro.

Compare that snap to THE REAL DEAL photo above, then to the others; see what I mean? And, lo and behold, the fish is good! Crispy on the outside, flaky on the inside, as it should be. Of course, they cheat a bit by using some sort of toasted corn-meal batter, but it works, man, it works. Add a bit of their Del Inferno sauce, and you're very, very damn close to the Real Deal. The only downfall is the tomato salsa, which is on the sugary side. If they could get a real pico de gallo in its place, it just might put it over the top.

The conclusion: for the real deal, you gotta brave the drug lord kidnappers by land, or the pirates by sea, and go to Sandra and Bene's cart in Ensenda. If you're stranded here, these are your best options. Click on the links for Google Maps, reviews, etc.

1. Tacos Baja Ensenada

5385 Whittier Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90022
(323) 887-1980

2. Del Taco
Numerous locations throughout the Southland

3. The Best Fish Tacos in Ensenada

1650 Hillhurst Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027

(323) 887-1980‎

4. Señor Fish

422 E 1st St
Los Angeles, CA 90012

(213) 625-2534‎

5. La Playita Siete Mares

3143 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

(323) 664-4604‎

Khaaaaan! - Seoul Garden Restaurant

2009-03-21T13:18:00.000-07:00

Seoul Garden Restaurant
1833 W Olympic Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90006

(213) 386-8477‎
MC, Visa
Valet Parking in rear. Closed Sunday.

Yelp Info

The hostess slaps a menu on your table, but everything you need to know about Seoul Garden is prominently displayed on a backlit plexiglass menuboard on a wall in the main room. Note the first three dishes: Beef Jingee-skan, Chicken Jingee-skan, Pork Jingee-skan. It took me a bit of Googling, after my first visit there, to figure out that it's Genghis Khan... which is Korean not (curiously) for what the Mongolians call BBQ, but for what the Japanese call shabu-shabu. Go figure.

And by go, I mean go to Seoul Garden to enjoy this utterly pleasurable style of dining. There's other stuff on the menu but (and I always tell you exactly what to order, that's part of the value-added service you get at LA Food Crazy) you're here for the Genghis Khan. Get two orders for 2-3 people, three orders for three hungrier or four people. Beef (a must), chicken or pork according to your pleasure. Order soju. Here's what ensues.

It's a five course meal. The waitress fires up a hotpot filled with water on your table. While it comes to a boil, you are brought the small, refillable dishes of bonchon; Korean appetizers that here include a delicious, tangy pickled turnip and a delicately cooked egg cake.

You nibble on them with you soju. You remembered to order soju, right? Your waitress will also bring small bowls of cabbage soup.

Then comes your Khan. Raw flesh, sliced paper-thin, arranged flat on a giant wheel of a plate. Here's one order of beef and one of chicken:

A giant bowl of shredded cabbage, mushrooms, tofu and fish cake accompanies your Khan.

Your waitress gets you started, scooping a bunch of vegetables and meat into the boiling water.

Quick, take out the beef, it's already medium-rare. Two more seconds, it's well-done. You scoop some veggies and beef into your bowl. It's tender, mild, flavorful; an absurdly simple and unadorned iteration of the meat.

Of course you can adorn it. People ask, "can I add some of the bonchon?" That's like asking whether you should put some of the guacamole or the salsa on your taco. It's a free world, dude. And the best news is, the bonchon are bottomless. Run out of one, they'll bring you more.

You begin to think you'll never get through that giant wheel of meat, you're boiling it and eating it and boiling and eating it, but trust me, it eventually it does all go away. And just when it's almost gone, the last few bits still boiling in the broth, the waitress swings by. She portions the remaining Jingees-kan into your bowls, and drops some udon noodles into your broth, letting them cook for a bit before scooping them in front of you.

Not a lot, mind you... you're full from all the meat... but it's so clean and tasty, cooked in that broth that has been gathering yummy beef chicken and pork flavors, that you can't resist.

And just when you think, no, there couldn't possibly be more, there is. The waitress will have let the water boil down pretty well by now. She arrives with a bowl of rice, an egg, some seaweed, and sesame oil. She adds them expertly to the broth, and whips up a quick a delicious jjuk (porridge) for you. It's delicious as is, but also a perfect base for disposing of any remaining bonchon on the table.

You've drained that last bit of soju, and now comes a metal cup of the refreshingly sweet tea which I believe is called chik cha.

The meal has probably set you back $25 or so. But if you're like me (or my wife Sa, who wants to go here, like, ALL the time) you'll be back soon.

A couple of notes. It can be crowded, take-a-number crowded, at peak hours. And as with most Korean restaurants in Koreatown, you'll have a more pleasant experience if you're not high-maintenance. Pointing at things and asking for more is fine and appreciated. Asking about serving sizes or ingredients explaining your special dietary needs, asking for rice before the porridge section of the meal, etc., will not enhance anyone's evening. And saying kam sa na hamida (Korean for thank you) is always nice.

Besides, any questions that can be answered are right there in backlit plexiglass, down to the instructions for cooking your veggies. So just say "beef jingee-skan and soju," sit back, and let the evening roll.

A Sad Postscript - The El Coyote Boycott

2008-12-11T15:22:00.000-08:00

According to several management-level sources at El Coyote, Marjorie Christofferson has submitted her resignation, both as a member of the restaurant's corporate board and as an employee. "Margie submitted her resignation today," manager Billy Schoeppner told me last Thursday. "I just got off the phone with her. She was crying."

This is the emotional result of the boycott of El Coyote launched by elements of the local gay community in response to Margie's personal, $100 donation to the "Yes on Proposition 8" campaign. So, the question is, does this mean the boycott's over?

During the largest protest against the restaurant, I asked many of the 200 protesters picketing enthusiastically on the sidewalk during prime business hours what they were after: what were their "demands" were before they would return to El Coyote? "Margie needs to resign," was the unanimous answer. So now she has. But various posts on other boards about the issue have expressed the opinion that "as long as ANY of the money I spend at El Coyote goes to the Mormon church, I won't spend my money there." It has been asserted on some other boards that: Margie is secretly the owner, because she's listed as the corporate contact with the state of California; that her family is Mormon, and because it's a family business, that means 10% of any money spent there is tithed to the church. I did some deeper digging, interviewing members of the staff, family, and longtime friends. Here's the real scoop.

"El Coyote is not Mormon. Margie's family isn't Mormon. They're all drinkers, except Margie!" Billy repeated to me over three days, over and over again. I thought this curious; Mormonism tends to run in the family. How did she end up the only one? Billy asked another manager, Larry; Larry asked Margie's husband Chris. Word came back. There were three Salisbury siblings: Blanche and the twin brothers George and Jim. Blanche and her husband founded El Coyote; George founded El Cholo. Jim married Margie's mother, Grace, and when her sister Blanche passed away, ownership of the restaurant passed to Grace. One of Margie's older cousins attended Brigham Young University in Utah, where he converted to Mormonism. Margie, at her cousin's recommendation, also went to BYU -- where she also converted. Jim (a life-long drinker and smoker) converted to Mormonism just before he died. Margie's cousin later left the church, leaving Margie (aside from, possibly, her two daughters) as the only practicing Mormon in the family.

As far as Margie's recent corporate involvement, El Coyote is run by a small, family-held corporation. Grace is its president and CEO. Margie has functioned as its Secretary. That's why she was the listed contact with the State of California. When she gave her notice as an employee, she also submitted her resignation from the board to Grace.

So there it is. Margie's out the door. I wonder who will be coming back in? The only possible rationale for continuing to boycott the restaurant (aside from not liking the food -- de gustibus non disputandem est, is I'll say about that) is that she might inherit a portion of it someday. True, she's the current owner's daughter. She also has siblings, so (and I am not, nor do I want to be, privy to anyone's will over this) maybe she'll get a piece of it someday. Is that justification for a boycott? Should your livelihood be imperiled for something one of your nieces, or nephews, or children did, or might do in the future? That seems absurd to me.

El Coyote has given thousands of dollars over the last few weeks to GLBT causes and charities. The restaurant is now -- believe it or not -- being boycotted by various right-wing groups for doing so. Mormon wards as far away as San Diego have sent groups to the restaurant in support of the restaurant's supposedly "anti-gay" policies. But of course, those Mormon's ain't drinking margaritas. Business is off dramatically, even considering the current economy. Waiters and waitresses -- many of them gay -- are having their shifts cut back.

The gay community has made an important, and nation-wide, point about civil rights, separation of church and state, and the power of the gay pocketbook. El Coyote has done everything it can -- and Margie has given up her lifelong job -- to make amends.

So could someone please declare victory achieved, and the boycott over? My local diner's in trouble.

Have a Bibimbap-y Christmas - La Korea @ Farmer's Market

2008-12-11T14:54:00.000-08:00

LA KOREA
Los Angeles Farmers Market
6333 W 3rd St
Los Angeles, CA‎
Stall # 510
(323) 936-3930

If you're like me, and you live in Hollywood, you're going to be spending a little more time at The Grove than you'd like. Schlepping from the Apple Store to Crate and Barrel, bags and shopping list akimbo. That case you got for a stocking stuffer just won't fit your mate's old iPod, you're considering a new iPod (your household's third) Your blood sugar is dropping, blood pressure rising. You look around for Grove food: all too sit-down-y. You go to the historic Farmer's Market, but you're not sure what to grab, quickly, that won't knock you on your shopping ass for the crucial next two hours.

I recommend La Korea, at the northeastern end of the market, near the Gumbo Pot and Dupar's. If you know me you know I loves the Korean food, and while this is several miles from the wonders of Koreatown, it totally satisfies the lunch jones in a way that few other cuisines can. Its menu is reassuringly small; not too many stress-inducing choices to make (which is my main complaint with Loteria... I never seem to quite get what I expected, and other people's plates look so much better), and all in the $6-8 range. The La Korea menu features grilled meat, either chicken, pork, or beef, served with steamed rice and choice of two side dishes. The side dishes are right there, so you can just point. Or, perhaps you're new to Korean food? If so, I recommend the bibimbap. Don't be scared by all those b's, it's pronounced exactly the way its spelled.

Bibimbap is literally "stirred meal" in Korean. It's a bowl of steamed rice with an array of ingredients on top; think of a fresh-Mex style "burrito bowl" but with Korean meats and veggies, instead of rice, beans, lettuce and guacamole. In a Korean home, the rice would likely be topped whatever is leftover from last night's meal. In restaurants, it's often a selection of the Korean banchan, or side dishes, and that's the case here: cucumber salad, julienned carrots, bean sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, and lettuce. It really should have a fried egg atop it all... ask, and I'm sure you shall receive. I forgot to ask, and my photo model arrived egless.

While you're waiting for your meal, it's only few steps over the EB Wine Bar, where they are always cheerfully pouring some microbrew draft beers and well-chosen wines by the glass, for 5 or 6 bucks. I suggest you treat yourself to one, you've earned it and it'll go really well with your lunch. That's a Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir...

Your bibimbap bowl is served with the veggies and meats arranged like pie slices atop the rice, along with your choice of tender, thin, freshly grilled beef (the ubiquitous, soy and sesame seed-seasoned beef bulgogi that is to Korea what carne asada is to Mexico) or chicken. They'll give ya pork if you wish (as pictured below), or, rumor has it, grill up anything you bring them from Marconda's the famous butchers next door. I'm totally doing that next time I visit!

Of course an all-veggie, or veggie and tofu, version is available, too. Be sure to take a small tub of the chili paste-sauce from the counter. At your table, drizzle sauce on your bowl (don't worry, it's quite mild) and stir it all up. You've just created a light but filling dish, fulfilled your vegetable-servings requirement for the day, and added some delicious grilled protein to boot. And you've now partaken of one of the staple dishes of Korean cuisine.

My only gripe is that the chili paste is not nearly hot enough for my taste. I get around this by borrowing from the extensive selection of bottled heat at the end of the Gumbo Pot counter. True, La Korea is not quite up to what you'll find in Koreatown, but it beats the hell out of Cheesecake Factory. And if you eat here enough, you might save enough money left over for that third iPod.

The -- Okay, MY -- Final Word on the El Coyote Boycott

2008-11-17T13:40:00.001-08:00

The time has nearly come to move further discussion of the El Coyote Boycott off of my food blog, and get back to describing the sweetness of a caramelized onion or a perfectly charred steak. El Coyote has become just one part of a much wider political, social, and legal issue, which I'm interested in and will continue to discuss over at infinitejess.blogspot.com. In fact, if you go there now you can see some pictures and discussion of Saturday's big rally downtown... where I saw quite a few familiar faces from El Coyote.

But since there's been such impassioned discussion on this board, I'll allow myself one last post on the subject.

I feel like I've been trying to be a voice of reason during what has been an emotionally upsetting time for regulars of the restaurant, be they gay or straight, and for the gay community that surrounds it. I truly appreciate the civil dialogue that's cropped up in the comments on my last two posts.

Last Thursday, I had a plan to dine at El Coyote in the early evening, but then heard about the planned demonstration there at 7. After, believe me, a lost night's sleep, I decided that I could support the freaked-out staff of EC and honor the protest at the same time, by showing up long before the protest started (so as not to cross a picket line), and then chatting with arriving protesters, when I left as they were arriving. I was helped in walking this tricky line, and developing coping strategies, by the best political strategist I know. Bly's take on boycotts is a must-read.

My group of six sat at the infamous Tate table (where Sharon Tate ate her last meal the night of her murder at the hands of the Manson Family). Billy, friend to every El Coyote regular, came by our table to thank us for our support in being there on what was going to be a nightmarish shift for the staff. We sucked down margaritas, fortification against the screaming, chanting, and horn-honking that could be heard coming from outside.

When we left, we talked, one-on-one, with some of the 175 protesters. All were understandably angry and frustrated; after all, 52 percent of Californians in our true-blue state had voted to take away equal rights granted to them by the constitution and the Supreme Court of California. A gentleman who gave his name only as Tom said he felt betrayed by manager Marjorie Christofferson's donation to Yes on 8; that whether Margie was an owner or not, his money, spent here over decades, was going to people who voted to taken away his civil rights, and he could no longer support the restaurant. He opined that if Margie was just an employee, she should be fired for her views. I asked if he would be comfortable being fired from his job for his political views. He said, "If I was a white supremacist... yes." This was of course impossible to formulate a suitable response to; there's no denying the emotion of being oppressed. We left, watching a sad scene of protesters harassing confused and frightened folks -- tourists, regulars, whoever -- leaving or trying to enter the restaurant, chanting "shame on you" and other, choicer epithets. As strongly as I feel about the wrongness of prop 8, this, I thought, is clearly not the way to win the hearts and minds of voters.

I went back to El Coyote on Friday night. There were still some protesters out front, maybe a dozen or so. But to my surprise the restaurant was pretty hoppin' inside. It was just... different. A straighter crowd. Much straighter. In fact, the management told me, and my conversations around the restaurant confirmed, that though there were a lot of extra-supportive regulars, like myself, there were also a lot of Mormons and other Yes on 8 supporters coming out to make their own statement.

Ouch.

I don't think this is the desired effect of a boycott.

Backlash against this boycotts has begun, from the most recent comments on my own blog to Tim Rutten's Op-Ed in the L.A. Times to the national media: I watched a debate on CNN
Sunday night where a pro Proposition 8 spokeswoman focused on "the hateful boycotts" and "harassment" of "Mormon employees of businesses" by the gay community. (I won't even tell you what Mike Huckabee was saying on Fox News!) This type of activity allows the H8ers to debate debatable tactics, rather than confront the larger issue of civil rights.

El Coyote has made every possible overture to the community short of "firing" Margie (the founder's niece), by making large donations on behalf of the restaurant to gay charities and even, as reported in the L.A. Times, gay and straight employees gathering personal donations totaling an amount five times greater than Margie's controversial 100 bucks.

Now, I'm not gay and this is not at the deepest level "my battle." Nevertheless, I will humbly offer to those of my fellow El Coyote regulars who happen to be gay this proposition: that El Coyote is not the enemy, it is an old friend, deserving of forgiveness. Do you really want to stay away while El Coyote -- a place where gay and straight used to hang out and speak the truth as only El Coyote margaritas can make you speak the truth -- stay away while El Coyote -- El Coyote??? -- transforms its business model into a hangout for Mormon families and Yes-on-8'ers?

Instead, why not take all that justifiable frustration and turn it into time and money donated to your local Repeal 8 campaign, energy at the phone banks during the next election battle, letters to legislators explaining, simply, that the majority does NOT have the right to deny civil rights to any minority group of law abiding, tax paying citizens.

I urge my gay friends to come back to El Coyote. Spend your time there doing as you have always done: relaxing, getting loose, and chatting -- nicely, please -- with the tourists and youngsters and oldsters in this diverse establishment, be they Mormons from Utah or bigots from the south or local blacks who voted for 8. Tell them how much this means to you. Tell them how human and compelling your stories are. Make El Coyote about what you're fighting for: love, not hate.

El Coyote Boycott News

2008-11-13T13:48:00.001-08:00

I was out of the office yesterday, and so was unable to report on yesterday's meeting between management of El Coyote and local members of the gay community upset about the revelation that a member of El Coyote's family ownership had made a personal, $100 donation to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign. I can be saved the time of describing the meeting blow by blow, as there is a factually correct account of it posted on shutupiknow.blogspot.com.

What the report fails to communicate is the level of upset among the El Coyote staff present. Each and every one I spoke to was visibly shaken, some crying openly. Each one stated clearly that although they disagree with Margie's personal position on the issue, that it is not the position of El Coyote as establishment or its management, so they do not understand the boycott. They truly wish everyone could just get along, and allow individuals have their opinions without threatening the well-being of the entire establishment, a gathering place for a uniquely diverse community. I tend to agree with that sentiment.

That said, it is not surprising that the meeting went the way it did, and it need not have done so. One important element is missing from the reportage that helps explain why it turned ugly so quickly. When Sam asked Margie if she would be willing to donate an equal or greater amount to Repeal Prop. 8, she deferred to management. Management stated "We know Margie is so upset about this, and she would take back the donation if she could."

But when Sam pressed his question, Margie refused to donate a C-note to the opposite side, which would have effectively "taken back" the donation. The deeds did not match the rhetoric. I suspect that if Margie had agreed to do this, to put some meat into her apology, the issue would be dead. But, sadly, it is not.

So... while I think the boycott is misguided, and its energy could be directed toward any number of larger, more complicit establishments, I understand and respect the anger and frustration of the community, and the need to make a visible protest of a visible target.

I had plans to dine at El Coyote tonight, at about 7:00... when the protest officially begins. I will honor the protesters by not crossing that picket line. But I will not boycott the restaurant before or after the protest. The gay (and Other) staff, nearly all long-serving, dedicated employees, and truly wonderful people, depend on my dining dollars to feed their families. Suggestions posted elsewhere that employees should "get other jobs" truly don't understand the nature of the restaurant: it is a family place in every sense, where owners, customers, and especially staff treat each other like family. One might as well suggest these employees "get a new mother and father."

You may see me in El Coyote the next few days... you will also see me at the Repeal Prop. 8 rally at City Hall on Saturday. I truly feel that's a more appropriate place to display our displeasure at the passage of Prop. 8.

Politics Meets Food -- The El Coyote Boycott

2008-11-11T13:44:00.001-08:00

My novel, MY NAME IS WILL, is a cautionary tale about the danger of mixing politics and religion. I gave our friend Margie, the niece of the owners of El Coyote, a copy last week, but I doubt she's read it yet; now she's learning the lesson the hard way.

Margie appeared on a list of donors to the Yes on Prop. 8 campaign, which has led to calls for a boycott. Now as you know, I spend a lot of time at El Coyote, and I've spent some time here defending its kitchen. I'm going to spend a little more time defending it against a boycott.

Margie is variously described as the owner or the manager of the restaurant in various blogs and e-mails currently making their way around the 'net. My understanding is, she's possibly in line to take over someday; currently just an employee. When questions come up about the menu, or prices, or my and others longstanding request for some seafood, any seafood, she invariably refers us to the managers, Billy or Bobby. Billy and Bobby are both gay. In fact, I'd guess (with my fairly accurate straight man's gaydar) that a solid majority of the staff of the restaurant is gay. On any given night, particularly a Thursday (which has become an unofficial "gay night"; always amusing when I sometimes go there with Kent while Sa's at her belly dance class!) a majority of the clientele is likely to be gay as well.

I'm sure she's not going to need to hear from me about the mistake I think she made donating $100 of her own money -- and listing her place of work as"El Coyote Cafe" -- when I go there tomorrow or Thursday for dinner. But I hope that the boycott call doesn't hurt their business. Some of the wages that her family pays to all those gay employees no doubt made its way into the No on 8 coffers. I'd hate to take money out of the bank accounts and ti- takings of Billy and Bobby and Roberto and Jose and allof our other gay friends there, just because another employee (however closely related to the owners) prefers to donate differently.

We've talked with Margie quite a bit. She's the nice, tall, willowy lady who comes around with ice water and asks how you're doing. We talk about movies, current events, and, yes, politics. She's a Republican. So is almost half the country, and about four in ten Californians. She's also a lifelong Mormon (is there any other kind?). She was very excited about my book, and asked for a signed copy; I warned her it might be a little "racy" for her taste, but she wanted it anyway.

Perhaps when she reads the book, she'll get some reinforcement of the concept that toeing a church line on political issues is a slippery slope. But I think maybe she's already gotten that. From an apology letter posted online at shutupIknow, where there is some heated discussion of the issue:

I HAVE BEEN SICK AT HEART THAT ANYONE HAS BEEN OFFENDED BY ME.

I HAVE FAMILY, FRIENDS, EMPLOYEES FROM THE GAY COMMUNITY WHO ARE TREASURED PEOPLE IN MY LIFE.

I HAVE BEEN A MEMBER OF THE MORMON CHURCH ALL MY LIFE. I RESPONDED TO THEIR REQUEST WITH MY PERSONAL DONATION.

FOR YEARS THE EL COYOTE HAS FINANCIALLY AND GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED THE GAY COMMUNITY AND MANY OF ITS CHARITIES.

PLEASE BE OUR GUEST FOR AN EARLY LUNCH WED., NOV. 12TH AT 11:00 AM AT THE COYOTE AND ALLOW ME TO SPEAK WITH YOU PERSONALLY.

PLEASE CALL AND MAKE A RESERVATION AS SEATING IS LIMITED. (323) 939-2255.

Was Margie on the wrong side of this issue? I think so. Does the restaurant where she works deserve to be boycotted for it? I don't think so, but if you do, I'd at least go hear her out before deciding.

I leave you with a photo of one of the clearly-oppressed staff of El Coyote a couple of Halloweens ago. That's Roberto, affectionately known as Betty...

Killing Time Until The Polls Close -- Houston's

2008-11-04T15:15:00.003-08:00

I had big plans today. I was going to work the Obama phone banks, then try to find somewhere where I could get a classic American hot dog and a slice of apple pie. I was going to photograph it for you, to get you all warm and fuzzy about the U.S. of A. so that if you hadn't voted yet, I could inspire you to go out and do so.

I worked the phone banks, me and Donald Sutherland. I was calling Virginia and Ohio. People were mostly very nice, and many had already voted, and voted for Obama.

But then do you have any idea how hard it is to find someplace in Beverly Hills that serves hot dogs, apple pie, and martinis? Did I mention I needed a martini?

I went to Houston's at the Westfield Century City mall. I don't, as you know, post bad reviews. So I won't say much about it except to say that while they didn't have hot dogs, they also didn't flinch when I ordered extra arugula on my left wing liberal California arugula eating chardonnay drinking cheesburger. And after requesting olives for my martini, twice, they finally located some. Okay, here's a picture of the burger, and the martini.

Now on to the serious stuff. Get out and vote if you haven't already. If you have, and you're scouring the internet looking for early results... you, like I, will have to wait 'til polls close in Virginia at 4:00.

That's 45 minutes from now. It's relocated to http://infinitejess.blogspot.com. That's where I blog about Everything But Food, and I just posted a recap of my recent trip to Washington D.C., and the reading of my novel at the Folger Shakespeare Library. There are some photos to inspire you about great presidents past, and perhaps great presidents future.

Happy Election Day!

A Closer Noodle - Mishima

2008-10-22T13:41:00.000-07:00

MISHIMA

8474 West 3rd Street, #108

Los Angeles, CA 90048

323.782.0181
Google Local Info

I seem to spend more and more of my life these days at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, for the general poking, prodding, screening, testing, and tweaking that comes with middle age. (Since when did 47 become middle age, anyway? If I wasn't so tired all the time , I might protest!) Of course I always park at the Beverly Center and walk the two blocks, saving ten bucks or so for parking. And, since I was trained as a child to expect treats after visits to the doctor, I always take myself out to lunch on the way back. But where are you gonna go for lunch at or around Bev Cen? CPK? How 80s. Grand Luxe Cafe? Yuck. PF Chang's? Double yuck. Chipotle? Well, yes, but I'm middle aged, so I rarely have a burrito for lunch anymore.

I go to Mishima. Tucked deep in the corner of a strip mall on Third Street just west of La Cienega, it's a squeeky clean, reasonably priced, impeccably tasteful cafeteria of the type you expect to find in Little Tokyo, not on the Westside. It is, as my friend Kent would say, "sooo Japanese," from the minimalist, brushed metal sign out front to the cool marble bar that offers counter seating inside.

I first discovered Mishima when searching for Udon noodles, and there are some who maintain these are the best in town. I wouldn't argue. They're thick, tender on the outside with a springy, manly resistance on the inside. The variety of broths are few and simple: tender flank steak, pork, chicken, or tempura. The traditionally mild and subtle flavor can be juiced up with the chili powder or seaweed-and-sesame sprinkles on the table.

Other faves: the curry udon is rich and hugely satisfying comfort food for a rainy day. Also available here is an excellent bowl of Sansai vegetable udon, Japanese mountain vegetables that include a variety of mushrooms, greens, and herbs that I guarantee you don't know: honeywort, bog rhubarb, shuttlecock fern, or spikenard, anyone? The names are unfamiliar, but if you like veggies but are bored of broccoli, green beans, peas and carrots, these are delicious and different. Other items on the menu range from soba noodles, sushi and sushi combos to rice bowls, from bento boxes to light and delicious salads of albacore or soft shell crab.

The only things on the menu more than ten bucks are big bento boxes and combinations of soup and rice bowls (like the one pictured here, of plain udon noodles with a bowl of slightly sweet, tender miso pork don with onions and mushrooms over rice) that are easily big enough to share; nearly everything else is in the $5-9 range.

Add a $3.75 pint of draft Kirin Ichiban, and that not-painful but certainly-invasive last procedure recedes into the distance, a memory now pleasantly clouded like a Japanese mountain landscape... a landscape abundant with bog rhubarb, who knew?

When You're Feeling Shellfish -- Hungry Cat

2008-07-13T17:59:00.000-07:00

Hungry Cat‎
1535 Vine St
Los Angeles, CA 90028
(323) 462-2155
www.thehungrycat.com
MC, Visa, AMEX

I'm about a year behind the cutting edge. I've been meaning to get to Hungry Cat, around the corner from the Arclight Cinemas on Vine and Sunset, for many months now. I can't believe what I've been missing.

I finally made it for a celebratory lunch on the day my novel was released--

What's that you say, you didn't know I wrote a novel? Why yes, I did. It's called MY NAME IS WILL, A NOVEL OF SEX, DRUGS AND SHAKESPEARE. The Washington Post says it has "nuance and panache," the New York Sun praises its "intelligence, humor, and high stakes, and Publishers Weekly calls it "clever... deliciously irreverent... irresistible." You can read all about it on my website or just buy it by clicking here:

But I digress.

Lately I've been having this insatiable desire for oysters. Perhaps it's because I was reading the work of a friend of mine recently that is on a decidedly shellfish theme. Maybe it's because I'm afraid the oyster ship is leaving the docks due to global warming, (as two different articles - this one and this one -- in Sunday's L.A. Times seem to suggest. When I was in New York a few months ago, I made sure to visit the famed Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station, where one can suck down fresh oysters of literally dozens of varieties, washed back by a perfectly chilled martini, in a historic and wood-panelled building of glorious old-Manhattan ambience.

Ever since coming back to L.A., I've been looking for the same experience; or even a place where you can get a decent half-dozen and a cocktail. They are surprisingly few; I had pretty much resigned myself to McCormick and Schmick if I was downtown, or if I was home here in Hollywood -- believe it or not -- Hooters. But a post on the Los Angeles Chowhound board, as usual, directed me to the right spot.

Hungry Cat is conveniently located across from the rear entrance to Border's at Hollywood and Vine. Just a two minute walk from the Arclight Cinemas, where it seems I spend half my life. It's smallish, elegant, minimalist in the New York/New Hollywood brushed-nickel style. An actual raw shellfish bar stands to the right, guarded by iced lobsters; a cocktail bar to the left; tables with banquettes along the wall, and a modest patio out front. Servers are helpful and chatty. You can order from the full menu wherever you sit.

The place is operated by Suzanne Goins, the same chef who brought you Lucques and AOC, so this is, in short, no Hooters. I'm warning you now, it ain't cheap: $15 for a half dozen oysters, $30 for a dozen. But LA Food Crazy is all about getting good food at fair prices; the prices here are fair, because the food is exquisite. A nouvelle California version of the classic New England Lobster Roll (an item I have looked for in California in vain) comes served not on a squishy roll but on a perfectly toasted boat of sourdough. It's $23 (for a sandwich, you think!), and it looks small, but it's actually a lot of food, and a LOT of delicious Maine lobster, for the price. I've had several dozen oysters here by now, all delicious. Hungry Cat doesn't have the variety of the Oyster Bar in NYC, featuring only two or three varieties, mostly West Coast, daily -- the quality is stunning, as are the homemade dipping sauces.

On my novel-release day, I celebrated with the small, $45 seafood platter for two, pictured above. It's as awesome as it looks. Four oysters, four giant steamed prawns, four giant grilled prawns in herbed butter, half a snow crab, two varieties of clams. We were stuffed. One day we sat at the raw bar and watch the chilled salads being prepared. I have yet to sample them, but they look delightful.

My only gripe: the full bar, which features an excellent array of primarily French wines by the bottle and glass, serves a generous and exquisitely chilled martini. But for some bizarre reason, they do not serve "big, name" brands: i.e., no Ketel One, Grey Goose, or even Stoli. They serve a couple of smaller, "artisinal" (this is becoming one of my least favorite foodie buzzwords) brands (Ice, Monopolovia) that I personally don't care for. AND... they serve them in a bizarre little demi-tasse glass, with a sidecar. Sorry, but when LA Food Crazy wants oysters and martini, he would PREFER them served in a proper martini glass, thank you very much.

Still, for a quick, elegant bite of seafood before a movie at the Arclight, and if you're feeling a little flush, Hungry Cat's the place to go.

And then walk out the door, directly into the Borders across the courtyard, and buy my book. You won't regret it.

If Not For the Decor -- La Parrilla

2008-05-15T14:58:00.000-07:00

La Parrilla

Three Los Angeles locations:

3129 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

(323) 661-8055

1300 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90017-1705
(323) 353.4930

2126 Cesar Chavez Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90033-1823
(323) 262-3434

MC, Visa, Amex

http://www.laparrillarestaurants.com

I've been meaning for years to make it to one of the branches of La Parrilla, consistently mentioned by local Chowhounds as one of the top sit-down Mexican restaurants in L.A. You know this is one of my favorite genres of foodie experience. A few weeks ago, I finally made it to the branch on Sunset Blvd. in Silverlake.

There is so much wonderful to say about this place. A stone-faced abuelita hand-making fresh tortillas at a station near the entrance: always a good sign. Guacamole made fresh at tableside. Also, always good. Our one fear, when we saw no bottles of booze on the wall, and wine margaritas on the menu, was that there was no tequila. Our waiter, whether legally or not, promised us tequila, and the margaritas were in fact good and strong. By all accounts, La Parrilla serves up decent versions of classic tacos, enchiladas, chiles rellenos and the like.

But parrilla means "grill" en español, and that's where La Parrilla shines. Find the selection of molcajetes and parrilladas. A molcajete is a mortar bowl usually used for grinding ingredients (like your tableside guac). Here they also come overflowing with various meats from the grill. We had the "Azteca," featuring tender, moist grilled chicken and perfectly cooked carne asada, nopalitos (grilled cactus, which I've never had before... delicious! Somewhere between a roasted bell pepper and an ortega chile), a grilled slab of mild panela cheese, and grilled scallions, all doused in a delicious, smoky, and delightfully spicy red chile huajillo salsa.

We also got a parrillada. Same idea as the molcajete, but this is served on a small portable grill that comes to your table and continues to cook, char and caramelize your food as you plow your way through it. We ordered the chetumal, an amazing array of grilled goodies: two skewers of shrimp al carbon, melt-in-your-mouth pork loin, chicken adobado, sliced red potatoes, a couple of whole jalapeño chiles. All this is served with some of the better whole beans I've had in LA (with plenty of bacon to add flavor), Spanish rice, and a bowl of melted cheese sauce to add to whatever bites you wish. Throw some of that together in your fresh, handmade tortilla, and holy guacamole, is it good. And each of the molcajetes and parrilladas serve two to the point of stuffed... at $11-15 per person, that's a hell of a deal.

But there's a "but..."

The decor sucks. It's been described as "Tijuana chic." That's being generous. The layout of the place is bizarre. You have to negotiate a seemingly endless maze of candy counters and carts to get to the seating area. The lighting is harsh. The requisite piñatas and plastic parrots look like they're beginning to rot. And if you want to enjoy your food, don't even glance upward at the nasty drop ceiling; the oozing water-damage stains and general filth and squalor there might well put you off what is arguably the best sit-down Mexican fare in town.

I'm going to have to go check out the other locations; if I can find one a little less skanky, I'll become a regular.

Believe It Or Not -- Carl's Jr.

2008-04-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

Carl's Jr.

Bazillions of locations

www.carlsjr.com

Odd -- perhaps even shocking -- that my re-entry to the blogosphere after a long hiatus should be about a formerly right-wing Christian apartheid-supporting fast-food joint with one of the more obnoxious ad campaigns in television history. If this seems out of character, you're partially right. I find all that stuff abhorrent. But hey, the supremely evil, gay-hatin', John Birch-lovin' founder Carl Karcher was ousted as CEO years ago, and he died in January, and when it comes down to it, it's all about the food. And for my taste, Carl's simply makes the best fast food burger out there, always has.

I've always had a soft spot for Carl's. It was my first job, during my junior year in high school. I washed trays, I took out garbage, I made fries, finally I got promoted to the burger line, where I learned intimately about the design and construction of the Carl's hamburger. They are flame-broiled, and that's how I like 'em. The buns on the Famous Star and Super Star are sesame-seed, and that's how I like 'em. The lettuce is leafed, not shredded, and that's how I like 'em. Don't get me wrong, In-N-Out's fine, but their plain bun, griddled patties, and prosletyzing soft-drink cups just aren't my type. Plus their limp fries truly suck.

In addition the burgers, Carl's has also had some kick-ass alternative sandwiches. I still lament the loss of the California Roast Beef Sandwich, with its swiss cheese and ortega chile. I celebrated my last day of work at Carl's by eating three of 'em on my employee discount. Fortunately there is still the Santa Fe Chicken Sandwich, which is just plain delicious, with that spicy special sauce and the selfsame ortegas.

But what got me wanting to write up Carl's here is their new Chili Cheeseburger. Yeah, the one with the totally gross commercial of the guy with chili all over his face. For some reason I expected that the burger would be built on Carl's oxymoronically smaller "Big Burger" (formerly the Happy Star), so the first time I ordered one I got a double: a freakish amount of food! The burger's built on a Famous Star base, with a big beefsteak tomato slice, sliced (not chopped, another big burger preference of mine) onion, pickle, and mustard. And the double is based on a SuperStar with chili. If you know the SuperStar, you know that's two meals' worth of burger even before adding chili, which brings it up to a whopping 1050 calories and 61 (count 'em!) grams of fat. But face it, you're not getting a chili cheeseburger for the health benefits.

What makes a chiliburger is the chili itself, and the Carl's version is unexpectedly excellent. It's finely-ground beef in a tangy and surprisingly kicky sauce; entirely comparable to the chili at the Original Tommy's. And given that the burger at Tommy's is griddle-cooked on a plain bun... well, I know it's just a matter of taste, but I am willing to utter the ultimate heresy: I think the Carl's Chili Cheeseburger is BETTER than Tommy's.

Let the flaming (or in this case, the flame-broiling) begin.

One last note: I won't bother explaining the no-posts-for-months thing. Suffice to say I've been busy. I hope you'll take a trip over to www.jesswinfield.com for the latest news and some very nice early reviews of my first novel, coming to a bookstore near you July 8, and available now for pre-order online from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Oh, and one more last note: I'm thrilled to report that my favorite political blogger is back raging against the machine from a new site. Check out http://blyspace.blogspot.com.

Better Than It Sounds -- Lu Gi

2008-01-15T12:36:00.000-08:00

I'll get to that hot pot in just a sec, but first, I have a big...

LA FOOD CRAZY ANNOUNCEMENT

The release date for my first novel is set. Mark July 8 on your calendar!

MY NAME IS WILL: A Novel of Sex, Drugs, and Shakespeare, from Twelve Books, is the tale two William Shakespeares: one, the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon at a randy age 18; the other of Willie Shakespeare Greenberg, a slacker and would-be scholar in 1980's California. Christopher Buckley, author of Thank You For Smoking, has called the book "Utterly delicious, original, witty, hilarious and brilliant. Shakespeare In Love on magic mushrooms."

You can PRE-ORDER IT NOW ON AMAZON.COM. Or, wait 'til a signing event near you this summer.

Read more about the book on the publisher's website, here. Be sure to check out my essay "Behind the Book."

Thanks for your attention during this shameless self-promotion. Now on to the food.

Lu Gi
539 W Valley Blvd
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 457-5111
Open Daily 11a.m. - 12a.m.
MC, Visa
Google Map and Info

It's my first post of 2008 (been busy... did I mention I wrote a novel?), so I've been thinking back on 2007. Frankly, I'm glad to see its sorry ass in the rearview mirror. Good things happened; bad things happened. Is it just me, or does the good and bad always come together in bunches? The saying that it never rains but it pours is true enough, sometimes. But just as often life is like weather in the tropics... dumping rain one instant, blazing sun and blue skies the next.

It's the yin-yang thing.

Which is a long intro to a dish I've been meaning to write about for months, the yin/yang hotpot at Lu Gi in San Gabriel. In foodie circles, the hotpot craze peaked a few years ago, but most folks I know still haven't experienced it. This is still my favorite version of it, and it's worth the trip to San Gabriel.

In fact, it's extraordinary that I have yet to post about a single restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley. This is L.A.'s true Chinatown, with more varieties of regional Chinese cooking than can be found anywhere west of Hong Kong. You pull onto San Gabriel Blvd., and the smells of garlic and chili oil hit you like a truck, wafting out of the uncountable noodle houses and BBQ's and Sichuan joints. Lu Gi is just another in a string of brightly lit, functional strip mall eateries with big formica tables and a cooler filled with beer and sake and soju at the back.

For those unfamiliar, the hot pot is a Chinese and Mongolian version of Japan's Shabu-Shabu. You order large platters of thinly-sliced, raw meat: sirloin or ribeye beef, pork, pork belly (misprinted "pork believe" in the menu -- I DO believe!), chicken, tripe, whatever you like; and/or vegetables: mushrooms, cabbage, leafy greens, several varieties of tofu, several varieties of noodle.

A pot of boiling broth is set on your table. What sets apart the Sichuan hotpot is the spiciness of its broth. Whereas Japanese shabu shabu broth is mild, in many places just water that slowly becomes a broth as you cook your various meats and veggies in it, Sichuan hot pot is, like all good Sichuan, kick-ass spicy, a rolling boil of volcanic red chili oil and Sichuan pepper. You can get the "spicy" version of the hot pot, or if, like me you're feeling more yin/yang, you order the "yin/yang" hot pot. It comes in a specially-designed stainless steel pot with a divider down the middle. In one half is the wickedly spicy brew... in the other, a soothingly mild, savory white sesame broth.

You grab the raw bite of your choice, and dip it into the broth to flash-boil it. Tender beef only takes five to six seconds to cook. It's just a quick "swish-swish" (shabu-shabu, in Japanese) of the chopsticks. Tender greens take thirty seconds tops; a thick tofu cake a few minutes.

When your bite is cooked, you dip it into some ponzu or sesame seed sauce on the table, maybe take it with a little rice from a small stainless steel bowl, or maybe put it atop some noodles you've boiled up, maybe sprinkle it with some scallions. It's fresh, steaming, hot, tender, delicious.

Whether you're a sensitive palate afraid of spicy foods who just wants a comforting bowl of your favorite protein in a mild broth on a winter night; or whether you're a heat-hound with a head cold you want to blast out of your system; whether its good times or bad times; whether you're feeling yin or yang... a trip to Lu Gi is the perfect way to start off the New Year.

Where the Food Craziness Began -- Lupe's Mexican Restaurant

2007-11-01T14:28:00.000-07:00

Lupe's Mexican Restaurant
1710 Thousand Oaks Blvd.
Thousand Oaks, CA
(805) 495-3573

Maps and Info at Yelp.com

This is the very first restaurant I ever went to. My memory of that first visit is as blurry as this dying-battery photo. Yet I do remember it, even though I could only have been 2 or 3 at the time. Lupe's used to be set back about 50 yards from Thousand Oaks Blvd., tucked into the oak trees against the hillside and painted a bright, fiesta green. I remember the screen door you went through to enter, and I remember formica and naugahyde. I think I had a hamburger. I remember a fly.

That photo is actually a painting of the restaurant during those days, that hangs on the wall at the current Lupe's.

By "current," understand that it hasn't changed significantly since that last remodel in 1966 or so. Even the black velvet paintings of toreadors lining the interior walls are the same.

I will receive comments about why Lupe's sucks, about the better Mex food even in Thousand Oaks, about how it isn't "authentic" Mexican food, blah blah. In this case, it doesn't matter. It was my first restaurant, my favorite restaurant, and it informs everything about my take on food since.

I used to go once a week. My mom would take me bowling on Thursdays. She didn't bowl, but she'd watch me, and keep score, and then we'd go to Lupe's. They had a good jukebox. I remember my favorites as "Yesterday," "Raindrops Keep Fallin On My Head," "Sugar Sugar," and "ABC", which places me there a lot in '70-71.

The food hasn't changed since then. Not an iota. And I suspect it hasn't changed much since 1947, when it became the first established eatery in the Conejo Valley. As one post on Ventura.com says, "It's as old as the oaks in Thousand Oaks."

Lupe's still serves California Mexican cuisine of that era, which happens to be what I love. Scratch that, it doesn't "happen" to be what I love... I love it because it's what I grew up eating, right here.

Originally owned and operated by a sweet and tough lady named Martha and named after her eldest daughter, Lupe's has the distinction of now being operated by Lupe herself. That's cool.

The salsa and chips are perfect, the salsa served in little metal bowls. Ground beef tacos are quintessentially SoCal tacos of the era. The Chile Colorado is delicious, smoky and intense like it's been stewing in the pot since 1947. Combo plates are just like you want 'em, big and inexpensive and cheesy and tasty.

But what keeps me coming back are the taquitos. They're utterly addictive: fresh, crispy tortilla; stringy-yet-moist hand-shredded beef; a pile of fresh guacamole and shredded lettuce on the side; finely shredded mild cheddar on top, some Thousand Island dressing, and a couple of black olives to boot.

Did they always serve it with sour cream? I don't think so; I've never cared for sour cream on Mexican food. When I was ten, I remember winning a bet with my waitress that I couldn't eat two orders of 'em (that's six taquitos) plus a guacamole and ground beef taco. She lost. If she'd been paying attention she would never have made the bet because I ordered and devoured the same mountain of taquitos every week. These are, you heard it here, the best taquitos in the world. Because they were my first.

For someone who's lived and traveled and eaten over the world, it is supremely satisfying to be able to re-visit one's first foodie love and find it entirely unchanged.

If only "Yesterday" were still on the jukebox.

While I Get The Attraction -- Cassell's Burgers

2007-10-18T15:12:00.000-07:00

Cassell's Hamburgers
(or, if you read the small sign in the window, "Hambugers")
3266 W 6th St
Los Angeles, CA
(213) 480-8668
Google Maps, Reviews, Info

In case you haven't been paying attention, Cassell's Burgers has consistently rated among the best burger joints in Los Angeles for many, many years; right up there with Apple Pan, Tommy's, the recently departed Mo' Bettah Meaty Meat Burger, and everybody's favorite In 'N' Out. L.A. Food Crazy loves him a good burger, yet I'd never made the pilgrimage to Cassell's, until yesterday.

I have probably made more hamburgers in my life than anyone you know. Not only did I work at Carl's Jr. as a teenager, but I still cook a couple hundred a year, most of them in one day -- I insist on personally grilling the burgers at our annual summer party. So I have opinions about 'em. And my opinions and prejudices very much color my take on Cassell's.

Cassell's has been making burgers since the thirties, and the room, tucked inconspicuously on an entirely nondescript corner in the Koreatown stretch of the Wilshire corridor, has a cool wartime vibe. The burgers are slung cafeteria-style. You grab a tray and order your burger, 1/3 or 2/3 pound, cheese or no. Your burger is cooked to order and the bun toasted in a single proprietary double broiler-device while you stand and read the articles on the wall extolling the virtues of the burger to come.

One lengthy L.A. Times feature posits three varieties of burger-stand burgers: "primo patties," which use high quality beef and usually fried and served with a plain bun to highlight the quality of the patty; mid-level "char-burgers," which are more likely to use flame grilled patties and sesame seed buns; and "grease bombs," where condiments are dominant, the patty merely a protein layer to act as a platter for the other ingredients. Who knew?

Once your burger is plated and delivered, you sidle down the condiment bar. This a truly impressive smorgasbord of burger bits: homemade mayonnaise, ketchupy relish, another spicier relish, hand-leafed lettuce, and most delightfully, beefsteak tomatoes and slices of onion that are uniformly huge and ,in fact, sized exactly to cover the entire beef patty. The resulting burger is an aesthetic delight, a stack that rivals the Capitol Records buildiing for rounded symmetry.

Then why did I find the Cassell's burger, while good, not great?

Part of it is personal taste. Cassell's claims to be a "primo patty" joint. You can even buy their grade A patties by the dozen to take home and cook yourself. But personally I prefer the flavor of a burger with grill marks and a hint of charcoaly char, and a sesame seed bun. And I frankly didn't find Cassell's patty to be that interesting... to my palate, ground beef patties rarely are.

That said, if you believe that a good burger is essentially about the condiments -- a greasebomb fan -- this is the place, because the condiments and your ability to adjust their quantities to taste is fantastic.

Oh, and those fries are terrific!

New York Pizza Round Two -- Village Pizzeria, Tomato Pie, Little Toni's

2007-10-11T20:41:00.000-07:00

Village Pizzeria
131 N Larchmont Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90004
(323) 465-5566
Google Maps, Reviews, Info

Tomato Pie
7751 1/2 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 653-9993
Google Maps, Reviews, Info

Little Toni's
4745 Lankershim Blvd
North Hollywood, CA 91602
(818) 763-0131
Google Maps, Reviews, Info

As I expected, my last post about New York style pizza in Los Angeles generated a mini-firestorm. Not so many comments here, but a record number of daily hits on the site, a nice link from la.eater , and recommendations from half a dozen friends about their favorite NY style pie in town. Your dedicated Food Crazy is nothing if diligent in following up recommendations, particularly if by doing my culinary duty I can escape my low-carb diet for a day or two. So here are the latest entries, and the current standings.

Village Pizzeria I've been up and down Larchmont Blvd. dozens of times in the past decade. I get my hair cut there, I go to Le Petit Greek every now and again, and there's some great Italian bistro food. But somehow I'd never noticed Village Pizzeria until my friend Terry (who cites his NY pizza faves as Grimaldi's in Brooklyn and Lombardi's in Manhattan) sent me here. It's very much in the same mode as Lamonica's. The walls are covered with sports memorabilia from New York and (oddly) San Francisco. It took me a while to figure out why photos of Jerry Rice adorn the walls of a Brooklyn pizza parlor: apparently, the first Village Pizzeria outpost opened in SF. It has the feeling of a step-up-and-order-a-slice place, but it isn't. It's table service, and after standing unnoticed at the counter for a bit I was told to take a seat. The slice that arrived is what I, before I began this quest, imagined to be classic New York pizza. Ultra thin, floppy crust. My friend oB told me, if you can't fold it in half lengthwise, it's not New York pizza. Village Pizzeria fits the bill.

My slice featured spicy, ultra thin sliced pepperoni, curled up around the edges like Quisp cereal, and with a little puddle of grease in each one. The mozzarella was unusually tangy. My Coke came in a classic, logoed red plastic cup. Jerry Rice says, "two thumbs up, this is good NY pie, go Niners." Another branch is scheduled to open in December, 2007 on Yucca and Ivar in the heart of Hollywood.

Tomato Pie My friend Tom sent me to his favorite, Tomato Pie on Melrose. Tom extolled the owner's obsessive chemical analysis of Los Angeles vs. NYC tap water in his effort to recreate that elusive dough. Again, this is a fine slice.

The dough thickness is somewhere between Vito's and Village. The sauce is tangy, the slice is foldable; but the vaunted crust, chemically analyzed though it may be, didn't work for me. It was slightly undercooked, and a little chewy for my taste. But I'll go back to give it another try. It's worth the trip if for no other reason than to sit at a sidewalk table and watch the fashion parade that accompanies the end of classes at Fairfax High across the street. I note that a goodly number of students sally forth from their studies and charge immediately into Tomato Pie.

Little Toni's Little Toni's is really in a different category from the other joints here. It's a classic, old school, red naugahyde and red sauce sit down Italian, complete with Shakey's style stained glass in the windows. I worked for three years less than a quarter mile up Lankershim from this spot. How did I not know about it? This is the old school Italian of your dreams, kicking all manner of ass over Miceli's, Antonio's, and the like.

Yes, it's dark. Yes, the bottles of house chianti are cheap and drinkable. Yes, there is as much crust on the waitresses as on the pizza. But the pizza is simply sublime. I was with a group, so we had a big combo of sausage, onion, garlic, mushroom and olive.

Even with all the toppings, the crust managed an almost supernatural combination of crispness and lightness, equally so from the tip of the slice to the outer rim. This would not pass oB's fold-in-half-test; the crust is too firm. But for me, the pizza is greater than the sum of its parts, an eluctable and indivisible whole that includes the comfort of the surroundings, the beverage that washes it down, and the capacity to share it all with friends in a big comfy booth. And Little Toni's delivers, pardon the pun. It's my new favorite VENUE for "NY Style" pie in town.

But my favorite NY style pizza... just the pie itself? It's still Pizza Bella, the odd little booth at the back of Whitley Heights market on Franklin and Highland. I reviewed it here. It's not perfect... it can take 10-15 minutes to get your slice, delivery takes forever, the puchasing process (get tag here, go to front of market to pay, return with receipt) is arcane, and you have to endure the gaze of those Star Wars standees while you wait. But the slice itself is, for me, unbeatable.

The current standings (until I get another must-try recommendation) for best NY-style pizza in Los Angeles:

1. Pizza Bella
2. Little Toni's
3. Vito's
4. Lamonica's
5. Village Pizzeria
6. Tomato Pie

NOTE: I wrote this yesterday to post today. I see in today's obituaries that Sam Martorano, the founder of Casa Bianca in Glendale has passed away. I love Casa Bianca, though I can't see categorizing its unique style as being "New York." But I do plan to go have a pie there, just to pay my respects.

New York Pizza -- Vito's vs. Lamonica's

2007-09-29T17:01:00.000-07:00

Lamonica's
1066 Gayley Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90024
(310) 208-8671
Google Local Info

Vito's Pizza

846 N La Cienega Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90069

(310) 652-6859
Google Local Info

Before the NYC pizza smackdown, a plug for my wife Sa. This is the final weekend of EEMED, an Evening of Experimental Middle Eastern Dance. It's some of the Southland's best belly dance troupes in a group show featuring non-traditional music and choreography. From Sa's Pirates-inspired piece with the Perfumes of Araby to Desert Sin's jaw-dropping Hut of Baba Yaga, it's a very cool evening of watching scantily-clad ladies shake it to slinky tunes. For more info and tickets, click here.

Okay, on to the chow.

The ragingest foodie debate in in town has to be about the "best New York style pizza." Not only who serves it, but if, in fact, it exists in California. (Logically, of course, it doesn't. If it's not served in New York it's no longer New York by definition. The same could be said about Santa Maria Style BBQ, or Ensenada Fish tacos, or Hong Kong style seafood. Anyone who's tried to find a proper chili cheeseburger outside of LA knows what I'm talking about.)

Now, I'm a native Southern Californian, but I've done some time in Manhattan. I ate a lot pizza there, at some of the "right" places and some of the "wrong" places, and found it all to be, you know, pizza. Some of it was very good, some of it unremarkable, but I didn't find anything quintessentially or homogenously "New York" about it. There were thick crusts, thin crusts, saucy pizzas, cheesy pizzas... just like here.

But to New Yorkers, there seems to be something ineffable in their pizza, such that they find SoCal pie, in all of its variety, to be unworthy the name. So I went to two of the top contenders -- or, some would say, pretenders -- to the title of "best NY style pizza in L.A." to see what all the fuss is about.

Lamonica's has a nondescript storefront on Gayley Ave. a few blocks south of the UCLA campus. (Sorry, no photos... Food Crazy forgot his digital Elph). Inside, it's a classic college-town vibe -- if the town is New York. The walls are decorated with New York street signs and a lightup subway map. You might as well be in the East Village. Lamonica's (a sign proudly proclaims) flies in their dough from New York. Some New Yorkers say their pie is all about the dough. (They say the same about their bagels. Some even assert that it's the ... ahem... savory qualities of the East River water table that gives New York dough its signature texture and flavor The pie at Lamonica's is not what I picture when I think New York pizza... it's not a big, floppy, thin-crust triangle, it's an average-looking, Pizza Hut-sized slice. But the quality is remarkable. It's a perfect balance of cheese and sauce. The sweet italian sausage on my slice is intense with fennel and sweet spice. But it is, in fact, the crust that's noteworthy. Perfectly browned and crisp on the bottom, with a gentle char. There's a custardy top layer that tastes like "more!" In fact, whether because of the surprisingly small slice or the deliciousness of the product, I was still hungry after one slice, and ordered another (pepperoni). In any rustic contruction like a pizza, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and that's the case here. The Lamonica's pie has a an intense, slightly gritty quality that, combined with the funky decor, certainly evokes New York.

Or maybe it was the East River I was tasting.

Vito's, formerly of Los Feliz, has moved into a nondescript strip mall on the stretch of LaCienega filled with art galleries, rug emporia, and mid-end restaurants. No Manhattan vibe here like Lamonica's; it feels more like a Subway than the subway. But the slice is awesome. It has the same custardy crust as Lamonica's, but here, thin slices of jalapeño offset the sweetness of the slice's Italian sausage. Maybe I'm just being influenced by surroundings, but the pie tastes somehow "cleaner" to me, less gritty, perhaps more Californian, and -- for my taste at least -- a little better.

I'm not sure yet how these pies would compare side by side to some of my other favorites -- Antica, Dino's, and my personal favorite Pizza Bella. And being a non-New Yorker, I wouldn't presume to venture an opinion about their "authenticity" (the most overrated word in food criticism, IMHO). But they are tasty, tasty specimens of the species, and if you haven't checked 'em out, you should.

Posh Nosh - Emmy Governor's Ball Sneak Peek

2007-09-11T13:15:00.000-07:00

The Primetime Emmy Governor's Ball Sneak Peek
Shrine Auditorium
Sept. 6, 2007

I've made a bit of noise here about my journalistic integrity. How I always pay for my meals and prefer not to let cooks and servers know that I blog about food, so that I receive no special treatment that you, my readers, wouldn't. But when I got an invitation to the Media Sneak Peek of the Emmy Awards Governor's Ball -- including tasting the food catered by Joaquim Splichal -- how could I refuse? I figured since you, my readers, can't actually buy this food, and unless you're Anthony Bourdain or Oprah Winfrey you probably won't be attending -- what could it hurt?

So Sa and I went and checked it out.

The Ball is held in the Shrine Auditorium's banquet hall adjacent to the theater itself. We stroll in the back door and within two seconds are proffered a tray of the signature martini of the event, "The Emmy." It's a mixology of Grey Goose pear vodka, a rare vanilla/hazelnut liqueur called "43," grape juice, and a twist. You know I don't generally countenance vodka tainted with fruit flavorings, and prefer my martinis dry and straight... but this drink is delightful. We have two. Okay, three, if you count all three of them.

We turn our attention to the room. It's pretty fucking fabulous. All done up in Art Deco black and white. A gigantic 100' by 40' billow of gathered white voile forms a faux ceiling. Four 10' by 10' fabric "chandeliers" in a shape suggesting a picture tube hang from the corners. (The 4x3 TV ratio is mirrored throughout the design of the room, from small hand-sewn sequins on the tablecloths to mirrored pillars).

Four silhouetted Emmy shapes --and she is the most graceful of the big awards statues -- billow languidly in fabric pedestals on the floor. Boxes of tightly bunched white roses form the centerpieces. White orchids grace Lalique vases around the hall. Calla lilies are wrapped in delicate bondage around flowing, nouveau, wrought iron stands. It's all unspeakably elegant.

After a not-dreadful amount of speechifying, the food comes out. First there are full-sized portions, meant for photography only. The press are snapping away with cameras the size of howitzers, and I feel a little out of place with my little digital Elph.

But we're soon distracted as the tasting plates go around. The appetizer is a Tower of Mango and Dungeness Crab, an architectural structure with chunks of avocado and mango on a bed of thinly sliced cucumber and topped with a lotus-root crisp. I say architectural, though you'd fire this architect as the thing falls to pieces at the first touch. It's delicious, though... with those ingredients, how could it not be?

Next came the main course and a beefy one it is: Filet Mignon AND Braised Shortrib, with Cippollini Onions, Marrow Flan, Potatoes Fondate and organic asparagus. This is all good stuff. My mignon, thin-sliced for the tasting tray, was overcooked. I doubt this will be a problem for the thick serving portion on the Big Night. The shortrib, braised in red wine, was to die for. Tender and not too slimy in the way that makes me generally avoid shank meats. The potato was a potato. But the marrow flan... oh my. As creamy and fluffy as the finest custard, with a mellow savoryness imparted by the marrow. This was a revelation. One can't help but wonder, though, why Splichal has chosen to serve asparagus, a famous wine-killer, when the bar is spilling a quite lovely BV Georges Latour 2003 reserve Cabernet (along with a less successful BV Chardonnay)?

For dessert, the Milk Chocolate Mousse with Champagne Gelee and Berries was lovely, though the Dove® Dark Chocolate Cup it came in was a bit much. (But then, Dove® is a sponsor of the event, along with Grey Goose® and BV®, so they may be forgiven.) The tiny "cherry vanilla cake" alongside was more breakfast muffin than dinner dessert.

I did wonder aloud to one of the servers if they had a vegetarian option; I was informed that not only was there a delicious butternut squash ravioli, but that the chef would be creating all manner of special requests on the spot to cater to the whims of whatever A-listers might order fussily.

Sa and I came away from our "tastes" quite thoroughly stuffed. She couldn't help wondering why they would bother serving larger portions to a group of people who, collectively, do not eat. The full size beef dinner is more than Calista Flockhart has eaten in her life.

Okay, I had one more of those "Emmy" cocktails before leaving. Which left me uncertain about much aside from this: if the food press regularly gets plied with alcohol at mid-day like this, you shouldn't believe anything they say in print, because they were drunk when they wrote it. As was, I suspect, the Emmy bigwig who announced: "The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences is very excited about this Governor's Ball... in fact we're excited about BOTH the Governor's balls."

I really don't know what that means, and I'm not sure I want to.

Most Underrated - El Pollo Loco

2007-09-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

On foodie boards around town, there is a constant debate about what establishment most typifies Los Angeles. An out-of-towner will post "In LA for One Meal... Where?" They usually want something near their hotel, on a budget, not too adventurous, and a million other restrictions.

The most common replies are things like Spago, Pizzeria Mozza, and Saddle Peak Lodge on the high end; El Cholo in the middle; and Pink's, Tommy's, and In N' Out Burger on the low end. Now these are all fine places. But I'd like to propose that the quintessential, and perhaps most underrated Southern California classic for a quick, tasty, low-end meal is El Pollo Loco.

It doesn't get written up much. It's just there, plugging along as it has done since the mid-eighties. The menu continues to evolve, with burritos and tacos al carbon and, most recently, crispy-shell chicken tacos. But the staple is still the 2-piece chicken combo. Flame-grilled chicken in a unique, tangy marinade, taken fresh from the grill and hacked to the cuts you've requested before your eyes, and served with your choice of two sides, two tortillas (corn or flour), and a stack of goodies from the salsa bar. I strip off some of that hot, juicy chicken, lay it in a tortilla, add some of my whole beans and side salad (no dressing), some pico de gallo, a slather of the guacamole salsa, and some of my own Cholula... it really doesn't get much better than that at even the best taco joints.

I eat takeout from our local once a week or so; I wonder why have I never taken a visiting guest there? It's a uniquely SoCal chain serving uniquely SoCal food at great prices on every other street corner. You won't find anything quite like it west of the Mississippi. I think it's time someone gave Pollo Loco its due, and started talking it up. The time is now, and the one is me. What do you think?

The Good News From London

2007-07-09T11:04:00.000-07:00

LA Food Crazy in the UK

My only excuse for not posting these past two months is that I've been busy, and traveling. I recently returned from a three-week long business trip to New York, London and Stratford. I came back with many tales to tell, of Manhattan publishing houses and West End theatrical intrigue and encounters with legendary Shakespeare scholars in Shakespeare's birthplace. But for my Food Crazy readers, I really have just one, albeit earth-shattering, item to report: English food no longer totally sucks.

In London, I was ensconced at the Arts Theater in Great Newport Street just around the corner from Leicester Square, where my old Reduced Shakespeare Company partner Daniel Singer and I were directing our newly-revised version of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary. (Yes, 20th... obviously we started performing the show when we were six!) The revival is going really well, thanks for asking -- you can see the reviews from the London press by clicking HERE.

Coincidentally, the Arts was the last place I performed the show in 1992. Back then, the neighborhood of the theater was a poster child for England's well-deserved reputation for crappy food -- bad pub meals, chip shops, kebab houses, Pizza Hut, Burger King, KFC. One could take a 15-minute stroll to some decent Chinese in Chinatown; there was a Mexican restaurant in Covent Garden, Cafe Pacifico, that made a passable facsimile of Mexican food; and there was always Pizza Express.

But now, Great Newport Street is emblematic of the culinary Renaissance that has hit London. The four closest restaurants to the Arts Theater, all within a minute's walk of the 's front door are: a tapas bar; an authentic Japanese Okonomiyaki restaurant, a 50's burger joint; a Korean place with kickass kimchi-chili pancakes; and an outpost of Britain's own fast food sensation Pret a Manger.

What happened since I was there in '92? Simply put, London has caught up with, and in some cases surpassed, California for food freshness, seasonality, sustainability, and yes, even convenience. Right across the street from the Arts is one of the many outposts of Pret a Manger, or, as locals call it, Pret. As the French name suggests, it's ready-to eat food -- sandwiches, salads, wraps, and coffee -- but with a totally fresh and organic aesthetic. No preservatives, no artificial flavors, no frankenfood, no transfats... think Subway meets Whole Foods. Sandwiches are made fresh every morning in each individual store, and packaged up for the day's business -- in cardboard rather than plastic. There's no such thing as "shelf life" at Pret... any leftovers at the end of each day are given to charity. The All-Day-Breakfast sandwich of egg salad and bacon with watercress on whole wheat bread was something I took advantage of often. The crawfish and avocado sandwich -- after the addition of some much needed salt and pepper -- was worthy of the trendiest Westside cafe.

You grab your sandwich or salad from the deli freezer, take it to the counter and request your beverage -- which can include a Coffee Bean And Tea Leaf-quality espresso drink -- and you're out the door with a perfectly satisfying lunch.

My readers know that I'm crazy for Korean food, so you can imagine my shock and surprise to find a restaurant called Corean Chilli (okay, they haven't learned how to spell in the UK) on the nearest corner to the theater.

I was in like a rocket for lunch on our first day of rehearsal, and had a sublime version of the ubiquitous Korean egg-and-kimchee pancake. Perfectly cooked, and reddened through with a piquant tang that absolutely demanded something to wash it back. You guessed it: soju, just as chilled, refreshingly delicious, and sneakily alcoholic as you find it in Seoul or on Olympic and Vermont. (A bottle smuggled into the theater helped me get through the stress of opening night!) The side dishes, panchan, were a little less generous and varied than I'm used to here, but the sweet, grilled beef bulgogi and the bibimbap were just like home.

Directly across the street from the theater is Abeno Too, a Japanese restaurant specializing in okonomiyaki. Some of you may remember my earlier post about my quest, on behalf of my friend Kent, to find the Osaka comfort-food specialty here in L.A. The sauce-drizzled grilled cabbage and egg concoctions here were superior in every way to those in Little Tokyo. Made with Japanese precision and style on the stainless steel grill in front of you, the wasabi mayo and special okonomiyaki sauce were drizzed on, not haphazardly, but in a mandala-like design of concentric spirals that made it almost too pretty to eat.

Nice! Mine, with pork and scallop, two of my favorite foods but rarely found in combination, was simply fantastic.

Even Cafe Pacifico, still hunkered down in a side street, has come up in the world of Mexican food.

Mex food in the UK, even in London, used to be so hard to find and poorly executed (we're talking "enchiladas" made of a crepe filled with canned baked beans and white rice, and topped with catsup) that Sa and I would travel there from California with salsa, bags of tortillas, and cans of Rosarita refries in our luggage. (Note to self: don't drop luggage from a high place when filled with jars of Pace Picante. ) We once took a two hour train ride from Nottinghamshire just to have lunch at the Taco Bell that once graced Leicester Square.

No longer necessary. True, grocery stores still don't stock Mexican ingredients beyond boxes of stale Old El Paso taco shells and beans, but you can go to Cafe Pacifico and have a thoroughly credible Mexican meal. A pitcher of margaritas and a basket of chips with fresh pico de gallo started things off nicely. But I nearly fell off my chair when my order of "five assorted street tacos" arrived, and looked exactly like tacos I might get from a taco truck in L.A.

Good, too. Though the lamb was marred by a cloyingly sweet sauce, the carnitas and carne asada were both crispy and tender, the grilled shrimp juicy on the inside and nicely seared on the outside. The duck (foreground) was out of this world. All were garnished with perfectly authentic onion and cilantro, and a comfortingly familiar bottle of Tapatio stood on the table, ready to do its Tapatio thing.

Of course, the Indian food in London is as good as it has always been. My hosts took me to their local, Indian Ocean on Holloway Road in Islington. Look upon it and weep.

But the London culinary revival isn't confined only to restaurants.

My hosts had just finished planting a large herb garden, and treated me on my early-morning arrival to an omelette made with organic, free-range eggs, a bit of artisanal cheese, and tomatoes and herbs fresh from their garden. Their local grocery store, Waitrose, specializes in organic, sustainable foods, fresh local produce, and environmentally-sensitive household products. Even the scariest local pubs now generally serve a decent house wine -- though you'll still get the odd look for ordering it. And the week after I left, all of the UK was going smoke-free in restaurants and bars, so pub owners were nervously erecting outdoor patios and beer gardens that promised to give dreary old London a positively Parisian flair during warm weather... which, thanks to global warming, is becoming increasingly common.

But fear not, my culinary life in London wasn't all Asian food and organic veggies. I had an occasional pasty, a fish and chip or two. I even decided to re-visit the traditional English Breakfast. Turns out that those once-scary piles of pork sausage, bacon, roasted tomato and eggs make for a fine low carb repast, and now that I've swapped my glycemia-bomb former breakfast of cereal, fruit and yogurt for a more protein-based first meal, this (leaving aside the beans) was right up my alley. I even discovered that the mushrooms in your standard English Breakfast are likely some of the best to be found anywhere.

In short, this is no longer the London of greasy Chinese takeaway, gloppy pub curries, and overcooked vegetables. To my great joy and surprise, I returned from the UK a bit... just a little bit... London Food Crazy.

Super Bowl — T.O.T.

2007-04-25T13:34:00.000-07:00

T.O.T. (Teishokuya of Tokyo)

345E. 2nd St.,

Los Angeles, CA

(213) 680-0344
Google Local Info

Over the past holidays, I had the dubious pleasure of serving jury duty. You'll be happy to know that I sent a probable gang-banger home to his momma for Christmas. (Yes, he was a gang-banger; no, the prosecution did not prove their weapons-possession case.) But more importantly, I pledged — for the edification of you, my readers — to visit a different Little Tokyo eatery each day of my service. I visited Suehiro Cafe for the seventh or eighth time, and decided that despite foodie claims to the contrary, it's really not very good. It's gritty, and not in a good way. I visited Sushi Go 55. And on the third day, I stumbled into the sleek confines of Teishokuya of Tokyo, thankfully abbreviated to T.O.T. I never made it to another restaurant.

The photos says it all. I've gone back several times over the past few months intending to take my camera and post about it, but the food is so good, I keep forgetting to snap a picture before diving in! I've finally given up. So let's just consider the half-eaten photo here a "cross-section" shot of T.O.T's genius: the humble rice bowl.

I suppose that in Japan, this would be donburi by any other name. But where all the donburi I'm familiar with involves chicken, beef, or perhaps fried chicken tonkatsu, T.O.T presents a stunning array of different combinations of ingredients, a couple dozen in all. I've worked my way through many of them. It's usually safe to go for the first item on any ethnic menu, and T.O.T. is no exception. The "Tuna-Tuna Bowl" is a ring of lightly seared albacore tuna, with a scoop of sushi-style Spicy Tuna on top, all on a bed of perfectly seasoned rice with a dusting of seaweed and sesame oil. The "Dragon Bowl" takes one of my favorite sushi combos — avocado and baked sea eel in a sweet sauce — and puts it over rice. The "Tuna Avocado Bowl" is spicy tuna and fresh chunks of avocado on a bed of fresh lettuce laid over the rice and drizzled with a sesame soy sayce and a delicious and tangy wasabi mayonnaise. The "Spicy Chicken Bowl" is utterly addictive, the savory chicken leg meat in a perfectly balanced blend of sweet and spicy. Baked scallops with egg is creamy and swathed in a subtle sauce that will have you coming back the next day for more. Only the Carne Asada Bowl, with grilled beef and guacamole, felt entirely out of place.

They make a decent udon, too, and I've seen plates of enticing chicken curry go by as well; but I'll be working my way through every bowl on the menu before I bother checking it out. Lunch bowls are in the $7-8 dollar range, and include a tasty salad, miso soup, and orange slice for dessert, all served up in tastefully lit, stylish surroundings by eye-candy wait staff. Throw in validated parking in the Little Tokyo Plaza lot, and it all adds up to, for my money, the best, healthiest dining option in Little Tokyo.

If anyone manages to take a picture of the bowl before beginning to consume, please share!

Pulitzer Prize for Jonathan Gold!

2007-04-16T14:00:00.000-07:00

The 2007 Pulitzer Prize winners have been announced, and it gives me great joy to see that L.A. Weekly restaurant critic Jonathan Gold has become the first food writer ever to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Mr. Gold's work -- including the "Counter Intelligence" column at the Weekly and his book Counter Intelligence: Where To Eat in the Real Los Angeles -- is certainly my favorite writing about food, and some of my favorite writing in general. The man can describe garlic in a way that actually leaves your pores reeking. In fact, you could call me, in my Food Crazy guise, a Jonathan Gold wannabe.

Congratulations to the granddaddy of L.A. food writers.

You can check out the announcement from L.A. Weekly, and some of Mr. Gold's recent articles, here.

The Neon Crab — Won Jo Kokerang Agurang

2007-04-05T15:28:00.000-07:00

Won Jo Kokerang Agurang

3132 W Olympic Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90006
(323) 766-0007

When you're truly food crazy, every restaurant sign is a siren song. "Here," each one sings to you. "I am the one... the best restaurant in the world that no one else knows about." But in the world of food blogging, there are very few restaurants no one else knows about. No matter how off the beaten track a place may be, I usually a find that a blogger, or Jonathan Gold -- damn you and your lifetime of experience! -- has already written it up. But aside from one reference to "that dancing crab place" on Chowhound LA, I can't find a single review of Won Jo Kokerang Agurang. Perhaps this is because no one has been brave enough to try to write out the name?

Whatever the case, I believe this is an L.A. Food Crazy scoop...

Driving down Olympic Blvd. at night, as we do fairly often, to a Kings game or to Beverly Soon Tofu, one sign calls to me like a spoonful of smack to a junkie. A red, neon crab, its claws flickering in its two neon positions: up, down; up, down; up, down. There's no English on the exterior signage at all. It's one of those inscrutable Koreatown bunkers that line the boulevard, each one sheltering who knows what culinary delights.

Every time we drive by the Neon Crab, the windows are fogged up. If customers enter or exit as we pass, a puff of steam wafts out the door, through which I glimpse a small spare room packed with Koreans. I tell my wife -- like ten times -- "we have to try that place." Finally I talk her in to it. As we approach, I say, "I'm picturing steaming iron bowls of roiling, spicy crab stew, with noodles and legs stickings out all akimbo."

I am almost entirely correct. There are no noodles, but there is rice.

Oh, there is rice.

The room is tiny. Ten or so tables. No one speaks a word of English. This is a good sign. The menu is small, so don't bother picking and choosing, much less asking whether this or that is good, or whether this or that comes with this or that appetizer, or whether the food is too spicy. Your questions will not be understood. Just order the Spicy Crab Soup. This is the steaming bowl of crab in question. Or, if you hate soup, order the Spicy Crab Casserole (pictured). It's identical to the crab soup, with sauce rather than broth.

As I say, there are no noodles. What look like noodles in the photo are bean sprouts. This is excellent news for those of you who, like LA Food Crazy, are low-carbers. It's true -- people ask me, how do you stay so thin when you eat so much food? To which I have three answers: 1. Low carb diet; 2. I actually only post once a month or so, which doesn't require lots of eating' and 3. Do you really think I look thin!? I love you! This means, btw, that whenever I discuss noodles or burritos or french fries here, I have unselfishly broken my diet and researched meals in excess of 20 carb units just the edification of you, my readers.

But I digress. Back to the meal.

There are panchan (the ubiquitous side dishes that are the bread and butter or chips and guacamole of Korean dining) galore: tangy, refreshing cucumber salad, tsukomono-style bean sprouts, tofu, kimchee, pickled turnips, seaweed, and yes that is potato salad with apple chunks.

Then the lady comes with the crab and the scissors. I've decided American waitresses don't use enough scissors. She cuts up the crab like your crazed third grade teacher attacking construction paper, chopping it into manageable pieces. She makes a little plate for you out of one of the crab's shells, and leaves you to it. (She may also try to embarrass you by placing a lobster bib around your neck. Please, for the dignity of all white people in Koreatown, politely decline it.) You go to town on Dungeness crab, the spicy broth, the bean sprouts and greens and onions soaked in spicy crab sauce. It is probably more crab than you can eat. You drink soju. Oh, the price of the crab soup for two ($45, if I recall correctly -- notes are not LA Food Crazy's strong point, he's too excited about the food to write stuff down) includes a beverage. You want soju. God bless soju, and I don't even believe in God.

But the best is yet to come. You say to the waitress while making a stirring motion over the detritus of your soup/casserole, "fried rice, please."

The waitress comes back with a rack of ingredients: some rice, some seaweed, some sesame oil, some spices. She takes a ladleful of your crab soup/casserole, and mixes it up into a risotto that comes out looking like this.

It is, I guarantee you, one of the best things you have ever eaten. Spicy, savory, with a rendered-down crabby essence... you will find yourself getting out of bed at three a.m. for leftovers, because you couldn't possibly finish the rice right after all that crab.

Okay, so the word is out. I suspect the next time I drive by, and that crab blinks at me, and the door opens, and steam wafts out, that I will see one or two of you, trying to talk to the waitress and asking "what's in the "mixed seafood casserole?" and "do you have noodles?" and "Could you make it medium spicy, please? And do you have a wine list?"

Jeesus, did you not read what I just told you? Seven words:

Spicy Crab Soup.
Soju.
Fried rice, please.

The Mighty Cream Puff -- Beard Papa

2007-03-02T12:51:00.000-08:00

Beard Papa
Hollywood & Highland Shopping Center
6801 Hollywood Blvd.No.1.5.-153
Hollywood, CA 90028
(323) 462-6100

Again, I'm not really a dessert guy. But the overwhelming response to my post about Mashti Malone's tells me that I should really let you know about Beard Papa.

The shopping center at Hollywood and Highland is surely one of the most curious destinations in Los Angeles. Aside from the rat's-maze escalator system (after six years of going there a couple times a week I STILL go the wrong way at every counterintuitive turn) and the utterly-without-irony giant white elephants that loom over the not-quite-failed enterprise, there are some truly odd food outlets. There's the taqueria that isn't quite a La Salsa or a Rubio's; the pizza place that isn't a Sbarro (althought their NY style pizza is not bad); and the bizarre, well-hidden mini-food court with just three establishments serving steak and potatoes, Mongolian BBQ and falafels.

All this is sure to confuse the tourists, but nothing leads to quite so much scratching of Midwestern heads as Beard Papa. Located in the middle of the staircase leading to the main courtyard off of Hollywood Blvd., a few steps away from the Red Line Station entrance, I stood and watched for several minutes as tourists waddled up to the menu, saw "cream puffs," glanced cockeyed at the Santa Claus-like Beard Papa logo and walked away as if their logic circuits were fried.

Locals know better. The cream puffs being squeezed out behind counter of the small, spartan shop are transcendent. You watch as the puffmaker squeezes a dollop of freshly-made filling into your freshly-baked puff. There are three varieties of puff on most days: one filled with simple, buttery vanilla cream, with just a hint of citrus; a chocolate-covered "eclair;" and a special puff-of-the-day that might filled with be caramel cream today, strawberry tomorrow, pumpkin in the fall. The pastry dough is unbelievably light and airy, the filling decadent and sweet without being cloying or overly rich. These babies make you ralize why the phrase "light as a cream puff" need not be an oxymoron. Add a generous dusting of powdered sugar (handle with extreme caution if you're wearing black!) and you've got the best reason I can think of to hop on the Red Line -- next to saving the planet, that is.

Perfect Lunch Special — Sushi Go 55

2007-02-18T11:37:00.000-08:00

Sushi Go 55
333 S Alameda Street, Suite 313

Los Angeles, CA

(213) 687-0777
www.sushigo55.com
Google Local Info

Sorry for the absurdly long delay in posts; Thanks for keeping me in your RSS feed and your thoughts. Aside from surviving the holidays, sticking to New Year's resolutions, and finishing revisions to a novel and a play, I also spent a lot of time working on a longer foodie piece about all the streets in Los Angeles named after U.S. Presidents. It includes notes on Tito's Tacos, Mel's Fish Market, and a few other choice spots; you will also find out just what culinary delights Bush Way (yes, it exists) has to offer. Please check it out, and comment on it, lest NFT think I have no readers!

I also lost a couple of weeks to the Performance of my Civic Duty, serving on a criminal trial jury downtown. I got the dubiously warm holiday fuzzies by sending a kid -- who I'm quite sure was a gang-banger, but was clearly NOT proven guilty by the overworked and under-resourced DA -- back home to his momma for Christmas. I also had the perfect opportunity to sample the delights of nearby Little Tokyo.

It's a four-block walk from the courthouse to the heart of downtown's Japanese enclave; just far enough to work up a bit of an appetite. Since I was stuck on a two-week trial, I determined to try a different place for lunch every day. On Day Two, (after yet another mediocre experience at Suehiro -- some people like it, I think it's pretty skanky, and not in a good way) I was going to splurge and take myself to food crazy favorite Sushi Gen. Think a-gen! The line out the door was absurd. So I kept walking. There is, after all, a lot of raw fish in Little Tokyo. I found myself in the odd, sleepy quintessentially Japanese indoor mall on Alameda between 3rd and 4th. The third floor is a veritable Pacific Rim of restaurants, including a couple of excellent ramen houses. But it was too hot for soup that day (one of those 85 degree days in December. Curiously, I blame Al Gore). So I took myself to Sushi Go 55.

Never more I will never darken the door of Sushi Gen. At least, not for lunch. Sushi Go 55 -- aside from its oil saving, global-warming stopping name -- serves possibly the best value sushi meal in town. I know, I say "sushi lunch special" and you think, yeah, all the cuts of sushi I really don't like -- lox, a rubbery shrimp, a bite of an omelette, some flavorless tuna, a soggy California roll -- for $14.00. Not here. At Go 55, ten bucks -- that's right, $10 U.S currency -- gets you one piece each of tuna, albacore, yellowtail, salmon (okay, there's salmon), and snapper (the last three with a brush of light and delicious ponzu sauce, the yellowtail with a bit of wafer-thin shaved onion), a blue crab handroll, miso soup, a wee cucumber salad, and a couple of even wee-er side dishes. And the quality of the fish isn't "value" at all. It's fresh, perfectly chilled, and tender... a delightful antidote to a blazing hot winter day in L.A.

I went back to a couple of times for the very same meal. Each time, it simply, reliably, and cheaply kicked ass. Between Go 55 and my discovery of T.O.T. the following day (more about that in my next post!), I never actually made it to any other lunch spots.

Seriously, Little Tokyo is almost enough to make me want to serve on a jury again.

Not.

I Almost Forgot Dessert! - Mashti Malone's

2006-11-18T18:15:00.000-08:00

Mashti Malone's
1525 N La Brea Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90028
(323) 874-6168

143 N Maryland Ave
Glendale, CA 91206
(818) 662-0400

www.mashtimalone.com
Google Local Map

You folks with sweet teeth must think I hate you. I've been raving on here for over a year, post after post about appetizers and main courses: steak, tacos, sushi, noodles, tofu, you name it... and not once have I mentioned dessert. Fact is, I just don't have a sugar jones. I don't object to desserts, mind you. I dig a cheesecake or creme brulee as much the next foodie. But as a true metrosexual, I like to maintain my girlish figure while keeping a good buzz on, so I' usually pass on that flan at El Coyote (excellent, btw) or the what-the-hell-is that-du-jour at that Korean joint, and head home to spend my calories on a nightcap instead.

Unfortunately for my figure, Mashti Malone's Ice Cream Parlour is on my way home from just about everywhere.

We're zipping up LaBrea, and I see that quirky sign. (The legend is that when two Persian brothers bought the place to sell their exotic ice cream, they could only afford to change the first name on the sign left by the Irish former tenants.) "Mashti!" I scream, and we screech into the skanky parking lot the parlor shares with a skanky liquor store, a skanky laundromat, and The Lava Lounge.

Mashti's has a couple dozen flavors, all made fresh on the premises. There are favorites like chocolate and vanilla, butter pecan, blueberry. And they are really, really good. Award-winning, in fact, as the festoonery on the wall will inform you. But you go here for the Persian ice cream at the far right of the counter.

Made with a base of rosewater, the flavors read like the aromas of a bivouac on the ancient spice road: Creamy Rosewater Saffron, Orange Blossom, Ginger Rosewater. You could get 'em on a cone or cup, but why? You want the full experience, so order a "Mashti." It's a scoop of ice cream squished between two light, sugar-cone style wafers. It's a unique dessert in every way, from flavor to presentation. My wife loves the Ginger Rosewater, though it's a flavor I find odd in a sweet. Give me the Rosewater Saffron with pistachios: yellow like Indian pullao rice, creamy like a good French vanilla, and punctuated with big, juicy nuts.

And the best part is, you can take the experience home with you. Check the freezer in the corner, and you'll find their signature flavors by the pint, as well as plastic-wrapped Creamy Rosewater Mashtis-to-go. Though the sugar wafer is nowhere near as good frozen as it is fresh, they're still a staple in our freezer.

Face it, as long as you're food crazy-ing around L.A., tasting all those diverse ethnic cuisines , you might as well cap it off with a little detour to Persia on the way home. And I see there's a new Mashti outlet in Glendale, too!

Taquito Revisitado -- Rodolfo's

2006-11-14T11:42:00.000-08:00

Rodolfo's

8 Olvera St
Los Angeles, CA 90012

(213) 625-8501

Google Map

You may recall that some time ago, I posted a near-encyclopedic review of the numerous taquito stands lining the East side of Olvera Street. I concluded that while Cielito Lindo is the most famous, the best was Juanita's Cafe. I apologized at the end of the review for having mis-calculated my taquito intake on the way up the street, and being therefore indisposed to check out Rodolfo's at the top of the street.

Perhaps some of you saw the comment that appeared on the post a few weeks later:

you can't write a taquito review of olvera street without eating at Rodolfo's. Juanitas is good and you are right about the other restaurants, they suck (Luz del Dia excluded) but you started on the wrong side of the street cuz you would've eaten 10 straight up had you eaten at Rodolfo's and your review would have been totally different.i guess what i'm saying is you have yet to eat the best taquitos at Olvera Street... our taquitos kick ass. so come back and ask for Daniel and i'll give you the goods.

I went back to Rodolfo's. Now, even though I'm a blogger, I at least pretend to have some journalistic ethics. I rarely post about a place after only one visit, and I never let an establishment comp me a meal. Not that any have offered. But still, I would never have accepted special treatment from Rodolfo's, despite the invitation. That would not be fair you, my humble readers, who might not receive such preferred taquito treatment.

Besides, "Daniel" wasn't there when I asked for him.

But you know what? Rodolfo's taquitos do, indeed, kick ass. What sets them apart from the other tubes of greasy goodness on the block is the delicacy of the shell. Where Cielito Lindo's taquito is positively chewy, at Rodolfo's the tortilla itself manages to be crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, like a pastry or a perfect french fry. That's no mean feat to achieve in the 1/16th inch width of the flattened-maize medium. Only one small gripe: the stand's photographic menu tantalizingly shows taquitos served with a chunky, fresh guacamole, but it is in fact topped with that very different beast, avocado sauce. But it's a tangy, creamy one with a nice kick so no points deducted.

Add to that Rodolfo's delicious beef filling -- yes, it passes the whole-thing-wants-come-out-in-the-first-bite litmus test for stringy beef -- and Rodolfo's has clearly earned its spot at the top of the Olvera Street.

My Crispy Taco Jones: Henry's Tacos

2006-10-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

Henry's Tacos

11401 Moorpark St.
North Hollywood, CA 91602
(818) 769-0343
CASH ONLY
Google Local Info

It's been so long since I've posted! Been hunkered down, finishing the first draft of my novel. It's done, it's not perfect yet, but the word so far is good. Thanks for asking!

Despite my absence here, I have not stopped eating, nor embarrassing my wife by snapping pictures of food in restaurants and lunch counters around L.A. So I have a lot of research in the can. I hope you'll hear more posts from me in coming days.

For some reason, this fall I've been thinking about almost nothing but crispy ground beef tacos. You know, the kind mom used to make on Taco Night. Chopped tomatoes, shredded iceberg lettuce, grated cheddar, a pound of ground round, Lawry's Taco seasoning, Old El Paso shells. The kind that Del Taco or (less successfully) Taco Bell deals in.

There are many great versions of this humble taco in L.A. The most famous perhaps is Tito's Tacos in Culver City; but for me, Henry's Tacos in Studio City wins the horse race by a nose... because of the sign.

I love that sign. Maybe it's because the restaurant opened the year I was born, but that Jetsons-Meets-Shag aesthetic just makes me all glowy every time I see it.

I own the T-shirt.

Henry's perches on an anonymous corner in the Valley, unchanged since the street was dominated by big-fin American cruisers populated with guys trying to look like James Dean. The tiny menu is the kind I like, lean, mean, and focused on what the joint does well. We got beef. We got beans. We got rice. We got cheese. Chicken? Fuck off. You get your beef and/or beans in three different formats: taco, burrito, tostado (note the retro spelling), and "taco burger."

That's the only oddity here: the ingredients of a taco stuffed into a hamburger bun; a Mexican Sloppy Joe. Ain't that just the ultimate in early sixties muliculturalism?

Some like the taco burger, or the bean or combo burrito. They're fine, but too squishy for my taste. When I come here, I'm after that dialectical interplay between crispy shell and soft, savory beef that makes the hard shell taco so irresistible. Henry's Tacos ($2.40) have that in spades. The beef is mildly seasoned; it profits by addition of the little tubs of "hot sauce" (not salsa, please, remember this is 1961) that come on the side. The shell is perfectly crispy, less greasy than some other excellent hard tacos in town but not as cardboardy as either Mom's Old El Paso or Taco Bell shells. The shredded lettuce is fresh and crunchy, the real cheddar cheese perfectly sharp. The single slice of half tomato gives a tangy semblance of something healthy. If you must have a side dish, the beans, with green chile sauce added, are tasty.

But that's the great thing about a Henry's taco. you don't need a side dish. Just order another taco... and a t-shirt of that fabulous sign.

Be careful not to dribble the hot sauce on your swell new shirt.

Dining at Canyon Pace -- Abuelita's

2006-09-07T23:11:00.000-07:00

Abuelita's

137 S. Topanga Canyon Blvd.
Topanga, CA 90290
(310) 455-8688
www.abuelitastopanga.com
Google Local Info
MC, Visa, AMEX
Extensive Vegetarian Menu

In an effort to rediscover my Shakespeare roots, I made the trek out to Topanga Canyon for a production of Twelfth Night at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum. Of course, Twelfth Night features a clown named Feste, Feste reminds me of "fiesta," "fiesta" is Español for party, so was there any question that I'd be going out for margaritas before the show?

Turns out one of the most well-reviewed Mexican places in L.A. is Abuelita's, about a mile and a half down the Canyon from the Will Geer, right around the corner from The Inn of Seventh Ray. I might have checked out the New Age, organic Inn, as everyone says I must do; but I worry, do they even have margaritas, and if so, do they put tofu in them?

I'll make it to Inn of the Seventh Ray one of these days, but let's talk Abuelita's. The name is a good sign: "Granny's", is a loose translation. You know that I'm all about Mex food made by grandma, not the gang youth at your local Baja Fresh, right?

The service upon entry was not a good sign. Bees were attacking their outdoor patio overlooking the creek (the best outdoor dining in L.A., according to AOL Cityguide -- as long as you don't count the horror-movie infestation of bestingered insects), so I'll cut 'em some slack. But still, our hungry party of five waited fifteen minutes just to be seated in a nearly-empty restaurant. We sat inside to avoid the swarm, but the creekside canyon ambience did seem lovely.

The first round of margaritas, the house blend, were so watery that we seriously wondered if they'd remembered to add the booze. Our waiter (cute, I'm told, by our female companions) had suggested we order the Cadillac version for a buck more, and he was right. The second round was a major improvement.

When the food finally arrived, all other concerns went out the window. The tortillas, handmade on the premises, were delightful. The chiles rellenos were delicate and fluffy, perfectly picante chiles stuffed with a generous (maybe too generous?) amount of cheese, the light tomato sauce tangy, flavorful, and not the least bit gloppy.

A grilled shrimp burrito, made mojado with an unusual lobster bisque sauce, got rave reviews. You know I love my taquitos, and these delightful fingers of deep fried pulled pork were some of the best I've ever had. The sum of gritty, chewy quality of the fresh, hand-pounded tortillas, perfectly cooked pork, and fresh guacamole added up to a thoroughly satisfying whole. Only a chicken mole soft taco disappointed. The chicken was fine and tender; the mole, a little too sweet; but the taco itself, just chicken mole with no condiment, felt like it needed another ingredient to finish it off. Onion? Scallion? Something.

Visting Topanga Canyon is a little like visiting the 70's. Life goes on at a slower pace there; but you do come away with some good memories.

Oh, and Twelfth Night, under the moon and oak trees of the utterly delightful Theatricum Botanicum, kicked ass.

L.A. Food Crazy Meets "Not For Tourists"

2006-09-01T18:01:00.000-07:00

If you're familiar with the hardcopy version of the Not For Tourists guide, you know it's an excellent guidebook designed for people who live or work in the big U.S. cities. Stunning graphics, thoughtful listings of offbeat places for locals to visit, and plenty of listings of locals' necessities like carwashes and schools make it a great guide for locals and newcomers who info beyond to go beyond the Chinese Theater and the Wax Museum.

I'm contributing a few food write-ups for their online site; check out today's Daily Radar blurb, and then visit ther rest of their newly re-vamped site. Even if you're a local, you might learn a thing or two.

The Frog and the Pig - Toad House

2006-08-16T16:40:00.000-07:00

Toad House
4503 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90004
(323) 460-7037
Open Daily 7:30am-1am
American Express, Discover, MasterCard, Visa
Google Local Map

I thought I'd follow up my last post about Noshi Sushi with a breakdown of a spot less than two blocks away, and yet a world apart. Where Noshi is all about slabs of delicately flavored cool fresh, Toad House is all about...

Frogs.

Psych! It's not about frogs. It's about meat. And particularly, pork.

Just another bunker on Beverly Boulevard from the outside, Toad House greets you with happy cartoons of pudgy yellow pigs on the front door. There are a couple of tables inside, but most of the dining area is outside on the covered patio. And with good reason. There's going to be a lot of smoke, and not just from the surly Korean youths puffing away in the corner over big bottles of OB or Hite beer.

Take a seat outside under one of the five or so TV sets suspended over the tables (there's almost one monitor per table). But trust me, you won't be watching TV. The food show is much better.

The waitress sets down menus. No one speaks much English here, so make it easy on yourself. Take a date, and point to the #3 combination, $39.95 for pork belly and beef brisket for two people. All the combinations include beer, wine, or soju. Have you been paying attention to my past posts? If so, you know want the soju.

Then sit back and watch what happens. Nice but harried waitress fires up the convex grill; a smaller version of what you might see at a Mongolian BBQ. She brings out the metal bowls filled with the small side-dishes known as panchan. Be sure to impress your date that you know the word for these dishes. Say it with me: panchan. They're actually not that remarkable here, but the chili sauce bean sprouts are good, and the potato salad is tangy -- why do these Korean places make potato salad, anyway?

Next comes the leek and scallion "pancake." You won't recognize it as a pancake, because it's more like a quiche or a soufflé. It arrives at your table with the eggy concoction still roiling and boiling to a finish. Let it simmer and solidify a little before you dig in. It's sooo light and fluffy; somewhere between meringue, mousse and the fluffiest omelette you've ever had. I'm craving it as I write about it.

Next come the piles of raw pork and beef. The waitress lays it out on the grill for you. It cooks. You watch, waiting. The brisket is the classic Korean bulgogi, thin-sliced and tender. It cooks fast. Start eating it when it looks good. The pork -- if you ordered the #3 -- is pork belly, huge slabs of marbled meat that look like bacon on crack. Let the waitress cook this for you. You'll know when it's done: she comes by with some bad-ass scissors and (this momma's boy loves this part) cuts it into bite-sized chunks for you.

But there's one more trick to Toad House. It's dduk bo sam style. That means that while the meat is cooking, you'll be brought a big pile of shredded lettuce and scallion, a couple of dipping sauces, and a plate filled with something so unfamilar that -- I guarantee -- even after having enlighened yourself by reading this post -- you'll ask, What's that? They're small, square rice-flour cakes, paper thin and slightly stretchy; not unlike the rice paper wrappings on Vietnamese summer rolls.

Just take a piece of this dduk wrapper in one hand, grab a bit of caramelized, grilled meat, dip it in some sauce, and put it in the wrapper. Add a chopstickload of the lettuce and scallion. Wrap it up loosely, and eat in one bite, dim sum style. This, you will discover, is a little big of hog heaven. Don't worry about doing it "wrong." A glance around the table reveals as many techniques for devouring this stuff as there are for eating rice, beans, and guacamole with tortillas.

Just be sure to wash it back with soju. And don't forget to toast the five happily trotting pigs in the poster on the dining room wall.

They gave their bellies for yours.

Red Booths and Raw Fish - Noshi Sushi

2006-07-27T15:41:00.000-07:00

Noshi Sushi

4430 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90004
(323) 469-3458

Open 7 days til 9 pm
CASH ONLY

Google Local Info

It's a fucking zillion degrees in L.A. You've already imposed on your friends to swim in their pool twice, you've seen An Inconvenient Truth and every other thing playing at the Arclight. You've cooked out on the Weber until you have hot dogs coming out your ears. You feel like it's actually too damn hot to eat, but you've got to... and you've got escape the heat.

If you're like me, you want raw fish. Cool, fresh, buttery slabs of sushi. And you'd like it somewhere where you can relax and spend a couple of hours, not propped up on a slightly-too-small plastic chair in a spartan Zen room that should be cool but, because of the small space and the track lighting over the sushi bar, is just a little too close for comfort.

You want to go to Noshi Sushi. I think it's the best sushi restaurant in Los Angeles. Sure, there are places in Beverly Hills that do the thousand-dollar slice of fish. And of course there are the splendors of sushi row on Ventura Blvd. Katsu-ya makes delicious dishes in the "Japanese tapas" style -- things like Carpaccio of Yellowtail with Jalapeño, or Spicy Tuna on Crispy Rice Cakes -- as does my new local favorite Shintaro. There's Nozawa with his "Trust Me" special, and his amazing array of tunas and his blue crab rolls. But Nozawa's rice is always a little warm, and authentic or not, I don't want warm rice taking the cool edge off my raw fish on a hot night.

No, those places are great, but when my wife and say "Wanna go for sushi?", we mean Noshi. Why? Big slabs of fresh fish at reasonable prices, consistently amazing hamachi (which is, after all, the best of all possible sushi fish), and the most comfortable dining room of any sushi place in L.A.

It's in what looks like a nuclear fallout shelter on Beverly Blvd., smack in the middle of Koreatown. It's got a huge sushi bar, but it's one of the few sushi joints where I don't usually sit there... because Noshi's got booths. Big ones. Real, honest-to-god, spacious, red naugahyde booths. The place looks like it was probably once a steakhouse, and has the airy, high-ceilinged feel of a Japanese Hamburger Hamlet, without the cheesy decor.

You won't find any fancy, layered, fusion creations here. No specialty rolls. It's stripped down, dude. No fancy "premium cold sake list." They got hot sake, cold sake, and Asahi and Sapporo beer. Small bottles only, no large. No Kirin. Tempura/teriyaki combos and old-school sushi rule the day.

There are a very few specials on the wall. The albacore salad, a mound of crisp cucumber and shredded daikon and carrot with slabs of albacore tuna in a light, tangy dressing, is the perfect starter to beat the heat. After that, you'll recognize the menu from 1980's sushi bars: Tuna, eel, clam, giant clam, octopus, squid, shrimp, and scallop sushi; California rolls; spicy tuna rolls; salmon skin rolls. You can try to ask for your favorite nouvelle sushi option, but if you're going much beyond "Spicy Scallop Hand Roll," expect a blank stare.

But what they do, they do right: big, bold and fresh. My personal favorites are "white fish" (you get halibut unless you specify red snapper, which is usually better) - order it with ponzu sauce. Scallop sushi (ordered with mayo) is never better anywhere than here. And as for the hamachi (yellowtail) sushi... it's simply the most consistently sweet and buttery you'll find. It invokes in this blogger what his wife affectionately calls "hamachi-face" -- that look of utter epicurean delight that makes your face positively melt with joy. Which is much better than having it melt -- like the Nazi dude in Raiders of the Lost Ark -- in the heat outside.

Two tips:

- Arrive early. The restaurant is only open 'til 9:00 pm, and you can have a tough time parking and a long wait in the 7-9 window.

- Bring cash. It's cash only, and they have no ATM. But you don't need to bring too much... unless you eat more than your weight in sushi and drink more than three beers or sakes, you'll have a hard time spending more than $35.00 a person.

Tofu! Tofu! Tofu! - Vinh Loi Tofu!

2006-07-13T16:16:00.000-07:00

Vinh Loi Tofu

18625 Sherman Way, No. 101,
Reseda
(818) 996-9779
Open 7 am - 7 pm
Cash Only

Google Local Info

If you're like me, you're an equal-opportunity diner. Just because you love few things in the world more than a perfectly grilled 14-ounce New York strip doesn't mean you can't appreciate the delights of a nice, fresh salad, a good veggie stir-fry, or even... tofu.

Some otherwise reasonable people I know won't go there. Any food that has to sit in water in your fridge must be for pussies, they figure. And the average Buddha's Delight at your local Chinese greasery isn't likely to persuade them.

Vinh Loi Tofu just might.

I can't claim to have found the place, as Linda Burum's piece in the Los Angeles Times sent me slavering there a couple of weeks ago. But holy bean curd, this place is good.

It's yet another outpost of cutting edge cuisine in a dodgy strip mall; this one in the deepest depths of Reseda. Ambience: one counter, five pictures of food on the wall, one cooler with drinks and other specialty items, one handful of formica tables.

It's my first time there, and Kevin Tran, owner, proprietor, and cashier can tell. As I and my lunch date study the menu, he says, "First of all, don't order off the menu. Get what I tell you."

We do.

First of all, it's Vietnamese food, which means it's good to begin with. Vietnamese uses all of my favorite ingredients: tender, sliced, savory bits swimming in flavorful broths among delicate noodles, seasoned with lemon grass, chiles, and cilantro, juiced up with a squeeze of lime.

But what Kevin Tran does with the savory bits is truly amazing.

Anchoring all of the spicy salads, stinging hot soups, and fresh spring rolls -- where you're used to beef, duck, pork or shrimp -- is humble tofu. Tofu that, in a dazzling array of preparations, manages to to taste, feel, and sometimes even look like the beef, duck, pork or shrimp of the original.

The beef- and pork-style tofus in the spicy noodle soup are as different from each other as cow and pig: the beef, thin-sliced and slightly chewy, the pork tender and succulently chunky. And they're both as different from the pillowy hunks of what-you-know-as-tofu in the same soup as different can be.

The "seafood" with wide, flat noodles (first photo, above) arrives topped with what looks for all the world like a perfectly breaded, grilled, sliced calamari steak. It tastes a little more like shrimp than calamari, but there's no actual seafood involved. When my vegetarian dining partner, entirely skeptical, asks Kevin if all this is really vegetarian, he replies no, it's vegan!

The slices of browned stuff in the spring rolls? Tofu.

The absurdly duck-like stuff in the duck salad? Vegan.

Only the fried tofu with dipping sauce looks and feels familiar. Yet with its perfectly crispy, chile-flaked crust, it's the best version of fried tofu I've ever had, with the possible exception of the world-famous Fatty's in Singapore.

And it all comes from Kevin's very own tofu factory in the back of the restaurant. It's fresh. It's one-of-a-kind. I guarantee you, you CAN'T get these dishes, like this, anywhere else, even if you're food crazy like me and make the requisite pilgrimages to far-flung parts of the county for exotic Asian food. And it's right there in freakin' Reseda!

With apologies to Soul Coughing: We are all going to Reseda, someday, to die... for the tofu.

You'll have to excuse the lack of detail here. I rarely post about a place after visiting just once, especially when I'm not even allowed to look at the menu, but I had to get this up, to make sure people keep going there, to make sure Kevin's place is a huge success. You gotta go. And I gotta go back.

When are we going?

Families Are Hard: Guadalupe's Place

2006-06-21T14:21:00.000-07:00

Guadalupe's Place
5028 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA

(323) 462-3329
Cash Only

Google Local Info

No, that's not a typo in the caption. The sign that says "Elizondo's" means "Guadalupe's." Read on.

About twenty years ago, I had just moved to LA from San Francisco's Mission District, and was looking for a replacement for my daily burrito fix from Taqueria La Cumbre, El Toro, Pancho Villa, La Parrilla Suiza, El Faro, and the other fantastic competing burrito joints in the few square blocks bounded by Mission and Valencia, 16th and 24th Streets. The burrito was invented in the Mission (it's true, you can look it up), so they've got 'em down, there.

I was shocked that LA, with a much higher Latino population, hadn't matched San Francisco -- at least in this one, very important regard. The first place that made me think LA might someday catch up was Anelcy's, on Melrose Blvd. one block west of Western.

Their carne asada was good (though no Taqueria La Cumbre, whence my friend Franz occasionally brings me a steak burrito, still warm its foil wrapper, when he returns home from a visit to The City), their carnitas excellent. But what made Anelcy's worth the drive across town for me was their Burrito de Vegetales.

Now I'm not a vegetarian, heaven forfend, but I enjoy vegetables as much as the next ominivore, and am just as likely to order tofu at any given meal as lamb or steak. But the vegetable burrito at Anelcy's, for my money, was the best burrito in town.

A burrito is always way more than the sum of its parts. Anelcy's was the poster child for the concept. It was just your standard big tortilla, beans, shredded lettuce, rice, grated cheese, chopped tomatos, chunks of avocado, and a fiery salsa. But it just totally kicked ass.

First and foremost, the vegetables were never unceremoniously dumped onto your burrito from a Taco Bell style prep line. When you ordered a burrito, the silent, macho dude behind the counter would take out a whole fresh tomato; a whole, ripe avocodo; a head of lettuce, and begin slicing, chopping and shredding. It actually TOOK a few minutes to make your burrito! The beans were delicious, the cheese, grated coarsely, retained some texture, the huge chunks of avocado were always impeccably creamy, and the tangy, lemony hot red sauce was such a perfect complement to the cool, crisp fresh veggies that it all just WORKED.

A few years ago, I went to Anelcy's to find the name had changed: "Elizondo's" it was called. I walked in in fear, to find that the menu board still said "Anelcy's", the prices were unchanged, and most of all, the same taciturn macho dude was still chopping up fresh avocados for the veggie burrito. The burrito was identical.

Well, I've been meaning to write it up for awhile, so today I went back to check the location and take a picture, only to find out the name has changed again. It still says "Elizondo's Place" on the outside, but inside the menu board has changed. It's now "Guadalupe's Place." And no macho dude behind the counter. Concerned, I asked the pretty young cashier what was up. "It's always been the same place. In fact," she said, "there was one more name between Elizondo and Guadalupe. But it's all in the family."

Well, I ordered my burrito, and watched for telltale signs of even infinitesimal change in Guadalupe's purveyance of its preparateion. The tomato was still taken fresh from the counter cooler and chopped. Same with the avocado-- though I think there was significantly less of it in in the burrito than there Used To Be. But the dude didn't ask if wanted my salsa inside the burrito (you do -- make sure to specify), and he doused it with some squeeze-bottle crema. I was distracted by a World Cup goal on the TV over the door, and didn't see if the lettuce was fresh shredded... I suspect it wasn't, as the burrito popped up onto the counter too quickly. The delicious fiery red salsa picante is the same... I came home with a pint of it.

But somehow, the sum of this burrito, while still greater than the parts and still delicious, was somewhat less than its former whole self. The rice (I usually order without, but forgot this time) was too prevalent, the avocado was skimpy, and the lettuce was a little limp.

I'll go back to try again, and I'd be curious to see if anyone else has followed it through all of its myriad changes of management, and has thoughts about its development. But, sadly, my long-awaited post about Anelcy's/Elizondo's/Guadalupe's place is not the triumph I had hoped; it mostly makes me crave a burrito from Taqueria La Cumbre.

Waiter! -- This Food Is Too Fresh!

2006-05-04T11:28:00.000-07:00

First, apologies for infrequent posts of late. I'm scribbling about food when my novel is being uncooperative, but I've had a good few weeks of writing -- which means less time for foodblogging. This is a good thing.

But you know, I've had something gnawing at me for awhile. My plan in this space was to write only about places I like, places that I think you should check out. I've had some pretty awful meals as research that you'll never hear about. But I have a little bit of rant for today that was inspired by my visit to Hot's Cantina in Northridge.

I read about Hot's when it came up #1 in an AOL Citysearch poll of L.A.'s top five Mexican restaurants, beating out places like La Serenata de Garibaldi and El Cholo. Not that I don't think anyplace could beat El Cholo for Mex food, but I'd never even heard of "Hot's." So I made the Conrad-like journey up the 405 to the Deep Valley to visit its shopping mall location.

Now over the years, I've been a fan of "Fresh Mex" joints. I loved the fish burritos at Poquito Mas, the shrimp tacos at Baja Fresh, and when you could finally get decent carne asada at the Beverly Center thanks to La Salsa, I was overjoyed. I still love the lobster burrito at Rubio's, but that's a topic for another post.

But you know what? I'm bored with the whole genre, and Hot's was the straw that broke the charbroiled chicken's back. The decor is fabulous, all tropical Mexican indoor thatch. There's groovy '70's deep tracks playing on the sound system. The waitresses are hotties of the type that only exist in that part of the Valley. The chips were delicious, greasy and stuck together three-thick the way I like 'em. The salsa bar had the usual array of mild green, hot red, and smoky chipotle sauces, fresh lime and onion/cilantro mix. My food was, indeed, fresh, and it comes on those faux-vintage metal beer trays.
But the recommended "BBQ Chicken Taco" was as bland as could be: a flour tortilla with a skewer of chicken breast covered with an utterly lame BBQ sauce. The fresh mex salad, boring. And the special board freaked me out. Sushi Burritos? Shrimp Tempura Tacos with Mango Salsa? Give me a freakin' break.

It was this day I decided: I'm sick of "Fresh Mex." I'm sick of that same salsa bar, the same tender grilled chicken, the watery salsas, the underseasoned pinto beans, the soggy burritos, the whole I-can-make-this-spicy-if-I-drown-it-in-Tapatio rigmarole. To hell with "fresh." When I go for tacos or a burrito or a plate of chile verde, the last thing I want is "fresh."

The Mexican food I love is poor people's food, a couple pieces of pork and beef stretched by a thrifty old matriarch into a week's worth of meals. I want chile colorado that's been stewing in that abuela's pot for days. I want pork that's been marinating for the adobado for a week. I want the crispy, caramelized edges of slightly burned barbacoa. I want bits of blackened carne asada, scraped from the same overworked grill that also gives the tortillas a bit of meat flavor when heated. I want thick smoky salsas that have congealed a little to concentrate the texture and flavor. I want moles that take months to prepare and taste like every ingredient in a barren cupboard was used. And every now and again, I want lard in my beans. I want my Mexican food down, amigo, and yes, I want it a little bit dirty.

Sure, I'll go to Poquito Mas if it's there, have a couple of tacos and some pasty black beans, and it'll be fine. But whereas a few years ago I couldn't wait for a Baja Fresh or La Salsa in my neighborhood, now that they're there I find myself wishing that just one of them had an abuela behind the counter, her chile verde getting just a little crispy in the bottom of the pot.

For now, I drive past those places, and go to Yuca's.

Walking the Walk -- Taquito Talk

2006-04-13T18:15:00.000-07:00

Cielito Lindo
23 Olvera St. E
Los Angeles, CA 90012

(213) 687-4391

Juanita Cafe (Juanita's)
20 Olvera St. E
Los Angeles, CA 90012

(213) 628-1013

La Noche Buena
12 Olvera St. E
Los Angeles, CA 90012

(213) 628-2078

See links below for further information.

The very first restaurant I remember visiting, at age 3, was the venerable Lupe's in Thousand Oaks. I was three years old. I had a hamburger. On my next visit I had taquitos, and I've been hooked ever since. Lupe's waitresses used to wager on how many taquitos I could down during a meal. They usually lost. Not long after, my culinarily-challenged mom discovered the frozen Mar-kes brand taquitos (before they became "Marquez" and changed their recipe much to the worse) that came six to a box, complete with a frozen baggie of the unique creamy avocado puree that seems only to appear on taquitos. I was perfectly happy to have 'em for dinner three times a week, and mom was happy to fry and oblige.

So when I heard a few years ago about the "world-famous" taquito joint at the bottom of Olvera Street, I had to check it out. And Cielito Lindo is certainly famous. Their website claims Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, and Marlon Brando as enthusiastic -- albeit dead -- regulars. There's almost always a line there, and while there are some token other items on the miniscule menu, everyone's ordering taquitos, including me. But after years of performing quick "drop me off and drive around the block" maneuvers with my wife to procure them anytime we were within three blocks of the place, I got curious about the other taquito joints that line the East side of Olvera Street. Last week, I decided it was time for a taquito walk, just to make sure I was really addicted to the best taquitos on the block.

I love Olvera Street, for shopping, food, the swirl of mexican trinkets and clothes, the competing mariachi bands, and the genuine history at the heart of the city. Starting at the bottom of the hill, on the corner of Alameda and Cesar Chavez, is Cielito Lindo itself. A shack, a decaying sign, a counter, dudes rolling up piles of shredded beef machaca into fresh tortillas and dropping 'em into two big, wok-like deep fryers, a couple dozen at a time, serving 'em up fresh, hot, and perfectly crispy at the edges. There are two or three indoor tables, but this is street food, best eaten sitting on the brick planter wall right across from the shop. The taquito is like a mexican hot dog in that it has only three ingredients: meat, container, and sauce. But the sum is greater than its parts. Cielito Lindo's are undeniably delicious, and frankly closer in vibe to my old Mar-kes frozen favorites than what you'll get if you order a taquito at a restaurant. These have no salsa fresca, no chunky guac, no finely grated white cheese, and certainly no fuckin' sour cream. If you must taint your taquito, get the "combo" that comes with beans and cheese, and put a little of the smoky red salsa picante on your paper plate.

The Cielito Lindo taquito itself is almost chewy. The meat is sinewy and subtly seasoned. The sauce is tangy, and so thin that it's hard to believe it came from an avocado. It coats the slender golden-brown taquitos like hot green candle wax on a supermodel's fingers. You can't eat just two; I prefer them the way Mar-kes used to dish 'em up: by the half-dozen.

But on this day, I settle for two, and move on up the street.

Juanita Cafe, a few doors up, has people buying stuff besides taquitos, but taquitos are still the top item on their menu. As they should be. The differences between Cielito Lindo's and the fried rolls of goodness here are subtle, but noticeable. The machaca is a little more adventurously seasoned, and simultaneously fluffier and more substantial. The fried tortilla fights back a little, but isn't as downright leathery as the one down the road. And the sauce, the all-important sauce, is a scoche tangier, slightly thicker, with a little more of a kick. And a fiery salsa rojo similar to CL's is available for you heat-seekers.

I'm here to tell you that Juanita's makes the best taquito on Olvera Street.

Next up the street is El Rancho Grande. Same deal here: a wider range of menu items, but taquitos still get prime billing. Now to non-taquito lovers, no doubt all taquitos taste alike. But for me, this one just kinda sucked. Flavorless tortilla, average beef, and sauce that was over-whipped into a sort of avocado meringue. Not unlike the knockoff crap from those companies whose frozen taquitos, sadly, replaced Mar-kes.

Next up, La Noche Buena (ah, remember the delicious and festive Christmas beer of the same name from Dos Equis? No longer available in this country... I've asked) showed real promise. The taquito shell fried up a little bit flakier that the others... not chewy at all, but light, almost reminiscent of an eggroll skin. Nice. The sauce, too, was more complex: closer to guacamole, with visible bits of cilantro swimming in it. Add a little salsa verde with big chunks of onion and cilantro from the giant bowl on the counter, and you've got an attractive set of taquitos indeed.. But the final result was disappointing. The slightly acrid taste of overtaxed cooking oil -- or perhaps less-than-fresh machaca -- spoiled what was the best-looking taquito of the bunch.

Then there's Rodolfo's, the last taquitoria at the top of the street. And here, humble reader, I've let you down. I miscalculated my taquito intake on the way up the street, and was just plain too full to sample their deep-fried tubes of glory.

The waitresses at Lupe's would be very, very disappointed in me.

But perhaps it's a boon for you. You don't want to hear my take on EVERY taquito joint on Olvera street do you?

So do me a favor. Go to Rodolfo's. Let me know how it is.

Meet Okonomiyaki -- Haru Ulala

2006-02-14T08:40:00.000-08:00

Haru Ulala

368 E. 2nd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 620--1120

Google Local Info, including map, directions, and more reviews

My friend Kent spent a lot of time in Japan a few years ago. When I launched LA Food Crazy, he immediately e-mailed to ask if I had come across anyplace that serves okonomiyaki. I'd never heard of okonomiyaki. It was, he said, his favorite meal in Japan.

For Kent's birthday, he demanded okonomiyaki. He sent me the results of a Google search which had turned up four places that serve it in the LA area, and asked if I'd finish up the research and pick a place.

I said sure. After a full morning's research I had discovered... that there are only four places in LA county that serve okonomiyaki. Two are in Torrance (sorry, not driving there on a Saturday), one is in Westwood (Korean-operated... not necessarily bad, but not likely to be very authentic either).

And then there was a place I'd never heard of, Haru Ulala, near the south end of Little Tokyo. We were going downtown to visit the display of Oscar-consideration costumes at Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandise (an extraordinary yearly event, btw. Anyone into movies, costumes, or both should check it out), so Little Tokyo it was.

Turns out Okonomiyaki is worth the search, and Haru Ulala is my new fave J-town destination.

The place is just a half dozen banquettes, configurable into different sizes by clever sliding room dividers. Perfect for large-sized groups. Interestingly, though okonomiyaki is listed on their website, it doesn't appear on any of their confusing array of three different menus.

This is Izakaya-style Japanese food... which is to say, bar food. The Japanese equivalent of chicken wings, potato skins, nachos, and fried calamari, or perhaps more accurately, of Spanish tapas. All the items on the three menus are inexpensive, small plates of snack food.

We were totally stabbing in the dark with our order, but did pretty well once we got past the slimy "shredded yams," which dripped with a snotty goo; a decidedly un-Western aesthetic that the mild, jicama-like flavor failed to overcome.

Everything after that was fantastic. The grilled calamari with shiitake mushroom, thin strips of squid browned in butter with small, delicate shiitakes, was still being discussed days later. A small stewed pork rib was fall-off-the-bone tender. Fried soft shell crab served with ponzu dipping sauce was as light and tender as I've ever had. Fried cheese was as far from the mozzarella fingers at TGIFriday's as you can imagine.

But we were here for the okonomiyaki. In a couple of the other local places it's a make-it-yourself-at-the-table operation at, like shabu shabu or Korean BBQ. Going DIY would terrify me with this recipe. You can get an idea of how the operation should go here. To see how it can go horribly wrong, scroll about 2/3 down the page at this delicious-looking archive of Daily Gluttony -- a terrific food blog, btw. At Haru Ulala, okonomiyaki is mercifully prepared in the kitchen. We ordered two, one for the vegetarians at the table, and one seafood version.

How to describe okonomiyaki? It's somewhere between a pizza, a pupusa, an omelette and a latke. Shredded yam, cabbage, egg, flour, and your choice of ingredients get mixed up, grilled, flipped like an omelette, then slathered with a sweet brown sauce and drizzled with mayonnaise. One came with writhing bonito flakes on top -- a subtle flavor but a freaky image. Don't try eating this on acid. (Or... do. ) The fluffy eggs, crisp cabbage, and julienned Chinese yam (slimy goo thankfully cooked away in this version) provide a variety of textures that still doesn't overwhelm the ingredients you choose for your "pizza." The brown sauce and mayo help pull all the different textures and flavors together into a savory, creamy goodness.

Sound like hangover food? It is. It's rich, sweet, comfort cuisine perfect for a rainy night (if we ever have one of those again in L.A.), yet leaves you feeling surprisingly light and healthy. Wash it back with beverages from their extensive list of beer ($8.00 pitchers of Kirin) and soju (including an array of Japanese sojus, which are much more intense than their light, slightly sweet Korean counterparts), and it's hard to imagine a more satisfying and fun group meal.

I have read one or two mentions in other reviews of uneven service. Not for us! Our server Sayuko, aside from being take-her-home-and-keep-her adorable, gave us some of the best service I've had in recent memory.

And seriously, somebody out there needs to capitalize on the untapped okonomiyaki market. A stand specializing in this stuff next to a popular dive bar in Koreatown would make a fortune.

El Coyote (Pt. II) -- Judyism

2006-02-01T14:09:00.000-08:00

In my last post I tried to break down any resistance you might have to dining at El Coyote, that L.A. bastion of 1930's style California Mexican cuisine, by positing that there are redeeming culinary qualities to be found among the julienned beets and Thousand Island dressing. Judging by the number of hits on the site and some e-mail, I'm not alone in my love for the place.

In part two of the El Coyote post, I'm here to tell you, for real, why El Coyote may just be the The World's Greatest Restaurant.

To me, a great restaurant is defined by so much more than the quality of its food. It's an experience. I can appreciate a $35 piece of seared ahi with wasabi butter on an architectural mound of rice and daikon, served under recessed lights on a cold marble table in a room so spacious and echoey that your "Mmm! Delicious!" bounces off five walls before reaching your date as much as the next foodie. In these places, it's "all about the food." But an evening meal with friends has the potential to encompass so much more of life: sound, smell, ritual, history, people-watching, conversation, true confessions, sex (yes, sex), joy and horror. El Coyote delivers all those things for me. Our weekly meals there are like church. In fact, since my wife and I don't go to church, it's exactly like church. We call it "Judyism." Why?

Here's the dish.

Though our schedules have changed recently, we used to go to The Dog every Thursday night. It went like this:

I wake up on Thursday morning, and generally the first thought in my head is "Mmm. What shall I have tonight? Beef rolled tacos? Or a tostada no veg-all with guac? Or am I feeling celebratory... No. 1 combo?" I think about it all day. I make a point not to eat a big lunch: maybe a little bit of sushi, the anti-El Coyote. We get calls from friends during the course of the afternoon -- they also woke up craving Dog food. "You guys Dogging tonight? Is there room at the table?" When our table gets full, we start screening calls. It's strictly first come, first served.

I leave work early; when I took the job, I told my employer: "One condition: Thursdays, I leave at 5:30. Non-negotiable." I drive home, narrowing down my menu selection in my head. Rolled tacos and a garden salad. But will the tacos be beef, chicken, or one of each? At home, there is already a small crowd of friends waiting for me. They're loitering anxiously around the front door, jackets on, keys in hand. "He's here! Let's GO, I'm starving!" We pile into the car. Somone rides in the back of the SUV. It takes too long to get there. Minutes seem like hours. Finally we pull onto Beverly Blvd., and there's the sign, exactly like a church steeple, beckoning us to worship. Its warm red neon is welcoming. It promises "cocktails." Happy hour revelers are already spilling out the restaurant, glowing, laughing, yelling, staggering obliviously in front of the cars lined up to get into the parking lot... They have already taken communion. Elvis, the chief valet, knows us; he won't allow us to have a ticket. He's been the valet for 10 years... he still doesn't look old enough to drive. We head towards the door -- oops, we forgot to let someone out of the back of the SUV. We fix that. We enter and Billy, the host, says hi. He expects us to call if we're NOT coming on Thursday. Our table is waiting. Large 8 (yes, we know most of the tables in the place by numeric designation), in the gold room, in the corner. We take our assigned seats automatically.

Our waitress Judy sees us from across the room, and seconds later she's brought our drinks. She knows what we all want: house margaritas, straight up, ice on the side, one with no salt. Judy is adorable. She calls the margaritas "vitaminas." Vitamins. From vita, "life." She's Guatemalan, and looks twenty years younger than she is. We comment on whatever pretty ruffly Mexican dress she's wearing that day. She's wearing costume jewelry that was a present from my wife last Christmas, and an apron she made for her the year before. We see Judy more often than most of our best friends. We ask about her dogs; she asks about anyone who's missing from the group. "Where is your friend with the funny hair?" We tell her the strange tales of our our life the past week. She responds, wide-eyed: "Ohhh!?... Really? No! Really?... Ohhh." I think she doesn't understand most of it.

Judy has been serving us for 13 years. She's our high priestess.

The tortillas and guac arrive. We usually skip the chips, a passing attempt at health made useless when we slather butter on the tortillas. Is there anything better than a steaming hot corn tortilla with butter? Who says the food at El Coyote isn't good?

Judy knows not to take our order til we've received our second drink. By now everyone has changed their minds about what they're getting. The room is getting louder. There's always a hen party across from us, a different set of secretaries just off work, bitching about their bosses. Maybe there's a celebrity. We've seen Drew Barrymore and Edward Norton, Dom DeLouise and Ruth Buzzi, Tim Burton and Lisa Marie (on Halloween; we were dressed as Jack Skellington and Sally -- somewhere, we have a Polaroid commemorating the event), Ricardo Montalban, among countless others. There's the table of regulars in "the bower," a table in the hallway. The same six, also there every Thursday, twenty years older than us. We think of them as a vision of ourselves at age 65. Finally they stopped coming. Someone must have died.

Halfway into our second drink, just when we are well and truly ravenous and a little tipsy, the food arrives. Kent shreds fresh cilantro and squeezes lemon into his Albondigas soup. Sa digs into a chicken Caesar salad. I went for the tostada after all, which requires dousing it in the hot salsa (did I mention the salsas here are all made daily, from scratch, even down to crushing the dried chiles for the salsa picante?), squeezing a half a lemon's juice on it, adding some Cholula. Finally we eat. Everybody cleans their plate. We talk with increasing vehemence about politics, gossip about friends. Maybe there's some friendly fondling under the table.

The margaritas at El Coyote have a truth-serum effect... you start telling people childhood secrets. Maybe you tell someone what you really think of them. Maybe you make a pass at someone. Once, Judy tells us, two customers actually "made the sex" on the patio just before closing one night, she bent over the table with one leg on a chair, he behind. I'm guessing there was a margarita close at hand.

We order one more straight up margarita... to share, like communion. We portion it out carefully. No one wants to get shorted. As we eat and drink, hosts and waiters and waitresses drop by and say or just smile and wave. Margie, of the owning family, pours us water and asks if everything is all right. We eat there twice a week so we know them all, not just Judy. Elegant Miguel, competent Siggy, cute Kevin of the ever changing hair, sexy Isabel, mi amor, fabulous-in drag Roberto, (his Carmen Miranda Halloween outfit not to be missed), Fran the token Republican who tells funny jokes, Casanova, Gabby. They're all family. Even the busboys -- did you know that Jose, the one who looks like a hispanic Jason Robards, personally made ALL the house margaritas here for decades? He'd come in every morning at 5 am to fill the big vat in a corner of the kitchen with the secret mix. He finally passed on the secret a few years ago, but you might want to say "thanks" next time you're in.

The margaritas have their unique, slightly psychotropic effect. The restaurant's year-round christmas lights are beautiful. It's someone's birthday, and the worst rendition of "Happy Birthday, Panchito" imaginable -- the wait staff must rehearse daily to keep everyone that far off-key -- never sounded sweeter. Ten minutes later, we're best friends with the birthday boy.

Finally the bill comes -- reasonable, though with steady price increases the past few years (including one just last week -- margaritas now $5.50), it's not quite the steal it was when margaritas were under two bucks and combos were $4.40. As we leave, we say hi to the table of gay men that are always just sitting as we're leaving. We shop for curios in the window: maybe we really do need that see no evil hear no evil speak no evil monkey figurine set. We finally exit... with one quick glance out onto the patio to make sure we're not missing anyone making the sex.

Elvis whips our car around before we even know we're there, and we make it home. The car knows the way. Maybe we party more at our house. We laugh and sing, maybe we dance.

The next morning, maybe we're a little hung over. But it was worth it, and we'll survive somehow. Maybe we'll have a big, late breakfast.

Some huevos rancheros would be nice.

Hmm... the Church of the Dog opens at 11:00 AM...

El Coyote (Pt. I) -- The Secret Menu

2006-01-25T14:50:00.000-08:00

El Coyote Cafe (Pt. I)
7312 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90036
Google Local Info, including maps, directions, and other reviews.

A lot of foodies I know have already stopped reading.

"El Coyote," they say. "Blecch. How can you even eat there?" Or, "Why, when you can get such good authentic Mexican in L.A.?" Or, "Well, the margaritas are strong... they have to be because you gotta be drunk to eat the food," or, most damning of all, "They put canned beets on their tostadas!"

Here are my answers to that. First off, I eat there simply because it's probably my favorite restaurant in the world. I not only eat there, I often eat there twice a week. And El Coyote is authentic: authentic early 20th-Century California-Mexican cuisine, of which I'm a big fan. Don't get me wrong, I love "authentic" Mexican food, too, but El Coyote is a different beast altogether. Comparing it to Serenata de Garibaldi or Guelaguetza just because the both serve tortillas makes as much sense as comparing In 'n' Out Burger to Nick & Stef's because they both serve meat and potatoes. And damn straight the margaritas are strong... and delicious. And even damner and straighter there's canned beets on their tostadas. My wife loves 'em... with blue cheese dressing, motherfucker! You got a problem with that?

My point is El Coyote needs to be taken on its own terms. No less a foodie luminary than Jonathan Gold (and for those of you who don't know it, all L.A. food bloggers are Jonathan Gold-wannabes) says that he's eaten more meals at El Coyote than any other restaurant on earth, and that Los Angeles is "unimaginable without it."

Okay, enough defensive El Coyote apologism. I'm posting to tell you who love the restaurant, but always order the same thing, or those of you who ate the tostada once, freaked at the beets and have only gone for drinks since, how to Work The Menu. There's some good eating to be done at what my household lovingly calls The Dog (from Howling Dog) if you get a little bit creative.

Here, at last, is the dish...

The guiding principle with working the El Coyote menu is to remember that the kitchen is very accommodating with substitutions. Use this to your advantage. The menu can be daunting, with bizarre entries like "Scratch Margaritas," (that doesn't sound appetizing at all), Enchilada Howard (we love to ask "is the Howard fresh today?"), and "Mexican Spaghetti" (it's actually fideo, a plenty "authentic" Mexican dish.) But don't be frightened. El Coyote is a Mexican restaurant, and has almost all the ingredients you'd expect in a Mexican restaurant; they're often just disguised with 1930s-friendly Americanized names. Don't see "carne asada"? It's there: it's just called "fajita steak." Machaca? It's "shredded beef." Flautas? They're "rolled tacos." The only thing you won't find buried in the menu is seafood. A bias of the owner, I'm told; I'm guessing she got some bad shellfish back in the ice-box 1930's.

So, a theoretical order from those "in the know" might go something like this: "I'd like an El Coyote Pizza with guac, a Garden Salad with ranch on the side, and a number one with a shredded beef taco -- suave, no grasa -- and a steak fajita enchilada, frijoles de la olla, and no cheese on the beans. And I'll have a scratch margarita straight up with rocks on the side."

Now that sounds like a pain-in-the-ass order, and your head is probably spinning. But the waiters and waitresses know what I mean as well as your local In 'n' Out knows what "Animal Style" means. And you will too, once you check out my Secret Menu of El Coyote delights:

APPETIZERS:

El Coyote Pizza - This is what most folks think of as nachos deluxe. Where the nachos are just chips, cheese, and jalapenos, the Pizza includes beans and salsa. Guac and sour cream optional.

Albondigas Soup - Take this, authentic Mex snobs. This fresh-made meatball soup is one of the best versions in town. Even better? Ask for some cilantro, lemon slices and Cholula hot sauce on the side. Some cilantro leaves, a squeeze or two of lemon and a couple of dashes of Cholula hot sauce (available if you ask for it... same with Tapatio) make it a truly awesome appetizer.

TACOS

Ignore the confusing menu. ANY taco, whether in a combo or not, can be made with these fillings:

Stewed Chicken
Grilled Chicken
Ground Beef
Shredded Beef (Machaca)
Steak
Carnitas
Ostrich

And they can come in three different wrappings:

Crispy Shell
Soft
Steamed
Rolled (pictured)

Special warning here: if you just order "soft" tacos, the tortilla is grilled in little oil, making it ultra-greasy. If you want a traditional "soft" taco, order it steamed or "suave, no grasa"). The rolled tacos are made fresh when you order 'em. Crispy shell, a little bit toothsome... try the shredded beef. It's tasty.

BURRITOS

The same choices as tacos. But you can add to the mix:

Chile Con Carne - Anywhere else, this would be called "Chile Colorado con Puerco." Here it's called "Chile Con Carne," or, simply "Howard." Seriously. The Enchilada Howard, named after an old regular, is just an enchilada smothered in the pork chile colorado.)

In fact, for burritos, just tell 'em exactly what you want in it. My current fave is ordered like this:

"A burrito with black beans, lettuce, tomato, fresh avocado slices, pico de gallo, and salsa verde, mojado." This nets you the beautiful beast pictured here.\

BEANS

There are three varieties, all of which are made with vegetable oil; no lard.

Refried
Black
Whole Pintos (or "frijoles de la olla").

The whole beans and the new black beans are particularly delicious. The combo plates tend to come, as Jonathan Gold puts it, "welded to the plate with great leathery straps of cheese." Ordering the beans "sin queso" lets the tasty flavor of the freshly-made beans come out.

SALADS

Combination Salad - My wife's fave... canned beets, limp shredded lettuce and all.

Garden Salad - If you're a normal, beet-fearing person, you want the Garden Salad, made with mixed greens and a little bit of carrot and purple cabbage.

Fiesta Salad - made with grilled chicken.

Caesar Salad - they make a delicious, tangy Caesar here. Order it with chicken, and it's a full, healthy meal. Or ask for Caesar dressing on any of the other salads.

Tostada - this is what inspires so much fear in the average diner. Shredded iceberg lettuce, Veg-All Three Bean Salad, canned beets, and Thousand Island dressing on top of beans and a crispy corn tortilla. Now as long as you're not expecting a real tostada, this can be pretty tasty. But it can also be tweaked to something more recognizable. Order it with "no vegetables" and "no dressing, " and add guacamole, or your favorite meat, some lemon slices, and extra hot sauce. Squeeze the lemon, drizzle some hot sauce, and you're in biz.

Chicken Taco Salad - This is more like your standard El Torito style gringo tostada, with the big upright flour tortilla, the "good" lettuce, shredded three-cheese blend, and grilled chicken. Try it with fajita steak instead of chicken... or some Howard! Yum!

And finally...

MARGARITAS

You can order 'em strawberry, mango, Cadillac, whatever you like, but 95% of the margaritas consumed here are of one variety:

House Margarita - It's what made the place famous. It's delicious and refreshing, with its slight splash of pineapple juice. True it's not $1.95 for a double anymore like when I first came here, but it's still a good deal. Especially if you order it "Straight Up, Rocks on the Side." Why? Because the straight-up glass is larger, and without ice taking up space in it, you get a nice little sidecar of about 35% more bang for your margarita buck.

Scratch Margarita - If you really wanna get fucked up and fast, this is the drink for you. While the house margarita is made in a giant vat each morning and pumped into the bar -- hence the slight effervescence -- the scratch margarita is made fresh when you order. It's stronger. Much stronger. You can smell the thing coming about 20 feet away.

So, go back and read my would-be order above. All make sense now? Good. Go forth to El Coyote and blaze through the menu like the intrepid adventurer you are!

Oh, and be sure to get a margarita or two... the food really is better if you're drunk.

I still have more to say on the topic of El Coyote. I'll save it for another post. Or maybe two.

El Coyote Photo by Hughes Hall

Gonzo Foodie

2006-01-18T22:22:00.000-08:00

One of the joys of launching this site -- aside from getting e-mails from a half dozen people a day telling me about the most amazing place I have to try -- is exploring the sites of other food bloggers out there who come to visit my site. There are a baker's dozen or two in L.A. alone (and I thought I was being so clever!), and all the ones linked here I check out as often as possible.

But today I got a visit from eatdrinknbmerry, who -- aside from being an excellent writer and reviewer of The Kinds Of Restaurants I Like -- took the kind of insane and admirable leap that makes life worthwhile. He's apparently took a brief gig at what seems to be a shmancy high-end restaurant with no qualifications other than that he loves food, loves to cook, and was kinda bored with life.

Now I can't claim to be any sort of cook. I like cooking, and on the odd few days a year when I cook for my long-suffering wife, it comes out well enough. But if you watch the Food Network, read Anthony Bourdain, and have always wondered what it would be like to chuck it all and cook... eatdrinknb did it. Didn't given up his day job; he kept working in the ad biz in West LA. But on a weekend he put on the coat, sharpened the knife, and tried to keep up with all the culinary-school grads on the line around him. Hunter Thompson would be proud... but now I think of it, it's more of a George Plimpton stunt. Check it out The Restaurant posts... first where he decides to take the plunge here and then his report on a day on the line here, on his blog at Eat, Drink & Be Merry.

Little Tokyo Rose - Daikokuya

2006-01-15T13:09:00.000-08:00

Daikokuya

327 E. First St.
Los Angeles CA
(213) 626-1680
Open til 2:30 am
Closed Sundays
MC VISA AMEX

Google Local Info

We haven't been to Little Tokyo yet, have we?

You know you're living in one of the Great Cities in the World when you can go to your nearest Metro station, hop off the train at the Civic Center station, look at the Frank Gehry-designed landmark concert hall 2 blocks up the hill, check your tickets for the starting time of the world-class orchestra concert that night, decide you have time for a bite, and walk a couple of blocks into an enticing array of some of the best down-home Japanese cuisine this side of Okinawa.

If you have a good nose for grilling food, an eye for a crowded room, and/or have read this article, you'll probably duck into Daikokuya.

Here's the dish.

Along the East side of First Street, just below Main (1st and Main is, by the way, where all street number address radiate outward from in L.A.'s grid), there is a line of small, authentic Japanese eateries. Noodles, sukiyaki, sushi, each has their specialty, and all the ones I've tried are good. But my current fave is Daikokuya.

You enter the Japanese-typical fabric shrouded doorway, and at first it just looks like another hole in the wall noodlery: red naugahyde booths along one wall, a small open kitchen bar, and a single window table. A single chair sits in front of the doorway with the waiting list. You sign in. Maybe you wait a bit. Now you look at the decor. It's all vintage, post WW II collectible art: beer posters, airline adverts, little toys still in their boxes. The waitress all wear distinctive blue do-rags. The whole place strives to re-create the feel of a 1947 Tokyo restaurant.

That's just cool.

And the food is terrific. The way to order here, assuming you're hungry, is to select one of the "combinations," as pictured above. For about ten bucks, you get a giant bowl of their house Daikokuya Ramen, and your choice of various rice bowls with protein-of-your-choice toppings. You'll be brought a cabbage salad (not pictured), the cabbage shredded more finely than usual, the dressing light and tangy. A perfect amuse-bouche.

The house soup is their pride and joy. Made from pork bone and soy sauce that boils for an entire day before serving, the stew features bamboo shoots, scallion, a specially marinated whole egg, and tender, thin slices of pork on a base of perfectly toothsome ramen. It's a rich, creamy stew, perfect for insulating you against the chilly walk back up the hill to Disney Concert hall... a real comfort food dish. You'll want to taste it "as is" before you begin altering the flavors with the chili powder or crushed garlic from the condiment tray on your table. This is the best ramen I've ever had.

The accompanying rice bowl is your choice of pork, beef, tempura shrimp, tuna sashimi, teriyaki chicken or teriyaki eel over rice. I haven't worked past the shredded pork, which is grilled to perfection, slightly crispy and caramelized on the outside, tender on the inside, mixed with scallions and pickled vegetable. But man, I think I'll try that eel teriyaki next time.

You can also just get the ramen soup by itself, for $7.50. Wash it back with green tea (to keep you awake during the adagios at the Disney Hall) or a $2.00 draft Kirin (if you plan to sleep through 'em), and you can't imagine a more satisfying meal.

And if you've seen Memoirs of a Geisha and have, like me, fantasies of hot Asian chicks in down and dirty postwar garb, you'll have a satisfying dessert here, too.

Three Day Central Coast Tour

2006-01-11T12:17:00.000-08:00

Damn, I did some good eating and drinking last weekend. Sa and I have been going to the Central Coast wine country to vacation for years now, so we've got a good working knowledge of eateries up the 101 as far as Paso Robles, and have been to a good percentage of the hundreds of wineries in the area. So when our friend Nicole wanted to celebrate her 30th (yes, 30th... just a babe) birthday with a weekend of wine-tasting, I was put in charge of the food and drink itinerary. I kinda think I outdid myself. You might want to use this as a template for your own weekend jaunt.

Here's the dish...

FRIDAY

Left at the civilized hour of 11:00 am. I wanted to be on the road by 10:30, and this cost us a bit as you'll read in a moment.

Noon found our party of eight at Johnny's in Ventura. This is some of my favorite Mex food in the state. Just a hole-in-the wall, but a Ventura institution. I've been hearing about it for 4 decades; my brother always stopped at Johnny's when he came down to visit from NoCal. Selfish bastard never brought me a burrito, though. Everything here is good, but their masterpiece is their chile relleno burrito. A delicious fluffy chile relleno with Johnny's world class chile verde wrapped in a flour tortilla. Sa likes the verde by itself, but the C.R. burrito is still the gold standard. Be sure to chow down on their homemade flour tortilla chips, too.

This lays down a good layer for wine tasting. One o'clock, Head north toward Solvang. By all means take the San Marcos Pass shortcut by exiting at State St. in Santa Barbara and taking 154 north. This cuts 15-20 minutes off the trip.

2:00 found us at our first Santa Ynez Valley wineries. Rideau, on Alamo Pintado Road between Solvang and Los Olivos. Their wines have gotten pricy and the tastings are ten bucks (!), but the wine and the atmosphere there is excellent. They specialize in food-friendly wines that pair especially well with cajun/creole cooking. Their Viognier is my single favorite white wine, and a favorite for our holiday turkey dinners. Then Beckmen just up the road. Aside from delicious wines their tasting room is located on a gorgeous pond with a small deck over the water under a weeping willow, and a large patio on which you can picnic and enjoy the view. If we'd gotten an earlier start, we would have stopped in Los Olivos to visit the tasting rooms there, but we wanted to make it to Foxen winery before they close at four. Despite some desperate driving along Foxen Canyon Road, which parallels the 101 between Los Olivos and Santa Maria and is dotted with excellent wineries -- Firestone, Zaca Mesa, Cambria -- we arrived at 4:02 to find the tasting room shuttered up. A backup plan found us at Cottonwood Canyon, much improved since our last visit, where their delightful pinot noirs made up for the Foxen fuckup.

By now it was five-thirty, and we were hungry. Good thing, as you're now only a half hour from world-famous Jocko's in Nipomo. It's arguably the best practitioner of Santa Maria style Red Oak steak grilling, which is arguably the most delicious kind of steak in the world, period. Jocko's didn't disappoint, with gigantic cuts of perfectly prepared meat.

An hour after dinner, we were ensconced in our way-too-fun lodgings, a converted clubhouse/pet-friendly/sleeps-10 rental in a converted hangar next to the tiny Paso Robles airport.

SATURDAY

After breakfast by Sa in the AM, it was time for serious wine tasting. We were right on Highway 46 in Paso Robles, with 50 or so excellent wineries within 10 minutes' drive. Started at EOS, then Tobin James with its amazing saloon-cum-tasting room atmosphere, and Eberle where the wine is perhaps more refined -- more Napa-ish -- than the balls to the wall, fruit forward Central Coast style, but still delicious. We had lunch at Big Bubba's Bad BBQ, which was disappointing. It's owned by the same folks as Good Ol' Burgers, currently remodeling, which used to have awesome burgers and for my money the World's Best Onion Rings. But Bubba's BBQ Tri-tip sandwiches -- ordered by most everyone at our table -- were dry and overcooked. That's Central Coast Sacrilege, folks.

After visits to Castoro Cellars (our desert island winery -- if we were stranded and could only have one winery, this would be it) and Grey Wolf, we were wined out. A little nap and it was off to Bistro Laurent in downtown Paso.

Now I'm a big fan of Central Coast food as you can tell, and was looking forward to the consensus pick for best restaurant in town. Eh... not so much. Very uneven. Prices, at 21-29 per entree were not as inexpensive as listed on their web site, where no entree is priced over 20. That's false advertising, folks. Add to that an outrageous markup on their excellent local wine list -- the same bottle selling at Grey Wolf for $23 was $62 here -- and an even more outrageous $20 corkage fee -- many local restaurants have inexpensive or free corkage on local wines -- and just opening the menu was a shocker. The food was uneven, from a friend's excellent salmon-stuffed eggroll to Sa's duck breast. But the pasta on a friend's truffle-and-mushroom papardelle was overcooked, and the sauce was bland, while my shrimp and lobster stew featured tender fresh shellfish, but a too-salty sauce. And service wasn't quick -- should dinner take 2 1/2 hours, even when you skip dessert?

SUNDAY

The next day's dining and wining made up for any of the previous day's flaws, though. A half hour drive to the coast took us to Hoppe's in Cayucos for brunch. This is just plain some of the best food anywhere. Their $21.95 brunch includes your choice of appetizer, main course, dessert, an array of fresh baked bread, and a glass of wine or champagne. The food is California cuisine at its best. My BLT salad appetizer, with fresh shavings of reggiano cheese, whole strips of bacon, and slice-sized fresh made croutons was insanely good. So was Sa's HUGE warm goat cheese, butternut squash and bacon pizza. A friend's lamb-chanterelle mushroom pot pie was... well, what do you think? And that was literally just for starters. I didn't taste many main courses because my lemony shrimp-and-crab cake topped with perfectly poached eggs and bearnaise sauce was simply mesmerising. More than one guest at the table said they'd consider the three-hour Sunday drive up here just to eat here again. Their dinners, by the way, are just as good.

After a stop at two of our favorite Edna Valley wineries, Edna Valley and Claiborne and Churchill, we headed home. But funny, we got hungry around Buellton and stopped at Hitching Post II (as seen in Sideways), for their own take on Santa Maria BBQ. They gave Jocko's a serious run for their money, with delicious appetizers like grilled artichoke and mushrooms in a red wine reduction. Their smallest steak, a 7 ounce sirloin served with all the trimmings from shrimp cocktail to potato, was a bargain at $20, and their private house label wines are delightful.

All in all, we crammed a lot into a weekend: 3 steakhouses, 2 fine restaurants, 1 hole in the wall burrito, and 10 wineries. Okay, I'm a little bit Napoleonic and can drive the troops hard when it comes to conquering vast swaths of culinary territory. But there were no complaints about the weekend, and everyone came home with leftovers!

By the way, all the wineries mentioned here are ones we've visited many times. Their wines are terrific, and all are available online via their websites.