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1. Sandra and Lolitas (East LA, Whittier Blvd.)-Tamales. It's Christmas. I come from no tradition that celebrates tamales this time of the year but I have no problem latching onto one (or beginning my own) anyway. Sandra and Lolita's is located directly across the street from the perhaps even more worthy Tacos Bajas Ensenada, where one can down a pair of precision crafted fish tacos and a more than decent ceviche topped tostada. Anyway, on the sidewalk (they have no seating), in the car, or microwaved for dinner, one could do much worse than the green cheese and red pork tamales from Sandra and Lolitas.

2. Huge Tree Pastry (Monterey Park)-Tony C. and JG have already covered this place far more thoroughly than I could. Let me just reify that the pork belly gua bao (above) is everybit as good as anyone has previously asserted: a moist but not too delicate bun encasing a mix of pickled mustard greens, pork and whatever else is in there that I can't figure out without asking the lady in a tongue I do not know. Either way, worth the drive. From what I remember, in their old incarnation as Yi Mei Chinese Pastries, they also make fairly mean turnip cakes, and good rice rolls filled with dried pork.

3. Omar's Halal Restaurant (San Gabriel)-When you first enter the door at Omar's, a restaurant in the SGV specializing in Islamic Uighur cooking, you're hit with a wall of cumin inflected air every bit as solid as a slab of stacked and reverberating guitar tones on a My Bloody Valentine record. The small dining room is packed with Chinese, non-Chinese muslims, and others, all hovered around decanters of tea, plates and bowls of hand-pulled noodles (stretched and pulled as you watch), lamb kebobs, cumin-saturated lamb, a giant pastry they call a meatloaf sandwich, and a dish known as big plate chicken. Can a single dish encapsulate the history of an entire culture? Of course not. But I like to imagine that seemingly simple big plate chicken - chopped chicken with potatoes, peppers, more than ample garlic, bay leaves, star anise, szechuan peppercorns, and who knows what else - comes close.

4. Big Mista's (Atwater Village Farmer's Market)-There are two weeks left in the NFL regular season and four weeks of postseason play after that. Big Mista's may be worth your attention for at least one of those weeks.

5. My in-laws-My wife's dad is an amateur cook in the same way that 14th century scientists were amateur scientists: working solely within the space of his home and the limited audience it attracts he has crafted some fairly memorable meals. Nothing too complicated: chicken with ginger, the various fish dishes pictured above, bitter melon soup, and garlic fried rice that could be worthy of its own food cart.

6. Philip's (Leimert Park)-Philip's is hidden away at the side of a commercial block in Leimert Park, nothing more than a doorway, a small hallway with a counter at the end that feels more like a place you would go to pay a late power bill, and a separate counter to pick it up. As far as the food goes, they're being honest. Hot is really hot (take this from someone for whom a raw jalapeno is a fine snack). And I suppose that's one of the main factors that brought me back. The ribs arrive wading, not swimming in the sauce, flanked by invitingly drenched and delicate pieces of pepper. There is also BBQ chicken which, almost unbelievably, comes off as almost just as good as the ribs.

7. Bay Cities Deli (Santa Monica)-Yes, the Godmother (genoa salami, mortadella, cappacola, ham, prosciutto, and provolone) lives up to every slice of renown it has garnered. I think I appreciated it as much for this, as for the fact that it led me to some kind of Proustian connection with a sandwich I had when I was like 7 or 8, and have thought about since. Proustian connection or not, not a bad way to spend 10 bucks in Santa Monica.

8. 5 Puntos Market (East LA)-Tamales. Worth a stop to take home for dinner after lunch at Ciro's, Antojitos Carmen, or Cemitas Poblanas.

9. La Cevicheria (Pico, west of Arlington)-My experience listening to music is roughly divided between pre-Velvets and post-Velvets, much the same way I delineate my times as a baseball fan pre-Bill James and post-Bill James. For ceviche, I guess it is now pre-La Cevicheria and post-La Cevicheria. Maybe it's just that my ceviche-pallete was inexperienced, naive and undertraveled (only one trip to Latin America, and that, to Costa Rica, a country perhaps not in the same league on the culinary continuum as Peru or Mexico). Either way, I won't settle any more. Not when there's Bloody Clams (pictured above) or Guatemalan Ceviche, both virtual libraries of oceanographic data and citrus. On another note, the ceviche, justly, gets all the hype at this place but the fish tacos, drizzled with the appropriate amount of diablo sauce, have given me less incentive to make the drive to the aforementioned Tacos Baja Ensenada.

10. Brooklyn Bagel (Lower Echo Park, Historic Phillipinotown?)-Best bagels in LA.

11. Sapp Coffee Shop (Thaitown)-Can't stop ordering the chicken with bamboo shoots.

12. Golden State (Fairfax)-As good as Umami? No. But still worth a stop.

Portland, Seattle, Vancouver

Voodoo Doughnuts (Portland)

Stumptown Coffee

Food Cart

Nong's Khao Mon Gai



Truffle Fries, Violetta

Church of Elvis

Schnitzelwich and Baklazan (Eggplant sandwich), Tabor food cart

Astoria, WA

Thai food, Seattle

Top Pot, Seattle

Chinatown, Vancouver

Ramen, outside Stanley Park

Japadog!

When I started this blog a few years ago I had in mind a daunting goal of trying, whenever possible, not to just rehash in an inferior manner spots Jonathan Gold writes about. It's safe to say I've probably failed pretty miserably. I'm proud of the one or two spots that I may have covered before Gold but, ultimately, I've got a long way to go. Walking back to my car today, I thought of two reasons for this, though I'm sure there are more: (a) he's lived in LA forever and probably been everywhere I would have any desire to go to, and (b) it's hard not to frequent the spots he picks out as he makes them sound so good, particularly of late, with cold korean noodles, San Fernando Valley ramen (who wants to drive to Gardena everytime?), and Thai breakfast (just to name a few). All this is to say I'll continue the failure to today by writing about a place at which I just had lunch: Yu Chun Restaurant on Olympic just east of Western.
The restaurant was stuffed beyond capacity at 1:30 on a Thursday afternoon and, it's safe to say, every table had at least one bowl of what I suppose is the house specialty: Naeng Myun. After consuming a bowl in a cool room with the knowledge of the relative cauldron that awaited on my exit from the restaurant I can assert that it now ranks up there with an oily bowl of gazpacho as my favorite food for those rare, but particularly sweltering, LA summer days. Yu Chun's version of the dish which, as Gold relates, is as much slushy as soup, arrives in a steel bowl as an icy, light to the point of floating, slightly sugary, slight vinegary broth with a generous helping of black arrowroot noodles, thinly sliced cucumber, a few slices of beef, radish and half a hard boiled egg. It may be the quintessentially refreshing and unobtrusive meal, one that offers the completely artificial, though still valuable, feeling of being cleansed. At meal's end I wanted to turn the bowl over and suck down the now less icy broth but wasn't quite sure on the etiquette. Hopefully there will be a next time sometime soon and, if so, I'll have to try the kimchee dumplings that seemed to occupy at least 70% of the tables.

Antojitos Carmen (Boyle Heights)

There's lot's of things to love about this place: the neighborhood, the waitstaff (who never fail to offer a good suggestion for the indecisive), the huaraches that easily compete with the best of Highland Park, the complimentary chicken noodle soup that seems to come with every order, the creamy habanero salsa with the faint hint of Thai peanut sauce, and I haven't even tried the cemitas yet (loyalty to Cemitas Poblanas/how could they be better than Cemitas Poblanas?). I think what I love the most about Antojitos Carmen, though, is the simple adornment of roasted chile--suitably smoky and just spicy enough to slightly awaken your stomach--provided as an option for topping everything from the sopes to the chips. If there's a condiment I enjoy more in Boyle Heights I haven't found it yet.

Meal's end.

Cleaning out a rather messy closet

1. Al & Bea's (East LA)-I finally made it to Al & Bea's mid-day on a Wednesday just before what I assume was a typically fluid lunch rush. And yeah, they probably deserve it. On the recommendation of countless yelpers and critics, I went with the simple choice: a bean and cheese burrito with green chile sauce. My first reaction was a bit of underwhelment, comparing the burrito most closely in my mind with the Taco Bell version I regularly devoured from middle school to college. The crucial difference lies, I think, in the delicate, flaky tortilla that houses the unstable glop of refried beans and cheese. Don't get me wrong, it's far better than Taco Bell, though I left wondering where the green chile sauce was hidden. I'll ask for extra next time.

2. My most successful cooking venture of late involved purchasing this striped bass at the Ranch 99 on the corner of Del Mar and Valley and preparing it with a mixture of garlic, onion, coriander, tumeric, cardamom, cumin, mint, lemon juice, and oil. Aside from the bone that i accidentally swallowed, it was quite tasty.

3. Pho Dinh (South El Monte)-I'll refer you to the expert for a more informed review. Suffice it to say that I would go back.

4. Birmingham, AL (and around)-We had a few objectives as far as food goes on this trip. We failed in the first, to eat really good BBQ. We had a so-so experience at a place called Lefty's in Crossville, TN, and fairly disapointing experience with overly salted ribs and generally overpriced food at Jim n Nicks in Birmingham. Tuscaloosa's Dreamland, so I had heard, had fallen off its perch (an opinion later refuted by my brother who goes to Tuscaloosa all the time). I'll always remember Ollie's (RIP) as my favorite spot, particularly for the amazing vinegar based sauce (which they actually still sell at local grocery stores). A second goal was to grab a few Publix subs. If you're unfamiliar with Publix, it's a grocery chain based in the South that makes pretty noteworthy subs. Actually, I'm not sure how noteworthy they are, and they probably don't compare to the stuff one might find at Bay Cities, or even Mario's Italian Deli, but based on informal polls conducted among friends in the South I've become more comfortable in my assertion that they're fairly amazing. The secret with a Publix sub, as I see it, is to go minimal: one or two meats, olives, bell peppers, onions, jalapenos, spicy mustard and sprinkling of olive oil and maybe a dash of vinegar. Don't go near the tomatoes and lettuce as they'll just water the sandwich down.

Somehow we managed a stop at Krystal for thin patties, mustard and a pickle packed between a somehow deliciously soggy bun, a combination that makes for undeniably welcome and sometimes indigestable late night food. Worth a trip once a year.

5. OB Bear (Koreatown)-OB Bear, dimly lit with dark wood walls, is comfortable, cozy and warm if nothing else. A part of me likes the atmosphere-30 year old non-cheesy sports bar mixed with a dark basement hangout-more than I like the food. So perhaps in the future I'll go with just a beer. The item of repute at OB is the wings which, though not nearly as spicy as the regulars on the internet claim, are fine enough, and not too heavy on the sticky sauce that coats them. The ubiquitous Korean seafood pancake is a good accompaniment, as is what I think was called a seafood salad which, among other things, features tiny bulbous sea squirts that erupt in your mouth upon contact with your teeth. Not my favorite spot for food in Koreatown by any means, but one could do far worse for a place to watch a Dodger game in September or October.

6. Highlights from a trip to San Francisco: A visit (courtesy of our friends Jill and Viks) to Burma Superstar in the Haight for Samusa Soup, Rainbow Salad, Burmese Curry (below) and a few dishes I can't quite remember.A return to Zante's Pizza in the Mission for Indian pizza. A visit to a friend's mom's place (Pier 23 cafe) on the Embarcadero.

Zante's

Pier 23 Cafe

7.

a. Cacao Mexicatessen (Eagle Rock)-Making my way around the tacos, my favorites so far being the turkey, the corn truffle (huitlacoche), and...of course, the duck. The corn on the cobb with parmesan is a better accompaniment than the rice and beans. And make sure to try the green salsa.

b. Golden State Cafe (Los Angeles)-What's a better pre-New Beverly Cinema or Silent Movie Theatre meal, the always hyped Animal (which I could say I enjoyed quite a bit but Jonathan Gold does a way better job) or the lesser-priced Golden State? I guess it just depends on your budget. Golden State makes a good burger, surrounding it with good microbrews, decent french fries, Let's Be Frank hot dogs and a selection of 6 or so flavors of Scoops ice cream (though I would recommend just driving to Scoops itself). Family bookstore, purveyor of a well curated (and upwardly priced) reading materials is up the street.