Out of food thoughts for a little while

Favorite Movies Ever (in no order)
1. The Wicker Man (the Hammer version)
2. Aguirre, The Wrath of God
3. Two Lane Blacktop
4. Kill Bill Vol. I and II (II is better overall)
5. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
6. The Wild Bunch
7. The Beyond
8. The Seventh Seal
9. The Third Man
10. Ring of Fire (documentary about Indonesia)

Laziness...

Best things I've eated since I've been away, in no particular order.

1. Cemitas (once with marinated pork and once with chicken) stuffed with chipotles, jalapenos and stringy quesillo at Cemitas Poblanas right next to Evergreen Cemetary in East LA.

2. Paper thin jamon Iberico with melon at Father's Office. Not to mention the appropriately hyped burger.

3. Ikra at Cafe Bravo in Silverlake, a middle eastern spot. The rest of the menu is kind of whatever, but the smoky eggplant blend is on par with the mutabal at Zankou.

4. Rattlesnake sausage, as well as some other sausages, at Wurstkuche which, like Umami Burger, offers a pretty simple menu of three basic items: sausage, fries and beer. Umami replaces the sausage with equally good burgers.

5. Live octopus with Hite at Masan on a late Friday night on a lonely stretch of Olympic in Koreatown.

6. The taco truck with the LCD screen at the corner of 7th and Vermont in Koreatown. Good tortas, huraches and tacos with an almost perfect condiments table.

7. Oysters and Steamed Mussels at Bouchon, a restaurant I would go to everyday if I was rich.

8. Kobe steak sashimi, bone marrow flan, warm veal tongue with salsa verde, and mac and cheese at Cut.

9. Grilled octopus, beef cheek ravioli, and two minute calamari at B&B in Las Vegas.

10. The tongue and mouth numbing ma po tofu and cubed chicken with peppers (kind of like the best Kung Pao you could ever have in the USA) at Chung King on San Gabriel.

11. Vietnamese baked catfish, also on San Gabriel, at Phong Dinh.

12. Any of the ramen bowls at Santouka, at Misuwa marketplace. Best ramen I've ever had outside of Tokyo. Asa in Gardena is also worth a drive.

13. The maneishe at Sasoun in Glendale, or on Santa Monica. I think I actually went there too much, so much that I haven't been back in awhile.

14. Yen To Fu at Sanamluang in Hollywood. Yai is also good.

15. Ramen, while listening to pleasantly enthusiastic waitresses and cooks, at Hakata Shen Sen Gumi in San Gabriel.

16. Lamb soup and sesame bread at China Islamic.

17. Insanely spicy Thai (I think they were trying to punish us for continually insisting it had to be spicy) at Thai Hollywood.

18. Enchiladas at La Cabanita in beautiful La Canada.

19. Lobsters, in my sink, in a pot, and then on my plate outside on my patio. With garlic fried rice.

20. The chicken roll and the beef roll at 101 Noodle Express.

21. Burgers, surprisingly decent BBQ, fries, and beer at the patio of the Oinkster in Eagle Rock.

22. Perfectly spicy ribs at Phillips on Crenshaw.

23. Tlayudas worth a 45 minute drive in traffic at the taco truck on Lincoln and Rose in Venice.

24. Seafood pancake, pork bossam and lot's of Hite at Kobawood House.

25. The veggie platter at Skaf's Lebanese in Glendale

Fungus

My favorite discovery of late has to be the huitlacoche quesadillas (pictured above) we found, completely by accident, while wandering around in a sun-baked zombie daze on a Sunday afternoon outside a completely worthless swap meet. A nice, predictably camera-shy, lady sells them every Sunday on a Vermont sidewalk near the intersection of Vermont and Melrose.

If you're unfamiliar with huitlacoche, which I was, here's wikipedia's take, referred to here as corn smut:

Corn smut is a disease of maize caused by the pathogenic plant fungus Ustilago maydis. U. maydis causes smut disease on maize (Zea mays) and teosinte (Euchlena mexicana). Although it can infect any part of the plant it usually enters the ovaries and replaces the normal kernels of the cobs with large distorted tumors analogous to mushrooms. These tumors, or "galls", are made up of much-enlarged cells of the infected plant, fungal threads, and blue-black spores. The spores give the cob a burned, scorched appearance. The name Ustilago comes from the Latin word ustilare (to burn).
Considered a pest in most of the United States, smut feeds off the corn plant and decreases the yield. Usually smut-infected crops are destroyed. Some farmers may also choose to prepare corn silage out of the smutted corn. However, in Mexico corn smut is called huitlacoche (IPA: [wit͡ɬakot͡ɕe], sometimes spelled cuitlacoche), a Nahuatl word reportedly meaning raven's excrement[1]. It is considered a delicacy, even being preserved and sold for a higher price than corn. For culinary use, the galls are harvested while still immature — fully mature galls are dry and almost entirely spore-filled. The immature galls, gathered two to three weeks after an ear of corn is infected, still retain moisture and, when cooked, have a flavor described as mushroom-like, sweet, savory, woody, and earthy. Flavor compounds include sotolon and vanillin, as well as the sugar glucose.

WHatever the case, these things are pretty addictive. For all I know, and assume, this lady's corn smut comes straight from a can. Either way, I'm buying it. Two Sundays in a row right now. She also sells a flor de calabazo (squash blossom) quesadilla that's fairly nice, though not as nice as the huitlacoche.

Thai New Year: Ontario, CA

More pictures than you really need...

McDonald's in India

c/o of my friend Bimal...

Thai New Year: Thai Town

Thinly sliced papaya salad, spiced just enough to make your nose run, and chicken on a stick: perfect fair food. Courtesy of Watt Thai Hollywood.

Not the place I ate though this place was pretty popular as well.

Overall

Pluses: Lots of food.

Minuses: Too hot outside.

Recent

Spicy BBQ (Thai Town/Hollywood)
It's probably best if you just skip over the first 60-70% of the menu. It's possible the dishes on these pages are completely unforgettable but, from appearances, they look pretty forgettable.
What to eat at Spicy Thai: Khao Soi (above), a moderately spiced bowl of chicken and egg noodles cooked in coconut milk and red and yellow curries; the Grilled Serrano Dressing (below), which amounts to a small bowl of blended chiles that erupt with flavor on the way in and on the way down; and the Spicy Jackfruit, cooked with just enough lime leaves, a dish that supposedly tastes even better as a leftover the day after your visit. (A)


Nem Nuong Ninh Hua (Rosemead)
Chances are, when you visit this tastefully lit spot in the San Gabriel Valley, the restaurant will be full with families and couples, most of them frantically grabbing rice paper, leaves of lettuce, small skewers of sausage, basil, and cilantro en route to constructing their own versions of the signature dish, the nem nuong. A first timer might get the feeling there's no real reason to order anything else. The lemongrass scented chicken with broken rice, one of my favorite dishes in LA, simple as it is, is such a reason. (A)

Langer's (McArthur Park)
If you plan on getting anything other than a Pastrami on rye, I can't really help you. I guess it's ok if you add sauerkraut, but nothing beyond that. Plan on spending more than you usually spend on a sandwich and fries. It's completely worth it though. (A)