Big Sweet Tooth

What If I Went Back in Time?

Back in time...

I happened to grab lunch at Beachwood Cafe the other day and I saw this old billboard outside.   Thing is - it's the place where I found my first Hollywood apartment at the tender, insanely young age of 20 years old.  I was in fresh from TN and living in the youth hostel at the Hollywood YMCA when I noticed this locals only billboard (all I did back then was cruise around and try to figure out how to "make it").  I saw nothing my 3k credit card limit could afford and fell into a deep depression immediately, but some random dude was standing there and offered me his copy of the latest Westside Rentals doc.

And dontcha know it - there was a tiny studio for rent right up underneath the Hollywood sign.  $400 a month - all included...with a view looking right up onto the sign.  I was in hog heaven.  My landlady was a little grandma from the south and we fell straight in love with each other. Plants everywhere, lemon trees, views from the top of the Hills.  Beyond perfect.

I always wonder what it would be like to start over out here.  Did I make all the right moves?  Where would I have been if I hadn't have gotten that little place, or lived at the YMCA hostel where I met the dude who introduced me to the first grip I'd ever met - someone who actually worked on movies - that got me a job on a TV show.  Thanks Frolic Room.  It's so easy to forget how it all happened.  Whatever "all" is.  I just keep moving on...and now that I'm back - it's like I never left.

Maybe I'd have a restaurant in Mexico if I'd never come here?  Maybe I still will :)

Meanwhile, the Beachwood Cafe did a mega makeover a few months back and is now farm-to-table....and totally delish on a whole new homemade level.  Menu changes weekly.  Who'd have thunk?  (Sorry for quality of iphone pix) - but lemme tell ya, the harissa sauce on the poached eggs is insane. 

 

 

The Valley and All Her Foodie Finds

I just spent 3 days in The Valley.  Yes - horror of all horrors.  I was taking a workshop over there - you know, enhancing some skills and what I found was just incredible - it was the food I've been looking for all over LA!  All within a few miles of where I was spending long, long days holed up in front of a computer.

Koko's - I kid you not - maybe the best Middle Eastern I've had on the West Coast.  One bite of the velvety hummus and I was braving the dusty streets of some two-horse town in Lebanon.  Same goes for the fluffed out rice and the perfect feta salad (now, this was before the vegan comment, mind you - haven't had dairy or eggs since then).  Located in a dreary strip mall.

Next day was Thai.  Kinnara - found in a bustling little strip mall.   Full transport on over to Thailand - with nothing but a backpack and loose sense of hunger leading the way to the freshest papaya salad in the world and a pile of smoking green beans.  Joy.

Final day was a jovial joint run by a Vietnamese dude named Kevin (I know this cause every single patron called him by name).  A tiny spot called Vinh Loi Tofu - where they have a full blown tofu factory set up rocking in the back.  Yep one bite in, I was over in S. East Asia, to Vietnam...a place I've never been but have been dreaming about since birth, I'm sure.  I slurped down a loaded down bowl of tofu curry and slammed a Thai Iced Tea from the happy folks at the Viet shop next door.  Again, strip mall heaven.

So, turns out the valley is good for one thing - good eats.  And, who knew Van Nuys had an airport.  And....it only took me a half hour to get there.  LESS than it takes me to get to friggin Hollywood.  Good to know, good to know.

And - don't you know it on the way home that final day, I stopped by my fave Mexican joint and ordered up a horchata...and the f'er was half frozen.  Most insane treat of all time.  I guess if you can't hit the road, may the road hit you.

Me + Food - I'm Not Sure You'd Believe Me If I Told You *

My relationship with food is the one constant in my life that never, ever wanes.  Let's just say - coming from a chick who has real trouble with commitment - the love never dies between us.

Every single waking moment is spent thinking about 2 things - escape and what I'm eating on the way out.  Curiously enough, my long, delicious love affair with F-O-O-D isn't even about the actual meal.  It's about the condiments, seasonings, and accoutrement's that play side car to the actual dish.

Forget the pizza - it's about the egg on top and the ranch I dunk it in to.  It's not about the french fries - it becomes an freakish obsession with the salt, ketchup, mayo combo I dunk them into.  Mmmmmm salad - nope - it's about the feta sprinkled on top.  Egg salad or tuna sandwich sounds sooooo good - but that's cause they are doused in vats of mayo.  Popcorn = butter.  Toast = chunky blackberry jam.  Fritatta = spicy aioli.  Cupcake = icing.  Milk = chocolate.  Spring rolls = peanut sauce.  Fish & Chips = malt vinegar.  Spinach salad = shaved parmesan.  Tostada = crema.  Chips = dip.  Black beans = avocado.  Rice = soy sauce.  Octopus = lime.  Chicken Soup = onions & cilantro.  Martini =blue cheese stuffed olives. 

The list goes on and on and on and my quest for the perfect meal, the perfect bite, the perfect food experience plays out on an hourly basis.   Many times I'm disappointed.  In fact, most times.  But - sometimes - in all these little eating adventures I go on - I find myself crumbling from mouth ecstasy.  Fish & Chips and the Clam Chowder soup at Baleen - both are maybe the finest versions I've ever had.  Patrick Roadhouses version on the other hand...well, lets just say I shant be back for those.  Frittata at Bar Pinxto - man, if you get it right when they open...it's a glorious thing.  I've had three others since at three different restaurants that we're sub-par at best.  Almost embarrassing, actually.

I always thought Chicago was the perfect food city.  But, slowly...very slowly I'm discovering LA via all my random, gotta-quench-the-desire-right-now bites.  It's a good thing.  A real good thing.  And, this ain't even the half of it.  

{Pls forgive the quality of my iphone photos - sometimes I just don't have my camera with me!}

 

Tunes, Smelt, Prosecco & Magic

Download 03 Living In the Unknown

There is magic everywhere when it comes to food.  In a chilly glass of Prosecco at mid-day.  In a wee mountain of smelt immersed in warm marinara.  In a vivid bowl of rich mushroom risotto.  In the smile of the passionate/about/all manager, Mario, over at Antica Pizza in MDR.  In a perfect-to-the-core Neapolitan margherita pizza.

It's truly wacky where the day can take you.  You wake up thinking what-to-do-what-to-do...I finally have a free minute.  A day of nothing.  The weather is sick.  The phone is off.  The next 24 hours is anything you wanna make it.  Craft a pitch?  Read a book?  Eat at a new joint?  Peruse the paper?  Walk the beach spine?  Any of it.  All of it.  Listen to soothing tunes.  Conjure up dreamy lands.  Just try to tune up the system, one breath at a time.  One sip at a time.  One bite at a time.  One nap at a time.

And, remember.  You make your own choices.  This is the life you've carved out, one situation after another.  Does it work anymore?  I think it does.  Better to figure out a way to tell one story at a time.  That's the new deal.  Tell one small, yet powerful story at a time.  Next to impossible.  Why?  Cause the brain is like the internet - a full search engine ON at all times.  If there we're a way to simply shuffle things.  To build flow charts, call sheets, colorful grids...all in the head.  I'm lousy with notebooks - small, large, lined, graphed.  I have about a mil going at once and even those have become crushing to the true intel.  I can't seem to find jack shit. 

Yet somehow, one cold glass at a time, things get done.  They morph and actualize into things that matter.  At least to me. 

And, why not kick in some good tunes for these entries?  You might find some magic in them.

3 Combo Meal at Samosa House - Can I Just Move On???

There's not much in the world that $7.99 can buy.  Not much at all.  But, at Samosa House on Washington - an Indian restaurant/cafe/deli/market, you can get your pick of a dozen or so 100% vegetarian Indian eats.  With garlic naan, mind you. 

Yah, I was ill once I left the joint, but that was only cause I inhaled some veg fried fritters and a potato samosa in the span of about 1.5 seconds.  Then, mixed in my combo with Lisa's combo and it was enough food - for real - for a small army.  That just ain't right.

So, now...I'm on a mad health food kick.  Like crazy for 2010.  All organic.  All vegetarian.  Maybe even some vegan madness thrown in for good measure.  I got my awesome Vegan Table cookbook, I got mi casa all sorted.  I got my new MAC rockin' in the office.  All is well for the new year.  Gotta stay away from Indian, I think.  

PS - so many of my pals are doing some sick, sick stuff this year.  Enough to make the masses bawl and bawl.  I'm gonna lay some of it out in the coming posts, just to inspire the Toothies.

 

 
   

Back to Food, Back to Mexican, Back to All that May Matter in the World - A Satisfied Belly

After tumbling out of the new and incredibly blissful Wilshire Spa (if you're into Korean spas and treatments, pony up the $130 for 2 hrs of massages, scrubs, body wraps and a cucumber facial extravaganza--its open 24 hours), me and my bud Lis happened upon my new fave Oaxacan restaurant in Koreatown.  Crazy, mad, deliciously good.  In fact, I now love Koreatown.  8th St. is where it's at for street food style grub.

Guelaguetza (look at the dish gallery on the website, I would not steer you wrong...PLEASE go out of your way to hit this spot) had quite possibly the best mole I've ever devoured.  I know for certain the horchatacantaloupe will never be forgotten, and seriously, the teaser plate of warm chips doused in coloradito sauce and crumbled cheese was sick.  Sick to the point of I ate 'em so quick, I was honestly sick!
with cactus juice, chopped nuts and

Why can't there be joints like this over in MDR?  All brightly lit with blaring bandito tunes.  Valet parkers that charge $3 just to back your car up 16 inches.  Chubby Mexican kids racing around chasing a bruised ball.  Ginormous vats of food on the cheap.  The stuff belly dreams are made of*

True love found, once again...perfect Mexican in the heart of a Korean hood in the middle of loca LA.

 

Making a Case for Persian in LA

Seems I'm on a bit of a food bender lately, so let me just spill a few reasons why you should eat Persian as soon as you see a sign for it.  I am very fond of one I discovered over in Westwood called Shahrzad.  Could be one of my best meals in '09.

1.  The meat is simmered for so long, it falls apart the minute your fork comes within an inch of it.

2.  The fresh herbs rival that found in the best Vietnamese restaurants.

3.  They always have copious amounts of lemon and lime on hand to squeeze all over the place.

4.  The homemade yogurt which is best slopped on everything.

5.  The tart lentil soup that no doubt has a home in every Persian kitchen.

6.  The big round oven in back of most Persian restaurants that fire up smoky flat bread every few minutes, of which you can usually order a few to go.

7.  The unusually cheap prices for such fat plates of food.

8.  Perfect basmati rice.

9.  The most delicious eggplant you will ever come across.

10.  Sumac.

Finding Food in LA - It's Gonna be a Haul*

In downtown LA, there is of course, a Chinatown.  Within the Chinatown boundaries are loads of Vietnamese restaurants...which of course is the best of all the Asian cuisines.  Their magic with flavors makes Thai food taste almost dirty, very unsatisfying (unless we're talking Palms in Hollywood which has the best Thai iced tea I've ever had).  I cruised down to Chinatown this past weekend to get some of those big Chinese lanterns for my new place and was immediately overwhelmed by the traffic, smells, people, trinkets, and just damn good looking food visible from every window I strolled past.  But, again...Vietnamese is where it's at*

You gotta cruise all the way down to the end of the main drag before you happen upon one of my faves--Pho something or over.  Could be 666.  Could be 777.  I just know it by looks, really.   They have these intoxicating crispy fried rolls that are most delish when tucked into a leafy piece of lettuce stuffed with basil and mint and then dunked in the super special, super sweet fish sauce.  Best thing ever.

Here's the thing about LA that I'm just gonna have to realize...my fave foodie treats don't really exist much in Marina del Rey. I'm gonna have to venture far and wide to appease my cravings.  Persian over there, Mexican over here, Lebanese down there, etc...which is a slightly tough transition from my Chi hood which has every ethnicity in the world within a 10 minute walk of my place in E. Rogers Park.

But...LA does have Indonesian food complete with ymmy Bintang, whole fried fish and sambal out the ying-yang.  Just a few more weeks and I will have it for real, but in the meantime, point 1 for LA!

Killer El Salvadorean Food in LA: El Guanaco

So, I have a feeling that the next 4th World Love will be opened in El Salvador (possibly Baja)...you never know which country/people/spirit will strike you and after eating what was possibly one of the Top 5 meals I have ever wolfed down in LA last weekend at a tucked-away storefront El Salvadorean joint in Hollywood, well let's just say that El Salv is looking mighty fine.

There was a smoky chicken tamale, an oozing cheese pupusa con creama, some sassy huevos rancheros and the best super-thick, hand-slapped tortillas EVER.  The whole mess was just over $10 and easily fed two straving bellies.  Reminded me of all my favorite pupuserias in Chicago, up on N. Clark St.  Full as I was after a few bites of the pupusa, I soildered on when the perfect tamale rolled out.  Then came fluffy rice, then came poached huevos, then came an aching belly.  But, such a happy belly.  Joy.  Lot's of it.

El Guanaco Restaurant & Pupuseria
5656 Santa Monica Blvd.

Hit it up.  And, the funny thing is, after breakfast there, later in the day, I headed up to Malibu to get some dessert at this little funky grocery store up there -- all kinds of gourmet things peppering the shelves -- and after spending a wad on practically nothing, I walked away so unfilfilled. 

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Santino's on the West Side of LA = The Perfect Little Bar

I can't believe I'm leaving LA already.  Just when I've found all sorts of amazing places to hang out--places that aren't your typical LA places--I'm back on the road. 

Tomorrow, I'm outta LA, headed south to Kentucky to film this TV show I'm working on.  Much as I'm loving hanging out at Santino's (the coolest little tapas joint on Lincoln in Santa Monica)..it's time to hit the road.  I love movement.  The idea of living in a hotel for a few months is actually not that bad.  And, for real, Louisville is the most adorable town ever.  I never knew it was so hip, so chill, so cool.

I'll be back to LA in December to wrap this show, so I'll have plenty of time to explore the menu again at Santino's.  Check out those chick peas, though. So delish.

More updates soon on the evolution of 4th World Love.  Stay tuned...