Life Goal Accomplished: 100% From-Scratch PBJ!

Back in high school, a good friend of mine named Blake insisted that all of his friends create a bucket list. It could have as many items as the individual wished, and they could be of any caliber, from skydiving to attending a professional sporting event.

One of the more attainable items on my own list has taken me nearly five years to get around to: Making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, entirely from scratch. Seems easy enough, right? So how come it stayed squarely on that list as I collected two new diplomas, gathering dust with the likes of "Swim with Dolphins" and "Go See The Bears Play in the Super Bowl"?

Over the years, I have definitely made jam, certainly baked bread, and even took up the new habit of making my own sunflower seed butter on a weekly basis. I had no excuses left up my sleeve.

So last week, upon moving into my beautiful new house in Highland Park, I decided there was no better way to break in the new kitchen than with this neglected endeavor.

First, the PB:

This is something I make, like I said, on a weekly basis. I know the traditional recipe calls for Peanut Butter, hence the unforgettable initial namesake. But my mom developed a peanut allergy years ago, our house made the switch to SunButter, and I just plain prefer it this way. Sorry, tradition.

Next up, the J:

This is made from a medley of fruits I had in my freezer, care of Trader Joe's. Someday I'll make this with fresh organic crap from a market or something, but for my current unemployed status, this had to suffice. It's a blend of raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and mango with some pumpkin pie spice tossed in at the last minute. According to the roommates, it smells like Christmas and tastes like pie filling. That'll do.

Finally, the part I put off til last, the bread:

I got really lucky here. For starters, I could not find a single recipe simple enough to accommodate the ingredients I had on hand. Everyone wants to be a star, everyone wants to throw honey in, etc. I decided to toss conventional baking and chemical wisdom over my shoulder with the dish towel and make do with what I had: All-Purpose flour, water, table sugar, Flieschmann's packets, grapeseed oil, and some vital wheat gluten leftover from my last seitan batch. I messed up a few early steps, had to shape leftover dough into makeshift baguettes for lack of a second loaf pan, and actually had to knead the gluten in after forgetting to mix it with the flour.

On top of that, LADWP decided to cut off my power during the second rise, rendering my stove and freezer useless for about 20 hours. This dough rose far more than it should have, but as soon as the power went back on, I tossed it in and took my chances.

The results were a glorious pillowy salty, almost sourdoughy loaf that I literally cannot stop eating. It's almost as bad as the great Challah binge of Passover 2009, but I've managed to stop myself long enough to write this blog entry.

THE RESULT:

Bliss.
Sublime, perfect, intoxicating bliss. I sat at my desk eating this masterpiece, enjoying it just as much if not more than anything Grant Achatz, Wolfgang Puck, or Mario Batali ever fed me.

The moral of this story is cheesy and stereotypical, as great things in life sometimes are: Today, I ingested the ultimate proof that it's the simplest things that mean the most, and also that delayed gratification is always worth the wait.

Now if only I could stop eating this bread...

Linni Eats L.A.: Cru (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the V-Neck)

Hip·ster / ˈhipstər/
• n. inf. a blanket term describing middle-to-upper class young people associated with alternative culture, particularly alternative music, independent film and a lifestyle revolving around thrift store shopping, eating organic, locally grown, vegetarian, and/or vegan food, drinking local beer, listening to public radio, and riding fixed-gear bicycles.

A wise woman once told me that it takes a hipster to know a hipster, and that was the thought plaguing me on a recent dining excursion in L.A.

The restaurant was in Silver Lake, hipster haven and domicile to all things scene. American Apparels line the streets, Schwinn Stingrays deliver their owners to another shift at the coffee house, and even the dollar stores sell Ray Ban knock-offs. I've spent a great deal of time hating on the particular genre of human that inhabits this neighborhood, but I never judge without the slight nagging suspicion that I could be one of them. I was having a hell of a hard time shaking this feeling when I found myself at a restaurant just off Sunset Blvd. A raw, vegan restaurant. Wearing a flannel.

The idea itself nearly ruined my appetite, but self-loathing tends to come hand in hand with the v-necks and zip-up hoodies. How else would the Silver Lake crowd manage to appear so aloof and judgmental if they weren't constantly judging themselves as well? But this is not a psych analysis—it is a restaurant review. And I'm just giving you a taste of the neuroses that haunted my expectations of Cru, arguably one of the most popular vegan eateries in Los Angeles.

The waiter who let us in was appropriately odd, but the experience itself did not force itself down your throat as some trendy establishments tend to. There was an unpretentious subtlety in everything, from the decor to the menu, and even the clientele. The couple next to my table were sporting some sweet southern accents and mullets, and asked our advice on how to order vegan food. On the other side, an older couple said they'd made the trek from Culver City, which had been a common tradition for years since the wife decided it was her favorite restaurant in Los Angeles, vegan or otherwise.

The menu keeps things simple as well—as simple as a gluten-free and mostly raw menu can be. We started off with the chickpea fritters, which came with a dilled sour cream made with cashews, coconut meat, dill, and garlic. The fritters were fried using coconut oil, a flavor that nearly overpowered everything else in this dish. The sour cream's dill cut the sweetness, but these fried-egg look-a-likes were almost too moist for dipping. This wasn't entirely unpleasant, but a touch less grease and a bit more pan time would elevate this dish to perfection.

Our entrees were a little closer to sublime. The mushroom quinoa risotto came with a mixed green salad and a fig pate made with apricots, dates, and something that tasted a little bit like pumpkin pie. The quinoa made this dish a little sweeter than your ordinary risotto, and the chefs opted to forego cheese, which left it a little lacking in creaminess. Fortunately, our waiter had overheard me expressing regret at not ordering a side of cashew cheese and brought some out with our dinner, which blended into the risotto in perfect harmony.

The cheese also tasted great on the pumpkinseed walnut chorizo wrap, a blend of bell peppers, zucchini, chorizo and onions wrapped with field greens, tomato, avocado and cilantro in a perfectly unblemished, thick collard wrap that held this baby together better than any tortilla could. The chorizo and nuts blended to create an earthy warm vibe in my mouth, but the collard made this downright refreshing for comfort food. It also came with a dipping sauce made with mustard seeds, coconut meat, and some vague hint of tamari, perfect for dipping either the wrap or the raw sweet potato chips that came along with it.


While the desserts are often the most astounding part of a raw or vegan menu, this "light" meal had us groaning in expanded-belly bliss before we even polished off the cashew cheese. It's a shame—the Cru chocolate truffle fudge cake has quite the reputation, as does the brownie a la mode with coconut meat cashew ice cream. Judging from the satisfied moans of the southern couple next to us, that brownie alone would be worth another trip to scenester-ville. Silver Lake isn't so bad after all, and if this is what it means to eat hipster, I think I could get on board with the movement. My dining partner and I did manage to order all cooked entrees at this nearly-100% raw restaurant, which could mean there's hope for us yet.

Then again, it could mean we're just so good at that odd-ball "alternative culture" thing that we don't even notice it anymore. And now my appetite's spoiled.

For more information on Cru, visit www.crusilverlake.com.

"Hipster" dictionary definition courtesy of Wikipedia

Linni Eats L.A.: Dino's

Legend is a funny thing. Nowhere is this more apparent than Los Angeles, a city that puts a higher premium on hype than Kanye West, environmentalists, and 10th graders stealing their parents booze.

So after hearing all the Dino's lore, I had visions of a chicken shrine dancing through my head on the ride over. I pictured a hole in the wall with one dude leaning from a rusty, cracked window ledge, flinging entire chickens like frisbees at loyal devotees anxiously awaiting their bouquet-toss moment. I thought I'd feel like the chosen one when my order was finally up, awarded with a small fortune in french fries so amazing, they might as well be diamond-studded.

My imagination, of course, got the best of me. Every time I think I know better than to let Los Angeles legend get my hopes up, another Casa Bianca, Pink's, or In-N-Out comes along to smash my dreams.

To all the Dino's converts out there, please don't get the wrong idea. I do think your precious chicken & fry combo is a fantastic deal and really quite tasty. My let-down stems not from lackluster flavor, but from the fact that people talk about this place like it is where chicken begins and ends. At the end of the day, it's a burger joint that just happens to make a brilliant concoction of Tabasco, citrus juices, and whatever other secrets Dino has stashed in his war-torn apron.

There is something to be said for this sauce, though. Forget Big Macs—this stuff is special. It would have to be, to make me not only enjoy soggy fries, but wolf them down like I hadn't seen food for days. A $5.50 order comes out in a large styrofoam box, the bottom layer a thatch of fries soaked by juice from the half-chicken nestled on top. The chicken looks tandoori-style, with skin the pinkish-orange of a desert sunset. I spent the better part of my time at Dino's trying to decide what was in the sauce. I saw chili flakes, and there was a faint hint of citrus. It wasn't traditionally spicy, yet my nose was running like crazy. Overall, it just tasted red.

For your Lincoln-and-change, this order also comes with a few warm corn tortillas and some really basic coleslaw. I doubt there was anything more than mayo and cabbage in it, but it was a perfectly cool partner to the chicken's heat and great for dipping those saucy fries. Apparently one must also order the root beer here, another subject of hype that I didn't quite understand. My dining companions insisted that Dino's had somehow achieved the perfect balance of syrup and carbonation, but if this differed from A&W, I couldn't tell.

All root beer aside, if I'm going to get on board with any Dino's hype, it will be because of the fries. As someone who digs shamelessly through fry bags for the crunchy ones, the idea of a bed of fried potato soaked in chicken sauce makes me a little nauseous. But this place isn't famous because of it's ability to win crispy-lovers over to the soggy side. They're famous for the intrigue of that mystery sauce, about which the counter man remains mum. After eating way more than I intended, hoping with every new bite to guess the secret ingredient, I'm still clueless. Ketchup? Oranges? Black tar heroin? All I know is that it had me burping up garlic hours after dinner. If this all sounds worth the hullabaloo to you, let Dino's try to give you a run for your money—at $5.50 for a half a chicken and sides, they won't have to try very hard.

Visit www.dinoschickenandburgers.com for more information

Linni Eats L.A.: Osteria Mozza

When dining at the restaurant of a celebrity chef, it's hard for me to stay focused on the food.

One minute I'm scanning the diners for a familiar face, the next I'm glancing up at the waiter to find that Wolfgang Puck has decided to deliver my steak. It was no different at Osteria Mozza, where I found myself scanning footwear for Mario Batali's orange Crocs. I wasn't expecting him, but then again I wasn't expecting Colin Farrell to walk behind me during dessert, either. This dinner was full of surprises.

Things started off pretty predictable for a high-end restaurant. The menu couldn't be navigated without waiter assistance, the crowd of elites and wannabes were sweating money, and the acoustics made conversation damn near impossible. But hey, at least we weren't seated in the restaurant equivalent of a nosebleed section, as I've often gotten at popular spots like this.

The menu is divided into antipasti (which includes the mozzarella bar), primi, secondi, and dolci. The secondi mains were primarily enormous slabs of meat, so my table stuck to what Italians do best—cheese and pasta. Our primi selection included the scamorza panino, a smokey mozzarella sandwich whose bread had slices of Armandino mole salami pressed onto it. The crunchy toasted bread gave way to tangly threads of perfectly pliant cheese that cut the spicy mole and a side of dressed arugula completed the picture. I didn't splurge on these, however, assuming that an Italian restuarant's pastas would steal the show from any other course. My table eagerly ordered the orecchiette with sausage and swiss chard, tagliatelle with oxtail ragu, and the maltagliati with wild boar ragu after much heated debate with each other and guidance on the foreign titles from our waiter.

Perhaps our mistake was ordering two ragus. Perhaps I shouldn't have heeded my mother's advice that calf's brain ravioli would be mushy and tasteless, or maybe it would have helped to heed the waiter's suggestion to try the gnudi, a pasta dumpling Mozza was filling with ricotta and serving with chanterelles. Whatever we did wrong, the primi course brought our first big surprise--or should I call it a disappointment? The pasta at this institution was—gasp!—underwhelming. For being handmade in the back of the very space we were dining in, these slippery noodles and meat sauce tasted like nothing more than just that—noodles and meat sauce. The orecchiette's sausage had remote subtleties, but where was the swiss chard? And the maltagliati (which means hand-made), advertised as delightfully rustic torn shreds of pasta, differed only marginally from the tagliatelle in both flavor and mouth-feel. I actually picked at our side of spinach with crispy garlic with more excitement than dinner itself. Put briefly, I was bored.

Was I just inept at recognizing good Italian food? Or was Mario's absence from the kitchen a real hindrance? I dog-paddled through the waves of self-doubt and confusion long enough to accept the dessert menu placed in my hands. The sweet cap on meals isn't usually what gets me juiced, but this proved to be the meal-saver this place needed.

I should have known—Mario opened the joint with Nancy Silverton, pastry chef extraordinaire and co-founder of L.A. bread cornerstone La Brea bakery. And what the dinner chefs lack in pizzazz, fancy Nancy more than makes up for at meal's end. The three desserts we ordered were, hands down, the best I've ever tasted. I know that blanket statements like that are pretty useless, but this one is worth it's weight in honesty. The apple borsellino with apple cider jelly gelato and caramel sauce had the most delicate flakey pastry and sultry, salty caramel flavor, while the bombolini with huckleberry compote and lemon gelato tasted like a cake donut on uppers. The texture, temperature, sight and smell of these pastries couldn't please my senses more, but the accessories nearly steal the show by staying so true to their titles—the lemon gelato tasted like a lemon, while the caramel sauce made me realize that perhaps I'd never tasted caramel before. The big finish came, however, with a dessert to tug at your heartstrings. The rosemary olive oil cakes with olive oil gelato and rosemary brittle were the reason I decided to come to Mozza, and with such high hopes, a potential let-down was in order. But Nancy couldn't let that happen, could she?

I would not be exaggerating to say that this dish brought slight moisture to my eyes. I had to plant both forearms on the table and just look at it, for a moment. The moist tiny cakes came in shapes like stars and flowers, flecked with rosemary specks; the brittle sat in a neat shiny wave, breaking against the gelato it perched on; and the gelato. The gelato. It wasn't enough for it to taste like olive oil—it had to taste like earthy, expensive, high-quality olive oil. The cakes managed to taste like they'd been soaked in the stuff, yet weren't greasy, and still retained their wintery rosemary warmth. I tread lightly with my fork, never wanting the moment to end. I think I may have had a religious experience with that plate.

It will be hard to go back and order anything else, but Silverton's also crafted a fritelle de riso with Nocello-soaked raisins and banana gelato to tempt me away from rosemary olive oil heaven. And there's also a tre agrumi ghiacciati with grapefruit sorbetto, meyer lemon gelato, and key lime cannoli, and while I haven't the faintest clue what the first part of that means, the side components are enough to make me find out.

For a celebrity chef's joint, Osteria Mozza is relatively affordable. I still wouldn't make a habit out of eating dinners here, but that may be due to my sub-par pasta experience. It's probably worth it to give the meats a try, or go for just a starter cheese course. But I'd say save your money and just go in for what they do best—dessert.

Visit mozza-la.com for more info on both Osteria Mozza and Pizzeria Mozza

Linni Eats L.A.: Barbecue Trucks

Why do trucks have to equal tacos around here? Why don’t any other cheap and dirty foods find their way into our bellies via motor vehicle? The Leos and Rambos of our world sit comfortably on their high horses, assured of their seat at the top, so comfortable they barely keep an eye open for competition. It seems like, under these conditions, an enterprising entrepreneur-on-wheels could hatch a unique model that would siphon customers away from the monopoly of masa, no problem. But what would they serve?

Barbecue, apparently. In 2009, Eagle Rock has seen the introduction of two new members to their motorized fleet, neither of which are serving your mom’s asada burrito. Hollywood darling Kogi BBQ hasn’t strayed too far off the tortilla-pressed path, as they still serve burritos and tacos with only the fillings tweaked. And those fillings aren't all that impressive--I once had the famous short rib taco and had to actually look for the meat, because I sure couldn't taste it. Over on York Blvd., though, there is a truck making BBQ the likes of which I’ve never tasted in southern California, much less from an automobile.

Caribbean Dreams Texas BBQ has had a bold yellow sign draped across what looks like an apartment balcony for the better part of my time at Occidental. The building looks abandoned, as does the parking lot in front of it, except for one stationary truck. The sign has read “Coming soon!” rather emphatically for as long as I can remember, and I had pretty much given up my hopes of ever trying it upon leaving for Winter Break this year.

But wait. In January, things were shifting. Each drive by, something had moved—stacks of chairs and tables littered the lot, grills were set up on the concrete and one day I even saw smoke billowing out the top of the truck. Rumor had it they weren’t technically open, but a friend of mine had walked right up to sample the goods and they hadn’t turned him away. After weeks of hearing about this special treatment, I had to see for myself.

The friend insisted on coming with—“they know me,” he said, insisting I wouldn’t get the special treatment without him. We moseyed up to the abandoned-looking vehicle and he poked his head inside the passenger door. Out came a tattooed waitress who set up two chairs and a table for us in the parking lot and Fausto, 5-star chef extraordinaire and ex-cop, who kindly embraced us both before retreating into the belly of the beast to whip up something magnificent. I’d told him to give me a sampling of their best, and to throw an empanada in for good measure.

The story of the York lot goes like this—Fausto is Ecuadorian, and became a police chief there before transferring to the U.S. to work a similar job (he’ll flash you his FBI badge at the merest mention of this). He then quit to cook in several 5-star restaurants before deciding to open up a barbecue place with his business partner, who sadly wasn’t there the day I visited. The waitress had joined the team under the guidance of Fausto, a father, uncle and mentor figure who’d helped her get out trouble and was now teaching her to become a chef. She prepared our homemade horchata to-order and it was divine.

Despite the setting, we had clean glassware, sharp steak knives and silver cutlery—no plastic here. First up was the pumpkin empanada, a big doughy pocket filled with a cheesy pumpkin concoction that wasn’t cloyingly sweet or pie-like, just solid squash flavor. Then Fausto himself brought out the main event, a large plate stacked with rice, corn on the cob, salad and a heaping pile of sausage, ribs, chicken and tri-tip, all smothered in barbecue sauce. You can try eating with the fancy silverware if you want, but I gave up the ghost about halfway through the meal and used the sophisticated utensils god gave me, leaning heavily on the never-ending napkin supply.

I’ve struggled to find decent barbecue in this state, but it’s good to know there’s a 5-star chef who clearly knows what he’s doing a mere textbook toss away from campus. They technically open mid-morning and close around 8, but according to Fausto, he lives right behind the truck and will serve us whenever we knock on his door. They may develop real hours, though, when the grand opening takes place and a real menu surfaces. That’s tentatively scheduled for a month from now, and the team has big plans and decorations all lined up. But for now I’m just happy to show up with a ten dollar bill and get a veritable feast from the side of an automobile.

Caribbean Dreams Texas BBQ is located on the corner of Hazelwood and York Blvd.

Linni Eats Boulder: Centro

Awarding a restaurant the title of "best happy hour" is a little bit like awarding a serious film the title of "hottest cast" --sure, it can be an enjoyable side effect, but it is so not the point.

Any serious chef will tell you that working in a pub kitchen is not the most stimulating exercise of their culinary skills. It doesn't take much to deep-fry and it's pretty easy to please a cheap crowd getting increasingly lubricated by the drink. But in a town like Boulder, Colorado, where the 21+ crowd of college students, hippies and hipsters make it their mission to visit at least one happy hour per day, places pull out all the heavy kitchen artillery to keep a competitive edge.

This is where Centro's Latin American kitchen comes in. If any place relishes their status as one of the best happy hours west of the Atlantic Ocean, it's this fusion spot, formerly run by a Top Chef contestant and now boasting a Monday all-night happy hour, weekend brunch happy hour and a weekly slot that runs 4-5:30 Tuesday-Thursday and 3-5:30 Friday-Sunday. I haven't partaken in the brunch yet, but am certainly tempted by the sounds of the crispy hash browns with pork green chile and cotija; the flour tortilla breakfast taco crammed with scrambled eggs, tomatillo salsa, cotija , radish, and candied onions; and mimosas and bloody marys to wash it all down, each item only $2. If you're willing to spend a bit more, the regular breakfast menu has something called Latin Kitchen Hash that showcases sweet potato, fried banana, blackened shrimp and two eggs, or griddled plantain bread with house smoked salmon, poached eggs and more candied onion. With sweet offerings like almond crusted toast with cream cheese and cherries or dried fruit with cottage cheese, honey, and grilled bread to complement the savory, you would think Centro would settle, content to stop at the first and most important meal of the day.

But where's the fun in that? There's hardly any booze on that menu, and that's no way to serve a college town. Centro's afternoon and evening happy hours veer away from champagne and dip a trendy toe or two into the hard stuff. Gaggles of 20-somethings in their most impressively boho or neon attire order Centro's specialty $2 Cuba Libres by the trayful, while others can choose from $4 wines and margaritas or $2 Tecates.

Any time you're unloading drinks this close to free onto people, it's important to make sure they've got some heft in their bellies. This is where your average happy hour tosses out a basket of onion rings or maybe a tray of sliders if they're feeling adventurous. This is also where Centro wins the bulk of it's customers over. Sure, $2 doesn't seem like a good discount price on your average taco. But does your average taco come stuffed with habanero roasted pork with tomatillo salsa? Belizean BBQ duck carnitas? Griddled shrimp with garlic chipotle mayo? Didn't think so.

You'd also probably be hard-pressed to find gourmet offerings like seared greens or chips with apricot habanero carrot raisin salsa, also for $2. If you're willing to shell out four bucks, they'll also bring out manchego chimichurri fries, yam chorizo hash or even grilled chicken enchiladas with roasted red pepper goat cheese cream.

I must add a tiny caveat here, though--while the menu descriptions may have me salivating while writing this, execution of the happy hour items is sketchy. The famous duck carnitas have an oddly bitter taste, not particularly spicy, ducky or barbecuey, while the habanero pork is almost too spicy to have any memorable redeeming qualities. This leaves the shrimp, with the least exciting description but most successful delivery. While the yams in the hash are perfect, the grey tasteless chunks trying to pass for chorizo were doing a very poor, nearly insulting job.

If, however, you're willing to splurge for the real menu, the road gets a little less bumpy. The green plantain ginger fritters with chipotle remoulade are reminiscent of tempura, and their sauce pairs great with chips or fries. I'm counting the weeks til my next visit, when I can sample the white seabass ceviche verde with olive and avocado, or the quesadilla with shrimp, crab, chorizo and avocado.

That doesn't even begin to exhaust the dessert and drink menu items I've yet to sample. While the grapefruit margarita was a little disappointing in it's lack of grapefruit flavor, I doubt I'd be disappointed by the Kentucky Wildflower, a mix of Maker's Mark, vanilla cognac, lavender agave nectar and lemon, or the Hot Rosser, which blends tequila with lemon and OJ, strawberry puree and fresno chiles.

But if you're too liquored up by meal's end to get your sweets in liquid form, order the baked-to-order pineapple upside down cake. I don't even like pineapple upside down cake, but this comes pizookie-style in its own frying pan, a plating that could win me over to even the blandest dessert. Luckily for Centro, though, this cake and most other items on offer are anything but bland.

Linni Eats L.A.: Fry Crawl

You might celebrate turning in a 50-page paper with a Homeric journey through local bars, or even through your own liquor cabinet. Why not reward the brain for months of thinking with a night of killing brain cells?

Well, I can’t offer any scientific justification for the epic I had in mind upon completing my senior thesis, other than mere craving. It wasn’t a bar crawl that I had in mind, no—I wanted a fry crawl.

Consider, if you will, the French fry. The starchy slivers didn’t used to do much for me, but recent debates over the Marketplace’s shifty potato sticks and the proximity of my house to Troy Burger on York Boulevard have given me cause for re-assessment. I’ve made many a 3 a.m. walk home from Troy, greasy bag in hand, knowing full well that the contents of my satchel will save me from a hangover. That alone has fostered in me a love of the fry.

It was with that in mind that I set out to discover the best around Oxy. A ranking was the goal I had in mind, but my journey reinforced the truism that when it comes to fries, it really is to each her own.

We began at The Bucket on Eagle Rock—I say “we” because, pride aside, I couldn’t do this alone. My team consisted of three ladies and one gentleman, all slightly dubious of my plans for their arteries. The first shot to our hearts came from a B-rated burger bar, serving gut bombs out of a rickety hut where the patio overlooks Eagle Rock Blvd. and an aging biker gang will drunkenly slur at you at 5 o’clock in the afternoon.

Their $2.50 fry basket fed four people but was nothing to write home about. The skinny fries, only occasionally crispy, function perfectly as a side to what the Bucket does best—burgers and beer. The seasoning on top was a nice touch, as was Julio’s sauce—an orange peppery mustard that, according to our server, had a splash of Two Buck Chuck thrown in. But tasty though it was, I’m ultimately looking for a fry requiring no accouterments.

Next up was Oinkster, a self-proclaimed “Slow Fast Food” restaurant that made us wait ten minutes before re-placing our forgotten fry order. Emphasis on condiments was highest here, where they make their own house ketchup, chipotle ketchup, whole grain mustard and garlic aioli. They also have mustard and malt vinegar for your dipping pleasure, but these “Belgian style” fries could star in their own show. They’re a strange breed, like a bigger In-N-Out fry that actually tastes good. They resembled tempura, with a brittle albino cavity that required no salt and tasted great alone, though it was hard to resist the homemade condiments. The small order was $2.35 for a basket about a quarter the size of the Bucket’s, but our already-swollen bellies weren’t complaining.

We waddled out and over to Penny’s on Figueroa and York next, a cartoonish spot I had doubts about. Their purple and teal exterior intrigued me, but I knew nothing about their food. Our $2.10 no-frills to-go order came out in your average white paper fast food bag, filled to the brim. I reached in for the first bite and stopped immediately—winner. They were Troy style larger wedges with Bucket-style seasoning and everything about them was uniform—no soggy bites, no sporadic grease wads. The exterior was unambiguously crisp and gave way to a dreamy burst of pillowy goodness like mashed potatoes in a crunchy casing. We’d made our way through half the stuffed bag before even thinking about the now-buried Heinz packets. For an order that could feed five people, this was by far the best deal, and the best fry.

I took a break at this juncture, and a much-needed shower. Who knew that eating three orders of fries could make you feel like you’d rolled around in them? But if Penny’s was going to contest the Troy loves that started this mess, I needed one last taste to solidify the decision. Troy’s $1.99 order equaled Penny’s in size, but required both salt and strenuous squeezing of the Fancy Ketchup packets. They aren’t uniform with any consistency, and if you aren’t careful you’ll definitely get some soggy or burnt pieces. While they are fried in the same style as Penny’s, they taste distinctly like everything else at Troy, a grease I could recognize anywhere.

Unfortunately, my final ranking put my former beloved at third place, succeeding only the Bucket in fry glory. From now on, I’ll be making my way over to Penny’s when a craving strikes, although there’s something to be said for the bizarre style on offer at Oinkster. While all these places deserve a review in their own unique right, when it comes to fries, York & Figueroa is the place to be.

Linni Eats L.A.:Pure Luck

Something shifty has been going down with Los Angeles vegan cuisine. An already difficult dining task has been made more so by the dubious closing of several herbivorous favorites, causing me to pause and ponder—must we all convert to carnivory in times of recession?

Many food bloggers blame the economic crisis, an easy target were it not for the other carnivorous restaurants that seem to be hanging in there. Has the vegan lifestyle been relegated to the status of luxury?

Many deride organic, local and sustainable food movements as snobby, a reputation that unfortunately gets slapped onto vegan establishments too. This is hardly fair when you consider not only how many restaurant choices animal-eaters have, but the ever-expanding population of vegans. With the number of converts increasing every day, it’s getting harder and harder to use the excuse that there aren’t enough vegans to justify multiple vegan joints.

While many favorites have closed, I recently found a secret vegan combo that’s surviving the bad economy—Scoops ice cream shop and their neighbor, the aptly-titled Pure Luck cafe. Located in the HelMel interchange in east Hollywood’s bicycle district, Pure Luck is a vegan gastro-pub and Scoops serves up ice cream flavors that are so unique, they make 21 Choices look downright bland.

A gastro-pub! For vegans! Somewhat hidden off the main drag, Pure Luck is just across the street from Scoops. With all this right next to L.A. City College, I’m considering transferring out of Oxy to make a home with this hip crowd.

In actuality, the crowd may be the only drawback at these two places. Dudes looking to fit in ought to don a flannel and a solid next-day shadow, while the ladies best have those tattoos showing. Or you could awkwardly stumble in wearing Crocs and feel like a square, like me. Don’t let the hipsters get you down—the food tastes the same no matter how tight your jeans are.

I threw mom’s warnings to the wind and visited Scoops first after getting on Pure Luck’s Saturday night waiting list. Pistachio date, chocolate Jack Daniels, pomegranate passionfruit coconut, vegan guava kiwi and brown bread made with Grape Nuts cereal jockeyed for preferential treatment. The ones worth ordering a whole cup, however, were a little more on the savory side. Scoops is known for inventive creations like strawberry balsamic, and tonight their stars were the black sesame honey, which paired gloriously with a black peppercorn chocolate. Second place went to the Guinness and Chocolate Peanut Butter pairing—the latter flavor was surprisingly and pleasantly salty, a visionary accompaniment to the standard brew. I felt like I was munching roasted peanuts out of a snack bowl at an Irish pub.

The gentlemen behind the counter were kind enough to hold our ample servings in the freezer while we ate dinner. And what gentlemen they were—if I were in the business of objectifying men, I would come to Scoops just for the servers. Luckily for them, the ice cream is good enough to be the main attraction.

Back at Pure Luck, I spotted Three Philosophers beer on tap and knew this was going to be a whirlwind experience. My cheeks flushed with excitement when I spotted peanut-oil fried plantains on the menu, and my blush grew deeper when I saw that their “carnitas” were made with jackfruit. Trying to decide between the cornmeal-fried pickles or rosemary French fries as appetizers, my face nearly exploded with giddy heat to see that you can get those specific snacks served half-and-half! They came with a garlic aioli and a barbecue sauce that smacked of homemade.

Massive entrees come with sides—fries, salads, soup of the day (an intensely flavored posole) or any substitution you desire. Our incredibly accommodating waitress dusted off our self-effacing comments about pickiness, saying my demand for plantains as a side would only be annoying if it weren’t so reasonable.

The fries carried a strong rosemary scent, but were a little soggy. Instead, I gorged on the pickles, which lived up to every carnival dream I’ve had about them. The mother load arrived next in the form of a grilled ciabatta roll with tofu grilled to perfection, with a basil spinach pesto and mayo, all vegan. Then the grand finale, Jack’s Super Burrito Wrap. This behemoth arrived neatly wrapped, showing no signs of it’s explosive interior—the jackfruit carnitas reside in a paradise of fresh cilantro, pinto beans and sweet potato fries, all luxuriously bathing in the housemade barbecue sauce. Add avocado for a dollar. You won’t regret it.

With Scoops right there, they don’t bother making dessert, though the menu says they’ll put whipped cream on the plantains if you ask nicely. This meal provided enough food to have me living on leftovers for days, a steal considering the sandwich’s $10 price tag and $5 appetizers. Their immense selection of tap and bottled beers also keep things reasonable, which leaves me wondering how the economy is putting so many of these gems out of business.

What they need is a continued fan base. So whether you’re vegan or not, head over and support the seitan out of this place—it’s the gold standard of a dying breed, the model and yardstick against which all other vegan restaurants should aspire to. If this place can’t make it, what will?

Linni Eats Chicago: The Depot

It is with a heavy heart that I write this today.

I have been a long-time fan of The Depot American diner, on Roosevelt Road, just north of the suburb where I grew up. They served me my first dinner upon returning home from South Africa and I've been hooked ever since.

So it was with dismay that I read recently of the impending doom fast-approaching this red-leather-boothed beacon of hope for classic American diner food. I can think of literally nowhere else to get an egg cream in Oak Park, nor can I remember the last time I saw a blue plate special advertised before visiting this place.


Their doors were closed temporarily when a silent business partner pulled out his funding. While they've reopened, they are unable to get loans until their three-year anniversary, which is just around the corner. I'm here to tell you why you need to go as often as possible in the coming months, and why places like this should be preserved forever.

American food culture is a tricky thing. The only family heirlooms that seem to be lurking in our attic are McDonald's hamburgers and perhaps some classic chowder on the coast. But what foods smack of American tradition to all of us, regardless of our upbringing? I personally never had meatloaf as a child, but there's something about the Depot's blue plate special slice that makes me feel at home.

There's also something conspicuously quaint about pouring gravy over just about every item on the plate. From their thick potato-slice french fries and pot roast to the Thanksgiving plate's turkey and stuffing, this milky meat juice finds it's way onto everything. Sort of like when you're ladling it up at home, no?

I can't just mention the pot roast in passing, though. It's arguably the menu's best item when served in sandwich form on a shiny glowing-golden bun, topped with skinny crisp onion strings and doused in gravy. I once took up the back booth with a group of five boys and they all ordered this. Rather convincing, although I couldn't be swayed to join them in a round of Rueben for dessert.

The after-dinner sweets get exciting around here, especially for Oak Park natives who are attuned to the donut perfection created every summer Saturday at the church Farmer's Market. If a classic cake donut, made so fresh the smell vibrates your nose hairs, is your particular comfort food, look no further than the Depot's donut holes. An order gets you five, with a bowl of melted chocolate sauce to dip them in. But if that's not your thing, turn to the ubiquitous pie case and take your pick of the day's flavors.

In a fast-paced world where the internet dominates 75% of many folks' days, keeping traditional dining like this alive is extremely important. I don't want to wake up one day to a generation of kids who've never tasted a true malt shake or corned beef hash, who would rather have Big Mac with fries than a slice of meat loaf with mashed potatoes. I'm not ready to put down my glass soda bottle just yet, so I hope you will all join me in keeping this place around.

Linni Eats L.A.: Japon Bistro

My mom’s a weird lady. Her tastes are as fickle as the current economy and her restaurant standards are higher than Jonathan Gold’s. When it comes to sushi, she only trusts one establishment in Chicago to get her toro right, and if I try to drag her anywhere else, you don’t even want to see the face I get.

Throngs of sushi aficionados these days think the mark of a good chef is wit or innovation. While these aren’t ordinarily regarded as negative traits, they tend to fog what really matters when ingesting raw fish—the fish. Bizarre concept, I know, but one we all seem to have forgotten amidst the cream cheese and fried nonsense sticking out of our hand rolls. With the right amount of American-themed ingredients and copious loads of eel sauce, pretty much any newcomer can be labeled “the best sushi in town.”

Maybe it was growing up with mama bear, but that just isn’t a phrase I throw around lightly. So when she visited me and suggested Japon Bistro, my nerves were on edge. It didn’t help that this place, which she’d read about in the hotel restaurant guide, was in Pasadena—a festival of fusion and carnival of clever that is also unfortunately a Mecca for mediocrity and often a barren wasteland of fine dining.

I feel the need to offer a disclaimer here—I hate on Pasadena a lot, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t discovered my fair share of hidden gems there. In fact, the patrons are often more bothersome than the food. Be that as it may, the boxes lining Colorado Boulevard bear closer resemblance to factories than places to dine, and I usually enter into contracts with our neighboring chefs to the east with a teensy modicum of trepidation.

Where was I? Oh yes, escorting my mother and all her sushi-snob baggage to a Japanese restaurant on Colorado Boulevard. So help me god.

We were the only non-Japanese folks in the place at first, which I took as a very good sign. The printed special rolls menu was two pages long and included a few efforts to pique our Western interest—the southwestern-themed roll didn’t look half bad, with cilantro and jalapenos, but we were distracted by the rice-free concoctions, one wrapped in brown rice paper and filled with asparagus, real crab, salmon, tuna, cucumber and yellowtail and another wrapped in cucumber and filled with tuna, salmon, avocado and yellowtail. While slightly inventive, they were filled with fish and we considered them a viable way to test this place’s marine quality might.

These were not the only specials—we were also presented with a dry erase board boasting more catches-of-the-day than one could feasibly catch in a day, and I don’t think we ever even opened our ordinary menus. Our extremely knowledgeable waiter described new appetizers and dishes and fielded all of my mom’s questions like a pro. She practically swooned when he described their ikura, salmon roe in a seaweed shell that I usually avoid because of how fishy it smells. Apparently, Japon Bistro is a rare find in that they have fresh ikura, not the canned kind even the classiest sushi joints employ. And I actually liked it!

Another mama bear staple order is toro, or fatty tuna, a cut of tuna from a fish so large and difficult to catch that it’s often the most expensive thing on the menu. Everywhere you go, it’s served at a fluctuating market price and extremely fluctuating quality. Japon Bistro’s was silky, creamy and perfectly pink, lavishly draped in significant portions across the cubes of rice.

The quality of the fish inside the rolls was just as good, rendering the soy sauce on our table kind of a moot point. We got a few orders of sea bream, a white fish they had soaked in lime juice before preparing the nigiri. They also introduced me to a new-found love of unagi and it was hard not to get ten more orders after dipping a toe in that stuff.

All the rolls came with seaweed salad, which would have been good to know before we ordered one for ourselves. Their concoction contained not one, not two, but three types of seaweed. Unlike the usual slippery green mess, the contents of this bowl were divided neatly into three piles, one green, one purple and one white, each with a distinct flavor but all brought together by the bittersweet wonder that is vinegar.

This hardly warranted a dessert, but I ordered plum wine nonetheless. Unfortunately, I couldn’t even finish the stuff without multiple spontaneous cavities popping up—alas, I should have partaken in their autumn harvest sake sampler instead. It was hard to be disappointed after a meal like that, though. Especially when, on the car ride back to the hotel, my mom uttered the following statement: “I think that’s the best sushi I’ve ever had.”

For more information, visit http://www.japonbistro-pasadena.com

Linni Eats L.A.: Taking Heinz to New Heights at Ketchup

The Dolce Group can’t make up their mind about who to offend.

Be it exploiting Japanese culture with Geisha House or typecasting male business professionals at the Boardroom in Texas, this team of hospitality gurus certainly strives to be equal opportunity offenders.

Take their recent endeavor, Ketchup, a restaurant in West Hollywood, on Sunset where twinkly lights lining the street make you weary of Paris Hilton sneaking up and attacking you and every car driving by has a three-figure price tag. The chilling affluence is almost enough to make you hop back into your Honda and flee to Troy Burger.

The neighborhood, however, is not the repulsive part about this place. Neither was the food, which was some of the best I’ve had in Hollywood. No, what I can’t seem to shake from my feminist conscience are the menu headings. One side, dedicated to seafood dishes, bore the title of “Leading Ladies,” while the other side boasting steak and pork chops flew the banner of “Leading Men.” I’m sorry, but what decade is this?

If you aren’t offended yet, have a look at the “Threesome” appetizer, “Deliverance” pork chop glazed with bourbon and served with cheddar grits and apple sauce, or the “Naw Leans” shrimp pasta in a cajun brandy cream sauce.

But let me put social commentary on hold for a minute to discuss the essence of Ketchup. The condiment is king here—contemporary art portrayals of America’s Favorite #57 line the walls and a red glow saturates the entire space. The red sauce adopts an air of ubiquity that could potentially annoy you, if you hadn’t been raised on the stuff. Even the pretzel table rolls came with ketchup butter.

There were not, however, a mess of ketchup-themed drinks on the bar menu—sorry, bloody marys, but you have no place in West Hollywood. The drinks we ordered in the inventively classic-American cocktail lounge featured the likes of Yoo-Hoo and Grape Kool-Aid.

Once seated, we cut to the chase—five different ketchups, a parmesan onion ring tower, Cajun, sweet potato and parmesan garlic fries. Ketchup varietals included maple, chipotle, wasabi, ranch and mango—mango and wasabi were big disappointments. The best part of this was mixing and matching to find the best combos, and sweet potato fries in maple ketchup competed with a chipotle-parmesan-garlic combo for the top spot.

Our bubbly waitress fawned over the Ahi tuna special of the night, which did showcase some high-quality fish quite well, but that’s not what you come to a restaurant named Ketchup for. The menu is chock full of spruced up American classics, from Sam Adams beer can chicken and shake ‘n’ bake chicken crusted with pistachios to mini hot dogs and burgers made with Kobe beef.

One such classic was the rib dish, glazed with ketchup BBQ sauce. These were delicious, but it was hard to focus on the side of the plate they occupied when the other side featured something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about ever since. White truffle Dungeness crab mac ‘n’ cheese. Hallelujah, there is a god. With the perfect marriage of crunchy top, oozing center and surprisingly unique flavor, this is hands down the best thing Ketchup has to offer. Sorry, Kraft, but this is the cheesiest, not to mention the best mac ‘n’ cheese I’ve ever tasted.

The Belgian beer-soaked scallops with cured bacon and lobster smashed potatoes were certainly pleasant, although the potatoes failed to remind me of anything the ocean would produce. The dry-aged New York Strip steak had somehow been cooked to absolute perfection, something I didn’t expect in a trendy establishment on Sunset. The peppery outer crust held in a rare, bloody center that blended to render me weak in the knees.

Perhaps the chefs blew their load designing the dinner dishes and left no creative juices for dessert, but nothing on the final menu appealed to me. Maybe American-themed desserts are just not that titillating—perhaps that’s something we ought to leave to the French. Either way, classic sundaes, ding dongs, shortcakes and pies bored me—where’s the Ketchup cheesecake, guys?

My table opted to share the ice cream sandwich, a decision I gave thanks for between licks of the plate it came on. This is what an ice cream sandwich is supposed to taste like—are you taking notes, Diddy Reese? The cookie must have literally just emerged from the oven and somehow managed to stay warm the whole time, despite being surrounded by swathes of frozen silky vanilla. I probably had chocolate chips melting down my face, but I didn’t care.

Despite menu headings, I must admit this was an overall pleasant dining experience, albeit rather pricey. Luckily, the Dolce Group seems to have caught wise to their sexism—their online menu is now divided into “Land,” “Air” and “Sea.” But the Threesome isn’t going anywhere, and the menu at their Alabama location is arguably worse in terms of pigeonholing. Unfortunately for my ethical code, I think the quality of the food down south would get the best of me, too—they do, after all, have mac ‘n’ cheese skillets with chipotle white cheddar and bacon apple gorgonzola varieties. Road trip, anyone?

Menu & Prices available at www.dolcegroup.com/ketchup.

Linni Eats L.A.: Homegirl Cafe

A little while ago, I took you on a tour of Los Angeles taco trucks, looking for basics like carne asada and carnitas. These no-frills fold-ups got us to the heart of the taco, but what about businesses that try to expand on the fundamentals?

Enter Homegirl Café, where they thrive on exaggeration of the essentials. The restaurant sits on the ground floor of the Chinatown’s Homeboy Industries, an organization based in Boyle Heights that helps at-risk youths and gang members by giving them transitional jobs. The company oversees restaurant, bakery, silk-screening, merchandise and maintenance services, all of which employ formerly at-risk or incarcerated men and women.

It’s important to keep all this in mind when you arrive at Homegirl. After awkwardly questioning the existence of a hostess, my group sat ourselves and waited 15 minutes, feeling slightly invisible, before flagging down some menus. The Saturday lunch crowd was hardly putting constraints on the large staff, but the girls did runs between the gallery kitchen and tables as if we hadn’t plopped ourselves down at a barren table in the middle of the space. I slurped up drool dribbles as table after table got bowls of blue corn chips and bright orange habanero salsa.

Finally our turn, we ordered eight of their inventive tacos and a coffee, then tucked in to gorging ourselves on chips and salsa. We could have splurged on pineapple guacamole or sourdough walnut raisin bread with cilantro, jalapeno and pecan pesto, but I saved the dough for dessert. In the meantime, we were served a small side of disappointment—Homegirl’s website had made the false promise of all-day breakfast Saturdays, which proved heartbreakingly false. Sorry, squash blossom omelettes and cactus eggs—perhaps another time.

Regret pangs subsided soon enough when the waitress graced our table with tacos, tacos and—wait, what are those? More tacos! Eight sounds like a lot, but they’re really no bigger than the paper-wrapped goodies at La Estrella. And similar to their mobile cousins, these wore the simple garnish of two lime halves and radish slices. Three tacos for seven bucks ought to come with rice and beans, if you ask me. Or at the very least, charge less than two bucks each for those sides. But the quality of the taco ingredients makes you forget you could be eating something a little simpler for a lot less back in Highland Park.

Beginning with the meat, as I have a tendency to do, the journey began with apple-tomatillo-topped carnitas, which proved that the tried-and-true apple pork combo exists for a mighty fine reason. The flavor pairing overpowered my ability to discern quality carnitas from their mediocre counterparts, but suffice it to say, you’ll probably enjoy eating this.

They continued to excel at flavor pairings, sticking carne asada with a thick peanut sauce in an unexpected but pleasant marriage. This was followed by beef tinga, a dish of shredded chicken and chorizo I recently cooked at home. Homegirl’s was better.

Next was another filling I’ve tried my hand at in the past—cochinita pibil. Homegirl’s drove me to exclaim “favorite,” while still chewing and staining my lips with its orange grease. Cochinita was famous by Once Upon a Time in Mexico’s main character, Agent Sands, who kills any chef who prepares it too well. No one killed me when I made it, but Homegirl’s chefs out to watch their backs.

Stepping out of Central American terrain for a moment, the ladies behind the counter cooked up a chicken taco topped with orange slices and tamarind sauce that tasted very Thai and a salmon taco that smacked of the sea. They return to the southwest, however, for the big finale of the nopales salad taco—that’s right, cactus. These green strips come off a little too pickled at first, but give it time. Like any infamous taste shrouded in infamy, such as Marmite, caviar or pate, this is an acquired taste.

The wait resumed as we resorted to pushing lime rinds around the plate and pressing our thumbs against chip crumbs to pass the time. Eventually dessert was ordered, coffee was refilled and new paintings by local artists were hung by Homeboy Maintenance crew members. We marveled at these and their flavorful coffee, a mild brew with orange blossom and cinnamon, while we waited to put the finishing touches on our meal.

The mango upside-down corn bread finally came in all its dense, sugar-soaked glory. Crusty at the edges and warm throughout, the ice cream melted onto this slice of maize heaven. A caramelized mango slice was embedded in the center while thin strips of fresh mango had been spilled around the plate.

Baked in-house by the Homeboy Bakery, this dessert was a mere $3.50, and the fresh muffins were similarly affordable. The delicious jalapeno corn and banana nut came highly recommended by the tattooed bakers, and I’m anxious to return for Mexican wedding cookies to dip in their spicy coffee. Sounds like the perfect accompaniment to an omelette, don’t you think? Next time I’ll know to get downtown before eleven o’clock rolls around.

For more information on Homeboy Industries or the Homegirl Café Menu, visit www.homeboy-industries.org

Linni Eats L.A.: Fiesta Sa Barrio

Are you in an Eagle Rock dining rut? Feel like you’re up against a dining wall of Spitz redundancy and Casa Bianca boredom? If you think Auntie Em’s and Señor Fish are as exciting as things get around here, think again. The jaded need look no further than the strip mall masterpiece that is Fiesta Sa Barrio, conveniently nestled next to Little Caesar’s on the corner of Eagle Rock & York Blvds.

Now, if you’re like me, you’ve driven by the colorful Barrio Fiesta across from All-Star Lanes dozens of times, writing it off as a creepy and potentially out-of-business Mexican joint. You might assume the same of Fiesta Sa Barrio across the street, given it’s Spanish-tinged title. Don’t be fooled by the misnomer, though—these establishments are hard-core Filipino destinations, thriving with the business of large immigrant families, reveling in the comforts of home food.

What ingredients make up this traditional culinary genre? Banana ketchup, taro ice cream and pig knuckles, to name a few. If ever a carnival unfolded on a dinner table, it would be at a Filipino restaurant. The electric colors and mind-boggling food combinations make it abundantly clear why both of Eagle Rock’s Filipino restaurants use “fiesta” in their name. From the friendly family of ten who offered us advice on what to order to the cheesy exotic game shows and soap operas playing on the flat screen, it was quite the culinary fête.The menu reads Dostoevsky, requiring multiple readings before comprehension even sets in. I’d advise taking a large group—most of the dishes feed two people, but I guarantee you’ll be intrigued by at least half the menu. We started off with the fried pata, or pig’s knuckles, a ubiquitous dish that graced every table in the place. I was wary but these blew me away—once you eat your way through the crispy outer layer of fried skin, the tender pink meat inside shreds to pieces at the slightest touch and melts as soon as it hits your mouth.
Adobo is another classic dish in which chicken and pork are marinated to silky oblivion in a garlic and vinegar sauce, then served in a thick silver fry pan with an abnormally large handle. We ordered the mixed meat, but you can get single-meat pork or chicken adobo as well, and any combination comes with pickled hard-boiled eggs, too. The pancit malabon noodle dish also featured eggs in a big way—chunky yellow strings with tidbits of egg, pork and shrimp weaved throughout were served with slices of lemon and hardboiled egg and topped with baby shrimps.

If pig knuckles don’t pack enough adventure for you, take a page from my book and scoop the eye out of their whole tilapia wrapped in banana leaves. You are served the entire fish, so all fins, bones and eye sockets are fair game. Our table was littered with animal carcass and random bone collections at the end of this meal, and it was impossible to resist the temptation to play with our food. Wait until no one’s looking and fist pump the knuckle bones—you won’t regret it.

The grand finale of this meal came when a neighboring table had an essential Crayola box in a bowl delivered to their table. “Would you like anything else?” Our waiter enquired. “That,” I replied, pointing directly to the nearby umbrella-topped pseudo-ice cream sundae. The halo-halo is served in a large glass goblet with several smaller bowls for sharing. The bottom layer is composed of fruit and sweet bean preserves with gelatin squares and orange chunks that may or may not have been sweet potato. The next layer was a mixture of crushed ice and cream, followed by a dollop of purple taro ice cream and an umbrella. Halo-halo means mix-mix, and the nearby patrons instructed us in stirring the hodge-podge together before dishing up.
While the mesh was good, the bright purple ice cream and mysterious orange chunks stuck out to me, as well as the tiny red beans. The crushed ice seemed a little superfluous. Next time, I’m going for the buko pandan, a mix of green jell-o, young coconut and coconut palm in a rich cream. I’m also looking forward to the crab and eggplant omelettes, dried and fried beef strips and a soup thickened with pig’s blood.

The best part of this meal, though? Getting the check. All this food for six people, with tip included, was only $54, just nine dollars a person. Considering the food baby we were all nursing, that’s pretty impressive. So don’t ever let anyone tell you not trust a strip mall restaurant. It is in these overlooked and unkempt nooks of Los Angeles that some of the city’s most thrilling dining takes place.


For a full menu, visit http://www.sporq.com/losangeles/fiestasabarrio/

Linni Eats L.A.: CUT

When I chose Wolfgang Puck’s steakhouse Cut as the restaurant for my mom’s visit this weekend, it never occurred to me that the celebrity chef himself might be there. When we settled into a table in the middle of the room, I was actually surprised at the lack of pretension. Sure, there were blown-up portraits of celebrities lining the walls, but compared to other high-end Hollywood eateries that hide unknown diners in the corner, I was pleased with our treatment.

If only it had stopped there, this would be a much easier review to write. I would be able to maintain composure and not erupt into giddy exclamations every time I try to formulate a sentence. But right after we tucked into the crunchy cheese straws waiting at the table and began to study our menus, who should sidle up to the table but Wolfgang himself! No, we didn’t observe him greeting a privileged group of elites or catch a quick glimpse of him in the kitchen. I shook his hand. The hand that has prepared historical, momentous, ethereal culinary creations. Here’s hoping some of it rubbed off.

Focusing on the menu was a bit tough after that. Other distractions included an entirely unique and bizarre silverware set, Holly from The Girls Next Door dining to my left and gargantuan photos of Cate Blanchett and George Clooney bearing down on me. But I pressed on.

While waiting for starters, we were brought a plate of bread selections to choose from. Puck doesn’t have a reputation for baking, but this was easily the best pretzel roll I’ve ever had, especially when spread with their thyme and lavender-dusted butter.

I haven’t really gotten to the heart of the establishment yet, though. The name says it all—when you come here, it is for the meat. There were tribes of testosterone populating tables throughout the dining room, where men far outnumbered women Perhaps this is why our waitress seemed pleasantly surprised when we ordered veal tongue and bone marrow as appetizers, followed up by three different cuts of cow to share. What can I say, we knew what we wanted.

Had we been indecisive, however, the platter of raw meat brought to each table might have helped us in choosing. Easily over 50 ounces of raw beef are displayed on a plate to exhibit the degree of marbling and lustrously sanguine hue of blood.

Our starters came shortly after some amuse bouche gougères—balls of puff pastry filled with steaming gruyère. These melty bites gave way to the even more luxurious bone marrow flan—two bone vessels were filled with a savory custard, drizzled with an earthy syrup, topped with capers and flanked on either side by a wild mushroom paste that made me weak in the knees.

We knew big things were coming our way when seven tiny dishes were delivered to us, carrying Dijon and whole grain mustards, Dijon sauce, house steak sauce, Argentinian chimichurri, sea salt and a grape mustard made with the must left behind from crushing wine grapes.

Our hedonistic foray into blatant carnivory reached it’s peak when they brought out the platter of Japanese Wagyu beef from Kagoshima Prefecture in Kyushu, Japan; American Wagyu Angus “Kobe Style” beef from Snake River Farms in Idaho; and U.S.D.A. Prime Nebraska Corn Fed beef that had been dry aged for 35 days. All of these cuts had been grilled over hard wood and charcoal, then finished under a broiler. The spiced outer char was perfectly flavorful, without overshadowing the true meatiness of the steaks. This meatiness shown through in a way I’ve never tasted, and doubt I’ll taste again soon. The Japanese Wagyu melted in my mouth in an almost mousse-like manner, while the American Wagyu had a bit more marbling.

To appear somewhat healthy, we ordered a side of cavolo negro, or black kale, with escarole sautéed in garlic. It was great, as were the sauces, but it was hard to pay attention to much else with such glamorous cow in front of me.

Just when I thought we’d reached the pinnacle of decadence, a colossal Valhrona chocolate soufflé, decked out in crème fraîche, hazelnut glacée and the darkest chocolate sauce imaginable. Too much? Wolfgang doesn’t think so, apparently, since we received caramel cashew brittle and citrus bars made with the Japanese fruit yuzu next.

Coupled with inventive cocktails like the rosemary Tom Collins; Ruby with Grand Marnier pomegranate foam; or the Wilshire, a blend of Absolut Citron, Limoncello and Amaretto, we were resignedly full. And if Mom weren’t footing the bill, I would have been broke. Alas, I can’t recommend this to kids struggling to get by, but if you’ve got the funds (we’re talking hundreds) and a hankering for steak, do it. Maybe you’ll strike gold like me and run into Joe Pesci in the lobby.

L.A. Taco Crawl: Part Dos

My Homeric quest for the perfect taco continued this week, this time leading me into the true belly of the taco truck beast—East L.A. More precisely, an area called Wellington Heights, where the I-5 meets the 710 and angry drivers shout “pendejo!” out the window at you when you’re merely trying to turn left.

But I digress. If Highland Park is esteemed for its abundance of trucks, this neighborhood deserves an Olympic gold medal in the sport of masa-flipping and al pastor-scraping. The sheer frequency of these restaurants on wheels blew my mind. The area also boasts the addition of a new meat category—chorizo!

First up, La Chapis, an establishment that foregoes the question of toppings by placing a veritable salad bar on the truck ledge. Unfortunately, limes, radishes, grilled onions and three enormous tubs of guacamole, salsa roja and salsa verde were necessary to give flavor to their light grey asada, fatty al pastor and greasy chorizo. Moving on.

El Korita is a big purple truck, surrounded by a friendly crowd of Dodgers fans and old men munching burritos in the backs of truck beds during my visit. El Korita is known throughout L.A. for making their tortillas by hand in the truck, a possible justification for how long the wait was here. Their chorizo tasted too much like brown sugar and seemed more like a paste than chunks of sausage, and the hugely oversized carnitas chunks were almost too dry to eat. The deep-brown asada, however, offered reprieve from La Chapis silvery chunks. The flavor was smokey, though, not indicative of the classic asada marinade, and the famed tortillas were nothing memorable.

The famed Taquieria La Que Si Llena was next, talked up by food bloggers city-wide. Since that’s rarely a surefire indicator of good food, I went into it skeptically, but it ended up blowing me away. The al pastor was drippingly juicy—some people might call it greasy, but some people might need to be quiet and focus on the intense flavor burst it packs instead. Here, the carne asada finally tasted how carne asada is supposed to taste, and their only pitfall was a carnitas taco with a few too many fatty chunks.

The streak of delicious continued at Taco Jeesy’s, a professional truck with business cards, where an adolescent chef-in-training took my order very politely. I saw a condiment bar and flashbacks to La Chapis had me worried these might be gross, but thank Jeesy, they were amazing. The texture and flavor of the al pastor was incredible, despite appearing too fatty. The asada also tasted spectacular, not too greasy and not grey at all. This was the best chorizo I’ve found in L.A. so far, perfectly chunky with that special cumin-oregano-sugar combo sitting thickly sweet on my tongue, like a chile dipped in molasses.

My excitement over the chorizo overshadowed the disappointing carnitas at Taco Jeesy’s, but I couldn’t help but wonder why none of these places could get carnitas right. I had one more stop, a truck called Jalisco that was out of everything but asada and carnitas. With one more chance to prove itself, Wellington Heights pulled through here with a carnitas taco that I actually enjoyed eating. It was moist, and certainly the best of the five stops, but alas, still somewhat lacking.

I’ve learned from this journey that no one truck gets it all right—I may be able to find the best chorizo or the best al pastor, but there is really no such thing as the best taco truck in L.A., and good luck finding decent carnitas. For what it’s worth, there’s a little hole in the wall in San Diego called Las Cuatro Milpas, serving up other-wordly carnitas to rival even Mexico’s. If that’s too much of an odyssey for you, though, you can always drown your sorrows in Jeesy’s chorizo.

La Chapis is located on E. Olympic Blvd, a few blocks east of Herbert Ave.
El Korita is located at the corner of E. Olympic Blvd. & Herbert Ave.
Taquieria La Que Si Lllena is located at 3600 E. Cesar Chavez Blvd.
Taco Jeesy’s is located at E. Cesar Chavez Blvd. & S. Carmelita Ave.
Tacos Jalisco is located at 3889 E. Cesar Chavez Blvd.
Las Cuatro Milpas is located at 1875 Logan Ave. in San Diego, CA