
Archive: Food






























































Two "very drunk and rude women" claiming to be OC Weekly writers were spotted this week at Don the Beachcomber in Orange County. Editor Gustavo Arellano is not amused and advises any restaurants approached for freebies to be suspicious.
























Six-minute clip from Harry Pallenberg looks at the rise of Googie coffee shop architecture around Los Angeles. Included are old clips of Astro Burger, the old Carnation building on Wilshire Boulevard, a Van de Kamps drive-in, Ship's, Norm's, Pann's and an interview Googie architect Eldon Davis.



One of the most talked-about of the positions the Orange County Register is filling is the paper's food critic. Now we know the job will go to Brad A. Johnson, the James Beard winner who had been writing about restaurants for Angeleno.








A laid-off newsman starts Newspaper Alum to tell the stories of those who have blazed a new path. Plus: Relaunch for the food site Zester Daily.











Honestly, I'm not sure that's better news for the residents of Malibu.

When Jonathan Gold returns to the Los Angeles Times this month, he will be both food critic and columnist.

The March issue of Smithsonian introduces Jonathan Gold as the magazine's new food columnist, and he writes about LA food trucks.
Jonathan Gold's new job at the LA Times includes front page pieces on culture — while the LA Weekly also loses Elina Shatkin to Los Angeles Magazine.
The entreaties from Village Voice Media executive Mike Lacey didn't work. LA Weekly editor Sarah Fenske posts on the LA Weekly website.
A food blogger for the Village Voice misread our latest post on Jonathan Gold and wished Gold the best of success at the LA Times, saying that LA Observed confirmed the move. Except, of course, we didn't.
The Great Eastern, the Chinatown landmark in San Francisco where President Obama made one of those "unscheduled" stops on Thursday's campaign swing, still offers a $48 bowl of braised shark...






The Southern TV chef known for her Krispy Kreme doughnut bread pudding and similar recipes went on "Today" to explain that she was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes three years ago.






Neil Saavedra, the KFI/AM 640 marketing director, will host the new Saturday afternoon show that's due to start Jan. 7.






Tips from Zach Pollack of Sotto, via Los Angeles magazine.
Food blogger and list-maker Sarah Gim went to bed the other night with several years' worth of Jonathan Gold's essential restaurants lists from the LA Weekly.

It's dining editor Pete Wells, according to an internal announcement at the New York Times.


New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik talks about his new book, "The Table Comes First: Family, France and the Meaning of Food," with producer-director Ed Zwick on Thursday night.



Korean broadcaster TVK24 did a feature story on Jewish Journal editor Rob Eshman's garden and cooking for the Sukkot holiday.
"SoCal Connected" begins a new season tonight on KCET with stories on deteriorating sidewalks and the link between obesity and fast food in L.A.

The former Los Angeles Times op-ed columnist talks about the post-civil rights generation of African Americans in Los Angeles and her new book, "Black Talk, Blue Thoughts, and Walking the Color Line: Dispatches from a Black Journalista."
This makes Sam Sifton the editor more or less over most California reporting






His brother Mark, the head of Heal the Bay, says that he asked the LA Weekly food writer for this weekend's op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times. Getting it done was more of a struggle.
The 84-seat landmark now charges 50 cents a cup on orders from owner and former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan.
It isn't even close, says Slate's Jennifer Reese. It's "America's Test Kitchen," the PBS show from the staff of Cooks Illustrated magazine.

In the new issue of the Wall Street Journal Magazine, the LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold escapes from the San Gabriel Valley's Asian dives he frequents to profile the Copenhagen restaurant just voted the best in the world for the second year in a row.

Joan Luther, called by some the first lady of restaurant PR in Los Angeles, died yesterday.







Patric Kuh of Los Angeles magazine and Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly are the top local winners of the James Beard Foundation media awards.

Greg Critser is a Pasadena author who, in his magazine days, edited several top L.A. journalists. He's also enough of a cook that Science 2.0 put up some instructional videos of Critser making pasta.

After yesterday's posts on the Fred Harvey cafe at Union Station, blogger Scott Lowe stumbled across a Fiona Apple video shot there.

Obama's menu from last night, Lohan sentenced back to county jail, and more.
Pool reporter from the LA Times gets the name of Obama's restaurant wrong. Can't say she wasn't warned.

The Point, located beside the route of the Expo Line in the artsy and techy Hayden Tract section of Culver City, closed on Friday.

Everything around the LAX retail concessions is about politics and the practice of influence — do you think services that disappointing and overpriced would fly in the real world?

They'll take your recommendations at the website until April 10.

The new West Hollywood restaurant by Craig Susser, former manager at Dan Tana's, got the feature treatment in the New York Times over the weekend.

The Daily Meal's list is more than a lazy tally of hot chefs of the moment; the 50 include corporate and government officials, journalists and others who shape the food business.
The reservation service is a mixed bag of good and bad, says Angeli's Evan Kleiman on her KCRW blog.

Gold suspects that the dude at Red Medicine knows it was dumb to turn away L.A. Times reviewer S. Irene Virbila and compound his error by posting her picture on the web.

L.A. Times restaurant critic Sherry Virbila has tweeted a pretty good response to that dust-up with the co-owner of Red Medicine, the Beverly Hills restaurant that refused her service in a hissy fit over past reviews.
Jerry Brown, the Downtown Art Walk, even Lindsay Lohan. And more.

Neighborhood councils, Hollywood, City Hall politics and more.
The Hollywood Farmers Market can continue in its current location and size for 90 days while the market and L.A. Film School continue to negotiate. From the market's side, former Councilman Michael Woo has circulated an email detailing why a final agreement didn't get done.
KCRW says that on tonight's "Which Way, L.A.?," City Council President Eric Garcetti and "Good Food" host Evan Kleiman will discuss details of a deal struck today between the Hollywood Farmer's Market and the LA Film School.
My piece today commented on the observations of L.A. I've mentioned recently by a gifted migrant to the city, Christopher Isherwood, and by 50 native (or close to it) Angelenos in Los Angeles magazine.
It's a dispute with the L.A. Film School, say operators....
The Broadway Deli, opened in 1990 by Bruce Marder and Marvin Zeidler, closed Monday after the landlord said the restaurant had to be out by Nov. 30.
Jose Rodriguez, Harold Katz and Danny McDevitt.

A piece in the November issue of the Los Angeles Times Magazine starts out sounding a little bit like Silverton's financial reversals weren't already big news two years ago, but the story goes on to look at what's been going right at the Mozzas and elsewhere.



The Rose Parade's choice of food author and TV host Paula Deen as grand marshal gives LA Weekly food critic Jonathan Gold indigestion.
My favorite tweet of the day, from former New York Times restaurant critic (and author) Frank Bruni.


The county Board of Supervisors today gave unanimous final approval to rules that will let health department inspectors inspect and assign letter grades to food trucks.
Rebecca Keegan and Nicole Sperling are joining the L.A. Times movie staff, writing for print and online. Read the memo.
Taix ran the Taix French Restaurant in Echo Park, started Downtown by his father in 1927 and among the oldest family-owned restaurants in Los Angeles.

Ruth Reichl, the longtime California-based food writer and editor before moving to the New York Times and Gourmet, has been named an editor-at-large of Random House.

Conde Nast announced today that the editorial offices of Bon Appetit magazine will be moving to New York, without longtime editor Barbara Fairchild.


Mark Peel, the chef at Campanile and Tarpit (and formerly of Spago if you want to go way back), will contribute pieces on the restaurant business to KPCC's Off-Ramp beginning with an inside look at tipping on today's show at noon.


The Eric Owen Moss art tower beside the Expo Line, as observed by John Rabe, Mark Peel and Scott Timberg — and Moss.
It's not new, strictly speaking, but Hatfield's is in a new space on Melrose.
Longtime California political writer John Marelius, lately at the San Diego Union-Tribune and previously at the Daily News for 15+ years, has been appointed to a state Fair Political Practices Commission task force to reform and simplify the Political Reform Act. Plus other media notes.




Just because. It's a commercial by Japanese photographer Kazumi Kurigami.

While the politicians and unions haggle over whether the next round of city worker layoffs will actually happen, at the Los Angeles Public Library they already are happening.
The book-touring chef and TV host praised L.A. food culture (and endorsed the Lakers over the Celtics) and revealed where he ate before taking the stage at Royce Hall.
Jonathan Gold, fresh off his James Beard Foundation win, will be splitting some of the food writing duties at the LA Weekly with a second staff critic. Plus a new news blogger. Read the memo.
Brad A. Johnson, the national food and travel editor for Modern Luxury and Angeleno, won the top restaurant critic prize at the international 2010 Le Cordon Bleu World Food Media Awards held in Adelaide, Australia
The LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold won the Craig Claiborne Distinguished Restaurant Reviews category at last night's James Beard Foundation awards.

The U.S. Attorney's office has moved to dismiss federal charges against the Santa Monica sushi restaurant that admitted serving illegal whale meat.


Going on five years since it closed, the news is that there's no news on the reopening of the much-loved Tail o' the Pup hot dog (and more) stand.

On Saturday morning, the Culinary Historians of Southern California are hosting a discussion on "the heyday of the Los Angeles Times Food section." Former Food section stalwarts Betsy Balsley, Donna Deane, Rose Dosti and Barbara Hansen will be on the panel at the Central Library in Downtown.


Of the three food writers nationally who are finalists in the top journalism category of this year's James Beard Foundation awards — Craig Clairborne Distinguished Restaurant Reviews — two are from L.A.: Patric Kuh of Los Angeles magazine and Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly.

Zacatecas is to modern-day Southern California what Iowa was for a previous generation of Angelenos: a place known for its work ethic and its conservative values, and for sending hundreds of thousands of its residents to our sunny wonderland. But no restaurants.
Today's LA Observed piece during "All Things Considered" on KCRW talks about the L.A. story of this week that had a little of everything. That would be Jennifer Steinhauer's New...


Rob Eshman got soooo much strong reaction to last week's list of nine things wrong with L.A. food culture that he tries again this week with an up-beatier Nine Ways to Make LA the “Ultimate Food City."




The Echo Park restaurant that become such a community and media center after the Haiti earthquake may be closed 6 to 8 weeks. An electrical short is blamed.


The San Pedro destination for Greek food and community closes Sunday after 37 years.



Great Los Angeles story in the L.A. Times: there are several waiters who sandwich in deli shifts at Langer's by day then head over to the Fairfax area to work Canter's at night.


We have a new winner: Langer's Deli knocks Providence off the top of the list selected by 100 participants in Chowhound's Los Angeles pages. A change in procedure that encouraged...



The blogger known as the 99-Cent Chef rode the new Gold Line extension to East Los Angeles for Sunday's opening. Squash blossom quesadillas at Taqueria Las Cabañas were the gustatory...

The Hollywood power lunch spot near the Cedars medical buildings on West 3rd Street is soon to shut its doors, after 20 years. “It’s not without some sadness and remorse,"...
Dana Goodyear's profile, almost a year in the making, calls the LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold "the high-low priest of the L.A. food scene." Subscription required to read the whole piece,...




Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl tweets, sounds like she was surprised at magazine's demise: Thank you all SO much for this outpouring of support. It means a lot. Sorry not to...
As part of Conde Nast's post-McKinsey restructuring, Gourmet magazine will become an online, TV and book publishing brand, with only Bon Appetit continuing to publish as a magazine. Also shutting...

Dodgers' post-game show host Ken Levine lets the city's least favorite cable provider have it with both blog barrels after a late-night phone exchange with the, so to speak, help...
A detection dog working with inspectors found a package at a FedEx depot in Sacramento that contained at least 100 live Asian citrus psyllids, including juveniles and adults, the L.A....
I wasn't alone in being surprised that Evan Kleiman's Angeli Caffe, a family favorite at our house, was dropped from Jonathan Gold's annual list of 99 essential restaurants. Emails and...
Jonathan Gold's latest compilation for the Los Angeles area includes some newcomers and a nod to the city's changing eating scene: This year especially, an essential L.A. restaurant may not...

The Amateur Enthusiast is a blog devoted to drinking and dining in Downtown by political strategist Glenn Gritzner. In today's post, he struggles to bring his fellow Enthusiasts around on...
Workers are losing their jobs at restaurants on the Miracle Mile stretch of Wilshire Boulevard as customers opt out for lunch trucks. "We all average $15,000 to $18,000 in rent,...
Former Los Angeles Times reporters are key players in Zester Daily, which bills itself as "the latest news and information from around the globe about all aspects of food and...

From the Jewish Journal's food blog, posted by editor Rob Eshman: I just got a peek inside David Sax’s new book, “Save the Deli,“ due out Oct. 19, and can...
Eater LA, through a post signed by Curbed creator Lockhart Steele, says its post earlier this week leveling blind charges at downtown wine bar The Must "didn't rise to our...
The food blog owned by the Curbed chain ran a litany of damaging, specific accusations against Downtown wine bar The Must attributed to an unidentified "tipster." The owners, talking to...
Bottega Louie, Chaya Downtown and The Conga Room won jury prizes at tonight's AIA/LA restaurant design awards that are part of the Dwell on Design event this weekend. The Lab...
Former Gridskipper contributor Katherine Spiers, who has a new food blog, alleges that the dates on Gridskipper posts for travelers to Los Angeles are bogus. Lots of people think I...


In the world of foodies and food writers, today's big news is that Frank Bruni is turning in his Amex card as the restaurant critic of the New York Times....
L.A. Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik writes that his life as a fast-food consumer pretty much ended once his kids could drive. But even back then, "I knew that all...
Brooke Burton, who recently moved from Pizzeria Mozza to Suzanne Goin's new Tavern in Brentwood and blogs at Foodwoolf, and Leah Greenstein (SpicySaltySweet.com) have proposed a code of ethics for...
SoCal Minds is a new blog that bills itself as presenting "Intriguing research, ideas, activity, people -- tracked from universities, cultural-intellectual institutions in Southern California." Recent posts have come out...
It's called Squid Ink and it features posts by Gourmet contributor Margy Rochlin, Los Angeles food blogger Jessica Ritz and the Weekly's own Jonathan Gold making recurring appearances with his...
Another good bookstore is folding up its tent — and the news drew multiple, audible protests here in the house when I read it out loud. "After 20 years selling...
Here's an update to my post last night about nachos, El Cholo and Anthony Bourdian. El Cholo says through its publicist that the claim regarding Carmen Rocha has always been...
When longtime El Cholo waitress Carmen Rocha died in October, the L.A. media hailed her as the creator of nachos. It's not so, says chef and Travel Channel foodie Anthony...
Telemundo's new lifestyle cable network for Latinos, mun2, has posted a video with the guys behind the Kogi Korean barbecue taco truck. The video was shot during a stop at...
I'm glad to see the most emailed L.A. Times story right now is the one I enjoyed the most in yesterday's paper — Food Editor Russ Parsons' guide to caramelizing...
Two weeks of special prix-fixe menus at more than 150 participating restaurants — more than last year — start on Sunday. Here's the list. The price levels this time are...
TJ Sullivan got a robo call from Costco reminding him that he bought a box of Clif Bars a few months ago — and alerting him they are part of...
Billy Vasquez, the 99 Cent Chef, has put together a blog and video guide to "dining and drinking establishments within the shadows of the arriving and departing giant silver birds"...
Lesley Balla, late of Eater LA, is not the new LA Weekly food blogger. She starts Jan. 26 as Los Angeles editor for Tasting Table LA, a new daily email...
Los Angeles Magazine's restaurant issue includes three-course epicurean splurges for $35 or less at Local, The Park, Palate, Sugarfish, Terroni and Delancey. Also in the issue: Patric Kuh's designation of...
The Paley Center for Media honored actor Carl Reiner tonight at the Hyatt in Century City, but apparently the main topic of conversation was the poor quality of the hotel...
Christopher Lisotta at Frontiers magazine says that Marjorie Christoffersen, the manager at El Coyote who threw a few bucks to the yes of Proposition 8 campaign through her church, has...
Owner Joe Pytka locked the doors on the staff Monday to "re-conceive" the West Hollywood restaurant....
Jay Fiondella moved to Los Angeles to act, roomed with Leonard Nimoy, and opened Chez Jay near the beach in Santa Monica in 1959. It became a showbiz hangout for...
Sign on the Sepulveda and National Hamlet on the Westside cites loss of the lease, but skeptical Chowhound posters suspect "loss of customers" is behind the closure. "We'll certainly see...
Free eats and beverages all over town, from Daily Grill to Starbucks. Eater LA provides a roundup. Also, an LAT story....
I asked readers to update me on what's in the Sherman Oaks space at 13359 Ventura Blvd. where mafia hangout Rondelli's was located in the 1950s. Le Fondue Bourguignonne recently...
Mark Gold is executive director of Heal the Bay, which often puts him at odds with his brother, the whale-eating food writer for the LA Weekly (and their Madison Avenue...
Providence gets a second star, and the list one one-star restaurants grows: Hatfield's, Bastide, Osteria Mozza and Sushi Zo. There are also more Asian and Mexican restaurants and the added...
Carmen Rocha waited tables at the original El Cholo on Western Avenue for nearly four decades and in El Cholo lore gets credit for introducing patrons to nachos. From Mary...
"Carne asada is not a crime," attorney Phil Greenwald said again, perhaps for the last time, after DA Steve Cooley's office said Friday that it would not appeal a judge's...
Oddly, Philippe The Original's hundredth anniversary celebration next Monday isn't the only French dip sandwich news in my mailbox. On that day from 4 to 8 pm, Philippe's will roll...
Andre Ethier, the food-blogging Dodger, showed up at Pizzeria Mozza between lunch and dinner, got a seat right away, and enjoyed himself. "Love at first bite," he writes as a...
The Los Angeles County ordinance making it a misdemeanor for taco trucks to stay parked for longer than an hour was tossed out Wednesday by Superior Court Judge Dennis A....
Eating L.A.'s Pat Saperstein joined LA Observed author Denise Hamilton on a culinary tour based on locations mentioned in "The Last Embrace," Denise's latest Los Angeles-based mystery. This one, set...
Dodgers outfielder Andre Ethier can't convince Joe Torre to play him full time, even though he's second on the team in home runs and gets on base more than Juan...
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky has posted a personal piece at his county website explaining why he pushed to require fast-food stores to list the calories of their fare on menus. Yaroslavsky...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gave his list of faves to the Times' Guide section. It differs some from the list in Angeleno I posted last night — but still will sound...
EaterLA's Lesley Balla did a little feature for Angeleno's food issue this month comparing the dining quotients of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and predecessor once-removed Richard Riordan. (Jim Hahn gets left...
In the August issue of Angeleno, national food and travel editor Brad A. Johnson picks his top 50 L.A. area restaurants and hands out some awards: Restaurant of The Year:...
No more table-top mustard pots at Philippe the Original, Lesley Balla reports at Eater LA. Truth be told, they were kind of grotty. But hey, the people declared it worked...
Tokyo-born Rocky Aoki was 69 when he died last night in New York, Bloomberg reports. The Benihana version of Japanese teppanyaki cooking began in New York, but of course they...
In today's LAT, reviewer Leslie Brenner absolutely savages Gladstone's Malibu, the Pacific Coast Highway goldmine where former mayor Richard Riordan is the largest shareholder. The food is "abominable" and the...
Greg Rogers, a flack at CRPR who represents Anisette and other restaurants, tells Eater LA that he created the Frappuccino while working at a Starbucks on Third Street Promenade: "No...
I've been kicking myself for a week for under-playing the selection of Russ Parsons, one of my favorite food writers, to the dining industry's hall of fame. He's the first...
Brad A. Johnson, national food and travel editor for Angeleno, won the James Beard Foundation Award in restaurant reviews for his pieces on Hampton's, Sona and The Penthouse. Junot Diaz...
Media in the Bay Area have been reporting all weekend on the difficulty of finding the unleavened crackers for Passover, due in part to big-box stores and Trader Joe's declining...
Seal of approval from, yes, the National Yogurt Association comes through. Lesley Balla at Eater LA dishes it up....
Every so often we get a glimpse of how things really work, without the cautionary impulse and spinning that takes over when people are talking to the media. Eater LA...
When the season opens next Monday, Canter's will have a stand selling corned beef and pastrami on the third-base side of the field level at Dodger Stadium. The concessions area...
In another of those generic magazine roundups claiming to know the best of something, but really an exercise in geographic diversity, Details includes Square One Dining on its top ten...
In case you were wondering, Slate explains why that order to recall meat sent to schools from Hallmark Meat Packing wasn't as pointless as it may have seemed: Why would...
San Pedro's best-known Greek restaurant has been targeted by Marie Callender's, and the Community Redevelopment Agency and the local councilwoman sound excited. "If it works out, this would be a...
Larry Lipson wrote up restaurants for the Daily News starting in 1958. From his exit column: Sure, there have been editors who have leaned somewhat heavily on me - especially...
In his last piece left in the can for the LA Weekly before taking his keyboard to Mexico, Daniel Hernandez uses Elizabeth Palacios's troubles with the law to tell the...
Trader Joe's will give up single-ingredient items from China, such as garlic and frozen spinach, by April 1. Products that include ingredients from China will still be sold. "We feel...
Downtown blogger Angelenic has the scoop (and some nice photos): Wilshire Boulevard institution La Fonda will reopen on Valentine's Day. The new version won't appeal to Japanese tourists or homesick...
The bad run continues for founders of Southern California's fast-food icons. Yancey, who died Jan. 26 at age 96, and a partner reportedly used scrap materials to build a three-stool...
Councilman Ed Reyes stopped in at 7th and Alvarado before noon to dedicate the intersection as Langer's Square. No dummy, he loaded up on the good stuff before making the...
Maybe their dogs aren't up to Cupid's or Pink's, but the LAT Food section makes the hot dogs at the Let's Be Frank cart parked at the Helms Building in...
Carl Karcher essentially grew a single hot dog cart in Los Angeles into the Carl's Jr. fast-food chain. He and his wife Margaret opened Carl's Drive-In Barbecue in Anaheim in...
Nine dollar French toast is a little too upscale for one Palisades blogger's taste. You might know it as the deli that's been featured often on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm--...
Jonathon Gold, in the course of praising the new French brasserie Comme a, on Melrose in West Hollywood: The cheeseburger paradigm has shifted a lot of times over the last...
Ciudad's culinary guide to Latin dining in the November issue ranges from La Casita Mexicana in Bell to La Super-Rica Taquera in Santa Barbara, and has good things to say...
Joel Rubin's first-person Column One in the Saturday L.A. Times described — in tasteful but descriptive detail — how he ended up in the ER with salmonella. He suspected the...
Barbara Hansen's TableConversation.com picks up where her ethnic food columns in the Times food section left off.
During the readers survey, someone asked for the Los Angeles County health department's restaurant closures list that used to run in the Times. Here it is, after the jump: all...
Beadle's Cafeteria in Pasadena has shut its doors for good. Don't believe the taped-up sign in the window saying it's just closed for remodeling. Not going to happen, the landlord...
New at LA Observed
Clinton fundraises in LA

Brown declares disaster area

Performing arts with cheer
