The Food and Music Club

Chef of the Century

2010-02-20T23:07:00.000-08:00

I had a fangirl freakout on Tuesday night. While dining at L'Atelier in Las Vegas with the BB Dakota crew, I spotted Joel Robuchon, the chef of the century, talking to diners about 10 feet away from our table. Of the nine times I've eaten at L'Atelier over the past four years, it was the first time I ever saw him there. The diminutive Frenchman gradually edged closer to our party of eight, then he disappeared to oversee the open kitchen behind us as well as his namesake tribute to haute cuisine next door. A few minutes later, he popped up again and talked to other patrons before ducking away once more. Anxious to get some face time with him, I asked one of the managers if we could get a photo with Monsieur Robuchon. "Yes, of course," was the response. I whipped out my camera and set it right in front of my plate. I was nervous every time the waiter refilled my glass, fearing that he'd spill drops on my photo equipment and ruin my chance for a photo with the cooking great. About 20 minutes after I made my request, the chef quietly appeared next to our table with the manager, who served as both interpreter for his non-English speaking boss and groupie photographer. After scrutinizing the photo, I noticed an uncanny resemblance between Monsieur Robuchon and Yoda.

With their wide cheeks, droopy eyes and bare noggins, the two exude kindness and patience anchored by profound wisdom in their respective fields: cooking for Monsieur Robuchon, Jedi swordplay for Yoda. It's an honor to be in either one's presence.

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!

2010-02-14T16:13:00.000-08:00

Happy Lunar New Year! It's the Year of the Tiger! Roar! Just remember not to eat any duck for the first month of the new year. The Vietnamese superstition is that if you sample even one morsel of duck during the first month, good luck will roll off your back for the rest of the year as quickly as water rolls off a duck's oiled feathers.

Cruising into Cafe Atlantico

2010-02-11T22:54:00.000-08:00

On the same day that Miguelito and I had our lunch at Bryan Voltaggio's Volt, we met my cousins and brother for dinner at Jose Andres' Cafe Atlantico. In hindsight, it was a bit of an overload to pile two rich meals into one day. But with the nippy weather outside, there wasn't much we could do to entertain ourselves in Virginia but to make pilgrimages to see celebrity chefs. I wanted so badly to ascend the stairs from Atlantico's main dining room to eat at Minibar. Alas, I didn't make reservations in time to snare a spot at the six-seat shrine to molecular gastronomy.

Our party of five had fun on the festive main floor of the restaurant. The lime-colored menus inspired you to drink caipirinhas, margaritas and other brightly hued cocktails all night long.

Cafe Atlantico melded old and new Latin flavors. Guacamole was mashed tableside in a molcajete.

Perfect puffs of fried oysters were topped with uni.

A vocal advocate of the foie faction, I like my foie gras seared, pureed in a pasta sauce and packed into a terrine. I had never sipped it in liquid form. Then I ordered Cafe Atlantico's foie gras soup.

Dollops of cream leavened the rich, thick soup. There were slivers of mushrooms hidden at the bottom of the bowl. I felt as if my tongue was taking a late afternoon walk through the Black Forest, stopping occasionally to hear the cackle of ducks and geese floating through the crisp air from a nearby farm.

My main dish was sadly anticlimactic compared to the foie gras soup: seared scallops with roasted cauliflower and couscous.

Miguelito had a more exciting entree: pork chop with deconstructed feijao tropeiro. The divinely cooked pork chop was so tender and juicy. Feijao tropeiro is a rustic bean dish from Brazil. Instead of being dumped together into a bowl, the rice, black beans, manioc powder and orange slices were scattered across the big white plate. The only travesty was the foam that hid the beautiful slab of meat.

Victuals at Volt

2010-02-01T20:20:00.000-08:00

On a recent visit to the Viet clan in Virginia, Miguelito and I made a little field trip to Volt Restaurant in Frederick, Md. The 50-mile drive from my parents' house meandered through woods and farmland. This was my first time visiting a destination restaurant. There would be no other reason for us to visit the quiet colonial town other than to have lunch cooked by Top Chef runner-up Bryan Voltaggio. Even dinner would be out of the question because that means we'd have to find a place to sleep in Frederick or risk driving home with a food coma.

The restaurant was a modern oasis tucked inside a 120-year-old brick mansion. The contemporary decor was quite warm, as you can see by the pick-up-sticks-inspired lighting.

The doorway to the main dining room caught our eye with sage-colored tile that spelled out: EAT.

Miguelito and I ate quite well, without much damage to our wallets. Even though we missed Restaurant Week by a few days, we arrived in time to take advantage of a three-course prix fixe lunch costing only $20.10.

I liked how the white walls and tablecloths contrast with the deep brown ceilings and ebony wood trim of the chairs. The paint on the ceiling matched the color of the Converse kicks that the staff wore. I didn't spot one lick of shiny or brushed steel, which seems to be the fall-back material for decorators who aspire to be modern.

The metal was saved for the dinnerware designed by Hepp.

Once we placed our order, we were served Southern hospitality in the form of chive biscuits.

For my appetizer, I picked goat-cheese ravioli topped with Balsamic vinegar and sudsy foam. I didn't quite remember the flavoring of the foam, which reinforced my belief that foam is the fancy garnish replacement for parsley.

Miguelito sipped a chowder made with dehydrated bacon. The jewel in the crown as a perfectly seared scallop.

The mashed potato base for my striped bass tasted too literally like a foundation: hard, clunky, cold and bland. The fish, however, was delicious. Even better were the plump mussels that tasted as if someone had injected them with a savory broth made of the sea.

Miguelito loves his roast chicken. And he said Volt's chicken was, along with Magnolia's roast chicken, the best that he's ever had. The generously cut pieces were cooked sous vide and then roasted for color. The meat was so flavorful. Not that it didn't help that Volt sourced its food from local farms that pay careful attention to what they feed their poultry. The beets and risotto provided a rustic home for the old school-meets-new school chicken.

The servers all donned gray suits with their brown Converse sneakers. Miguelito and I thought they resembled junior talent agents at CAA.

Miguelito got a pick-me-up with the house blend of coffee, which a local shop mixed especially for Volt out of four different coffee beans.

My dessert was called "Textures of Chocolate." It sounded like the title of a lecture at a food university. There was chocolate ice cream, chocolate caramel, cocoa nubs and powder, chocolate brittle and a tube of white chocolate that reminded me of string cheese. I would have licked the plate clean but the caramel stuck quite hard to the square plate.

Miguelito opted for a miniature cheesecake for his dessert. It was a bit too tropical of a dessert for a cold January day. On the other hand, the bread pudding on the menu was a little too heavy to end a flavorful lunch.

Like other fancy restaurants, Volt gave an edible good-bye gift to its guests. We received banana nut muffins for our next day's breakfast. I actually ate my muffin with my afternoon tea after we got back to my parents' house in Virginia. I'm actually not a muffin girl, and the slightly dry, dense texture of Volt's version didn't change my mind. If only Volt took a page of Guy Savoy and the Mansion at Joel Robuchon, which respectively offered caramels and big brioches to satisfied departing patrons.

I was glad that Volt went for a modern bathroom, since the original toilet from the 1890s wouldn't have worked so well.

The bathroom was so modern that a frosted glass wall barely separated the women's and men's sides. Here's Miguelito doing a yummy-yummy-food-in-my-tummy dance on the other side.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-03T14:49:00.000-08:00

Two Thousand Aught Nine was a big year for me and Miguelito. We chased the Kogi BBQ truck, got hitched and started a slew of eating traditions in our new life together (the slow cooker was pulled out of the cupboard, tuna and swordfish nixed from our diets) -- all while remaining employed. Yippee! We needed to close the year with a big, memorable meal. But we also wanted to stay humble since the last year of the Aughts was so crummy -- financially, socially and psychologically -- for many people. So we got down and dirty at Boneyard Bistro, slurping raw Humboldt County oysters and digging into a platter of red potatoes, corn on the cob, shrimp and King, Dungeness and stone crabs scooped out of a spicy Louisiana-style boil. We couldn't polish off all the food before we headed to a friend's party, where we toasted the new decade with champagne and foie gras (you can only eat so much humble pie, after all). So we boxed up the leftovers for our New Year's breakfast: baked eggs with crab, potatoes, corn and tarragon.

Since I was using leftovers from the previous night's boil, it was quite easy and quick to whip up breakfast. Miguelito did the dirty work of removing the crab meat from the shells before I diced the potatoes and shaved the corn kernels off the cob. I tore tiny tips of tarragon, later mixing them with creme fraiche seasoned with salt and white pepper. I layered the potatoes, corn and crab meat into buttered mini ramekins, and cracked one egg into each container. I carefully spooned the tarragon creme fraiche atop the egg as if it was snow falling gently on a moving glacier. After 24 minutes in a 325-degree oven, the ramekins were ready.

Peep the layers of crab, corn and potatoes hidden underneath the soft-cooked egg. What a hearty start to the new year!

Jersey Shore

2009-12-18T11:06:00.000-08:00

I curse the Jersey Shore cast for giving tattoo-inspired T-shirts a second life. But the show is ridiculously over the top. And the nicknames!

Get your Jersey Shore nickname here.

Mine is: The Opportunity.

Meatball Maven

2009-12-01T14:42:00.000-08:00

I'm now a published photographer of meatballs. Of kibi, to be exact. I originally posted a photo of the Lebanon-via-Yucatan deep-fried meatballs on this blog in August 2007. Last June, I received a request to republish the picture in Go, the in-flight magazine for AirTran Airways. Food photos? A magazine that includes my surname in its title? It was fate--I had to say yes!

Fashion's First Family

2009-11-23T23:25:00.000-08:00

The Restoin Roitfelds are often hailed as the first family of fashion. There's the patriarch, Christian Restoin, who founded the clothing line called Equipment. His life partner, Carine Roitfeld, is the editor in chief of Paris Vogue.

Carine Roitfeld with Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld at the MOCA gala/Donato Sardella for WWD

Their son, Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld, is an up-and-coming curator who has collaborated with surf brand Rvca's artist network.

Rock & Republic's ad created by Julia Restoin Roitfeld

Their older daughter, Julia Restoin Roitfeld, is an art director who launched Rock & Republic's music-meets-bondage ad campaign last year (Mama would have given her stamp of approval) after interning for Fabien Baron.

Thanks to a fun and sassy Web site, I Want To Be a Roitfeld, we can all live vicariously through this ridiculously chic family.

Working the Weekend (with Lady Gaga)

2009-11-21T12:46:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was a doozy for me. I didn't go on any benders and then wake up surrounded by countless bottles of champagne. Instead, I had to stay sober while covering back-to-back galas filled with philanthropists and celebs partying in a decadent pre-Great Recession haze. The apex of the revelry was the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art's 30th birthday bash on Saturday night. In lieu of clowns, pony rides and cupcakes, the 1,000-plus guests celebrated with Brangelina, Lady Gaga's premiere of a new ballad with Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli and the Bolshoi Ballet, and coq au vin and mini baked Alaska pies whipped up by Wolfgang Puck. Plus, there was not one reality TV personality spotted within a 100-foot radius. (Perez Hilton, on the other hand, decked out in white sunglasses and a sequined jacket, came as a FOLGy -- Friend of Lady Gaga.)

Some discoveries of the evening that never made it in my story: Producer Ridley Scott was rather approachable and friendly when I had to grill him about his Gucci project (I thought he would lash after me a la the fighters in his movies "Blade Runner" and "Gladiator"). Eighth-grade fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson, bundled up in Rodarte and Missoni like a little gypsy, was smaller than I thought. I made James Franco laugh by asking if he was wearing a Guckie suit. Gwen Stefani accessorized her Dolce & Gabbana bustier with fake diamond earrings she bought in Thailand. Billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad only wears Brioni or Ermenegildo Zegna suits. I misheard Liz Goldwyn say "lesbians" when she actually said "burlesque queens." Hedi Slimane was more shy, unassuming and thoughtful than I expected from someone of his talent and reputation. A tentacle sleeve of my champagne-colored Gianfranco Ferre blouse made a cameo in a photo with K.D. Lang.

The one-night-only presentation was organized by Moscow's Garage Center for Contemporary Art and the Gagosian Gallery. In tribute to the Russians in the house, the posters lining the white tent erected in the middle of Grand Avenue paid homage to another distinguished Slav: Alexander Rodchenko. Here's a poster of Vezzoli done in that simple, clean, bold style.

The only time I got to sit down and relax was when Lady Gaga sang "Speechless" in Vezzoli's "Ballets Russes Italian Style (The Shortest Musical You Will Never See Again)." Unfortunately, I wimped out of challenging copyright law to post the ghetto video footage I took of the performance. But you can find some on YouTube.

Damien Hirst painted blue butterflies on the pink piano that Lady Gaga played during her performance. The Steinway was later sold in an auction -- with the help of leggy models in gold lame swimsuits and "The Price Is Right" theme song -- to Larry Gagosian for $450,000.

Following their performance, Lady Gaga and Vezzoli did quick costume changes to better enjoy their dinner with the MOCA crowd and later do a round of interviews with the press. The lady remained demure in another pouffy Prada dress, albeit one in black with a cutout revealing her pale tummy. She also switched her lipstick color from blue to black. Vezzoli slipped on a leather bomber jacket and jeans, but kept the rhinestone tear under his right eye. Now that's a true artiste.

Candy in Cookies

2009-11-12T18:29:00.000-08:00

I rarely buy candy. But on Halloween, when Miguelito and I swung by the grocery store to pick up sweets to pass out to trick-or-treaters, I urged him to buy the mix of miniature Nestle Crunches, Butterfingers and Baby Ruths. Why? I had an ulterior motive to bake cookies with the leftover Halloween candy, using a recipe that I found on Goop. (The recipe is listed below.) I loved the way the caramel from the Baby Ruths and the Butterfingers' peanut flakes melted and then oozed out of the dough before hardening into crispy circles. Since only one kid rang our doorbell all night, I had enough chocolate bars to chop into two and a half cups of candy. The recipe is so good, that I'd use it on any of the other 364 days of the year.

Crystal’s TNTs
3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter (8 tablespoons) at room temperature
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk
2 to 3 cups candy, chopped (recommended: chocolate bars or chocolate covered anything, caramel anything, chips, pretzels, raisins; just so-so: lollipops, hard candies; not recommended: gum, gummies, pixi stix)

Preheat oven to 375° F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk flour with baking soda and salt and set aside. In another medium bowl, cream butter and sugars together with a whisk or wooden spoon until light and fluffy (this takes about 3 minutes). Add eggs one at a time, thoroughly incorporating each, and then add vanilla and milk and beat until combined. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, mix until incorporated, then fold in chopped candy.

Drop by rounded tablespoons (a mini ice cream scooper is my favorite way to portion them) onto cookie sheets, leaving about 2 inches between each cookie (room to grow). Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool on a wire rack.

Yield: 4 dozen cookies.

Pigs & Pinot

2009-10-28T22:55:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, Miguelito and I hustled down to South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Calif., to celebrate the birthday of a friend who turned 66. A momentous occasion called for an extraordinary meal. So we pulled into the high-end shopping center's parking lot in front of Charlie Palmer at Bloomingdale's. It also helped that the birthday boy is a good buddy of Palmer's.

The personal connection with the cooking maestro earned me a mini tour of the kitchen, where executive chef Amar Santana let me peep at one of the two -- count 'em, two -- suckling pigs that he prepared for our extravagant feast.

In tribute to Palmer's famed seminar, Pigs & Pinot, where participants spend a weekend in Healdsburg, Calif., learning how to make the most of the other white meat, Santana paired a Pinot noir with our dinner. (Our appetizer of seared foie gras with pears and apples was complemented by a Riesling.) Santana used every piggy part for our dinner. From left to right in the photo, my plate was filled with lentils, pork belly, crackling skin, polenta, sweet potatoes and shallots, Brussels sprouts roasted with bacon, mushrooms and a rillette of pig's ear stuffed inside pork belly.

DineLA Restaurant Week Ends Soon

2009-10-22T19:50:00.001-07:00

This is the last weekend when you can take advantage of the prix-fixe deals offered at a number of pricey restaurants as part of DineLA Restaurant Week. Miguelito and I are heading to Ciudad on Friday to try the $34 three-course dinner. Half-glass pours of wine cost only $5. Ole!

Blogging Ethics

2009-10-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

The Federal Trade Commission devised a new batch of rules this week mandating that, starting Dec. 1, bloggers must reveal all the freebies, payments and perks they receive from advertisers. This makes sense. Still, the need to disclose isn't completely new to me as I've been following the Food Blog Code of Ethics as well as the rules of righteousness that I use in my day job. And on the few occasions that my night hobby poses a conflict of interest with my day job, I choose the latter. That's why I recently had to turn down a blogger boondoggle that packaged a night at a four-star hotel, meals with chefs brandishing shiny knives (not to mention marquee brands) and monetary incentives for tweets and prompt posts on my blog. Oh, how I missed out! But it only takes 30 seconds of bad judgment to ruin a career that was built over 11 years.

Baking at 3 in the Morning

2009-09-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

Because Phammy works New York hours, she had to wake up at 3 a.m. in Seattle to bake her award-winning pie. That's the mark of a true foodie. Phammy shared the recipe for her 3 a.m. black strap rum peach pie so that everyone else can sleep in and bake at their leisure.

Black Strap Rum Peach Pie

2009-09-27T19:21:00.000-07:00

Phammy and Geddy/Photo from Queen Anne View

My friend Phammy is a Viet chick, journalist, mother of two and hostess of a Thanksgiving dinner that I always try to attend in Seattle. The reason I leave the mild fall in Southern California for the chilly wetness of the Pacific Northwest is because Phammy spends at least three days cooking a scarily ambitious but always yummy meal for no fewer than a dozen people. The rolls, pies, stuffing and whiskey cocktails are all made from scratch. No cheating, substitutions and shortcuts are allowed. All her efforts to be the perfect American housewife paid off Thursday night when she garnered the top prize at her neighborhood farmer's market's 1st Annual Blue Ribbon Pie Contest. Her son, Geddy, was on hand to help her celebrate. I hope the duo relives their special moment -- and recreates the award-winning pie -- for this November's gathering.

Living Large at Rivera

2009-09-05T17:39:00.000-07:00

I recently married a Latino. Miguelito is only a quarter Latino, diluted with Norwegian genes via Minnesota. But nonetheless, he's got the Diaz surname through his dad's side. My friend Isabel also recently married a Latino. For a get-together to dish on our first months of married life, Isabel and I decided to go to the most recently opened notable Latino restaurant in Los Angeles: Rivera. The restaurant's fancy facade was a giant aesthetic leap from the taco trucks that I'm used to frequenting.

I had never tasted the delectables that chef John Rivera Sedlar cooked when he worked at L'Ermitage, Bikini and Abiquiu. So I didn't know what to expect. I certainly didn't anticipate the bartender to light a drink on fire.

The beakers enhanced the mad scientist feel at the laboratory-like bar. The only thing missing was a white lab coat for the bartender to don.

The bar menu included a $14 bespoke cocktail. You tell the bartender what's your favorite liquor, and he'll whip up a special cocktail for you. I requested something with champagne, and I received a concoction called Death in the Afternoon: champagne mixed with absinthe and lemon juice.

The bar's coasters were quite utilitarian. Made out of paper, they were printed with recipes for Rivera's signature drinks, like the Barbacoa.

Isabel and I get along very well. That's partly because we're the products of immigrant families. While we're used to working hard, we also like to play hard and eat well. Foie gras, champagne and caviar top the list of our favorite foods. When Isabel saw that one of the appetizers on the menu paired potato chips with a habanero cream sauce and caviar, she felt vindicated. Her husband makes fun of her when she eats caviar with potato chips at home.

We also tried the tortillas pressed with edible flowers and avocado.

I smeared the habanero cream sauce with the guacamole on my tortilla.

We moved on to seared scallops with mango salsa.

I liked how the chef's trips to Macchu Pichu, Rio de Janiero and other parts of Central and South America influenced not only how he cooked his food but also presented it. He dusted what tasted like all spice in the silhouette of an Aztec mask. The seared black cod was so flaky and the serrano ham crisp provided a pleasant crunch. But the jicama strips were just too big and bland. It looked as if the cod was floating down a murky green river on a white raft.

The grilled quail was so crunchy. I felt like King Kong sucking on the little bones. But the black beans reminded me of azuki beans, smashed into a sweet paste for a Japanese mochi dessert. While I could understand the contrast between sweet mush and charred crispiness, the beans were just too sugary for me in this entree.

This is the most gourmet tamale I've ever eaten. Filled with braised pork short ribs, it was topped with hedgehog mushrooms.

The ceviche of ahi tuna, avocado, serrano peppers and lime juice was so refreshing.

Isabel and I ended our shared meal with Kurobuta pork chops and black carrots in a mole sauce. I had never had pork chops in mole before. I also never had Frida Kahlo's eyes stare at me during dinner. The cayenne pepper in the seductive garnish could serve as a metaphor for life as a newlywed: When things get a little heavy, sprinkle on some spice to re-open your eyes and put a zing into your step.

An Open Door to World Cuisines

2009-08-24T20:00:00.001-07:00

Open Door is an Asian fusion restaurant that isn't afraid to mix up genres, ingredients and common sense. Set in the heart of Monterey Park, Calif., home to many dim-sum and noodle restaurants, its walls are painted like giant ukiyo-e screens and the tree sitting in the middle of the 28-seat room is lit with electric candles.

But like any good izakaya, Open Door serves tasty food that goes well with sake and beer. You don't have to look any further than the mural on the back wall for a recommendation on what to eat and drink.

I had never seen this beer in Japan or the U.S. before.

If you didn't know that you were in the middle of a restaurant, you'd think that you were on a spaceship because of the way the sake bar is illuminated. The tanuki statue to the left, along with the Japanese subway station sign hung under the ledge, reminds you that you are here to eat Japanese cuisine.

But it wasn't traditional Japanese cuisine. Melted truffle butter was drizzled on the edamame for an earthy but crunchy start to the meal.

Tonight's whitefish sashimi was halibut. Basted in a ponzu sauce with tiny crowns of chopped scallions, the dish was my favorite of the night.

When I mentioned earlier that Open Door mixes common sense, I was referring specifically to the truffle tater tots served with ketchup and mayonnaise. Though some online critics raved about the tots, I couldn't quite get into them. There were too many memories of elementary school lunches.

The seared salmon tasted as if it was torched ever so gently with a blowtorch, just as the wagyu beef in the Philly cheesesteaks at Jose Andres' Bazaar were.

The tomato and onion salad was my second least favorite dish. The caramelized onions weren't mushy or sweet enough to my liking, and the tomato slices were too cold and hard. I would have preferred the whole dish to be roasted, with only the crunchy bonito flakes dancing frenetically on the tongue.

The black cod was cooked perfectly with a sweet sauce. The presentation, however, was rather odd. Was it supposed to resemble a boat, with the shrimp crackers resembling sails and the banana leaf serving as the steer?

The beef carpaccio arrived so late in the meal that the 15 of us at the table were trying to dump it onto the other person. I would have eaten more if the beef had been sliced paper-thin.

This was one of the best examples of Asian fusion cooking: Korean-style kalbi ribs with fried potatoes.

This was another favorite of the night: steak tartare topped with a raw quail egg.

This was the surprise hit of the night: potatoes with a dollop of cream and fish roe.

We tossed all the ingredients together in a hot cast iron pot with a wood spoon. I liked this so much that I am determined to improve my knife skills just so that I can julienne the potatoes and make this dish at home.

Open Door managed to fuse French, Japanese and Korean culinary traditions in its menu. It added another country -- Mexico -- with the cinnamon-dusted churros. The pastry's sweet crunchiness complemented the earthiness from the edamame and truffle butter that kicked off the three-hour meal. The fried flutes were like exclamation points ending a long, fun evening.

Guide to Food Trucks

2009-08-21T13:25:00.000-07:00

This handy guide to some of L.A.'s yummiest food trucks comes courtesy of Daily Candy. I love how Twitter has become a standard operating procedure for these mobile eateries, as indicated by the trucks' tweetability.

Food52

2009-08-18T15:51:00.000-07:00

I recently joined an online community that is all about cooking. Founded by former New York Times food writer Amanda Hesser and her Le Cordon Bleu-trained co-author Merrill Stubbs, Food52 curates recipes submitted by members in a database and dispenses tips, videos and chatter all pertaining to cooking. Though I've already filled out my profile -- i.e., What is the strangest food you have ever eaten? (Balut eggs) Your ideal meal? (Anything shared with my husband) -- I've yet to post my recipes and submit a video tour of my kitchen. It should be interesting!

In the Know

2009-08-17T00:28:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles is home to a plethora of ethnic eats. But if you don't hail from a particular ethnicity, then it can be damn intimidating to figure out which spot is the best and most authentic. At a recent dinner organized by my foodie fashion friend, Johnny, I met the Rameniac (right in photo, next to the easily excitable Johnny). The Rameniac totes his ravenous stomach around the world in the quest of a piping hot bowl of ramen. After professing my love for Daikokuya, Rameniac said his favorite ramen joint in Southern California is Ramen California in Torrance, an industrial city lying about 30 miles south of L.A. "All the best Japanese restaurants are in Torrance," a tablemate noted. Why? That's because Torrance serves as the U.S. headquarters for many Japanese conglomerations, ranging from car makers Honda and Toyota to Tecmo, the video game company behind the “Dead or Alive” series. The reason the Rameniac highly endorses Ramen California is because the noodle shop's chef is one of Japan's best exports. From his Torrance post, this savory sensei has an artisanal touch with his noodles and broth, adding an unconventional flair (Heirloom tomato ramen, anyone?) to warm your soul and rejuvenate your palate.

Our conversation quickly shifted to another Japanese delicacy: Kobe beef. Johnny and the Rameniac said The Steak House, also located in Torrance, is the best chop house serving marbled beef cut from pampered, beer-fed steer.

As half of the people at dinner hailed from Korea, we had to determine which is the best Hangol haven in Los Angeles. For Korean-style BBQ, Andrew recommended Chung Ki Wa, in the heart of K-Town (that's K for Korean) on Olympic Boulevard at Wilton Place. As for a late-night stop, where you can sop up the Crown Royal & 7 swishing around your tummy with some kimchee, Andrew and his cohorts recommended a place that they nicknamed Big Mama, after the restaurant's plump proprietress. The only geographic markers we rustled from our Korean pals' hazy memory were that Big Mama is in K-Town next to the 7-11 on the east side of Sixth Street, south of Alexandria Street. Needless to say, it's important to have not only a hungry appetite but also a sense of humor and adventurous spirit when exploring these ethnic enclaves.

Breakfast of Champions

2009-08-12T22:08:00.000-07:00

I used to not like eating breakfast. Then I bought some cool widgets such as a crepe pan, madeleine tins and yogurt maker to help make breakfast more fun. For the slow-cooked oatmeal that I learned to make from Cook's Illustrated magazine, all I need is a heavy-bottom pot. Though the pros in the culinary lab recommend toasting the steel-cut oats in butter before cooking them in a blend of milk and water, I often skip this step. I also sometimes cheat and use quick-cooking oats. But that doesn't mean I curtail the cooking time. The longer the oats can soak up the liquid, the more puffy they get. Other key steps are maintaining a 1-to-4 ratio of oats to milk/water and adding the salt before the final five minutes of cooking. Cook's Illustrated claimed that if you add the salt any earlier in the cooking process, the oats will turn out clumpy. I sweeten the gruel with honey. To help balance the flavors -- and avoid any accusations of being overly healthy -- I also fry some Jimmy Dean sausage.

Another homey dish for breakfast is a French toast souffle. You make the same egg mixture in which you'd dip the stale pieces of bread. But you let the bread soak in the mixture in a baking pan overnight. The next morning, you dot the pieces of bread with some butter and bake until the eggs set. Recently, I used stale wheat bread for my souffle. Don't be scared to drown the souffle in maple syrup.

Another breakfast recipe that requires some advanced preparing the night before is that for home-made yogurt. I've always loved the European-style yogurt made in little glass jars. But they're often too pricey. So, for my wedding registry, I requested a Euro Cuisine yogurt maker that prepares seven jars of yogurt. All you need to do is boil milk, cool it down a little and add the culture and any flavoring that you desire. It takes nine hours to cook 2 percent low-fat milk, shorter for whole milk and longer for the skim version.

For my first batch of yogurt, I mixed in a bit of fancy orange marmalade. It's a treat worth waking up for in the morning.

Lollipops for Lushes

2009-08-05T21:02:00.000-07:00

I write about the action sports industry, which means that I'm often surrounded by very loud, always raucous and often inebriated dudes. They're not known for being foodies. But last Saturday, while hanging out with the DC Shoes crew during the X Games, I discovered a new treat that could have been invented just for the extreme athletes: alcohol-infused lollipops by Lollyphile. The flavors included white Russian, absinthe and bourbon (the skaters skipped the maple bacon candies). You didn't even need a Monster Energy drink to chase the booze.

Random Recipes

2009-07-30T19:56:00.000-07:00

I recently got married, which means I'll be happily spending the rest of my life with Miguelito. It also means that I've been able to stock my kitchen with loads of new gadgets from my Williams-Sonoma registry (the boxes filled up my cubicle at work). Following our Hawaiian honeymoon, Miguelito and I have been nesting and cooking at home. Here are some of the recipes and Web sites that I've got on my list to try:

Nam Nam is the noise your mouth makes when you're sloppily chewing on a sumptuous morsel. It's also the online source of daring dishes such as foie coulant with liquid heart of raw red fig, doughnut ice cream in strawberry soup and pea hummus by a Spanish foodie whose identity I’ve yet to learn.

I want to be Anita Lo when I grow up. But I have an inability to chop finely because I'm afraid that I'll cut my fingers. So I'll have to settle with recreating the millefeuille of fresh strawberries and Ricotta from Lo's acclaimed New York restaurant, Annisa.

Amanda Hesser no longer writes for The New York Times. But she has launched a new food Web site, where she posts recipes, such as one for scrambled eggs with asparagus. Though Hesser doesn't follow Julia Child's tip of using a whole stick of butter to make a mound of soft, jiggly eggs, I like the way she adds zing to the dish with lemon zest.

If I had to choose a career in the food industry, it would be that of sommelier. A friend said I'd be good at it because I'm not a heavy drinker. One day, I'd have as much influence as this grape guru from Japan.

Boutique BBQ

2009-07-05T12:17:00.000-07:00

I used to get my barbecue from BBQ King on Cesar Chavez Avenue. Then, amidst the wave of gentrification sweeping the area surrounding downtown Los Angeles, BBQ King was razed to make way for luxury condos. Now I go to Boneyard Bistro in Sherman Oaks, Calif. If it weren't for a friend who's dating the chef, I would have never found it. Miguelito and I keep going back, partly because of the personal connection, mainly because of the finger-licking-good food. Plus, the beer menu -- categorized by alcoholic content, type and size -- is quite impressive. You could easily sample a saison, a bock and a Trappist ale in one sitting. Just don't expect a lemon with your Hefeweizen. For some reason, the chef, Aaron Robins, objects to serving any kind of garnish with the beer.

Dinner at Boneyard Bistro doesn't have to be all about carbs. On the evening we went with my sister, who was visiting from San Francisco, the evening's specials included a salad of heirloom tomatoes with a choice of blue or goat cheese. We opted for the more pungent blue, which was perfect to smear on the toast tinted with balsamic vinegar.

There are three ways to enjoy a BBQ combo: one meat, two meats or three meats. You can pick from chicken, three types of ribs (spare, baby back and St. Louis-style), sausages, brisket, tri tip, pulled pork and, as a concession to the vegetarians (and a big offense to this Southerner) portabello. Miguelito, my sister and I each tried the two-meat combo. While Miguelito ordered the baby back ribs with the tri tip, my sister had the brisket and St. Louis-style ribs. I got the same ribs as my sister did, with some chicken. The best-tasting variety was the brisket -- so tender and smoky. The chicken was perfectly cooked, as wel.. The St. Louis-style ribs, however, were too overcooked for my sister's preference. So the chef brought over a fresh plate of more tender slabs for her.

With each BBQ entree, we got our pick of two sides. We decided each of us would order the baked beans, collard greens and cole slaw enhanced with dill weed. But I had to have my own piece of fried mac 'n' cheese. The crispy triangle snapped apart easily to reveal a gooey center of soft elbow macaroni and cheese. It was a blatant violation of the bridal diet that I was all too happy to commit.

Trendy Taquerias

2009-07-03T18:12:00.000-07:00

I'd challenge anyone to spend a day in Southern California without passing at least one taqueria. While there are the hipster-sanctified holes like Malo, there are also the primitive shacks such as the original Yuca's, set up in the middle of a parking lot across from a liquor store. On a recent Saturday, Miguelito and I cruised down Hollywood Boulevard to the newer, nicer, bigger addition of Loteria Grill, the Farmer's Market staple. We liked the clean, open space, where we could spy on the cooks as they whipped up the mole that has driven scores of hungry people to stake out a stool at the cramped stand that Loteria operates at the Farmer's Market. Still, we were a little apprehensive that the oversize cards would fall on us at the Hollywood location.

The reason we went to Loteria Grill was because I was craving huevos rancheros. Once I saw the huevos en sopes on the menu, I quickly forgot about the poached eggs served over tortillas. The fried circles of maize were so mushy, that it was a bit of a mess eating the sopes. But I liked that the yolk would run from the perfectly poached eggs and mix with the sopes, queso fresco and ranchera sauce. The side of potatoes that is de rigeur for many breakfast dishes served at American restaurants, no matter what culture you're in, was roasted with cactus at Loteria.

Miguelito ordered a trio of tacos: chicken mole, carnitas and potatoes. Satisfied with our Mexican brunch, we stepped out into the tourist traps on Hollywood Boulevard, only to be asked by some guy where the nearest McDonald was.

A few weeks later, Miguelito and I drove to Culver City for dinner at Wilson Food and Wine. At least, that's what we had planned. Founded by Michael Wilson, the gastronomically talented son of the late Dennis Wilson from The Beach Boys, the restaurant made its mark in Southern California with comfort food influenced by different world cultures. Think of French onion soup, racks of lamb and mean martinis. A couple of months ago, Wilson Food and Wine transformed to Anejo At Wilson, a tequila bar and taqueria. If Miguelito had known that, he wouldn't have filled up on tacos at King Taco earlier in the day. So he ordered the ceviche at the new Wilson.

I started the evening with pureed corn soup.

Then I indulged my fondness for offal with one of the evening's specials, a taco of sweetbreads in a rich red sauce. The complement was a taco of fried clams covered with crema mexicana and cabbage. The shellfish was a little much too gnaw on. I probably should have ordered the fried halibut taco instead. Still, our light, festive meal got us ready to jam in the Porta-Party at Royal/T.

Nothing Hokey About Honeycombs

2009-06-29T23:57:00.000-07:00

Three years after I moved to Los Angeles from the San Francisco Bay Area, my respiratory system was nearly paralyzed by severe allergies. I couldn't figure out why my ability to breathe was so compromised. One person suggested that I eat some honey so that the pollen present in the sticky sweetness would fortify my immune system. I thought that theory was hokey. Until this past spring, when I not only consumed honey from California, Minnesota and wherever I could find it, but I also traded the breeze blowing through my open car windows for a sterile A/C system that circulated through my air-tight Prius. The precautions I took nullified the sniffles, sneezes and asthmatic wheezing that seized me in past seasons. Taking the next step closer to a holistic diet (I draw the line at wheat grass, however), I began eating raw honeycomb that a far more sophisticated foodie friend gave me as a gift.

I baked pre-made puff pastry, topped with a generous serving of freshly whipped cream, plump blueberries and a chunk of honeycomb. Miguelito said it was the best home-made dessert he ever had.

Sausages on Sunday

2009-06-12T23:50:00.000-07:00

Miguelito and I had been hearing chatter about Wurstkuche for weeks. Though we're both on our respective wedding diets (not too much bourbon for him, lots of sit-ups for me), we rounded up our most gastronomically adventurous friends for some sausages last Sunday. Here's Wurstkuche's refrigerator packed with piles of home-made wieners.

Here's the coterie of condiments sitting on every corner of the long communal tables shrouded in brown paper.

If I remember correctly, there used to be a small, cramped, moodily lit restaurant on the same spot where Wurstkuche now stands. Walls were knocked down and the ceiling open for an airy, loft-like atmosphere that is de rigeur for architecture in downtown L.A. I don't think anyone has a ladder tall enough to reach the birthday balloon that floated away in Wurstkuche's dining room.

While our friend Johnny ordered two sausages for himself (he said he was eating on behalf of his absent girlfriend), Anita had the Filipino (a juicy pork sausage with spices) and Carol, a pescatarian, fit in with the confab of carnivores by picking a vegetarian sausage. Miguelito and I decided to split the difference between our foodie friends. We ordered three, that we could share for one and a half apiece. We had the duck bacon with jalapeno (topped with sweet peppers and caramelized onions), rabbit and veal (same topping as the duck bacon) and alligator (paired with hot peppers and caramelized onions). We skipped the sauerkraut, the other option in the quartet of toppings for the sausages, because it wouldn't fit well with the unusual wieners.

The restaurant actually messed up our order for the sauces to dip the Belgian fries. We had requested chipotle ketchup, but we ended up dipping our twice-fried taters in curry ketchup (more sweet than spicy) and bacon bits mixed with blue cheese.

This is a close-up of the duck bacon sausage. The black peppers and jalapeno masked the game flavor, which was unfortunate because I actually love the earthy taste of duck.

The rabbit and veal sausage was the most politically incorrect -- and unsurprisingly the yummiest of the three, in my opinion.

The alligator was perhaps the most exotic offering. It was also the one I liked the least among our triptych of treats. We were told that the casing for this roll was quite thick. That wasn't the problem. The alligator meat just wasn't that juicy. A bit of pork or other fatty meat would have injected some life into the dryness.

A Cool Viet Chick's Food Party

2009-06-06T12:02:00.000-07:00

The New York Times published a story today about Brooklyn, N.Y.-based artist Thu Tran moving her Web show called "Food Party" to the IFC. The second after I finished reading the article, I asked Miguelito, "Do we get IFC?" Indeed, we do. And I'm going to be glued to the television every Tuesday night to catch what reminds me of Pee-Wee's Playhouse inhabited by hungry characters from my friend Emmie's Fomato Cards.

R.I.P. David Carradine

2009-06-04T22:35:00.000-07:00

When I was in pre-school, I received a notice about a field trip that required students to bring a brown bag lunch. Having just arrived in the U.S. from Vietnam, my parents and aunts sat around a kitchen table in a frustrating attempt to translate the form. They didn't realize that, all over their newly adopted country, thousands of parents tossed a PBJ sandwich and apple in a brown paper bag and wrote their kid's name on the outside. My parents figured I had to eat on this school outing, so my dad went to the store and bought me a "Kung Fu" lunch box. We didn't write my name on it. As a result of our shortsightedness, I had to follow the teacher around the outdoor picnic tables on the day of the field trip, as she asked every single boy in the class if the lunch box belonged to him. I didn't speak enough English to yell, "Excuse me, Miss Teacher, but that is mine." Eventually she turned around and saw me shadowing her. My brother subsequently inherited the lunch box from me, and the first thing he did was smear his name in blue ink over Kwai Chang Caine's forehead. I have the metal container back now. It sits on a book shelf, next to a stuffed R2D2 and baby Buddha plushie. Proust may have had madeleines to remind him of his childhood, but I'll always have this lunch box.

Le Plus Petit Philippe

2009-05-29T20:04:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, on the afternoon Miguelito returned to Los Angeles from Minneapolis, the first thing he did was grab lunch at Philippe with Maximus. Located a block or two away from Union Station, this 101-year-old restaurant is legendary for its French dipped sandwiches. I'm one of the few Angelenos who don't like French dipped sandwiches. It's not because I'm on an anti-carb, low-fat bridal diet. (One of the first things I want to do after I get married is to eat an overflowing plate of ribs.) I just want my meat to be already juicy. I don't want to dunk it in extra jus. But Miguelito loves Philippe. The tender feelings were reciprocated on his last visit, when he saw a tiny nub of bread that was baked attached to a bigger loaf. A waitress thought the offshoot would make one of the world's tiniest sandwiches, as seen here.

LAT's Review of Reservoir

2009-05-28T12:46:00.001-07:00

Axel Koester/The Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times' restaurant critic, S. Irene Virbila, didn't like the food at Reservoir as much as Miguelito and I did. She also chided Reservoir for relying on a local crowd. Truth is, the menu is too expensive for several of us in this Eastside neighborhood to eat there more than once a month. So we're OK with the menu staying the same as we try a different dish on each visit. And the service, given only two months to get its bearings right, runs much more smoothly and quickly than what you get at Canelé in its third year of operation across the Los Angeles River in Atwater Village. Now that Miguelito and I have been photographed on Reservoir's patio by The Los Angeles Times, we should claim that table as our regular roost.

Racing to Reservoir

2009-05-23T22:17:00.000-07:00

On Friday night, Miguelito and I rode our bikes around Silver Lake Reservoir for an early dinner at Reservoir, the two-month-old eatery that opened in the spot previously occupied by Netty's. I had never joined the artists, politicos and other Eastside denizens who had filled Netty's tables while it was in business for more than 20 years. Because it took so long for Reservoir to be renovated, it was able to secure a liquor license by the time it opened its doors on March 5. (It took an additional few weeks to receive a separate permit for using heat lamps on the patio.) For tonight's dinner, Miguelito and I clinked glasses of d'Albarino and Pinot Noir to celebrate his snaring a Web-based flash game in the Batman franchise for his Australian animation clients. Our festive night, not to mention our bike helmet hair, was captured by a photographer who was snapping pictures for an upcoming restaurant review to run in The Los Angeles Times.

We passed on the evening's special salad of heirloom tomatoes with Burrata cheese. Instead, we wanted to warm ourselves up on the chilly patio with the sauteed wild mushrooms tossed over greens with shavings of Parmesan.

Our advantageous location on the patio let us people-watch. This hipster was slouching his way across the street, perhaps to Domenico Ristorante, which transplanted Michelangelo's (now on Rowena Avenue) as the neighborhood Italian joint.

Reservoir's schtick is that its menu lists featured dishes (a.k.a. entrees) along with setups (appetizers in regular food argot). If you order one of the featured dishes, then you can pick any one of the five setups to be paired with your meal. Our waitress told us that the setups were devised to complement any entree, whether it be the black cod or the pan-seared marinated tofu or the $32 14-ounce rib eye. After determining that the scallops were seared in olive oil, I opted for the accompaniment of roasted baby carrots, brown-butter-cauliflower puree, braised leeks and black garlic.

Miguelito went with the black cod plated with the braised Tuscan kale, fingerling potatoes, baby yams and roasted heirloom tomatoes.

The two little black dots on my plate were the black garlic cloves. I had never seen those before. Soft, mushy and perfectly spreadable, the garlic tasted as if it had been steeped for days in Balsamic vinegar.

The dessert menu enticed us with its chocolate lava cake and Guinness ice cream, and warm tarte tatin and horchata ice cream, among other sweets. Even though Miguelito and I could have easily burned off the calories from dessert on our bike ride home, we remembered that we had a red velvet cupcake from Auntie Em's waiting for us in our refrigerator. To celebrate a new cartoon job, you need a cartoon dessert.

Minnesota Day

2009-05-22T21:21:00.000-07:00

Miguelito declared May 19 as Minnesota Day. That's the day following his return from this year's fishing trip to the state with 10,000 lakes. I told him that if I'm going to be a fishing widow every May from now on, and if we're going to celebrate Minnesota Day on the nineteenth of the fifth month every year from now on, then he needs to bring home walleye every year from now on.

This year, he and a baker's dozen of fishermen caught their limit on Leech Lake: four fish, or 8 fillets, each. We saved four of the fillets for a future dinner with Miguelito's grandma. The remainder constituted my first walleye meal ever.

The secret ingredient for our fish fry was Ritz crackers.

Our ghetto-gourmet way of cooking entailed Miguelito pounding two mini packs of crackers in a Ziploc bag. For the first batch, we used plain crackers to coat the 4-inch fillets seasoned with sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, later dredged in an egg batter. For the subsequent batch, I spiked the cracker dust with some yellow curry powder to give the white fish a bit of kick. I suppose this culinary experimentation could represent a metaphor for the coupling of a Norwegian-Mexican Minnesotan and a Vietnamese-American who grew up in South Carolina and Virginia.

The second key ingredient was lots of butter. It would have been much healthier to cook the walleye in olive oil, or even to poach it. But the butter enhanced the comforting flavor of the Ritz cracker coating. I did add some olive oil to reduce the burn threshold of the butter.

The key was not to crowd the pan with the fish.

We fried the suckers up to a golden brown.

We served the fried walleye atop couscous mixed with currants and chili flakes, a spinach salad and roasted sweet peppers. After one bite of the light, flaky, sweet fish, I decided that I can deal with being a fishing widow. I mean, I could taste the cold lake's freshness on my tongue. It was that good. We could have amplified the homey vibe by playing some Captain & Tennille on vinyl. Instead, we watched Kobe Bryant have a temper tantrum in the L.A. Lakers' victory over the Denver Nuggets. What a diva! The pro baller's definitely not down-to-earth enough to be from Minnesota.

Miguelito threatened to quiz me on the names of Minnesota's sports teams. At least I already know what the state bird is. It isn't the loon, which he has in plushy and wooden forms. No, it's the mosquito.

A Common Saturday Night

2009-05-19T20:06:00.000-07:00

Two Saturdays ago, I started my second tour as a fishing widow. For a week every May, for the rest of our lives, Miguelito will leave L.A. to go fishing on one of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes. Rather than feeling abandoned, I remembered that axiom: While the cat's away, the mouse will play. I called my friend Carol to be my plus-one for Diesel's party celebrating the launch of its new fragrance, Only The Brave. The featured performer of the evening was Common, who also doubles as the face for the fragrance ads.

The Brooklyn, N.Y.-based DJ provided the beats and samples pulled from Biz Markie and other hip-hop impresarios for Common to rhyme over.

I thought Common's shoes were Vans, but the slip-ons are actually by Surface to Air.

This voluptuous vixen let Common tap her "where the sun don't shine." As her reward, she was serenaded by him on the stage built in the middle of the store.

Common is a buff guy. I couldn't figure out why he was so fit but then I realized that he also has an emerging career starring in action flicks. He's got a part in "Terminator Salvation," due out May 21. In "Date Night," which he's currently filming with Tina Fey and Steve Carell, he plays a dirty cop.

Like Common, the two keyboard players from Philadelphia also have a penchant for cool kicks: black high-tops by Y-3 and Jack Purcell.

Carol and I moved to the second row after we saw Common flirting with the ladies in the front.

Common was on a roll with a freestyle rap, touching eclectic topics ranging from Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant and the Black Panthers to Pres. Barack Obama and shopping on Melrose Place, where Diesel's store is located. He was doing so well that he took his performance to the sidewalk in front of the shop and also in the middle of the energized crowd, which included actresses Samaire Armstrong and Vanessa Hudgens.

It was fun to be treated to a free concert by an intelligent and socially conscious rapper like Common. His support for a peaceful, loving world was obvious on his T-shirt, which is part of his recently launched collaboration with tech giant Microsoft.

Rowdy with the Russians

2009-05-14T20:52:00.001-07:00

Hellin is a friend, former co-worker and grown-up punk rocker who was born in Russia. Having moved on to a busy career as a freelance photographer and stylist, she is longer a regular presence in the office. So she masterminded a reunion with her former colleagues at a Russian restaurant called Traktir. Perched on the corner of Crescent Heights and Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, Traktir offers a pleasant patio where you can sip tea sweetened with homemade compote while watching a stream of bright car lights and waxed muscle boys make their way to the nearby bars. Inside, the stuffed boar's head, porcelain pitchers and wooden instruments make you feel as if you're eating in a cozy cottage in the Russian woods.

Traktir isn't as opulent as Maxim, the amber bubble of a banquet hall that is hidden from many non-Russians on Fairfax Avenue. Traktir's functional kitchen is located just behind the rows of liquor and stained glass tableaux depicting the greatness of the Russian Orthodox Church.

What good Russian restaurant wouldn't have a samovar on the shelf?

Truth be told, the samovar looked as if a layer of dust had settled on it. That's because most of the guests dipped into the vodka infused with horseradish and jalapeno peppers. On the other side, out of view, were big jars of raspberries, pineapples and cranberries steeping in the alcohol.

We were lucky to have Hellin guide us in the ritual of drinking horseradish vodka.

The vodka must be cool. You take a sip, followed by a bite of the pickle. Unlike the pickles offered at most delis, these pickles didn't impart much of a dill flavor. (The fresh dill was saved to garnish the food.) Instead, the firm chunks of cucumbers had a slightly sweet, very vinegary taste. It cleansed the palate after the horseradish vodka, which didn't burn the throat as much as the jalapeno vodka. Both the horseradish and jalapeno liqueur would be key ingredients in a killer Bloody Mary. As for the other fruit-flavored vodka, the cranberry was my least favorite; it tasted like the last dregs of a cranberry juice-vodka cocktail. The raspberry and pineapple vodka would be nice to drink at the end of a meal in lieu of dessert.

The trio of appetizers looked pretty bland and unappetizing at first. There was the marinated herring with pickled onions, boiled potatoes and chopped chicken salad. As dill is one of my favorite herbs (an omelet of eggs with tomatoes, onions and dill is such a simple and enjoyable meal) I tried to catch as many of the thin green strands in each scoop. The herring was barely cooked. I coined it ceviche from the Caucasus Mountains. It turned out to be another nice chaser for the vodka. While the potatoes were bland fillers to offset the strong flavors of the other dishes, the chopped chicken salad was a comforting mix of mashed eggs, cubed chicken and mayonnaise.

We couldn't get enough of the pickled cucumbers, so we ordered the pickled combination that included shredded cabbage and tomato quarters submerged in vinegar for days. They provided crunchy relief to the alcohol and heavy, creamy food.

The beet salad was also an unsightly mess. Traktir should really consider hiring Hellin to style its food before it leaves the kitchen. But all you had to do was close your eyes and appreciate the sweetness of the beets, potatoes and onions.

I'm not sure how many gallons of cream the restaurant goes through each week. The creamy white sauce hid the trio of dumplings. We couldn't tell which was the chicken, the cheese or the meat filling. We just had to spoon a bunch onto our plates and dig in.

The chicken blintz was a very long crepe stuffed with ground chicken and drenched in a porcini mushroom sauce. It was the epitome of comfort food; you had cream, cheese, soft veggies and a subtle mix of ground meat. It was also my favorite dish of the evening. The blintz was a bit thicker than a conventional crepe, which meant that, if it was left uneaten for a while, it'd start to harden.

I was so overwhelmed by the chicken blintz, that my taste buds basically ignored the stuffed cabbage. I was intrigued by the cup of sour cream that accompanied it, but not enough to go back for seconds.

Russia, or at least the former Soviet Union, spanned such a vast area that you marvel at its diversity. Our waiter resembled a Mongolian/Chinese mix who spoke perfect Russian. Never mind that he was a little slow, constantly leaving before we finished telling him all the dishes we wanted because he hadn't brought a pen and pad and couldn't remember everything. The country's diversity was represented in our last entree, the chicken shish kebabs, which wouldn't have seemed likely to come from the same kitchen that boiled the bland potatoes. The meat was grilled perfectly. Still, I thought the hodgepodge of spices that marinated the chicken leaned a little more toward the salty side than my preference would allow. But now I understand why a boiled potato has a purpose on the table.

Jaydiohead

2009-05-14T18:01:00.001-07:00

If you dug "The Grey Album," Danger Mouse's remix of The Beatles' "White Album" with Jay-Z's "Black Album," then you'd get into Jaydiohead, which lays the rapper's rhymes over Radiohead's musical compositions. It's so un-PC of me to say this, but I love "99 Problems" and its Jaydiohead spin-off, "99 Anthems." I should revise the offensive line to say I got 99 problems but a bitchy attitude ain't one (unless you don’t get me the information I need before my story’s deadline).

Founding Farmers

2009-05-04T20:47:00.000-07:00

It's hard to turn a corner these days without stumbling across a restaurant that touts its menu of sustainable sustenance. Especially on the West Coast. But Miguelito and I found one in Washington we liked so much that we went there twice within five months. Our first trip to Founding Farmers, a restaurant owned by a collective of family farms, was in December with my brother. Our blood thinned by the SoCal sunshine, Miguelito and I trudged down 20th Street, wrapping our thin coats around us against the winter wind, toward the glass-encased restaurant. My brother was sitting at the bar, sipping a bourbon cocktail with a bacon lollipop (that is, bacon candied with cinnamon and brown sugar glaze on a stick). Sustainability can be decadent, after all.

Founding Farmers occupies a corner of the International Monetary Fund Building, about three blocks west of the White House. We didn't identify any politicos at the eatery, but we saw plenty of jars of preserved produce as we ascended the stairs to the second floor.

We thought the bread might have been communal for all to share, but we were too timid of carb-phobic Californians to walk up to tear off a chunk for ourselves.

Though the ceramic doves and glowing clouds were cute, I thought the decor was overkill. Do you need to remind people that you are striving to receive the gold certification in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system and that every day is Earth Day by bringing nature indoors? I don't think so.

Maybe it's because I grew up in South Carolina, but I think more restaurants should serve deviled eggs. The Hall at Palihouse in West Hollywood, Calif., used to until the new chef removed it from the menu. I forgave him for this transgression after I finished one of his plates of braised pig trotter stuffed with roasted sweetbreads and porcini mushrooms. These deviled eggs were one sign of how Founding Farmers tried to stay true to its roots planted south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Miguelito warmed his tummy with Founding Farmers' Southern interpretation of osso bucco.

I ordered fried chicken with waffles, macaroni and cheese, Southern greens and white gravy. Laden with food, our plates were so heavy that the waitress had a bit of trouble carrying everything to our table. That's why all my food shifted toward one side of the platter.

For dessert, the three of us shared a slice of red velvet cake with vanilla ice cream. Southern goodness! The sweet matched the Viktor & Rolf for H&M sweater that I gave my brother for Christmas a couple of years ago. My family digs food so much that we like to color-coordinate our clothes with our meals.

In April, Miguelito and I made our second visit to Founding Farmers with my parents. My dad decided to wear his sunglasses during the lunch. He said it was because he forgot his regular glasses in the car. I thought he wanted to be an Asian Rick Ross for a day.

My mom had a bowl of the beef barley soup.

Miguelito got the chicken pot pie. I need to find these shovel-like spoons to add to our wedding registry.

My dad ordered the meat loaf with chunky mashed potatoes and roasted cauliflower and broccoli. Stuffed with bread chunks, the meat loaf was moist and flavorful.

My mom also ordered a cheeseburger with French fries. Because the soup was so filling, she didn't even touch the burger, taking it home in a brown paper box. We all picked on the fries.

Founding Farmers serves the fish of the day with the customer's pick of sauces: sea salt, cracked pepper and fresh lemon; Meunière style; roasted hazelnut butter; or, Napa Provencàl. Our waitress recommended that I pair the pan-fried trout with the Meunière sauce. I did, and proceeded to clean my plate.

After lunch, I said good-bye to the bacon lollipops and little toy piggy until my next trip back to the East Coast.

Kanye's Community

2009-04-28T23:58:00.000-07:00

Ever since I introduced Miguelito to Kanye West's blog three months ago, he's been checking it daily. "I get all my cool shit from Kanye," he professed. I'm not worried about losing ground to Yeezy, but maybe I should consider changing my name to KhanhYe.

We All [Heart] Yoda

2009-04-27T14:35:00.001-07:00

I'm not the only one who liked Brian Lichtenberg's Yoda skirt. So did Hedi Slimane, the former Dior Homme designer who displayed the versatility of the bulbous bottom and Lichtenberg's other designs in a new photo essay. Skirt as mask? Sweater as burkha? Sure! It's as if a crew of California skater boys had spotted East Coast eccentric Edie Beale on the street one day and were inspired to start biting her style.

Taco Carts: Less Baggage, More Flavor

2009-04-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

Miguelito and I are on a mission to find a taco cart to cater our wedding this summer. Our short list includes El Galuzo, which is run by the president of La Asociación de Loncheros L.A. Familia Unida de CA, or the association of taco truck owners in Los Angeles.

A truck pulled El Galuzo into a lot in front of a warehouse sample sale some weeks ago. I wasn't brave enough to try the beef tongue so I stuck with carne asada and al pastor.

This was one of the most efficient kitchens on wheels I've ever seen. One side had the hot pot to heat the bubbling pot of meat. On the other, the tortillas were made to order.

Smack in the middle stood the cook, in easy reach of all the necessary ingredients.

A folding table was crowded with the tubs of salsa (avocado, verde and roja), radishes, halved key limes and a chopped medley of cilantro and onions. Plastic forks were also available for those like me who were too prissy to get their hands dirty.

I don't know how I'm going to handle eating a messy taco while wearing a white dress at my wedding reception. Maybe there's a market for fashionable bibs.

More Chocolate and Tar

2009-04-23T20:01:00.000-07:00

Last month, I wrote about my day with chocolate and tar. Tonight, after meeting the designer Valerj Pobega and her artist-husband, Mattia Biagi, at a party feting Raven Kauffman's exquisite handbag collection at Des Kohan, I learned that my glib headline about chocolate and tar holds deeper meaning. Biagi's childhood culinary adventures led to his working with the toxic material as an artist. "When I was a kid, I liked to dip things in chocolate," he explained. After moving to Southern California from Italy five years ago, he also became intrigued with the La Brea Tar Pits, which serve as tangible reminders that Los Angeles wasn't always Tinseltown. "I like the texture" of tar, said Biagi in a lilting Italian accent that belied his intimidating portfolio of tattoo art, including a black star stretched across his throat. If only he stuck with dipping shirts and hats in chocolate, we'd have edible art!

Cream Puffs Make a Bad Day Go 'Pouf'

2009-04-22T23:10:00.000-07:00

I like to relax by baking. Tonight, after a long, busy day (chastising a publicist, turning down two pitches and offending a designer by failing to call his boutique a "fashion house"), I made cream puffs. The recipe for the puff pastry comes from the Vietnamese-language cookbook that my mom bought in Saigon decades ago. It is the standard recipe for pate choux. To help make the puffs even puffier, I used Swans Down cake flour.

I also used mini cupcake tins. The standard-size tins would have worked. But I realized that the smaller the cream puff, the easier it is to pop into your mouth. Plus, you don't feel that bad if you eat more than one. Besides, I could never achieve the uniformity of Beard Papa's massive cream puffs.

What's also different with my cream puffs is the filling: It has cream cheese in it.

In addition to cream cheese, the filling also calls for instant vanilla pudding mix. I concede this does not sound very healthy or gourmet. I don't think the recipe for the filling came from my mom's cookbook. If it had, she could have started the trend for semi-homemade years before Sandra Lee did. Still, after tasting the cream cheese pudding, you'll have to agree that it is quite yummy.

It's important not to open the oven while the profiteroles are baking.

Otherwise, the pastry won't be able to build the equivalent of an edible bouffant.

It's also important to let the profiteroles cool completely before filling them with the cream cheese pudding. Some people use a pastry bag to pump the pudding into the profiterole. I prefer to cut the profiterole in half and spooning a dollop of pudding on the base to make a little sandwich.

Et voila! I usually don't include recipes because I'm too lazy to type them. But since this one is so easy and short, I've listed it here.

For the batter:
1/2 cup of butter
1 cup of water
1 cup of Swans Down cake flour
4 eggs.

Preheat the oven to 400 F. In a thick-bottomed sauce pan, melt the butter in the water. Turn off the heat. Add the cake flour and whip the mixture. Add the eggs one at a time while whipping the batter until smooth. Spoon into greased cupcake molds. Bake for 15 minutes.

For the filling:
1 3/4 cup of milk
8 ounces of cream cheese, softened
1 box of instant vanilla pudding.

With a hand mixer, beat the cream cheese in 1/2 cup of milk. Add the rest of the milk and the pudding mix. Beat until well-blended. Refrigerate the filling until it thickens and is ready to use.

Yield: 30 mini cream puffs

Soup Kitchen Fridays

2009-04-21T16:09:00.000-07:00

My friend Diana runs a blog called Affordable Los Angeles, listing fun things that you can do in the City of Angels without emptying your wallet. In honor of her service to the young, fabulous and broke, I'm spreading the word about Soup Kitchen Fridays, a new deal that The Edison introduced in the midst of the gravest fiscal crisis since the Great Depression (guess how many stories I've written in the past six months have included that phrase?). From 5 to 7 pm on Fridays, you can dine on free tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Gin and whiskey cost 35 cents. The irony is that, because of the Art Deco-style bar's dress code prohibiting athletic gear, flip-flops, T-shirts, collarless shirts and torn or baggy jeans, your outfit will probably cost a thousand times more than your tab, and Lindsay Lohan and the rest of the Balmain crowd will be forced to go down the street to drink beer at Haru Ulala.

East Meets West

2009-04-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

Last week, Miguelito and I flew to Virginia to perform the traditional Vietnamese engagement ceremony at my parents' house. It was a rough red-eye ride for me. Miguelito kept jabbing me with his elbow as he thumb-zapped trolls and zombies on his iTouch. Waiting for our luggage to roll down a creaky conveyor belt at Washington Dulles Airport, he asked if we would have pho for breakfast. I predicted that my dad would suggest that we get breakfast at McDonald's. Sure enough, my dad did just that. Somehow, a sausage McMuffin and hash brown patty helped ease our transition to suburbia.

After a nap, we woke up to a lunch of my mom's pho.

Vietnamese food would play a significant role in our weekend. It was not just because it's the only thing my mom cooks. But much of my family's socializing centers around a table overflowing with food. On our first night in Virginia, we would schedule the first meeting between Miguelito's mom and my parents at Four Sisters, a Vietnamese restaurant run by a classmate of my mom's from Vietnam.

At its previous location at Eden Center, Four Sisters, or Huong Que (translated in English as "scent of the homeland") to Vietnamese speakers, was quite popular with a wide variety of people, including Pres. George H.W. Bush. My family went there partly out of loyalty to the owner, who would scrummage for Vietnamese-language newspapers in the back and bring them to my dad at our table. At Four Sisters' new location at the Merrifield Town Center, the decor was much ritzier, with plush cloth banquettes and softly abstract paintings of maidens dancing in silky ao dai. The gentrification and removal from the Viet-concentrated Eden Center explained why our table was one of two occupied by Vietnamese folks. The rest were filled with non-Viets.

Miguelito's mom and mine didn't notice our neighbors. They were too busy getting to know each other.

The bottle of Relax Riesling helped loosen us up.
The tamarind soup would appeal to Southerners in both Vietnam and the U.S. -- it was sweet and filled with okra, in addition to tomatoes, shrimp, pineapple chunks and a spongy Vietnamese vegetable called bac ha.

The next day, Miguelito and I acted as guinea pigs for the beef ragout that my mom made for the lunch reception to follow our engagement ceremony. There were three primary ingredients: beef, carrots and tomatoes.

Miguelito liked the chunks of meat, but not the translucent tendon. He kept dumping the chewy bits into my bowl.

On the day after our engagement ceremony, my parents hosted a BBQ. I would have thought that they'd be exhausted after spending more than three days cooking and preparing for the engagement ceremony. But they called up my aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings to congregate around the table for more noshing.

They got help from the Korean grocery store, which had pre-marinated the thin strips of beef, my sister, who manned the grill, and my aunts, who brought over some dishes.

One aunt made conch soup.

We poured the tart soup over vermicelli noodles and garnished it with herbs, bean sprouts, red onions and a spritz of lime. Miguelito's friend from Minneapolis said it was the best soup he ever had.

Desserts aren't a forte for my Vietnamese clan. An acquaintance once asked why Vietnamese sweets had to be so slimy and phlegmy. Though the confections inherited from the French colonialists are quite tasty, the flan and cream puffs seem to be too heavy and rich to finish a Vietnamese meal enhanced by herbs, fresh vegetables and a subtlety that bridges the distance between China and Thailand. Miguelito and I satisfied our sweet tooth at Hook in Georgetown. The chef, Heather Chittum, who was named pastry chef of the year, filled a chocolate cake sandwich with marshmellow fluff. Dubbed Makin' Whoopie, the treat was a gourmet Oreo.

The $8 price tag didn't deter me from playing with my food. I decided that, from now on, the more the dish costs, the more fun I will have with it.

Working Overtime

2009-04-07T23:31:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, I worked some overtime covering a party at the Bar Marmont. It was a 12-hour day for me, but I wasn't complaining. I got to explore Charlotte Ronson's Closet, munch on sliders and onion rings courtesy of J.C. Penney and groove off tunes that Charlotte's big brother, the Grammy-winning producer Mark, played with his all-star friends.

Daniel Merriweather jumped on the stage first. He struck me as the post-Amy Winehouse discovery for Mark. Merriweather's baby face and bouffant belied an old-school baritone that was soothing and nostalgic.

The Sartorialist has highlighted Europeans' knack for layering a denim jacket under a tailored blazer. The Australian-native Merriweather gave his own interpretation of the trend.

Next up was Plastic Little, Philly rappers who weren't afraid of dropping f-bombs. As Mark noted, "J.C. Penney brings out all the pottymouth rappers — I fucking love it!"

Halfway through one of Plastic Little's songs, Simon Rex lent a hand (that is, the one that wasn't clasping a wine glass) to spewing some of the profane rhymes.

Alex Greenwald from Phantom Planet went for a PG rating for his cover of Radiohead's "Just." At one point, he tried to walk on the wire supporting the big black tent erected on the parking lot next to Bar Marmont. Fortunately for those of us standing directly underneath in front of the stage, he squatted on the speaker, taunting us with his petulant pout.

Talia rocked droopy pants.

Then there was Sam Sparro singing his hit, "Black and Gold," in a striped T-shirt under a shiny jacket. Now I know why so many gay men and straight women dig him. He's a snazzy dresser and fearless booty shaker. His song is catchy, too. But for some reason, his video reminds me a lot of Taco's "Puttin' on the Ritz." It must be the tuxedos, top hats and stylized dance routines.

For the finale, everyone jumped on stage. Not a bad way to work overtime on a Friday night.

Pilgrimage to the Bazaar

2009-04-01T20:46:00.001-07:00

For weeks, I have been looking forward to dinner at The Bazaar, the restaurant that Jose Andres opened last year in the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. I had heard about cotton candy foie gras, global gourmet carts and maybe even something about food being delivered on a white elephant. It sounded like a Mecca for foodies. This was the sign above La Cienega Boulevard indicating that salvation was near.

SLS doesn't stand for subtlety, limits or softness. It's more along the lines of surfeit, louche and sardonic. This was the entrance to the restaurant.

The framed painting was actually an electronic screen that switches between images of a Renaissance monkey-gentleman and a portly prince every few minutes.

Amidst the animals ensconced within the Phillipe Stark-designed rooms, there were other design details that made you go on a mind trip: Industrial Age-era electric lights, mirrored ceilings, chic photos of sporty flappers and long strands of pearl. It looked like the set-up for a house shared by Thomas Edison and Clara Bow.

One of the people I dined with has fatal allergies to nuts and other food. Never fear, waitress Tina was there. Our server was not only knowledgeable of every single item on the menu, steering my friend away from the dishes that would have landed her in the ER. But Tina was also attentive and sincere. Those are important traits lacking in so many of the actors-models-servers working at L.A. restaurants. Good service can never be discounted. That's why it's called a dining experience: it's about the food, decor, ambiance and service.

A couple of months ago, I wrote about spherication. Tonight, I finally got to try it with Andres' caprese salad. While the tomatoes were the real deal, blanched and peeled, the mozzarella wasn't the expected. Instead, they were liquified and then spherified into a white circle whose thin membrane prevented the squishy interior from flooding the plate.

This is the beautiful close-up of the salad. Sadly to say, it received an A+ for presentation and a B for flavor. It was just bland.

I don't remember the names of the cheeses that we ordered to eat with the ham. The toast was a pleasant surprise. Crispy on the outside and soft in the middle, even so 20 minutes after it arrived at the table, the toast was smeared with a tomato jelly.

This looks like what the Flinstones would have eaten for breakfast if they were foodies. Inside the eggshell, painted a shade of slate one bit lighter than the rock on which it was served, were layers of potatoes, crispy meat and eggs. It was breakfast in a little cup.
.
It's also a fine example of controlled chaos.

Dubbed Japanese tacos, the rolls of daikon, lettuce and smoked eel were texturally unappealing. I was expecting more of a crunch from the shell, not a slippery disc that unrolled so easily. The eel was cooked to smoky perfection, however.

Alas, the elusive cotton candy foie gras was in my grasp. The breakdown of the $5 treat went like this: foie gras on a stick, fluff of cotton candy wrapped around it. True, it sounded like a gross combo. If you think about it, it's not a strange a concept as spreading fig preserves on a piece of toast with foie gras. We were instructed to eat the delicacy in one gulp.

One bite of foie gras wasn't enough. So we ordered foie gras burgers.

From top to bottom, the layers comprised fleur de sel, brioche bun, quince paste, foie gras and brioche bun.

Here are more foods on sticks: watermelon skewered with the cores and seeds of tomatoes, enhanced with salt, edible flowers and an exotic-sounding sauce. I had a quick flashback to the summers when my cousins and I sprinkled salt on watermelon. That's the Vietnamese way of bringing out the fruit's sweetness.

This might look like negi toro sushi. It's actually a Philly cheesesteak. A blowtorch provided the little burst of fire to sear the wagyu beef.

Underneath the thin slice of delicate beef was an oblong-shaped crust filled with cream cheese.

We also gave the hilly steak a try. It's the vegetarian version of the Philly cheesesteak. Slivers of mushrooms replaced the beef. It wasn't as good as the carnivorous concoction.

Here are more mushrooms, sauteed in salt and olive oil.

I wasn't quick enough with my camera to photograph the smoked salmon plate when it arrived at our table. It was presented under a glass dome filled with smoke. After lifting the dome, the waiter used his hands to dissipate the smoke. The problem was, so many people ordered this popular dish that the room started to smell a bit like a smoker's lounge. The chickpea pancake underneath was a little too brown, as well. The smoked salmon was cooked perfectly. The softened circles of fennel moved the flavors to another zone of lightness and satisfaction.

Doesn't this look like a scene from "Harry Potter"? It's actually a bartender whipping up a caipirinha with liquid nitrogen. He poured the lime juice and cachaça into a metal bowl and chased it with the liquid nitrogen from the ice-coated pitcher. He stirred the liquid mixture for a minute or so until it turned into ice.

He sprinkled edible flowers and tarragon, along with freshly grated lemon zest, on top of the spiked slushee.

I couldn't figure out why candy would cost $2.50 apiece. Perhaps Andres uses real gold flakes?

From the same dessert menu, we found a nitro coconut floating island that fit the budget. Glazed banana slices supported the mound above the puddle of pureed passion fruit. The little brown swirls yielded an inkling of coffee.

One of my friends said it reminded her of "Super Mario 2."

Our senses continued to be entertained after dinner on a walk through the gift shop-lobby furnished by an eccentric interior shop called Moss. Is this the beloved chihuahua that Mickey Rourke lost a few months ago?

This was cruel and unusual punishment for the teddy bears. PETA should be alerted.

My relationship isn't dysfunctional enough for me to buy these stamps.

Maybe I should make another stamp that reads, "My mind." That way, I could make different statements according to my mood. There's "But I've changed! My mind." Or even, "My mind. It wasn't my fault!"

Gary Baseman's Eyes

2009-03-28T16:11:00.000-07:00

I got my first glimpse of what the world looked like through Gary Baseman's eyes when I played Cranium seven years ago. At the time, I didn't realize that the creatively klutzy drawings were done by the Los Angeles-based artist. Miguelito had his own run-in with Baseman when he tried to pitch a Cranium-based show to Miguelito and other studio execs in Hollywood. Unfortunately, the suits were on the hunt for mindless entertainment to sell toys to boys. Baseman's brainy show found no takers that day. Unfazed, the artist moved on to other media on which to display his artistic talents. Here's one of the three candy cases that Baseman created for Hint Mint.

A regular at Dominick's, the homey Italian restaurant in West Hollywood, Baseman made a special drawing for the house wine. Upon first glance, the ephemeral illustration of a fairy and her butterfly buddy reminded me of Aya Takano's work. I'm tempted to return next Sunday just so that I can order the $10 bottle of red and save it for the label.

Chicks with Knives But No Waiters

2009-03-27T20:42:00.000-07:00

Some weeks ago, I attended a dinner party organized by Chicks With Knives at Phyllis Stein Gallery. I had no idea what CWK's agenda was, other than that they offered a four-course meal for $45. But I wanted to support my friend Bil, who's one of the principals at the downtown art space. On this particular night, the chefs served raw oysters, chicken consomme with watercress, sausages seasoned with garlic and marjoram and an apple torte a la mode.

The menu was promising. And the ambiance -- dining under Deborah Martin's realistic paintings inspired by Polaroids she took on a cross-country trip to Small Town, U.S.A. -- was enlightening. The service, however, left much to be desired. CWK could only boast, until that night, of cooking for a maximum of 40 people in private homes. The double row of tables arranged in the gallery seated about 70 people. As such, the oysters came out grainy. That was the first cue that the night would be a rough one.

CWK wisely asked guests to BYOB. With Miguelito in New York for work, I rolled solo with a bottle of Perrier and a split of Piper-Heidsieck.

Disadvantaged by a ratio of about 3 servers to more than 70 guests, CWK was tardy in delivering the dishes. The consomme, clogged with tender bits of chicken and fresh watercress leaves, was lukewarm. Otherwise, it was flavorful and pleasant.

The circumstances for proper service were so dire that my tablemates and I had to schlepp our own sausages from the makeshift kitchen in the back of the gallery. Sadly, they arrived cool to the table. It was a pity because the mess of meat with sauerkraut, white beans and baby carrots was yummy.

In continuing with the theme of experimentation, the gallery owners arranged for one of their leggy friends to perform a high-end burlesque act choreographed to an urban dirge by Grizzly Bear. One minute, she cut a striking figure in a red jumpsuit. The next, she stripped down to Marilyn Monroe-worthy skivvies. One could argue that her performance embodied the mandate of The Food and Music Club. Yet, I would prefer to have any flesh exposed after my entire meal ended.

Our private dancer left a trail of blue glitter on the tables.

Finally, we were served a dish that was best when cold: a torte piled with thin slices of apple marinated for 24 hours and vanilla bean ice cream.

Clubbing in the Caves

2009-03-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, at Brian Lichtenberg's runway show that closed Los Angeles Fashion Week, I quietly prayed that the presentation would start as late as possible. That's because I wanted to spend as much time as possible gaping at the club kids who crowded the front row.

On this particular night, the guys outshone the girls in their silver lame sneakers.

The scruffies also nonchalantly mixed textures, for instance, quilted leather with pintucks on cotton.

A fake fur stole helped transform a camou wife beater into an evening look.

This fellow almost impaled his neighbors with his ninja deathstar headpiece.

Sometime in the late Seventies, Michael Jackson and Sid Vicious spawned this hipster.

As for the girls, they showed lots of leg. I'm not sure where this particular kitten drew her inspiration to pair a white tutu with orange Dr. Martens. The most polite way to describe this aesthetic is kooky skanky.

Mark "The Cobrasnake" Hunter also chose to reveal more than necessary, donning a sheer patchwork shirt over tie-dye jeans. I used to think he was a more goofy version of Dov Charney, what with his camera constantly aimed at PYTs. With this getup, he's channeling Ron Jeremy.

At last, people took their seats to welcome Lichtenberg's muses. Often hailed as the next Jeremy Scott, Lichtenberg has a knack for creating fun frocks to wear dancing all night long. He stayed true to his Eighties roots, even when jumping back a million years to the Neanderthal era. Think of Daryl Hannah from "The Clan of the Cave Bear," reincarnated as a Balmain girl.

The Star Wars geek in me loved the giant stuffed Yoda head attached to the mini skirt.

I am such a Yoda fan that seven years ago, when a movie critic at a newspaper where I used to work reviewed "Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones," I begged an editor to send me the pointillistic portrait of Yoda that the paper's art department created. I'll always remember Pauline Kael's succinct description of the little green dude: He looks like a wonton and talks like a fortune cookie.

Cutouts for a cutie.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the emerging trend of accessories for accessories. After all, in a recession, even shoes can do with a bit of refreshing. Here, it's Mondrianesque spats.

This looks like a hula skirt for the ankle, according to Miguelito.

Indeed, Miguelito said the brown shag gave him a flashback to when he was 9 years old, visiting the musk ox exhibit at the Minnesota Zoo.

Lichtenberg's designs could be deemed unisex. That is, if you're a very skinny and brave boy. Though this knit tunic reeks of Rodarte, club kids of any gender will surely eat it up.

Chocolate and Tar

2009-03-23T20:18:00.000-07:00

Last week, I received a surprise package of MarieBelle chocolates. A gift from a designer, the iced box included a stylish lunchbox filled with packets of Aztec hot chocolate and a neatly tied box of truffles. Just a shade hipper than Tiffany's signature blue, the combination of azure, copper and brown brightened my paper-infested cubicle.

Inside the box, the chocolates were even brighter and more colorful. I'm not sure how the pictures were painted on the thumb-size squares. The tableaux vivants imagined various scenarios summoning different flavors and disparate emotions. The woman walking briskly while holding onto her hat on a windy day must have just had a shot of espresso. The curvy swirls went down as comfortingly as a cup of Earl Grey tea. The stockinged legs were bared after a gaggle of girlfriends kicked off their shoes drinking a round -- or three -- of pineapple daiquiris. The package didn't arrive a minute too soon. I feasted on the cacao after a stressful day polishing the bureau's page-one story for the next day's paper.

My senses continued on a dark path to Valerj Pobega's fashion presentation. A dark-haired beauty raised in Sardinia, Pobega is married to Mattia Biagi, an Italian artist who stands his own ground in the style department. The couple collaborated on the fashion and art installation shown inside Biagi's ginormous gallery. Pobega staked a small circle in which she displayed her long, languid gowns. The black one-shouldered sheath was too pedestrian for someone as sophisticated and cosmopolitan as Pobega. I liked the frock that was pitch black in the front and sheer in the back.

The rest of the brick-lined gallery was filled with white shirts, hats and sneakers. Sounds boring? Hardly, if you consider that some of the pristine pieces were dipped in black tar.

This looks like something that Wednesday Addams would have hung on the line to dry so that she could wear it to school tomorrow.

Privacy Policy

2009-03-18T23:43:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed the pop of orange at the top of this blog? Those are ads enabled by Google. I recently learned that I need to modify my privacy policy to include the following information regarding ads. I actually have never posted a privacy policy. So I'm just going to list what Google wants me to convey to you.

* Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on this site.
* Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to users based on their visit to this site and other sites on the Internet.
* Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

Carine on CNN

2009-03-18T16:34:00.000-07:00

I'm still cuckoo for Carine Roitfeld, the editor in chief at Vogue Paris. I feel disloyal that I'm way behind on reading the French glossy. The one edited by Princess Stephanie of Monaco is gathering dust and the current issue with Lara Stone on the cover is sitting in the magazine rack next to the toilette. Mon dieu! I liked how Roitfeld rationalized staging a fashion shoot at a French agricultural show. Why not accessorize couture dresses with couture farm animals? Bien sur! Here's the CNN profile divided into three sections

I Heart Carine

2009-03-17T16:29:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned before, I'm slightly obsessed with the French Vogue staff headed by Carine Roitfeld. CNN has posted snippets of its profile on the Paris-based glossy's editor in chief. Scheduled to air on Wednesday, the segment will serve as inspiration for how I should handle the rest of Los Angeles Fashion Week.

Riesen, Veggie Leather and Blinis

2009-03-16T21:57:00.000-07:00

Fashion designers have been mining the art world for inspiration for decades. Collaborations with artists also have picked up steam over the last few seasons. On Sunday, I was on my way to see a fashion presentation-cum-art installation at a photo studio. Along the way, I spotted this mural injecting hope and life into a rough strip of South La Brea Avenue.

I also came across this courtyard that housed an adorable pair of statues. They remind me of Ruben and Isabel Toledo.

At last, I arrived at the studio where the fashion label Whitley Kros set up an art installation comprising of pieces from its fall collection with bits of Riesen chocolates, Polaroids and Post-Its. The walk-in inspiration board was the creation of Whitley Kros, a fictitious girl who was prepping to jet to Eastern Europe. It was a good thing the installation was already in a disheveled state. The hyper toddlers who ran circles around the room didn't have to worry about putting anything back in its proper place. Also milling about was a beardless Devendra Banhart, who could be prep's new rep in a purple sweater, white jeans and pink Keds. Chan Marshall/Cat Power was in the house, as well.

This jacket combined the trends for plaid and motorcycle jackets.

I wore Dr. Martens when I trekked across France during my junior year abroad. But they were a reliable black, not a whimsical baby blue like these boots.

This is one of Whitley Kros' designers, Marissa Ribisi, who's married to the musician Beck.

On the other side of town, a crew of designers staged their runway shows at the Los Angeles Theatre. The Battalion is one of the funkier eco-friendly lines. It incorporated faux fur into its collection inspired by American colonial explorers, the French Libertines and native Americans. Still, I don't get why the designers, Linda and Chrys Wong, packed gray headbands in their gift bags.

I liked the veggie leather that they cut into vests and leggings.
The flare is going the way of the mammoth. Skinny legs are here to stay. So is the Goth girl, who was molded in myriad forms by designers from Los Angeles to Paris. This is The Battalion's noir nymph.

This is Maxine Dillon's version of dark drainpipes.

The Goth girl took a trip to Russia for Single's presentation at the Russian resto Maxim. Don't you feel like you're floating inside an amber bubble?

The bubble burst when a bartender asked me brusquely in a thick Russian accent what I wanted to drink. Despite the brut label, the champagne was a little too fruity, as if it was aCalifornia sparkling wine. I should have asked for vodka.

The vodka would have gone nicely with the Russian buffet: caviar with blinis, eggplant stuffed with crushed walnuts, Buffalo mozzarella-caprese salad, cubed beets, chicken salad and the Slavic version of baba ganoush. I scarfed this all down while the stereo speakers blared a Russian cover of "Those Were the Days, My Friend."

The Single girl may be dark this season but she still glows with glamor.

The audience also liked to shimmer, right down to their shoes.

Saturday of Spontaneity

2009-03-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

After a series of missed meetings with out-of-town visitors and aging punk rockers, Miguelito and I decided to spend our Saturday night sans a set schedule. The burst of spontaneity first threw us into the middle of a party feting the opening of Society for Rational Dress' new store in downtown L.A. The coolest person there was a 2-year-old girl who wore a big smile, pigtails, a striped oxford, brown leggings, sparkly legwarmers and Velcro sneaks that glinted in metallic pink. Shamed by her spirit and style savvy, Miguelito and I dashed to a mini concert that The Bird and the Bee was scheduled to play at a fashion showroom. The fire marshal prevented us from entering the venue. We made the most of loitering in the dingy alley behind the building by accosting Quest Crew, aka America's Best Dance Crew. Four of the seven members in the all-Asian group were hush-hush about their next venture -- something about a movie -- but they were sweet enough to honor my fangirl request for a photo with them. True to their rep, they drove away in a black lowrider.

Feeling peckish, Miguelito and I had to think of a place for dinner. We had ODed on Asian food after our previous post-fashion meal at Chosun Galbee so we drove to the gritty Toy District to check out Church & State. No one had told the packed restaurant that there was a recession. Buffered by attempts to sit at the overflowing bar, I spotted a lone table on the brick patio. With no heat lamp looming above, the table was probably intended as a refuge for smokers. Miguelito and I commandeered it. Our strategy to withstand the cold was to order lots of hot dishes, starting with French onion soup.

We were a second away from ordering the fried pig's ears until we reverted to our marrow obsession and ordered the roasted bones. This was the first time I saw it split in half lengthwise. The accompanying salad was also different. Instead of the usual medley of Italian parsley, onions and capers, we had cubed radishes and parsley. The radishes offered a crisp bite that offset the rich marrow. What if someone had tried some sort of spread made out of wasabi for the marrow?

Though we were stuck in the restaurant's equivalent of Siberia, we never felt deprived of attention from the servers. A steady stream of them came to check on how we were doing. Miguelito's theory was that the servers, unlike their bozo counterparts at other restaurants in L.A., were trained well to be attentive, always in anticipation of the customers' needs. Also, because the inside of the restaurant was so hot and loud from the lively patrons, the servers probably thought it was a relief to go check on the two of us outside. They came out right away with our sizzling croque fromage, a panini filled with a melted motley of Gruyere and other cheese, caramelized onions and grainy mustard. The flood of Dijon vinaigrette dressing on the salad made it too hard to eat, however.

Sticking with our "shared snacks" strategy, Miguelito and I ordered half a plate of the grilled sea bass with capers and spinach. It was delicious. We gobbled it up so fast that our waiter, Kyle, asked if we wanted the other half of the plate. We declined, but we wrote him and the hostess, Michelle, a rave review for their bosses to read. Fortified by the yummy food, we braced ourselves for karaoke chaos at Alejandra's 26th birthday party in Koreatown.

It's Liftoff!

2009-03-14T16:40:00.000-07:00

It's L.A. Fashion Week! The semiannual circuit of parties, catwalk struts and store soirees kicked off Friday with the GenArt-BoxEIGHT fashion show. Miguelito had to sit separately from me at the Los Angeles Theatre but we both had fun gazing at the fall collections from Grai, Society for Rational Dress and Raquel Allegra. Rather than focusing on brand new labels, GenArt decided this season to highlight mid-term companies that have been in business for at least two years. It was a smart decision because fashion companies need help the most when they hit the three to five year mark. To borrow a Hollywood metaphor, they no longer generate the buzz as an ingenue would but they also haven't yet developed the chops a la Christian Bale and Kate Winslet.

The photographers were ready to shoot from the back of the renovated Los Angeles Theatre.

The theater's French baroque ceiling met modernity through the scaffolding supporting the white-hot lights for the photographers.

Miguelito described Grai's collection of darkly tinted leather and jersey as Goth PJs. I thought it was a blend of Rick Owens and Undercover, with a smattering of handlebar mustaches for the men. The last exit, a dress that gushed yards of black fabric from a tightly wound waist, could have hung in Princess Leia's closet if she were a Goth girl. I really liked the gold-dusted pullover cropped at the chest, which evoked a casual version of the cropped trenches that Comme des Garcons showed in Paris some days ago. It also aligned with my fascination for cape-like silhouettes.

The second label was Society for Rational Dress. I own a couple of pieces from this line, because I like the way the designer, Corinne Grassini, toughens slinky jersey and silk chiffon with chains and leather harnesses. But I thought the collection's proportions seemed slightly off in this presentation. To distract the audience from the mismatched lengths, two drummers banged on their kits at the front of the runway.

Raquel Allegra presented the finale of the night. She started her business by slashing oversize white Ts manufactured by prisoners in California into provocative tops that hipster girls would wear over leggings. Her webby knits have evolved to include dresses and a palette of ombres. The Western hats here evoked a dark Deadwood. Somehow it worked because her collection was coherent, relevant and solid to withstand that sardonic styling decision. I thought it was an urban but more affordable and wearable version of Rodarte. It would be nice to see Allegra progress even more to jackets, pants and skirts. Still, Allegra got thumbs-up from the audience, including the daughter of Diesel's co-founder.

Gazing at all those skinny models made me and Miguelito hungry. We hightailed it to Chosun Galbee for spare ribs marinated in a special soy sauce. We chose Korean BBQ because I was craving greens. The logic may escape you, but the multitudes of little plates that are commonly served at Korean restaurants helped me sample at least 10 different types of vegetables.

Miguelito and I were too lazy to grill the meat ourselves so we asked the cooks in the kitchen to do the dirty work for us.

The sweetened ginger rice-corn tea was the perfect ending for a long night of frivolity.

Meals on Wheels

2009-03-12T20:37:00.000-07:00

Miguelito and I have been testing a variety of meals served on wheels throughout Los Angeles. Part of the reason is to find a taco truck to cater a party. The other part is that we're too lazy, tired or cheap to pay for full service at a sit-down eatery. We passed this hot dog truck a few times on Glendale Boulevard. One night, when it was too late to order crispy whole shrimp and grilled pork with noodles at Gingergrass, we crossed the street to the Let's Be Frank truck.

The menu is simple: pork bratwursts or grass-fed beef hot dogs. Anything more complicated would confuse the crowd who wander hungry out of the Silver Lake Wine Shop, don't like poking wieners with toothpicks at the Red Lion Tavern or need something substantial to balance the PBR flowing freely from Ghettogloss.

I ordered the brat loaded with sauerkraut, mustard and grilled onions. Miguelito and I shared it while sitting on black chairs set up on the sidewalk. He let me have the last bite.

Phoenix, France

2009-03-06T22:00:00.000-08:00

The French rock band Phoenix is offering free downloads of its new single, "1901." Dropping on May 25, the band's new album is called Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. It could have been called Paul McCartney Phoenix because the first song includes a snippet that reminds me of the fluffy build-up in Wings' "Silly Love Songs." I still like it.

Gordon Ramsay at The London

2009-03-01T15:25:00.000-08:00

Last week, my friend Isabel, who's also a fellow betrothed, suggested that we have dinner together to catch up and exchange wedding planning tips. I had the brilliant idea of meeting at Cecchino's, which offered a special half-off discount for all food during the first week of its grand opening. Well, it turned out that half of L.A. had the same great idea. By 7:50 p.m. on Wednesday, the hostess had stopped taking names for unreserved seats. We were welcome to dine at the bar, which was packed four-deep. Though I spotted an empty table here and there, I couldn't cope with having a meal in a madhouse. So I told Isabel that we should take a detour to Gordon Ramsay at the London. I awaited my girlfriend's arrival with a lavender caiperjito at an amoeba-shaped marble table.

With the restaurant a third full, we got a pick of tables. I always thought the restaurant's decor was a little too precious for a pumped-up prick like Ramsay (at least how he's portrayed on "Hell's Kitchen.") The shiny brass trims, curved banquettes and plump white leather cushions appeared borrowed from a socialite's dressing room. The private rooms didn't seem so private with their see-through doors and walls. Once, when I pretended to be a lady who lunches on the daytime prix-fixe menu, I spotted the rapper Ne-Yo and his crew enjoying Ramsay's grub, preening like samurai fighting fish challenging each other in a glass bowl. They must have enjoyed the seaweed butter and traditional butter flavored with Maldon sea salt.

I tried to design a yin-yang pattern on my slice of bacon and onion baguette with the two butters.

One day shy of being freed from the Vietnamese superstition of abstaining from duck during the first month of the lunar new year, I relinquished my smudge of foie gras mousse placed on the bottom right hand corner of the plate on which my rabbit terrine was served. Isabel, who helped me start the Foie Faction, happily relieved me of my foie. The crunch of the pickled onions and cauliflower offset the softness of the bunny meat roll and the airiness of the brioche toast.

I continued to offend Walt Disney with my carnage of cute fuzzy animals by ordering sweetbreads for my entree. While the lavender caiperjito provided a tropical recess from the rabbit, I switched to a chinon rose wine for my main course. On the plate, a crinkly mass of mushrooms exuded a feral fecundity to balance the creamy sweetbreads. No matter how contradictory I might think Ramsay's personality and the London's decor are, I have to give props to the British chef. He's my new go-to guy for cooking unusual meat in L.A.

Tcho

2009-02-27T12:52:00.000-08:00

Tcho is a Japanese prefix that means "mega," "ultra," or "super." In other words, cho kawaii is translated as super cute, while cho kako ii is ultra good-looking. There's a new line of artisanal chocolates from San Francisco called Tcho. I don't know how the founders derived the name. The packaging is playfully stylish, matching the size and palette of my Comme des Garcons wallet. The bright pinwheel on the back indicates the different flavors: chocolatey, nutty, earthy, floral, fruity, citrus. Thanks to my friend Mai, who is also pictured on the company's Web site, I got samples of nutty and fruity. I had assumed there would be little bits of nuts and fruits, a la Scharffen Berger's cacao nibs. But Tcho's square-shaped chocolate bar was smooth and rich. Very subtle. The percentage of cacao fell just shy of the 70 percentile needed to make it good for you in terms of the concentration of antioxidants. Personally, I prefer my chocolate to have more character and depth. Still, Tcho is the hip, indie rocker equivalent to Hershey's Rolling Stones and Scharffen Berger's Coldplay.

Viva Las Vegas!

2009-02-20T22:09:00.000-08:00

I survived the latest run of my semiannual trips to Sin City. This was the first time that I saw rain fall on the desert metropolis.

There's no denying that the number of tourists, retail sales, gambling receipts and any other type of commercial activity that has fueled the city's boom through the last few years are significantly down. Still, Las Vegas was far from a ghost town. A steady flow of tourists moved through the halls of the Palazzo. I laughed at one Asian tourist who snapped a shot of one of the Palazzo's restrooms. Then I remembered that I took a photo of Morels' cheese display. The joke's on me!

Las Vegas is often the first -- or second -- choice for famed restaurateurs to launch new ventures on the West Coast. Wolfgang Puck went East to this city after opening Cut in Beverly Hills. After a long, harried day of reporting on the sprawling trade show floor, I nourished myself with lots of protein and crisp greens at Cut. There were bone marrow flan served with Italian parsley salad, capers and shallots, steak tartare accessorized with a raw quail egg and a butter leaf lettuce salad. I very much prefer this way of serving bone marrow. Usually, when the bones are simply roasted, the marrow can seem a bit insubstantial despite its fluffy fatness. By scooping out the marrow and baking it as a creamy flan inside the bone, the chef elevated the barbaric act of feeding on blood.

Miguelito tagged along with me again to Las Vegas. This is his third trip. As a belated Valentine's Day present, he bought a pair of what I'd describe as colorful corsages for shoes. Made by our friend, Alejandra, and her BFF, Rana, the soft puffs of silk fabric are attached to a trio of elastic bands that slip over the shoe. In honor of their Argentine-Peruvian-Persian roots, Alejandra and Rana named their company Boos & Besito, meaning kiss in Farsi and Spanish, respectively.

The shoe corsages make my $16.99 patent leather flats from Payless ShoeSource look far more expensive and spectacular.

I wore my dancing shoes to the Pool Trade Show party at the Beauty Bar. This is the photo shoot that Jiro staged for the hip guests.

On the following night, Miguelito and I decided at the last minute to go to True Religion's party at LAX in the Luxor, where Ludacris was slated to perform. We didn't have the patience to wait with the bridge-and-tunnel-like mob assembled in front of the club. So a bouncer told us that we could sneak through the back entrance with the wristbands that True Religion gave me. Walking around the circumference of the pyramid-shaped hotel, I felt like one of Richard Nixon's burgling henchmen. We had to walk through the men's restroom before we arrived in the lounge that offered free Ketel One. Too tired to stick around for Ludacris, Miguelito and I staged some stupid photo shoots of our own. Here's Miguelito in his sphinx pose.

Here he is impersonating the enigmatic Criss Angel in front of the illusionist's slick SUV.

After Miguelito bailed for L.A., I had dinner at B&B Ristorante with some friends. This is the display at the hostess's stand. It's just a friendly reminder that Mario Batali co-owns the restaurant. Though consistent with Batali's color of choice, the Crocs appeared to be three sizes too small to be actually worn by the jolly chef. Plus, they were clean. The hostess confirmed that the shoes weren't Batali's. I don't know why they didn't hang a fleece vest next to the shoes. Last year, when I met Batali at a party for some fancy watches that he made with Switzerland's Ernst Benz, he paired the orange Crocs with an olive-colored fleece vest and khaki cargo shorts; his cheeks were red.

Back in L.A. on Friday, I had to detox with some Vietnamese food. At Viet Noodle Bar, I tried the noodles with chicken, eggs and pork sausage.

The fried shrimp rolls were an excuse for eating lettuce.

Not done with being social, I dragged Miguelito to the party feting the launch of perfumes created by Alexandre Herchcovitch, Bernhard Willhelm, Cosmic Wonder Light Source, Gareth Pugh, Jeremy Scott and Preen by Thornton Bregazzi at Space 15 Twenty in Hollywood. The cool kids wore feather headpieces, preppy shorts, shredded tights and a sweater knitted with tantalizing images of super-size French fries.

We skipped the macaroons and Sofia sparkling wine served in miniature pink cans. We saved our appetites for the Kogi Korean BBQ taco truck, which parked itself in front of the Japanese-American National Museum. This was my second Kogi meal in three weeks. Since I had my boy with me, we were able to order twice as much. We ate kimchee quesadillas and tacos topped with spicy tofu, Korean short ribs and spicy pork. The little chunks of oranges cleansed our palettes for frozen yogurt from CeFiore. There's no place like home!

Giorgio Armani on Cooking Pasta

2009-02-16T17:03:00.001-08:00

The New York Times got Giorgio Armani to blog about his latest visit to Manhattan. He talked about everything you'd expect in the charmed life of a rich, famous Italian: first-class air travel, hiring a private driver in a foreign country, fashion, beauty sleep, autographs, nightclubs, penthouse views. One thing I got a kick out of was his advice to Americans for cooking pasta:

"Americans overcook their pasta. Always. And there’s too much sauce. Too much of everything! Please, try to control yourselves."

I tried to heed his words last night, when I made shrimp with fetuccine in a spicy cream sauce. But Miguelito pleaded that I make the noodles a little softer. I did, and now, through Armani, I feel vindicated.

A Lesson in Spherication

2009-02-11T22:13:00.000-08:00

Have you heard the buzz about spherication? "Spheri wha?" you might ask. Spherication is a cooking technique that, through a chemical reaction enabled by algin and calcic, turns a liquid into a gel-like ball with a thin membrane on the outside. In other words, you can turn any kind of puree or liquid into a wiggly mass resembling an uncooked egg yolk. From what I've heard, the intensity of the flavor within the sphere is immense. I've never tried spherication myself. I just like watching other people do it. If I ever do get ambitious in the kitchen, I'll try the recipes that El Bulli, the Mecca of molecular gastronomy, posted on its Web site. Ole!

Kogi on a Rainy Night

2009-02-05T21:52:00.000-08:00

Today I joined Twitter just so that I could track the whereabouts of the Kogi Korean BBQ taco truck. Is that foodie-crazy or what? It was worth the effort, however. I may be late to the Twitter game, but now I am in the know about where to get $2 tacos topped with beef, spicy pork, chicken and tofu -- all grilled Korean-style and topped with a zesty slaw. I traced the truck to Little Tokyo, where it was parked in front of the Japanese-American National Museum. Right next to it was an identical truck dubbed Baby Kogi, the newest addition to the mobile culinary family.

The truck had an ice box cooling the radishes, lime slices and Pacifico beer. I wished it also had offered some avocado, which would have been a smooth addition to the chicken taco. I liked the beef taco the best. The disadvantage of dining at a taco truck was that it didn't provide any cover from the winter rain falling on the City of Angels. I found shelter for my paper box of tacos under a canopy in front of a closed shop. As I scarfed down the messy treats, a tall blond guy walked by with his petite brunette girlfriend. "Kogi?" he asked me. "Is it good?" With my mouth full, all I could do was nod my head.

Online Cooking School

2009-01-19T23:10:00.000-08:00

My friend Jesse alerted me to a new online cooking school called Rouxbe, whose mandate is to focus on food, rather than celebrities. I don't mind the celebrities on The Food Network and Top Chef. I do wonder how difficult it will be to not burn myself while watching a recipe video instructing me to sear scallops and serve them atop baby spinach with a warm bacon sherry vinaigrette. The best part of Rouxbe is the section called Drill-downs, which teaches cooking fundamentals such as how to remove chicken tendons and deglaze. Needless to say, I won't quit my day job.

Freebies

2009-01-04T17:43:00.000-08:00

Covering black-tie galas can be simultaneously fun and stressful. The fun part comes from eating fancy food on fine porcelain plates. The stressful moment comes from departing the table suddenly to chase a quote from celebrity leaving the party early. At one recent party in Beverly Hills, Calif., I nibbled on antipasti while Scott Weiland sang a few ditties in a three-piece suit accessorized with a red Fedora and leopard-print belt.

Then came the main musical course. You got Daryl Hall...

with John Oates...

for Hall and Oates!

The duo's Eighties hits worked up the fashion crowd in such a frenzy that several ladies spun on the lazy Susans atop the tables until security guards asked them to step down.

Some weeks later, I snapped up an invitation to see The Smashing Pumpkins at Universal Studios through my friend, Ben, who had signed up for a six-week roadie gig with the Pumpkins. It's hard to believe that the rock crew survived 20 years together. Actually, it's not too much of a surprise, as only two of the four original members played on the tour.

Singer Billy Corgan picked up replacements for bassist D'arcy Wretzky and guitarist James Iha somewhere along the way. Jimmy Chamberlain continued to rock out on the drums.

Corgan was such a Grumplestiltskin, blaming the audience for giving up on the band in the late Nineties before conceding that the musicians also stopped believing in themselves around the same time. He should have left the bad attitude at home, along with the striped T-shirt and long skirt that he first wore some 15 years ago. Chamberlain's bedazzled Polo shirt also left me scratching my head. Out with the old, in with the new!

Madeleines for Everyone!

2008-12-17T20:59:00.000-08:00

'Tis the season for sharing. Despite the best intentions to try new recipes for caramel with fleur de sel and coconut macaroons, I succumbed to tradition this holiday season by making vanilla madeleines as gifts for friends. Even though I doubled the recipe, which I had found in the San Francisco Chronicle's famed food section years ago, I couldn't get around the limitation of having only three madeleine pans. One actually came in a little kid's baking set. Guess which one.

The key to this batter, which was super-easy -- perhaps easier than mixing chocolate chip cookie dough, was the melted butter added in the very last step before spooning the batter into the molds.

Here are the tins before I popped them into the oven.

I ordered a cooling rack from Amazon.com some years ago. But I returned it because I didn't like the way it looked. So superficial of me! I've been using these French-inspired metal trays instead to cool my baked goods.

How many memories are oozing out of your brain upon spying this scallop-shaped madeleine?

I produced 47 madeleines on this round. So only seven of my friends were fortunate enough to receive a little green bag of madeleines for the holidays. I saved 10 for me and Miguelito. This is a breakfast I had a few days ago. The colorful mug holding my Earl gray tea was a souvenir that Miguelito bought for me on his last trip to Cannes, France.

Thai Elvis

2008-12-07T17:49:00.001-08:00

Who needs Mario Batali's hard rock soundtrack or Katsuya's electronica emissions or even El Compadre's mariachi band when Palm's Thai on Hollywood Boulevard features an Elvis impersonator. He never steps off the stage to serenade diners at their tables because he needs to see the karaoke machine reminding him of the words for the King's hits.

Getting Down to Business at Boiling Crab

2008-12-04T20:21:00.000-08:00

It's been four years since my last crayfish meal. For the latest feast, I didn't hop on a plane to Sweden. I just had to toodle in my car to Boiling Crab in San Gabriel Valley. I have to thank Johnny and Khue for serving as my guides in a night of sampling a smorgasbord of seafood, spices and other savory slime.

We started with a platter of oysters. Boiling Crab doesn't bother with any niceties. There are no plates, finger bowls and metal utensils to help you crack open the crustacean shells. You just get bibs, a roll of paper towels and a giant sheet of white paper that doubles as tablecloth and plate. The only sort of platter I spied was the one for the oysters (filled with ice, of course).

We squirted the ketchup for the Cajun fries right on top of the paper.

Miguelito and I decided to wear clothes that we didn't mind spilling food on (i.e., H&M).

This was the kind of meal that required you to put your hair in a ponytail. Stray strands would hinder maximum eating.

With a squeeze of lime juice and a dab of hot sauce, the oysters prepared our palates for the main course....
which arrived in a big plastic bag.

We didn't order the crabs that gave the restaurant its name. Instead, we asked for four pounds of crayfish and two pounds of shrimp. Hidden in the mess were a couple of cobs of corn. Everything was drenched in garlic and Cajun spiciness.

Extra flavor came in plastic containers: aioli and a salt-and-pepper blend with which we could mix freshly squeezed lime juice at the table.

It was truly a night of DIY dining.

The potpourri of cayenne pepper and paprika made the crayfish pop in intense crimson.

Unsated by our initial order of five pounds of food, we ordered two more pounds of crayfish and another of shrimp. This was the scene of the devastation at the end of the night.

The Best Invention Ever

2008-12-01T19:14:00.001-08:00

This is a great tool for people like me who try to be tidy but don't actually like to clean. A present from a former intern extraordinaire, the Robo Vacum is like a Roomba for the desk. Notice the scale of the Robo Vacum vis a vis a bagel. This, along with the cell phone-shaped flask, will be a must-have for all the Dilberts who eat their lunches in their cubicles.

Cool Chicks

2008-11-30T17:08:00.000-08:00

The world needs more cool chicks. This one in France wears her glasses well, while this one ate, lived and loved well in the countryside.

A Busy Bee

2008-10-24T23:19:00.001-07:00

I've been a busy bee, flitting between fashion shows, thumb-typing stories on my Motorola Q and chasing mayors, money-hungry designers and other bold-faced names for a juicy quote. It was a good thing that, on the second day of L.A. Fashion Week, Miguelito was shipped off to Cannes, France, to attend the animation industry's version of wining and dining, wheeling and dealing. Somehow, in the middle of the madness, I've been able to find the coolest ankle boots, which I first spotted at Suh-Tahn's runway presentation. I discovered the suede kicks were from Aldo after I saw an assistant stack up all the boxes backstage after the show. Carved with an architectural sole and heel, the boots cost $130. Slouchy chic is the way to go for next spring. Take heed: it'd have to be either slouchy pants like boyfriend jeans or slouchy tops like what I saw at Suh-Tahn paired with skinny pants. If you combine both a baggy bottom and a billowing blouse, you'll look like a back-up singer for Salt 'N' Pepa circa 1989. I love the drama in the back of this Suh-Tahn minidress.

The Internet is letting anyone become a reporter, even Gwyneth Paltrow, the Oscar-winning actress who blasts her thoughts on vegan pancakes, cool boots and other mementos of her rarefied lifestyle from her own Web site called Goop. Thankfully, she's way past her penchant for pink from the 1999 Oscars. She's now sporting striped sweaters on her road trip across Spain with the Crocs-loving chef Mario Batali.

Eating regular meals is a rarity during L.A. Fashion Week. One night, I tasted some Korean BBQ at a party for the opening of a new Korean restaurant called Shin in Hollywood. One of the high-profile investors, Mark Ronson, took a turn at the DJ table, spinning The Angels' high-pitched ode to previously M.I.A. boyfriends.

Though L.A. Fashion Week is but an afterthought to the runway shows in New York, London, Milan and Paris, many local writers aspire to be the SoCal Suzy Menkes. The real deal recently celebrated her 20 years as the International Herald Tribune's fashion critic. Hip hip hooray! I want to be like her when I grow up. In the meantime, I'll take some credit for discovering elegantly punky corsages crafted by Gilly Flowers out of felt, paper, pleather and succulents.

Beck + Goldfrapp = Aural Awesomeness

2008-09-22T22:45:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday and Sunday, Miguelito and I feasted on live tunes at two sold-out shows: Beck and Goldfrapp. Beck epitomized the local boy done good. Miguelito recalled the afternoon many years ago when he caught an impromptu acoustic performance by the crooning Angeleno near the Silverlake Dog Park. On Saturday, Beck had his homecoming as the main attraction at the Hollywood Bowl. Under the stars, with a cool breeze licking our brows, Miguelito and I spread our mushroom and sausage calzone and Three Bandits' gourmet wine in a box on a ledge in front of our seats. We sipped on our cocktails while listening to the first opening act, MGMT.

I was quite disappointed with MGMT's subdued look and vibe. They sported Ts and jeans, resembling jaded indie rockers (i.e., The Strokes), not much like the glam divas that they really are. Where was the tie-dye caftan that Andrew VanWyngarden had worn to entertain Mischa Barton, Adrian Grenier, Nicole Richie, Jena Malone and Nicky Hilton at Billabong's bash in June? MGMT's 30-minute set at the Bowl was fuzzy and apathetic.

The catchy performance by Spoon redeemed MGMT's laziness. Miguelito and his buddy Stan couldn't pinpoint where they had seen Spoon's frontman before. Did he resemble a young Richie Cunningham or a young Gary Busey? I couldn't figure out whether he actually had bedhead or convinced his stylist to use $50 worth of product to muss up his locks.

Stan, Xenia and Miguelito eagerly waited for Beck to step on the stage.

There is the halycon cherub himself. Look how long his hair is. I couldn't quite analyze his outfit. He paired a mint green T-shirt with an olive scarf and a black-and-white plaid shirt under a black blazer. Is this a hint of the direction that his fashion designer wife Marissa Ribisi is taking her fashion line Whitley Kros?

Beck and his four-member band jumped non-stop from hit to hit. After their phase with indie rock, they put down their instruments to slip headsets on. Then they geeked out with the electronic doodads. As they reminded the audience in a soothing monotone, "The beat is correct."

We were offered more treats with the arrival of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's string orchestra and a colorful light show glowing within the ribbed frame of the Hollywood Bowl.

Miguelito and I had oodles of fun!

Miguelito and I extended our good times to Sunday night, when we snacked on Japanese-style tapas with friends from San Diego. The four of us were lucky enough to score tickets to Goldfrapp's show at the historic Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. Alison Goldfrapp underscored her Harlequin chic with a solo on what looked like a recorder.

Miguelito said Alison always has the perfect length for her dresses -- they're short enough to be sexy but long enough not to be slutty. I wanted to call her tailor because I was just amazed that her diamond-printed minidress, enhanced with a ruffle collar and giant puffballs running down the front, didn't rise much when she raised her batwing sleeves. From where we were sitting, we could barely spot the silver teardrop painted on her cheek.

After about five songs, Miguelito urged me to bumrush the stage with him. We boogied in the aisles with a bunch of happy strangers, including a tall fellow who snapped this great photo for me.

More goodwill was thrown my way when Miguelito bought a souvenir hoodie for me. Made of organic cotton sold under fair trade guidelines, my white hoodie's painted teardrop brought Harlequin chic to Los Feliz.

Miguelito was utterly exhausted by the weekend's sonic satisfaction.

United Nations of Meatz on Stix

2008-08-23T22:04:00.000-07:00

One afternoon in March, when unexpected clouds shadowed a long-awaited BBQ, some pals and I brainstormed on what would make the perfect cook-out. We realized that all of us hail from different cultures hosting rich food heritages. The Mexicans can offer carne asada marinated in a secret concoction that may involve Sunny Delight. Viets like to soften chicken, beef and pork in a sesame sauce enhanced with lemongrass. As for Minnesota-bred Norwexicans (Norwegian + Mexican) like Miguelito, the culinary combination yields corn dogs. Salivating with the possibility of so many gastronomic options at one location, we hatched the idea for the first United Nations of Meatz on Stix.

The first assembly was scheduled some five months after that cloudy BBQ on a sunny summer day. Stan opened his home in Eagle Rock to host the hungry hordes.

Stan refused to divulge the name of the East Los Angeles shop that pre-marinated the carne asada.

So we ate in blissful ignorance.

Stan's missus, Xenia, took over the second grill shift: my Viet-style chicken on sticks.

I marinated the chunks of dark meat for 48 hours. It took a bit of patience and skill to flip the tender chicken without burning or dropping them into the flames.

Though the Viets traditionally eat grilled meat over a bowl of cold vermicelli noodles and fresh greens and herbs, I decided to skip the carbs. Instead, I offered red leaf lettuce, cilantro, Vietnamese basil and mint in which to wrap the chicken.

The wraps were the perfect snack for a beautiful sunset.

South Africa was represented by Jesse's contribution of boerewors, or farmer sausage. He picked up this fresh batch earlier in the day at a South African pub in the San Fernando Valley, where he had watched his native brethren lose to New Zealand in a rugby match. We mourned the loss with some meat and margaritas.
Packed in a foot-long case, the sausage required some creative strategizing for where to place it on the small grill. We had to evict some corn cobs to accommodate the meat. Carnivores rule!

The traditional sausage from South Africa was hearty and chunky.

The three-handed monster couldn't wait to dip the boerewors in some chutney.

Some days later, I closed the first assembly of the U.N. of Meatz on Stix with some caramel that a co-worker brought back from Mexico. Globalization isn't so bad after all.

Style to Spare

2008-08-04T20:05:00.001-07:00

Some people make much ado about the Voguettes, that gaggle of leggy, luxe label-loving girls who work for Anna Wintour at New York-based Vogue. Personally, I am more intrigued by the Voguettes' peers across the pond in Paris, led by the kohl-lined Carine Roitfeld, who could pass for the Gallic cousin to Patti Smith and Iggy Pop. The ones to watch are the assistants, namely Geraldine Saglio and Melanie Huynh (viva la Viet chick!). Though their titles are easy to dismiss, Huynh and Saglio are being mentored by editrix Roitfeld and stylist Emmanuelle Alt at French Vogue for hopefully greater and better things down the road. The assistants also need to hold their own against their chic bosses when it comes to fashion showdowns. You can get an idea of their editorial vision in the small trend shoots they do for French Vogue, but I wish they would pen a diary a la Mario Testino. Another stylish girl I like is Michelle Williams, who is starring as a sexy tomboy in the current fall catalog for Band of Outsiders' women's line called, simply, Boy. As for men on the style front, I'm eager to see what Formula 1 racer Lewis Hamilton will do. These musings must sound so nerdy and silly, but so what -- it's summer!

Noshing on Noodles

2008-07-27T15:17:00.000-07:00

Whenever I need a ramen fix, I go to Daikokuya in Little Tokyo. It's a cramped space, and the wait always runs over 30 minutes. But the noodles and kurobuta, or Berkshire pork, are worth the wait.

Miguelito and I usually are seated at the counter when we visit Daikokuya. But tonight we were lucky enough to score one of the red booths. The only disadvantage of having a comfy seat was that we couldn't peer over the short wall separating the kitchen and the counter to watch the cooks make all the food.

This is the view I had. Can you believe how many people were hungry for noodles after 10 o'clock on a Wednesday night?

Daikokuya didn't bother pandering to the hipster and expat crowd with neo-modern decor. Instead, it hung all these rusty post-World War 2 signs.

Hidden underneath the chopped scallions, the gyoza were shaped like ugly rectangles instead of plump crescents.

It didn't matter what the gyoza looked like if you ate them with your eyes closed. I almost choked when I bit into the crunchy skin and savory juice squirted down my throat.

Daikokuya's interpretation of deconstructed food required a platter, two bowls and a plate. The tsukemen is a manageable alternative to the huge bowl of noodles and fixings steeped in hot broth. The noodles were rinsed in cold water and placed in a bowl separate from the one containing the broth speckled with sesame seeds. Another plate offered chopped scallions, raw bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, a hard boiled egg and slices of seared pork. I like to think the tsukemen is the Vietnamese version of ordering pho with the raw beef on the side so that you can cook the meat to your preference. Sometimes, when Miguelito and I are super hungry, we order extra pork. Double your pleasure!

Covert Churros

2008-07-21T21:41:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, I spent 10 hours in Santa Monica. In the first hour, I covered a surf-related event for work. In the next two hours, I went shopping for statement-making belts. An hour later, I watched sawagani crabs crawl around a glass bowl on the counter at Hama Sush in Venice. Then I was ready for churros at Xooro. Don't let the white etched walls get you too dizzy to order one of the churros at the counter. Taking a page from Pinkberry, Xooro forbids photographs from being taken in its ultra modern shop. I conveniently didn't see the no-photographs sign until I was done snapping pictures on my cell phone. Perhaps it was a good thing I forgot my digital camera at home -- I had a better chance to execute covert photojournalism!

The chairs are more sturdy than the candy-colored plastic ones at Pinkberry. Xooro's seats remind me of a schoolroom designed by Ray Eames.

I asked for my churro to go. They gave it to me in a mini cardboard canister. I wonder if the U.S. Postal Service has a special rate for shipping churros.

The churro I ordered is actually not on the menu. I was overwhelmed by the glucose glut that Xooro offers: chocolate coconut, Turkish hazelnut, triple chocolate and strawberry creme, among others. That's why I asked for the original churro dusted with cinnamon.

Maximus and Erin shared the dulce de leche churro.

Behold, my original churro was not what originated in Spain. The inside of the warm fritter was pumped with a vanilla cream that was a tenth as yummy as the custard jiggling inside a Beard Papa cream puff. I also ordered a Mexican hot chocolate made with soy milk to wash the churro down. But my drink tasted like Nestle instant hot chocolate spiked with cinnamon. Overall, it was a disappointing way to spend $7.70. But at least I got these verboten photos as souvenirs.

Dogged Dodgers

2008-07-20T13:19:00.000-07:00

It wouldn't be summer in L.A. without catching a game at Dodgers Stadium. Miguelito scored a deal for $6 tickets for a recent game against the Atlanta Braves. Of all the professional team sports, baseball is one of my least favorites. But I was intrigued by the famous Dodgers Dogs. Besides, all it took was a hop and a skip and a hike up a hill in Echo Park to see my first Dodgers game and partake in all the greasy culinary glory.

On one of my first attempts, I got an action shot of a Braves batter breaking a wooden bat in the middle of a hard swing. Such athletic force helped the visiting team pummel the Dodgers in a 9-3 win.

The foot-long Dodgers Dogs are supplied by Farmer John. All the hot dogs are grilled. You can add any topping you want: ketchup, mustard, relish and onions. Sauerkraut cost $1 extra. I decided to stay simple with ketchup and mustard.

Dodgers Stadium has an all-you-can-eat section. For $35, you can get a ticket to the game and the opportunity to eat as much as you want from a pre-select menu. That's a really good deal, although the seats in the right field aren't as nice as the one behind the third-line base that Miguelito got us. Next time, I want to get into the all-you-can-eat section so that my friends and I can enact our own hot dog-eating contest. (Takeru Kobayashi, watch out!) This is Miguelito chowing down on his only dog of the night.

Here are the dogged Dodgers in their dugout.

In addition to the hot dogs, the traditional menu at Dodgers Stadium includes the garlic fries and chocolate malt ice cream. Smothered with garlic sauteed in oil, the fries are good in theory but bad in practice. After digging out the first third of the fries from the top, you start feeling full and your fingers stick together. Miguelito and I had to use a spoon to eat the rest of the fries. The chocolate malt ice cream tasted more like an ice milk sweetened with a subtle chocolate flavor. I liked it. For my next trip, I want to have two Dodgers Dogs and chocolate malt ice cream -- and see the home team win!

Foodies Without Borders

2008-07-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

You know you made it as a food blogger when someone asks you to promote something on your Web site. Last month, I received an unsolicited message from a consultant for Miele Guide. If the name sounds familiar, that's because Miele is a German manufacturer of high-end washing machines, dishwashers and other home appliances. What might a widget maker have in common with food? Well, a tenuous a connection as a tire maker called Michelin has with restaurants. Aiming to be Michelin's counterpart in Asia, Miele Guide starts with a shortlist prepared by food writers in 16 countries (Hong Kong and Macau are lumped together with the Middle Kingdom as one nation).

After my first glance of the list, I got a yucky feeling from seeing the inclusion of Myanmar. Any visit to that country will just feed money to the military junta that rules the land, in my opinion. Some politically naive travelers might think that their visiting Myanmar will help promote democracy. But the truth is that the people of Myanmar want democracy and know how to get it under the leadership of Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi, but they just can't because of the military leaders' intolerance.

That diatribe aside, Miele Guide is allowing the public to whittle down the shortlist by voting for their favorite eateries and nominating ones that didn't make the first cut. The catch is that the registration form requires people to enter the first six digits of their Visa card (Visa is the official credit card sponsor of the new foodie guide). This is a very strange -- and totally unnecessary -- requirement, especially in the U.S., where it's more common to find a Visa cardholder than, say, someone who uses a Diner's Card. For those who aren't wimpy about giving out their private information to participate in the public voting, they can qualify for a drawing to win a free trip -- with gourmet grub -- to Singapore, Hong Kong or Tokyo.

Having not read any galleys, I can't vouch for this guide book. But I am an advocate of being ahead of the curve, with access to relevant information. And if someone happens to score that free trip to eat their way across Asia, then I ask you to please be a guest blogger with The Food and Music Club!

Steppin' Out With My Baby

2008-07-06T22:02:00.000-07:00

After several weeks of budget living (i.e., shopping at Fresh and Easy with $5 off coupons, using points at ArcLight Cinemas for free movies and hitting a friend's free DJ party in Little Tokyo) Miguelito wanted to take me out in style. We dressed to the nines last Saturday night. He knotted a burro-themed Hermes tie around his DDCLab shirt under a Hugo Boss suit, while I clasped a white ribbon around a Chloe-knockoff H&M frock with a black leather flower pin. Of course, the details were in my accessories: a Victorian-era silk cape, chain-link Mary Jane pumps from Society for Rational Dress, a purse by Trina Turk and a spritz of Fracas behind my neck. The first place where we unveiled our fancy pants was The Edison, an Art Deco-style bar set in a former power plant in downtown L.A. Though I didn't veer from my favored Champagne, Miguelito experimented with a cocktail called a Bourbon Swizzle, concocted from apricot brandy, bourbon and ginger ale. Delish!

Our next stop was Providence, a seafood restaurant that last year earned one Michelin star. We were seated in a private room behind the bar, though we didn't know anyone at the other three tables tucked in the nook. In homage to the fish that were being transformed into our savory meal, someone fashioned strands of amber-colored glass beads into a candle holder resembling sea grass.

In an adventurous mood, Miguelito and I went all out for the five-course tasting menu with the wine pairing. Before our very first dish arrived, we were treated to an amuse bouche. Translated loosely from French as "entertain the mouth," our amuse bouche included a gin and tonic-themed gelatin on which we were instructed to squeeze a lime, a clear ravioli that burst a warm broth into the mouth and a shot of creamy soup made with lobster stock. Miguelito wanted to throw his hands up in the air and scream: "Wheeee!" It was a rollercoaster of flavors in his mouth.

The timing for the wine and five courses was impeccable. The server always poured the wine at least five minutes before each course arrived so that our table would never be empty of experience. Our first wine was a vinho verde, or green wine, from Portugal. Its dryness accompanied kanpachi sashimi chilled on shaved ice flavored with ume, or plum, sauce. The cucumber cubes sitting atop the raw fish were compressed with shiso leaves. I thought the dish was an innovative twist to the traditional pairing of tart ume and minty shiso in Japanese cuisine. It's no surprise, then, that Michael Cimarusti, Providence's chef and owner, beat Masaharu Morimoto on Iron Chef America.

Our taste buds went for a detour in the second course. The wine was a muscat from Tokaj, Hungary, that started like a fruity dessert wine but dissipated in a dry wisp. It provided an ethereal essence to a seared scallop surrounded by chanterelle mushrooms, pistachios and green tendrils. The scallop's sweetness was enhanced by the Balsamic vinegar reduction. But I thought the chanterelles could have been evicted from the plate because they were a little too tart and mushy. Miguelito begged to differ. He loved it.

The flavors thickened in the third course: halibut in a cream sauce with jalapeno mousse and grilled zucchini squash. Miguelito and I joked that Chef Cimarusti was playing sound games by mixing halibut with jalapeno. The joke was on us. The pureed jalapeno provided a bite to the smooth flavor of the fish.

The fourth course, and what basically amounted to the second entree after the halibut, was veal with sweet corn and mushrooms. I thought the funghi went better with this course than it did with the scallop. No matter how politically incorrect some people might consider veal, the meat was without parallels. Tender and perfectly cooked, it had a luxurious blandness. This was the only time we were served a red wine. It was such a prize of a libation that even the sommelier didn't know what went into winemaker Sean Thackrey's blend.

Miguelito wanted to mug for the camera. The red, green and yellow hues on the plate coordinated well with his snazzy outfit.

For the last course -- but not the finale! -- we cleansed our palates with stone fruit and gelato. Stone fruit is a lump phrase for any fruit with a pit. We had peaches, apricots and cherries. A crunch came from the brown sugar crumb, which offset the velvety gelato and cooked fruits. We were offered a port to wash down the dessert, but the drink was a tad too heavy and strong to end our meal.

That's why I decided to have mint tea after the six dishes and five wines. Like any classy restaurant, Providence offered a tray of small sweets to nibble on with the tea. Chef Cimarusti also greeted the patrons at each table. Even though he forgot that I photographed him last year for a story on summer picnics, he was gracious and friendly. With the tea, we had a sugar-coated gelatin, caramel flavored with jalapeno and chocolate merengue cookies. The gelatin was neither here nor there, and the chocolate merengue was a classic treat. The caramel, however, was the piece de resistance. I was tempted to squirrel one away in my purse for later, but Miguelito stopped me when he yelped, "Whoa!" After the burnt sugar teased our tongue, the jalapeno gave it a big kick.

The Frugal Gourmet

2008-06-22T19:32:00.000-07:00

With prices on the rise (gasoline, rice, airfare, gold, you name it), I've seen articles on how to eat gourmet for less, how to be a recessionista and how to dump the car for public transit. I'm lucky when it comes to wheels because I had the foresight to buy a used Toyota Prius four years ago. If my car were to ever run out of gas, I can walk four blocks from my house to the nearest Metro station and hop on a train. When it comes to food, however, I'm an unabashed snob. Fortunately, I don't live too far from Fresh & Easy. That's the supermarket chain that Tesco, the U.K.'s largest and the world's third largest retailer, opened in Southern California last year. The location in Eagle Rock usurped the building left vacant by a failing Albertson's. By comparison, Fresh & Easy is a huge improvement. Not only do drivers of hybrid cars like me receive preferential parking in front of the store, but I also took advantage of coupons that cut $5 off purchases valued over $20. Miguelito and I went hog wild there on Saturday.

For instance, Atlantic salmon caught in Canada cost $6.49 per pound. A bottle of Spanish rose wine put us back $4.99. A small pack of sweet blackberries cost less than $3. Fresh & Easy even makes a point of listing the food's provenance on the packaging. Like Trader Joe's, Fresh & Easy pre-wraps all its fruits and vegetables. I am not a fan of this method because it prevents me from touching, smelling, inspecting and selecting the food I want. Also, what if I want only two tomatoes instead of a quartet? Plus, Fresh & Easy doesn't have the sweetest deals in town. The Hollywood Farmers Market is the mother lode for in-season produce on the Eastside, and the Vietnamese grocery store in Echo Park offers amazing deals on fish sauce (nearly two cups worth of fish sauce from Vietnam's famed Phu Quoc Island for 99 cents; limes for 59 cents per pound).

The weekend's splurge was actually made at Mitsuwa, where I finally redeemed the $20 gift certificate that Miguelito gave me for Christmas. At the Japanese grocery store in Little Tokyo, I snapped up a small bottle of yuzu juice for $7.99 and a tin of wasabi powder for $2.39. This is what I did with my finds.

I mixed the yuzu with some olive oil for a vinaigrette to douse rice noodles and radish sprouts.

I used the wasabi powder to freshen up some furikake, or a seaweed and toasted sesame seed seasoning that is eaten with cooked rice, for a crust on the salmon.

Because the furikake was sufficiently salted, I didn't need to add any additional seasoning to the fish. Miguelito also grilled some sweet peppers and white mushrooms.

This was a happy ending for the weekend.

After Everyone Has Fallen Asleep

2008-06-19T11:47:00.000-07:00

Writing can be a bitch. And writing a blog after a full day of writing on deadline at a newspaper can be a motherf'er. Miguelito is often on my case about being delinquent with updates on my blog. ("My fingers and brain need a break!" is the excuse that I give.) Besides, what's left to say after everyone's posited their musings on topics ranging from Yves St. Laurent's recent death (Ashley Olsen, believe it or not, was one of the more succinct and stylish pundits) to the preview of Mr. Brainwash's first art exhibition (as chronicled so thoroughly on Whorange well before I had my morning cup of tea). Whatever I would say following the others' lead would be stale and anticlimactic. But I remembered what a senior journalist once told me: If you can't be first, then be second with more analysis. So here it goes:

Yves St. Laurent: Even though I don't own any pieces created by him, he's responsible for many of the items in my current wardrobe: pants, tuxedo dressing, sheer blouses, an ethnic vibe (albeit via Vietnam). I've been lusting after his original safari jacket for the better part of the last two decades. I'm not sure if I'll ever find one. But I can dream.

Tim Russert: He covered politics, a topic I've always dreaded to read and write about. But he did it with a fierce intellect, fairness to those who disagreed with him, graciousness toward those who weren't quite at his level and boundless love for his family. I want to be like him when I grow up.

Mr. Brainwash: I was first exposed to Mr. Brainwash's lunatic art by accident. Cruising down Sunset Boulevard on my evening commute home in late May, I noticed a new billboard on the wall of a nondescript building. I whipped out my camera from my purse and eyed the stoplight to make sure that it didn't turn green before I got my shot. Perhaps it was the painting's messiness that evoked the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi. Or maybe it was the irony of the message (Gen Xers like me dig irony). Or I was just in one of those post-work moods that made me happy to be on my way to see Miguelito. Over the next few weeks, Mr. Brainwash finished more of his works to fill an empty TV studio. As others noted, Shepard Fairey, the DJ-ing street artist who's one of the first to successfully meld art with apparel at Obey, was at the VIP preview on Tuesday night. Other fashion and media folks I spotted at the bash were designer Jeremy Scott in a tuxedo jacket with sequined lapels and his signature mullet, TV reporter Huell Howser, photographer Mark "The Cobrasnake" Hunter and Web personality Clint Catalyst. I had my own art entourage: Emmie and Olga, who both head their own card companies. Together, we ran into my friend's friend who regaled them with a story about a fired intern who stole a one-of-a-kind jacket lent to a starlet from a European fashion company (fashion folks just can't avoid the drama). We also snapped some shots.

The main room looked empty because all the hipsters were scoring free cocktails in the courtyard. If I had to sum up Mr. Brainwash in the way that most reporters do with character assessments (or are they character assassinations?), I would say he's clever, resourceful and a tad hasty. I liked how he riffed on famous images created by other artists by inserting his own commentary on popular culture. Edward Hopper's forlorn damsel gazes at an Apple laptop in an empty cafe. Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker pose with hearty but grim pioneer kin on the prairie. Al Pacino, as Scarface, scatters pastel paintballs through a machine gun. The artist was successful in searching for old TV sets to assemble into a hulking robot, hundreds of stuffed toys crammed into a cage and piles of books which formed a base for an Apple laptop whose screen reminded everyone that: "Life Is Beautiful." (Is Steve Jobs a de Medici-like patron to Mr. Brainwash?) Yet, as Olga noticed, Mr. Brainwash was too quick to jump to the punchline. He didn't carefully troll stores for quality tomes to use in his book-iBook installation. If he were creating art, she noted, he would have taken the time to find meaningful titles that enhance the point of the piece, instead of self-help books that you can buy for 10 cents apiece. I also thought he was repetitive at times. It reminded me of Kara Walker's recent exhibit at the Hammer Museum. The young artists had one message that they kept emphasizing over and over again in different media of varying scales. In a way, with this approach, they got lost in the message. I wouldn't mind if they used only one medium to show how their message evolved, along with their intellect and technique.

This tomato spray can only be fully appreciated if seen in scale next to hipsters.

Do you think Lonely Girl cuddles with Lonely Bear at night?

I can't tell if Mr. Brainwash is giving a new spin on a bewigged George Washington or a platinum blond Marilyn Monroe.

I brought the art experience with me to my cubicle, pinning Mr. Brainwash's Warhol-inspired portrait of the lovechild born to Marilyn Monroe and Mr. Spock on a file cabinet. It's keeping company with Yoda and Emmie's cynical bear named Shapiro.

But the best bear is Miguelito. Here he is joshing with a life-size painting of Amelia Earhart in his friend's backyard. You see, art is everywhere!

You Know I'm Hungry When....

2008-06-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

I start commenting about kitchen tools on other people's blogs. After I showed Miguelito what I did, he exclaimed: "Good post!" Then he asked if I told anyone else about making the cooking-themed comment. "No," I replied, with the ultimate reporter's follow-up: "Why?" "Because that's really nerdy," he said. Oh.

The Moment

2008-06-07T12:28:00.001-07:00

When I hear my friends confide that they had a moment with their bosses at work, I cringe a little. To have a moment is to have it out with someone, albeit with some restraint and diplomacy. On the other hand, I always have The Moment every day. What is that? It's the blog for The New York Times' T Magazine. Chandler Burr, who writes about perfume for T Magazine, has a talent for visualizing ethereal, transcient scents into words. His mini essay on Fracas summed up my fascination for the perfume that I've been wearing since I was 20. The Moment's army of cool hunters isn't limited in the areas that they prowl for content. The day after Burr's exposition on test-tubing tuberoses, another contributor waxed poetically about Japanese food porn. Consider it the cerebral sequel to Tampopo.

Job Perks

2008-06-04T23:44:00.000-07:00

I am a social person who has a social job that often requires me to mingle with socials (that is, socialites, instead of Socialists) from the design, art, music and film worlds. This is the bird's-eye view of a free show played by The Submarines at a party hosted by an action sports line. Even if I didn't have to report on this event for a story, I would have tried to catch couple Blake Hazard and John Dragonetti playing live. I loved the album "Declare A New State!" that they made after they broke up. The music created from their pain was hypnotic. Since then, the singer and guitarist got back together and released "Honeysuckle Weeks." A little peppier, presumably from their reconciled bliss, the new album is just as good as the predecessor. Plus, Blake is quite the ingenious fashionista with her stash of vintage clothes and H&M finds. I liked how her pigtails and prairie-style frock coordinated with the daisies decorating her keyboard.

On another night, I went to a one-night-only art show that a European denim brand hosted in Beverly Hills with Dennis Hopper, who curated. Hopper is a respected photographer in his own right. The access he had to the vibrant personalities from his Hollywood heyday in the Sixties and Seventies was the source of some striking images. In the parking lot behind the apparel company's showroom, Hopper hung Civil War-style military uniforms near a white convertible classic. Illuminated above the heads of the scruffy dudes and chicks with short hair and long, skinny legs, were projections of Hopper's artwork.

This appears to be a painted billboard of a photo that Hopper took decades ago.

Hopper's son, Henry, also carries the creative gene. I missed his real-time creation of a paper and plastic installation that sprawled over a quarter of the parking lot. I did catch his destruction of the piece, an act that was also part of the art, I was told. The hipsters seemed unfazed by the trash. They continued to sip their champagne, forage for mini burgers and dot their mouths with white linen napkins. Well after Henry Hopper got bored of his art, these tykes jumped in to accelerate the denouement.

Mexican Fiesta

2008-06-03T23:19:00.000-07:00

Miguelito and I kicked off summer with a Mexican fiesta. We had many reasons to celebrate. My sister who lives in San Francisco was visiting the City of Angels, as was also a friend who resides in Shanghai. Miguelito also discovered a perfectly functioning gas grill abandoned in his apartment complex's courtyard. Our Sunday supper included borscht that a Beijing-raised friend made, carne asada and pollo marinated courtesy of Trader Joe's, skewered shrimp dusted with ground New Mexican chili, Erin's refreshing grapefruit and jicama salad, Maximus' super-famous, extra-yummy guacamole and -- for the table's piece de resistance -- Miguelito's taco salad.

Even Erin acknowledged that she entered the salad war with a bad hand. What can compete with a dish that calls for Doritos as a key ingredient? In addition to the crunchy component, Miguelito's white trash salad also had iceberg lettuce, cheese, tomatoes and taco-seasoned ground beef. No wonder this version of meat with greens is a favorite in the Midwest.

I marinated the shrimp overnight in the New Mexican chili. Too bad I didn't taste the chili powder before I added the sea salt and pepper. I'm convinced that the chili powder, which I bought at a restaurant that sells everything Mexican from Jesus-branded votives to tamales, was salted. Despite assurances from Maximus that the shrimp was perfect, I thought it was a little too salty. The carne asada was the poster child of an ideal BBQ, however. Maximus did a great job grilling the beef to a medium rare.

To cool off people's tongues from the jalapeno peppers and spicy salsa verde, I made a key lime pie. Having forgotten my juicer at home, I spent about 20 minutes squeezing the little limes by hand while watching trashy reality TV shows on the E! Network. The effort was worth it. The fresh-squeezed juice gave the custard-like pie a tart freshness that was mellowed by the just-whipped cream. Somehow I remembered to bring my microplane to use to grate the key lime rind for the pie's garnish. It's all in the details! Here is Miguelito doing his best impersonation of Vanna White.

Mmmmmmm.

Memorial Day in D.C.

2008-06-02T20:11:00.000-07:00

I took Miguelito home for Memorial Day weekend to show him how the Viets do it in Virginia. It was his first trip to the nation's capital. It also was a crash course on all things Vietnamese. In his first 12 hours, he met about 15 relatives. He also met Pug, my grandmom's Pekinese who came over to my parents' house for a haircut and a mini holiday.

Even after his trim, Pug was pudgy. Can you tell which is the head and which is the tail?

Bear and puppy liked each other instantly.

One of the great things about Washington's Smithsonian network of museums -- in addition to the free cost of admission -- is that it allows visitors to snap as many photos of the displays as they want. After all, our taxes paid for the artwork in the federally funded exhibitions. This is the enormous mobile by Alexander Calder hanging in the National Gallery of Art's East Wing.

Walking toward this sculpture in a park near the Mall, Miguelito and I both started feeling a bit queasy. It wasn't the crowds or hunger pangs that debilitated us. Instead, it was the distorted perspective on the cartoon-cute house. A two-dimensional frame propped up by planks in the back, the house had a fractured middle seam that caused the two sides to tilt inward.

Miguelito didn't like the solid blocks of stone that housed many of the federal agencies. Department of Justice, FBI, Department of Agriculture...they were all impervious monoliths to him. Miguelito thought the edifices served as metaphors for the government; nothing was transparent. The officialness of everything scared him. There is one building that I like a lot in D.C. It's the Hirshhorn Museum of Art. In the basement were the recent acquisitions, including this sculpture crafted from wire hangers and white paper.

A reporter on vacation, I didn't bring a pen and notebook to jot down the names of the artists whose works were recently added to the Hirshhorn's permanent collection. Even off the clock, I did observe that many of them were born after 1970. This artist screen-printed boldly colored geometric patterns and starkly monochromatic scenes of medieval torture on cotton fabric. The embroidery highlighted the pain inflicted on the victims.

Yarn was a favorite tool for several artists. This artist twisted the yarn into a 2-D pinwheel that doubled nicely as a colorful frame for snap-happy tourists like me.

Miguelito was feeling playful in the museum.

This South African artist spray-painted a progressingly frenetic game of tetherball on a white wall. He then photographed himself playing with the painted ball. It was a sophisticated interpretation of street art, I thought, and one of my favorite pieces in the Hirshhorn.

On the last of our four days in Virginia, Miguelito took my parents, brother and me to dinner at Saigonique. Before we could eat, we had to return Pug to my grandmom's. Just look at his smug mug in this photo with me in the backseat of the car. Miguelito said Pug is the Elton John of dogs: he's such a diva!

Nevertheless, Miguelito couldn't resist Pug's charms. He's so soft and cuddly, after all.

One of my aunts gave high marks to Saigonique, whose owners are pals of hers. The interior looks like an art gallery filled with Vietnamese art and antiques. There was a touch of glam, however. The bar in the back alternated between pink and lime green lighting.

The red chopsticks were a dramatic accent against the white napkins and celadon-glazed plates. I had never seen such long stems on forks and spoons at a Vietnamese restaurant before.

No corner was too banal to showcase art. In the women's bathroom was nestled this wooden sculpture of a woman wearing the traditional conical hat with an ao dai.

I liked the clam salad scooped atop a giant black sesame seed wafer. To give the salad more substance, the cooks stir-fried the clams with chicken and mushrooms. I supported their decision because I think that an overload of clams could be too chewy and bland. But my dad thought the dish should have earned its name by offering more clams. When the waiter came to clear the table, my dad suggested that the restaurant rename the dish as chicken salad because it skimped on the shellfish. The Trans mean business!