WHY For a fantasy French bistro experience when your ship has come in. WHAT Chef Thomas Keller, he of the French Laundry, Per Se, Ad Hoc and the dazzling new book Ad Hoc at Home, has at last come to Los Angeles. It’s supposed to be a branch of the original Bouchon in Yountville, but [...]
WHY Inventive, comforting combinations that work well without being gimmicky or overpriced — the most expensive dish is $15. WHAT Helmed by Top Chef season-two winner Ilan Hall, this has been a long time coming and greatly touted. But it’s anything but flashy — a sparse, candlelit room tucked away into the aging Alexandria Hotel, [...]
A coalition of groups, including the city of Santa Monica, the Santa Monica Daily Press and the Chamber of Commerce, has joined forces to stage what’s being called the SANTA Monica Pub Crawl, a food- and fund-raising event to support the Westside Food Bank. Here’s how it will work: Volunteers (dressed as Santa, Mrs. Claus, [...]
The 12 days of Christmas will be celebrated with 12 days of $5 sparkling wine at Vertical Wine Bistro, the swank second-floor boîte in Old Pasadena. In-house wine expert David Haskell (they call him the “Wine Dude,” but we just can’t do that) will have two choices of quality bubbly each of the two weeks [...]
WHY Design-it-yourself one-bowl meals that are a couple of notches above the norm at most low-budget Mongolian barbecue joints. WHAT This style of cooking is neither Mongolian nor barbecue — it’s really a melding of Japanese teppanyaki cooking and Taiwanese flavors. Many of us Angelenos of a certain age remember the late great Col. Lee’s [...]
We had to share a few more photos from the great publication party for EAT: Los Angeles 2010, which you can now find at your local bookstore or market (or on Amazon). Here are a couple of links to blog reports from the Traveler’s Bookcase shindig, which was a celebration of L.A. street food featuring [...]
The wine bar/café call the Must in downtown L.A. has survived its first year, no mean feat in this economy, and to celebrate it’s invited Santa to visit on Saturday night. Come without your kids (this is a grown-up place) for a photo on Santa’s lap — and if you bring a donation of canned [...]
After three years, the San Gabriel Valley’s most elegant wine bar, Vertical, has changed things up. Gone are chef Sara Levine and her small-plates tasting menu; now settled in are new chef Doug Weston and a more traditionally structured menu of modern American bistro food. Also new is operations manager David Haskell, a self-described “wine [...]
Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a keg of ale to bottle and pass out to your friends this holiday season? Yeah, we wish we had taken up home brewing last year, too. It’s a bit late for fermenting this year, but if you join one of the many local home brew clubs now, [...]
The rain let up, the street food aromas mounted, and before long more than 100 L.A. food lovers and media folks filled the Traveler’s Bookcase parking lot and store to celebrate the publication of EAT: Los Angeles 2010 book. The party was a big hit, even with the cold, cold temps — all it took [...]
