Best of L.A.: Food and Drink

—Gendy Alimurung

BEST USE OF BEESWAX IN A PASTRY

Star Foreman

Star Foreman

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El Pollo Inka

15400 Hawthorne Blvd.
Lawndale, CA 90260

Category: Restaurant > Fast Food

Region: South Bay

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More About

• Nicolas Taborek
• Noah Galuten
• Liz Ohanesian
• North-American Food and Cooking
• Meat

Cannelés, not unlike many French pastries, are the sorts of things that can be done passably well by many but masterfully by few. In Los Angeles, you can now find the pretty fluted Bordelaise cakes fairly frequently, but only one bakery makes them the way they are traditionally made in Brittany: with beeswax. Properly baked cannelés are so deeply caramelized on the outside that they appear burnt yet have a dense, custardy interior that seems improbably undercooked. It’s not, if the cannelé is made well. Instead the interior — often laced with a hint of rum — is a perfect, creamy texture that matches exquisitely with the deeply caramelized crunch it took you to find it. The secret is beeswax, which is melted with oil and brushed very finely onto metal (traditionally copper) cannelé molds. Intricate? Yes. Time-consuming? Absolutely. Highly flammable? Apparently. At EuroPane, Sumi Chang makes dozens of them every morning. No explosions so far, just perfectly executed pastries. 950 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. (626) 577-1828.

—Amy Scattergood

BEST CATERER FOR THESE TROUBLED TIMES

The good news about a rather heated confrontation with your landlord is that it forces the obvious question: Why pay prime-beef rent prices for lower-quality choice cuts? It was one such escalating rent dilemma that forced Jennie Cook, formerly owner of the Culver City restaurant and catering company Cooks Double Dutch, to pack up her stainless pots and head east. The drop in rent for Cook’s new digs in Glassell Park is your pocketbook’s gain. She’s ditched the restaurant side of the biz for an all-catering outfit but does offer private dinners in the new space. Starting at $20 per person, Cook cooks (the singular version is her honest-to-gravy birth name) a sustainable dinner and sets the table, so all you have to do is bring the guests and the booze. For half the price, she’ll deliver any of her “Ten for Ten” lunch menus replete with gooey white lasagna or smoky Hawaiian-style Kalua pork to your next meeting. She’ll even hook you up with a vegan feast, if forgoing butter and cheese is your idea of a feast. 3048 Fletcher Ave., Glassell Park. (323) 982-0052, jenniecooks.com .

—Jenn Garbee

BEST YEAR OF THE PIG-OUT

Strip mall Chinese joints that charge $1 an entrée might be a thing of the past, but at this San Fernando Valley establishment, a few dollars can go far. Located near Northridge Hospital, Li’s Wok Express serves Chinese fast food. All the usual staples are here, Kung Pao chicken, chow mein, egg rolls, etc. A la carte entrées are all priced between $2 and $3. Combination plates start $3.75. The best deal here is the family pack. For $27.38 (that’s including tax), you get your choice of three entrées, plus three orders of chow mein and/or fried rice and an order of egg rolls. The menu states that this is enough to fill six to eight people, and we can confirm that. This restaurant packs a ton of food into small take-out containers. If you need something sweet to balance out the spicy Kung Pao chicken, try one of their boba drinks for dessert. 18515 Roscoe Blvd., Northridge. (818) 886-8682.

—Liz Ohanesian

BEST MECCA FOR LAMB STEW

Dining at Chinese Islamic can be an eye-opening experience, especially if most of your Chinese meals have been limited to stir-fries and lo mein. Though you can get standards like moo shoo chicken ($8.50) and beef with broccoli ($9.95) here, the real action is in the less familiar, Muslim-style Chinese cuisine. Who knew, for example, that a Chinese restaurant would serve a lamb stew so delicious? It arrives at your table in a thick clay pot, still bubbling and heaped high with cubes of red-hued meat clinging to the bone. Perfectly tender in a spicy broth, get the stew for $10.95 and add an order of sesame bread that’s perfect for broth dipping and miniature sandwich making. It just may be the perfect way to eat lamb.  7727 E. Garvey Ave., Rosemead. (626) 288-4246.

—Nicolas Taborek

BEST PASTRY SHOP FOR CHOCOHOLICS

Some regulars got upset that a new proprietor took over Le Bon, but this chocolate-lovers paradise is as good as ever. On offer the other day was a rice bowl–sized chocolate shell filled with hunks of chocolate ganache and fudgy cake drenched with whole-bean vanilla pudding (or so we surmise). We tried to wait for a friend’s order to arrive (a pressed panini with tomato, basil and caprese for $7.95) but couldn’t — we gobbled down our treat. A dedicated crew bakes up a storm in the back, and this is the result: a generous, rectangular tart underlain with custard and covered with glazed apricots; a sunken-pear tart built upon a layer of almond paste in a crunchy, Scottish, shortbread-like crust; and our favorite, a layered chocolate-caramel tart drizzled with sea salt and poured into a butter crust — each priced at just $3.65. The bestsellers are the croissant stuffed with almond paste and the wonderfully flaky plain croissant. Tiny fruit tarts and one-bite carrot cakes run $1.65, and day-old bags for $1.50 usually contain two pastries. The designer chocolate cakes go fast at about $25, and so do the Parisians and baguettes, both under $3. We sit inside Le Bon, with its warm Old World murals, and stare in amazement across the street, where people buy nasty, chemical-tasting muffins at Starbucks. Even the coffee is superior at Le Bon. 21928 Ventura Blvd., Woodland Hills. (818) 340-2862.