James Gordon

Calvin Trillin's American Fried: Adventures of a Happy Eater, published in 1974, details his tour of the United States in search of regional fare and set a standard for generations of adventurous eaters. He writes about visiting fried chicken shacks, barbecue joints and roadside diners, debunking the idea that "authenticity"......

J. Kenji López-Alt, who runs the Food Lab blog at Serious Eats, occasionally sheds light on some questionable concoctions. He once wrote a piece where he recommended deep-frying quesadillas stuffed with deli turkey meat and brussels sprouts. In general, though, López-Alt’s taste reflects a careful consideration of food. He may......

You could trace the popularity of Northern Thai cuisine in the United States by simply considering khao soi, the fragrant, intensely flavorful curry noodle soup that is regarded as Chiang Mai’s signature dish. When Andy Ricker launched his Portland restaurant Pok Pok a decade ago, khao soi was still as......

If you plan on eating dinner at a Best Western, you could do worse than Aashiana, the Pakistani eatery located in the hotel’s Diamond Bar location (23488 S. Gentle Springs Lane, Diamond Bar). Technically, Aashiana claims no affiliation with the hotel, and its owners acknowledge that guests may be surprised......

If you are from Tianjin, the major port city in Northeast China, the jianbing in Monterey Park must be a powerful source of food nostalgia. You might remember the lady in Tianjin cooking it on the sidewalk and the dank smell of sulfurous charcoal. You might recall the plastic buckets that......

The first thing you will notice at Chengdu Lao Zao, the new Sichuan hot pot restaurant in San Gabriel, is the smell: a unique odor that develops when gallons of oily broth are simmered with Sichuan peppercorns and generous mounds of red chile until the broth morphs into a seething,......

It’s no secret that Koreatown’s restaurants are often a one dish affair. If you find yourself at a restaurant that specializes in cold noodles – say, Yu Chun – you are almost certainly eating nothing but naeng myun and kimchi. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that you may......

On Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2014, the City of Los Angeles received the momentous news that Portland-based chef Andy Ricker will be opening two of his wonderful restaurants, Pok Pok and Pok Pok Phat Thai, at the Far East Plaza in L.A.'s Chinatown.  This is important for many reasons, of which......

The first time you enter Surati Farsan Mart is a potentially overwhelming experience. The place resembles a Jewish deli more than a restaurant, and during peak hours, the line can stretch out the door. The clientele are loud and almost entirely Indian. There are more women dressed in saris than......

The best food in Vietnam is found not in Michelin-approved establishments but on dirty street corners, where stray dogs linger at your feet carefully gnawing at scraps. Each tiny street stall will most likely specialize in one single dish; maybe bánh mì, maybe pho. That stall’s dish has inevitably been......