Ben Ford

Cochon 555 Returns to L.A. in 2013 for 5th Anniversary

The country's roving pig-themed culinary festival, Cochon 555, is returning to Los Angeles for another year on May 5, bringing with its its celebration of nose-to-tail cooking and sustainable farming of heritage breed pigs.

Kamikaze Kitchen: Eddie Lin, Val Herrera, Chef Ben Ford A Smoked Beaver Tail

One of our new favorite web series these days is Kamikaze Kitchen, a collaboration between Good Food and sometimes L.A. Weekly contributor Eddie Lin (DeepEndDining) and Trippy Food blog author Valentino Herrera. The comedic duo just dropped their first episode on YouTube back in September and have p ... More >>

Govind Armstrong: The Kid in the Kitchen

One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2012 issue. Check out our entire People 2012 issue here. The debut of Post & Beam, chef Govind Armstrong's Baldwin Hills restaurant -- which he had the chutzpah to open on New Year's Eve, of all nights -- was billed as a homecoming. ... More >>

Chefs Ben Ford, David LeFevre Neal Fraser Cook for GrowingGreat

It's being touted as a "unique foodie experience" for Angelenos. That is, Angelenos with $200 to spare. The "Taste of Spring" event happening May 19 at a private Manhattan Beach home involves cooking demonstrations from David LeFevre (Manhattan Beach Post), Neal Fraser (The Strand House), and possib ... More >>

Cochon 555: "Porkapalooza" Hits the House of Blues

If the air seemed a bit heavier with the scent of bacon along the Sunset Strip last night, it was due to the pork-centric carnival that rolled through the House of Blues on Sunday: the second annual L.A. stopover in the nationwide Cochon 555 tour, an event combining five chefs, five whole heritage-b ... More >>

"Porkapalooza" Cochon 555 Returns

Just when you'd managed to expunge -- via marathons and wheatgrass-and-spinach elixirs -- the last traces of Wilbur from your tract, the Cochon 555 roadshow is back for another round. This time, five local chefs, five heritage hogs, and five winemakers will tangle at the House of Blues on Sunday, M ... More >>

Tax Day Deals to Mark the Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat

It's Tax Day, one of a few days this Election Year that you'll likely be remotely interested in tearing apart the finer parts of the so-called Buffett Tax and seeing how it would have directly affected you, or not. At least, that interest will hold for a few seconds, until you've stared at your sad ... More >>

Freddy Smalls: Won't You Be Our Neighbor?

Freddy Smalls is neither the name of a character in a Leisure Suit Larry game nor the name of a guy who would have been part of Frank Sinatra's original crew if only the movie was called Ocean's Twelve. It is, rather, the great name of a bar and kitchen on the stretch of Pico you usually roll throu ... More >>

How A Hard-To-Find Beer Like Dogfish Head's Sah'Tea Really Winds Up On Local Taps

JgarbeeEmily Ford Calculating Her Bar Tab​Much as we like to imagine that our favorite beer purveyors like Ford's Filling Station have spent weeks begging, pleading, and sure, bribing distributors with platters of Ben Ford's pork chile verde with crispy pig ears for those coveted, rarely sight ... More >>

Q & A With Govind Armstrong: Post & Beam, His New L.A. Restaurant, Why 8oz. Closed Coming Home

Vanessa Stumpchef Govind Armstrong​ Govind Armstrong has a long history in this town, dating back to when he worked as a 13 year-old apprentice for Wolfgang Puck in Spago's kitchen. Armstrong, who is still maybe younger than you are, went from Spago to City to Campanile, with time spent time i ... More >>

Pork on the Beach: Your La Quercia Pig Update

A. ScattergoodLa Quercia on display at Catch​ Last week was a particularly good time to be a pig fan in Los Angeles, as the traveling pork show of Cochon 555 held its first L.A. incarnation, so to speak, in the lately unhallowed grounds of Vibiana's. In the aftermath of the show, dubbed Porkap ... More >>

Jonathan Gold Judges Cochon 555's Traveling Pork and Wine Bacchanalia

Cochon 555: The Heritage Pig Fest Comes to L.A.

Back in November, we sounded a gleeful "soooooooweeeee" when we learned that Los Angeles was confirmed as a date for the travelin' pig-palooza known as Cochon 555. For the uninitiated, Cochon 555 is a massive party suffused with the scent of molten pork, which we'll take over a shot of anything. ... More >>

Year in Review: Top Food and Pot Stories of 2010

N. GalutenThe famed KFC dispensary, which even spawned a South Park episode​Marijuana has been in the news a lot this year. Prop 19 brought the legalization debate to the national forefront, even though it never had much of a shot at passing (despite our Governator's well-documented use during ... More >>

Pot and Food: How Prop 19 Could Affect the Restaurant Business

N. GalutenA marijuana dispensary in a former Kentucky Fried Chicken​ UPDATE: Since Proposition 19's defeat on Tuesday, we checked in with Animal chef Jon Shook to get his take. Shook told us, "I personally feel like if we couldn't pass gay marriage, and we were able to pass Prop 19, then we ar ... More >>

Cold Noodle Competition Tonight at Starry Kitchen

N. GalutenCold soba noodles from Ichimiann in Torrance​ A series of small cooking competitions featuring well known L.A. chefs is already underway, all in the name of promoting dineLA's upcoming Restaurant Week. The first round of "quickfire challenges" began on Wednesday, September 22nd, wit ... More >>

Ford's Filling Station Bruery Dinner: Get Your Brew Hops Jus Here

flickr user adele.turnerNot Your Standard Fish And Chips Beer Dinner​Cheddar ale soup with hops pesto, beer-glazed Jidori chicken -- apparently the "hottest piece of breast in L.A." -- with lemon-thyme IPA jus, and oaked Porter ice cream with root beer cake and bitters chocolate sauce. The men ... More >>

Q & A With Ben Ford, Part 2: The Definition of a Gastropub, Life in Culver City FFS Going Mexican

In the first part of our interview with Ben Ford of Ford's Filling Station in Culver City, Ford had just been discussing parsley -- specifically, the beautiful plating of it at Chez Panisse, where Ford worked in his early 20's -- and life on the line at Campanile. Today, Ford gets us up to date. Tur ... More >>

A Recipe from the Chef: Ben Ford's Charred Leeks with Green Harissa

If you walk into the front doors of Ford's Filling Station and look the length of the restaurant, the first thing that you'll see, particularly if the sun has gone down outside, is the enormous wood-burning oven that seems to fill the entire kitchen. It's a stunning piece, and it makes the kitchen ... More >>

Q & A With Ben Ford: Snout-to-Tail Cooking, Recession Food Still Life with Parsley at Chez Panisse

Ben Ford's Culver City gastropub Ford's Filling Station has been open for about 4 1/2 years now, during which time the neighborhood has changed from a rundown outpost dominated by Sony Pictures and the ghosts of munchkins (the cast of the Wizard of Oz stayed at the old Culver Hotel during the movie' ... More >>

Food at Dwell on Design, the 2010 Restaurant Design Awards A Cocktail Naming Competition

Matt SchodorfCafé de Leche in Highland Park designed by FreelandBuck.​ It's that time of year again, when Dwell on Design takes over the aesthetically challenged L.A. Convention Center with many food-centric events during the weekend of June 25th through 27th. First off, finalists for the s ... More >>

Culver City's Summer Block Parties: Clam Bakes, Free Stuff Pole Dancing

Culver City has developed a pretty sweet restaurant row over the last couple of years, and this summer the neighborhood is capitalizing on that fact by hosting a series of block parties. Starting June 16th and repeating the third Wednesday of every month until October, the Culver City Downtown Busin ... More >>

Photo Gallery: Fergus Henderson's Nose to Tail Cooking Class at Ciudad

This past Saturday, celebrated English chef Fergus Henderson (St. John Restaurant, The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating) gave a cooking class with Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken at their restaurant Ciudad. Since most of us are not, as Milliken is, old friends of Henderson's, or local celebrated ... More >>

More Fun With Fried Chicken: Ludo Pops Up at Akasha

LA Weekly Flickr pool/djjewelzLudo Lefebvre's fried chicken​ At the rate he's going, chef Ludo Lefebvre (LudoBites) may never need to open his own restaurant: he can just guest chef at this friends' restaurants. After Akasha Richmond went to the fried chicken dinner that Lefebvre and Eric Gree ... More >>

The Giving Tree: dineLA Restaurant Week 2010 and L.A. Chef "Family Tree"

Start putting your restaurant wish list together and get ready to dial reservation lines. The restaurants participating in the winter '10 round of dineLA have been announced and getting all your ducks (hopefully confit) in a row to take advantage of the semi-annual deal can be a frenzied process. Re ... More >>

23rd Annual Great Chefs of L.A.: Hot Ticket, Hot Chefs, Hot Weather

This past Sunday on a unseasonably sultry afternoon in Studio City, over 800 foodies gathered to enjoy the fall/winter fixings from some of our city's hottest chefs at the 23rd Annual Great Chefs of L.A., a benefit hosted by comedian George Lopez which raised $150,000 for the National Kidney Foundat ... More >>

More BBQ love heating up around town: Nick Stef's Thursday, Rustic Canyon on the 4th, Ford's Filling Station in July

Photo credit: TheBittenWord.comBBQ madnessMore restaurants are piling on the barbecue love we're seeing so much of this year. Add Rustic Canyon to the list. Owner Josh Loeb is turning the casually genteel Santa Monica restaurant into a hub of smoky action on Saturday, July 4 only, starting at 4:00. ... More >>

How the Hell Is It June Already?

What to do in L.A., May 30-June 5

Food, Dude! Stoner Caterers

Chef duo's Food Network show falls flat, but they've moved on to the Carson Daly show and their first restaurant, Animal

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