Bread

Oxnard Street and Whitsett: Pad Thai, Israeli Pizza Scary Lavash in North Hollywood

You know you've found a real gem of an intersection when two competing strip malls face each other, each with their own unknown dining options. The intersection of Oxnard Street and Whitsett Avenue in North Hollywood is one such magical place, with donut shops, Thai places, and at least one tropical ... More >>

Vagabond Grillyard Brings Roaming Burgers to Glendale and Beyond

Burgers may as well be dropping from heaven in Los Angeles. While, as a city, we may be cresting over the hump of our beef and bun obsession, the ride is far from over. Chefs continue to find inventive ways to integrate burgers onto their focused concept menus, often with interesting results. Take ... More >>

Storefront Brings the Old World to Los Feliz

Lately I've been thinking a lot about an online trailer for an upcoming documentary by Erik Anjou called Deli Man, which chronicles the culture of the American delicatessen through interviews with such L.A. authorities as Norm Langer, Jackie and Marc Canter and, of course, Larry King. (If you can sp ... More >>

Get On the Bus: The DIY Pizza Oven

From our 2012 Restaurant Issue, celebrating everything pizza in L.A. When you get your first glance at L.A.'s Fox Pizza Bus, you might think you've stumbled upon one of those movie star home tours -- or maybe a sightseeing bus. Rather than tourists, though, the backseats of this bus are occupied by ... More >>

Life of Pie: L.A. Celebrates Its Pizza Moment

From our 2012 Restaurant Issue, celebrating everything pizza in L.A. On a Wednesday evening, 10 students sit along the counter at the Scuola di Pizza, the, yes, "School of Pizza" at L.A.'s premier pizza joint, Mozza. I'd like to say we're a varied lot, but that wouldn't be true -- we're uniformly w ... More >>

Diana Kennedy at LACMA: Oaxacan Foods, Book Signing Proper Tortillas

Diana Kennedy, the Mexican cuisine authority and cookbook author, doesn't often travel outside of Mexico, where she lives in rural Michoacán a few hours from Mexico City. For the past 65 years, Mexico has been her home, and a laboratory for her studies and writings about Mexico's regional cuisines. ... More >>

Masa Madness at Maria's Tortillas

Unless you're shopping at gas stations or forcing yourself through an instant ramen diet, $2.90 rarely buys lunch. At Maria's Tortillas on the edge of Inglewood, that handful of laundry money buys not only lunch, but a tasty if somewhat light one: a single hefty husk-swathed tamale bolstered with ... More >>

Top 6 Tacos in the San Fernando Valley

Following up on our list of the 10 Best Tacos in Los Angeles, we decided to look onwards and upwards, towards the San Fernando Valley in search of even more great tacos. And find them we did, especially in Sylmar and Reseda. While you're never too far from a taco truck or taqueria on any given jaun ... More >>

The California Homemade Food Act: A Progress Report

Imagine a world where people could sell food prepared in their own kitchens. Sounds like a pre-Industrial Revolution bake sale, but it could very well be the near future. That is, if the Cottage Food Bill passes. The California Homemade Food Act (AB 1616), which is currently in Congress, would make ... More >>

Mexican Market Tour Cooking Class

Many food fanatics would consider a trip to Mexico the ultimate vacation. But when East L.A. is your proverbial backyard, somehow airfare to an exotic locale doesn't seem necessary. Nancy Zaslavsky, author of A Cook's Tour of Mexico, could prove that very point. On May 19, she'll lead an "East L.A. ... More >>

Naan Stop Food Truck to Open Restaurant... in Atlanta

The latest Los Angeles food truck to open a brick-and-mortar location is Naan Stop (@naanstop), but they're doing it in Atlanta. Why? Because Georgia needs samosas and masala fries. In fact, it's sort of a return to their roots for Neal and Samir Idnani, who own and run the truck. The brothers " ... More >>

Dutch Ovens: 5 Other Kitchen Tools You Won't Need to Buy If You Own One

​I got into an elevator empty-handed one recent morning and by the end of a short two-story ride, was the proud owner of a bright orange Le Creuset Dutch oven. A recently married co-worker who'd likely been inundated with new cookware from the registry was trying to get rid of it, for free. "M ... More >>

Best 2011 Baking Books For Those In Need Of A Martha Stewart Detox

CakeSpyRainbow Cake From "CakeSpy"​We all have a friend or two who is in dire need of being weaned from their Martha Stewart entertaining habits or persistent Rachael Ray cookie book fixes. But handing them the latest crémeux-filled pastry book from Michel Roux is only going to send them into ... More >>

Now Open: Maison Giraud in the Pacific Palisades Your Pain au Chocolat Update

A. ScattergoodMaison Giraud canelé​If you're the sort of person who dreams about pain au chocolat (see: 99 Things To Eat in L.A. Before You Die, 2010) and properly made canelés de Bordeaux (beeswax, copper molds), you may also have been peering through the picture windows yesterday morning a ... More >>

Your Counter Intelligence Preview: In Which Mr. Gold Considers Sotto

Anne Fishbein​Our wide-ranging restaurant critic Jonathan Gold returns to the Westside to take another bite out of Sotto.Sotto is a different kind of Italian restaurant, a shrine to the awesome heat of its oven, a place where the hot, fresh bread can come with pureed lardo instead of olive oil ... More >>

Shaanxi Gourmet: More Fun with Hand-Shaved Noodles Untranslated Menus in the SGV

F. FriesemaJonagold apples​Shaanxi noodles? We know from Shaanxi noodles. The hand-shaved variety, first at Dow Shaw/Heavy Noodling, then at JTYH, have been a mainstay of San Gabriel Valley gourmandism for decades before most Westsiders could point out Shaanxi on a map. But in New York, Xi'an ... More >>

Q & A With Nancy Silverton: The Mozza Cookbook, The Problem of Gelato Doing One Thing at a Time Very, Very Well

A. ScattergoodNancy Silverton and her new cookbook at Mozza​ Nancy Silverton, who is an over-achiever in much the same way as is, say, Malcolm Gladwell, has had a productive summer even by her standards. Mozzas in Newport Beach and Singapore recently opened; Amy Pressman's burger project, Shor ... More >>

Jonathan Gold Reviews L.A. Weekly Pancake Breakfast

Local Pantry: Zeta Za'atar Lavash Chips (Say That 10 Times Fast)

JgarbeeZa'atar Zeta Hour​Hit your semi-specialty "local" national grocer (Whole Foods, we're talking about you) these days, and you can pretty much declare your local condiment duties done. But if we step away from the fancy Artisinal LA packaging and get straight down to tasting, finding top ... More >>

Altadena Urban Farmers Market: This Sunday, Maybe No Longer

Felicia FriesemaTomato and garlic jams at the Altadena Urban Farmers Market​ So what is the best farmers market in L.A.? The answer depends on what's most important to you in a market: variety, number of organic vendors, quality of the bakers, sense of community, distance the farms have to tra ... More >>

Taste of Beirut: Shanto's Bakery

Photo courtesy of Shanto's BakeryFreshly made manakish bread with a variety of toppings bubble up in the oven at Shanto's​ Before Shaunt Adessian opened Shanto's Bakery in La Crescenta, he traveled thousands of miles from Los Angeles, arriving in Lebanon to discover the Levantine culinary meth ... More >>

Tacos de Cabeza: More Fun with Goat Heads Test Kitchen Experiments

Farid ZadiRoasted Goat Head Triptych​ Last Friday we invited Charles Perry, beer of the month columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and seven other guests, for a Royal Wedding viewing and tacos de cabeza recipe testing party at Ecole de Cuisine, a fully equipped culinary school and test kitchen. Th ... More >>

Mexican Cooking, from a Korean Point of View A Chicken Pozole Recipe

Amazon​So why is a Korean food expert writing about Mexican cooking? It makes sense when you find out that Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee's parents had a Mexican grocery in the San Fernando Valley. Working there, she learned many a dish from the women who came in to shop, and she later immersed herself ... More >>

Breaking Bread with Bicycle Bread Company

T. NguyenStephen Gordon of Bicycle Bread Company​ In the history of barters, there have been a few notables: a red paper clip for a house. Fifteen million dollars, Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, and three first round picks for Wayne Gretzky, Marty McSorley, and Mike Krushelnyski (

Beyond Organic: Going "Fully Traceable" with Daily Dose's Christian Page

Guzzle & NoshDaily Dose: Interior (left) and mascot.​We've been hearing about Daily Dose for over a year now, and, yesterday, we finally got a look at the market-to-table cafe set to open "some time in April" on the same block as Church & State. Like any buzzwords, "organic" and "local" have ... More >>

Steven Arroyo's Escuela Set to Debut This Month

Lilliam Rivera/Mondette​After Steven Arroyo served chorizo tacos at last summer's East L.A. Meets Napa event, there was a lot of chatter around the blogosphere about his newest project, Escuela, the small taqueria he planned to open around the corner from the original Cobras & Matadors -- on S ... More >>

Cookbook Review: When Those Great Easy Meals Aren't So Perfect On The Food Network

​How many times are we going to say the magazine-cum-cookbook seems to be the publishing trend du jour? One more time, apparently, when the The Food Network Magazine releases Great Easy Meals: 250 Fun & Fast Recipes in the coming weeks. The press release promises the magazine's first cookbook ... More >>

Last Night: Food Truck Waterloo in Santa Anita

There's no surer bet these days than rounding out an event -- a street fair, a concert, a community festival -- with a few nouveau food trucks. Even the mediocre trucks, and there are plenty, are bound to be better than the grim array of vendors who usually populate these affairs. ($10 for a burnt ... More >>

New Location

Same old Pal Cabron

Off the Street: Antojitos Carmen comes in from the cold

Best of L.A.: Burgers

At El Monte’s Birrieria La Barca Jalisco, spicy transcendence comes in a molcajete

Mortar fire

99 Essential - List Only

Where to Eat Now

The Great Carnitas Plate

Mole Minimalism

Market Research

Exploring Gardena's new Marukai grocery store and food court

Ask Mr. Gold

Ask Mr. Gold

Ask Mr. Gold

Regional Mexican

Nueva York

Dangerous Liaison

Chaos Theory

Thinking Pink

A Guide to Our Advertisers: Part 1

The Reluctant Café

Picholine makes up in quality what it lacks in tables

Supersize It!

Bigger is better

The Best of Counter Intelligence

Yo Quiero Tacos

Yeah. Drop the chalupa.