Eastern Europe

This Week's Restaurant Review, The Condensed Version: Allumette in Echo Park

This week, our restaurant review considers Allumette in Echo Park, the new spot from young chef Miles Thompson. To get the full rundown on this somewhat astonishing restaurant you should read the full review. Or turn the page for a synopsis.

Salt Linked to 2.3 Million Deaths Annually

It's the ultimate salt vs. sugar smackdown! On Monday we reported that sugary drinks have been linked to 180,000 deaths worldwide annually. Now a new report presented at a conference yesterday says that eating too much salt kills 2.3 million people every year, CBS News reports. Researchers looked ... More >>

How Much Should I F***ing Tip?: The Internet Just Made Tipping Abroad Easy

So there you are in Belarus, supping on beet soup and rye bread, getting all stinky on kvas. The bill comes and you reach for your wallet. To tip or not to tip, you wonder. You try to remember the advice dispensed in your uncreased copy of Lonely Planet: Belarus, but the details are pretty fuzzy ... More >>

Touche Amore's Southeast Asian Tour Diary: "I Cannot Put Into Words How Terrifying the Drive Was"

Los Angeles hardcore group Touche Amore is sharing their tour diary from their recent trip to Southeast Asian. Yesterday vocalist Jeremy Bolm described their wild times in Singapore and Malaysia, and for part two today he talks on their time in Indonesia. See also: Touche Amore's Southeast Asia Tou ... More >>

Britt and Amanda Brown Do it For Love, and a Little Money

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.] If you lacked directions to Britt and Amanda Brown's house in the Highland Park hills, you probably could guess the address. Look for the tea green and p ... More >>

Why Are So Many International DJs Moving to Los Angeles?

Los Angeles has recently experienced a heavy influx of international dance music producers, DJs, and label chiefs. Brits like Michael Cook and Mark Lewis were throwing raves in the Southland in the late '80s and early '90s, while French dance royalty Daft Punk arrived at some point in the late '90s ... More >>

Freddie's Not Dead

Drug War Leads to More HIV?

Updated at the bottom with some of the report's findings. First posted on June 21. In L.A. your favorite outlaw drug, marijuana, is pretty much legit and widely available (for now). But what if it wasn't? What if you had to scrounge around dirty, dark alleys, buy your fix from shady drug dealers, ... More >>

Mike Hakopyan Alleged Leader of 'Russian Call Girl Ring' Run Out of Santa Monica, L.A.

It all started last year when customs officials spied two (dare we assume attractive?) Latvian women who just arrived at LAX from Moscow. What was the purpose of their visit? Their stories, federal authorities now say, didn't add up. But they had one thing in common: A man named Mher "Mike" Hakopya ... More >>

The Survivor Mitzvah Project

Music Picks: Coldplay, Estelle, Joss Stone, Lana Del Rey

Also, Enuff Z'Nuff, Gizzelle, Goliath and others

Bronson Bared

Top 5 Places to Eat Piroshki in L.A.

L.Aghajanian​On the post-Soviet streets of Eastern Europe and Eurasia, the piroshki is the fast food of choice. A fast fried doughy bun stuffed with warm, savory fillings like potatoes, meat or mushrooms, the piroshki boasts just the right amount of dough-to-filling ratio for your eating and h ... More >>

Huckleberry: 99 Essential Restaurants 2011

Zola Jesus, LA Vampires, Xanopticon - Echoplex - October 31, 2011

ian Cohen​See also: *Zola Jesus Brings Her Unsettled and Prickly Vision to L.A. *Amanda Brown of LA Vampires: Raw Foodist, Colossal In Kiev Zola Jesus, LA Vampires, Xanopticon Echoplex October 31, 2011 Better than... Seeing MC 900 Ft. Jesus on Columbus Day. Gotta admit, perhaps the greates ... More >>

Porters of Hellgate's The Merchant of Venice

Jonathan Gold Reviews Wako Donkasu

Los Angeles Film Festival 2011 Preview

Vera Michaelson, Dental-School Grad, Shot Dead by Doctor Husband Alex in Valley 'Murder-Suicide'

FacebookPolice say Vera Michaelson was shot twice in the head by her husband yesterday.​A 32-year-old immigrant from Belarus named Vera Michaelson lay lifeless in her Tarzana driveway last night, her dead husband Alex Michaelson, 39, at her side -- and a pistol between them. The couple had tw ... More >>

Jonas Oppenheim's Free $$$ and Israela Margalit's Trio

Fidelity in flames

Stage Raw: A Star is Hatched

COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGSNEW THEATER REVIEWSSTAGE FEATURE on Tim Crouch's The Author, and the Belarus Free Theatre L.A. WEEKLY THEATER AWARDS NOMINEESA STAR IS HATCHED​Meet Gertrude Stein (right), and her girlfriend, Alice B. Toklas. Gertrude and Alice were rescued from extermination at an an ... More >>

Belarus Free Theatre, Free Speech and Thought Control

BFT’s Natalya Kolyada, and Tim Crouch’s The Author

Stage Raw: Theatrification and Broadway 100

COMPREHENSVIE THEATER LISTINGSNEW THEATER REVIEWSSTAGE FEATURE on Tim Crouch's The Author, and the Belarus Free Theatre L.A. WEEKLY THEATER AWARDS NOMINEESTHEATRIFICATION AND BROADWAY 100 ​Broadway and the Vaudeville circuit began in Los Angeles 100 years ago, in the downtown Historical Theater Di ... More >>

How to Have a Happy New Year: Top 5 "Good Luck" Foods

Gleek.net/Flickr​If you're the superstitious type, seize the moment. There's a huge handful of foods one can eat around New Year's which are thought to ensure good luck for the next 365 days. We've rounded up a list of a few "good luck" foods that, if for nothing more than karmic efficiency, ... More >>

Web Surfing: A Roundup of News from L.A. Food Blogs & Beyond

-- The invention of the pub library: Gyopar, a Communist-era pub outside Budapest. [Reuters] -- Tarte Tatin bakery, coming soon to Beverly Hills. [Grub Street] -- If you're still hungry after watching Mad Men's season premier last night: a recipe for Chicken Kiev. [Eatocracy] -- Why mini cows ... More >>

Drink Me: Vodka

Ben CalderwoodLucques Gimlet with fava bean purée, green olives, feta and grilled bread​ First in an occasional series of spirit lessons where Squid Ink picks up the tab. The etymology is a dead giveaway. Vodka originates from the Slavic voda, or water, which illustrates just how fundamenta ... More >>

Celebrating Mardi Gras? Download Gyspyphonic Disko's NOLA Mix Pronto

​If you're looking for the soundtrack to your Mardi Gras 2010, and are interested not in New Orleans' past but the future in all its melting pot glory, you should head to Gypsyphonicdisko pronto to download a great mixtape that touches on the sound of the city without resorting to nostalgia or ... More >>

Best of L.A.: Happy Hour

Wine Guy Explains Wine Things: Good Cab, Bad Cab

Wine Guy Lou Amdur of "Lou: A Wine Bar" returns this week with some thoughts about West Coast Cabernet Sauvignons, several tips on What Not To Buy and the answer to the question "Why do I always feel so gross after dr ... More >>

Movie Reviews: Land of the Lost, My Life in Ruins, Pressure Cooker

Also, Corked!, Downloading Nancy and more

LA People 2009: Street Sonic — the Petrojvic Blasting Co.

Meet three musical Balkan brothers who aren't actually Balkan, or related, but do agree on one thing: "The street is the most traditional venue."

Huckleberry Hounds: The Brunch Crush at Zoe Nathan's New Cafe

Even the governor waits his turn

For Your Bar or Bat Mitzvah

When Theater Is Sanctuary and not Temple

Dancing butterflies

Film Reviews: Daddy Day Camp, Stardust

Also this week's pick, 12:08 East of Bucharest

Sweetheart Deal

Providence’s night of happy endings

A Theater Lover's Lament

Confessions of a critic trying to keep the bottle at bay

StreetSignism

The new, weird counterculture

Ask Mr. Gold

Watch Them All Fall Down

Domino dancing to communism’s collapse

The American in the French Kitchen

Germany’s Trial Balloon

Anti-Semitism for political gain and profit

The Matter at Hand

In some of our favorite parts of the world, everything is finger food, from steaming gobs of rice to whole fried carp

Burning Man

Getting in Touch with One's Inner Churl

The Misfits

American Westerns through Polish eyes

Back to the Source

Uncrossing international pop

Curry With the Singe on Top

Hot food for the hot summer

Flavors of the Near East

As in Lebanon, Armenia, Alhambra . . .

Liver

And the end of being hip