Gardena

Corey Delaine Stewart: Cops Say Suspect Had SUV Rigged For Rape, Used It

Cops say they've arrested a man wanted in connection with a super-creepy rape in which a vehicle rigged with a passenger door that could not be opened was used in an attack on a woman contacted through a social networking site. Corey Delaine Stewart has been charged in connection with the rape, Gar ... More >>

Food Fight, Kabul-Style: Afghan Express vs. Azeen's

Afghanistan, on a map: land-locked, sandwiched between questionable neighbors, ringed by mountains, crisscrossed by dangerous (and often impassable) roads. No wonder Afghan cuisine is limited to what can be grown domestically -- importing fresh food is a life or death enterprise. So, in the resta ... More >>

Where the Chefs Eat: Sotto's Steve Samson

Where the Chefs Eat is an ongoing series in which we ask a local chef to give us his or her favorite dining options. This week, Steve Samson, chef (along with Zach Pollack) at Sotto, tells us his favorite spots to eat these days. Although he's known for his unflinchingly Italian cooking at Sotto, o ... More >>

Holiday DUI Checkpoint Cheat Sheet: Massive Drunk Driving Crackdown Starts Friday

'Tis the season to be jolly, yes, but try not to do your fa-la-la-la-laing in a jail cell. Not fun. The L.A. County Sheriff's Department this week previewed the anti-DUI can of whoopass it's unveiling for the holidays, starting this weekend. It's massive:

47: Lucky Baldwins' Traditional Full English Breakfast

Leading up to this year's Best of L.A. issue (due out Oct. 4), we'll be counting down, in no particular order, 100 of our favorite dishes. 47: Lucky Baldwins' Traditional Full English Breakfast. Breakfast can mean many things to many people. A perfectly constructed pastry from Joan's on Third. Bru ... More >>

How the City of Gardena Turns Every Piece of Graffiti Into a Felony Crime

In this week's cover story, "Los Angeles' War on Street Artists," we reveal that the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, with the help of city and county prosecutors, figured out how to try all graffiti artists as gangsters in court. In short: For the last five years or so, the sheriff has been treat ... More >>

DUI Checkpoint in Hollywood Tonight; Drunk Driver Crackdown Across L.A.

The dog days of summer are here, the 4th of July is way back in the rear view, and the season is winding down. But, for whatever reason, authorities across L.A. county are turning up the heat on drunk drivers with a "Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over" campaign August 17 to September 3. Not only that ... More >>

Farmers Markets on July Fourth: Most Closed Santa Monica Still Open for Business

Just a quick reminder that although many Los Angeles-area farmers markets will be closed for business on Wednesday (including West L.A., Gardena, Lawndale, Altadena and Barnsdall Park), the morning Santa Monica Farmers Market will be open during its regular hours, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Soba Sojibo: The Slick Noodle

Soba -- those delicate, earthy strands of pasta you find floating in a bowl of hot broth or piled onto flat bamboo trays -- is one of the most difficult creations in a Japanese noodle chef's repertoire. Since the ash-colored buckwheat flour from which they're made contains almost no gluten, soba noo ... More >>

Ramen Red Alert!: Menya-Iroha Coming to Gardena, Kotoya to West L.A.

If the recent boom of Japan-imported ramen chains in Southern California is the cross-cultural cousin of the 60's British Invasion -- which feels like a fair comparison lately -- then round up the screaming fangirls, because the Beatles have just landed in Los Angeles and Gardena's Murakai Market is ... More >>

7 Great Los Angeles Ethnic Markets

As significant as farmers markets are in reintroducing seasonality to our diet, it is the neighborhood market that regularly holds us down when times call for lingonberry syrup or injera bread. It may be too early to declare Los Angeles -- or anywhere for that matter -- post-racial, but in a city wi ... More >>

L.A. Zine Fest: Shia LaBeouf Is a Dick and Four Other Things We Learned

The world is becoming increasingly paperless, but don't tell that to the paper peddlers at last Sunday's inaugural L.A. Zine Fest, who proved that if you can doodle something clever, copy, staple and distribute -- voila -- you've got a zine. Nearly 90 DYI-ers from Gardena to Portland gathered to se ... More >>

Teflon Sheriff Lee Baca Has a Shadow Leader in Paul Tanaka, Report Says: Jail Beating Problems Lead Back to Him?

LASD / WitnessLATanaka.​The decade-long accusations of unjust inmate beatings by deputies at the L.A. County Jail has only recently caught the attention of the man we call the Teflon Sheriff, Lee Baca. We had our doubts when the elected lawman said he really didn't know what was going on in t ... More >>

Best Warehouse Pizza: Eatalian Cafe

Keep chewing. Close your eyes and the scene is clear: You're eating pizza in Bologna, a softly lit neighborhood haunt, where in the corner rests a majestic oven built from the soil of Mount Vesuvius. Open your eyes and the illusion disappears: You're eating at Eatalian Cafe, in a cavernous warehouse ... More >>

The Thursday Edition: A Roundup of Newspaper Food Stories

Flickr/dubh​ What's the country reading today food-wise? Here's a roundup of some of the food-related stories from other newspapers, many of which print their food sections mid-week. And remember, even if you don't actually buy papers these days (or not; this paper is free), it's where most of ... More >>

Jonathan Gold Reviews Fat Spoon

Fat Spoon: Japanese Curry with A Pedigree

F. FriesemaJonagold apples​ Japanese curry, as usually constituted, features in some of the most chef-proof restaurants in the world. The spicy, translucent goop -- whose lineage traces from Africa, through resident Indian cooks, through Portuguese traders whose boats were parked outside Nagas ... More >>

Jonathan Gold Reviews Shin Sen Gumi

Ivan Spencer, Husband of 'Starz' Strip Club Owner, Shot Dead in Prius on L.A. Freeway Interchange

The victim's wife reportedly owns "Starz," a Gardena strip club.​In what appears to have been a freak car-to-car shooting at 2:35 a.m. this morning, 55-year-old Rolling Hills resident Ivan Spencer was fatally hit by a bullet while changing freeways from the 101 South to the 91 East. City News ... More >>

Eatalian Café West: Now Reopened

D. GonzalezThe 46 slice at Eatalian Cafe West​ Many of us who write about food hear the plea: "Please don't write about [insert favorite restaurant/bakery/seller of obscure charcuterie here]. They are crowded enough." They point to places like Eatalian Café, in the Harbor Gateway area of Ga ... More >>

El Camino High Police Shooting: Did LAPD Overreact? And Did Gardena High Shooting Receive Equal Attention?

Los Angeles Police DepartmentA composite of the El Camino cop shooter​Update: "LAPD Chief Says Jeffrey Stenroos, L.A. School Officer 'Shot in Chest' at El Camino High, Was Lying." The vast majority of media and community reaction to Wednesday's police shooting at El Camino High -- an unexpect ... More >>

Gardena High School: Two Students Injured In Shooting

Gardena High.​Updated after the jump: Two other suspects have been arrested; the teen who allegedly brought the gun to school was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. See Wednesday's story about another shooting near an L.A. high school campus, this one injuring a police office ... More >>

Why Is Gardena High School In Los Angeles?

Gardena High, represented by the green box, sticks out on a map of L.A.​L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa issued a statement on the shooting at Gardena High School. It's not just neighborly concern. Gardena High is in Los Angeles.Why is that?

Congratulations: Your "Michael Jackson Fondling Macaulay Caulkin" Tattoo is Now Protected by the First Amendment!

This is now constitutionally kosher!​Is it illegal to walk into a crowded theater with a tramp stamp that says "FIRE"? That might still be unclear, but today the LA Times reports that a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that "tattoos and the art of tattooing are ... More >>

Stellar Tofu at Meiji, Gardena

Ben CalderwoodFresh zaru tofu with candied ginger and syrup​ Kumidashi supreme tofu, produced fresh on-site every morning save Tuesday at Meiji Tofu's barely-there Gardena storefront, is rapturous, and comes closer to capturing the sacred alchemy of milk and rennet (i.e. cheese) than any ersat ... More >>

Suge Knight Arrested On Suspicion Of Assault With A Deadly Weapon

​Rap mogul Marion "Suge'' Knight was arrested early Thursday on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and for a warrant for driving on a suspended license, Los Angeles police said. The 45-year-old founder of Death Row Records was pulled over in a white Cadillac Escalade pickup on Crenshaw ... More >>

Ask Mr. Gold: Fish For More, or When Mrs. Paul's Just Doesn't Cut It

Photo credit: Anne FishbeinMr. Gold, with dim sum menu​Dear Mr. Gold: Where can I buy nice fresh fish in the Silverlake/Los Feliz/downtown area? I'm having a housewarming party. --Deborah, Los Feliz Dear Deborah: Do you really want to do seafood for a party? You're almost always better off wi ... More >>

Man Drains 97-Year-Old's Life Savings Via ATM

LAPDThe suspect.​Police on Wednesday announced they were looking for a Mercedes-driving suspect they say drained a 97-year-old's life savings by using an ATM card stolen from the victim. The man's alleged take was $46,000 withdrawn at Southern California ATMs between August and November. Los ... More >>

Tax Preperer Sentenced For Helping Clients Score Unreal Deductions

​A Gardena man who told clients he was a former Internal Revenue Service worker and found them too-good-to-be-true deductions was sentenced to six years in federal prison Monday in part for costing the government $2.7 in tax revenue that he illegally shaved from customers' returns through thos ... More >>

Autism In L.A. Clustered Around Affluent Areas, Study Finds

UC Davis​Researchers at UC Davis have been studying geographic patterns that correlate to autism perhaps in hopes of coming up with an environmental link. On that front, they came up blank. But the school's recent findings are interesting nonetheless: For the greater Los Angeles region, the ac ... More >>

Gardena Is Ready for Its Closeup

Strike up a conversation about Gardena with a stranger and -- if he hasn't run away -- you'll likely hear conflicting perceptions of the town (Pop. 58,000) that is nestled in the crook of the Harbor and Artesia freeways: Compton suburb; gateway to Hawthorne; onetime Poker Capital of the World; home ... More >>

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

Dem on Dem Payback State Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-L.A.) disciplined three members of her party for not voting to put spending limits on the ballot -- part of a key compromise Democrats made to finally pass a budget with Republicans. Stripped of their committee chairmanships were Black Caucus l ... More >>

Uncertain Curtains

Theater 2006

Hot-Wired

Where to find a Peruvian café con leche

Market Research

Exploring Gardena's new Marukai grocery store and food court

Ramen Holiday

Quest for Fire: Out of the Flames

L.A.'s best roasted, grilled sizzled and wood-baked cooking

Let’s Go for a Ride!

Car culture on Pacific rims

Griddle Me This

Ask Mr. Gold

Ask Mr. Gold

Ask Mr. Gold

Rainbow High

Queens of the Angels

Polly Warfield, 1914–2003. Pamela Gordon, 1937–2003

I Dough

An homage to pasta

From Spaetzle to Saimintosoda

The world on a string

Sawtelle Boulevard

Unrolling American Japanese food history on the Westside

Authentic Café?

Tacos like Mom used to make

Playa Vista Revisionism

DreamWorks, the critics now tell us, is okay by them

Finally, Enough Garlic

Rosemary may well be for remembrance, but it's garlic that won't let you forget.