Hawaii

Mercury From China Contaminating Pacific Ocean Fish

Mercury levels in fish, particularly deep-sea varieties, are only going to get higher, and for that you can thank power polluters such as China and India. According to a study published August 25 in the journal Nature Geoscience, mercury pollution from power plants in China and India is making its ... More >>

How 6 SoCal Places Got Their Really Weird Names

There are all sorts of unusual places names in this part of the country we call "The Southland." We have names of historic English derivation, not so unlike what you'd find back in the civilized East (Whittier, Torrance, Hawthorne, Glendale). We have place names of Spanish derivation (Tujunga, Rese ... More >>

Burning Love Co-Creator Erica Oyama Gives Us Dating Advice

Erica Oyama is the great comedic mind behind the scripted comedy web series Burning Love on Yahoo. The show parodies reality dating shows like The Bachelor, and recently released its third season while winning a Webby Award for Special Achievement of the Year. The first season made the jump from ti ... More >>

Tokimonsta on Asshole DJs and Her Twitter Game

Tokimonsta is the subject of our music feature this week; for the story, we hung out with the beat scene DJ/producer at the dinner party event celeb chef Roy Choi whipped up for her at his restaurant A-Frame. A few days later we sat down with her over green tea to talk about her recently released so ... More >>

How a $45,000 Oscar Gift Bag Is Born

Each golden Oscar statuette costs about $500 to make, although of course its monetary value ends up being more than that. But for those nominees who don't get that particular golden ticket, Los Angeles-based marketing firm Distinctive Assets will give them something pleasant to wake up to -- a swag ... More >>

Marijuana Smoking Could Double Your Risk Of Stroke

Bad news for Los Angeles, the medical marijuana capital of the nation. A new study says using weed could more than double your chance of having a stroke. Maybe. According to the fresh research from the University of Auckland presented to an American Stroke Association meeting in Hawaii this week . ... More >>

MTA Officials Encourage Fans To Take Expo Line To USC Trojans Game; Then Get Stuck On Expo Line

MTA officials held a press event this morning at USC to encourage Trojan fans to take the new Expo light-rail line to Saturday's home opener at the L.A. Coliseum.The event went off without a hitch, until the MTA folks tried to use the Expo Line to get back to their offices downtown.That's when the t ... More >>

Biggest Wave Ever Surfed: Garrett McNamara Takes Crown From SoCal's Mike Parsons

Up until this week the biggest wave ever surfed was right here in Southern California, believe it or not. While SoCal beaches don't exactly comprise a big-wave Mecca, sometimes the spot known as Cortes Bank, 105 miles from San Diego, produces monsters. San Clemente's Mike Parsons set the biggest-wa ... More >>

Asians Are Taking Over America

By presidential proclamation, it's Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month. And on that note, let us reflect upon the latest U.S. Census statistics, which show that ... Asians are taking over America! And you thought Latinos knew how to procreate and or get into the United States? Check out these fa ... More >>

Food News Roundup: Sustainable Seafood, Noma Alums The World's Most Expensive Vegetable

The Salt: "Buying Sustainable Fish Is Getting Easier, But It's Still Hard" The Los Angeles Times: Jonathan Gold recalls looking for a quart of milk in his Koreatown neighborhood on May 1, 1992. He revisits the area 20 years after the riots. Grub Street: Noma alums coming to a restaurant near you.. ... More >>

Coachella Craigslist Ticket Scammer Anthony Berson Busted by Hawaii 5-0, Cops Say

Busted. A genius in Hawaii allegedly advertised Coachella tickets via Craigslist but took the money and ran. Cops on the Big Island say 19-year-old Anthony Derick Berson of Keaʻau promised to send the tix and wristbands via FedEx to at least four victims who wired him hundreds of dollars. Of cour ... More >>

How Aloha Can You Go?

Sarah Vowell's Unfamiliar Fishes: New Book Explains Hawaii and How the U.S. Became an Empire

Writer/radio commentator Sarah Vowell comes to town to sit down with Jeff Garlin and talk about her latest book, a funny and lively history of America's acquisition of Hawaii. Here's our Q&A:

California is America's Most-Hated State, According to Public Policy Polling

Don't hate us because we're beautiful. Or do. It turns out the left-most state is also America's most-hated, according to a recent survey by Public Policy Polling. And California's left-leaning politics seem to have a lot to do with it. The Golden State is the most-disliked in the union, and Hawai ... More >>

Win a Free Trip to LudoBites 9 in Hawaii

Pack up the surfboard and throw on the bikini. UrbanSpoon is giving away one free trip to LudoBites Nine-0 -- in Hawaii. The prize includes two first-class, round-trip tickets on Hawaiian Airlines, four nights at the Four Seasons Kona and dinner for two at LudoBites. All you have to do to enter is. ... More >>

Lares Restaurant: Old School Beer Drinks at the Altar

jgarbeeThe Lares Altar​In L.A., where high-paid architects and interior designers seem as essential to a new restaurant's success as the choice of chef, walking into a well-worn local haunt like Lares in Santa Monica has that "welcome home" appeal that you can't buy. It's the sort of place whe ... More >>

Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Recap: Is Brandi Glanville the New Kim Richards?

My how the meth head tables have turned. In last night's episode, the better part of the RHOBH gang headed to Hawaii to celebrate Mauricio Umansky's birthday (because, of course, who needs a trip with the boys when you can tow along your wife's TV friends?) and we had the pleasure of watching Brand ... More >>

A-Frame: 99 Essential Restaurants 2011

30 Scoops in 30 Days: Lappert's (Day 26)

Outside of its birthplace in Hawaii, Lappert's Ice Cream is mostly a Northern California brand. Bored in retirement, Walter Lappert mixed his first batch of ultra rich, high-butterfat ice cream in Kauai in 1983. The brand took off, and his son, Michael, opened a California production facility the ... More >>

Rajiv Joseph's The Monster at the Door

Squid Ink's Most Beloved Discontinued Products: Well, A Few of Them

DSL in Jaz/flickrWe hardly knew you.​ Our favorite convenience foods are like friendly co-workers holed up in the next cubicle over. We meet them, like them, grow accustomed to their presence in our lives, and then, just as soon as we realize we can't quite imagine life without them, they di ... More >>

Stud Llamas, Delivery Chickens Mark Twain's Favorite Fruit: Top 5 Craigslist Farm and Garden Classifieds of the Week

Combing through Craigslist's Farm and Garden Classifieds gives an Internet prowler a case of the chuckles. Some people yuck at the writing, but for us, the wares themselves (see pig statue entry) and the vendors' keen marketing ploys (see llama entry) are enough. Seriously though, seeing what peopl ... More >>

$1 Million Per Person 'Spiritual Awakening' Session Marketed to Beverly Hills Residents

cabreney.jm$1 million light rays.​If your Valentine's date fell through and you have an extra mil laying around, maybe what you really need is a "session of spiritual awakening." For only $1 million the Master Trinity Poly Crown "will show proof, evidence, and that the power of mother nature ... More >>

Q & A With Rodelio Aglibot, Part 2: What Makes a Great Burger, The Question of Arugula, President Obama 7 Courses of Spam

A. Scattergoodchef Rodelio Aglibot at GO Burger​ In the first part of our interview with Rodelio Aglibot, BLT Restaurant Group -- and thus GO Burger -- corporate executive chef, the well-traveled chef discussed Los Angeles sports and the future of Filipino cuisine, among other things. Turn th ... More >>

I'M A WHALE WATCHER

Short Attention Span Dinner Theater: Your Week in Food, 11/15-11/19

In which we highlight the past week in food, either at home or abroad. "As you might have expected, A-Frame, in what looks like an old IHOP tricked out with enough pine and track lighting to make it resemble a ski chalet, is pretty different from the legion of gastropubs." First Bite: Take the A ... More >>

Californians Spending Their Welfare $$$ In Vegas Is Great Tea Party Fodder. But It's Less Than 1 Percent Of Total.

​A lead story in today's L.A. Times reports that Californians on welfare spent more than $69 million out-of-state in recent years. Get ready John and Ken and all you other shock jock talkers: Included in the spending were "millions in Las Vegas, hundreds of thousands in Hawaii and thousands ... More >>

Plate Spinning: Listings From the Past Week

Some food for thought from local, national and international news sources from this past week: -- The Worst Drink in America? A 2,000-calorie milkshake. [Reuters] -- No more shark fin soup for you: Hawaii becomes the first state to ban the possession of shark fins. [Time] -- Bravo's next c ... More >>

Movie Reviews: Trash Humpers, A Nightmare in Las Cruces, Letters to Juliet

Also, The Thorn in the Heart, Princess Kaiulani and more

Coffee-Making: a Frothy Contest

IT'S A BEAUTIFUL WORLD, DAMMIT

Halloween at The Hungry Cat A White Zombie Recipe

Tomorrow The Hungry Cat goes all South Pacific for Halloween, with a special Tiki holiday menu. The folks at David Lentz' Hollywood restaurant (he also has a Hungry Cat in Santa Barbara), justly famous for its cocktails, will be mixing Mai Tais and White Zombies for the occasion. For dinner they'll ... More >>

American Apparel Puts Father Yod On A T-Shirt, Anthology Provides The Soundtrack

Celebrated Hollywood Hills cult head and far-out psych-rock band leader Father Yod may have died in an unfortunate hang-gliding accident in Hawaii in 1975 (we realize the inherent oddness of that sentence to any not familiar with the Ya Ho Wha 13 story), but his image is being resurrected thanks to ... More >>

What's All the Hula About?

GOD BLESS OUR PARKS

TS Blowjob Messes With Boyfriend's Head

“Cold Desolate Places”: Phil Elverum (aka The Microphones aka Mt. Eerie) Interviewed: Part 1 of 4

Phil Elverum: "It's so weird here right now. It's snowing but the sky is blue and it's not really that cold. I don't know where the flakes are coming from. I'm sitting here by the firepit and there's sun shining on me and snow falling on me."

Key Moments in the Struggle for Gay Marriage in the U.S.

Holy unions to Supreme Court battles

Bootleg Poppin'

Hawaii 5-0, Bootie LA

Margi Scharff: A Life Well Traveled

1955�2007

Queen Week

What to do in Los Angeles this week

Hairs Looking at You: Backstage at Shay Todd

At first I didn't get the braids (apparently neither did this model). The theme was Hawaii so why were the models looking all Coolio? Then, hair curtains were rolled out and crimped... The braids were taken out, the false hai ... More >>

Pregnant Pauses, Toys in the Crawlspace

A writer�s encounters with L.A.

Surf�s Way Up

Riding Giants puts the history of big-wave riding on the big screen

Recall's Side Effects

The frantic push to get a health insurance bill to Davis in what could be his final days in office

Bombs Away

Revising history in Pearl Harbor

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Hainan Chicken

The cuisine, not the crisis

From Spaetzle to Saimintosoda

The world on a string

Sex and the Single Fruit Fly

If you can't beat them - mate them!