Marco Polo

5 Great Restaurant Breadbaskets: Free Bread!

In this carbless, gluten-free, spinning/yoga/CrossFit-obsessed town, it's easy to vilify the humble loaf of bread. Sometimes offering very little in the way of nutrition and very much in the way of refined flour, the boule can be easy to bulls-eye. But for the struggling actors, actresses, and ju ... More >>

LAPD Spied on 21 Using StingRay Anti-Terrorism Tool

Mimicking a cellphone tower, it bypasses checks and balances

Ke$ha's "Die Young": Why This Song Sucks

[Editor's note: Why This Song Sucks determines why particular tracks blow using science. It appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday.] Song: Ke$ha, "Die Young" History: "Die Young" is the single from Warrior, the latest album from Ke$ha, current queen of the electropop genre and the current que ... More >>

LAPD Spy Device Taps Your Cell Phone

StingRay is secretly used without warrants

Top Chef Masters Recap: Blanc-ing Out

Paging P. Diddy. There was a white party and no one invited you. OK, it wasn't that kind of white party. Instead, on last night's episode of Top Chef Masters, the final four contestants were charged with catering a Dîner en Blanc, which is kind of like the James Bond of meals, that is, if 007 had ... More >>

Justin Willman, Alternative Magician, Mixes the Dark Arts With Irony

It's Tuesday night in the loftlike performance area semi-hidden behind Meltdown Comics' retail floor, and a crowd of more than 60 in neatly arranged chairs intently watches the show's youthful host, Justin Willman. He disappears behind a large black cloth, then asks an audience member to name a ... More >>

10 Classic Taiwanese Dishes

Venture into a mom-and-pop Taiwanese restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley and first-timers will undoubtedly be intimidated. The menus read much like those of strictly Chinese restaurants, but it's the subtle and uniquely Formosan dishes that make the experience that much more authentic. Fried tofu ... More >>

L.A. County's Private Property War

Jonathan Gold on Saltenas

Tracing the origins

Ask Mr. Gold: In Search of Salteñas, Revisited

Anne Fishbeinthe invisible restaurant critic​ Dear Mr. Gold: Salteñas are called that because they are the empanada style of the province of Salta, squarely in Argentina. Sure, they eat them elsewhere, but calling them Bolivian would be like saying that Tex-Mex music is kinda from Arizona! - ... More >>

Top 10 Best Musician Mustaches of 2010: Whiskers and Thigh Ticklers

Top 10 Best Musician Mustaches, Whiskers, and Thigh Ticklers

What's in Season at the Farmers Markets: Rhubarb

Christian Guthier​ Marco Polo was once charged with a singular mission on his Silk Road journeys: bring back to Europe a rhubarb plant from China that could be grown on European ground. At the time, rhubarb was fetching prices well above that of other Silk Road imports like cinnamon and even ... More >>

JTYH Restaurant: Heavy Noodling II

Knife-shaved pasta, the next generation

The B-Sides: Bishop Lamont Interview

Q: What was it like for you growing up in Los Angeles during the 80s? A: It was the LA of the Reagan administration. Drugs were really heavy in the streets at that time…more crack addicts…crack babies. It was a good time simultaneously because there was more creativity within the music and it ... More >>

Queer Town: All-American Memories

I It was time for a vacation and my parents wanted to see me. So I flew back east last Wednesday and visited them in Spring Lake, New Jersey, a beach resort town 60 miles south of New York City. The Essex & Sussex Hotel on Ocean Avenue in Spring Lake, New Jersey. II The memories blind-sided m ... More >>

eMC's The Show: The First Great Rap Album of 2008

"This is the number one rule for your set/In order to survive, gotta learn to live with regrets/And through our travels we get separated, never forget/In order to survive, gotta learn to live with regrets"-Jay-Z "Regrets" Rappers today don't live with regrets. Or maybe they just don't express the ... More >>

Relatives in the Mirror

Unearthing la raza’s Third Root

Sudden Shock

Recombinators

N*E*R*D moves on from hip-hop and rock

The Fourth World

Frenetic leisure, acid archaeology and the new breed of travel writers

The Slick Road Project

Here There Be Dragons

Tripping the light fantastic through the cosmos

I Dough

An homage to pasta

Ludwig Lives