Shuji Sakai

BBQ Contest at Santa Anita Racetrack TOMORROW!

Horse racing and competition barbecue make for strange bedfellows once again at Santa Anita Park tomorrow. The Win, Place and BBQ Showdown brings back over thirty top BBQ teams to the grassy infield, where you can lose your shirt on the ponies, then lament your gambling losses with samples of smoky, ... More >>

BBQ Contest At The Queen Mary This Saturday Your Insider's Guide to Sampling!

Legit barbecue contests like the ones you see on TV don't happen much in Los Angeles. Did you make it the contest at Santa Anita Park we told you about? No? Well, the 1st Annual West Coast BBQ Classic drops anchor this weekend at the Queen Mary Events Park in Long Beach, and it is the last sanction ... More >>

BBQ Contest at Santa Anita Racetrack: Coming March 10

A barbecue contest and a horse race in Los Angeles, of all places? We've seen a rodeo and BBQ competition before, but this combination is a new one for us. The Santa Anita racetrack is hosting both the San Felipe Stakes and the Winners Circle BBQ Championships on March 10. While the horses run at th ... More >>

Killer Shrimp Is Opening Killer Cafe in April Newport Beach Coming Soon

Our sister blog Stick a Fork In It reported this morning that Killer Shrimp might be opening a second location in Newport Beach later this summer. We spoke this morning to Chris Reda, a manager at Marina del Rey, who tells us that a lease has not been signed yet, but they're very interested in a par ... More >>

Food Poisoning Detector Coming to Your Smartphone?

Want to check if that meat is really spoiled, or just smells off? UCLA reports that a new attachment for smartphones may be able to detect E. coli and Salmonella contamination and save you from a trip to the emergency room. Researchers from UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Scie ... More >>

Trader Joe's Cookie Butter, aka Speculoos, is Back!

ProfessorSalt.comTrader Joe's Cookie Butter, before they ran out last year​If you've never experienced the creamy, crackalicious wonder that is Trader Joe's Cookie Butter, it might be because the shipment they imported late last year caught on like wildfire. They've been sold out since before ... More >>

Spend Valentine's Day With Hello Kitty, at Hooters Japan

Headed to Japan this week? Hooters Tokyo location is offering a Valentine's Day special through next Tuesday: Two promotional ice cream desserts called the Volcano of Love and the Rock of Love, and the first 1,000 customers to order either will get a collector's edition pin of Hello Kitty as a Hoote ... More >>

Will Sing For Food: The Sonic Serenade

Adam Kuban/Flickr​What do you do when you're so musically talented that you can express everything in your head with melody and emotion? Like when asking for cheese on your #4 tater tots? Watch the charming video of vocalist and guitarist Giorgio Fareira doing what comes naturally for him at the S ... More >>

Braille Burger Buns, Or, How to Tap the Blind Social Media

​Here's another case where foreign ad agencies are handing American agencies their asses. South Africa's Wimpy Burgers has Braille menus for the blind, and to get the word out, they created some special burger buns using sesame seeds to spell out messages in Braille.

[Updated] Pinkberry Co-Founder Arrested at LAX

​Update 1/17 4:15 p.m. Pinkberry's Senior Vice President of Marketing and Design Laura Jakobsen responded to the Young Lee arrest with this statement that firmly distances the co-founder from the company's current operations. Mr. Young Lee has no involvement with Pinkberry, our partners or our m ... More >>

An Evil Piggie Made of Marzipan: Or, Candy-making With Norwegians

You may have done some amazing holiday baking recently, but we're pretty sure you made nothing as gnarly and awesome as this sinister pig sculpted from 10 kilos of marzipan. That's 22 pounds of sweet almond paste crafted into a demon dessert worthy of a Gwar show. Norwegian Jonas Laberg made this s ... More >>

Q & A with David Larsen of Haven Gastropub Brewery: Beer Geeks in Pasadena, Adventures in Dry Pork Your Brewmaster as Ukekele Player

Orange County's Haven Gastropub has a reputation for rather maniacally obtaining their mercurial selection of craft brews. On one occasion, Beverage Director Wil Dee took a Smokey and the Bandit-style run up to San Francisco to bootleg a vanload from 21st Amendment Brewery, which has no wholesale d ... More >>

Microsoft Is Poaching Engineers: With A Bacon Cart

For some reason, Microsoft seems to think that experienced software engineers are difficult to find in this down economy, so it's trying to recruit talent from the Seattle offices of Amazon, Adobe and Google. The Seattle Times reports that the battle for skilled coders is being waged with free bacon ... More >>

[Updated] Alcohol-Free Whisky Debuts

Update: 11/21, 1:35 p.m. Arkay's November 1 press release claiming it received halal-certification from the Islamic Food & Nutrition Council of America was strongly refuted by that certifying organization. IFANCA issued its own release and warns "all halal consumers, retailers and distributors. As ... More >>

Muppets Cake Pops!

Japanese Curry House CoCo Ichibanya Opens in Rowland Heights

ProfessorSalt.comCoco Ichibanya's Katsu-curry​Do you love Japanese curry and need to fix that jones in the eastern San Gabriel Valley? We told you this summer that CoCo Ichibanya was coming to Rowland Heights, and we just found out that location opened two months sooner than we expected, on Se ... More >>

Steel Cut Oatmeal: Cooked In a Thermos

ProfessorSalt.comThermos... oats... kettle. All you need for perfect oats.​Love the chewy texture and nutty flavor of steel-cut oats, but hate the constant pot-watching so they don't boil over? We took a tip from the geniuses at thermoscooking.com and tried their no-fuss way to perfectly cooke ... More >>

Dippin' Dots Bankrupt: Files Chapter 11

newwavegurly/Flickr​Dippin' Dots, those frozen ice cream pellets that pop up at the county fair every summer, might not be around much longer. The Wall Street Journal reports that the company filed for Chapter 11 today in U.S. Bankruptcy court in Paducah, Kentucky. The company has struggled to pa ... More >>

Uptight Mom Group Protests Schweddy Balls

Ben & Jerry's​Have you been looking long and hard for your Ben & Jerry's Schweddy Balls, only to go home with ice-cream blue balls instead? Us too. Last month, we told you about the official launch of the limited-release flavor. The B&J scoop shops always seem to be sold out, and we've never s ... More >>

Domino's To Open Pizza Shop on The Moon

Source images from dominos.jpThe Japanese out-innovate America? Yes, they do!​ MEMORANDUM From: Shuji Sakai, LA Weekly To: Scott Oelkers, C.E.O. of Dominos Pizza Japan In re: Your wacky video to build a Domino's on the moon. Dear Mr. Oelkers: We realize you planned and spent the money on y ... More >>