Tea

Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf's 50-Cent Drinks New Tea Service

We love a party where guests get a gift. Tomorrow, that's what's happening at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. In honor of the company's 50th year, three 12 oz. specialty drinks will be sold for 50 cents: English Toffee Latte, English Toffee Ice Blended and Chai Tea Latte. The event will take place from ... More >>

A Recipe for Your New Year's Eve Party: Chatham Artillery Punch

The punch bowl -- it's the perfect solution to your party drinking conundrum, especially for New Year's Eve. Because, let's face it: Enough Champagne or decent sparkling wine to get you through the evening can be formidable, cost-wise. Not to mention keeping all those bottles cold and getting them a ... More >>

2012 in the San Gabriel Valley: A List of Restaurant Openings Closings

As the calendar prepares to turn the page on yet another year, it's tradition time here at Squid Ink. A time for us to look back on the year and note restaurant openings and closings. When attempting to do this with the San Gabriel Valley, where an estimated 600 Chinese restaurants make up a vibran ... More >>

10 Great Places to Eat on New Year's Day

January 1st. The first day of the new year on the old Gregorian calendar. For most of the Western world, it's a day to start fresh, assess things, make pledges to change and maybe just beg the sweet merciful gods to make the room stop spinning because goddamn you over-indulged the night before. No ... More >>

Bittersweet Treats Now Open in Pasadena: Whoopie Pies, Rose Cakes Figgy Bars for the Holidays

Pasadena, once the closest thing L.A. had to a food desert, is finally going through something of a renaissance. With the recent additions of Umami Burger and Float, there's also a lovely new dessert shop. Danielle Keene and business partner Linda Chen quietly opened Bittersweet Treats last Tuesday. ... More >>

The Star Wars Death Star Tea Infuser: Make a Cuppa with the Empire's Ultimate Weapon

Over the weekend, folks of all stripes landed in Orlando, Florida for Star Wars Celebration VI, the ultimate Star Wars fan convention that undoubtedly was more fun than the Republican National Convention will be this week. Of course, where there are Star Wars geeks, there are ingenious Star Wars-th ... More >>

Los Angeles is The Least-Honest City in America

Bolstering our claim once more that L.A. is America's douchiest city are the results of a survey today that show Los Angeles is also the least-honest metropolis in America. Yep, we did it. After coming in as the second least-honest town last year, L.A. tops or, rather, bottoms this year's list from ... More >>

The Langham's Jubilee Anniversary Tea: Win Afternoon Tea at 1865 Prices

Back in June 1865, Americans were reeling from the end of the Civil War, Charles Dickens was recovering from a near-fatal train accident at Staplehurst, and, in London, The Langham opened its doors. The Langham was Europe's first grand hotel to serve Afternoon Tea, a tradition, it says, that began ... More >>

AU 79 Expanding To Pasadena

Arcadia-based tea house AU 79 Tea House is now expanding. The Taiwanese boba restaurant is set to open their Pasadena store on Friday, April 20. All drinks will be 50% off on opening day. Named AU 79 Tea Express, the new shop is located just across the street from Pasadena City College. "We want to ... More >>

The Huntington's Japanese Garden Reopens With a New Teahouse

The Huntington Library's circa 1911 Japanese Garden reopened Wednesday after a nearly $7 million renovation, including the addition of a historic ceremonial teahouse built in Kyoto. The teahouse first arrived in the L.A. area in 1964, when it was installed at the Pasadena Buddhist Temple; In 2010 th ... More >>

Cafe Dulce Celebrates Its One Year Birthday Tomorrow with $1 Coffee and Doughnuts

This month, Cafe Dulce turns one year young, and what a first year it's been for the Little Tokyo shop: it was one of our favorite newish coffee shops to open in 2011, and we continue to adore its selection of Korean cheesesteaks, bacon doughnuts and other delicious savories. In honor of its first ... More >>

Dairyface: Do I Eat It or Put It on My Face?

Ever since we watched our mother slather raw eggs and mayonnaise on her hair and smashed avocado on her face, the idea of using food as beauty treatment has held a certain appeal. So we were kind of excited to try Dairyface, a new line of skincare products that looks like cartons of yogurt (because ... More >>

Cafe Livre Opens Its Tea and Coffee Garden

Don't wear your lacy picture hat, and don't even think about elegantly extending your pinkie as you hold a cup of tea at Café Livre. "We want to make tea service more casual and fun, take it out of the parlor," says Susan Park, director of operations at the cafe, which has just opened its Siptea ... More >>

Get a Life!

2011 in the San Gabriel Valley: A List of Restaurant Openings Closings

Jim ThurmanLamb soup with knife cut noodles, Shaanxi Gourmet, Rosemead​2011 in the San Gabriel Valley restaurant scene witnessed the usual spate of openings and closings, some notable and some not so notable. With some 300 Chinese restaurants alone, trying to compile a list of the year's open ... More >>

Q&A With Eva's Gabriella Mlynarczyk, Part 2: Her Tea Liqueur 2 Bicoastal Cocktail Recipes

flickr user vintage roadtripWelcome To California​When we interviewed Gabriella Mlynarczyk at Eva, she was sharing her first impressions on the L.A. mixology scene after nearly 15 years in New York. ("But remember I haven't been here long," she reminds us, laughing). One of the differences is ... More >>

Gourmet Product Awards Winners Announced

Courtesy of Malibu Pies.​Chipotle chile peanut butter, blueberry licorice and coconut hibiscus tea were among the winners at the first Gourmet Product Awards. The competition honors the best new gourmet products in 43 finely divided categories including condiments, confections, dairy, oils, ba ... More >>

Green Tea Shaved Snow Food Fight: Salju Dessert vs. Fluff Ice

Jim ThurmanMatcha green tea shaved snow with red bean & mochi at Salju Dessert​ Taiwanese shaved ice has been featured before at Squid Ink, and with good reason. It's perhaps the perfect summer dessert. However, as good as shaved ice is, it's just so 2010. This year, it's all about the next le ... More >>

85°C Bakery-Café Opens in Hacienda Heights

Jim ThurmanLine at grand opening of 85°C Bakery-Café, Hacienda Heights​ The number of international chains with outlets in Los Angeles County grew by one when 85°C Bakery-Café opened in Hacienda Heights on Saturday. The Taiwanese chain, with nearly 500 stores in Taiwan, China and Australia ... More >>

Tea, Death & the President's Sister

Everybody Rag Now!

Best Shaved Ice: Class 302

R. Brown​If having a fellow food blogger diss your favorite dessert as boorish ain't fighting words, they at least are eating ones. So when a certain blogger read our Squid Ink story on Korean patbingsu and commented that the Taiwanese shaved snow dish baobing was so far superior, we suddenly ... More >>

Bru Coffeehouse Replaces Psychobabble in Los Feliz

J. Ritz​ After eleven years in business as Psychobabble, the café on Vermont Avenue just south of Franklin in Los Feliz has been reborn with a streamlined name, attitude and look. Last week Bru Artisan Coffee Tea opened in the same space. "I want the emphasis to be on the coffee and tea, ... More >>

San Gabriel Valley Update: Bamboodles Closes Other News

Jim ThurmanYu Pin replaces Bamboodles​ With literally hundreds of restaurants in a relatively few square miles of the western part of the San Gabriel Valley, nearly constant openings and closings are guaranteed. And for every door that closes, a new one opens. That's the case with Bamboodles ... More >>

More Fun at the Peninsula Hotel: "Pink Tea" for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Photo courtesy Peninsula Hotel​The Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills is offering a special "Pink Tea" throughout October to show support for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The $55 tea service, with seatings at noon, 2:30 and 5 p.m. daily in the Living Room, will feature a special five-course me ... More >>

How Honest is L.A.? Honest Tea's Pop-Up Store Puts SoCal Ethics to the Test

NBC ChicagoHonest Tea's "Honest Store"​ Despite our downfalls, we'd like to think we draw the line when it comes to stealing. To test this theory -- and the honor system -- try heading to Maryland-based organic tea company Honest Tea's unmanned pop-up "Honest Stores," loaded with one dollar b ... More >>

Have Tea with Harry Potter at Whimsic Alley: Bring Your Own Owl

A young Potter fan. He takes no prisoners.​Every couple of weeks or so, the Harry Potter store Whimsic Alley in Los Angeles hosts Potter-themed afternoon tea events. Last weekend was one such occasion. Hagrid (or a Hagrid-impersonator) was there. As was a cute Harry (okay, fine, a Harry-impers ... More >>

Treat Her Right: Mother's Day Dining Options

Flickr user Bakerella​ Mother's Day in Los Angeles always brings the gift of good May weather, and the perennial foolproof option of a Sunday farmers' market visit followed by a home cooked meal. But here are a few other suggestions on how to treat a deserving lady right, since chances are th ... More >>

Q & A With Joël Robuchon: "Los Angeles Is Somewhere That I am Extremely Interested In"

Joël-Robuchon.comJoël Robuchon​If you truly love food, Joël Robuchon is a man who likely needs no introduction. His restaurants span the globe, with locations in Paris, Monaco, Londres, Las Vegas, New York, Tokyo, Nagoya, Hong Kong, Macao and Taipei. In 1989, the prestigious French restaura ... More >>

MAKE US LAUGH, FUNNY GIRL!

23rd Annual Great Chefs of L.A.: Hot Ticket, Hot Chefs, Hot Weather

This past Sunday on a unseasonably sultry afternoon in Studio City, over 800 foodies gathered to enjoy the fall/winter fixings from some of our city's hottest chefs at the 23rd Annual Great Chefs of L.A., a benefit hosted by comedian George Lopez which raised $150,000 for the National Kidney Foundat ... More >>

For Those Still Sitting Shiva for Algabar, We Present T-Salon

Miriam Novalle, owner of T-Salon in New York, tells it like this: when she decided that she wanted to go into the tea business 22 years ago, her mother looked at her dubiously. "Well," she said in a very New York Jewish accent, "are you at least gonna give them a cookie?" Thus, when Novalle opened t ... More >>

FRIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, PART 2

Worm Teas and Palisades Potagers: Organic Gardening Classes With John Lyons

John Lyons, the organic gardener and edible landscape designer behind The Woven Garden, offers educational classes to inspire the cabbage farmer within. His 6-week course, "From the Earth Up," covers composting your dinner leftovers, herb garden care, organic pest control, and crop rotation (sans th ... More >>

I Drink Your Milkshake: Tips from Pastry Chef Mariah Swan and Councilmember Eric Garcetti

The personal diet is now intensely political. This ethic now even applies to lighthearted summer drinks like the milkshake. City Council President Eric Garcetti is among the participants in the latest Got Milk? campaign focusing on milkshakes featuring recipes by Grace and BLD pastry chef Mariah Sw ... More >>

NBA Player Freestyles On KFC, McDonalds, Chipotle and Raspberry Iced Tea

Jacob GerberIs Delonte West eccentric? You be the judge.​Delonte West is an NBA player for the Cleveland Cavaliers (that, for you foodies, is the team with LeBron James on it). He's also a bit of an eccentric. So what happens when he's waiting in the car with his friend for 7 minutes at a KFC ... More >>

High Tea at the Langham

World Tea Expo Report: Matcha Matcha, Man

Matcha pile at the Aiya booth Matcha is a seriously big deal these days in the tea world. Matcha is finely ground powdered green tea with super-antioxidant properties. If you read some of the literature online, you'd think matcha's goodness is analogous to the second coming of Christ. Traditionally ... More >>

World Tea Expo Report: World's Largest Chocolate Fountain (A Brief, Decadent Aside)

The World's Largest Chocolate Fountain is located beside the Jean-Philippe Maury Patissier in one of the meandering, mazelike corridors of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, where I stayed for the final night of the World Tea Championships. The fountain is certified by the Guinness Book of World Rec ... More >>

World Tea Expo Contest Picks Next "It" Cocktail -- Gin and Juice and ... Tea? Plus Secret Poultry Ingredient -- Putting the Cock in Cocktail

The Genevrier Verte, the winning tea cocktail Here's a tea drink you might be seeing soon at your local fancy bar: the Genevrier Verte. Ordinarily, people would tend to make fun of you if you ordered tea at a bar -- unless it's a Long Island iced tea you're thirsty for. But fear no longer: Tea and ... More >>

Coachella Adds The Orb, Murder City Devils, Etienne de Crecy and Others to the Bill

In its new web 'zine, Coachella Digital, the Coachella festival, which this morning confirmed that Amy Winehouse wouldn't be performing (surprise surprise, unfortunately), announced the addition of five new acts to the roster. None of them are U2, Pavement or the Smiths, nor are the Beatles yet re ... More >>

The Long Lost Invite You for Afternoon Tea, a Record-Release Recital and Panoramic Parlour Party

The Long Lost is the new project by Alfred Darlington (Daedalus) and his wife Laura Darlington, who have their debut CD coming out on the great Canadian label Ninja Tune in March. To celebrate the release, the pair will hold an afternoon tea party at the Velaslavasay Panorama, "an exhibition ha ... More >>

Best Dream Home: Museum of Jurassic Technology

Best Wake-Up Call

Urth Caffé’s Japanese Tea Latte

Best Chocolate Bliss

The Chocolate Box Café

Prasad, Um?

In the Land of Sugarplum Fairies

Working Less

And enjoying it more

Out and About Food

Tasteful summer adventures that redefine Saturday afternoons at the ballpark