Willy Wonka

5 Great L.A. Restaurants for House-Made Charcuterie

Leading up to this year's Best of L.A. issue (due out Oct. 3), we'll be bringing you periodic lists of some of the best things we've found to eat and drink around town. Ice cream sandwiches and bowls of tsukemen, fish tacos and dan dan mian, cups of boba and glasses of booze. Read on. The charcuter ... More >>

World's Largest Lollipop Coming to Los Angeles + Free Lollipops

In a move Willy Wonka would approve of, See's Candies is bringing the world's largest lollipop, weighing in at 7,003 pounds, to their store at The Grove this Saturday, July 20. Because, of course, it's National Lollipop Day.

Valentine's Day Countdown: Ococoa's Chocolate Nut Butter Cups

Surely there is a Duff Goldman of chocolate out there somewhere. But all of the real-time chocolatiers (sorry, Willy Wonka doesn't count in our book) we've spent tasting time with, including Diana Malouf, owner of Ococoa, have more temperate personalities -- a compliment. Measured, focused and with ... More >>

Sweet! Hollywood Sweets for my Suite at the Loews Hotel

The holidays are the ideal -- and perfectly acceptable -- time for kids of all ages to chow down on chocolate, crunch candy and basically indulge your sweet teeth. At the new Sweet! Hollywood candy emporium at Hollywood & Highland, which soft-opened in November, you can literally do this; there's a ... More >>

Spago Has L.A. Feeling Puckish

Now, more than ever, Wolfgang Puck's signature restaurant is a must-try

A November Roundup of Restaurant Openings and Closings

In opening news, Pizza Rev (fast-casual "craft your own" pizza concept) is coming to Woodland Hills on December 5. And, as if we need more butter and sugar to stuff ourselves with this holiday season, Georgetown Cupcakes opened in Beverly Hills and Sprinkles at The Grove, channeling Willy Wonka with ... More >>

The 5 Things You Need To Know About Mozza's Scuola Di Pizza

This week's restaurant review takes a look at the Scuola Di Pizza, and in particular their Thursday night salumi bar, a project by chef Chad Colby that will go from one to four nights a week in January. We hope you'll find time to read the review in its entirety, but for the attention and time-depri ... More >>

Short Attention Span Dinner Theater: Your Week in Food, 9/10 - 9/14

In which we highlight the past week in food, either at home or abroad. "Now we've gotta worry about what our grandmas ate?" Eating Fatty Foods During Pregnancy Linked to Breast Cancer in Offspring. "Second, and really most important, is that they do not come quickly, ever, so just put that out o ... More >>

Happy Roald Dahl Day: Celebrate with a Few Revolting Recipes

It's Roald Dahl Day -- yes, every day really ought to be Roald Dahl Day, but today is his actual birthday -- which is just as good of an excuse as any to dive back into his stories. And while you're recalling how often food (and especially candy) showed up in his books to define character (i.e., th ... More >>

10 Best Standup Comedy Shows in Los Angeles

Live comedy is once again enjoying a boom period, even if some of the bigger clubs and bloated chains around the country are going bust. Thanks to the internet's generous enabling of DIY promotion, production, talent booking and ticketing, who needs a humorless industry gatekeeper when one can simpl ... More >>

Lay's Classic BLT Flavored Chips vs. a BLT Sandwich

We love potato chips. We love BLTs. Usually we eat our BLTs with a side of chips; sometimes we put the chips in our sandwich, just for a little extra crunch. But what if the sandwich could be put in the chip, instead of the other way around? Lay's helpfully tries to answer that question with its Cla ... More >>

The Most Overrated Male Musician Sex Symbols

See also: Top 20 Sexiest Male Musicians of All Time: The Complete List Last week, we unveiled the Top 20 Sexiest Male Musicians of All Time. As usual, there were cries of "What about that one guy I think is hot?" We agree with some of them. Jim Morrison was a talented mess with serpentine hips that ... More >>

Gangrene Get High, So High

Alchemist and Oh No's label gave them a weed budget

What's In Season at the Farmers Markets: Seedless Kishu Mandarin

Jeanne Davis owns a small orchard out in Fallbrook (formerly known as Coyote Growers) where she grows a variety of citrus trees. But none that garners the attention that her grove of 85 Seedless Kishu mandarin trees does. She started offering the small, walnut-sized fruit about four years ago, at ... More >>

Top 10 Badass L.A. Parties of 2011

Also see 10 Ways to Get Past a Bouncer and Top 10 L.A. Club Nights of 2011. At the risk of referencing LMFAO again, LA knows its party rockin' and we do it bigger and better than any other city in the world. New York may beat us at chic soirees, Miami might be sultrier and Vegas gaudier, but Los A ... More >>

Occupy L.A. versus Zuma Dogg: OG City Activist Tries to Out-Shout Occupiers

ladailyblog.blogspot.comBattle L.A.: Who can free-speech louder?​Leave it to Zuma Dogg, perpetual public commenter at every single L.A. City Council meeting ever (rivaled only in civic involvement by John Walsh of the insane neckties and Einstein hair), to add even more confusion to the Occupy ... More >>

Grill This Now: Pete's Louisiana Style Hot Links

G. SnyderPete's Hot Links​ Phillip's BBQ, Woody's BBQ, Dr. Hogly Wogly's, Robin's Woodfire BBQ, and Spring Street Smokehouse; what do all these L.A. barbecue joints have in common? They all serve hot links imported from the same iron-gated takeout window just west of Crenshaw: a tiny, Cajun-st ... More >>

Kandyland at the Playboy Mansion: Sugar Daddies, Paul Oakenfold and Girls Flashing their Oompa Loompas

Lina Lecaro A rainbow of femme flavors. ​Half naked ladies (make that completely in the case of babes in body-paint), a gluttonous amount of booze and food (which only about a fifth of the females would actually eat), Dayglo Chocolate Factory décor, and throbbing sounds by Paul Oakenfold-- Ka ... More >>

Cirque du Soleil's Iris Preview at the Kodak Theater: Upcoming Show Will Be Porn for Tim Burton Fans

Zachary Pincus-Roth​ The most striking aspect of the press preview of Cirque Du Soleil's upcoming film-themed L.A. show Iris yesterday was the timeliness show's aesthetic: the costumes and production design generally were strikingly similar to that of Tim Burton, whose exhibit at LACMA just op ... More >>

Food News Roundup: Street Food, Is Donald Trump Drinking Too Much Willy Wonka, Molecular Gastronomist

-- Time to Boycott French Toast, French Fries Again. (See: burqa laws.) [The Awl] -- Gordon Ramsay moves to Bel Air ("12 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, a summerhouse"). [Digital Spy, via Eater] -- New Farmworker Report Paints a Big, Grim Picture. [Civil Eats via @SlowFoodUSA] -- The wonderful world o ... More >>

Cookbook Review: Flour Bakery, Where Boston Gets Its Homemade Nutella Fix

​Does the cookbook world need another baking book? Probably not. Do we? Maybe, depending on how much chocolate and pastry cream are stuffed into that Flour Bakery breakfast brioche. The just-released book, Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery Cafe, by Boston bakeshop owner ... More >>

Pseudonymous Bosch: The Name of This Person Is Secret

Music Picks: Sasha & Kazell, She & Him, Efterklang, Xiu Xiu

Also, Holly Miranda, Les Blanks, Mumiy Troll and others

Carnival Knowledge: Love, Lust and Other Human Oddities

AFI Fest, A to W

Our critics' picks - and pans - from this year's free festival lineup

Learn to Make Mozarella Get Paid for It; No Guarantees It Will Be as Good As Mozza's

Full Sail BrewingHow Handy Are You with Hops?​Are you itching to open the next hot Los Angeles brewery but don't know hops from barley? Pining for the mozzarella balls from Mozza 2Go but don't want to venture so far from your La-Z-Boy? Learn to make beer and cheese yourself on a paid vacation ... More >>

Al Fresco Screening of the Scrumdiddlyumptious "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"

TonightKCRW's screening program Matt's Movies, invites you into a world of pure imagination when they kick off their ... More >>

Lavender on the Lips: Spring's Scarborough Fair, Purple-Scented Shortbread, Macarons, Martinis and More

Erica Zora WrightsonCalling Veruca Salt: Euro Pane's lavender and sea-salt-caramel macarons by Sumi Chang Lavender is one of those scents that tends to linger in the memory. It might be the subtle, chalky afterthought of hand soap in your grandmother's bathroom, an old sachet in a dresser drawer, dr ... More >>

Prince Sends Oblique Message to Fans: U come 2 Lalaland 4 Our Mystery Shows

This just in from Willy Wonka's Purple Factory, regarding March 24 and beyond: Calling all Purpleheadz: ready 2 get plugged in?

Movie Reviews: Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience, Must Read After My Death, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

Also, Dog Eat Dog, Echelon Conspiracy and more

Where to Eat Now

Restaurants for Wine Lovers

Breaking Free: L.A. Wine Culture

Shattering the stereotypes

Daliwood

And anarchy on Sunset

Magical Mystery Tour

Bastide reopens

The Frames, 9/6

The Frames Henry Fonda Theater, Sept. 6 By Mark Mauer Two crowds showed up to see Dublin's The Frames Thursday night. First there were the die-hards, lining up hours before the doors opened. They're the ones who have followed this band to bigger and bigger venues each time they've come to L.A., fro ... More >>

Author! Author!

The devil and Norman Mailer

Paws for Effect

What to do in L.A. this week

The Rainbow Connection

At the House of Petro Zillia, you can view the world through designer Nony Tochterman’s candy-colored lenses

Stuck On Rainbows

Petro Zillia designer Nony Tochterman invites us to view the world through her candy-colored lenses

A Preview of Weekend Reviews

Reviews of Barnum, Stone Heart and A Woman of No Importance

New Theater Reviews

For the week of February 24 - March 2

Foaming at the Mouth

Surf industry in uproar at closing of major supplier

What You Can't See Can Kill You

Clear and Present Danger: A Special Report

Hormones and Boogers

House of Glass

More Dahl, Less Depp

And bring on the Oompa-Loompas!

Thinking Inside the Small Box

Wise Guys, E, and Stomach-Pump Chic

Beat Freaks

Dance clubs L.A.: a forbidden world beckons