Michele Stueven
The Flavor of L.A. food festival returned for its second year to the CBS Studio Center backlot on Sunday, May 20, offering an afternoon of food, drink and classic cars from the Television Motion Picture Car Club in Studio City.
About 50 vendors lined the streets where TV shows like Seinfeld, Will & Grace, Gunsmoke and American Housewife have been filmed. Guests sampled the grape and the grain and nibbled on smoked pulled pork sandwiches from Barrel & Ashes while lounging on the front steps of the Leave it to Beaver house façade.
Restaurants from the San Fernando Valley took the spotlight, including Frida’s Mexican Cuisine in Sherman Oaks and the Spanish Gasolina Café in Woodland Hills, which brought wild shrimp sliders to the table.
Angelina’s Pizzeria Napoletana anchored its own pizza oven to the lot, camped out around the corner from the current Roseanne set. Lusy’s Mediterranean Café & Grill in Van Nuys treated guests to cinnamon-spiced iced tea and an assortment of dolmas, hummus, tzatziki and baba ganoush. The BLVD Kitchen bread-and-butter pickles were a crisp treat alongside its refreshing tomato salad and sandwiches from the Local Peasant.
Van Nuys–based Cake Bash Studios’ Karla Peguero showed up with some musically inspired Rubik’s cube creations, and it was a rare occasion to not have to stand in a long line for a Salt & Straw chocolate brownie cone.
The all-you-can-eat-and-drink event benefits L.A. Kitchen, a nonprofit organization that reclaims healthy, local food that otherwise would be discarded and trains men and women who are unemployed for jobs and provides healthy meals to the disadvantaged.
Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.