Andrew Simmons

Given the holiday's popularity among gringos, Cinco de Mayo might as well be celebrated in an Irish pub, at a diner, or next to a hot dog stand. In fact, it often is. Even a French bistro would be quite appropriate. Why? Because Cinco de Mayo (not "the Mexican version......

Being an avid reader of Wookiepedia, the proud owner of a plastic light-saber you keep holstered next to your cell phone, and a fan of the much-maligned 1978 Christmas special, you probably know this already: Today, May 4th, is Star Wars Day. Get it? "May the fourth be with you"......

Our favorite convenience foods are like friendly co-workers holed up in the next cubicle over. We meet them, like them, grow accustomed to their presence in our lives, and then, just as soon as we realize we can't quite imagine life without them, they disappear, frequently for reasons we're never......

Until we moved to Los Angeles, frozen yogurt made us think of youth and summer: cardboard cones, vanilla peaks dripping into puddles that dried stickier than Velcro, and swims to wash away the stickiness. Now, we think of tart acai berry-pomegranate swirls, shiny pharmacy-clean counters, gleaming batteries of self-serve spigots,......

The Place: Hank's Bar, Stillwell Hotel, 840 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles; 213-623-7718. The Hours: 11 p.m. - 1 a.m. Sunday - Thursday; 11 p.m. - 2 a.m. Friday - Saturday. The Digs: Hank's is a little hole on the first floor of a residence hotel with gummy black booths......

Google "meat," "bacteria," and "drug-resistant," and your Internet-gazing eyes will see some things that will make you want to hang up your steak knife. Recently, the Translational Genomics Research Institute published a study revealing some bad news about the bacteria present in the meat many of us eat. Researchers bought......

The San Francisco-based chain Café Gratitude just invaded Los Angeles, opening a new outpost on Larchmont Boulevard. For the uninitiated, Café Gratitude specializes in the sort of raw vegan fare you'd rather scrape off your shoe than actually consume. Just kidding. In truth, the food isn't really bad at all......

Not every adopted Angeleno hops on the Laker bandwagon. Many of the guys with whom we play pick-up. The gruff, white-bearded bartender at the local pub. "I'm from Jersey, see," the bartender said on a Sunday afternoon, doling out free samples of a new Irish whiskey he'd received. "I got......