Ben Calderwood

In this Year of the Tiger 2010, there are perhaps as many boba shops filling the L.A. basin as there are intersections to hold them. I imagine container ships stacking up in San Pedro Bay bearing nothing but vacuum-sealed tapioca pearls from the food factories outside Kaohsiung, waiting to dump......

You may encounter the occasional Hollywood A-lister at Snug Harbor, a disoriented screenwriter or producer wandering out of the jeweled avenues north of Wilshire for a mug of joe and a scramble, but the über-cozy Snug is a diner for the people, effortlessly rendering archetypal American breakfasts (also lunch, with......

Everything is in its right place at Mar Vista's most adequately hip coffee joint, where the beans and teas are organic, there is fresh fruit for those who abstain from refined sugar and the corkboard near the entrance is festooned with notices for guitar lessons and no-budget graphic design. The......

Bourbon is an American original, that rare beast in the liquor pantheon, and one of a handful of domestic foodstuffs subject to manufacture and labeling standards as rigorous as those for Bordeaux wine or aceto balsamico tradizionale. By law, bourbon must be derived from a mash of at least 51......

Now in its 76th year, this much-loved, occasionally ridiculed museum of old Hollywood has careened from glamor to self-parody and back again so many times, it's impossible for anyone--employees and patrons alike--to gauge whether the drinks are ironic or genuine. That said, this is one of the few places in......

I've been thinking a lot about inefficiency. I've been thinking a lot about ketchup packets. The ubiquitous plasticized-foil sachets furnish 10 grams or approximately .4 ounces of product each. Heinz, the world's leading manufacturer, reports they alone sell 11 billion packets per year. Informal testing has yielded an average 10......

The Westside comida wars are fought along a patch of Santa Monica Boulevard where numerous Mexican and Central American micro-neighborhoods converge and fruit vans patrol long into the night. The nearly invisible Pili's Tacos seeks victory via a kitchen that outputs all of Mexico: Tiny street tacos, mole both rojo......

What is the Codex? More Michael Pollan and less Dan Brown--we hope. The little-known Codex Alimentarius Commission was established in 1963 under the joint auspices of the United Nations and the World Health Organization to devise universal guidelines pertaining to food production, safety and marketing. Its resolutions are not binding;......

Laker fans nosing about downtown for dinner, a flatscreen TV and a means to circumvent the pulsating cacophony of L.A. LIVE are welcome at Yojié, the hybrid swish-swish house a few blocks off the Figueroa drag at Olympic and Grand. You can sample two kinds of nabemono, Japanese hot pot,......

It takes a powerhouse blend of stamina and strength to plant yourself on the couch and nudge a thumbstick back and forth for hours at a time. Why else would gamers require a dedicated line of "performance snacks?" Ok, every collaboration between gamer and grub doesn't need to be farcical......