Ben Calderwood

It's a ubiquitous foodie refrain: There's no good Chinese on the Westside. Followed immediately by foodie Verse Two, the commandment Go east. Since the demise of Royal Star Seafood at Stanford Avenue and Wilshire, which was aspirational at best, there is nothing like the San Gabriel Valley's ethnic and authentic......

Culinary euphoria descends on the South Bay now through Sunday in the form of the chaotic, overcrowded Umaimono (delicious things) Gourmet Food Fair at Mitsuwa Marketplace Torrance. Fans of authentic Japanese eats--flown in, chefs and all, direct from Japan-- cannot afford to miss this opportunity to sample some of the......

The 2005 documentary feature Into Great Silence, depicting the the pious ebb of life at France's Grand Chartreuse monastery, tested the credentials of even the most enthusiastic arthouse film rat. Nearly three hours in length, glacially paced, shot sans crew, artificial light, narration or score, it was the culmination of......

Dianne Onstad's invaluable compendium of natural eats, the thick paperback Whole Foods Companion (no affiliation with Whole Foods Market), is a must-read reference for farmers marketers, curious cooks and lovers of unprocessed foods in all their myriad forms. This is not a cookbook, but an exhaustively researched, well organized and......

Whether you accept the notion that a single nose and its acclaimed-or-reviled 100-point scale have transformed the way wine is marketed and sold, especially in the United States, today there is a superabundance of bottles at American retail and more wine neophytes are earnestly cultivating a taste for the grape......

Countless tax brackets away from the lurid temptations of Jamon Ibérico de Bellota, you will find this slice of minor Asian exotica: pandan chiffon cake. The pale ivy hue comes from pandan leaf, also called screwpine, a tropical shrub cultivated across much of Southeast Asia for its singular flavor and......

You might not expect such an astutely poached egg atop your Benedict at a commonplace all-day café like Literati, but that's what you get. Tender, uniform capsules of golden yolk that flood your artisan roll the moment you prod the whites with your fork. The sweetness of the grilled veggies......

Missouri-based agribusiness multinational Monsanto's latest attempt to cultivate good press is being met with widespread reproach in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, where the GMO giant is donating 130 tons of pesticide-coated hybrid and conventional vegetable seeds to farmers' associations via the United States Agency for International Development's (USAID) WINNER program. More toxic......

It can be a strange, solitary exercise, consuming wine dispensed by a computer. Purchase your access card from the order desk at the rear of the shop, steal a glance at the Wine House's Old & Rare cellars where magnum prices climb into the five figures, and make your way......

Santa Monica perennial Locanda del Lago, dutifully spotlighting the cuisine of Northern Italy's Lombardy region for regulars and Third Street Promenade walk-ins alike since 1991, cannot be faulted for overlooking a trend. Lago is the first restaurant in Santa Monica to adopt Meatless Mondays, the flourishing culinary movement that purports......