Ben Mesirow

The strip of Sunset between Mohawk St. and Elysian Park Ave., more or less the beating heart of Echo Park, has become a destination for drinking. One can, with a series of walks not long enough to raise your heart rate, hop from craft beer palace to dimly lit record......

Something wonderful is hiding in Placentia's Dunn Way Industrial park, nestled next to car dealerships and motels in the well-deodorized armpit of the 57 and 91 freeways. Continue past Atomic Ballroom, home of the world-famous Strutters Ball. As much as we love an Advanced 8 Count Lindy Hop class on......

If we were to conduct a poll of the most appetizing vegetables, it's unlikely that cauliflower would show up anywhere near the top 10. The oddly shaped, lumpy white vegetable looks a bit like broccoli's albino stepchild (excluding certain handsome heirloom varieties), and is often treated about as well. Often......

The Place: Vinoteca Farfalla, 1968 Hillhurst Ave., Los Feliz; (323) 661-8070. The Hours: 4-7 p.m. every day. The Deals: Wines for $5 and $6, beers for $3 and $4, discounts on the entire menu. The Digs: You might expect Vinoteca Farfalla, a wine bar about equidistant from hot spots The......

There is something undeniably wonderful about eating in a parking lot late at night. The fresh air, the view, the fact that calories don't count when you're using your trunk as a table. We were initially a bit worried that the magic of Mexicali Taco & Co., cachetada champions and......

Now that musicians and nerds are the cool kids and jocks are the villains, liking sports has become distinctly uncool. So where are reasonable people of average coolness supposed to go to share their now-lame passion for twentysomething physical freaks throwing or kicking roundish objects for millions of dollars (or,......

The enlightened readers of this blog should be well aware by now that great beer is just as complex as wine. However, in the off chance that you have yet to ascend to the craft beer plane of being, we've found you a shortcut to Nirvana: Firestone Walker's XV Anniversary......

The chart-topping reign of the three Hanson brothers with flowing blond locks was regrettably (for some) short-lived, and odds are you haven't had much of them in your life lately. But whether you remember their late '90s smash MMMBop as the brain-burrowing scourge of that decade or as a jam......

Is there any vegetable more versatile than the pumpkin? They can be turned into delicious pies, magical carriages, whimsical lanterns, terrifying (or hilarious) helmets and, best of all, beer. Pumpkin beers come in a variety of styles, from ambers to porters, Belgian styles to sour wild ales, but the best......

The versatility of the taco is well-documented, on these pages and countless others. There are as many potential taco fillings as there are kinds of food in the world, but not all of them are equally wonderful. (We know that Korean BBQ works but Taco Bell's 88% beef 12% secret......