Elina Shatkin

The road to Palm Springs is dotted with three inevitable roadside attractions: Indian casinos, outlet malls and date shakes. None of these are much fun, but date shakes may be the worst. Date palms aren't native to the region (you'd have to travel to the Persian Gulf area to find......

When NASA's final space shuttle mission successfully launched this morning, along with four astronauts and thousands of pounds of jet fuel Atlantis was carrying some unusual passengers: yeast cells. Sadly, the astronauts won't be playing Martha Stewart in space and baking zero-gravity brioches. The goal is to look for defects......

With its burgeoning crop of shoebox-sized wine bars, discreet cocktail havens and fancy coffee shops, what downtown LA's "revitalization" has really been missing is a good, old-fashioned, sanitized corporate tittie bar. That gaping cultural hole will be filled when Hooters opens July 11th on Figueroa Street near the Staples Center......

These days, every pretentious newly opened Los Angeles boîte seems determined to prove how casual and unpretentious it is by using the de rigueur decorative accent of the day: a communal table. When Los Angeles had only a handful of communal tables, they were charming if somewhat uncomfortable. These days,......

Outside of its birthplace in Hawaii, Lappert's Ice Cream is mostly a Northern California brand. Bored in retirement, Walter Lappert mixed his first batch of ultra rich, high-butterfat ice cream in Kauai in 1983. The brand took off, and his son, Michael, opened a California production facility the following year......

Discount seafood store FJ Seafood Outlet will shut its doors after this Saturday, July 9th. This is the second unsuccessful location for the fish shop, which moved to its Studio City digs six months ago after a stint on the far side of Dodgers Stadium (where it was called Franky......

If you had grown up in Cleveland, you'd already know all about Handel's Homemade Ice Cream & Yogurt, but this being Southern California rather than suburban Ohio, Handel's is a barely known brand with only two far-flung franchises in Southern California: one in Redondo Beach and one in Upland......

We're pleased to see beer from Hangar 24 appearing on more menus and store shelves around town. Amid L.A.'s exploding craft beer scene, with all the new breweries and beer pubs and pop-up beer gardens, the humble Hangar 24 in Redlands doesn't always get a lot of attention. That doesn't......

Barely digested burgers still working their way through our lower GI tracts and Sousa marches still ringing in our ears, the post-Fourth of July haze makes way for another national holiday honoring our liberty, our independence and our love of fried foods. Today is National Fried Chicken Day. Like all......

Soul Daddy arrived on the American fast casual dining scene the same way the reality show responsible for its existence arrived on television: haltingly, half-heartedly, with no panache and no clear vision. Soul Daddy, which in May "won" America's Next Great Restaurant (perhaps the most bloodless reality show since CSPAN's......