Jonathan Gold

Ponce de Leon had his Fountain of Youth, Ahab his whale, Columbus his islands of spice. Dr. Leakey spent half of his life looking for a bone or two. I once met a botanist who had searched the Andes foothills nearly 50 years for the mysterious plant that he knew......

Photo by Anne FishbeinPONCE DE LEON HAD HIS FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH, Ahab his whale, Columbus his islands of spice. Dr. Leakey spent half of his life looking for a bone or two. I once met a botanist who had searched the Andes foothills nearly 50 years for the mysterious plant......

Alameda Swap Meet The big food stall under the awning closest to the main building here is a full-on Mexican restaurant without the walls, featuring grilled chicken, carne asada and steam-table dishes: chile verde, chicken mole and a really good, spicy goat-meat stew that‘s the color of fresh blood. The......

Burrito King If your idea of an "authentic" burrito involves liquidy beans or brains or tongue or pig's stomach, allow me to recommend the currently more popular car-wash stand kitty-corner to Burrito King. Otherwise, the burritos at Burrito King -- for 30 years as much the occasion for hip midnight......

Agung Agung, near downtown, has become the one place to go when you want avocado in your coffee. Iced coffee and the creamy fruit go pretty well together, especially when blended into the fluffy consistency of a malted. (If Tuscan peasants had stumbled across the combination, people would be lining......

Borobudur Garden Borobudur Garden might be an Indonesian greasy spoon, but it's a great greasy spoon, focused and satisfying, with crisp shreds of fried tripe that sing of dark soy and garlic; with meltingly tender beef rendang, redolent of a dozen spices; with pungent mee goreng noodles fried with chicken,......

Photo by Anne Fishbein I'VE PROBABLY BEEN GOING TO LA ABEJA FOR about a dozen years now, long enough to see the owner's kids grow up and propel themselves into college, long enough to see the kids who come by the old-fashioned wooden cigar counter for candy and gum come......

Du-par's The Studio City Du-par's is a clubhouse for gaffers in the early morning and high school kids late at night, screenwriters pounding on PowerBooks, young moms with strollers, gray-haired couples holding hands -- practically everybody in the Valley who prefers coffee with cream to grande skinny lattes. At the......

Antojitos Denise's In Los Angeles, good carnitas are common, great carnitas rare. Denise's is a small, sweet taco stand whose customer base consists largely of people waiting for the MTA at the bus stop right in front. A caricature of Denise is painted on one wall, and if you poke......

Art by Dave Shulman Authentic Texas Barbecue The proprietors here fly in all their barbecued meats from Clark's Outpost in Tioga, Texas, a well-regarded pit just south of the Oklahoma border. Barbecued hot links, though -- garlicky, sliced Polish sausages instead of the coarser Elgin sausages known as hot guts......