Michelle Huneven

Friday was not an auspicious night for dinner at Surya, the pretty, small Indian restaurant on Third Street near Crescent Heights. The hostess, who doubled as our waitress, confided that Thursday through Saturday nights had become very busy -- way too busy, it would seem, for the abilities of the......

Photo by Anne Fishbein "WHAT KIND OF RESTAURANT IS THIS?" ASKS Wendy as she scans the menu at the new Tangier on Hillhurst. I too scan the menu. Caesar salad, tuna carpaccio, steak frites. But then there's a chicken curry. A lamb shank. Drunken duck. "Looks like the usual California......

Abbot Kinney in Venice, with its design and architectural firms, its antique and furniture boutiques and growing number of good restaurants, is truly a bobo’s paradise -- a burgeoning bastion of tasteful bourgeois bohemianism. Here, where artists once rented studios for pittances determined by the neighborhood‘s general dereliction and crime......

Somehow, the developers of Pasadena‘s new Paseo Colorado have persuaded quite a few respectable restaurateurs to open new restaurants in this vast, confusingly laid-out, multitiered mall. Haven’t those restaurateurs heard how hard Pasadena is on restaurants, especially good restaurants? (Mediocre restaurants have always had a much better time of it......

Photo by Anne Fishbein Jar is a chop house — and, as the terse name somehow indicates, a new take on that old institution. Indeed, it lacks the de rigueur darkness and tuck-and-roll booths, the red-nosed Republican male clientele, the caesars tossed tableside. Just what grand old traditions remain? To......

Where will I eat when I‘m old? I wondered this when I heard that Beadle’s Cafeteria was closing its doors for good after a 43-year run. When it was saved at the last minute, I realized how much I‘ve been counting on Beadle’s to stick around. Beadle‘s has existed longer......

1.At the new Globe Venice, whole chickens are roasted to order. The recipes vary on a daily basis, but I liked the one with a verjus sauce and aligot potatoes (mashies with tons of fontina cheese). 72 Market St., Venice; (310) 392-8720. 2. The classy new takeout café Clementine offers......

Ah, those civilized Western Europeans — they know how to relish the good things in life we so frequently overlook. Consider, for example, the radish, scourge of the grammar-school lunch box, first-discarded garnish on a garden salad . . . Last year, at a family dinner in a chateau outside......

I have a theory that, when it comes to beets, people can be divided into two categories: those who love ’em and those who loathe ‘em. There are very few equivocators. Beets tend to inspire passion, positive or negative, pro or con. I myself am pro. So much so, I’ve......

Wednesday is oxtail night at Angelini Osteria. Our waiter, stern, handsome and a bit sardonic, recommends them -- like many of the dishes here, he says, the recipe comes from the chef‘s mother -- but then, we wanted them anyway. It’s a chilly autumn night and nothing sounds better than......