Michelle Huneven

Once upon a time I made a right turn onto Beverly Boulevard. I was looking for street number 7122, but somehow I went by without noticing it. Parking, I backtracked on foot, trudging past a whole strip mall full of tchotchke stores and dry cleaners -- still too far. I......

It’s happening again. My friend and frequent dining companion Allan is sending his meal back. This time, it‘s nothing serious, an easy fix, a thick cod fillet still cold in the middle; a few minutes in the pan will solve things. He’s right to send it back -- cold cod......

The Grove is a sanitized and compact city unto itself -- nothing old or ugly or dirty or shabby or sad. Rambling through recently, I can‘t get over how many people are laughing and smiling. Couples, children, seniors -- an unlikely number of people in such a good mood at......

Photo by Anne Fishbein IT'S A FRIDAY EVENING, AND WE EARLY BIRDS HAVE COME UNSTYLISHLY early to the stylish new Drake's in Venice. A congenial hostess checks off our reservation and, after a short wait, during which we gape at the painting of a Native American medicine man in a......

Photo by Anne Fishbein VINCENT SCHIAVELLI'S SUNKEN, DROWSY EYES, THIN FACE, NOTABLE nose and lanky stature are familiar from dozens of films and television shows — One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ghost, Fast Times at Ridgemont High to name a paltry few. Starting last June, the character-actor-turned-chef/cookbook writer has......

What struck me first about the 101 Coffee Shop is its lack of irony. It looks like a coffee shop of my youth, right down to the dark wood-grained Formica, the sparkling snow-white cottage-cheese ceiling, the taupe and blue wall tiles, the cream-colored terrazzo floor and, especially, the decorative rock......

We were planning to take the train from Paris to Normandy to eat oysters -- a pilgrimage my friend Marie Aimee, a lifelong Parisian, makes every year when the weather turns. She rides to Trouville, walks around, eats oysters, then takes the train home. On the day we chose, however,......

When I mentioned to friends that I was eating a lot of dosas in Little India, many of them shot back, “What‘s that?” And these are professed fans of Indian food. But I can’t be too smug: Until a few years ago, I myself was in the dark about dosas,......

Photo by Anne Fishbein LOS ANGELES HAS NEVER BEEN SHORT ON ICONOGRAPHIC LANDMARKS, with monument-size doughnuts and rooftop hot dogs dotting the city. And now there's a brand-new one -- in Beverly Hills, of all places. This newest quirky manifestation of human creativity is Fred Eric's Airstream Diner on the......