Michele StuevenPending any El Niño damage, Off The Hook Santa Monica Seafood Festival returns to the Santa Monica Pier on Sunday, Oct. 11, in celebration of National Seafood Month. This year’s festival will also commemorate the 100th anniversary of historic Route 66, the legendary highway whose western end is celebrated at the pier.
Now in its 8th year, the popular ocean-inspired tasting event brings together more than 25 of the city’s top chefs and restaurants for unlimited seafood tastings, beer gardens, wine tastings, a live yacht rock band, oyster-shucking and slurping competitions, and games.
The festival is 100% free of single-use plastics and raises funds for Heal the Bay to help preserve the local ocean and beaches for future generations. This year’s event will also support the Santa Monica Pier Corporation to help fund free community programming.
Courtesy of Off The Hook Santa Monica Seafood Festival
Dialog Café, the West Hollywood café known for its cult-favorite breakfast burritos, signature coffee drinks, fresh wraps, and “Less Talk, More Dialog” spirit, will open a residency nearby at The Sun Rose West Hollywood on Saturday, Oct. 3.
Following substantial damage sustained during the dramatic July 16 water main incident, Dialog’s original West Hollywood café remains closed. Since then, founders Narbeh Ghazalian and Tadeh Ghazalian have focused on supporting their team, finding a nearby home for the café, and working to restore and reopen the original location.
Expect the full selection of Dialog favorites, including the Dialog breakfast burrito, chicken Caesar wrap, and the café’s complete breakfast and lunch offerings. Dialog’s signature beverage program will also make the move, featuring favorites like the Madagascar vanilla latte, shaken strawberry oat matcha latte, smoothies, and seasonal specialty drinks. The cafe will also have its full menu available for room service at the hotel.
Courtesy The Sun Rose West Hollywood
The Culinary Historians of Southern California presents an illustrated lecture, “Guatemala to Panama Indigenous, Spanish, and African Fusion Cuisine” with award-winning chef and author Alicia Maher, on Saturday, Oct. at 10, 10:30 a.m. The lecture, followed by a themed reception, is free; the public is welcome at the Los Angeles Central Library’s Mark Taper Auditorium.
Topics include Central American food as a vibrant fusion of Indigenous Mesoamerican traditions, Spanish-Mediterranean cooking methods, and Afro-Caribbean flavors, with Maher guiding attendees through the ultimate melting pot of cultures, ingredients, cooking techniques, and flavors.
Maher is a chef and author of Delicious El Salvador: 75 Authentic Recipes for Traditional Salvadoran Cooking, winner of the Gourmand Award for Best First Cookbook in the World. In 2021, in Washington DC, the Ambassador of El Salvador to the United States, Milena Mayorga, awarded Maher with a special recognition as “outstanding Salvadoran woman,” for her work and effort to showcase authentic Salvadoran food to the world. A UCLA graduate, she’s recognized as El Salvador’s Culinary Ambassador.
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Chef Alicia Maher Courtesy of CHSC)