Category: food

Are you in town for E3? Here is were to eat.

  • The Original Pantry Cafe is an old greasy spoon diner close to the convention center. Great for breakfast. It’s owned by one of our previous mayors. (Breakfast, lunch and Dinner)
  • Philippe the Original is the inventor of the French Dip. Coffee is $0.45, very old school menu. A must for all visitors to LA. (Breakfast, lunch and Dinner)
  • Wurstkuche (“Sausage Kitchen” in German, pronounced Verst-Kuke) is Awesome. Grilled sausages of all types (my favorite is the rabbit and rattle snake), and just about every single German beer available.
  • Cole’s – Another old, speakeasy-like bar that that is also famous for it’s french dip sandwiches. It’s near skid row (LA’s demilitarized zone) so you may see a few crack addicts walk by.
  • The Golden Gopher is an old-timey bar thats been spruced up and restored. Great for dinner and cocktails.
  • The Redwood Bar and Grill – great for dinner and drinks. Small and cozy with an interesting ‘pirate’ theme.
  • Casa La Golondrina, located on Olvera St. is housed in the oldest brick building in California. The food is good too. I love their Mole!

    • Trader Sam’s Enchanted Bar – Krakatoa Punch

    When I heard Disneyland added a Tiki themed bar to the Disney hotel in Anaheim California I just had to go and check it out. This is the souvenir cup and light cube that comes with the Krakatoa Punch cocktail. The cup itself is very high quality, and made by Tiki Farm. The light cube is sealed, with a non-replaceable battery. It looks like you can purchase the cube here for about $4.00.

    The cocktail itself was weak, expensive, and tasted mostly of pineapple juice…

    Chowhound’s dumb moderation tactics

    Chowhound has a long internet history as being a great place for people who love food to gather.  And as a longtime user (over ten years now) I’ve contributed many posts as well as helped spread the word about this site.   One down side to Chow, however, has always been the overly militant and inconsistent moderation tactics which have an effect of alienating us users – something that’s deadly for user driven sites.

    I’m not the only one to complain about this – A simple Google search reveals just how widespread the problem is.  Often, posts are deleted by mods without any word as to why.  Sometimes, and most egregiously,  Chowhound moderators will forbid users from even mentioning restaurants with no reason given, as was the case with Jujube and Napa and Co.

    What makes this all the more maddening is how terribly inconsistent the mods are, deleting one users posts while preserving anothers.

    Some moderation is necessary, obviously, but this is starting to get ridiculous.  My recommendation?  Use a truly crowd sourced site like Yelp.

    Continue reading: Foodie Fight, Chownhound Board Nazis, Whats the big deal w/CHOWHOUND?, Deleted posts on Chowhound, Banned on Chowhound

    The Original Pantry Cafe

    The Original Pantry. Los Angeles CA.

    I drove Emily into downtown LA so she could pick up some tickets to the up-coming Glee Live show. Even on a Saturday the traffic back into Pasadena was heavy, so we decided to cool our heels and have dinner before heading home.

    The Pantry is much more famous for it’s long LA history than it’s food. It was opened in 1924 and is currently owned by former Mayor, Richard Riordan.

    Pesto Pizza (pre-oven) needs more cheese

    Pesto Pizza

    Last weekend I made fresh pesto with linguine for Emily. We decided to use the leftover pesto this weekend with some shrimp, baby roma tomatoes and toasted pine nuts for a pizza. Also got some fresh pizza dough. In the end, it was ok… I think I may have over cooked it, and it needed more tomatoes. Everything from Trader Joe’s, including the fresh basil in the pesto. Those baby roma tomatoes were really perfect and sweet… The best pizza pan we’ve found is this Cuisinart 14-Inch Pizza Pan.

    Basic traditional Pesto – it’s a simple recipe so you *really* need to use good ingredients.

    * 2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
    * 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (use real real Parmisano Reggiano!!!)
    * 1/2 cup Olive oil (the best extra virgin oil you can find/afford)
    * 3 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted.
    * 3 (or more) garlic cloves, finely minced

    Blend until smooth. Salt to taste.

    If you use the real deal, fresh “Parmisano Reggiano” (the king of cheese), you may not need to add much salt.