Consuming LA

August 29, 2014 · 12:07 am

Labor Day Weekend for Foodies

Who doesn’t love a food festival? If you’re in LA this Labor Day Weekend, there’s a great one happening on the Paramount Pictures lot. It’s put on by The Los Angeles Times and features over 125 of LA’s top restaurants spread out over five different events. Some of my favorite places participating include The Gorbals, Hinoki and the Bird, Jitlada, Fishing with Dynamite, Loteria Grill, Chichén ItzÃ¡, Stella Barra Pizzeria and Plan Check Kitchen + Bar. Wine, Beer and Spirits will be plentiful.

You can get more information and buy tickets here.

Maple Bacon Cinnamon Roll baked by LA Times Test Kitchen chef Noelle Carter will be featured at the Sunday brunch event.

Mexican French Toast from Loteria Grill chef Jimmy Shaw

Mexican Sweet Roll “Concha” French Toast from Loteria Grill chef Jimmy Shaw will also be served at the Sunday brunch.

Smokey Fried Chicken from Plan Check Kitchen + Bar

11 Best Artisan Ice Cream Shops in LA

I scream. You scream. We all scream for ice cream . . . unless you’re from LA, where consuming ice cream is a guilty pleasure that you’re discreet about.

But when Angelenos are looking to quietly indulge in creamy frozen bliss, there are thankfully a lot of great choices. The latest craze is artisan ice cream shops that produce small batches of gourmet product with a high cream content, top notch ingredients, and flavors that are often exotic and unusual.

Here are my eleven favorite ice cream joints in the city (gelaterias excluded):

Butterscotch Ice Cream and Butterscotch Sauce from Mother Moo Creamery

1. Mother Moo Creamery (17 Kersting Ct in Sierra Madre) Located in the quaint little village of Sierra Madre, just east of Pasadena, this is my new favorite ice cream place in the city. There are so many amazing flavors here, it’s a challenge to choose just one or two. Recommended flavors: Classic Butterscotch, Salty Chocolate and Brownie.

McConnell’s Fine Ice Creams

2. McConnell’s Fine Ice Creams (317 S Broadway, Los Angeles in Downtown). This famous Santa Barbara ice cream shop just opened a branch here in the newly gentrified Grand Central Market. It’s awesome. Recommended flavors: Churros Con Leche, Double Peanut Butter Chip, Turkish Coffee, Summer Fruit Cobbler. UPDATE: A second LA location is now open in Studio City at 12073 Ventura Place

Salted Caramel Ice Cream from Sweet Rose Creamery

3. Sweet Rose Creamery (225 26th St #51, Santa Monica in the Brentwood Country Mart, 826 Pico Blvd in Santa Monica, and 7565 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles in Mid-City). Everything about Sweet Rose is outstanding and the choices of ice creams and toppings are amazing and extensive. Recommended Flavors: Salted Caramel, Fresh Mint with Homemade Chocolate Chips, Summer Corn.

Peddler’s Creamery

4. Peddler’s Creamery (458 S. Main St, Los Angeles in Downtown) Hipsters love ice cream too, especially at this cool looking shop which serves small batches of bicycle-churned ice cream made with organic, fair-trade, locally sourced ingredients. A percentage of their profits go to social and environmental causes. Recommended Flavors: Chocolate Cacao, Pancake Batter, Cinnamon.

Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream from Mashti Malone's

5. Mashti Malone’s (1525 N. La Brea Ave, Los Angeles in Hollywood) This unique shop specializes in Persian-style ice creams and sorbets made with ingredients like Rosewater and Saffron. But don’t overlook their American flavors like Peanut Butter, which are also phenomenal. Recommended Flavors: Rosewater Saffron with Pistachios, Ginger Rosewater, Peanut Butter

Three Twins Ice Cream

6. Three Twins Ice Cream (2726 Main St in Santa Monica) This Northern California import, which opened only a few months ago, has wickedly good organic ice cream. I love that a “single” is actually two flavors! Recommended flavors: Lemon Cookie, Bittersweet Chocolate and Dad’s Cardamom.

Blueberry Pie Ice Cream from Quenelle

7. Quenelle (2214 W Magnolia Blvd in Burbank) This cute little shop opened just last year on a hip and funky stretch of Magnolia Boulevard in the Valley. Their Blueberry Pie flavor (pieces of Blueberry pie in creamy vanilla ice cream) is pretty much mandatory when ordering. Other recommended flavors: Vanilla Mascarpone, Strawberry Shortcake, Miso.

Carmela Ice Cream

8. Carmela Ice Cream (2495 E Washington Blvd in Pasadena and 7920 W. Third Street, Los Angeles in Mid-City) I discovered this little gem several years ago at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market. Even though they have brick and mortar locations now, they still sell their amazing ice cream at certain farmer’s markets around town and purchase many of their ingredients from other farmer’s market vendors. Recommended flavors: Salted Caramel, Brown Sugar Vanilla Bean, Lavender Honey and Rosemary Toasted Pine Nut

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Ice Cream from Fosselman’s Ice Cream

9. Fosselman’s Ice Cream Company (1824 W Main St in Alhambra) This San Gabriel Valley landmark is over 91 years old and is still run by the same family. If you don’t want to drive all the way to Alhambra, you can always find a few of their super tasty flavors at Brian’s Shaved Ice in the Valley and on Sawtelle in Little Osaka. Recommended flavors: Chocolate Dipped Strawberry, Butter Pecan, Lemon Custard, Toasted Almond.

Scoops Westside

10. Scoops (712 N. Heliotrope Dr, Los Angeles in East Hollywood and 3400 Overland Ave, Los Angeles in Palms) One of the first Artisan Ice Cream places in the city, Scoops is constantly offering new and exotic flavors. For best selection, get there early in the day because flavors often run out. Recommended flavors: Brown Bread, Red Velvet Toffee, Horchata.

Neveux Artisan Creamery & Espresso Bar

11. Neveux Artisan Ice Creamery & Espresso Bar (7407 Â½ Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles in West Hollywood) The service is not great here, but the ice cream is. It’s perfect for capping off an afternoon of vintage clothing and vinyl record shopping on Melrose. Recommend flavors: Roasted Banana and Caliente Cinnamon Chocolate.

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Filed under Alhambra, Brentwood, Burbank, Downtown, East Hollywood, Echo Park, Fairfax, Hollywood, Mid-City, Palms, Pasadena, Sierra Madre, West Hollywood, West LA

July 25, 2014 · 9:38 am

The Pecking Order

In the world of proteins, chicken usually ranks well below beef and pork in the eyes and bellies of carnivores. Seen as the healthy but boring choice, a chicken entree is generally selected by those watching their cholesterol or budget, not the thrill-seeking food adventurers and hedonistic gourmands that read this blog. However one small restaurant in Little Tokyo is challenging this perception of chicken as an inferior meat.

Kokekokko is a traditional Japanese yakitori house. Appetizers aside, they serve basically one thing: skewers of exceptionally good charbroiled chicken. Every part of the bird is used. There are skewers of breasts, thighs, gizzards, livers, hearts, wings (my favorite!) and skin. Each are perfectly seasoned and grilled in the middle of the restaurant on top of special imported charcoal. There are also tasty skewers of tsukune (Japanese meatballs) and uzarago tamago (quail eggs). Even the vegetables (pictured above) are wrapped in thin pieces of chicken. I recommend sitting at the bustling bar surrounding the grill and ordering a five or ten skewer combo so you can try a bit of each.

While the food is phenomenal, don’t expect much in the way of service. Unless you’re a Kokekokko regular, chef Tomohiro Sakata, who presides over the culinary festivities, will not give you the time of day. He reserves his attention and special off-menu items for only his most loyal and sycophantic customers who are served their yakitori on personalized black plates instead of the generic white plates given to the rest of us. This blatant show of favoritism doesn’t seem to have hurt Sakahata’s business; the dinner-only restaurant is always packed.

Kokekokko is located at 203 S Central Ave, Los Angeles (Downtown, in Little Tokyo).

Gyoza

Broccoli Salad Appetizer

House Salad

Chicken Breast

Chicken Gizzard and Chicken Liver

Quail Eggs and Chicken Heart

Chicken Thigh

Chicken Meatball

Chicken Wing

Soup comes at the end

Grilled on a charcoal grill right in front of you

Charbroiled right in front of you

Chicken rules the roost at this Little Tokyo hotspot

[mappress mapid=”154″]

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Tagged as best yakitori los angeles, kokekokko, kokekokko chef, kokekokko menu, kokekoko, tomohiro sakata, yakitori dtla, yakitori little tokyo, yakitori los angeles

July 9, 2014 · 10:55 am

I’m Going Straight to Bell

There are not a lot of reasons to visit the City of Bell, a small working-class neighborhood about 15 minutes southeast of Downtown. But if you’re a fan of amazing Mexican food, a trip to Bell is pretty much mandatory. At the top of your list should be La Casita Mexicana, one of the best Mexican restaurants in all of LA County.

While many people rave about La Casita Mexicana’s Chile en Nogada, a poblano chile stuffed with ground beef, dried fruits, walnuts and candied cactus, and topped with pecan cream sauce and pomegranate seeds, my favorite dish is the Conquista Plate, which features a thin steak over grilled cactus, Oaxaca cheese and chile guajillo sauce. The mole sauces which enrobe chicken or pork are also phenomenal and include a traditional black poblano sauce, red and green pipian (pumpkin seed) sauces, and a sauce made with pistachios, green chiles and root beer leaf. The first three of these are also served on top of the complimentary chips that you are given at the beginning of your meal.

If you’re getting dessert at the restaurant, I recommend either the creamy Flan (pictured above) or the crunchy Churros filled with gooey Mexican Caramel. But another good option, and one that’s a bit more fun, is to go next door to the Los Reyes Bakery, which is open 24 hours. Pick up a silver tray and tongs at the counter and walk though the aisles of tall cooling racks, selecting from a vast variety of super-fresh Pan Dulce and other Mexican cakes, cookies and breads including pig-shaped gingerbread-esque Chochinito and sugary heart-shaped Orejas. Each of these is only 50 cents and my family likes to share several and decide which sweet baked Mexican treat reigns supreme.

La Casita Mexicana is located at 4030 Gage Avenue in Bell.

Chips with Mole Sauce

Queso Fundido con Chorizo

Potato Soup

Conquista Plate with thin steak over grilled cactus, Oaxaca cheese and chile guajillo sauce

Mushroom and Cactus Chile Relleno

Tres Moles with Chicken and Pork

Housemade Corn Tortillas

There’s a gift shop!

Los Reyes Bakery next door

[mappress mapid=”153″]

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Tagged as bell restaurants, best mexican restaurants california, best mexican restaurants los angeles, famous mexican restaurant bell, La casita mexicana, la casita mexicana bell, la casita mexicana menu, pipian mole, Pistachio mole

June 20, 2014 · 12:42 pm

A Wicked Case of the Munchies

It was sad to hear about the death this week of Casey Kasem, the iconic voice of “American Top 40” and, more importantly, Shaggy, the slouched hippie with a perpetual case of the munchies on “Scooby Doo.” If Kasem’s Shaggy was real and living in LA today, he would probably be hanging out at Pot, the newest restaurant from LA’s most popular chef, Roy Choi.

Located in the Line Hotel, LA’s new hipper-than-hip hotspot in Koreatown, Pot is the coolest, most happening dining scene in the city. The cuisine is Korean comfort food, which feels familiar but, at the same time, transcendent due to Chef Choi’s considerable talent and creativity. The restaurant’s name refers to hot pots, which are the specialty of the house and are served family-style on built-in table burners. But there are many other awesome offerings on the menu, which is in the form of a newspaper with an elderly woman smoking a giant doobie on the cover.

I recommend starting with a cocktail. Both the Kimchi Soju and the Curry Soju are unique, spicy and surprisingly good. The crispy-on-the-bottom Kimchi Fried Rice is an absolute must-have, as are the BBQ Spicy Pork and BBQ Spot Prawns. As for the hot pots, my favorite is the “Shorty” (pictured above), which has Braised Galbi, Chestnuts, Dates, Taro, Carrots, Turnips, Scallion and Sesame, although Shaggy would probably go for the “Boot Knocker” with Tofu, Instant Ramen, Spam, Corned Beef Hash, Spicy Pork Sausage, Rice Cakes, Fish Cakes and Chili Paste, especially after a day of solving mysteries and unmasking villains masquerading as ghosts and zombies.

Pot is located at 3515 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles (in Koreatown).