About : standard furniture wilshire boulevard panel bed
Title : standard furniture wilshire boulevard panel bed
standard furniture wilshire boulevard panel bed
(julie wiskirchen) hi everybody i'm juliewiskirchen from the authors team at google and today i'm excited to welcome the, someof the contributors to "eat la," the 2010 edition of the restaurant guide for food loversof los angles. i'll just introduce our panel today. first,we have amelia saltsman who's gonna moderate. she's the author of "the santa monica farmers'market cookbook," a subject dear to our hearts. an la native and long-time santa monican,she writes about cooking, markets and food for such magazines as "bon appetit," and she'sa regular guest on evan kleiman's "good food" show on kcrw. and we have linda burum. she's the authorof "a guide to ethnic food in los angeles"
and an expert on international cuisines. shewrites regularly for such publications as the "la times" in los angeles. she lives insanta monica, but covers all of southern california in her never-ending quest for that great littlemarket or secret cafe. then we have miles clements. he writes aboutfood for the "la times," "the district weekly," and others. he is a long beach area residentand native who also roams the south bay and, indeed, all of la for his blog, eat food withme. and finally we have pat saperstein. she'sa savvy sleuth behind la's best food blog, eating la. the south pasadena resident isalso a senior editor at "daily variety" and in her spare time she writes about restaurantsfor the "los feliz ledger" and posts regularly
on chowhound. so please join me in welcoming our panelists. [applause] (amelia saltsman) well, thank you. we arejust delighted to be here with you today and hope we get lots of good conversation and,and questions. so the eat los angeles project is the brainchildof colleen dunn bates who's out of town; last day of the college trip with her younger daughter.i think some of you might have a few memories of that. and really the whole idea of this project,and i keep referring to it as a project because
the book is just one piece as everything mustbe these days only there's a whole pie. and this, this really was designed to be acurated collection of really savvy food resources. you might call it the anti-red covered foodguide. no corporate chains. i think there might be a couple of references to maybe peet'scoffee, something like that. but, and not a popularity contest. basicallycolleen came up with the idea that we all leapt into with passion, which is we wanteda book that talked about our city, our county, that we would wanna use that we could reallytrust. so colleen put together this team of whichwe are four to, to really write all about everything, [inaudible] every topic, foodtopic that you might wanna know about that
we would wanna know about. it's not exhaustive in the sense that it doesn'tcover every single thing, just what we really like. so, and we're all food writers in thearea. some of us are even la natives so we bring that sort of hip backstory to a lotof the places that we suss out. and do any of you have the first edition?the last year's? so just to know, just so you know, you've gotten the new and improved;250 additional resources, a couple of new chapters. one of my favorites is the chapter at thebeginning of the book, "good food neighborhoods." it really gives you an idea of what a particular,almost like a micro scene, has to offer; a
particular swath of ventura boulevard in studiocity that for some reason seems to have an awful lot of japanese restaurants; all theway to neighborhoods in your own backyard. abbot kinney, sawtelle, to field trips. gee,i'm finding myself in artesia, where can i go? so that's the book and of course with it nowcomes eat, i wanna say, eatla.com, and now the book is completely searchable on the websitewhich is really nice. and complete with google maps. and let's see, what else have we got? oh,and it is, if you have a smartphone it's, you can do it as, there's a mobile versionand if you have an iphone right now eat los
angeles is, is an app-like icon. not quiteall the way to an app. and let's see, of course, we now have a facebookfan page and you can follow us on twitter and the biggest most recent news is that weare now gonna be regulars on "off-ramp" on kpcc and i don't remember what time that airsbecause whoever listens to anything right at exactly the time? just tivo or stream orwhatever. so, but you can check that out. so with that i thought what we would do iseach of us could talk a little bit about some of our latest favorites, discoveries, andso on, and then we could open it up to discussion and questions from you guys unless there'sanything in particular you want us to hit right off the bat.
anything? all right. so let's start with pat and we'llwork our way back up. (pat saperstein) well i wanna talk a littleabout the area that my blog kind of specializes in which is sort of the silver lake, echopark, pasadena, south pasadena. it's actually a fairly large area [inaudible]. [pause] basically the northeast la-ish area is whati like to cover the most heavily and i try to also get downtown as often as i can, althoughi'm still not a downtown expert because so many places keep opening that, down, downtownthat i can't even keep up with them.
but a couple of the places that i would loveto point out that have opened fairly recently are in silver lake. forage is a great newplace that has really fresh vegetables and wonderful baked goods and just really nicelycooked quiches and all different kinds of things. [inaudible audience question] well, it's on the website. i think it openedafter the book came out. and the really novel thing about it is ifyou grow food in your garden you can also bring it to them on sunday afternoons andthey will, if they like your produce, they'll accept it and they'll give you some creditsto eat at the restaurant and they'll incorporate
your produce into their meals. so that's kind of a fun and different approach.although i heard that there could be some problems with the city over that. so i'm notsure exactly how that's gonna work out for them, but i hope that they're able to keepdoing it. like the day i was in there they had lemonademade from the lemons from someone's garden in echo park and it's just a really nice wayto, for them to get involved with the community. but it's also just a higher level of cookingthan most of the places that you see in silver lake, which for some reason seems to attractkind of mediocre restaurants in a lot of cases. but i think it's more like a tartine in sanfrancisco with just really great attention
to the way they bake and -the flavors thatthey bring out in the vegetables and everything. and it's just a small place that used to bea bakery; bring your own wine, nothing, nothing fancy; order at the counter, but just a reallygood example of kind of the new wave of places that pay a lot of attention to local ingredientsbut also to making the food taste really good. so that's- one place. forage. and their websiteis foragela.com and they have like a completely changing menu everyday. so it's, it's a reallyinteresting place. and another place that i've really been likinglately is cacao mexicatessen in eagle rock. it's a just a kinda also a pretty informalmexican place but it's not like any typical mexican place. it's not like just a burritojoint or it's not like a taco truck, it's
kind of a higher level of food, but withoutbeing like an expensive gourmet mexican kind of spot like the places downtown; just informalbut really great things. they've been having venison tacos lately.i haven't tasted those yet, but i did, their duck carnitas are just amazing especiallyfor people who don't eat pork, it's just, they're just as good as any pork carnitasthat you could have. and they also do homemade mexican dessertsand all kinds of mexican coffee drinks with dulce de leche coffee drinks and things likethat that are really great. and they make homemade tortillas you, that you can takehome with you, make your food at home and so it's, it's a really great resource also.
and then the other thing i, i really liketo talk about is beer. and we also have another writer that contributes to eat los angeles,jenn garbee who writes a lot about beer for the " la times" and other places, but we'reboth into beer and the beer scene is really exploding in la recently and it's a greatthing because we've been waiting years and years. for years there was just father's office onmontana, was almost one of the only places you could get good beer in the whole cityand now every neighborhood has a couple of great beer places. in west hollywood, the surly goat just openedwhich has a really amazing selection of beers
and that's owned by the same person as theverdugo bar in eagleã‰, in, yeah, in eagle rock glassell park area which is one of myfavorite beer places and they have one of the only real beer gardens in town. they don'thave a kitchen, but with the advent of the food trucks and everything, they've been havingfood available on, at their beer garden everyday, or people who just barbecue out on the patioand they're open all afternoon on saturdays and sundays. people play board games and just hang outand drink beer and it's really fun; it's the kind of place that i think la has needed fora long time and hasn't had very many of. (amelia saltsman) i, i should mention thaton the website, that's the place to go for
all the latest updates, deals, events, groupons,the whole thing. (pat saperstein) [chuckles] (amelia saltsman) so, we're constantly feeding,feeding the- mob. (amelia saltsman) i couldn't think of anyother word and i just went -- (pat saperstein) [gasping] (amelia saltsman) okay. so maybe we, we hearfrom miles and then we can come back if -- (miles clements) okay. i'm gonna talk a littleabout the south bay which is where i do most of my coverage for the "times" and for thebook as well. and kind of taking up where pat left off,one of the kind of bigger trends in the south
bay has been kind influx of gastro pubs which,depending on how you look at it, is either a restaurant with a bar or a bar with a restaurantinside and, they're usually very beer focused and lots of craft beers, lots of local beers. one of the, i don't know, maybe, more popularones is simmzy's in manhattan beach. it's basically kind of standard american; kindof up scale, more focused burgers. there's more attention paid to the food. they havea really good pulled pork panino that they braise the pork overnight in sherry vinegarand put it in the sandwich and press it. it's crispy, fatty, really good. the other place is still relatively new. it'scalled hudson house. it's in redondo beach.
it's from the same owners as beachwood invenice. and they have, i would say, a little bit more of a global skew towards things. you can still get burgers and such and theyhave a good one it's on a pretzel bun. but they also have, if i recall this, ground,ground lamb skewers which are on sugar cane. they roast them over the fire and they havea yogurt harrisa dipping sauce that's got a little bit of a heat also. and there's some other ones that you can findin the book. i'm not going to go into too much details; they all kind of pull from thesame themes. but i would say that probably the other thing in the south bay, especiallytorrance, is really known for is japanese
food. and they have great sushi places, great ramenhouses, but it goes a lot beyond that. and one of the places that i like a lot is calledtorihei, which essentially is an izakaya but they have basically two parallel menus: oneis a yakitori menu, so grilled chicken parts, any kind of part you could imagine; and theother is oden, which is a soupy stew that is usually a bunch of different ingredientsin one, and it's usually kind of a homey dish and here they separate it out into kind ofan ala carte menu. you can get really, these really precise dishes with like a soft-boiledegg that's topped with salmon roe and it's just, it's really, i don't know, clear andflavorful cooking.
(amelia saltsman) you know we, i see thatwe're totally, we must be hungry? (miles clements) [chuckles] (amelia saltsman) because we're totally focusedon restaurants and one of the things that i love about this book, because i use it allthe time, is that there, it's not just about restaurants, it's about stores, it's aboutkitchen supply places. i was just thinking, miles, as you mentionedtorrance and right away i have marukai -- (miles clements) um-hum. (amelia saltsman) has anybody been to marukai?i mean you can buy furniture, you can buy food, i mean it's amazing. so you're goingto find all of those. this is all about everything.
(miles clements) right. and along those samelines you can obviously, you can get a lot of great food in those stalls in those samemarkets too. but the food, as i was going to say, the japanesefood really does sprand, spread a huge variety. there's a really great dessert, dessert shop/bakeryin lomita called patisserie chantilly which is basically a french japanese bakery. andagain i would say it's one of the top japanese bakeries in kind of the greater la area andthey put a lot of care into their dishes. they have really, really great cream puffs.they do one with a sesame cream, a black sesame cream. so it has kind of a smokiness of theblack sesame and it's, they're these huge things that are like the size of hamburgers.
but, and, one more thing before i pass itoff onto linda, is that if you also find yourself in the, at some of the farmer's markets onthe south bay in torrance or el segundo there's, they have a lot of great vendors there andone of them whose been kind of building a huge web presence lately is bigmista's barbecue. (pat saperstein) and he goes, and he goesto atwater -- (miles clements) he also goes to atwater village,yeah, and he's a, he's a big web guy. he's on every possible social networking thingyou can imagine. you can text him orders and he's big, his, he doesn't really have a styleof barbecue per se, even though he grew up in texas he's learned a lot from other people,but he's kind of become fairly well known
for pig candy which is basically bacon smokedwith brown sugar and cayenne until it gets sweet and spicy and -- (pat saperstein) definitely one of the㉠(miles clements) yeah. (pat saperstein) ã‰probably the best thingi've eaten in the last㉠(miles clements) [laughs] (pat saperstein) ã‰two months, which is thatone strip of one dollar㉠(pat saperstein) ã‰candy. (miles clements) thereã‰
(pat saperstein) certainly the best dollari've㉠(pat saperstein) ã‰spent anywhere. (miles clements) it's uh, it's worth the,the trip if you guys can make it out there. (linda burum) well, hi. i thought i'd concentrateon west la a little bit since some of you are from here. and speaking of stores, wewere just talking about j & t on wilshire boulevard. j & t gourmet at, it's about 10thstreet on the north side. i'm sorry to tell you i didn't bring, that'sin the book, so you can look that one up. but you can also google all these things andi'm sure you'll find them. (amelia salsman) topeka.
[laughter] (linda burum) anyway, j & t is fun becausethey make their own, they cure their own hams and they make their own hams; they have likea little, the two guys are from hungary -- where do they ã no, they're from poland,sorry. they make, they have all these polish sausage hanging in the, in behind the butchercase and then they have softer sausages in the case, but they make them all themselvesincluding the dry cured ones. then over in the freezer you find those dumplingsand stews in, frozen, and then they have a fish case with some cured fish and butterfrom europe and it's just kind of -- if you do your own thing. unfortunately they stoppedmaking sandwiches which is really sad. [looking
at microphone] is this on? yes, i guess. so i made this little list of things thati found around la, around west la that, 'cause i thought, "well, you guys are all here."i did a piece on izakaya about, i don't know, two or three years ago before everybody, everybodyhad one in their neighborhood. and they were kind of underground places at that time. imean, very few people had even known the term i suppose. but around here along sawtelleyou can find --how-how many people are from this part of town that grew up here and knowthe area that well? oh good. well, that means that the rest of you willbenefit from this because you probably won't know them that well. but furaibo, it startedout as a fried chicken place in, in gardena
and then they, well actually they have branchesin tokyo but, and all over japan, but they do this wonderful fried chicken; they do wings;they do breasts; and they have funny names like the jane and the tarzan for differentparts of the animal which they deep fry. but more than that it's a pub with all kindsof sake, all kinds of soju, and all kinds of little dishes and you can, like all izakaya,they're just places where you can order a little of this and a little of that and drinkand hang out. (amelia saltsman) it is kind as, are theyjapanese gastro pubs? (linda burum) yeah, essentially. and speaking of that, musha on wilshire, m-u-s-h-a,is a more, what shall we say, au courant type
in that they do more global tidbits. they're,they're still fairly japanese but they're a little more influenced from other cultures.so that's a good place to know. also wakasan on westwood boulevard, they do a little prixfixe. it used to be $25 plus whatever liquor you bought, but now it went up to 35 i understand.and that, that's very, very purist japanese i would say. people come in. they spend the night. theybuy their bottle of soju, but you can get individual glasses also. and they serve amulti-course dinner which is about 10 courses. in this case you don't choose your own likefuraibo and these other places, but you just go with what they have and it's very light,very delicate food, very, it's enough by the
time if you're a hungry guy you'll, you won'tstarve. but it's very refined kind of food and it's interesting that you get this progressionof courses. and then sasaya on santa monica boulevardright near, kinda near sawtelle, is, they, it's more of a raucous down-home, salary man-typeplace with crab cakes and little dishes of pork belly and all kinds of vege-vegetabledishes in small plates. once again you get, you can have, i thinkthey for sure have beer, wine, soju and maybe, maybe hard liquor but i don't remember that,if you'll pardon me. (amelia saltsman) i think we need to -- (linda burum) wrap it up?
(amelia saltsman) we need to save, i thinkwe need to save the rest for㉠(linda burum) okay. (amelia saltsman) ã‰for the next piece. (linda burum) i just want to say that youshould, how many of you have been at, down on sawtelle avenue? yeah, well you know then.most of you who haven't gone, it's a real field trip because it's lined with, it's linedwith all kinds of japanese places from tofu specialists to places like blue marlin whichis crossover food and, of course, hide sushi is famous. okay. (amelia saltsman) do you know that los angeleshas, historically, three, four, the la area,
four japanese㉠(linda burum) ã‰japanese enclaves... (amelia saltsman) ã‰enclaves. there's littletokyo downtown. there's sawtelle, that's the sawtelle area. there's torrance and there'salso i guess what is now called, what i guess would be called east hollywood. sort of it'snot, if like by virgil and melrose that area i think it's, it, there's a lot of latin,latinos there now, but in the '50s and then before the internment in of japanese americansin, of, during world war ii, that area was a very important,it was called little tokyo west. so we have this, these things that seem like new arenot so new sometimes. and people from outside
of la, i think, don't understand the depththat there is to la because it is so big and sprawling. it's this wonderful patchwork ofneighborhoods and ambiences, but there's a lot of heft there; there's a lot of substance. well i -- (linda burum) the japanese used to do, i'mgoing to cut in here. they were big in agriculture right in the city. so that's -- (amelia saltsman) yes. (linda burum) you have sawtelle, they usedto do floral gardens. there were bean fields, celery --
(amelia saltsman) right. celery -- (linda burum) celery fields and that's whywe had -- (amelia saltsman) and strawberries. (linda burum) yeah. and then also the workers,there would be these hotels that were just for men 'cause the men used to come over fromjapan and work the fields that their friends owned; relatives and friends. it was justlike a little network and the hotels eventually turned into what sawtelle is today with the,the places to eat. but it was like boarding houses in those days.that was pre-, the pre-war. and then after the war when people got out of the internmentcamps they came back there because there was
a buddhist temple, there were churches, therewere places that people who had lost everything could at least get a bed. and then eventuallythey evolved into getting their lives back together. (amelia saltsman) well, i thought that i wouldjust tell you what i found at the market this week and what's coming. i did a little, alittle scouting. right now do--how many of you shop at farmer's markets? ooh, nice. howmany of you shop at santa monica, anyone of the santa monica markets? throw out some namesof other markets that you go to. (voice in audience) hollywood. (amelia saltsman) hollywood.
venice, did somebody say venice? oh i lovethat market. (voice in audience) west la. (amelia saltsman) west la, the one at on,um -- [inaudible] oh, okay. oh, okay, okay. anybody go to the mar vista market or playavista? yeah. okay, great. anyway, what i found this week: purple sproutingbroccoli. has anybody tried that? it is amazing and i have a story about that because i helpedalex weiser get the seed for that and, just
so you know, we got it through, with the helpof jamie oliver. and it's very nutty; it's, it's, and it, there's nothing new about purplevegetables; those are, those have been around for a really long time. purple asparagus isreally big right now from the zuckerman's. there's one farmer who comes just briefly.most of the farmers at local certified farmer's markets are really from within anywhere from10 to 150 miles; some of them maybe a couple of hundred miles, but occasionally those arethe regular farmers. but even in this sprawling community of la. but there are a few farmers that come justfor very brief time from farther away. so zuckerman's comes from the sacramento deltaand they have this, they have amazing asparagus
including purple asparagus which is supersweet. and has been around, chefs have been writing about it for 130 years in los angeles.so, it's, it's definitely not new, it's a lot older than that. what else did i see? oh, next week lilacsare coming. if you like flowers. and two week, in two weeks we're going to start seeing earlycherries. so be on the lookout for that. what else did i spot? oh, my big find this week: french leeks fromwindrose farms. the leeks are, the white part is probably, maybe, 12 to 18 inches, justsnowy white and tender. you can even use some of the darker green part. and what i did wasi just sauteed them like really sweetly, low,
low heat and i threw in some english peaswhich are amazing right now and some fresh mint. everything green is incredible rightnow. and oh it was so good! and then i had a farmer's market egg on top with a littlericotta cheese. it was really awesome. the other thing that is coming are galantestrawberries. there is one farmer who grows galantes, jerry rutiz, and he's at the market,the santa monica market on wednesdays, and there is an interesting story to that buti'm not going to take your time with that now. so you'll have to read that story inmy book, if you have my book. so, let's, any questions? 'cause i also, iactually have a couple of questions for the panel. so, yes.
(male #1 in audience) thank you for coming.i noticed that, i mean each of you has your kind of pet areas, but even in the book thereare some areas of la that just seem chronically left out, like the west valley, for example.it's probably got one of the smallest sections in the kind, in the area. it doesn't have,at least according to this book, any specialized neighborhoods or anything like that. but there'stons of great food there. is there any reason it always gets left out? (amelia saltsman) we're working on it. andwe would like to hear from you. (linda burum) i'll tell you why, also, isthat there's so much, pardon me, there's just so much around. i know there's a lot of arabicrestaurants around there.
rosita boulevard which i guess starts thearea and then it goes west on and there's heaps of indian, especially in northridge,and you have the giant korean market out there in northridge called, do you know the name?galleria. and then they have a little food court and we know it's there, but there, it'sjust when you're doing the book it's so overwhelming and we go, "well, what's the most importantthing to put in?" so we'll start thinking more about that. i think the galleria is outthere. but, you know, once you have one korean market, even though there is 20 big supermarkets,in a book like this, one serves the purpose because you can, if you have to pick one ortwo that's all you get. (male #1 in audience) i think we kind of,we kind of look to you to tell us which one
is the, we know, of the 20, which are thetwo or three that we should go to? (amelia saltsman) exactly. (male #1 in audience) which are the few weshould avoid? (amelia saltsman) so, what we would, we wouldlove to hear from you. anybody in fact, i mean you generally. we're looking for hottips andinterest. so, definitely, communicate through via the website; we're taking notes.so i got west valley. any other -- yes. (amelia saltsman) and if you want to directthe question to a particular team member,
please do. (female #1 in audience) i just moved herelike a week ago so this is real useful because i had no idea where to start. (linda burum) from where? (female #1 in audience) from san francisco.so-- (amelia saltsman) we have great food here. (female #1 in audience) okay. that's whati've heard. i'm really looking for, i live in santa monica.i'm really looking for, like, just local fresh artisan, rustic bread. is that somewhere?
(amelia saltsman) yes. i can answer that in,two:huckleberry--. (female #1 in audience) okay. (amelia saltsman) on wilshire and 10th rightnext door to santa monica seafood. but huckleberry, zoe nathan is an amazing pastry chef and breadmaker and you will find incredible bread; so that's the newest one. in fact, huckleberry'sjust starting, it's their sort of bakery arm they have, they own rustic canyon as well,the restaurant, which has great beer and wine. and also cooks seasonally and supports thefarmer's market. but huckleberry just started having a familydinner night on thursdays. that's a new thing. so that might be fun; probably long tables.
(female #1 voice in audience) is there anothervenue like [inaudible] (amelia saltsman) yes, on pico. there is sortof a classic french baguette and croissant bakery on pico and lincoln. (linda burum) you know, bay city's italianhas good bread for sandwiches. there's all these have their own style. and i, they bringit in three times a day. it's still warm when you buy it. so if you're looking for a baguette-typething that, for good sandwiches of course they're famous for that, sandwiches. the breaditself is inexpensive and good. and-- (pat saperstein) [inaudible] on third street[inaudible] (amelia saltsman) right.
- (pat saperstein) it's very good, but thatis one thing that la is not quite up to [inaudible] so [inaudible] (amelia saltsman) well, and let's -- (pat saperstein) more gently [inaudible] (amelia saltsman) well, and -- (pat saperstein) and if you're around thirdstreet or century city area [inaudible] (amelia saltsman) well, and let's not forgetthe great classic la brea. i mean it's still, particularly if you get, if you can get labrea bread from, at the, at the source even
at la brea bakery on, on, on la brea. i would like to get some more questions. (male #2 in audience) this is for any or all.i'm curious about the process when you're gonna review something or consider it forinclusion in the book. do you go with a group and trade food? do you go multiple times?or, how does, how does that work? (pat saperstein) we don't, we don't reallyapproach it the way you would a newspaper restaurant review where you sort of go multipletimes and evaluate every dish on the menu. i mean these, the places in this book aremore a compendium of our experiences eating all year long in all these different restaurants.
so some of them might be places that lindaor miles have reviewed in the "la times" that they remembered were great. some of them mightbe places we just stopped in for lunch while, near our offices. they're just, it's, it'sjust kind of a repository of our experience more than a systematic going through eachrestaurant and reviewing it the way you would if you're writing a full review for a magazineor a, or a blog or something. (linda burum) i want to say something aboutthat. like if we go to hundreds of chinese restaurantsthroughout the year then certain ones stand out for whatever reason. maybe they have aspecialty, the best dumplings or what have you. or, or, or they're just fabulous food.so we filter all that, like all the shanghai
restaurants i know about, maybe 20. what twoam i gonna get to put in, that kind of thing. (female #2 in audience) i have a question. (amelia saltsman) does that answer your question? (female #2 in audience) hi. (amelia saltsman) hi. (female #2 in audience) a few of us in thisroom are actually from the sales team. so we take out our clients a lot of times andwe've kind of tapped out our restaurant in the santa monica area. we have an event comingup that will probably have about 25 clients. do you have a recommendation in the --
(amelia saltsman) probably -- (female #2 in audience) preferably in thesanta monica area for 25 people, pretty private dining. (amelia saltsman) have you been to, have youbeen to fig? (female #2 in audience) we have been therefor lunch for a smaller group. (amelia saltsman) uh-hum. (female #2 in audience) i just wasn't sureif they can accommodate a larger group. (amelia saltsman) i would think that theycould. (female #2 in audience) okay.
(amelia saltsman) and they're certainly doinga lot of interesting events. i'm trying to think -- (amelia saltsman) wil-wilshire was the -- (female #2 in audience) don't say wilshire.we love the wilshire, but we go there -- (amelia saltsman) okay. you, you, but just -- (female #2 in audience) all the time. (amelia saltsman) okay. (pat saperstein) what about tasting kitchen? (female #2 in audience) that's on our list.yeah, if the second floor would be great for
25 people, i think. (amelia saltsman) yes, yes. (amelia saltsman) that would, tasting kitchenon abbot kinney. any other - does that -- (female #2 in audience) yeah, that's a prettygood list. (female #2 in audience) thank you. (amelia saltsman) any other questions? in the back. (male #2 in audience) hi. some of us are justinterested in a good burger and living on
the west side i've been to apple pan, thecounter, and father's office. and i don't know what comes after that. can you guys give -- (amelia saltsman) ooh, i would say umami burger. (pat saperstein) umami's burger is open. ithink it's like a block away [inaudible]. so people have different opinions about umamiburger. some people have quibbles with the service or some people think that they alwayscome out too rare unless you instruct them carefully, but it still comes down to whatis really one of the most unique and great tasting burgers in town, i think. i haven't been to the new santa monica oneyet. it just opened like a week ago, i think,
but i would definitely recommend checkingout the one here and also the original one on la brea i think is also a good one to try;or the one in los feliz. (amelia saltsman) also a lot of restaurantshave really great burgers such as rustic canyon. they have had the same sort of burger on theirmenu from the day they opened and it's delicious on a homemade, on a brioche bun, but it'slike really, really good. great fries. (pat saperstein) [inaudible] (amelia saltsman) we're blanking. (male #3 in audience) does it have bacon andavocado burgers? (amelia saltsman) oh, oh, you mean -
(male #3 in audience) that place is good. (amelia saltsman) on, on - (male #3 in audience) in venice. (amelia saltsman) howard's, howard's, (male #3 in audience) howard's. (amelia saltsman) on, on venice and sawtelle?sepulveda. (male #3 in audience) sepulveda, venice andsepulveda. (amelia saltsman) sepulveda. yes. any other questions?
(pat saperstein) i'll, i'll find it out. i'lllet you know. [inaudible] (amelia saltsman) but it's not -- (female #3 in audience) [inaudible] no, ithink it's on santa monica near [inaudible]. i think it's actually right near [inaudible] (amelia saltsman) yeah. yeah, we're havinga moment. okay. oh. back here and then up in the -- (female #4 in audience) i'm from singaporeand it's impossible to find authentic singapore food here. do you guys know of any secretplaces that might possibly have singapore/malaysian? i mean, penang in pasadena was the closesti've found but they closed down.
(linda burum) yeah, there was a penang outin duarte, right? it's, i, it's covina. penang. (female #4 in audience) okay. )linda burum) and it, that's the best onethat i've been to. (female #4 in audience) in covina. (linda burum) there was an indonesian placeon motor avenue called -- (female #4 in audience) [inaudible] (linda burum) called [inaudible] cafe. (female #4 in audience) i'm sorry, what'sthat? (pat saperstein) [inaudible] they just movedinto a larger [inaudible]
(linda burum) no. (pat saperstein) [inaudible] they expandedinto the market next door so -- (linda burum) oh, so it's bigger? so it'sclose but not a cigar. but anyway, closer -- (pat saperstein) if you haven't been to indocafe [inaudible] (female #4 in audience) i've tried it. it'sclose, but not quite singaporian. (linda burum) yeah. that's, well, that's asclose as we can get. (female #4 in audience) i know. i'm reallycraving the ã [laughter] (linda burum) unless you wanna drive to covinato penang.
(female #4 in audience) i'll do that. (amelia saltsman) please, please let us knowwhen you find something even closer. (amelia saltsman) okay, to the goal. and up front. here let me-- (female #5 in audience) do you know of anygood places particularly in the glendale area that's like a cafe that has good salads anddessert, kind of like earth cafe or the alcove? (pat saperstein) there is a place that recentlyopened in glendale. i'm blanking on the name. it's pretty new. that's really the only placei can think of that's kind of like that. there's
a new place in eagle rock that just opened.i think it's called four cafe that sounds like it's gonna be really great for that kindof food. its funny right in glendale you just don'tget as many more progressive kind of eateries. there's a couple of good persian and lebaneseplaces and there's starting to be some korean places, but there's, there's not much in theway of just like good, interesting, fresh, new food. (female #5 in audience) well how 'bout inthat category but elsewhere? (pat saperstein) yeah, so check out the-thenew four cafe in eagle rock. i haven't actually been there yet, but i have great hopes forit and then forage in silver lake, like i
mentioned. and i'm trying to think of anotherone vaguely in that area. i'll see if i can (miles clements) culver city has a bunch ofnew lunch places. i can't remember all of 'em. there's like chop chop and they're allkind of like salad, yeah, salad and lunch base that might be a good fit. (amelia saltsman) maybe one last question? (female #6 in audience) i have two actually. so one is [laughs] recommendations for cubancuisine that's not like versailles and the other one's for peruvian food, but that'snot chinese influence like mario's and that kind of thing, but rather traditional peruvian.
(linda burum) yeah. well, yeah, and also haveyou been down to, what's it called, mochica? (female #6 in audience) no. (linda burum) it is actually asian influence,but they don't have so much the stir-fries and the noodles, but it's very -- this iswhat you should do for peruvian is go to the mochicha which is in a market called la palomamarket. and it's on the web all over so it's easy for you to find. (miles clements) it's right by usc. (linda burum) it's by usc and they are openat night i discovered; at least if not every night, thursday, friday, saturday. they startedout being only open during the day and closing
at six 'cause the whole la paloma complexwas open 'til six only, but now they have extended their hours which is fabulous. and puro sabor in the valley is, is also agood peruvian, but it's more traditional. this one that i'm recommending, mochica, ismore progressive; still it has all the elements of wonderful raw fish dishes or, if you callthem raw, marinated, and just it's pretty creative. still -- (pat saperstein) [inaudible] excellent cevicheand then some sort of more modern inspired dishes as well everything is very light not[unintelligible] not heavy, greasy. (linda burum) well, the guy who owns it wasthe chef for a long time at sai sai in the
biltmore downtown and he's from peru and nowhe's working at a sushi bar to keep this thing going. hopefully, we're all hoping that he'llopen a regular restaurant, if you will, but you, you can get down there and it's justwonderful. (female #6 in audience) cool. thank you. (linda burum) and puro sabor is not bad either. (pat saperstein) in cuban, i don't know, iwent, i went to el colmao the other day, which is a very old-school kind of cuban coffeeshop. it was kind of fun, but i don't know if i would really recommend it as like thebest cuban. it's not that different from versailles but just a different menu but also really,really old-school. so, i don't know about
like newer cuban food. (linda burum) [inaudible] yeah, i just didthis, it's not even in the paper yet, but i'll tell you anyway. it's called don, casadon rolando in north hills and it's fairly formal. the guy used to cook at madre andit's a little more refined than a lot of cuban places. there's also, gosh, you, you shouldi'll, i'll talk to you afterward 'cause i'm, it's so hard to keep all these things in yourhead, but i know about 20 good places. now there's always porto's -- (female #6 in audience) right. (linda burum) which is actually a bakery andit's very famous by now. but i, i do know
a lot of them. i just can't think of it rightthis, -- (female #6 in audience) okay. (linda burum) off the top of my head. (female #6 in audience) thanks. (amelia saltsman) also one of the things thati've been enjoying lately are the happy hours in santa monica. a lot of, [cough] excuseme, a lot of shangri-la. have you been to the, to the newly redone shangri-la and totheir happy hour and to the, really nice, huh? and the yard, have you been to the yard onbroadway and second? yeah. probably good burger
there. fish tacos, very nice. nice beers. so that, that a lot of that is happening aroundsanta monica these days, but i think it's almost one o'clock so we're happy to sit hereand keep, keep chatting, but i know you have to get back to work. i, well i could, if, if there is time i wouldask the panel what they think is sort of in the trends of, or fads of food. what has,what is peaking and what might be next? not to put you on the spot or anything. food trucks. yeah. we were the first and --
(pat saperstein) well i'll, yeah, i'll, i'lljust talk about trucks for a second 'cause we haven't really touched on that. but i thinkthe food trucks have actually been a great trend for the city because it's brought alot, sort of more community and a feeling of something really happening to the cityand it's been great for places like i mentioned like bars like the verdugo or the new eaglerock brewery which weren't able to have kitchens before. they can just have a truck pull up.they can feed their customers and it really works for everyone. also where i work on wilshire and fairfaxwe just had the crappiest selection of restaurants ever and now we have like six or eight differenttrucks everyday to choose from so it's really
been an improvement. but that said, it is still very faddish andthere's supposedly 60 or70 of them operating right now and i'm thinking a year from nowi'll be surprised if there's like 40 that really stay successful because i'm sure there'llbe a huge shakeout in the summer. it's just like restaurants: some are good and some justaren't very good at all. (linda burum) this is not, when you're talkingabout what's the newest, hottest. this, sometimes old things that have been around for a longtime surface. for example, you're seeing a lot more widespread southern indian and gujaratiindian. that is to say purely vegetarian where they have the dosa type things. what are thosesteamed -- i'm
{pat saperstein) [inaudible] (linda burum) yeah, utapan, those are thepancakes. anyway, they have all sorts of breads and baked and steamed bread items with curriesthat go with it. so if you're, look, there's a place called annapurna on venice. there's,let me see i even wrote a little, [bilwatchi] and samosa house east. whereas we always usedto have tandoori, tandoori, tandoori, now people are branching out to more regionaltype indian foods and i think, though it's been there a thousand years, now it's beingdiscovered by everybody who even isn't indian, so -- (amelia saltsman) i have a feeling, i'm seeingpeople going back to work so i think we need
to stop. but this has been an awful lot offun. thank you so much. (julie wiskirchen) thank, thank you all forcoming and giving us such a great list of new places to try and the writers are happyto sign your books if you wanna get your book signed now. thanks a lot.