LA food
fromTasting Table
6 hours agoThe Reason Los Angeles Is The Go-To For So Many International Food Chains - Tasting Table
Los Angeles is a prime location for international restaurant chains due to its diverse population and tourist influx.
The spices are merely a vessel for culture, community, storytelling, and politics. The recipes were so fresh, simple, and seasonal. That's not the version of South Asian food that most people know.
Endo Kazutoshi was on the train to Paris when he heard about the fire that had destroyed his restaurant, Endo at the Rotunda, located on the eighth floor of the Helios building. The fire had started on a terrace and quickly spread, affecting the dining room and kitchen, built mostly from 200-year-old hinoki wood.
Walking through the narrow bylanes of Mylapore neighbourhood at dusk is like watching a sepia-tinted postcard of Madras coming to life and gently reasserting itself over the Chennai of today. The 7th-century Kapaleeshwarar Temple, the fulcrum of commerce and culture, draws the devout into its timeless force field, and on nearby Pitchu Pillai Lane, a small crowd gathers around the Raghul Kuzhi Paniyaram street stall to buy kuzhi paniyarams: spongy orbs of pan-fried batter speckled with mustard seeds.
When Ceylon India Inn opened near Times Square in the early 1900s, the city's first South Asian restaurant quickly became a hub for New York's burgeoning community of desi (a term used to describe people of South Asian descent) dock workers, and students. More than a century later, there are more than 400 such restaurants across the five boroughs, enticing a far more diverse array of diners.
Though they were only serving in town for one night, the chefs and staff behind the Mexico City supernova Masala y Maíz managed to cause what felt like a temporary ripple in L.A. dining during their pop-up last week. It reminded this diner that despite the era's current dedication to culinary and cultural boundaries - you should only cook what you know, write what you know - a spirit of mixture and melding can actually lead to something extraordinary, and not cringey, in practice.
Med Salleh, which has has one Malaysian restaurant in Bayswater and two Vietnamese ones in Westbourne Grove and Earl's Court, has just added a fourth branch in Kentish Town. The newest site is Malaysian-focused, like the original, serving a menu of street food inspired by Med's upbringing in Malaysia, including dishes from his hometown of Kampar as well as flavours from Ipoh and Penang.
The Islamic holiday began Feb. 17 and ends March 19, during which observers fast from dawn to sunset to foster discipline, self-control and gratitude. Observers break their daily fast with an iftar, a festive meal shared with loved ones after sunset. Many also rise before dawn for a suhoor meal.
Living in Japan in the early 2000s, Fralick fell in love with an Italian restaurant in the city of Shizuoka, where he ate Italian food, but with Japanese influences, like pastas made with uni and the fermented soybeans known as natto. "It really reminded me of home," says Fralick, who grew up in upstate New York and started his cooking career in Italian fine dining.
For only six tables each night, one of the restaurant's chefs wheels up to the table armed with a smoker of charred heritage-breed chicken, still steaming hot. You'll get to choose the woodchips and-best of all-the butter for the namesake specialty. Current options include an earthy and floral fenugreek, a smoked chili that definitely kicks back in the spice department and a pickled tomato.
Country of origin labeling became mandatory on all international products entering the United States in 2009. The goal was to ensure American consumers knew where the products they were buying came from, enabling shoppers to make informed buying decisions. These products include everything from Mexican avocados to French wine to pasta from Italy, with the latter thankfully safe from recent U.S. tariffs. However, does the location a product comes from actually matter?
India is a country with countless regional specialties, each with its own history, culture, and unique use of spices. I wanted our guests to experience that variety and feel as though they were traveling across India one meal at a time.
The spicy lamb grinder is a variation on Bar Gernika's lamb grinder, which combines some of the best aspects of a gyro, French dip, and cheesesteak into one flavor-packed sandwich. Served on crusty and fluffy French bread, the lamb is tender and thinly shaved, reminiscent of shaved meat from a gyro. The meat is topped with cheese, grilled onions, and peppers, and the whole thing comes served with a side of au jus for that French dip experience.
Soaked and blended, cashews become a stand-in for heavy cream, keeping stuffed shells, soups, pasta sauces, and desserts luxuriously dairy-free. Toasted and roughly chopped, they add crunch to salads, curries, stir-fries, and more. There are so many reasons to love cooking with these seeds-that's right, "cashew nut" is technically a misnomer, since they grow outside the fruit rather than inside a hard shell like true nuts.
Pizza toast is a throwback snack popularized in Japan's classic kissaten coffee shops. The first kissaten to serve pizza toast - milk bread topped with tomato sauce, mozzarella and pizza toppings, toasted until the cheese is melted and bubbling - is reportedly Cafe Benisica in Tokyo, in 1964, which is still operating. The key to this version is to first make toasty garlic bread, and I use marinara instead of the yoshoku ("Western-style food") tradition of making a ketchup-based tomato sauce.
Don't be intimidated by fresh mushrooms. They are prized for their flavor and versatility. Look for firm mushrooms that are free of soft spots or mold. Wash them just before using them but be sure to store them unwashed. Never submerge in water to wash them because mushrooms absorb like a sponge and become mushy. Wipe with moist paper towels. Some prefer to clean them with a soft-bristled mushroom brush. If extremely dirty, they can be very briefly dunked into cold water and wiped dry.
Stir-frying is all about wok hei, or wok's air' in English, which you can think of as the height of fire', or the level of heat. It's said that Chinese cooks have good wok hei if they have a true understanding of the heat of their wok and how to handle it in all situations, and a stir-fry's success is based on the quality of the cook's wok hei.
And it makes sense, as Indian culture and cuisine are alive and well in the city - Washington is one of the top states of residence for Indian immigrants, and Seattle itself is among the U.S. metropolitan areas with the highest number of Indian-Americans. Meanwhile, the state offers great growing conditions for Indian staples such as rice, lentils, chickpeas, eggplant, okra, onions, peas, potatoes, and much more.
In recent years, across New York, modern Filipino spots have emerged: Naks by the Unapologetic Foods team and the now-closed Tadhana, both on the Lower East Side, and Barkada Social Club in Astoria. And now, Bukas Cafe, which continues that wave by presenting a menu so different from the traditional fare at longstanding pioneers like Renee's and Ihawan in Woodside's Little Manila.
We are now in Dungeness season, which is the perfect time try one (or two) of Damansara's crustaceans. I ordered a chili crab with rice today as a first-season crab to have for lunch over the next two days. I will also make a broth out of the shells to freeze for spicy crab broth on demand. Hello, future bowls of ramen! The thought of this is truly comforting already.
The paratha ($18), a beautifully single, hella-fluffed and towering round, sits on top of creamy dal where the sambal oil adds some nice heat. The abacus seeds ($24), where soft, earthy gnocchi made with taro are paired with smoky and chewy mushrooms, and amped up with chile and shaoxing wine. The rendang ($34) comes with pulled stewy spicy smoky oxtail (Kelang's Caribbean influence), rounded out with a delightful rice mixture of djon djon (a Haitian black mushroom rice) and nasi ulam (Malaysian herbed rice).