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Insights, tips, and restaurant reports from CHOW editors and Chowhound.
Los Angeles Area

Pili’s Tacos Has a Way With Head Cuts

One of the best choices for Mexican food Westside is Pili’s Tacos. Go for the exotic meats, suggests Porthos. Cabeza is the star. “Wow,” says Porthos. “Just a rich mix of the fatty and flavorful parts around the head. Superb.” Porthos also recommends the lengua (tongue), moist al pastor, and tender carnitas.

The pozole is a home run, too: “Rich doesn’t describe how flavorful and good this soup was. It was chock full of pork meat, fat, and hominy,” says Porthos.

Tacos are mostly $1.50, except for goat, which is $1.60, and fish, which is $2.50. Hounds report there’s one person doing the cooking and serving in a tiny space, so if there’s a line it will take a while.

Pili’s Tacos [Westside – Beaches]
11924 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles
310-820-3109

Board Link: Serious Mexican Westside- Pili’s Taco

Edit Post / Posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

Los Angeles Area

Hot News: Scandinavian Fest Time!

It’s Scandinavian Festival time again. This year it’s at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, on Saturday and Sunday, April 18 and 19. WildSwede goes every year. He recommends getting lefse (a soft Norwegian flatbread), which is difficult and time-consuming to make, and aebleskivers, round Danish dough balls often stuffed with apple slices. There’s also a meal plate with everything: meatballs, potatoes, lefse. Hey, stay all day—breakfast, lunch, and dinner are served at the fest.

Board Link: Scandinavian Festival @ Cal Lutheran 4/18 & 19

Edit Post / Posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

Supertaster

Bogus Butter Bake-Off

Bogus Butter Bake-Off

This week's mission: sticks of fake butter, and protein pimped by a famous doctor. READ MORE

Edit Post / Posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

Terry Nichols and the Terrorist Diet

Oklahoma City bombing co-conspirator Terry Nichols has something serious on his mind: Prison food isn’t to his liking. So he’s suing.

Cue outrage in the comments section: “Why don’t the prison guys just order up a couple bales of hay,” “Feed him bread and water only,” “If I were feeding you we’d have a special each day. Rat [du] jour. Ratashimi. Rat Stew,” etc.

Yes, yes, thank you for the insight, Internet tough guys, but is it possible that he has a point?

Nichols’ contention is that he’s “compelled to consume daily those unhealthy dead and refined foods that are abhorrent to plaintiff’s sincerely held religious beliefs causing him physical, mental and spiritual torment, and to sin against God.”

The piece notes:

“Nichols wants 100 percent whole-grain foods, more fresh raw vegetables and fresh fruit, a wheat bran supplement, and digestive bacteria and enzymes. He wrote that his religious beliefs and requests ‘are not absurd, unorthodox, nor costly.’”

Well, is that legitimate to say that diet is intrinsically related to a spiritual belief? Nichols, in his suit, writes that he sincerely believes that God created mankind to consume unrefined whole foods. If you “sincerely believe” that God created mankind to consume only steaks and apple pie, would that hold an equal amount of water? Should a vegan’s prison requests be honored, even if they’re not religiously derived?

Edit Post / Posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

New York

Hero Worship at the New Defonte’s

Defonte’s has been slinging sandwiches in Brooklyn since 1922, and that’s long enough to get it right. Now it’s brought its hound-beloved Italian heros to Manhattan at a new shop near Gramercy Park.

guttergourmet recommends the signature hot roast beef sandwich: rare meat, sliced to order, with fresh house-made mozzarella and eggplant fried to the crunch point. He’s also sampled fried shrimp, served only on Fridays and Saturdays. “They’d stand up to the best shrimp po’ boy I’ve had in New Orleans, another city where the Italian amore still exists,” he says. And off the menu, jon advises, there’s a great egg and mozzarella sandwich, a few bucks cheaper than the other breakfast choices.

guttergourmet—a connoisseur of New York hero haunts past (Rosario’s, DiBella Brothers) and present (Alidoro, Biellese, Mike’s Deli)—has somehow never managed to visit the original Defonte’s. “My loss, but the new Manhattan branch has brought that old NYC Italian love on a roll with them,” he writes.

Defonte’s Sandwich Shop [Gramercy]
261 Third Avenue (at E. 21st Street), Manhattan
212-614-1500

Board Links: Defonte’s-To hell with Quiznos, Subway and Blimpie
defonte’s coming to nyc?
Defonte’s of Brooklyn opens in Manhattan

Edit Post / Posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009

New York

Smoke, Spice, and Rigatoni

Boston Jerk Cuisine had Jim Leff sold from the first bite. “I’m totally in love,” swoons Jim, who describes beautifully smoked jerk pork and chicken. But the best thing he had there was rigatoni with smoky jerk chicken in creamy sauce. “Sounds awful,” he allows. “It is pure heaven, a culinary miracle.”

Boston Jerk Cuisine [Bronx]
3377 Boston Road (near E. 213th Street), Bronx
718-881-8102

Board Link: Boston Jerk Cuisine (Great Jamaican in North Bronx)

Edit Post / Posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009

New York

Fresh Mediterranean Flavors at Trigo

The Mediterranean menu at Trigo ranges from small plates to big ones, but fans keep coming back to the irresistible flatbread starters. DavyTheFatBoy singles out the onion tart, accented with tangy cheese, a hint of Middle Eastern spice, and a tasty green apple salad. “This is something I’d get hungry for,” he says. westchesterdiner goes for taleggio and garlic.

Beyond flatbread, hounds recommend marinated olives, pickled pumpkin, and saffron pappardelle with lobster and tomato confit, which westchesterdiner considers one of her “desert island” dishes. And for dessert, Davy suggests trying the doughnut-like chocolate bomboloni or fennel cake with lemon mousse and strawberries.

“Overall this was the most interesting and pleasing assortment of flavors I’ve had recently,” he adds, “and nothing was forced, it just worked.”

Trigo [Tribeca]
263 W. Broadway (at Sixth Avenue), Manhattan
212-925-1600

Board Links: Trigo - some very appealing flavors
Best New Restaurant in Tribeca? - Trigo!

Edit Post / Posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009

Entertaining

Cinco de Mayo, a.k.a. National Margarita Day

Cinco de Mayo, a.k.a. National Margarita Day

Eight ideas beyond the basic (perfect) margarita. READ MORE

Edit Post / Posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009

Jell-O Quake!

This morning’s 4.3 temblor near San Jose had the Bay Area (and us here at CHOW Central) quaking like Jell-O. If only earthquakes were as beautiful in real life as they are in Jell-O miniature maker Liz Hickok’s artwork. If you haven’t seen it, here’s Hickok’s Telegraph Hill Earthquake, in which she takes advantage of her chosen medium’s characteristic wiggly qualities.

Edit Post / Posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009

Coming up Next: Kosher Everclear

Everybody knows that the one thing kosher-keeping Jews crave during Passover is a really great margarita. It’s been that way ever since the first agave-based beverage was served across the street from the Second Temple in Jerusalem, sometime around 400 BCE, when a bunch of rogue … proto-Aztecs … sailed over from the New World in a ship made out of … hell, let’s say some unknown crystalline substance that might have come from outer space. Therefore, it’s shocking that it’s taken this long for a spirits company to launch a kosher tequila pegged to both Passover and Cinco de Mayo. But good things come to those who wait: Agave 99, launched by New York businessman Martin Silver, is coming to a market near you.

Edit Post / Posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009

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