If you could pick three restaurants to be within walking distance of where you live...

Seriously homesick ex-SoCal girl here--what I'd give right now to be within walking distance of –
–Animal
–any of the big, good Cantonese dim sum/seafood places in Monterey Park (cuz then I'll be within walking distance of breakfast, lunch, and dinner!)
–tie between Jitlada and Monte Alban--I miss them both terribly!

I'm now three time zones away from all of this goodness. Appreciate the treasures that you've got, even if you have to sit in traffic a while to get them!

Piglet in Los Angeles Area

King Cake for Mardi Gras in LA (preferably Westside)?

..(And to think some of us deluded Saints fans were speculating earlier this year about what would happen to the Sunday parades when the Saints made it to the Super Bowl. Ha!)

Just saw this thread linked to a newer one; I couldn't resist bumping this comment back up a year later! Hope your Mardi Gras is especially festive this year.

Piglet in Los Angeles Area

Suggestions for Gainesville

Edit to previous post: The Jones is on the SOUTHEAST corner of Main and NE 23rd. (Air, NW 23rd and NE 23rd are the same street; it simply changes to NE when you cross Main, as do all east-west streets in Gainesville.) Sorry about that!

Piglet in Florida

Chow-worthy in Titusville?

My husband and I will be in Titusville next weekend, and would be interested in suggestions for good places for a casual dinner (we'll be there for a birding festival and will be dressed in grubby outdoorswear for most of the time).

We've enjoyed Dixie Crossroads, but suspect it will be an even bigger zoo than usual because of the festival (they are among the sponsors of the festival)--we'd appreciate any ideas for comfy, non-chain places with good food--we're open to any kind of cuisine.

Thanks in advance!

Piglet in Florida

Suggestions for Gainesville

I second the Blue Highway nomination--excellent pizza. I also concur with the observation that New Deal Cafe can be very good, but is overall uneven. (Once my husband ordered a burger there, and we noticed the patty was not only about twice as large as normal, but kind of oblong; two ends of it stuck out of the bun. He took the top bun off to add condiments and saw the burger was roughly alligator-shaped! It was the day of first Gator game of the season, after all...l)

Everyone in town raves about Chopstix, but I just don't get it. The setting is beautiful (it has a great lakeside view), and the service is pleasant, but the food doesn't do it for me. But then, I'm Chinese and having lived and eaten with the natives in California and Vancouver, I'm very spoiled!

A nice mom-and-pop place is The Jones Eastside Eatery (NW corner of Main and NW 23rd street)--it emphasizes organic and locally grown foods and is both carnivore- and vegetarian-friendly. For ethnic stuff, Indian Cuisine (that's what it's called) on SW 34th Street serves, well, Indian cuisine. Very polished dishes, a bit pricey for the hole-in-the-wall ambiance, though. La Tienda on SW 13th is a total hole-in-the-wall, but serves the only authentic Mexican food in Gainesville. By Los Angeles/Tijuana standards, it's a solid, A-/B+; for north-central Florida, an A.

Enjoy your trip!

Piglet in Florida

Russian grocery/deli in Gainesville/Jacksonville/Orlando?

A Polish food store recently opened in Gainesville; it might have some of the things your parents would like:

http://www.alligator.org/news/local/article_df1751c4-d263-11de-9577-001cc4c002e0.html

Piglet in Florida

What is the hands down best restaurant in San Diego?

I forgot about Sammy's--I went there once and was pretty impressed; much better than the generic mall food I expected from that location! And thanks for your other suggestions, too.

Piglet in San Diego

What is the hands down best restaurant in San Diego?

Carmel Crunch...mmm, sounds like an awesome dessert!

I have relatives out in that area that I visit fairly regularly; not to hijack this thread or anything but can you recommend any other good (not necessarily fancy or expensive) places out in that area?

Piglet in San Diego

Really Great Granolas?

Oops, my bad... should have read the original post more carefully! Here's a link to the Times recipe; have fun with it!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/dining/151arex.html

Piglet in General Chowhounding Topics

Really Great Granolas?

I usually find granola to be one of the world's most overrated foodstuffs, but a while back the NY Times printed an article on, and recipe for, a slightly salty granola made with olive oil. I tried the recipe and WOW! Amazing stuff--I've been making a batch a week ever since. (How good is it? The one time the whole bunch of it got inexplicably stuck to the baking sheet I baked it on, my husband spent a good half hour scraping all of it off, so as not to waste a bit of it!)

Relevant for your purposes is the fact that the recipe is based on a commercially available product, as noted in the Times article; here's a link:

http://earlybirdfoods.com/generalstore.html

Looking forward to the results of your taste test!

Piglet in General Chowhounding Topics

Nasty, guilty pleasures

Get yourself to Oki Dog on Fairfax: two hot dogs, pastrami, and God knows what else wrapped up in a flour tortilla. It's a nitrate- and cholesterol-laden death bomb served in the seediest little shack imaginable... but it may be right up your alley.

I unfortunately don't live in LA anymore and tend to eat mostly vegetarian-- but I still think about those dogs sometimes!

Piglet in Los Angeles Area

A trip back to LA/OC: places I wish I had checked out more often (long)

Thanks for that--your mouth-watering posts were one reason I decided I just HAD to go before I left LA. And you didn't steer me wrong!

Piglet in Los Angeles Area

A trip back to LA/OC: places I wish I had checked out more often (long)

Frequent out-of-state lurker here: I moved away from SoCal last summer, but returned for a few weeks to spend time with family in Costa Mesa and Los Angeles. So of course, I had to go back to all my favorite eateries (since I now live in a small backwoods town with bearable farmers' markets but not much else). As a public service to my old homies, I'd like to point out a few places I (re)visited, then immediate beat myself over the head for not having gone to more frequently when I had the chance. So if you live any where near any of the following places, do check them out while you can!

—Growers' Direct, Costa Mesa: This is a produce shop I used to hit up once in a while when I lived in Costa Mesa. I went back again last week to look for fresh figs, which my husband and I love. Wow. As has been the case every summer I've been there, they had boxes of figs up front, and at a very reasonable price (I believe about 2.99 for a two-pint box). I also got a 1-pint box of very sweet fresh lichees for 1.99, and a bunch of huge limes for 69 cents a pound. (To give you some perspective, the preceding day I had shopped for limes at Vons, and they were going for 2 per dollar there--for much smaller fruit!)
The only thing that had kept me away from Growers Direct in the past was the horrid parking situation there--it's in a shopping center with a biggish parking lot, BUT the spaces are sadistically small. So if you drive anything larger than a Mini, you risk getting a door ding or two. Not a place to go to with the Bentley on the way back from the Concours D'Elegance. But now I'm still hitting myself for not going by there more often in the past.

—Super Pollo, Costa Mesa: This is an awesome little hole-in-the-wall that I had a soft spot for when I lived there—they specialize in Mexican-style grilled chicken, served with salsa, guacamole, and tortillas. The chicken is brushed with a garlicky sauce (which I think also includes lemon/lime), and every time I've had it, has been juicy with a nice crisp skin. And reasonably priced: I got a half-chicken combo to take home for a casual dinner for two (it came with rice/beans/tortillas, two kinds of salsa and guacamole) for around 9 dollars. I asked for extra garlic sauce on the side, and the guy behind the counter hesitated for a moment before giving it to me, saying supplies were running a bit low since people had been asking for extra garlic sauce all day. But I got it, and it was yummy. Again, still hitting myself for not bringing everyone I know there when I had the chance.

—Animal, Hollywood: OK, you guys all know about this place, and since you've been raving about it all year, I knew I just HAD to go. My parents in Los Angeles wanted to take me to dinner while I was here, so I immediately suggested this place. And I'm sure all of us will be back.
Some background: my family is Chinese-American; my dad grew up in a restaurant family and has very demanding standards for food: he loves old-school Cantonese done exquisitely (steamed fish right out of the tank, perfect "wok hei") , and VERY high-end, carefully executed classic French/Italian/not overly fake California Cuisine (he likes places like Spago, Providence, and the late, lamented L'Orangerie). In short, he has a good bullsh*t radar when it comes to food. And last night, when we went to Animal, he was grinning from ear to ear.
After drooling over the menu for a long time, we (my parents, husband, and I) all decided to order different things and share them. Here's what we got:
-Pork belly sandwiches with slaw and barbecue sauce
-Pork belly with kimchee and peanuts
-Grilled squid with chorizo
-Fried pig ear with lime and chile, topped with a fried egg
-Oxtail sauce poutine
-Lamb chops with sumac-yogurt sauce
-Foie gras loco moco (with Spam, quail egg, and hamburger)
-Flatiron steak with mushroom sauce and asparagus
- Tres leches cake with dulce de leche

As others have noted, the portions are huge (the appetizers were almost as big as the main courses; my parents ordered only apps and still got to-go boxes at the end of the evening.)

We enjoyed everything: the pork belly dishes had good juicy hunks of meat with nice sharp sauces/condiments to complement them; the grilled squid was tender and flavorful. The fried pig ear was a fun dish: the pig ear itself was shredded and deep-fried, tossed in a spicy/tangy dressing, and topped with a sunny-side-up egg with an unusually orange yolk. It was both pretty and fun to eat. (Before we ordered, our server showed us a plateful of it that he was about to deliver to another guest). I'm not a huge poutine fan (I hate anything that makes fries wet and soft!) but the gravy on the poutine was darned tasty. The loco moco was a thoroughly bizarre preparation that actually worked—one need to be either brave or crazy to put foie gras and Spam together, but it was fun to eat. (It would have been more fun if I hadn't been so full by the time I got to it.)

I wanted to try the bacon-chocolate bar for dessert, but the rest of my family was totally porked-out by then. The Tres Leches was nice and moist, and very sweet. I'm not a huge fan of creamy white desserts (e.g. tiramisu) but people who enjoy these would certain like this cake.

Anyhow, this was my last dinner in SoCal for the year (we went last night; I spent the night in LA before a dawn flight home and I'm writing this from my place in the swamps of rural Florida) and it was a great way to top off an all-too-short summer vacation.

So people, be grateful for all the great chow you have out there! Please patronize all these proud little small businesses that genuinely deserve your support. Or you'll be stuck with a bunch of fast-food places and overrated "gourmet" eateries as I am. Darn, I'm homesick already...

Piglet in Los Angeles Area

Americans Abroad: How do you celebrate Thanksgiving?

I lived in Canada for three years, and my DH Iwho was still in the States) would come up and visit me every Thanksgiving weekend. (I'd fly south to visit him over the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, in mid-October.)

We'd always do the TG dinner with the works--stuffing, gravy, yams, cranberry sauce, a pie or two--at my place in Vancouver, but with stuffed Cornish hens instead of a turkey--since US TG was a work day up there, there would be no way for me to get a whole turkey cooked up after work unless we had dinner at midnight!

Piglet in General Chowhounding Topics

Looking for good Beef Tongue in OC!

Super Antojitos in Costa Mesa has a great lengua en salsa verde--a big bowl of buttery little beef tongue cubes in a tomatillo-based sauce with a good chile bite to it. Love that stuff--great comfort food.

I moved away from OC a few months ago, and I do miss this dish!

-----
Super Antojitos
2949 Fairview Rd, Costa Mesa, CA 92626

Piglet in Los Angeles Area

Leaving L.A.-my last meals

Hey ValleyGal,

You are where I was a month ago--I also left SoCal (and am now in Gainesville, Florida, not exactly a culinary hotspot).

What I ate before I left, and still miss now:

--Monte Alban--LOVE that place--I used to go to Oaxaca frequently for work; one of my Oaxacan pals (who's a seasoned professional cook) considers it the best Oaxacan in LA. Great tlayudas and moles; the molote (a crispy little football of fried masa filled with potatoes and chorizo) is both cute and delicious.

--Jitlada--Friendly service and tasty, original Thai--my family and I got the catfish salad and several other dishes off their Thai-only special menu on the back--terrific stuff.

--In-n-Out--Nothing about the ingredients or presentation that I can't reproduce myself at home, but that's not the point--it's a fast-food burger like Mom would make.

--Banh Mi Che Cali--I've spent many hours of my recent life standing in the so-called line waiting for some marginally bilingual Vietnamese woman to glare at me and take my order. And never regretted it. Their baguettes alone are worth it--much cheaper, and much more like the ones I used to get when I lived in France, than those at any high-end bakery in OC. (Whenever I went there for sandwiches for lunch, I'd also get a baguette and plan my dinner menu around it.)

Any decent dim sum place. I can't find dim sum in Gainesville! NOT good for a homesick ABC. So you all have to go to Elite for me and pig out.

Safe travels, and hopefully, you'll get back to LA for a culinary visit.

Piglet in Los Angeles Area

Gainesville Recommendations [split from LA board]

Thanks so much--I'll definitely be checking these out!

Piglet in Florida

Leaving LA, and I finally start taking your advice (long)

I've been a longtime lurker on this board, and haven't posted in over a year--mostly because of sloth and poverty (I've been eating mostly stuff I cook myself.) But I've loved living vicariously through all of your adventures, and have been keeping mental notes of places and dishes I'd like to try, should the right event arise.

And now it has: I've gotten a new, and promising job that starts next month--in Gainesville, Florida. It has many virtues, but food isn't one of them (I've searched the Florida board, and the offerings there are pretty bleak.) So I've decided to spend my last month in So Cal eating my way through my checklist of things people in Florida have never heard of before moving to fast food hell.

Here are a few brief impressions of my culinary farewell tour so far:

--Renu Nakorn, Norwalk: This was close to the top of my list. I went for lunch on a weekday to break up a trip from my place in OC to my parents' place in LA. Since I was alone, I couldn't order too much--I planned on getting three dishes and taking my parents the leftovers. One thing I had my heart set on (based on a Jonathan Gold review) was a pork-chile "dip" with vegetables and fried pork rinds on the side for dipping. The very kind server tried to talk me out of it, saying that the chiles were really hot during the summer and they couldn't control how spicy the dish would be. I assured her I was used to hot foods, and that this would be fine.

When I got it, it was tasty, but barely hot at all. Hmm. I had a sinking feeling they dumbed it down for my "benefit". Still, I ate the whole darned bowl of it by myself (along with part of a plate of green mango salad and Southern Thai "jerky", which was more like Oaxacan tasajo with a killer garlicky dipping sauce.

--Break of Dawn, Laguna Woods: My parents were heading from LA to San Diego on July 4, and wanted to meet my husband and me for brunch/lunch somewhere in south OC on their way down. BoD was the only interesting-sounding place that was open on the 4th, so we met there.

Wow. The menu is insane. I looked at it and thought "what kind of nut would combine biscuits and gravy with Vietnamese-style meatloaf??" A darned smart one--my mom ordered this, and it was terrific. Homely, if not downright ugly presentation (two huge split and stuffed biscuits covered with gravy), with a couple of fried eggs on the side. But it was freaking tasty. My DH got the "pulled pork" , which came with jalapeno cornbread and egg tempura. We were baffled by this--did it mean tempura with eggs in the batter? If so what, exactly, was being tempura-ed?

It ended up being a pair of battered and deep-fried boiled eggs. But--and this is the genius part--the eggs were still soft-boiled, with tender whites and runny yolks. THAT was a neat technical feat. And the contrast between the crispy battered outside and the tender/runny insides was terrific. The pulled pork was seasoned with star anise and other Asian flavorings, and wasn't too sweet. A really neat combination.

--Magic Wok, Artesia: I've read so many drooling posts about this Filipino hole-in-the-wall that I just had to check it out. None of the posts, however (at least as far as I can remember) mentioned that the menu was almost all in Tagalog, with no English translations. Whoa.

Luckily, from various Hound posts, I semi-remembered the names of the dishes I wanted to try. Since I was eating alone. I only ordered two things; deep-fried pork belly (lechon kalawi), and pinakbet, a vegetable/pork/shrimp stir-fry. Both were excellent: the pork was shatteringly crisp and not at all greasy, and the pinakbet turned out to be a fortunate mix of most of my favorite vegetables--Chinese long beans, eggplant, bitter melon. tiny whole okra, and cubes of sweet yellow winter squash--with shrimp and cubes of yet more pork belly mixed in, and a vaguely fishy (in a good way) sauce. Yum. It was a perfect thing to spoon over a pile of rice.

--Jitlada: I've been spending the last few days chez Mom and Dad while dealing with work-related stuff in LA, and I mentioned wanting to check out Jitlada before leaving California. "Lets have dinner there!" Mom said. So we did. I printed out Eric M's legendary report and translation of the southern Thai menu for the 'rents to check out before we set out. When we got there and Mom pulled the printout from her purse, Jazz (who really is as nice as everyone says) told us "the guy from Chicago" was there today, and was preparing for a Food Network shoot there next week.

We got the catfish salad--probably the most improbable, but amazing, thing I've ever eaten--who the hell thought to do that to a catfish?? It was reduced to a fine, crispy, faintly piscine fluff, tossed with a tangy dressing laced with raw onions, and herbs. ("Fish for people who don't like fish!:" chortled Dad as he reached for a second portion.) It didn't look like catfish. It didn't look like a salad. But darn, it was good. We also had grilled giant prawns with a sweet/sour sauce (nice seasoning, but the prawns were kind of mealy); the raw blue crab salad (a nice summer dish--kind of like a ceviche, as the acidic dressing "cooked" the crab), morning glory stems (a savory, but non-spicy dish, good over rice); and a green curry with little Thai eggplants and chicken.

All and all, a great couple of weeks of eating. And I have a few more ahead before heading out. The only problem is that I'm sure that I'll wake up somewhere in a Florida swamp six months for now lusting for crispy catfish fluff and pinakbet and the closest equivalent will be whatever is available at the nearest Panda Express. Damn.

Piglet in Los Angeles Area

Dinner/breakfast at same meal along 405 from LAX to Costa Mesa?

Closer to the LAX end of your trip is Pann's (near the corner of La Tijera and La Cienega, a short drive from the airport.) They serve breakfast all day (eggs with potatoes or grits and bacon/hot links/ country-fried steak/ sausage/ fried chicken) , as well as solid lunch/dinner fare. The 50's Googie architecture is very L.A., and would be quite striking to someone visiting from overseas.

Piglet in Los Angeles Area

Cheap and tasty near the Salton Sea?

Thanks for your replies--I suspected there would be slim pickings out there...

But the Ski Inn sounds like a hoot! And in the unlikely event that we find any unheralded culinary treasures out there, I'll let you know!

Piglet in California

Cheap and tasty near the Salton Sea?

Hi all,

I'll be heading the the Salton Sea right after Christmas for a few days of birding, and I'm looking for recommendations for inexpensive but tasty lunch and dinner places in the area. (We'll be staying right off the 111, near the Sonny Bono Wildlife Refuge). We're open to any kind of cooking; places with beer and wine a plus.

Thanks for your help!

Piglet in California

Can I eat them raw and other Chinese water chestnut questions

Fresh water chestnuts can be definitely eaten raw, IMO, they're at their best that way! Very sweet and crisp, completely different from the flavor of canned water chestnuts. (But, as you suspect, you need to peel them first.)

Piglet in General Chowhounding Topics

We miss Shanghai Winter Garden!

Wow, Harvest Inn is still around? My parents are very old-school, uber-traditional Cantonese, and they used to love Winter Garden, and later, Harvest Inn, for "Northern-style" food.

Neither of my parents have any need for, nor respect for, dumbed-down and Americanized Chinese food, yet they had great respect for both places: they'd both do special traditional dishes if you asked them in advance. Ages ago, Mom organized a surprise birthday party for Dad at SWG, and for dessert they served a giant peach-shaped and peach-colored bao filled with mini-peach-shaped-and-colored baos filled with sweet bean paste. We've gotten similarly cool things at Harvest Inn—definitely a step beyond what Twin Dragon or other "more assimilated" places could offer.

And I never thought of the service at either place as 'curt'--maybe just less obsequious than at a lot of Western joints.

Now I'm hungry for the vegetarian duck at Harvest Inn again—another non-Americanized thing they're good at!

Piglet in Los Angeles Area

Turtle (tortuga) eggs - Mexican Delicacy?

Sea turtle eggs are considered a delicacy in parts of Mexico, in large part because they're considered by men to be an aphrodisiac.

However, the turtles from which they come are seriously endangered, and hordes of horny guys chowing down on their eggs isn't helping the matter. I doubt it will be possible to get the eggs legally in the States. Even in Mexico, conservationists are trying to raise awareness of the issue—check out this link:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4951194

Piglet in General Chowhounding Topics

If you were living in Mexico, what would you cook?

If you're already doing black beans and have a blender, you can do enfrijoladas (a VERY Oaxacan dish): Make your black beans with epazote as usual, puree in the blender to make a thick sauce (thin with bean cooking water if needed).

Quick-fry some corn tortillas (the way you would for enchiladas--cook them briefly in a little oil in a saute pan just until softened and pliable), dip in the warm bean sauce, fold in half, and top with queso fresco and/or chopped onions, cilantro sprigs, and/or slices of avocado. Eat immediately.

I travel to rural Oaxaca (Tlacolula) almost every year for work, and I used to get this for breakfast almost every day. The proprietor of the little fonda where I usually ate sometimes served these with a plate of boiled carrots and chayote on the side, or even a little plate of chapulines (cricket-like critters seasoned with lime and garlic).
And I've replicated this (enfrijoladas, not crickets!) successfully stateside with canned black beans.

You're lucky to be able to spend so much time down there; it's a fascinating place. Enjoy!

Piglet in Home Cooking

Video essay on chefs in movies from Slate.com

I thought this piece on chefs as movie characters was quite nice----it's commentary interspersed with video clips from a number of recent and not-so-recent movies centered around serious cooks (Tampopo, Eat Drink Man Woman, Babbette's Feast, Big Night, No Reservations, among others).

http://www.slate.com/id/2171262/

Worth checking out!

Piglet in Food Media & News

Yikes! I set a Silpat on fire!

..and I didn't even know this was possible. I was broiling some cut tomatoes on a baking sheet lined with a Silpat that didn't quite fit (it was longer and thinner than my baking sheet) and, a corner of it accidently came into contact with the heating element when I turned the sheet halfway though cooking..

When I opened the oven a few minutes later, some white ashes flew out, and I noticed they were from the now-burnt-off corner of the Silpat. Thankfully, none of them landed on the tomatoes.

I thought Silpats were pretty much fireproof, at least at home cooking temperatures. Exactly how much abuse can these things take??

Piglet in Cookware

Yet Another Culinary School Thread. But wait!

Gillo, as an academic (as I suspect Lizard is as well), I get the feeling you're not quite ready yet for the grad student life. Graduate-level study in the humanities is by its very nature highly theoretical; if you're impatient with the intellectual focus of your profs at an undergrad, you'll totally hate graduate school.

I'm also a former professional cook, so I can offer you some practical advice in that area too. If you want 'hands on' experience, your cheapest option is to try to get an internship at a restaurant you respect, or even better, a paid entry-level job. You don't need the diploma, just the experience, right? And even with a cooking school diploma, your first job after graduation will probably involve hours of mindless tasks like cutting up fruit and scooping ice cream, so you might as well cut to the chase and start working right off.

If you feel you must do the cooking school route, consider a local junior college rather than one of the 'big name' places. From my experience, I found that chefs in 'The Real World' respect JC credentials as much (if not more) than Cordon Bleu certificates—and you'll save a whole lot of $$ too.

Good luck!

Piglet in Not About Food

Credible recipes in...The Onion??

We all know The Onion is a reliable place to get a good laugh. But yesterday, I found a link to 'recipes' on the putative homepage of one of their fictional columnists--and gosh darn it, the recipes actually looked totally credible and workable:

http://homepages.theonion.com/PersonalPages/sB/content_recipes.php

I'm guessing part of the humor in having actual usable recipes in this context is that their putative author is the last person on earth one would expect to know his way around the kitchen!

Anyone else seen these, or even better, tried them?

Piglet in Food Media & News