Once upon a time, I was a food writer for the Los Angeles Times. I had to give that up to follow my academic dreams. That might have been a mistake.

 

Recent posts

Time slices of tea: how to brew gong fu style

What’s missing from cookbook reviews

Food assembly and the idea of a dish

Vietnamese crawfish and why racial diversity is a sign of good food

Salt Lake City, food favorites 2019

 

Los Angeles Times food writing index

This is an index of my restaurant reviews for “The Find”, the Los Angeles Times’ column for hole-in-the-wall restaurants, ethnic joints, cheap dives, trucks, and other assorted intensive joys. Everything on the list is something that I love, that stood up and smacked me in the soul somehow. Particular favorites are marked *, and the brain-shattering absolute joys of my life are double-marked **.

American

Ice Pan (The NY Times took note of this article for my invention of the term cremista, which was kind of a joke)
Jeff’s Gourmet Sausage Factory* (Old-fashioned pastrami special is my favorite pastrami ever)
Louisiana Best Seafood*
Philly West Bar & Grill
The Slaw Dogs

Caribbean

Front Page Jamaican Grille** (Maybe the most honest, profound, soul-happifying Jamaican food I’ve ever had)
Mofongos Comidas Caribena

Chinese

Beijing Restaurant
Huge Tree Pastry
Taste of Chong Qing**  (The new Sichuan champ)
Tofu King*  (The most delicately stinky tofu you could ever want)

Coffee

Cafecito Organico*
Coffee Tomo  (Sweet potato stuffed pretzels!)

Himalayan

Tara’s Himalayan*

Indian/Pakistani

Namastey India
Samosa House East 
Taurat Tandoori 

Indonesian

Little London Cafe

Italian

Mother Dough Pizza**  (Madman with a sourdough starter)

Japanese

Horon 
Mottainai Ramen
Ramen Yamadaya*

Korean

Mapo Restaurant*
Seongbukdong* (Funky-ass braised mackeral stew and candied steamed short ribs)

Lebanese

Hayat’s Kitchen** (The invention of Lebanese garlic fries)

Mediterranean

Habayit Restaurant
Jasmine Mediterranean

Mexican

Mariscos Chente*

Persian

Cafe Glace
Orchid Grill & Kabob* (Fesenjan: the walnut-pomegranate chicken stew of glory)

Peruvian

Peruvian round-up, including an early review of Mo-Chica**

Salvadorean

La Pupusa Loca*

Thai

Krua Siri** (Home cured Thai sausage and the best laab in town)

Vietnamese

Ngu Binh* (Sticky steamed rice cake stuffed inside a deep fried rice cake)

Gone But Not Forgotten

El Bolivar 
Ning Jie
Priyani Cafe
Silver and Gold Amazing

 

Other Food Articles

An op-ed defense of taco trucks

This tea lady is more hardcore than you could possibly imagine**

Natural fusion (Includes great interview material with Scoops’ Tae Kim)

Asian breakfast round-up