Sundae in the Park

It's that time of year again - the 2018 edition of the LA Weekly 99 Essential Restaurants list is out! I haven't been down to LA in over a year (thanks, kids) but I've generally found that this list is a good place to start for figuring out what to eat where in LA (yay, map and neighborhoods functions!). This year's edition seems to have a lot of newcomers, which is interesting. Cross reference with Jonathan Gold's 2017 Lists: October's best 101 restaurants (more map function!) and December's 10 best dishes and you have a great start to any LA eating journey.

Chicken, mushroom, and pesto-stuffed rolls, plus some roasted zucchini and squash.

I haven't eaten there for about a decade but it was my favorite SF restaurant in the mid-aughts (I feel old). Can you go at open and snag a seat at the bar? It's a wonderful bar for solo dining and I think you can order from the full menu, but a la carte if you wish (which I don't believe is an option in the regular part of the restaurant). If not, that's AWFULLY late to eat while you're still on DC time. Personally, I wouldn't enjoy it no matter how wonderful the meal so would pick somewhere that you can get in earlier.

Sausage, potato, and kale soup, with a ridiculous amount of Halloween candy for dessert.

Pan-fried (two-side yellow) noodles, with bok choy and chicken. A childhood favorite being passed to the next generation!

I love American cheese! I think it's one of those "all things have place" kind of food. I love stinky cheese as well but they don't really have anything to do with each other. I don't really like any other kinds of cheese on my burgers and white American melted over a fried turkey and egg sandwich is one of my all-time favorite comfort foods.

Doesn't add much color, but for vegetable content you can add/sub in potatoes, celery, and or parsnips. And possibly turnip. For color, I'd sub in a smaller quantity of butternut squash or sweet potatoes, but not too much or the flavor might be affected.

Potstickers. We had some ground pork (the super fatty kind from the butcher) left over from our trip to the Asian market and it is SO much richer than our usual ground turkey!

Hmmm, I might get the dead tree paper this week! Top 10 from the list is discussed here and they are: Vespertine Providence Spago Lukshon Taco Maria Spring Trois Mec Cassia Mozzaplex Rossoblu Oooh, and the map function works (for me) if you haven't hit your monthly LA Times limit.

Eh, no. Back when I stayed in hotels by the airport, I always headed up the 405 a few exits and hit whatever looked good on Sawtelle Blvd (usually Tsujita or the Annex; it's mostly but not all Asian food). Bonus - lots of places are open late.

Gochujang noodles with ground pork and baby bok choy. It was a recipe from a Blue Apron trial that we saved and have made countless times since with different kinds of noodles. We like it best with the original recipe Korean rice cake ovalettes, but fresh wheat noodles from the market taste great as well.

Eater has a nice LA dining guide, including neighborhood-by-neighborhood suggestions. Maude and Spago, which are both suggested for Beverly Hills, are also recommended for that neighborhood in the 2017 LA Weekly 99 Essentials list. Hahahaha, I had no idea where Beverly Hills was until you made me look. I'm not sure where I thought it was, but it's not where I'd imagined. Obviously there is shopping in Beverly Hills itself, but beyond that I don't know what to do there. Looking at a map, it's close to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), which has wonderful grounds and is close to several other museums (see 3rd post in this thread). I agree with DR that either the Getty Center or the Getty Villa are wonderful experiences. Beyond simple proximity, there is a LOT to do in the greater LA area, so it just depends on your interests and how hard you are willing to work to get places ;-)

Wineries burnt/damaged in the recent wildfires as of 10/11/17. I'm sure this list will be updated and expanded in coming days So far looks like Signorello Estate, Paradise Ridge, Frey Vineyards, White Rock Vineyards, and Oster Wine Cellars have been lost.

Using stuff up in the fridge: vegetarian wontons w/ sweet chili sauce (squeezed right from the bottle onto each wonton, of course) mango, plums, and grapes leftover tri-tp with salsa

Tri-tip meal this week! We've been having this quite often since about midway in my pregnancy, when I needed low-carb meals I actually wanted to eat and we discovered the beauty of at-home tri-tip. I buy a whole, untrimmed tri-tip and only take of the silverskin and some of the fat if it is over a half-inch thick. We use a Santa Maria-style dry rub and grill it till the big part is medium rare. At that point, the skinny part of the meat is medium-well to well done, which is perfect for a pregnant lady who doesn't want to be a bother to others (and is so great for guests with a variety of meat done-ness preferences!). We usually serve it with creamed spinach, sauteed mushrooms, sauteed zucchini, and bread and/or potatoes of some kind. Leftovers are great as-is but also wonderful in sandwiches. Inspired by a dish at the Avofest, we've been eating this round of leftover meat as sandwiches on French bread with a lot of guacamole and and a little salsa.

We caught the Avofest (or the 31st annual CA Avocado Festival) this weekend and it was absolutely delightful. The free-to-enter festival itself is small and really crowded as the day goes on, but avocado fans who enjoy outdoor festivals should consider a visit to Carpinteria (small beach town just south of Santa Barbara, about 90 mins north of LA without traffic) during fest weekend. The festival is mostly confined to one street, there isn't much of a kid zone (crafts but no bounce houses??!!), and the only ride is a small ferris wheel. The four sounds stages, however, provide reliably groovy, dance-worthy entertainment, there are craftsman and artist displays, and lots of avocado treats (deep-fried avocado! avocado ice cream! honey avocado ale!) to sample. Almost everyone is carrying the generous tray of guac and chips sold by the high school cheerleaders, who are basically selling at cost (or, given the price of avocados these days, possibly lower). All this is good fun, but the key is that the festival is held about two blocks from the Carpinteria state beach (pretty beach with tidepools!) and campgrounds. As such, fest-goers are constantly wandering down the street to the beach and back. (While at the beach, I pointed out the tents up the street to a pair of lost fest-seekers who were quite chagrined.) In addition, right at the edge of the festival is the Tomol Interpretive Play Area, a wonderful park for the littles to blow of some steam, as well as the entrance to a nature trail walking path. We didn't get a chance to try any of the restaurants but Linden Avenue has a bunch of eateries and touristy shops. We're planning to return for years to come!

Looks lip-smackingly delicious, per usual! We had peppers and sausages tonight. Sausages are started in a cold pan over medium heat, and once you have some browning and fat rendered, dump sliced peppers (we usually do 1:1 for the # of sausages:peppers) in the pan, dust with salt and pepper, cover, and let it go low and slow until the peppers are done (with an occasional stir to distribute the juices). And by done, I mean confit-ed into a savory, almost jam-like substance. We sometimes have it with rice or in buns, but tonight I ate them with stewed zucchini and roasted cauliflower. If you have any leftovers, they go really well with eggs and toast.

I bought...many bags. Lots of folks eyed my cart and asked about the jerky. Sale goes through Sunday! Found and tried the dark chocolate caramel sea salt poppers. The outer shell is a bit waxy and the caramel isn't the best, but the overall bite is quite good (with noticeably crunchy salt) and the packaging (2 lbs of unwrapped candy!) makes for easy gorging.

We had guests over three nights in a row so I made a batch of salted peanut butter cookies and a double batch of molasses spice cookies. Both keep soft very well and, served up with some freshly whipped cream, pleased everyone mightily.

We've been making chicken enchilada casseroles quite often lately. Satisfies my love of casseroles and leftovers and his of enchiladas (which, after almost 15 years together, was a surprise). You can make your (red) enchilada sauce, and I did, the first few times, but the kind in the can tastes absolutely fine as well. Using fresh corn sautéed with a bunch of peppers and black beans instead of refried really ups the nutrition (and IMO tastiness) factor. Add some salsa and guacamole, and whatever fresh fruit you have available for the table (mangoes go particularly well) and you have a really well-rounded but super simple meal.

If you're willing to travel off the strip and in the mood for Asian food, go to Raku. We talk about the Thai places in LV a lot but it' s hard to eat a varied meal by yourself at those restaurants unless you want to have a LOT of leftovers. But Raku has small, exquisite portions, so you can try many different things. Worth a thought!

You're not alone (anyone remember the early Glee episode about tater tots?)!! For a while tater tots were prominently featured on the menus of several of our favorite food trucks. I couldn't resist and they were good but I got tired of paying "gourmet parking lot" prices and bought a bag of frozen tots instead. Cheap AND delicious! And easy enough to eat yourself sick such that I haven't been tempted by the tots in years...

Hahahaha, ouch. Tickets are already sold out for the entire run as of 1:45 PM. I got in the ticket-purchasing queue at 12:55 PM and was number 95,653 in line. When the tickets were sold out there were still over 70,000 people in queue before me, so I never even got close. You can still get same-day tix once the exhibition opens but I imagine the lines will be killer, so totally impractical for folks with little kids. Ah well!

Mine is almost 10 years old and still looks perfect. I like that the top handle is metal. Got mine on Amazon and love the classic design (more squared edges). A quick search today, however, shows that they've really changed their design to ape the Le Creuset look - I like the old look better.

Sadly the truck is no more but there are several brick-and-mortar Eggslut locations now, with likely more to come. Here's a hunger-inducing photo essay from the LAist about their wares from the Grand Central Market location.