What’s the best way to eat a donut?
I prefer mine so fresh the dough disappears halfway down your throat. At the latest. When a donut achieves this miracle of Iust I think a meteor could crash down and I’d be like “damn, did see how hot and fresh these donuts are?”. Everyone would be running around screaming but I’d stand there looking down in the small white bag made blissfully heavy with the weight of warm dough and dip one hand in for a tease. Eyes heavy, fingers gone sticky with melted powdered sugar, I wouldn’t look up until the bag was empty.
Every Thursday, as I mentioned in a previous post, the new Sherman Oaks’ Farmer’s Market will give you one such chance to sample this amazing foodie-find: Tia’s Donuts.
Made on a contraption that looks like a miniature, medieval torture device (but a cute one!), the tiny would-be donuts cruise along a path to certain death. But with that quick fry they transform their “petite mort” into something even more heavenly then the name implies. These donuts barely made it past my lips before they dissolved into some ghostly warm vapor of remembered dough.
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Tags: Local Happenings · Reviews
In honor of the Olympics, when international pride and cultural curiosity run high, I thought I’d share with you one of the best places to get some good ol’ non-American treats. From Jammy Dodgers and Digestive Biscuits to curry powder and fat little rose-scattered tea pots, The Friar Tuck Shop gives us humble Valley folk the glory of all that is great in UK sundries.
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Tags: Restaurants · Reviews
Having the good fortune to live just blocks away from someone who makes the freshest, chewiest, most ridiculously soft and sexy coconut macaroons is just plain great luck. But when that neighbor then takes a chance and hires you to photograph the heavenly things, ah, that’s something different. That’s just straight awesome. Not only was I lucky enough to do something I love, I was introduced to this seriously amazing little treat.
Susan Hecht has created “MyMacs“, her pretty much flawless incantation of the classic coconut macaroon, both plain and chocolate dipped, and has just started selling them at what is now the new Sherman Oak’s Farmer’s Market. At last, we have our own Farmer’s Market! Double hurrah for this week!
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Tags: Food and Drink · Local Happenings
Having the good fortune to live just blocks away from someone who makes the freshest, chewiest, most ridiculously soft and sexy coconut macaroons is just plain great luck. But when that neighbor then takes a chance and hires you to photograph the heavenly things, ah, that’s something different. That’s just straight awesome. Not only was I lucky enough to do something I love, I was introduced to this seriously amazing little treat.
Susan Hecht has created “MyMacs“, her pretty much flawless incantation of the classic coconut macaroon, both plain and chocolate dipped, and has just started selling them at what is now the new Sherman Oak’s Farmer’s Market. At last, we have our own Farmer’s Market! Double hurrah for this week!
[Read more →]
Tags: Food and Drink · Local Happenings
Sometimes you just gotta say ‘To hell with LA, I’m going to San Francisco.’ That’s what I did this weekend and I know, I know, this really has nothing to do with food any more local then your own computer screen, but what I found was just too amazing to leave alongside my heart.
Miette (French for “crumb”) is a French pastry shop located at the indoor farmer’s market in the Ferry Plaza and I simply stumbled across their darling little storefront while waiting for my sister. Seriously people. Words do not describe.
All I can attempt to say is when I took a bite out of their French macarons (Rose Geranium and Chocolate) I gave birth to every single pastry shop that every existed in Paris, fused them all together with pure sex, married the fusion and then took it on a honeymoon to god’s bedroom.
Though they are only a small San Francisco company, they deliver their macarons via their website. Hey, that means you can bring them TO LA! Problem solved. Even so, a trip to San Francsico would not be out of order. Just get them in your mouth.
Tags: Edibles · Reviews
If someone had asked me to define what “Christmas in my mouth” meant a week ago I might’ve guessed a mouthful of melting chocolate or perhaps a large bucket of popcorn during The Dark Knight. Such pleasures wouldn’t have come close to what I now know is the true meaning of this heavenly phrase.
At French bistro La Frite in Sherman Oaks, there exists a burger unlike any gourmet burger I have ever had. Grilled with fire, open-faced and topped with a melting blanket of sweetly pungent, smokey bleu cheese, this goddamn burger saved my life. That, my friends, is Christmas in your mouth.
I had been to La Frite once before with my boyfriend and we had dined blissfully together on the baked brie appetizer, indulging at dusk under the breezy outdoor awning. Sadly my food-loving man and I are no longer together, and when you’re going through a breakup the last thing on earth you want to do is eat.
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Tags: Restaurants · Reviews
If someone had asked me to define what “Christmas in my mouth” meant a week ago I might’ve guessed a mouthful of melting chocolate or perhaps a large bucket of popcorn during The Dark Knight. Such pleasures wouldn’t have come close to what I now know is the true meaning of this heavenly phrase.
At French bistro La Frite in Sherman Oaks, there exists a burger unlike any gourmet burger I have ever had. Grilled with fire, open-faced and topped with a melting blanket of sweetly pungent, smokey bleu cheese, this goddamn burger saved my life. That, my friends, is Christmas in your mouth.
I had been to La Frite once before with my boyfriend and we had dined blissfully together on the baked brie appetizer, indulging at dusk under the breezy outdoor awning. Sadly my food-loving man and I are no longer together, and when you’re going through a breakup the last thing on earth you want to do is eat.
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Tags: Restaurants · Reviews
When my boyfriend’s mother came to visit she stayed in Koreatown because she’s Korean. Bearing Korean pears from the neighborhood and armfuls of small plastic bags from Olive Bakery she showered us with her foodie finds because she loves her son. When the bag of pastries fell before our eyes in a crinkling heap of bountiful bliss upon the counter, they were gone within 10 minutes. Because we have standards. And when someone offers you a free sampler of tender, brioche-style sweet breads filled with coffee, peanut butter, chocolate or vanilla flavored cream, red bean curd or whipped butter, you have a responsibility to your tongue to get that joy inside of your mouth as fast as you can. As a pastry lover, I can’t really say I remember a finer day in recent history.
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Tags: Restaurants · Reviews
There’s a great little mini-mall right near my apartment. Wow, I never thought I’d say something like that, but in the Valley I’m finding anything is possible if you just take a chance. And I’m glad I took a chance on Shish.
We have a great Thai, sushi, and Mexican restaurant in that little square as well as the fabulous little yogurt place I reviewed a little while ago, and happily on schedule came Shish Mediterranean to round out the cultural food equation. Unassuming as most Valley food joints,this little cafe reveals fresh, high quality food behind it’s simple doors for a very reasonable price. Fresh, tangy hummus, crispy seasoned pita chips and the incredible chicken kabob plate are among the best of the small but classic Greek/Mediterranean menu.
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Tags: Restaurants · Reviews
Yay it’s 4th of July! That fabulous, summer crash-course of a holiday where we can forget our troubles and remember how great it is to live in this amazing country. A country “of the people, by the people, for the people”. A country free from corrupt government, a country whose civil liberties are still intact and, um… well…
At least we still got burgers.
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Tags: Edibles · Upcoming events
What more could a meat snob ask for then a menu without any meat!? Watch me, oh brave fellow food warrior. Watch me dive my fork mercilessly into a pile of god-knows-what with no fear of consuming a gristle-y, blubber-y or, (shudder) sinew-y snap of mysterious meat. I can handle cryptic veg any day, fool. Hail to Vegan Plate! The fresh, inventive, shockingly flavorful little Thai cafe in Studio City.
Once again my faithful foodie friends, Jordan and Vivien, have turned me on to a restaurant that sits right under my own nose. I jumped at the chance to try it simply because I trust them, not because I’m Vegan. In fact when I hear the word “Vegan” I usually just think of dishes devoid of dairy or cheese (in other words everything that makes anything good), promptly make a cringing-face and run off to eat a butter-baked calzone. Covered in milk. And ice cream.
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Tags: Restaurants · Reviews
If you’re like me, there will be only 3 things you need to experience about the huge, heavenly and happening Porto’s Bakery in Burbank to keep you coming back for more:
1. Guava.
Tangy, fresh… bright pink. Guava cheese strudel. Guava roll. Guava cake. Give it to me now tropical pastry king.
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Tags: Restaurants · Reviews
