The Bacon Wrapped Hot Dog: An LA Institution

How do you make something better? Add bacon!

To hungry downtowners, the push-cart bacon wrapped hot dog is as much a symbol of the city as the Hollywood sign. It's usually a plain, unsnappy, supermarket hot dog wrapped in bacon and charred on a portable makeshift grill, topped with ketchup, mayo, mustard, grilled onions, peppers and jalapeños. The whole is definitely more than the sum of its parts in this great snack.

There are many purveyors and I can't say that I've tried enough to do a round-up, though that's a fun idea, but my go-to stand is on Lafayette, south of Wilshire, just outside the Parking Violations Bureau Office...it almost makes me look forward to paying parking tickets.

Do you have a favorite bacon wrapped hot dog stand? Let me know so I can compare and contrast.

Fond of La Fonda: La Fonda Antioqueña

One of my favorite restaurants, the Colombian stalwart La Fonda Antioqueña has moved down the street to larger digs. The new place, still on Melrose, has ample seating, much better parking and all of the same great food. This is one of those places where almost everything is great, but my favorites are:

• Empanadas: Crispy corn crust, stuffed with well-spiced beef


• Morcilla: Maybe the best blood sausage in LA


• Chicharron: The Antioqueña version has big chunks of moist fried pork served on the fat and skin.


• Arroz con Pollo: An old favorite done well


• Chuletas de Cerdo: Breaded pork chop, pounded thin as a milenesa; it's hard for me to not order it.


• Mojarra: Whole fried fish

In addition, they have great condiments and sides: tangy green salsa that goes well on everything, crispy plantain fritters and a bakery with wonderful cheese rolls.

La Fonda Antioqueña
5125 Melrose
Los Angeles, CA 90038
(323) 957-5164

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a...sandwich!

When the planet Krypton exploded, a lone capsule was launched into space in an effort to save that dying civilization by preserving one young sandwich. Landing in rural Mexico, the young sandwich grew up and migrated to an urban metropolis. Now, when someone calls out in hunger, the unassuming sandwich dawns its cape and tights and turns into one of the best sandwiches in the greater LA metropolis: Super Torta.

In a city of a thousand tortas, Super Torta is one that deserves its name. Located on Alvarado, south of third, Super Tortas does one of my favorite versions of the traditional Mexican sandwich. Traditional Mexican meats, guacamole, lettuce and tomatoes on a fresh, pressed bolillo roll. My favorite is the milenesa, that Latin American version of chicken fried steak. The milensa torta is the perfect combination of salty, crunchy and meaty, the thin, fried patty blending so well with the guac. The ribeye (lomo de res) is also excellent. The pork, usually my favorite of anything, is a bit dry.

I've only tried the Alvarado location but there are two others:

Super Tortas
360 S. Alvarado St.
Los Angeles, CA
(213) 413-7953

7951 Vineland Ave.
Sun Valley, CA
(818) 765-2496

1253 N. Vine St.
Hollywood, CA
(323) 469-8912

Putting the Korea Back in Koreatown

I've lived in Koreatown for four years now, and I realized that, though I eat Korean food regularly, I have precious few Korean write-ups on this site, so I thought I'd provide a quick list of a few of my favorites.

The amount of Korean food available in my neighborhood is staggering. I've been eating Korean for years, and I still feel that I'm just starting to understand all of the styles and genres of Korean cuisine.

Now, most of the places I go are accepting of non-Koreans, at least enough to have English menus, but there is a whole world of Korean restaurants that appear to have no interest in serving non-Koreans, no English menus, no English signs, nada. In these establishments, where I'm usually treated somewhere between curiosity and annoyance, I employ a point and hope strategy...point to the menu, hope for the best. Sometimes this goes well, but once it got me a plate of rice mixed with what appeared to be chopped pieces of Oscar Meyer wieners. Live and learn.

Mysteries abound for the non-Korean speaker in Koreatown. The other day I drove by a restaurant on Vermont that had a picture of a goat on the sign among the Korean characters. Is this a Korean goat barbecue? I made a mental note and put it on my long list of places to investigate.

The places below are in the more well known, used to English speakers genre. In the future, I'll write up some of the not so typical places, but if you're looking for reliably fantastic Korean food, you can't do much better than these three:


Jeon Ju
Olympic between Vermont and New Hampshire (south side of the street)

Jeon Ju is one of my favorite places to eat of any genre. Their specialty is bi bim bap dol sot or hot pot bi bim bap. The #1, which you will likely be encouraged to order if you are not Korean, is a Kalbi bi bim bap, served in a cast iron hot pot. I love the melding of flavors in bi bim bap and with dol sot, you also get the crispy fried rice that sticks to the side of the pot, which is one of the best single things there is to eat. Add to that great panchan (Korean side dishes served before every meal) which change regularly and huge bowls of peppery soup with big dumplings and rice cakes and you have a truly amazing meal!

Dong Il Jang
8th Street, west of Normandie

I've often wondered whether there is any saturation point for barbecue restaurants in Koreatown. There must be 500, and more seem to open every day. Every time a new strip mall goes up in the neighborhood, I say to myself, I wonder what new and exciting thing will open up, and it turns out to be...yet another Korean barbecue. I've eaten at many barbecues (though there are many more I have yet to visit), but the one I always come back to is Dong Il Jang. The specialty is ross (roast?) gui, thin slices of marbled beef, sauteed on your tableside pan with butter. The marbling dissolves away in seconds and leaves you with pure beefy, fatty goodness. While I love bulgogi, Kalbi and all the marinated meats that are typically part of the Korean barbecue experience, there is something transcendent about the taste of pure, unadorned beef melting in your mouth and filling it with the rich flavor of cow.

After you finish the huge serving, the waitress will use your juicy pan to fry up rice with beef trimmings and your leftover panchan into a deliciously meaty fried rice (not unlike dol sot bi bim bap). This dish may be as good as the barbecue portion of the meal.

For a good, recent review of DIJ with pictures, check out KBlog, a great resource for all things Koreatown.

Beverly Soontofu
Olympic and Vermont, (north side of Olympic, west of Vermont)

Soontofu is a wonderfully spicy Korean soup served with soft tofu and bits of meat or fish. Beverly Soontofu is my favorite soontofu with its fresh tofu and delicious broth. I must admit, however, that Soontofu service has always been sort of a mystery to me. First, it's served with an egg. I always assumed the egg was to drop in the boiling soup cauldron which would immediately cook it, as in egg drop soup. The only problem is the soup, while it is usually bubbling, never seems to be hot enough, so you end up with a sort of slimy goo. I'm not sure if I'm doing it wrong of if slimy goo is the intended outcome. The second thing I don't get is that often, hot water is poured on your leftover scalded rice to make a sort of...soggy rice soup. Again, maybe it's just not to my taste, but I don't get it.

Now, while soontofu is great, my favorite food at Beverly Soontofu is their version of barbecued ika (squid). the slightly charred, medium-sized squid is cooked in traditional red Korean hot sauce. I love every chewy morsel of this stuff.

So, if you're looking for good Korean food, you can count on these three stars. But with nearly endless options, I'm always searching. I still have yet to find a great Korean dumpling house and my next big project, when I get around to it, is to hit the Koreatown Galleria food court, which I've never managed to make it to...and then there's the place with the goats...

Hidden Gem: Shanghai Restaurant

Located on the second floor of the giant San Gabriel Square mall on Valley Boulevard in San Gabriel, Shanghai Restaurant seems to have escaped notice of the food writing world, but I love it, and most everything I've had has been good.

Shanghai cuisine, in my experience, is some of the most intricately flavored food around. The Shanghai sauces, often dominated by anise, can have a dense, sweet taste, almost like a licoricey black mole or a lighter, more refined taste. At Shanghai Restaurant, pork ribs or baby eel (though the eels seem to have disappeared from the menu) come slathered in these dark, anise scented sauces.

Xiao long bao (XLB to those in the know), or soup dumplings, are a popular Shanghai treat that has caught on in the US. They are made by filling dumplings with meat and jellied broth. When the dumplings are steamed, the broth melts so that the meat is suspended in a pool of delicious soup. When you bite in, watch out; if you aren't careful, you will get a lap full of piping hot broth. Shanghai Restaurant has good XLB stuffed with a mix of crab and pork, though they are not quite up to the par of the famous Din Tai Fung in Arcadia.

My favorite dish is the shen jian bao, wondrous pan fried pork buns topped with black sesame seeds and scallions with a nice XLB like broth that squirts out when you bite into them. I could just sit and eat these things all day.

Last time we visited, the waiter chastised us for ordering too many dishes with flour and suggested some dishes to provide balance. One stand out was a cold spongy bean curd with mushrooms and peanuts. The bean curd was served in the anise sauce, which it absorbed completely. The dish, which admittedly didn't look like much, was surprising addictive.

Good stuff!

Shanghai Restaurant
140 W Valley Blvd, #211
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 288-0991

Who's Your Papa: Beard Papa

The Japanese chain Beard Papa makes some great cream puffs. At their numerous locations around town, they squirt heavenly, fresh custard into crisp pastry shells to order. The custard is fantastic, thick and creamy. They have other things too, but don't bother. Beard Papa is a one hit wonder.

In a truly just world, there would be a Beard Papa on every block and only a handful of Pinkberries.

Hidden Gem: Square One

So, as I mentioned earlier this week, I spent much of the last two weeks at the giant Kaiser Permanente facility on Sunset Boulevard. My two culinary saving graces while running back and forth from the various rooms we were stuffed into were Yai on Vermont and Square One.

Square One sits in the shadow of two colossal motherships, the aforementioned Kaiser complex and the Los Angeles Scientology Center which takes up a full city block between Sunset and Fountain. Undaunted by these vast institutions, Square One has a distinct philosophy: locally sourced food done well. Like a little, casual Chez Panisse right in our backyard, the produce is from local farmers' markets and the meat is from places like Niman Ranch and Nueske's meats which offer grassfed beef and heirloom pork. Don't believe in their commitment, just take a look at the creed etched on the specials board.

At Square One Dining, we believe the highest quality meals come from the freshest local ingredients. By taking care in sourcing our ingredients, we hope to connect our customers, purveyors, and staff through the most basic of human needs: food. We utilize organic, local, and small farm produce when possible. All of our meat products are hormone free. Natural is always best and basic is not a trend.

As a polemical ideologue in my non-food life, I must admit that I love the idea of a a restaurant with a creed. Even if you're not into creeds though, you can be sure that Square One is not part of some fleeting culinary trend or another LA cult. Rather, this humble, casual eatery which doesn't even serve dinner is one of the most consistently excellent restaurants in town.

In my experience, nothing on the Square One menu disappoints, but the breakfasts served all day (well, for breakfast and lunch, which are the only meals they serve), are the highlight. The baked egg dishes, which change regularly, are cooked in mini-cast iron skillets with flavor combinations like mushrooms, garlic and rough ground grits. The bourbon french toast is to-die-for, with big, rich slices of soft french toast buried in pecans and whip cream.

But my favorite dish is the salmon eggs benedict. The eggs are served on crisply fried potato pancakes with Square One's fabulous home cured salmon, which has a fresh and clean taste to it, much less salty than commercially cured salmon. It's topped with a light hollandaise and comes with a choice of sides, but get the grits or cheese grits if they are offered.

And of course, I love the sweets, so I have to give a shout out to Square One's excellent desserts. The cookies are as big as your head and almost as thick; be warned, one cookie is definitely enough for dessert for two if not three hungry diners.

The delightfully chewy peanut butter cookie explodes with buttery goodness, and I usually don't even like peanut butter cookies. The chocolate chip cookies have so much chocolate that one wonders where the line between chocolate chip cookie ends and cookie dough flavored chocolate bar begins, and the slightly smaller chocolate brownies are likewise rich and chocolaty. The only cookie I didn't care for was the oatmeal, which was dry and bland.

I ate at Square One often during the last two weeks and I never tired of it. I can honestly say that Square One joins a short list of places I go in which I have never had a dish that failed to impress.

Ai Yai Yai: Yai on Vermont

Living due south of Thai Town, I am within spitting range of some of the best Thai food in the US. When I first came to LA, I relied on the obvious picks of Palm Thai and Ruen Pair (then conveniently located in the same strip mall). Since then, I've branched out quite a bit. For a while, my loyalties were with the little known Hollywood Thai, but they took a turn for the worse...then I found the glory that is Yai.

I started out at the first Yai, in a little strip mall anchored by a 7-11 on Hollywood Boulevard, but earlier this year they opened a much larger space in the Jon's Market/Fatburger strip mall on the west side of Vermont, north of Sunset, known as Yai's on Vermont.

I've never been disappointed with a dish at Yai, but my absolute favorite is the roasted pork with Chinese broccoli or mustard greens. Succulent bits of fatty fried pork, like a Thai chicharron, are stir fried with chopped veggies and served in the most amazing broth of rich pork juice drippings. To top it off is the wonderfully spicy fish sauce with chilis that is the Yai house condiment.

Pad Thai khron khan is a spicy version of the Thai street food classic. It lacks the bright orange color and the sweetness of the versions you get most places, presumably meaning they hold back on the tamarind paste. Again, topping it with the house fish sauce does wonders, making a spicy, pungent pad thai.

They also do a great, slightly sweet deep fried pork and all the classic Thai soups and salads.

Having spent most of the last two weeks at the behemoth Kaiser complex on Sunset Boulevard, I was deeply appreciative of the proximity of this Thai great.

Yai's on Vermont
1627 N. Vermont Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90028
(323) 644-1076

Master of its Domain: Dumpling Master

One of the best things, culinarily speaking, about living in the Los Angeles area is the great diversity of Chinese cuisine. Historically, Chinese food in the United States has been dominated by the food of the southeastern provinces, Guangdon (Canton), Hunan, Fujian and Jiangxi. These provinces are closest to the mouth of the Pearl River Delta, in Guangdon, where most emigration from China occurred in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The great Chinatowns of the US were founded and grown by Southeastern Chinese settlers, and the cuisine of this region, or a Westernized version of it, came to be known generically as "Chinese food" to Westerners.

Starting in the 1970s, the center of the Chinese community in Los Angeles moved from downtown's Chinatown, to the vast San Gabriel Valley in east Los Angeles County. Cities like San Gabriel, Monterey Park and Alhambra became centers of more recent Chinese immigrants. Cantonese, for sure, but also people from Sichuan, Jiangzhe/Shanghai and the vast plains of northern China, including the Islamic community with its own style of Chinese cuisine. With them, came a more diverse Chinese cuisine which more accurately represented the great diversity of China. (For the best available compliation of San Gabriel Valley restaurant recommendations, get a copy of Carl Chu's Los Angeles/San Gabriel Valley Chinese Food Finder).

Dumpling Master, a northern Chinese dumpling house in Monterey Park, resides, like most great LA restaurants, in a strip mall. Dumpling master makes wondrous, juicy dumplings (boiled, steamed and pan fried), succulent scallion pancakes and deliciously chewy hand pulled noodles (I prefer their noodles to those of well-regarded competitor Heavy Noodling). They cook pork, chicken and beef, but the highlight of dumpling master is the lamb.

Lamb is a staple of northern Chinese cuisine and is especially popular in Islamic cuisine in which pork is not an option. There is something great about Chinese food with lamb; its pungent gaminess provides the perfect foil to some of the more familiar Chinese seasonings.

At Dumpling Master, I get a combination of dishes that I have lovingly named, lamb three ways: lamb chow mein, lamb noodle soup with cabbage and boiled lamb dumplings.

Lamb chow mein with hand pulled noodles is a delightful stir fry of noodles cabbage and strips of marinated lamb. This is lamb put into a traditional Chinese favorite familiar to Westerners and it works so well you wonder why it hasn't popped up at Panda Express.

Lamb noodle soup with cabbage, a popular northern dish, is a sour cabbage soup with lamb and noodles. The sourness melds well with the pungency of the lamb. If you take the leftovers home and put them in the fridge, the noodles will absorb almost half the broth and their chewiness will give way to a deep sour lamb flavor...I always make sure to have some to take home. (For some reason, this item seems to have dropped off the menu, but if you order it, they will make it).

When you bite into boiled lamb dumplings, the third dish of my trio, the dumplings explode with juice which sends a strong lamb flavor to the core of your soul. The filling exudes lamb, juice and spices in a way that make me always come back for more.

This lamb trio, an order of the thin, scallion pancakes called scallion pie and a bonus of pan-fried pork dumplings is one of the more satisfying meals in all of Los Angeles County.

Dumpling Master
423 N. Atlantic #106
Monterey Park, CA
(626) 458-8689

Favorites: Gioia Burrata

There are few things that taste as luxurious as burrata. What is burrata? A fresh Italian cheese in the mozzarella family. It looks like a lump of fresh mozzarella, but when you slice it open, out comes a primordial ooze of filling, a dreamy mixture of mozzarella curd and cream.



When you eat burrata, you get the guilty, pleasure-inducing essence of cream.

I've tried burrata in a salad with heirloom tomatoes and basil, on sandwiches and drizzled with good balsamic vinegar. All of my burrata experimentation however, has led me to a realization. The best accompaniment to burrata is a knife and fork, maybe sprinkled with a few flakes of sea salt. I don't like anything to get in the way of the pure creamy experience.

My favorite burrata and the one which is most available locally is from Gioia in South El Monte, which you can get at Bay Cities Deli, Bristol Farms and other gourmet stores. You should eat it within three or four days of purchase.

Favorites: NBC Seafood

Dim sum is one of my passions. Everywhere I go, I try the dim sum. I love pork buns, roast duck, suckling pig, sesame balls, sticky rice, custard cups, rice noodles, all the various dumplings and fried bits, and the occasional pair of chicken feet. I probably average ten to fifteen dim sum meals per year. In the LA/San Gabriel Valley area, I've been to: Empress Pavilion, Ocean Seafood, Ocean Star, Empress Harbor, 888, Mission 261, New Concept, NBC and Sea Harbor.

Sea Harbor is probably my favorite of the new school, more haute dim sum. For the old fashioned, bustling carts and busy tables, though, I always come back to NBC. Plump shrimp, a wide variety of fried dumplings, succulent roast duck, all the traditional dim sum done superbly. I've found that 10:30 is the ideal time to arrive on a weekend for maximum cart and food access.

NBC Seafood, Atlantic north of Garvey, Monterey Park.

Favorites: Luckiest of Devils

Lucky Devils, on Hollywood Boulevard east of Highland, is a regular spot for me. I love the kobe bacon blue burger, the nicely browned fries laced with big salt crystals that I eat without condiments, the homemade breakfast sausage and creme brulee french toast on the brunch menu, the great selection of microbrews on tap and the flavorful veggie burger.

The Luckiest thing, though, is the marvel that is the Lucky Devil's toasted pecan milkshake. Now, let's start by clearing things up. This is not a milkshake. Yes, it comes in a big metal milkshake cup with a straw, but the straw is useless. It's a giant cup of LD's homemade vanilla frozen custard mixed with toasted pecans, topped with a generous squirt of whipped cream.

It reminds be of the "concretes" I used to get at the great Ted Drewe's Frozen Custard on Route 66 in St. Louis. A cup of custard mixed with toppings so thick (thick as concrete) that the server turns the cup upside down before giving it to you...it's that thick.

The LD shake has an amazing flavor. The vanilla is subtle and you can really taste the toastedness of the pecans, and the shake is so large it should qualify as an entree.

There are other great desserts at LD's. You can get the plain custard, also excellent, on a delicious fruit cobbler. Kentucky cream cake is a giant slab of spice cake with a wonderfully creamy frosting and nuts, but I seldom get past the shake.

RIP: Albert J. Langer

Is there anything more perfect than a Langer's hot pastrami on rye? The pastrami is what you hear the most about, the succulent, pungent, perfectly spiced, thick cut (always order hand cut) pastrami. But the fresh baked rye stands on its own. The crisp, chewy crust with a soft, pillowy interior, smelling of caraway and always fresh. Put it all together with a generous dollop of mustard and you have one of the most perfect sandwiches available. Some people prefer the #19, with coleslaw and swiss cheese, but not for me. Nothing extraneous should stand in the way of me and my pastrami. And I'll have an egg cream with that please.

In 1998, I moved to LA from Manhattan, where I had worshipped at all the temples of pastrami, from Carnegie Deli to Katz's. These were places where the pastrami was piled so high that you would need mandibular implants to fit your mouth around a sandwich. They are less sandwiches that giant towers of meat with a perfunctory slice of bread on the side, vertical sandwiches for a vertical city.

New Yorkers, used to judging pastrami sandwiches by weight and girth, often complain that a Langer's sandwich is light on the pastrami, but quantity isn't what Langer's is about. It is about gestalt, the perfect blend of flavors and textures, the creation of a zen-like balance on a plate, with a pickle. Once I tasted a Langer's sandwich, I left all of New York behind. I never again complained about LA's lack of good bagels or pizza or public transportation, because LA has Langer's and New York doesn't.

Al Langer, pastrami legend, died last Sunday at age 94. Rest in Peace, oh lord of pastrami.

Skooby's: Yesterday's Miracle, Today!

Another Favorite:

Skooby's Hot Dogs, Hollywood Blvd. at Cherokee.

What to get: Great hot dogs on home made buns and some of the best fries and homemade chips in town (love that aioli sauce).

Great hot dogs on Hollywood Boulevard - un milagro indeed.

Favorites: Leda's Bake Shop

You can have your giant Sprinkles cupcakes, I'll take Leda's any day. Miniature cupcakes just bursting with flavor, they have moist cake, thick frosting and a powerful flavor package at the center.

I've never had one that I didn't love, but my very favorites are the tangy passion fruit and the dark chocolate, with a scrumptious bit of dark chocolate ganache at the center of the frosting.

But why, oh why, aren't they open later and on Sundays?

Leda's Bake Shop
13722 Ventura Blvd
Sherman Oaks, CA

Favorites: Paris Baguette

What it is: A Korean owned French bakery with excellent French pastries. A dry erase board outside tells you when things come out of the oven.



What to get: chocolate feullette, anything with cream or custard (fresh made and heavenly), green tea pastries, plain croissant ...mmmm.




Paris Baguette, First and Western.