UPDATE: You do not need a Taste of Beverly Hills ticket for entry to the Pie Contest. The Pie Contest is FREE. Parking will be a bit of a pain, so the organizers recommend that you park at 2030 MGM Drive in Century City for $12, and then take advantage of the free shuttle to the event. But it will all be rewarded when more than 200 pies are sliced and shared with attendees!

If you aren’t already listening to KCRW’s Good Food podcast, you should start. Good Food is an exceptionally well-produced show that airs on Los Angeles’s KCRW. Every week I learn new insider information about food and restaurants in our awesome city. One of my favorite features of the show is the regular appearance of Jonathan Gold, LA Weekly’s food critic. Gold shares his latest finds with the Good Food audience, usually alongside some of the clever insight that won him a Pulitzer.

(thank you to KCRW.com for the photo)

The podcast updates every week, and often you will find special bonus podcasts like the Piecast. Host Evan Kleiman is obsessed with pies, and it shows. Once again this year, Kleiman will be hosting the KCRW Pie Contest at Taste of Beverly Hills. To-date, there are 145 pies registered in 5 catagories, and prizes will be awarded to the best fruit, nut, savory, cream/custard/chiffon/mousse, interpretive, and best in show. The event concludes the Taste of Beverly Hills Food and Wine Festival.

WHERE: 9900 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills 90210 (parking lot directly behind Beverly Hilton)
WHEN: Sunday, Sep. 510am – 2 pm  Pie Drive-Through Drop Off (Bar 210 parking lot)
SCHEDULE:

• 4 pm Judging begins behind the scenes while Apron Fashion Show takes place onstage; KCRW DJ Chris Douridas spins
• 5:15 pm Judges on stage with final round of pies
• 5:30 pm Winners and prizes announced and awarded (onstage) (5 winners plus Best in Show)
• 6 pm All proceedings conclude

Judges include:

• Jonathan Gold (Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer for the LA Weekly)
• Roxanna Jullapat (Pastry Chef, Ammo Cafe)
• Zoe Nathan (Chef/Owner of Huckleberry Cafe)
• Akasha Richmond (Chef/Owner Akasha)
• Karen Hatfield (Pastry Chef, Hatfield’s)
• Eric Greenspan (Chef/Owner The Foundry on Melrose)
• Christine Moore (Little Flower Candy Company)
• Sang Yoon (Father’s Office)

For more information (including parking), check out the Taste of Beverly Hills event website.

Chinatown is Awesome

As Angelenos, we are all guilty from time to time of spending too much time inside of our geographic comfort zones. But places like Chinatown should give us all plenty of excuses to make a trip downtown. First of all, it’s awesome. Second of all, it is in the midst of a large refurbishment/cleanup, so it’s nicer and cleaner than ever. If you need another reason, Chinatown is right down the street from Philippe’s, and when doesn’t a double-dipped beef sandwich and 9-cent coffee sound good?

But the best reason of all kicks off tomorrow: Chinatown Summer Nights.

It’s Free!

Families, food aficionados, and music lovers of all ages interested in exploring L.A.’s hidden urban treasure can make their way down to the first annual Chinatown Summer Nights series every Saturday night in August 2010. Chinatown Summer Nights presents an opportunity to experience Chinese cuisine while participating in new and exciting activities brought to the area. Authentic Chinese restaurants and gourmet food trucks – the best of traditional Chinatown alongside LA’s hip, new dining trend – will provide a delicious way for Angelenos to explore this colorful and diverse area of the city.

This food-centric event offers a wide variety of activities including food trucks, cooking demonstrations, restaurants and bars, stores and art galleries, music, video projections, interactive dance and movement workshops, family workshops, and temporary public art installations. With its variety and numerous hands-on activities, this electrifying night will have something for everyone.

Chinatown Summer Nights is pleased to present its own discount program, helping to promote the local restaurants in Chinatown. A listing of all the discounts and promotions being offered throughout Chinatown Summer Nights, as well as a printable coupon page, is available at www.chinatownsummernights.com, copies of the coupon page will also be available at the info booth each night. Chinatown Summer Nights visitors must have their coupon with them in order to receive the discount from participating restaurants.

In conjunction with the Chinatown Business Improvement District, Chinatown Summer Nights presents chefs from various Chinatown restaurants whose cooking demonstrations showcase a variety of regional cuisines and cooking techniques. Participating restaurants will offer cooking demonstrations of their signature dishes between 5pm – 6pm & 8pm – 9pm in West Plaza. Sharon Hoy and Eddie Lin will serve as the MC’s for these cooking demonstrations.

Chinatown Summer Nights is free and open to all ages. All activities and demonstrations will be held in Chinatown, Los Angeles (Between Broadway & Yale Street, from College Street to Bernard Street) August 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th from 5pm – Midnight. Public transportation, along with a courtesy shuttle to and from the Chinatown Gold Line station and Central Plaza, is available. In addition, private lot parking, valet parking, and free bike valet, in partnership with the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC), will be offered during the event. For more information about Chinatown Summer Nights please visit www.chinatownsummernights.com.

Confirmed Food Trucks

August 7
Let’s Be Frank
Nom Nom Truck
India Jones
Surfer Taco
Patty Wagon
Gastrobus
King Kone
Smoke House

August 14
Greasy Wiener
Papa’s Tapas
Fry Smith
Patty Wagon
Don Chow
Lake Street
Nom Nom Truck
Smoke House

August 21
Lake Street
Surfer Taco
Tropical Ice
Great Balls on Tires

August 28
Gastrobus
Calbi
Big Swirl

Participating Restaurants

The following restaurants will offer cooking demonstrations of their signature dishes.

Hop Woo BBQ Seafood Restaurant
Located at 11110 W Olympic Blvd, Hop Woo BBQ Seafood serves tasty, authentic Chinese food at a reasonable price. Since 1993, this traditional establishment has been making their Hong Kong style barbeque daily and is best known for their crispy Peking duck.

Golden City Restaurant
Popular dishes at this authentic Chinese restaurant include bean curd and mustard greens. Golden City Restaurant is located at 960 North Hill Street in Chinatown.

Full House Seafood Restaurant
Located at 963 North Hill Street, Full House Seafood Restaurant is perfect for groups of all ages and offers delicious and inexpensive Chinese food.

New Dragon Seafood Restaurant
The wildly popular New Dragon Seafood Restaurant serves authentic Cantonese food and specializes in seafood. This family restaurant located at 924 N Hill St. also offers many vegetarian options

Golden Dragon
This reasonably priced restaurant is great for dim sum and perfect for groups of any age or size. Located at 960 North Broadway.

Chinatown Photo Gallery:

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Map To Chinatown:

View Larger Map

The Details:

9531 Culver Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA, 90232
Phone: (310) 202-1470
Mon-Wed: 11am-10pm
Thu-Sat: 11am-11pm
Sun: 11am-9pm
Happy Hour, Mon-Fri: 3pm-5:30pm bar and dining room, 5:30pm-7pm bar only
Email: info[at]fordsfillingstation[dot]net
Chef Ben Ford on Twitter

The Los Angeles Foodie Rating:

The Summary:

I visit Ford’s Filling Station regularly, and it rarely disappoints. Chef Ben Ford is almost always on-site, sometimes working the front of the house and sometimes sweating in the kitchen with the rest of his staff. This summer, you might even find him manning a gas grill on the front patio, slinging burgers and beers during one of the Culver City Summer Block Parties (PDF link). The whole pig feast is one of several special events that Ford’s will host for a group of people, and it is one of the things that makes this restaurant special. You are made to feel like royalty as each new dish is presented and explained. While the whole pig feast is very expensive, many hardcore food aficionados will find the price reasonable for what is provided.

The Place:

Chef Ben Ford is relatively reserved for a celebrity chef. Even though he has appeared on countless television programs and even battled Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America, Ford always appears calm and cool. This attitude is reflected in his restaurant, which aims to make every patron feel relaxed, calm, and welcome. There is extensive use of natural wood and dark yet even lighting.

The Food:

Whenever possible, the chef used our pig in the preparation of the dishes. Of course, this simply wasn’t possible with foods like charcuterie. Our first course was a series of three flat breads, which are a Ford’s Filling Station standard.

Next was a lightly dressed, mixed greens salad adorned with various parts for the pigs head including its ears. Now I know why my dog goes crazy when I give her a pig ear. This stuff is delicious.

Then we were served a house-made pork sausage. This dish didn’t bowl me over as a whole, but it was quite good.

Yes, those are deep fried eyeballs. While I doubt I’ll set eyeballs out for my next barbecue, they are much better than they look. The only way to describe their taste and texture is to say, “They taste like eyeballs.” I recommend trying some the next time you get the chance.

The biggest laugh of the meal was when one of the waiters delivered a satchel of what looked to be a cross between surgical tools and the kinds of stainless steel instruments that the really evil guy in a movie produces right before he plans to torture the good guy. In other words, these cutting implements were terrifying, and they got everyone at the table excited for what came next.

This enormous platter of food includes the pig’s head, both legs, sheets of crispy fried skin, a mountain of shredded pork (you can’t see it very well from this angle, but there are more photos in the gallery below), and haricots verts and Brussels sprouts, both cooked in pork fat with bacon.

We were all feeling adventurous, and most of us had never tried brain. So we asked the chef to take the head back to the kitchen and extract the brain for us. It’s a strange flavor, almost tinny. And the texture is like a grainy fois gras. I’m not rushing to try it again soon, but it was an interesting dish.

And finally, we were served a maple-vanilla ice cream topped with hand-cut bacon strips. It was, as you can imagine, incredible.

Nearly every dish was great, and some were truly exceptional. There were eight of us dining on the whole pig, but we could have easily done four more and still had leftovers. Therefore, while the meal is very expensive, a larger crowd can make it more affordable. Anyway, this isn’t the kind of meal you want to skimp on. After all, the expression “whole hog” means to go all the way.

The Service:

Chef Ford didn’t prepare or present our meal, but that didn’t diminish the experience. Our chef was funny, helpful, attentive, and excited about every aspect of the meal. Chef Ford did eventually visit our table after we requested the pig’s skull be cracked so that we could sample the brain. Chef Ford chatted for a few minutes with our table about eating brain and other weird stuff.

Photo Gallery:

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Map To Location:

View Larger Map

The Details:

501 W. Olympic Blvd
Los Angeles, CA, 90015
Phone: (213) 988-8808
Mon-Thu: 11am-10pm
Fri-Sun: 11am-12am
Facebook fan page

The Los Angeles Foodie Rating:

The Summary:

LA Foodie was invited to try this new shabu-shabu restaurant in downtown Los Angeles. Yojie Japanese fondue and sake bar is a relaxing and fun respite from the traffic, noise, and bustle of downtown Los Angeles. Shabu-shabu (with plain water), sukiyaki (with broth), and fondue (dessert chocolate) are all offered. Menu prices are reasonable for what you get, but some will probably find them on the pricier side. In my opinion, you get what you pay for here at Yojie, as the high quality of the ingredients seems to be a priority.

The Place:

The creators of Yojie clearly spent time putting together a calm, relaxing space. While the restaurant isn’t terribly large, Yojie manages to pack-in quite a few tables and booths that all surround a central bar that offers full shabu-shabu service at every seat. But instead of feeling crowded, the vibe of the restaurant is calm, spacious, and relaxed. This is no small feat, and the pleasant atmosphere elevates the dining experience. They appear to feature local artists, and I enjoyed the wall decor. It compliments the restaurant’s design nicely. Yojie is located on a busy street corner in downtown Los Angeles, which might make some people fret about parking options, but I found plenty of metered street parking, and there is a large lot across the street for which Yojie provides validation.

The Food:

I’m not a culinary expert on the shabu-shabu style, but Yojie doesn’t appear to be innovating much. They have simply chosen to take a fun and interactive eating experience and attempted to be the best at it. I applaud their efforts — it shows. The sake and soju cocktails are a fun way to tie on a little buzz while you are waiting for your food. I sampled the “sake sangria” and the “sweet nothing” lychee cocktails. With lunch, I was brought an iced green tea that was served with a little simple syrup sidecar that allows one to dial-in the preferred level of sweetness.

I like that on each table is a quick “101″ primer on how to properly eat shabu-shabu.

I got an assortment of meats, fish, and vegetables. The beef was excellent, and the veggies and noodles were great too. The fish didn’t knock my socks off, and I’ll probably skip it next time. But the real winner (and I’m just as surprised as you) was the chicken. Normally bland and boring, chicken was the perfect meat for this style of dining. While the beef will be hard to turn away, I’m certainly going for another chicken platter on my next visit. There is no denying that the veggie and noodle platter was the coolest looking.

And last but far from least was the dessert platter. I was absolutely stuffed from lunch, but my hosts insisted that I try the green tea chocolate fondue… and man am I glad I did. They have a sugar-free version of the green tea chocolate that I did not try, so if you have an opinion on it, please post in the comments below. Dessert was incredible. The fruits were ripe, and the assorted morsels chosen for dipping were varied in texture and flavor. Definitely don’t skip dessert.

The Service:

I’m unable to grade the service since I was an invited guest, but I had friendly interactions with everyone I met.

Photo Gallery:

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

12►

Map To Location:

View Larger Map