Our heartiest congratulations go out to the following LA bands:
After Midnight Project Atreyu Evan Taubenfeld In This Moment Mozella Nathen Maxwell & the Original Bunny Gang Nations Afire Resident Hero Runner Runner The Parson Red Heads
These are the newly announced LA-based winners of Taco Bell’s 2009 “Feed The Beat” contest. All of These LA bands will be receiving $500 in Taco Bell Bucks to feed them on their upcoming tours.
Establishment: Caffe Luxxe.
Location: Montana Avenue, Santa Monica.
Date: Sunday, November 15, 2009.
Time: 3 pm-ish.
Beverage(s) consumed: Latte (2%).
Price: $3.75 + $1.00 tip (unacknowledged [paid w/ a fiver and a quarter felt too little.])
Service: Efficient and polite, if a bit cool.
Review: Smooth, rich, maybe a bit nutty on the coffee back end, maybe a bit too milky; overall, very good and well above average.
Latte art: Rosetta pattern. (B+ – good for a latte, lines could have been a bit tighter.)
Crowd: Full house. Well-dressed business dudes talking excitably in Italian. Mandatory unshaven writer type guy staring at Macbook Pro front and center. Possible grad student with a bunch of academic type books against the wall. Couple gay dudes at the counter stools.
Overall visit score: 7.6/10.0
Quick heads up here from the Losanjealous Ticket Update Desk: If you were planning on picking up an “Off Da Hook” ticket package for the hotly anticipated The Guy Fieri Roadshow 12/17 date at Gibson Amphitheater, we’re sorry to have to let you know that you are out of luck–they are now sold out.
Your “Off Da Hook” package ($250.25 + service fee) would have included a seat on stage with the man himself, so everyone in the audience can see you, as well as:
- Tour Laminate
- A copy of Guy’s More Diners, Drive-ins and Dives: A Drop Top Culinary Cruise Through America’s Finest and Funkiest Joints
- 2 Squirt Bottles
- Pre-Show Meet and Greet
The good news is that there are still “Kulinary Krew” packages ($150.25 + service fee) available. It includes everything the “Off Da Hook” package includes–the tour laminate, the copy of Guy’s book, the 2 squirt bottles and the pre-show meet and greet–however your seat is in the first 7 rows, not on the stage.
If for some reason you cannot make the show, Guy Fieri brand squirt bottles are available at the Food Network online store ($9.95/2-pack).
Because Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa shopping for my mother can never start too early, I headed all the way down to the South Coast Plaza Williams-Sonoma on Thursday to get Chef Thomas Keller to sign a copy of his newest cookbook, Ad Hoc at Home.
I’ll admit to some butterflies in my stomach anticipating what I would say to the man behind French Laundry and the Beverly Hills Bouchon opening this Wednesday, November 18.
After a three hour wait (no joke) I finally got Chef Keller to scribble his name illegibly, so “Nancy” will be all impressed and shit. I said some stupid things that I don’t remember. He smiled.
Here are some observations from my afternoon in this Orange County mall…
»continue reading Thomas Keller: The Taylor Swift of the Cooking World
Nearly one year after I first dropped the word of a pending Westwood Village Barney’s Beanery back in December 2008, a “Coming Soon!” sign has finally been hung on the former Good Earth, former Straton’s spot (and about 150 feet from the Westwood C.P.K.). Year-long delays, along with unexplained sudden shutterings, are unsurprising when it comes to the fickle zoning and real estate winds in the Village. Let’s hope that a) Barney’s can take root and stick around for a while; and b) that the village idiots will stick to O’Hara’s and not ruin the vibe at Barney’s.
Beloved yellow Los Angeles-founded casual dining eatery and home to no small number of contentious Losanjealous staff subcommittee meetings, the California Pizza Kitchen (NASDAQ:CPKI), is getting a revamped menu for fall:
Guests will now be able to order any of California Pizza Kitchen’s innovative pizzas on a new honey-wheat with whole grain crust and any of their twelve pastas on multigrain penne.
New items include (tasty emphasis mine):
»continue reading California Pizza Kitchen Launches New Menu Options
Sunday Morning 1 (Oki Dog)
36″ x 24″
Oil on canvas
$6,000.00
David Anderle
Billy Shire Fine Arts
Exhibition: November 14, 2009 – December 5, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 14th, 7-10 pm
Did You Know?
As of Autumn ‘09, the Oki-Dog (Fairfax@Willoughby) LA County Public Health Score is back down to a bright red 73 “C” rating, thanks to:
»continue reading Please Help Us Purchase This Fine Painting
Dear Father’s Officers,
There is only one thing worse than spotting your parents downing a pint in your favorite burger and beer joint: finding your aunt and uncle instead.
And, I’m reluctant to report, this recently occurred at Father’s Office in Culver City. At first I thought I was seeing shit. But, nope, they were there. Eating and drinking and being merry. And when I approached I quickly found out this was not their first visit. In fact, they consider themselves “semi-regulars.”
It is with this pronouncement I make another: Father’s Office has officially jumped the culinary shark.
Look, I love my aunt and uncle. I even crashed at their house for two summers back in college. And I know my freaking mom is going to email them a link to this post so I’m going to be in trouble. But, let’s be honest, no one wants to see their middle-aged aunt and uncle at the bar you frequent. It simply makes the place so un-cool I can no longer go there.
»continue reading Beacon: The Culver City Father’s Office Solution
Wednesday night is “$5 Burger Night” at Echo Park restaurant ‘the Park’. The $5 price includes one burger and a side. I know what you’re thinking, “For $5 bucks I can get five burgers at McDowell’s”, but we all know that fast food burgers generally lack the texture and distinct flavor of those found in the backyard; plus, once you throw in a 32oz of your favorite malt liquor and the company of your two favorite foodies, this works out to be a pretty good deal.
One of my dining companions had eaten at ‘the Park’ once before and remembered the place being BYOB. I checked the website and although I found the letters BYOB on certain nights, it was unclear if this was their general policy. Being the classy, respectful, upstanding citizen that I am, and given the lack of clarity on the matter, I smuggled in my own hooch — and it’s a good thing I did. Apparently, the news of the “$5 Burger Night” has spread to all corners of Hipsterville and characters straight out of the latest Urban Outfitters catalog swarmed the narrow entrance to be seated. We had to wait about 35 minutes for a table. There was no list to put my name down on, and the hostess seemed aggravated and bothered. I mentioned to her that we would be outside waiting and she apathetically responded, “oh”. Come to think of it, she did not even come out to fetch us when the table was ready, we just happened to be hovering around the patio and saw that one of the tables had opened up.
»continue reading Barely Under $10 and BYOB: The Park (Echo Park)
We can’t actually tell if Mike (a) is tired of shelling out $3.50 for his Coolhaus ice cream sandos, (b) has a crush on the owners, (c) is jealous of the truck’s tar-architecture- asphalt-and- cream-laden business model, or (d) is completely and wholly spot-on, in the right, in his op-ed below regarding the Coolhaus Ice Cream Sandwich Truck duo’s failure to openly confess to a presumed Diddy Riese/UCLA collegiate inspiration at some level, having in the last few months shoved their version of the venerable Westwood institution’s non-architecturally-themed-yet-peculiarly-overly-familiar $1.50 sandos into a trendy li’l chrome truck, slapped punny architectural names onto them and tweeted them away all o’er town for $3.50 a throw, an astonishing markup in our frugal books. Who’s to say? That’s why they call it op-ed! Feel free to share your own opinions following the below tirade. The more vocal of you, g’head, send us a fully-fleshed submission for op-ed consideration on these pages (yes, Coolhaus, we’re looking directly at you for rebuttal). -ed
 Above close-up of one member of Coolhaus’ $3.50 summer product line replete with edible “500 Days of Summer” wrapper courtesy intellichick (some rights reserved) |
Coolhaus not so cool
By Mike
I live in Los Angeles and I eat a lot. I drink a little, too. With this highly dignified and prestigious culinary resume I’ve accumulated some opinions over the years. From time to time I will share them here. Bottoms up.
Dear Coolhaus Ice Cream Sandwich Truck Ladies,
Look, I like you ladies. Natasha and Freya – those sound like hot names. Your truck, it’s silver – that’s fucking adorable. It’s even got rims. Totally bad ass. Your sandwiches are named after one of the most overlooked professions of the modern day … architects.
That’s all well and good.
It truly is. But, I think your shenanigans have gone on long enough. It’s time we discuss the frozen white elephant in the truck.
Mayhap you have been following the saga of The Green Truck And The Plight of Trendy Gourmet Mobile Food Providers Along Miracle Mile, The Grouchy Local Purveyors, The Incensed Office Workers and The Man in the last couple of weeks. Mayhap not. Still, mayhap you have. At this time, we can now finally and truly report that there be Nothing Of Interest Whatsoever To Be Gleaned From This Post Regarding The Green Truck, The LAPD, Museum Square’s Grouchy Restaurant Row And Its Nearby Office Tenants. Ready? Begin.
FROM: Ryan’s Wireless Device
TO: Bob N/A
TIME: 11:59am 28 Aug 2009 Fri
What’s going on down on The Mile?FROM: Bob N/A
TO: Ryan’s Wireless Device
TIME: 12:01pm
Barbie’s Q, Marked 5 are here. No sign of the police just yet. Eating some lunch. Will it be a peaceful day?
Following our recent, topical, txtmsg-suffused posting about the LAPD’s targeted harassment of the gourmet food trucks near 5750 Wilshire Blvd, the inbox has been flooded: carbon-copies of outraged letters to Tom LaBonge, gratuitous linking from angry yelpers, 5750 Wilshire office resident petition signers (120 sigs at press time!) requesting mentions, at least one LA Times piece (wherein The Man pooh-poohs last week’s fiasco as a simple, one-day, non-permit-having-truck-targeted sting) and more than a few recently-submitted food truck reviews and op-ed pieces that I still have yet to parse, process and post live to the site. Meantime, Bobby’s back on the scene down Wilshire way, right now:
FROM: Bob N/A
TO: Ryan’s Wireless Device
TIME: 11:49am
I am at museum square stop now to scope things out. Here come the cops
More as it develops; stay tuned.
Green truck photo by jojomelons
» LAPD Throwing All Manner of Fines Under the Sun At Your Favorite Truck
» India Jones: Open For Business, Impounded By Po-Po, Back On Streets Today
» Green Truck on twitter
Featuring Arrested Development, Built To Spill, Cody ChesnuTT & Martin Luther, Fool’s Gold, Mika Miko, Morris Day & The Time, The Sonics, Tiny Masters of Today and you (?) [< - Click a name to jump to that artist's photos]
Featuring Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band, Dengue Fever, The Delta Spirit, Islands, Les Nubians, Mary Wilson, Miss Derringer, Nico Vega, Rumspringa, Sly & Robbie, The Submarines, Warpaint & you (?) [< - Click a name to jump to that artist's photos]
It’s officially Food Friday here at the Losanjealous.
…The featured event is the 3rd Annual Nisei Week Gyoza Eating Championship – presented by Day-Lee Foods – which starts at 3 p.m. at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC) in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo district. Two-time defending champion Joey Chestnut (Nathan’s Hot Dog Champion and the top competitive eater in the world) returns to defend his title and break his world record of 231 gyoza consumed in 10 minutes.
Attempting to unseat Chestnut will be top-ranked eaters Tim Brown (#10 World Rank), rapper Eric “Badlands” Booker (#13), Nate Biller (#19), Kevin Ross (#23), and Sean Kirby (#42) as well as a field of local amateurs. Competing on behalf of charity will be the 2008 Nisei Week Queen and Court.
Anyone wanting to enter the contest may participate in an auction for the 20th and final spot, which will take place at the beginning of the event [...] Admission is free with seating limited to a first- come- first- serve basis.
» Third Annual Annual Nisei Week Gyoza Eating Championship (via LA Metblogs)
» Joey Chestnut 2009 Threepeat: 68 Hot Dogs in 10 Minutes
Top photo of losanjealous ryan’s gyoza-dinner-atop-coffee-table by losanjealous ryan (used by permission)
Mere days into its new tar-curry-and-asphalt business model, the explosive chutney-laden and aptly-named India Jones Chow Truck suffered a fate no lonchera would wish on another Wednesday prior at 5750 Wilshire Food Truck Takedown ‘09: Impound! Unsatisfied with simply slapping all manner of tickets and fines onto and into the truck and its wares, The Man opted to drag the glittering chrome-goat-milk-and-wheels box back to central for additional consumption, belches and post-tow betel nut chew. Take heart, for the story has a coconutty-sweet ending: Said truck is back on those mean Los Angeles streets as of today and Chef Sumant Pardel, having survived the ordeal in one piece, will be slinging Bombay Frankies, spicy food and various mango sundries again; very soon, in fact, with a possible appearance at this weekend’s Sunset Junction festival, according to that one website where everybody text-messages each other:
@losanjealous we r getting our truck back 2day they almost took it for 30 days… Thanx 4 awsome coverage we got in touch w/ Bobby of green
» LAPD Throwing All Manner of Fines Under the Sun At Your Fave Food Truck
» India Jones Chow Truck (official site / blog)
» http://twitter.com/indiajonesct
» Meals on Wheels: IJCT (Eater LA)
File under hearsay text messages: The following phone-to-phone transcript comes direct from our good buddy Bobby over at Green Truck On The Go (screw twitter, too much noise; tweet away but old-fashioned txtmsgs still own me end of day and he knows it). Verbatim txtscript:
FROM: Bob N/A
TO: Losanjealous Ryan’s Wireless Device
Anti-lunch truck task force action here. The cops formed one due to complaints at our museum square route, and cracked down today, throwing down fines and citing for trucks parking too close to the curb, trucks parking too far from the curb, trucks beeping whey they back up, trucks not being equipped with beepers when they back up, trucks protruding into red zones, trucks serving up sub-par food (joke) and god only knows what else. Word is that they also dished out $5000 fines – we hadn’t opened yet and avoided that bit, at least. (no citation for “failing to open in a timely fashion”?? -ed) Their stated purpose is to clear wilshire of lunch trucks.FROM:Ryan’s Wireless Device
TO: Bob N/A
Wilsh and where??FROM: Bob N/A
TO: Ryan’s Wireless Device
5750 Wilshire – between Curson and Masselin. Toshi’s Asian Food keeps calling the cops. 10-15 squad cars per day for the next week or two, task force to ticket trucks for anything and everything until they leave.
Here at Losanjealous, we tackle the hardest of hard-hitting issues. Serious earth shattering, globally conscious shit like, does Diet Dr. Pepper REALLY taste like regular Dr. Pepper? And whether or not ‘My Taco’ is “authentic” or “white people” Mexican food (see comments here – ed).
To truly put the matter to rest we first have to dissect what “authentic” and what “white people” encompasses. Naturally, I take authentic to mean a representation of something that is in close proximity to the original inception. Whereas what “white people” means is a matter worthy of some graduate school dissertation. That being said, I will naively conclude, for the purpose of this analysis that “white people” refers to the watering down, or commercialization of whathaveyou: in this case Mexican food. (Not that there is anything necessarily and automatically wrong with that as I will explore later.)
»continue reading Under $10: OUR Taco (My Taco; Highland Park)
About a month ago, I wrote up this useless post about a bowl of pho ga which has been around since May. I chose to not divulge this info for “Under $10″ due to the restaurant rescinding the offer in early July. Since then, I’ve been asked numerous times when this special will return.
As of last week, $3.50 got you a large bowl of pho ga (chicken) again. We all already think $6 bowls of beef pho all around LA, SGV & Little Saigon are tremendous values, but then, there also exists a gushing review of a vegan $6.50 banh mi sammy in Reseda. This particular bowl of lighter pho, relatively to that banh mi, is the king of Vietnamese cheap.
»continue reading $3.50 Bowl of Chicken Pho! Pho Ha, Rosemead
Worth $10?
Cheapskate foodies, garlic paste addicts, festival fans and carnivores alike: Saturday has come and gone. Did you make it out to the Summit this weekend for the inaugural Korean BBQ Festival & Cookoff? Did you suffer 90-minute lines for such booths as “Flip’s Beach BBQ” (one of the only vendors with a clear, discernable sign posted) or, as did my party, did you stumble upon one of the unmarked vendors in the corner catering primarily to staff, and purchase a (mostly passable) plate for $10 or $15? Did you wait patiently for Sprinkles to set up shop, just for the chance to wait in a line that appeared at surface to be less than than a 75-minute commitment? Did you get sunburned? Stuffed? Bored? Cooled by a paper-and-wood fan that inexplicably reminded of you “Yelp”? Did you partake of the Coors Light and Blue Moon suds? What were the highs and lows? The ins and outs? The Bar-B’s, and the Q’s? The Kims? The Chis? Please grade the festival. Lay it on us, won’t you now, please. My festival grade after the jump.
»continue reading 2009 Inaugural Los Angeles Korean BBQ Festival & Cookoff: What’d You Think?
 | Get our RSS feed |
