Two years ago, I made a decision that forever changed my
dining experience. I stopped being friends with anyone who doesn’t like
to
eat. Living in Los Angeles, the city of beautiful people, this wasn’t
an easy feat. But frankly, I was tired of sharing meals with the likes
of someone who either pushed their food around their plate as if eating
were a punishment, called themselves fat during the
entire meal in their size zero glory, or deliriously eyed my order
because the
last time they ordered anything that truly tasted good was a distant
memory. Turns out it was a damn great decision because without this new
rule in my life, I wouldn’t have my fellow foodie girlfriends Tannaz
and Rachel in my life which means I would have never been introduced to
my summer food crush and what I seriously consider the best new
addition to my Fairfax district neighborhood – The Golden State Café.
Located on Fairfax Blvd, smack dab across from Canter’s Deli, is the laidback and downright delicious Golden State which serves the kind of food that even if you were on the date from hell, you’d be able to withstand it because the food here is just that good. Seriously. So courtesy of the advice Tannaz and Rachel gave me, here is what you should be indulging in the next time you want to eat a meal that reminds you why eating is an activity that is meant to be enjoyed.
Breakfast this weekend was punctuated with a pronouncement from The Mom. “The best fish I ever ate”, this from a women who has been eating cured, smoked, salted, baked salmon for 94 years. I may be a native Los Angelena, but you can’t deny eastern European roots when it comes to a love of cured fish.
Los Angeles is a very large and fractured city. Most people, myself included, tend to play where they live because commuting is such an
unknown quantity. Sure you get used to leaving yourself plenty of time
to get where you're going, if you have to be on time or actually respect
the people you're meeting. SigAlert.com is practically your best
friend. So, even though I love a good wine bar, the opening of Sonoma
Wine Garden late last summer escaped my attention. I can hardly be
blamed for not knowing. It's in Santa Monica and I live in the San
Fernando Valley two diametrically opposed areas. When I got an
invitation via Twitter to attend a tasting put on by Vibrant Rioja (more
about them later) at the aforementioned SWG, I was excited and
intrigued. A new wine bar, how cool. Then I became slightly concerned. A
new wine bar in the Santa Monica Place Mall? 
Food in New York. I used to know it so well. When I lived there
during the ’80s and ’90s, and worked in the food business I knew every
place there was to know, and I went to most all of them. It’s been a
very long spell since I lived there, and too long since I’ve been able
to really visit. A big void has been left in my New York
City food knowledge. So when I first heard about Magnolia Bakery and
how everyone was raving about it, I had no frame of reference. It was
just food-iverse white noise. (I apparently missed its appearance in
both ‘Sex and the City’ and in an SNL sketch.) I quickly got up to
speed when they announced they were opening a shop in Los Angeles on
one of the busiest streets in L.A.: West 3rd Street. With everything
that had been written I understood that this was a very popular place.
I wanted to go check it out. Some of the stories (in the L.A. Times
and on the Internet) were about how owner, Steve Abrams, was met with
complaints from the neighborhood and other businesses about how his
business would impact parking. The area was already saturated.
Parking places were impossible to find. I knew this to be very true.
So instead of driving, and battling parking: let’s take the bus!
It seems everywhere we look nowadays, our eyes light upon a charming French style eaterie, usually simple as that is the underpinning of any bistro of repute. I, for one, am glad of this trend especially as so many French chefs are willing to stay true to their roots and serve delightful cuisine. Quite the opposite to the fancy hoo-ha of other chefs around town who keep trying to impress by mixing two, three and sometimes more cuisines for what I call confusion food – and just end up with dishes of unparalleled mediocrity in taste, although presentation might be eye catching.
