Los Angeles

It was the day after Christmas, we’d had too much sugar and a fair share of post-modern stress so, it was probably a bad idea to try to go “sale” shopping. 

We couldn’t even get into the parking lot at Saks, it was 5 of 11 and the 70% discount ended at noon and neither of us had even had a cup of coffee.... (I sometimes think my daughters and I should wear signs around our necks that say “Please feed before attempting to interact with us.”) 

And then sort of Saks was off the table but we were already out and we poked our heads into a shop on Melrose Place which was too expensive and besides the point and Anna said she just wanted to go home.  Neither one of us had really had coffee.

“No, let’s take a walk,” I insisted.  “We’ll find someplace to eat.”

I really needed a night out. Life has been conspiring against us lately, but it could be worse. Tired of being homebound and cooking three meals a day, I was desperate for a a little culinary magic. When a friend called with an invite to the opening night of Little Beast, I jumped at the chance like a drowning person needing a life raft.

This new restaurant was one of her clients, so I figured it had to be good. She's a produce broker and has never steered me wrong. All I knew about the place was that the chef, Sean Lowenthal, was, until he opened this place, the sous chef at Chateau Marmont for a couple of years. It was good enough for me.

Their goal in converting the old Larkin space, a quaint, early 1900s Craftsman house, was to create a dining spot in Eagle Rock to rival the foodie joints found in the more tony neighborhoods to their west like Silverlake and Los Feliz. Their mantra: seasonal, modern, progressive. I don't really know what that means when it comes to food, but after sampling the menu, I know that whatever you call it, Little Beast has raised the bar on this section of Colorado.  

I recently joined Facebook and that is another story for another time, but its relevant to what I’m telling you because I’ve never made a friend this way until recently.

I was reading my favorite magazine, The Believer. I always turn to Sedaratives when I first get it and this month it was written by a girl named Julie Klausner.  It was very funny and caused me to look up her web site where I read some of her other material. Even funnier. I wrote on her “wall” telling her how much I liked her writing. One thing led to another and I was taking her out to lunch because she was here from New York on a book tour. Her book, I Don’t Care About Your Band, had some of the funniest things I’d ever read about relationships. 

When trying to figure out where to eat, she assumed that I might have that “California” thing and be all ‘food restriction-y”. I told her I was a native and that kind of crap was usually behavior adopted by people who move here. One thing we got out of the way right immediately was that neither of us was a vegan or vegetarian. We had some really arch things to say about people who are, but I’m not going to repeat them because you never know, right?

So, I thought, “Burgers!”

Unless you've been living under a rock you've likely heard of Kogi BBQ, LA's twitterific Korean-Mexican fusion truck. If not, allow me to introduce you. The Kogi BBQ fleet, now three trucks strong, travels all over LA, from Torrance to Glendale, on a day-to-day basis, informing the public of their locales via everyone's new fave social network, Twitter (@kogibbq).

On weekends Kogi occupies the kitchen at Venice's Alibi Room. This is where I first enjoyed the delicious fare, but as my BFF Brendan was recently in town and we decided to hit up one of their trucks, the way it's meant to be. We accidentally arrived early , which was a blessing in disguise as it took no time for quite a line to grow behind us.

We kept it real by ordering two beef short rib tacos, two spicy pork tacos and their Kogi special, a spicy pork, Jack cheese quesadilla topped with Kogi's new salsa verde.