Newsletter: What’s in Jonathan Gold’s bowl
Welcome to the last weekend in May, the final few days of our month-long food festival, the Memorial Day holiday — and the unofficial start of summer. If you’re traveling, well, at least you have something else to read that will make you hungry. If you’re in L.A. and have some extra time, we have a few suggestions for you.
For starters, there are a few more days of Food Bowl and thus a few more things to do and eat around town, including a fried chicken pop-up, a farmer-and-chef mini-festival, a pastrami panel, a Sichuan dinner and more. You can check out Jonathan Gold’s catalog of what he’s been eating for incentive, if you needed it. Or you could go on a chile verde crawl before it gets too hot outside.
If you’re staying home and cooking, we have this week’s farmers market report (cucumbers!), plus a list of 29 great burger recipes (it is a long weekend, after all), a dozen brownie recipes and, if you’re feeling a little more ambitious, a whole catalog of dumpling recipes. Need a few bottles of wine to pair with all that? We’ve got that too. Have a terrific weekend.
BOWLED OVER
This week, Jonathan considers not one restaurant so much as many of them, specifically many of the favorite dishes he’s had over the last few weeks of Food Bowl. He has, he writes, eaten really well. What’s on the list? A suckling pig dish from British chef Fergus Henderson; lamb a la ficelle from Spotted Pig chef April Bloomfield; a dish of “veal” that resembles a Damien Hirst painting more than dinner; and not a few others.
IN PRAISE OF CHILE VERDE
Food writer Barbara Hansen scouts out five chile verde specialists, spanning many styles and neighborhoods, including South Bay, Pico Rivera and East L.A. It may be homey, but the addictive pork and green chile stew has plenty of worshipers in the American Southwest, northern Mexico — and here in L.A.
SYRAHS OF THE WEEK
If you haven’t tried a glass, or a bottle, of Syrah lately, you might want to consider the three wine writer Patrick Comiskey highlights this week. These are California wines, all from cool-climate vineyards, Syrahs where he finds that “the fruit isn’t too ripe at harvest, that the flavors will be generous but thrilling and that the textures will have some snap and tension, and be as uplifting as any red wine in California.”
QUESTIONS FOR A FRENCH CHEF
Jean-Georges Vongerichten is among the best-known of French chefs, with Michelin stars, over 30 restaurants (including that famous one in New York’s Trump Hotel) and a stack of cookbooks. He’s also about to open his first restaurant in L.A. Deputy Food Editor Jenn Harris catches up to him in the unfinished dining room at his new Beverly Hills restaurant, where the chef talks about his new place, his frequent-flier miles — and his love of In-N-Out.
TALKING TO JACQUES PÉPIN
Long before the Food Network and Netflix chef series, there was Jacques Pépin, the legendary French chef who pioneered food TV with Julia Child. Food writer Hillary Eaton talks to Pépin, now 81, on the occasion of PBS’ newest culinary edition of the “America Masters,” which aired a show about the chef Friday. Pépin discusses his life in France and opportunities for immigrants in the American kitchen today.
MORE FILIPINO FOOD
In her weekly Restaurant News column, Jenn gets details on a new Grand Central Market stall, where République chef Walter Manzke and his wife and République’s pastry chef Margarita plan to open a Filipino food stall called Sari Sari Store. Actor Danny Trejo has also opened Trejo’s Coffee and Donuts in Hollywood, adding doughnuts to his growing taco empire.
The Los Angeles Times Food Bowl: Want to spend the rest of the month exploring the food of this city through a Night Market, forums, dinners, films, pop-ups and more dining and drinking? Our month-long food festival runs through May 31. What’s up next? The Farmer and the Chef Festival, a festival-within-a-festival on Sunday at Manuela restaurant in DTLA, with 10 chefs and 10 farmers, plus bartenders, whole pigs and live music. And on May 30 at noon, a Pastrami Panel, with Jonathan Gold, Norm Langer and Matt Giamela, at Langer’s (where else?).
Goldbot: You can now talk to Jonathan Gold any time you want — or at least the robot version of him that now lives on Facebook Messenger. You can ask Goldbot for a personal restaurant recommendation based on location, type of food or price. The bot will also deliver Jonathan Gold’s latest reviews straight to your device.
The Daily Meal, the food and drink website under the editorial direction of Colman Andrews, is now one of our partners. Check out their 101 best pizzas in America and other stories, recipes and videos.
Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants, the authoritative annual guide to local dining, is online for subscribers and now features his 2016 Best Restaurants. If you didn’t get a copy of the booklet, you can order one online here.
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