Newsletter: Counter: Spring and Pico

Between the California primary and some great basketball and hockey games, it’s been a good week to be home in front of the television. If you need more ideas for what to cook, you might try baking a batch of rye chocolate chip cookies or making a dozen kimchi deviled eggs. If you prefer to get your meals out, we have some suggestions for that too.

This week Jonathan Gold heads to Spring, the newish restaurant on (surprise!) Spring Street, where he finds some pretty great French cooking. He also heads back to Pico Boulevard, the street where his food writing career essentially began, and checks in on a Korean barbecue restaurant. We also head to Carson, for Filipino street food, and consider a number of restaurants that are making dishes with matcha, the Japanese green tea powder. And if your planning extends beyond the next few days of prix fixe lunches and barbecue dinners, you can already get tickets to this year’s edition of The Taste. Because time does fly when you’re restaurant-hopping, doesn’t it?

– Amy Scattergood

Spring has sprung

Legumes de Saison, roasted, braised, steamed and raw seasonal vegetables.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times )

This week, Jonathan considers Spring, the long-awaited French restaurant from chef Tony Esnault, the Ducasse-trained chef who also cooks at Church & State. It’s a gorgeous restaurant, built around a courtyard — and Esnault’s precise and beautiful cooking.

A return to Pico Boulevard

Many years ago, when he was just out of UCLA, Jonathan ate his way down Pico Boulevard. Now he’s going back, in a recurrent column, to check in on what’s cooking on Pico. He begins at Ham Ji Park, where there’s some pretty great hangover food.

Ode to matcha

If you love matcha, the green tea made from Japanese ground tea powder, you probably know where to find a good cup of the stuff. Food writer Esther Tseng goes further, finding restaurants that have put matcha dishes on their menus: matcha tiramisu, matcha budino, even matcha chicken liver mousse.

Filipino food in Carson

Food writer Eddie Lin heads to Carson, where he checks out Pinoy Food Republic, a restaurant that specializes in Filipino street food. There, chef Ruel Hernandez cooks the dish sisig, a flavorful pork dish that is made using pig’s head.

The Taste is coming

Guests walk on the Paramount Studios backlot during the Dinner With a Twist evening of the Los Angeles Times’ Taste event last year.

(Patrick T. Fallon / For the Los Angeles Times )

Busy over Labor Day weekend? Or maybe we should ask if you’ll be hungry and thirsty? The Taste, our annual celebration of the local culinary scene, will take place Sept. 2-4 at Paramount Pictures Studios. Tickets are on sale now.

Your “City of Gold” reminder: It’s playing. Maybe go see it. Maybe don’t go hungry, which brings us to…

Jonathan Gold’s 101

Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants, the authoritative annual guide to local dining, is online for subscribers.

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