Newsletter: Counter Intelligence: Grab your breakfast in Pas and beautiful noodles in K-town

Dear readers:

This week we take you to Pasadena, where you can eat grain bowls and olive oil cake on a patio by the looming San Gabriels. You'll also be reading about where to eat out for Easter (although some of us will be making brisket at home), a great handmade noodle shop in Koreatown and just a few places to get chicken wings around town. And be on the lookout for Wednesday's In the Kitchen newsletter, with cooking tips and news, including new recipes from the L.A. Times Test Kitchen.

—Jonathan Gold

More reasons to go to Pasadena

This week, Jonathan Gold heads to the northern edge of Pasadena, where Christine Moore (Little Flower Candy Co.) has opened Lincoln. Moore and company turned a 1920s-era abandoned brick building on Lincoln Avenue into a spacious, lofty restaurant with an outdoor patio and, yes, a candy shop. You can sit outside and happily eat all the breakfast bowls, pastries and even sea salt caramels that you can bear.

Let L.A.'s chefs cook your Easter brunch for you

If your idea of fun is dining out on potato and smoked salmon terrine, roasted duck and English pea soup with confit bacon, or melted ramps and Meyer lemon instead of making breakfast at home for your jelly bean-hunting kids, Jenn Harris has a list of where to go for Easter brunch. 

More French cheese and butter for us all

It seems like one of the great things about working in The Times' Food section is its proximity to Grand Central Market and particularly DTLA Cheese, where recently both Jonathan Gold and Russ Parsons fell into a kind of French dairy reverie. French cheese maker extraordinaire Rodolphe Le Meunier was recently in town, talking about the joys of cultivating flavor-promoting bacterial monocultures in sterilized cream. Right. Check out Jonathan's latest Object of Desire and Russ' consideration of the great man's project. 

Mark Peel works the line again

For eveyone who's missed Peel's cooking since he closed the much-loved Campanile, here's great news. Amy Scattergood reports on Peel's latest project, Bombo, a seafood counter where your meal is cooked in one of six shiny kettle pots. It just opened in downtown's Grand Central Market.

Handmade noodles and dumplings in K-town

Hangari Bajirak Kalgooksoo is a nondescript noodle shop in yet another of the repeating strip malls around town that are home to excellent restaurants. You may already frequent this part of K-town, as Le Comptoir is across the street, Boiling Crab is a few hundred yards away and Pot is a short walk (convenient for chef Roy Choi, who frequents Hangari). The house specialty is kalgooksoo, knife-cut noodles, but everything Hangari does, it does well.

Notes from the food and drink underworld

A Burger King perfume? Yes, apparently so. Not everybody loves Chanel No. 19 as much as some of us. 

Love great sourdough bread? K&V Bake is popping up around town with batards of sourdough and ancient grains — even sourdough croissants. Exactly.

Lastly and, for some, most important, Jenn Harris (who once ate at 21 restaurants in one day) finds seven places to get great chicken wings. Because the Super Bowl is only 10 months away and your favorite beer is probably a lot closer. 

P.S. be on the lookout for Wednesday's In the Kitchen newsletter, with cooking tips and news, including new recipes from the L.A. Times Test Kitchen.

Feedback?

We’d love hear from you. Email us at food@latimes.com