Newsletter: Porridge, puffs and Pavlovas
Welcome to the last Saturday in August and the unofficial last weekend of the summer. Next weekend is the Labor Day holiday, and thus our annual food festival, The Taste, held at the Paramount Studios backlot in Hollywood — and yes, you can still get tickets. This year’s programming will be evening-only, which will make it a bit cooler than it was last year. Hooray.
But before that happens, a reminder that tomorrow we have a more poignant event: an evening gathering at the Grand Park Performance Lawn (the section of the park next to the Music Center) in downtown to honor the late Jonathan Gold, with food trucks, remembrances from family and friends and footage from the documentary “City of Gold.” We hope to see you there, over a taco or more.
Speaking of poignant things, this week came news that chefs Roy Choi and Daniel Patterson have closed the last two outlets of their restaurant Locol, in Watts and San Jose. Gold had named the Locol in Watts his Restaurant of the Year at the inaugural Food Bowl last year. The project is now a catering-only company. Two other local favorites are also shuttering: Spring, chef Tony Esnault’s French restaurant downtown; and chef Diep Tran’s Highland Park diner Good Girl Dinette.
We had happier news as well: Porridge + Puffs, a longtime pop-up, is opening as a bricks-and-mortar in Historic Filipinotown. Also opening is a permanent location of Monty’s Good Burger, which makes vegan burgers that give In-N-Out a run for their money. On the cooking front, we have a story about how to make Pavlovas, what to do with the glorious melons now in season and news of an upcoming debut cookbook by Martha Stewart’s longtime colleague, Snoop Dogg. Yes, the rapper has written a cookbook, and no, it has nothing to do with cannabis. Enjoy your weekend.
THE RETURN OF PORRIDGE + PUFFS
As Andrea Chang reports, local favorite pop-up Porridge + Puffs has resurfaced in the form of a bricks-and-mortar location in Historic Filipinotown. Chef Minh Phan’s new restaurant opens Aug. 30 with a menu devoted to, you guessed it, bowls of porridge and plates of what Phan calls puffs, ethereal rice-flour-based pastries that are good both dipped into the grain bowls or on their own. Phan’s project began life four years ago as a pop-up within the chef’s restaurant Field Trip, and when that restaurant closed, the concept kept, well, popping up. Finally, the restaurant has a permanent home.
IN PRAISE OF PAVLOVAS
Pastry chef Candace Nelson is famous more for her cupcakes — she’s the founder of the Sprinkles Cupcakes chain, as well as Pizzana pizzeria — than her Pavlovas, but she’s pretty obsessed with the meringue dessert too. Food writer Heather Platt talks to Nelson about her childhood in Indonesia, where she started making American desserts to feed her nostalgia as well as her sweet tooth. The dessert, believed to be named for the ballerina Anna Pavlova, became popular in Australia and New Zealand, so Nelson started making her version, as well as brownies, chocolate cake — and, yes, cupcakes. Did we get her recipe? We did indeed.
VEGAN BURGER ALERT
A hamburger that tastes like an In-N-Out burger — but that’s vegan? That’s what was among the talking (and eating) points at Coachella earlier this year, and now the plant-based burger is making a more permanent appearance, on the menu at a new bricks-and-mortar restaurant in Koreatown. Monty’s Good Burger is also opening at the Riverside Food Lab, with not only vegan burgers but also dairy-free shakes and, of course, kale salads. As Food Editor Jenn Harris reports in her weekly Restaurant News column, there’s also a new ramen shop in Chinatown that specializes in tsukemen ; a new counter-service restaurant in Santa Monica from chef Vicki Fan Matsusaka; and a new restaurant in Echo Park that’s serving breakfast all day.
MELON SEASON
In her latest Market Report column, Test Kitchen Director Noelle Carter considers the season’s crop of melons, now loading farmers market stands. The fruit is terrific at the peak of the summer, with honeydew, cantaloupe and watermelon, as well as lesser known heirloom varieties, such as the French Charentais melon. As for what to do with all of them, other than just eating them as is, maybe try gazpachos, aguas frescas and cocktails, or try putting slices of them on the grill.
SNOOP DOGG’S LOBSTER THERMIDOR
If you’re a fan of the Emmy-nominated VH1 show “Martha and Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party,” you likely won’t be too surprised to learn that the rapper is coming out with his own cookbook. Titled “From Crook to Cook,” Snoop Dogg’s debut cookbook, which comes out in October from Chronicle Books, is a collection of 50 of his personal favorite recipes, with classic dishes such as chicken and waffles, baked mac and cheese — and lobster thermidor. Yes, lobster thermidor.
The Taste(s): Our annual Labor Day festival, the Taste, is held over the course of that holiday weekend at Paramount. And this year, we’re having not one Taste but two, with the second happening October in Costa Mesa. For more info and early tickets, go to extras.latimes.com/taste.
Check us out on Instagram at @latimesfood.
And don’t forget the thousands of recipes in our California Cookbook recipe database.
Feedback? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at food@latimes.com.
Sign up for The Wild
We’ll help you find the best places to hike, bike and run, as well as the perfect silent spots for meditation and yoga.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
