Category Archives: Great Finds

Cupcake Challenge, Part 2 — LA-Style

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In one corner, cupcakes from Joan's on Third.

It would be hard to do justice to the cupcake culture that’s risen in Los Angeles. Everywhere you turn, it seems like there’s a cupcake bakery or one about to open. And it would be doubly hard to do an all-out cupcake-off after one is already bursting at the seams from a lunch of bone marrow, and burrata pizza.

But my hubby and I gave it our best shot, even after such a filling lunch. We picked up five cupcakes total from two bakeries (priced at $3 to $4), then took them back to our hotel room to do our own taste-test.

First up, cupcakes from Joan’s on Third, a cute-as-a-button, family-owned, cafe-bakery that also sells gourmet food to-go, including chi-chi pasta sauces, cheeses galore, charcuterie, and roast chickens. We had high hopes for these cupcakes. They were beautiful to look at. We chose a Snickers bar-topped chocolate cupcake; a peanut butter-marshmallow chocolate cupcake; and a “Cloud,” a chocolate cupcake topped with a huge spiral beehive of chocolate-dipped marshmallow that looked like Marge Simpson’s head.

In the other corner, cupcakes from Sweet Lady Jane.

We also picked up two cupcakes from an old favorite, Sweet Lady Jane, known for its fabulous cakes. The downside to Sweet Lady Jane is that it doesn’t always have cupcakes. You just have to hit it at the right time and hope for the best. We lucked out that day, getting our hands on a Red Velvet and a chocolate cupcake.

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The Best Darn Gelato

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Gelato worth every single calorie

When Pulitizer-Prize-winning food writer Jonathan Gold recommends a place, smart foodies listen.

After all, not only can the man write (he is the only food writer to ever win journalism’s highest honor), but he has impeccable taste.

So when my hubby and I were in Los Angeles recently, we picked up a copy of LA Weekly, which Gold writes for. It happened to be its “Best of LA” issue, jam-packed with the very best food finds in this sprawling metropolis.

My eye caught Gold’s recommendation for “best gelato.” Bulgarini Gelato in Altadena. Gold describes this small, quirky gelato shop owned by the one and only Leo Bulgarini as “His gelati are labeled only in Italian, and he is not above correcting an 8-year-old on her faulty pronunciation of pistacchio or stracciatella. His standards are so famously strict that he’s been known to pull his delicious sorbetti from the menus of restaurants and the freezer cases of retailers that in one way or another failed to come up to his standards. A big photograph on the wall of his Altadena shop shows him making an obscene Italian gesture to a giant Sicilian ice cream plant….”

Gulp.

OK, so maybe I was a little afraid as I stepped through the doors. I took a deep breath, fearing it would be like the Soup Nazi episode of “Seinfeld.” I’d order incorrectly and be tossed out, denied a taste of gelato nirvana for all time.

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A Heart-Attack Meal

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Clam pizza

You’re lucky I’m still alive.

After all, the amount of fat I consumed in one meal recently in Los Angeles is probably enough to send most folks into cardiac arrest. But I am a seasoned professional — used to putting my body on the line when it comes to chowing down on the finer, fattier tasting things in life.

And it doesn’t get much finer than Pizzeria Mozza at N. Highland Avenue and Melrose Avenue. Everytime I make it to Los Angeles, this is a stop I have to make, a stop I dream about all vacation-long.

A restaurant by Nancy Silverton (of La Brea Bakery fame), Mario Batali (who needs no introduction), and Joseph Bastianich  (Lidia’s son), this is a true temple of carbo-load hedonism. It makes what is arguably the best pizza around. It’s the only pizza in which I eat every bit of crust. When it’s this good, why let any go to waste? It’s at once chewy in some parts, crispy in others, and with a deep, bready flavor like a fine artisan loaf.

Since it opened, the restaurant has been a hard ticket. But it does take reservations now. And if you don’t mind eating at the odd hour of 3 p.m.-ish, you usually can walk in on a weekday or weekend to find a free table or a free seat at the bar.

Bone marrow in all its glory, baby.

That’s what my hubby and I did, snagging a table on a Friday afternoon. We started with an appetizer of sinful bone marrow ($12). Roasted in the oven, three dinosaur-like bones come to the table, encasing a wealth of unctuous, rich marrow to be spread on grilled bread. Add a sprinkling of salt, some parsley leaves, and a confit garlic clove for a taste of heaven.

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An Ovation For Newest Newman-O’s

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A marriage of peanut butter and chocolate

I tore into a bag of the new Newman-O’s Peanut Butter Creme Filled Chocolate Cookies, and curiously took a bite. As I contemplated whether I liked the new cookie sandwiches, my hand started reaching for another. And then another.

That answered that.

Basically, I had to close up the bag and move it to another room so that I wouldn’t end up inhaling the entire package. The deep cocoa-tasting, crisp chocolate cookies encase a creamy, subtly salty peanut butter filling. I especially like how the cookies are not that sweet.

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Korean Tea, Part 2: The Traditional

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Ellen Kim performs a traditional Korean tea ceremony.

Driving past the profusion of strip malls that make up El Camino Real in Santa Clara, it’s easy to miss so much.

But look closely along that stretch, and you’ll spot what was until recently the only Korean tea house in the Bay Area.

It’s easy to overlook Chasaengwon tea house on the second floor of a non-descript office/retail building at bustling 3330 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, near a See’s Candy store. But if you do, you’ll be thoroughly missing out.

Jinsook Hong opened her charming tea house/cafe here because the city already was home to a sizable Korean-American community. Hong operated a tea house in her native Korea, until immigrating here 21 years ago.

Kabocha soup

A quiet matriarchal figure, Hong is here seven days a week, 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., carefully preparing all the tea and all the food, such as hearty kabocha or abalone soup, and the most popular item – a huge bowl of green tea shave ice with green tea ice cream, mochi and fresh fruit that’s big enough for four people to share. She will even prepare a special menu if given advance notice.

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