Monthly Archives: November 2013

November 22, 2013 · 3:29 pm

Thanksgiving Por Favor

I’m sure it’s a surprise to no one that food-centric Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. While I love all the traditional foods like roast turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, I also like to shake it up a bit and eat things that are twists on holiday classics. I’ve written before about places to buy candied yam ice cream and turkey gravy cupcakes, and this year I recommend spicing up your Turkey Day dinner with special Thanksgiving-inspired Mexican side dishes from Loteria Grill.

Loteria Grill is one of my favorite Mexican restaurants in the city. What started as just a stall in the Original Farmers Market on Fairfax, has grown into a chain of five restaurants that serve some of the tastiest gourmet Mexican grub this side of the border. I’m prettty much addicted to their spicy salsa, and their Chicharron de Queso (crispy griddled cheese which looks like a large party hat) is incredible!

This year, Loteria’s owner and executive chef Jimmy Shaw has put together a menu of special Thanksgiving side dishes and desserts for take-out to serve at your holiday dinner. These are not your grandmother’s Thanksgiving dishes (unless perhaps you call your grandmother “abuela”), but they do include many of the same ingredients you find in the holiday classics. My favorites are the Mashed Roasted Sweet Potatos al Chipotle served in hollowed out orange rinds, the Jalapeno Corn Bread and the Almond and Apple Tart with Goat’s Milk Cajeta. Happy Thanksgiving, amigos!

Loteria Grill is located in Hollywood, Santa Monica, Studio City, Westlake Village and the Original Farmers Market on Fairfax.

Mashed Roasted Sweet Potatoes al Chipotle

Jalapeno Cornbread

Chiles Rellenos de Requeson, Manzana y Nuez

Calabacitas Rellenas

Esquites (Toasted Corn Off the Cob)

Pastel del Elote con Rajas de Chile Poblano a la Crema

Rajas con Crema, Elote y Queso

Roasted Fingerling Potatoes with Chile Poblano

Almond and Apple Tart with Goat’s Milk Cajeta

Pumpkin Mini Cake with Piloncillo Sauce and Ice Cream

Delmy You Love Me

Of the eighty or so weekly farmers markets in Los Angeles County, the biggest and best is the one that pops up every Sunday in Hollywood. Branching out in all directions from the intersection of Vine and Ivar, the Hollywood Farmers Market is the perfect place to spend an hour shopping for organic persimmons and sampling artisan goat cheese while listening to a heavily tatted hipster discuss fair trade co-ops with a dreadlocked neo-hippie. Musicians are scattered throughout, including a bluegrass band, a reggae drummer, a guy that makes music with rubber bands, and my favorite local hot jazz combo, The California Feetwarmers.

The prepared food section has a lot of great choices, but Delmy Pupusas is my favorite. Pupusas are a popular street food in El Salvador. They’re thick round corn cakes that are stuffed with a variety of fillings such as cheese, vegetables, beans, shrimp, chicken and chorizo, and cooked on a griddle until golden brown. Delmy serves these hot stuffed Salvadoran treats with homemade salasa, a spicy and vinegary cabbage relish called curtido, guacamole and some fresh crema. A couple pupusas make a nice hearty lunch and are best washed down with Delmy’s homemade horchata or agua fresca, which comes in several flavors including watermelon, strawberry, mango and raspberry. For dessert, I recommend an order of Delmy’s fried plantains served with a side of black beans and fresh crema. Muy delicioso!

Delmy Pupusas can be found at the Hollywood Farmers Market every Sunday morning and early afternoon and at several other farmers markets including Torrance, Downtown in Pershing Square, Atwater Village, Echo Park and Silverlake.

Fried Plantains with Black Beans and Crema

Aguas Frescas

Every Sunday morning in the Hollywood Farmers Market

Delmy

Enjoy your pupusas with some live music.

My favorite farmers market

1 Comment

Filed under Atwater Village, Downtown, Echo Park, Hollywood, Silver Lake, Torrance

Tagged as best farmers markets los angeles, best pupusas los angeles, delmy pupusa, delmy pupusaria, delmy pupusas, delmy's pupusaria, delmy's pupusas, farmers market pupusas, hollywood farmers market, los angeles farmers markets, pupusas farmers market

November 1, 2013 · 11:00 am

Batter Up

No country is more obsessed with food than Japan. The chefs there are all specialists and dedicate their lives to perfecting and serving one type of dish, such as sushi, yakitori, ramen and even tempura. Tempura chefs in Japan use special proprietary batters, the highest quality fish, vegetables and oil, and have mastered the frying process. The result is tempura that is delicate, lightly coated, super fresh and full of flavor. Hannosuke, a Japanese import in Mar Vista, is the only place in LA that I’m aware of where you can get this kind of amazing tempura.

Located in the food court of the Mitsuwa Marketplace, Hannosuke is a few stalls away from Santouka Ramen, my favorite ramen joint in all of LA. The specialty of Hannosuke is Tendon, a tempura rice bowl. There are several varieties of Tendon at Hannosuke: shrimp, white fish, vegetable, chicken and the specialty of the house, fresh salt water eel imported from Japan. Whichever one you choose, you will get a glorious pile of golden brown, crispy, salty and unctuous tempura with a slightly sweet sauce piled high on a bed of rice. Your bowl of fried excellence includes a piece of tempura seaweed and a tempura soft boiled egg, ready for you to break open with your chopsticks and mix the warm runny yolk into the rice. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Hannosuke is located at 3760 S Centinela Ave, Los Angeles (in the Mitsuwa Marketplace).