2017 Best Restaurant Dishes in Southern California
As the end of 2017 draws to a close, one of my favorite novel quotes comes to mind. It’s from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The legendary character says to his friend Nick Caraway, “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea of me from all these stories you hear.” Of course, […]
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i8tonite with LA Cheese Tea Entrepreneur Jenny Zheng & Recipe for Cheese Tea
Get ready, readers! Cheese Tea is a new and interesting drink…boba with a twist! Have you tried it yet? What do you think? Jenny Zheng, 25, is the Founder of Little Fluffy Head Cafe, one of the first cheese tea boba shops in Los Angeles of its kind. She graduated from the University of California […]
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i8tonite with Vicente del Rio of Frida’s: A LA Mexican Institution & Roasted Pork with Mole Recipe
When Frida’s first opened in 2002 along the forgotten strip of Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills, there was a lack of well-crafted Mexican food in Beverly Hills. The world-renowned town at the time celebrated tomahawk steaks with martinis rather than reposado tequilas and molés. Upon opening, the small but mighty restaurant fostered a growing interest […]
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i8tonite with A Taste of Paris Author David Downie & 1691 Crème Brûlée Recipe
One of the things I love most is to combine history and food. And no one does it better than David Downie, in his new book, A Taste of Paris: A History of the Parisian Love Affair with Food. In A Taste of Paris, Downie traverses time and space (cultural space, that is) to bring […]
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i8tonite with Chef and Simply Fish Author Matthew Dolan & Recipe for Smoked Salmon Frittata
Matthew Dolan is an established chef and restaurant owner who trained at The Culinary Institute of America in New York. His restaurant, Twenty Five Lusk, was named Esquire magazine’s Best New Restaurant and Open Table Diners Choice Top Hot Spot Restaurants in the United States since its opening in 2010. Dolan notes, “I am an […]
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Weigh-to-Go: So Cal’s Best Hot Food Bars
While attending my New York City fashion school during the eighties, my academic cohorts and I would venture out for lunch. It wasn’t often, as most of our money was taken up in the purchase of school supplies. We’d take the elevator from our seventh-floor institution to Park Avenue South below, just south of 23rd […]
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i8tonite: 24 Hours of Eating in Irvine, California
Irvine, a bedroom community in Orange County, is often spoken about as a homestead of possible Utopian living with green trees, cookie cutter homes, and maybe an ethnic market selling something as exotic as dark chocolate or unroasted nuts. In truth, it’s a thriving urban area with an incredibly diverse population – and food to […]
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i8tonite with LA’s 21st Century Burger King, Adam Fleischman & Recipe for Shredded Beef Tacos with Chipotle Sauce
According to food history, the earliest known burger recipe is mentioned in a Wikipedia citation alluding to a 1798 recipe from The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy written by Nigella Lawson’s forerunner, well-known English cookery writer Hannah Glasse. In it, she refers to a “Hamburgh sausage” which is roasted and served on top […]
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i8tonite: L.A. Woman Caroline Styne: The Other Half of Lucques Group
Thanks to the entertainment industry, the City of Los Angeles creates opportunities arguably better than most cities in the United States. Case in point is the The Lucques Group, headed by chef Suzanne Goin and her business partner Caroline Styne, who has been the sommelier and wine director for the company since its inception. A […]
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i8tonite: From Zookeeper to Culinary Guardian: The Dream Jobs of Chef JT Walker
Chef JT Walker remembers meeting his wife at the Santa Ana Zoo, where they both were employed as zookeepers. “We started on the exact same day,” he recalled. “There are very few zookeeper jobs in the United States, so to move up in the field, one of us would have to leave our (hometown). We […]
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