Bookmarks from October 24th through October 31st 2010
“I’ve been waiting to submit this update on the current state of tortas, but I was missing a 4th addition to the collection. Oh well, I’m gonna wing it. It’s not like it really matters, right? Just some arbitrary number I gave myself, which I can also ungive (?) at a moments notice. ‘Ta bien? [...]
To Live and Eat in Highland Park
NELA yorkblvd points out that 5 NELA resturaunts made jonathan gold‘s/LA weekly’s 99 Things to Eat in LA Before You Die list. not to be a hater, but the list gets smaller if you remove that highland park adjacent tourist trap for the westsiders and the our own hipster vietnamese restaurant with incredibly poor service and a $9 veggie pho (i’m not bitter). so i will leave you with three selections that both mr gold and i can agree.
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Huarache de Cabeza
A huarache, the definitive unit of Mexico City street food, is a flattish, concave trough of masa shaped like a size-12 sandal, pan-fried or deep-fried, then smeared with beans, sprinkled with meat and layered with lettuce, grated cheese and cream. Part of the fun is eating the thing — a huarache is too brawny to attack with a flimsy plastic fork, and you will either burn your fingers or wait for your lunch to cool into corn-flavored cement. Emily Post provides no guidelines for eating a huarache. You can have a huarache topped with almost anything, from the black corn fungus called huitlacoche to standard-issue steak, but I like it best with cabeza — rich, gelatinous meat pulled from a cow’s head and cooked down into an ultraconcentrated essence of beef. El Huarache Azteca #1, 5225 York Blvd., Highland Park. (323) 478-9572.
El Atacor #11’s Potato Tacos
You will encounter many schools of thought when it comes to these tacos, some of which call for coarsely mashed spuds, others for herbs, and still others for a wallop of chorizo. But all pale before El Atacor #11’s tacos de papa: thin corn tortillas folded around gooey spoonfuls of puree and fried to an indelicate, shattering crunch. The barely seasoned potatoes ooze out of the tacos with the deliberate grace of molten lava. The glorious stink of hot grease and toasted corn subsumes any subtle, earthy hint of potato, and guacamole-drenched tacos de papasevaporate so quickly from the table that you understand why they come 10 to an order. El Atacor #11, 2622 N. Figueroa St., L.A. (323) 441-8477.
Eibis Restaurant’s Arabes: (via york blvd)
I wrote a pretty sophomoric post a few months ago about hunting down an Arabes truck in East LA, comparing it to Ahab’s White Whale from Moby Dick. The irony of course is that I drive within two blocks of Eibis Restaurant , which specializes in Poblano food, every day. As a prerequisite for writing a food post I have to sprinkle a little knowledge on the dish at hand: Allegedly, Arabes trace their origins to Lebanese immigrants to central Mexico who brought spices from their homelands and applied them to pork, instead of the beef and lamb that was more common in Lebanon. (For two other examples of successful Lebanese-Mexican fusion, see Salma Hayek, and Carlos Slim.) At Eibis, the pork is roasted on a veritcal spit on the street (so as to maximize the exposure to exhaust emissions), filled with some salsa, and rolled into pan arabe, essentially a slightly thick flour tortilla, that has been warmed in corn oil. One word of warning: I don’t think anyone at this restaurant speaks English beyond “hello”. If you don’t speak Spanish, bring a friend, or prepare a script in advance.
Eibis Restaurant 231 North Avenue 50 (323) 999-0109
i don't like time-warner either, but…
i don’t like time-warner either, but some of the people in my neighborhood are dumb-asses
A 28-year-old cable technician for Time Warner was disconnecting a cable from a residential user for payment issues, when he was confronted by Jesus Velasco, 28, who lived at that residence. While the cable technician (eventual victim) was away from his locked van, Velasco went to the vehicle and attempted to get in. The victim told Velasco to get away from his van, at which time Velasco charged him with fists clenched. The victim, who carries pepper spray to protect himself from dogs, displayed the canister and threatened to spray Velasco if he came closer.
via theeastsiderla
