Mumbai street food arrives in Artesia:

PHOTO by CHRISTINA HOUSE / L.A. TIMES

Pomegranate seeds spill from the sandwich after each bite, brilliant and glistening like freshly polished rubies. Peanuts tumble out too, speckled with flecks of cumin, cinnamon and ground chiles. They land with a percussive patter that completes the sensory experience that is the Indian snack dabeli, a White Castle-sized, potato-based slider that’s a staple on the streets of Mumbai. At Artesia’s Mumbai Ki Galliyon Se, dabeli is just one of Sailesh and Shruti Shah’s edible odes to their former home.

The husband and wife brought the pulse of Mumbai’s cosmopolitan streets with them to the United States a decade ago. Sailesh spent most of his years here as a software engineer, all the while accumulating the knowledge and resources required to launch a restaurant. A year and a half ago, he put programming in the past and opened Mumbai Ki Galliyon Se with Shruti.

Much about the Little India restaurant is familiar: Its tableware is disposable (plates are Styrofoam, cutlery is plastic) and its ambience depends on whichever choreographed bit of Bollywood happens to be dancing across the TV. But Mumbai Ki Galliyon Se (literally “from the streets of Mumbai”) is unique to the neighborhood. While Gujarati chaat shops offer an increasingly familiar cast of snacks, Mumbai Ki Galliyon Se is the only eatery to focus on the flavors of India’s largest city.

Read the rest of my story in the L.A. Times.

December 1 marked the release of Eat: Los Angeles 2010, the second edition of the increasingly indispensable guide to all things edible. This year’s new-and-improved book has over 200+ new listings and some 50 additional pages, including contributions by yours truly. Visit eat-la.com or your local independent bookseller to grab a copy in time for your last-minute holiday needs.

PHOTO by KEN HIVELY / L.A. TIMES

KFI’s notorious open-mawed radio commentators John and Ken spent 15 minutes on Monday attacking everything about the recently opened Gold Line extension, a light rail line that runs from Little Tokyo to East LA. In the process, the pair slammed the L.A.Times for sending four writers (including me) to round up the best restaurants at each of the extension’s stops. (That story, including my contributions at the Soto St. and Indiana St. stops can be found here.) Predictably, John and Ken sink to race-baiting depths, calling East LA a “disgusting illegal alien slum” and wondering why they’ve never seen goat at the “authentic Mexican restaurants” they supposedly frequent.

Listen for yourself below:

Roast Goat Express by eatfoodwithme

Comforting Vietnamese classics for the L.A. Times:

PHOTO by ALLEN J. SCHABEN / L.A. TIMES

There’s an unquestionable comfort in Hoang Yen’s chao. The Vietnamese congee is a homey, hearty meal of rice boiled down until it takes on a consistency somewhere between that of oatmeal and Cream of Wheat. Even for those whose childhood memories revolve around grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, the porridge possesses an innate familiarity.

All of Hoang Yen’s dishes share that fundamental comfort. Simple pleasures define the year-old restaurant, which replaced a Mexican eatery that was awkwardly grafted onto the backside of late-night standby Luc Dinh Ky. Hoang Yen’s succinct menu of Vietnamese family classics better occupies the narrow space.

The Westminster restaurant is decidedly modern: deep blue tiles climb one wall as if to draw a high-water mark; a flat-screen TV recedes elegantly into the back of the dining room. It’s a clean style cultivated by the Chau family, which runs Hoang Yen with a welcoming air. The result is an open and inclusive space where uniformed electricians lunch alongside young mothers, and businessmen pop in for takeout as they pass through Little Saigon.

Read the rest here.

Finding halal highlights of Burmese and Malaysian cooking in Inglewood for the L.A. Times:

PHOTO by ANNE CUSACK / L.A. TIMES

The Koranic art at Mutiara Food & Market is rattling against the wall, its filigreed details shaken by the groans of a jet passing overhead. When the plane travels out of sight, Mutiara fills with a consuming quiet. The Inglewood restaurant and market is a subdued place, but its unassuming setting belies its rich and varied Burmese and Malaysian cooking.

Mutiara concentrates mostly on the halal highlights of Islamic Burmese cuisine, a hearty cast of curries and kebabs more closely resembling those of India and Pakistan than Myanmar. They’re the dishes of owner Myo Aung’s personal history. His recipes re-create his Myanmar, paeans to the Islamic traditions of both his family and home. (Outside the kitchen, Aung performs a similar service as an imam, leading prayers and instructing the teachings of the Koran.)

Mutiara isn’t his first restaurant venture. Aung used to own Jasmine Market in Culver City but sold it about two years ago and opened Mutiara. Similarities to the former restaurant remain, but Mutiara has a deeper, more complex menu.

Read the rest here.

PHOTO by SABRINA L.

To free the blog from stagnation, an update on a favorite lunch spot: Top Baguette. It’s possibly common knowledge by now for Little Saigon regulars, but the beloved banh mi shop made a recent move to a colorful spot on the corner of Bolsa and Magnolia. Earlier this month, Top Baguette was still offering a buy-one-get-one free banh mi deal to celebrate its grand reopening. It’s not the same value as, say, the three-for-two deal at Saigon Bakery, but still one to take advantage of while the eats are even cheaper.

Top Baguette
9016 Bolsa Ave
Westminster, CA
714.379.7726

Long Beach sprouted out of an agrarian dream, a pastoral fantasy of bean fields and beaches that sustained entire generations before the onset of the city’s industrial complex. But as happens with the immutable laws of progress, those plots all eventually disappeared, family farms and cultural traditions wiped out by time. With that came not just a divorce from the land, but a fundamental shift in thinking that has left many of our friends and neighbors without access to or understanding of good, fresh food. Long Beach, however, is blessed now with a whole community of food philanthropists: gardeners, cooks, activists and organizations all using their green thumbs for good. They’re reconnecting with the soil, and with Long Beach itself—feeding us, teaching us and reminding us of the simple pleasures (and power) of food. It’s not a new vision, but an eternal one, a return to the time when local, seasonal produce dictated diets and compassion compelled those more fortunate to extend a helping hand.

Read the stories of Jimmy Ng, Adriana Martinez, Cindy Goss and Paul Buchanan in the District.

The makings of Long Beach’s own Mayan Riviera for the District:

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES

Fuego looks out onto the Long Beach of everyone’s oceanfront dream, a seaside theater where pelicans dive with hungry, graceful precision and pleasure-seekers boat by on the last winds of summer. It’s a scene so idyllic it’s nearly unbelievable, almost as if it were constructed and choreographed by a television crew trying again to approximate Miami. For Fuego, the newest tenant of the equally new Hotel Maya, it’s fitting, a perfect backdrop for the restaurant’s high-end exploration of coastal Mexican cooking.

But that sublime setting doesn’t diminish the difficulties of upscaling a cuisine so common in Southern California that even less-than-serious eaters possess a passable understanding of its regional distinctions. As a result, successful Mexican fine dining must undeniably out-cook our taquería favorites and also compete directly with modern masters like La Casita Mexicana in Bell and Moles La Tia in East LA. Chef Jesse Perez is, by and large, up to the task.

Part of the Joie de Vivre brand of boutique hotels, the Hotel Maya is the rehabilitated and redesigned result of what used to be the Coast Long Beach. Inspired in part by the luxury that lines the Mayan Riviera, the Maya’s modern style is on bold display at its great glass entrance, which looks like Mondrian gone magenta. Fuego shares similar rustic-contemporary touches, but its floor-to-ceiling sliding doors are the centerpiece. When they’re open, the restaurant is a seamless indoor-outdoor space, one continuous esplanade overlooking Long Beach.

Appetizers start tart with a pair of ceviches, martini glasses of citric shrimp or lobster to be scooped up with either plantain or yucca chips, respectively. Better, though, are the agave-cured salmon totopos. Fuego’s triangular totopos (baked bits of masa from Oaxaca) are, to the nacho-trained eye, virtually identical to tortilla chips. But smeared with a dollop of cilantro-serrano cream and topped with that slick, cured salmon, cucumber, tomato and microgreens, the totopos are excellent mouthfuls.

There are heartier starters, too. Try the trio of duck “al pastor” tacos, a play on the traditional pastor preparation of shawarma-style pork. Chef Perez instead loads his tender handmade tortillas with cubes of duck, roasted pineapple and a salsa of California chilies. He also wisely provides orange wedges for extra acidity. Although both the pineapple and duck are diced so small they tend to tumble out of the tortillas, these tacos are strong contenders for Long Beach’s top tier.

Fuego’s entrees extrapolate nicely on the restaurant’s coastal theme, but most could use a price cut—a number of the main plates approach the $30 plateau. Still, the Yucatán-style pork two ways—presented as both an achiote-glazed filet and a pibil-stuffed tamal—is a wholly successful dish. The filet maintains every ounce of moisture, and the tamal is terrific, an envelope of soft, steamed masa resting on a banana leaf.

The pepita-crusted wild salmon and plantain-crusted catch of the day are perhaps too similar in preparation, but the huge steaks of fish will satisfy time and again. The kitchen also offers a vegetarian overture with its white corn sopes. At half the price of some comparable meat-based plates, the sopes are a steal, crisp cups of masa capped with black beans, roasted summer squash, guacamole, queso fresco and a salad brightened by lime vinaigrette.

Fuego also stocks the city’s most comprehensive selection of tequila and the most imaginative cocktails. Although some creations are overwrought—a splash of Chambord is added to the El Diablo only, it seems, to color the drink a pale purple—Fuego’s best drinks are truly peerless. Pablo’s margarita, for example, couldn’t be more potent and pleasing, a faultless glass of nothing but reposado tequila, organic agave nectar and fresh lime juice.

The ever-fleeting concept of authenticity will of course come into question at a restaurant like Fuego, and admittedly some details are blurred here. The chicken in mole Poblano, for example, is erroneously described as being of Oaxacan origin. But mistakes like that are simply forgivable distractions.

Even if dinner here is out of your regular budgetary reach, there’s a menu for every meal of the day, most of which feature more affordable options. The restaurant will, one way or another, bring you back, as Fuego is much more than just a room with a view.

FUEGO AT THE HOTEL MAYA • 700 QUEENSWAY DR, LONG BEACH 90802 • 562.481.3910 • BREAKFAST MON-SAT, LUNCH MON-SAT, BRUNCH SUN AND DINNER DAILY • DINNER FOR TWO $50-100 • FULL BAR

Feijoada and more for the L.A. Times:

PHOTO by JAY L. CLENDENIN / L.A. TIMES

The menu at Rio Brazil Café seems a relic of restaurant protocol, a vestigial document that exists only to fulfill standard expectations. There has to be a menu, right?

But on it are dishes that are hardly reflective of the Palms restaurant’s best offerings. Rio Brazil Café is governed by the caprices of the kitchen, run by chef-owner Luciene Peck, who deftly cooks her way through Brazil’s regional recipes. These don’t always show up on the menu.

As a result, Rio Brazil Café can feel in flux. Even the restaurant’s name is up for revision, as a recent change is yet to be reflected on the sign, cards and website that are all still emblazoned with the old Brazilian Exotic Foods moniker.

The only constant is the cafe itself: half a dozen tables, lime-green walls and a flat-screen TV broadcasting high-definition diversions.

Read the rest here.

Serious sandwiches at Foggia Italian Market and Deli for the District

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES

Sandwiches are the product of industrial circumstance, traditionally inexpensive meals of two-handed utility meant to be consumed in no more than a few hearty bites. Rarely does an expensive, decadent sandwich ever seem truly worth its weight—the humblest creations please the most. But there’s nothing lowly or undistinguished about the sandwiches constructed at Foggia Italian Market and Deli in Lakewood: they’re bold, brash stomach-stuffers descended from a proud East Coast tradition.

There’s enough memorabilia here (Red Sox gear, Patriots helmets) to clue you into the shop’s New England heritage. And if you pay close enough attention (or simply ask), you’ll learn the exact point of origin: Providence, Rhode Island, by way of Foggia, Italy. But for as much as owner Bob Quarto harkens back to both locales (the hefty meals here sometimes seem a world away from the delicate Italian dishes that have become indigenous to California), the shop is nothing short of a local legend.

Although Angelo’s Italian Deli has cornered a sizable portion of Long Beach’s sandwich sector (and with good reason), Foggia’s offerings are a different breed, born from those notoriously big-waisted East Coast appetites. They’re scalable, too, available in four-, six-, eight- and twelve-inch varieties. But be warned: anything beyond a medium six-inch sandwich is too dangerous to be consumed alone.

Typical deli favorites like roast beef, turkey, tuna salad and others are available, but stick with the Italian cold cuts. King among those sandwiches is the spicy Italian, which deploys pepperoni, salami, capicola, mortadella, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, mustard, mayonnaise, pickles, pepperoncinis and provolone. The sandwich doesn’t pack quite as much heat as you’d think—it’s a balanced attack tempered in part by the spongy roll and the cooling qualities of the lettuce and tomatoes—yet it’s a supreme sandwich that’s an admirable meal at any hour.

Foggia’s gargantuan hot sandwiches deliver on the deli’s East Coast promise. The pastrami, served in the forceful New York style, is unparalleled: ruby ribbons of grilled pastrami are stuffed into a football-sized roll and flavored with mustard, pickles and a layer of melted provolone that seals the sandwich like some kind of shrink-wrapped package. This is as good a pastrami sandwich as you’ll find locally, punishingly large and equally satisfying. (Unsurprisingly, Foggia also offers another East Coast classic: the Philly cheesesteak.)

All of the shop’s meats and cheeses are available to be purchased for your own at-home sandwich operation, but there are also other items to be had, like fresh salads and pastas. There are a couple shelves of pantry-worthy items (pastas, canned goods, oils and the like), but all of that’s to be expected.

What might surprise you, however, is that Foggia is the best local resource for rare and obscure sodas, bottles like NuGrape, Bubble Up and Empire Bottling Works’ Olde Rhode Island molasses root beer. These are sodas that you’re unlikely to find anywhere between here and the famed shelves of Galco’s in Highland Park.

There are a couple of tables to enjoy a sandwich and soda at Foggia, and that’s but another benefit of the deli, which frankly has the goods to draw dedicated customers from freeways far and wide. And it does: Foggia serves that interzone between Long Beach and Lakewood, a borderland in need of more worthy restaurants. Still, Foggia has a perfectly convenient location. After you stuff your stomach with a sandwich, head next door to Snug Harbor, a cave of a bar that’s the perfect chaser.

FOGGIA ITALIAN MARKET AND DELI 5522 DEL AMO BLVD | LAKEWOOD 90713 | 562.627.0987 | OPEN DAILY 11AM-8PM | FOOD FOR TWO $10-20 | BEER, WINE