Silver Lake, Animal-style

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Silver Lake, Animal-style

Drop it like it's hot.

Chef Eric Park cherishes chilies like Snoop digs weed. Moroccan harissa, Japanese togarashi and Mexican serranos pack the menu with piquant punch; Black H-O-Double G is the International House of Hotness.

Like its namesake--a black hogg is actually a year-old sheep--Black Hogg is celebrating its one-year anniversary. Even after liquor-license hiccups and a scathing L.A. Weekly review (which destroyed my trust in B-Rod), this carnivorous charmer is better than ever. 

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Tuck Into Tasty

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Tuck Into Tasty

Like Vienna's Wiener Schnitzel and Naples' pizza, Montreal boasts her own gastronomic stereotypes:  poutine, smoked meat, bagels, and, more recently, pig-centric cuisine (see Au Pied De Cochon).  While indeed they are delicious (and naughtily not nutritious), after dozens of family trips to the City Of Stars, I was eager to venture beyond the culinary cliché.  My newfound friend and native Montrealer, David, guided me on this edible expedition. Luckily, he led me to Tuck Shop.

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This Little Restaurant From A Market

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This Little Restaurant From A Market

"Our produce, meat and seafood comes from farms, ranches and fisheries guided by principles of sustainability"  

This credo lines the menu at Cortez, the new, pint-sized restaurant on the edge of Echo Park. Phrases of this sort, peppered with utopian, food lingo--seasonal, local, organic--have become standard practice all over town.  Yet, how does a diner know if they are true?

Considering that Cortez is run by the pair who own Cookbook, the neighborhood's green grocer, the the proof is in the product. Cookbook's shelves are stocked--by owners Marta Teegan and Robert Stelzner--with artisan cheese & charcuterie, fresh-picked produce, and grass-fed beef. Each visit makes me feel like a kid in a candy store, yet instead of sweets, I swoon for caperberries, purple cauliflower, and olive bread.  

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Good Gallic In A Petite Package

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Good Gallic In A Petite Package

buvette  noun (f)

1. a refreshment stall or counter

2. a snack bar at a theater, train station, beach, etc.

In French, and English for that matter, the diminutive "ette" connotes feminine (coquette) or little (cigarette), so it is implicit that buvettes are small.  Buvette, Jody Williams' Gallic gem, is indeed petite, but that's all it has in common with it's casual joints across the Atlantic.  Chef Williams' version--which she calls a gastrothèque-- is a pleasure chest of French delights, from fresh-baked croissants and housemade charcuterie, to classic coq-au-vin and cassoulet. 

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