good things i ate on purpose
Get to Know the Real L.A. in 5 Insanely Gluttonous Days
Thrillist
Right before COVID, I was asked to write the LA entry for Thrillist’s big 2020 travel package. Read this one in the voice of somebody who is unaware an international pandemic is about to drop on them.
“It may come as a bit of a shock that Los Angeles, a place often imagined for beach bodies and plastic surgery, would be the ultimate destination for a vacation based around eating, but life is full of surprises. You’ll hear stories about how LA has “finally” figured out our culinary scene in the last few years (thanks for the pity visit, Michelin!), but the fact is that the city has always had a killer food scene. This is a city where ex-Nobu busboys open their own Mexican sushi restaurants, a city that essentially jump-started the food truck revolution (thanks Roy Choi!). It's where you can turn a quiet corner and walk directly into the heart of a Guatemalan street food market, or find world's-best-sushi-contenders hidden in dusty strip malls.”
Meet the Sisters Selling Indonesian Street Food out of a Glendale Driveway
L.A. Taco
I was the first to report on the pandemic-born Bungkus Bagus, an Indonesian street food pop-up sensation.
“The coconut rice is the first thing you’ll see and smell when you open your bungkus, like an iceberg peeking out of icy water. Sayur urab, or long bean salad, fills out one corner, right next to tempeh (a standard Indonesian ingredient long before its vegan Western popularity), fried in a sweet and spicy sauce. You’ve also got tender chicken curry, slow-cooked for at least six hours in coconut milk, lemongrass, and their signature spice paste base.”
The Best Restaurants in the San Fernando Valley
Thrillist
A big love letter to the food paradise I grew up in. I wish I could have included about 1,000 more restaurants, but them’s the berries.
“There isn’t much left to say about the 2022 LA Times Restaurant of the Year that hasn’t been said already. Anajak Thai place has been a Valley staple since the ’80s, but this is Anajak 2.0. This is a place for Thai Taco Tuesday, for fresh uni and tostadas, for skewer-grilled prawns, and yes, still, a place for dank pad Thai. Anajak is a place to embrace the unique beauty of eating in Los Angeles.”
bad things i ate so you didn’t have to
I Tried 8 Bizarre Flavors of Peeps Marshmallow Peeps
Cheapism
Mentally one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.
“I would start by apologizing about the photo above, but it is not I who owes you an apology. It is the Peeps corporation, and the scoundrels that invented this product. This is a bag to read very carefully; I only sort of skimmed it before I opened the bag to take photos, and wow, everything was much different than I anticipated.
First of all, this is actual cotton candy, not cotton candy flavored marshmallow bunnies. Second, this is stuffed with tiny little cereal-style marshmallows. The textural difference surprised me so much that I actually dropped the bag for a minute. Upon dropping the bag, I noticed my fingers were completely encrusted with the cotton candy, the way a kid smears Elmer’s glue on their hands. I honestly thought it would start crawling up my arm like Venom.”
Guy Fieri’s 22 Dipping Sauces, Ranked
Thrillist
When His Royal Guyness opened Chicken Guy, the chain launched with 22 sauces. They mailed me all of them in enormous squeeze bottles, and I got froggy.
“Life takes us to all kinds of unexpected places, doesn’t it?
Here I am, a California boy through and through; more specifically, an In-N-Out boy through and through. I wave the In-N-Out flag high and proud. Never in my life did I expect another special sauce to give In-N-Out a run for its money, but here we are. The Chicken Guy Special Sauce is truly outstanding. It’s like a more tart Russian dressing. Special Sauce is a total utility player -- it’s thin enough to make a great burger or sandwich spread, but also sticky enough to work as a dip. Rather than throwing chunks of pickles in, Fieri has elected to flavor the whole thing with pickle juice, causing the briny goodness to cut through all the richness and help keep the sauce at a unified consistency. As far as special sauces go, this one is as special as it gets. Guess you don’t get elected Mayor of Flavortown for nothing.”
The line didn’t budge an inch during the entire time this was taking place. Since I was about to lose my mind, I decided to go back and brave the drive-thru line, which had now gotten even longer, and deal with the rest of this within the comfort of my own car. When I finally reached the drive-thru window, well, I think you already know where this is going. My local BK is a modern marvel; it’s nearly always out of everything. Which means that yes, finally, when I got to the window to order the cookie I’d been waiting so long for, the little voice through the box told me their oven was broken and they were out of cookies. Then, I had to wait out the rest of the entire drive-thru line with the rest of the cars because somebody had already pulled up behind me.
So, yeah. How is the cookie from Burger King? If you’re lucky enough to live near a location with working kitchen equipment, please let me know.”
“I attempted to eat the cookie from Burger King. I really gave it the ‘ole college try. I went to my local Burger King. The drive-thru line looked pretty long, so I went inside. There was also a line of people inside, but every single one of them turned around and looked at me when I entered the building, so the idea of spinning on my heel and exiting felt insane. So, I waited in line for a while. The guy in front of me had hair that contained at least three colors, and he wouldn’t stop kissing the woman he was with, whom he had just married three weeks ago, according to the loud announcement he was making to the entire restaurant. Because she had been married three times already and he had never been married, he explained to all who would listen, it made sense that this was definitely going to work out. It had to. Then she slipped and knocked over a ketchup display and started cracking up.
As Cheapism’s lead food ranker, I’ve eaten a lot of garbage.
I’ve tasted and written about (*sharp inward breath*) flour tortillas, classic American sandwiches, frozen meatloaf, every fast-food sauce you can think of, canned biscuits, frozen burritos, ranch dressing, Trader Joe’s wraps & salads, Wingstop flavors, American & cheddar cheese, chocolate chips, the Costco food court, every single Taco Bell burrito & taco, frozen pizza, fast-food breakfast sandwiches & burritos, McDonald’s burgers & chicken, frozen tater tots, every Denny’s Slam, Doritos, Long John Silver’s chicken, frozen french fries, drive-thru nuggets, dill pickles, chain restaurant iced coffee, Buffalo wing sauce, soft-serve, store-bought white bread, Rao’s pasta sauce, fast-food chicken & fish sandwiches, Pepperidge Farm cookies, all the subs from Jersey Mike’s and Subway, Hostess snacks, frozen mac and cheese, Goldfish, orange juice, chicken noodle soup, hummus, frozen meatballs, bean & cheese burritos, cornbread mix, every dish at Panda Express, fast-food soup, frozen mozzarella sticks, Hardee’s burgers & chicken, buttermilk pancake mix, Chick-fil-A’s sandwiches & sides, Newman’s Own dressing, Bojangles biscuits & sides, ice cream drumsticks, grocery store bagels, grocery store popsicles, Cheerios, Sonic’s burgers & chicken, frozen breakfast sandwiches, KFC nuggets & sides, jelly beans, Twizzlers & Red Vines, Arby’s sandwiches, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, fish sticks, Wendy’s burgers & chicken, instant ramen, Pop-Tarts, hot cocoa mix , Banza pizzas, Halo Top flavors, Trader Joe’s Christmas treats, Egglife wraps, Entenmann’s ice cream sandwiches, M&Ms, cranberry sauce, Toaster Strudels, hop water, Rao’s frozen pizzas, fast-food fries, Snapple, Bubly, Finnish Long Drink, Tic Tacs, Snack Pack Juicy Gels, meatball subs, Trader Joe’s salsa & pasta sauce, flavored water packets, the McDonald’s value menu, store-bought mustard, McAlister’s sandwiches, Burger King burgers & chicken, Goodles mac and cheese, ranch dressing ice cream, Melinda’s hot sauce, every Dunkin donut, Tabasco, Blue Diamond almonds, frozen dumplings, the Whole Foods hot bar, frozen chicken nuggets, Panera soups & sandwiches, fry seasoning, Utz chips, chain desserts, Sam’s Club prepared meals, Little Debbie snacks, a ton of nasty energy drinks, every hard seltzer & sparkling water imaginable, and a whole a lot more.
Can you believe I’m still alive?