2010: A Year In Food

Roast beef sandwich at Europane

Few things are as fleeting as the taste of what you just ate or drank. Paradoxically, few experiences are as heartily satisfying, or engage us so completely in the moment, in the present--aesthetically, sensually, even spiritually--as a good meal. That's why, as we come to the end of another year, we're thinking it might not be such a bad idea to reflect on the last three hundred or so days in terms of food.

It's impossible to sum up the ups and downs, ins and outs, and essential moments of the year in just a few words. And, come on: isn't it more fun to gloss over the things you ate, and grin like idiots at the memory of those mouth-watering sandwiches/dumplings/noodles that you slurped up/supped/swallowed? Wouldn't it be much better to start to daydream about hitting some of those places all over again next year?

We certainly think so. Which is why, below the cut, you can find much musing on recurring themes we identified from all the delicious stuff we ate in 2010.


The Nom Nom Truck at Jones Coffee

Food Trucks
Dumpling Station. Nom Nom Truck. Patty Wagon. The Grilled Cheese Truck. We hit more than a few of these gloriously L.A.-ish meals-on-wheels this past rotation around the sun, and all we can say is, man is it good to live here!


Aki outside the KoolHaus Truck


Lemongrass chicken tacos from the Nom Nom Truck

Our favorite so far, though, isn't Kogi, the Korean taco truck that Twittered the whole truck phenomenon into hipster hysteria, nor is it the Dim Sum truck, who we found parked inside the Americana one Saturday morning. No, we probably have to go with Food Network-fave Nom Nom Truck, whose creators dish out delicious Vietnamese fusion tacos and banh mi. We're getting hungry just typing about it.


Mini-burgers from the Patty Wagon

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Dinner at Torihei

Small Plates
God, we love small plates. Though the tapas-inflected version has crested here in So Cal of late, izakayas (Japanese style pubs) have been carrying the small plate torch here for ages. Our favorite izakaya this year by far is the newish Torihei, where we just can't get enough of pretty much anything they'll feed us. Yum and a half.


Seco de carne from Mo-Chica

We had another incredible small plate experience at Mo-Chica near USC: it's a high-end Peruvian joint in a little warehouse/food court in Downtown L.A. where on occasional Thursdays the chefs host a tasting menu: you don't get to choose; you get the same several delicious courses everyone else gets. It's an extravaganza of spectacularly concocted and plated Peruvian delicacies. A-freakin'-mazing.

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Caffeine
Pasadena and its environs (including, broadly speaking, Eagle Rock, Silver Lake, and Echo Park) took the cup of Joe to a 'hole nutha level this year, with Jones Coffee opening up new digs in Pasadena's warehouse district (and hosting the Nom Nom truck on Friday nights), Intelligentsia opening up a combined coffee bar-eatery in Old Town, and places like Le Mill and the Coffee Table continuing to brew to (caffeine) high standards.

Europane, one of our favorite java-plus-gourmet food places in Pasadena, opened up a second shop not far from its first, across from Paseo. Chefs far and wide praise the egg salad sandwich, but the roast beef is to die (and slobber) for.

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Cupcakes
To borrow a bit from Papa Hemingway, the reports of the death of cupcakes are greatly exaggerated. The retro-sugar bomb trend that everyone expected to fade as soon as it flared in the pre-Tens just. Won't. Go. Away.

And we're more than a little complicit in keeping it all going. Some of the best cupcakes we had this year were from Lark in Silver Lake. They were so damned good we wanted to just keep slicing the last piece of each cupcake in half over and over again to keep it from ending. If someone hadn't stopped us, we might've split an atom and blown all the cupcakeries of So Cal away in a sugary mushroom cloud of frosting.

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Sweets counter at Bottega Louie

Fine Dining...with Kids!
Thanks to sympathetic in-laws (who, let's face it, jump at any chance to spend time with their grandson), we got to enjoy several nights out this year at pretty fancy-schmancy places...with a toddler. Luckily, either Baba and Jiji or Lolo and Lola not only refused to let us pick up the tab, but they also helped us keep Aki entertained (and eating).

One of our favorite fancy places to eat this year was the Green Street Tavern in Old Town, a dark-paneled, Arts & Crafts-looking dining room with good short ribs and a fantastic white chocolate croissant bread pudding. Baba and Jiji took us there to celebrate Chris getting into the doctoral program at SC with a fellowship.

Thanks to Baba and Jiji, we also got to enjoy, among other things, one helluva good blue corn-flour Chicago-style pizza and epic bread pudding from Masa in Echo Park. Lucky? We know it.


Eggs Benedict at Bottega Louie

Hell's Kitchen in Minneapolis was another amazingly deep menu we got to sample thanks to Lolo and Lola. And Bottega Louie in Downtown L.A. is our go-to spot for a good brunch (followed by the city's best macarons) or a delicious dinner that has to include their white pizza (smothered with arugula) and addictive portobello fries.

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Slaw Dogs in North Pasadena

Roadside Revival
Last but not least, we love the way creative restaurateurs are juicing up classic roadside dishes for fabulous foodie delectation. Slaw Dogs in North Pasadena is a great example, with delicious, creative mashups of butterflied or rippered sausages with gourmet ingredients like truffle oil (on fries), thai slaw (on a dog), or all the accoutrements of a reuben.

Of course, our old favorite The Oinkster is still our roadside beacon in Eagle Rock, with its bad-ass pastrami, pulled pork, burgers, and well, pretty much anything they serve.