East L.A Meets Napa and What? Friday July, 10th (Union Station)

Its not always 40 oz and cheap vodka...

To benefit AltaMed Health Services, a corporation that has truly helped out more than a few of my friends and their families through out the constructs of Eastern L.A.

This event will feature coveted wines from fellow latino owned vineyards and food from places that my parents used to eat at ever since I could remember.

East LA Meets Napa
Union Station
July 10 at 6 PM
Tickets

Food:
Attila the Flan
Birrieria Chalio
Casa de Moles “La Tia”
Cook’s Tortas
Dorados
El Portal
El Tepeyac Café
Frida Restaurant
Geulaguetza
Hacienda de San Ysidro
Homegirl Café
La Casita Mexicana
La Parrilla Restaurant
Palate Food + Wine
Phlight Restaurant
Porto’s Bakery & Café
Rivera
Tamaya Restaurant
Teresitas
Tila’s Kitchen

Vineyards:
Alex Sotelo Cellars
Ceja Vineyards
Cobblestone Vineyards
El Centauro del Norte
Elements of Sonoma
Gloria Ferrar Winery
Humulus Vintners
J Lohr Vineyards & Wine
Karl Lawrence
Mi Sueno
Nevarez Vineyard
Renteria Wines
Robledo Vineyards
San Antonio Winery
Sequoia Grove Vineyards








Mexico City Sundae w/ Vanilla Bean Ice Cream, Habanero Caramel and Cinnamon from Rivera Restaurant.

Hay los veo...

Beyond Conchas: La Monarca Bakery in East L.A

About three years ago, I remember reading the L.A Times Food Section and feeling proud, surprised and excited.

They had done a front-page article on Ricardo Cervantez and his groundbreaking demographics upon opening La Monarca Bakery in Huntington Park. Finally offering a little more sophisticated Pan Dulce fare to the Latino market...which is often neglected in the eyes of much of the retail food industry. Stepping beyond ultra-traditional Conchas and Cochinitos and supplementing the usual Mexican Bakery arsenal with things like Napoleon's (Mil Hojas), Tiramisu and his very own Goat-Milk Caramel Dulce De Leche Cake. Avant-Gard pastry thought carries out through beverages as well, organic brew in East L.A? Never thought I would live to see the day...











Sticking true to his word, another Monarca Bakery has opened up in East L.A in the Commerce Shopping Center, where just about every Latino East Sider goes to hang, buy socks or even watch a flick. The new location also happens to be just a super-powered stones throw from my house.






Also offering house-made, sorbet-like "Ice's" (Nieves de Agua), including the rare water-based Coco (coconut) with tiny morsels of mature rich, coconut flesh.






Not forgetting his roots, Conchas, a yeast bread with a lard/butter-sugar-crumble topping shaped in the pattern of a sea shell and probably the most traditional of all Pan Dulce--are redefined. Light, spongy with a perfect bread-to-topping ratio, the difference here in quality of ingredients is vastly noticed, the paper bag here will hold up grease-less, unlike the Concha's in just about every bakery in East L.A.







This goes for the plethora of delicate Polvoron style butter cookies too, so tightly packed but gives away elegantly at the bite. Pecan, powdered sugar 'Wedding cookies', Cinnamon, options abound...but all superbly consistent.











East L.A...why not?

5700 E. Whittier Blvd.
Commerce CA.
90022

(323) 869-8800

Food, Friends, Guacamole and Pescuezitos

Jaime and Ramiro of La Casita will be coming out on Univision's Despierta America at around 8AM tomorrow, in honor of Cinco De Mayo, they will be showcasing their juked up version of Guacamole with copious amounts of Tequila and Salt.

As part of the 'Casita Crew', me and Hal had to back up these guys of course. What better way to back friends up than becoming ravid groupies in the crowd!






The shoot dragged on for half the day, felt longer in front of the San Gabriel Mission, but in the end, it just made the post-shoot dinner taste even more amazing...






Pescuezitos! (fried chicken necks), the ultimate post-shoot dinner!

Been wanting to cover this for a while now. Only a handful of proud, few Loncheras(taco trucks) are the purveyors of this fine fried specimen. Literally, just fried chicken necks with deftly executed spicing. Now, chicken necks are interesting in themselves, if all else fails, a chicken neck will quell the most poultry-intensive of hankerings. Lost the battle with drumsticks somewhere in time, but tastewise, puts breasts, legs, wings to crying shame. The chicken neck goes with the same physics of eating a drumstick, gnawing away, away and away until bare bone is left, but, it is univerally known that...Skin, is where it's at. And with about a 70/30 skin-to-meat ratio and more needed to get full, by rules of food-waste, skin is not only a commodity, but practically the meal in itself, thus chicken euphoria!

I'm not gonna lie, the thing that makes these so toothsome is the KFC-like greasy-ness, which thanks to recent trends, has had a negative connotation. But deep down, we all know that this is the stuff that dreams are made of.

Left to cook for several minutes for optimum fat-on-fat flavor rendering.






Now for the fine purveyors:






Stationed on E. 1st and Dickerson in East L.A, here all day, every day 'till about Midnight.

Honoring the majority of us with insatiable sweet tooth's, it was off to dessert-a-paloooza at La Monarca Bakery (post on that coming soon).

Awh, a splendid Sunday afternoon indeed.

Mole Props: Gold Shouts me Out on L.A Weekly

Jonathan Gold has been my unbeknown long time guru of gastronomy. He unknowingly took me in back when I was in the 11th grade, the first time I read the weekly other than to see what local punk shows were coming up--I was mesmerized.

Every single Thursday morning I would eagerly walk to the nearest distributor of the Weekly--this coffee place that was 5 blocks the other direction from campus--and stumble my way back to school, late, reading his newest find and slowly walking. Many times, walking by a lot of those places.

This, in combination with a growing obsession with food and a less than social High School experience...was the birth of Teenage Glutster.

I've actually met him a few times already and was rather blissful to find out that he knew I was even alive. But when I found out that he recently gave me props on this Weeks review of Moles la Tia, I was euphoric.

"Word got around about La Tia almost the moment it opened, from a WIDELY NOTICED post on the Teenage Glutster Blog..."(28 Gold)

Mundane Mexican No More was one of my most passionate pieces ever, just one of those moments, I remember I couldn't rest until I was done with it.

Thank you Food Shifu, thank you.

A Taste of East L.A: It's about time...

A farmers market and now this, I never thought I'd live to see the day but...here it is.

I know, I know, a corporate junk pile...but it's a start,

"Support the cause ese!"

The City of East L.A, Why not?

coming soon: My greatest restaurant discovery in all my food life so far--in East L.A as well--that I know...is going to break boundaries and be all over L.A very soon.

stay tuned...