Pop Went The Monkey: 2912 Rowena Pop Up Shop Starring Cake Monkey, et. al., Silverlake

If I fall off the weight-management bandwagon, surely the Cake Monkey weekend pop-up shop on Rowena Avenue would have had something to do with it. Out of the three weekends that they were in operation, I went twice. How's that for self-control?

I'm a sucker for Cake Monkey and all its nostalgic-treats-reminiscent goodies, but special trips to Silverlake Wine, Umami Burger and even Intelligentsia Coffee on busy Sunset Blvd. just to get my fix were a tad too impractical for this toddler-in-tow mommy. And special order just doesn't cut it when a sweets craving suddenly strikes on a lazy weekend day. Having been able to take my little ankle-biter with me into a cute little cottage with a cool neighborhood vibe on the weekends, however, was much more my cup of tea. Which was why I was ever so grateful that Cake Monkey and a handful of local artists and artisans collaborated in a three-weekend pop up sale. Unfortunately, the pop up ended last weekend to my surprise so um, yeah, after looking at the following photos of all the ridiculously delicious stuff I bought there, you won't be able to go until they decide to pop up again. Sucks to be you? Not quite. So maybe you won't be able to purchase everything under one picket-fence-surrounded-roof, but fortunately most of the goodies I consumed are available for purchase via other avenues. Just refer to the contact info and links at the end of this post!

Anyways, check out some of the diet-destroyers that I picked up:

My first foil wrapped treats as a kid were the Hostess Ding Dong and Ho-Ho. My kid's first foil wrapped treats were Cake Monkey Black and White Cakewiches filled with vanilla cream and Valrhona crunchy pearls and coated in bittersweet chocolate, Raspberry Red Velvet Cakewiches filled with raspberry swirled vanilla frosting and encased in the same yummy dark chocolate shell as its sister cakewich, and Yo-Ho's--chocolate cake rolled up with a swirl of vanilla cream. He only got a bite or two of each, but I'm kind of afraid I'm setting a precedent for spoiling the kid with such high quality sweets at such a young age. I mean, I was lucky to even get a Ding Dong when I was young. I'm telling you, these kids nowadays...

My Inside Out S'More from Cake Monkey got a little squished on the way home, but who cares? I think I almost ate the fun little cookie creation--homemade graham cracker and chocolate ganache cookie topped with a mound of toasted marshmallow--in one bite.


I have to admit, I've never been a huge fan of brittle because it always seemed like I was about to break my teeth eating overly sweetened glass remnants. Until I tried that of Morning Glory Confections, that is. Fellow food blogging and tweeting mommy Reservation For Three first alerted me to her husband Max's artisan brittle creations which are handmade in small batches using high quality natural ingredients. The unique flavor combinations such as Thai Curry & Peanut, Chai Tea & Cashew and New Mexico Chili & Pumpkin Seed are a perfect combination of savory and sweet, and the textures have the right amount of crunch--not so hard that you feel like you're paying for your dentist's kids to go to college.

At the pop up sale, I purchased a box of Morning Glory Confections' Chocolate Enrobed Brittles--Darkened Milk Chocolate-, 55% semisweet chocolate- and 70% bittersweet chocolate-covered versions of their brittle varieties. Each tile was small--less than a square inch--but full of delicious flavor and texture.

My second trip to the pop up was inspired by ResForThree's tweet a couple weeks ago raving about some of the Bacon Fat, Smoked Paprika and Fleur De Sel Caramels that Max had whipped up for that weekend's pop up. Perfectly chewy pig candy with a hint of spice...they were definitely well worth the drive from the San Gabriel Valley to Silverlake.

Who eats dessert before eating lunch? Well me, I guess. I ended my sweets binge on my second visit to the pop up with a Lasagna Cupcake made by catering company and pop-up vendor HeirloomLA. I thought the idea was a little hokey at first, but I soon pledged allegiance to the hearty layers of al dente pasta and bolognese ragu that I could eat with my hands. Tasty and convenient...genius!

Hopefully, Cake Monkey and friends will decide to pop up again in the same or similar location--I loved being able to quickly snag up so many goodies in one convenient kid-friendly place that wasn't too far of a drive for me. Until then, here's how you can get your cake, brittle and lasagna cupcake groove on:

Cake Monkey
877-640-CAKE
info@cakemonkey.com
www.cakemonkey.com
Available by special order or at select food-centric locations. See website for specifics.

Morning Glory Confections
(323) 662-2963
info@morninggloryconfections.com
www.morninggloryconfections.com
http://twitter.com/MGbrittle
Available for purchase online or at select food-centric locations. See website for specifics.

Heirloom LA
(323) 872-2904
info@heirloomLA.com
www.heirloomLA.com
http://twitter.com/heirloomLA

Eat My Blog Charity Bake Sale: The Ultimate Cure For The Bah Humbugs

Eat My Blog founder Cathy Danh with a bacon-wrapped breadstick from My Last Bite

Call me crazy, call me a party pooper, Bitter Betty, or Debbie Downer, but anyone who knows me well knows that I don't really care for the holidays. As Charlie Brown once said: "I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming, but I'm not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel."

Maybe it's the 20+ years of holiday travel getting to me. Or maybe it's the 20 years I've spent in an industry where everyone stresses out and works harder during the holidays instead of relaxing. Maybe it's the fact that the older I get, the more I notice that the holidays are about pushing and shoving, yelling and screaming, making more money and being an asshole. Whatever the reason, I can totally relate to Charlie Brown. I've never seemed to enjoy the holidays as much as everyone else seems to.

Until I went to the Eat My Blog charity bake sale today, that is.





On this overcast December day, people brought their appetites and kind hearts to Zeke's Smokehouse in West Hollywood to indulge in tasty treats baked by over 35 local foodbloggers and help raise $3000 for the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank.

Smiles were everywhere.

Tummies were filled.

People were genuinely excited to see and meet each other.

Hugs were exchanged.

And best of all, everyone was there to give lots of love to the fight against hunger.

It was an all around feel-good event that renewed my faith toward the holiday season.

As Linus Van Pelt once said to Charlie Brown when asked what Christmas is all about: "...on earth, peace and good will toward men."

Peace and good will toward men. A novel concept in this day and age, right? Thanks to Eat My Blog founder Cathy Danh of Gastronomy Blog and everyone else behind this wonderful charity bake sale for showing us what Christmas, and every single day for that matter, is all about.

Jon and Vinny Had A Farm, E-I-E-I-O. Animal, Fairfax District

And on that farm they had some pig. E-I-E-I-O.

Is it wrong that every time I try and teach farm animals to my kid, visions of meat and offals dance in my head?

With an oink-oink here.
And an oink-oink there.
Here an oink.
There an oink.
Everywhere an oink-oink.

On a recent girls' night out, my friends J and C and I had dinner at Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo's restaurant Animal, which in my mind pays homage to our favorite creatures in much the same way that the See and Say did when we were young. "How so?" you ask.

Their purpose is to show us that animals are fucking awesome.

Especially when they come in the form of luscious, fatty cubes of pork belly with the spicy-tangy kick of kimchi, peanuts, chili soy sauce and scallion.

Or when that same pork belly shows off its versatility by being transformed into a dish that's completely different yet just as delicious. This time it's barbecued to such tenderness that a sandwich of it, a mini brioche bun, and some cool cabbage slaw can be eaten in a couple of clean bites. (With some welcomed finger licking to follow of course)

Or when crunchy strips of pig ear are tossed in spicy chili and lime and topped with a gift from our feathered chicken pals.

Or when dollops of hearty braised oxtail gravy can be scooped up with crispy french fries in a most naughty poutine.

Or when a perfectly seared, velvety hunk of foie gras sits atop a flaky biscuit smothered in rich maple sausage gravy.

Or God forbid, when salty bits of bacon dot the top of a bittersweet chocolate bar in a combination that people should just stop being curious about and just shut up and taste already because it works.

Or even in a tribute to our lactating furry friends in a tres leches, dulce de leche cake.

Chef Shook's and Dotolo's creations left such an impression on me that my post-dinner tweet that night read: Dinner at Animal so farking good that I'm gonna go floss my teeth just so I can have pork belly and foie gras "leftovers." 'Nuff said.

And to think that I considered becoming a vegetarian almost 20 years ago. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)

Animal
435 N. Fairfax Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 782-9225
www.animalrestaurant.com

Rock Star Lunch Tour, Day Two: Partying Like A Broke-Ass Rock Star, Sapp Coffee Shop and Scoops Ice Cream, LA

I may have a paycheck in my future, but I certainly ain't gonna pre-spend it all at one restaurant. What I love about LA is that you can one, have a good lunch at Spago, and two, have about four even better lunches for the price of that Spago lunch. The economy sucks, yo. You gotta stretch your dollar as far as you can; have that Spago lunch and you may not be able to afford those Christian Louboutin's you've been eyeing, especially since your company just slashed salaries by 10% across the board. And God forbid you wear your Payless Shoe Source platform pumps to the next big meeting--you'll surely be the laughing stock of the department, which could lead you to get fired. Then what???

For Day Two of my Rock Star Lunch Tour, I'm going to show you where you can party like a rock star (and with dessert) for a little over ten bucks after tax and tip!

You've probably seen Sapp Coffee Shop a bajillion times when the Travel Channel repeats the LA episode of No Reservations. Hell, you've probably even gone there so that you can sit exactly where Tony Bourdain sat. (Oh, you mean only I did that???) Whatever the case, go there and order what my noodle-whoring friend recommended to everyone's favorite bad boy chef--the Thai Boat Noodles--and you can't go wrong. It's quality and quantity all for under six bucks--a smorgasbord of tasty animal goodies like beef flank, brisket, tripe, meatballs, liver, tendon, and fried pork skins doing some synchronized swimming with rice noodles in a most savory blood-thickened soup. If this genius composition of spicy, salty, sweet and bitter flavors and crunchy, chewy, snappy, and creamy textures doesn't float your boat (pun intended), Sapp's got a boatload (another pun intended) of other Thai dishes for dirt cheap.

No doubt you'll need something to cleanse your palate after all that funky noodley goodness, so take your warm belly a couple miles south to Scoops in the Hel-Mel area for some very innovative gelato. Sure, it's been blogged and yelped about close to six million times over the last three years but I don't care. It's good, the flavors are like none you'll ever have and owner-creator Tai Kim is as sweet as can be. On this particular Tuesday afternoon, I treated myself to a scoop of Brown Bread, texturally interesting with bits of Grape Nuts, and a scoop of Strawberry-Lychee, light and refreshing. Unless you go absolutely ape-shit here and gorge yourself with gelato, Scoops should only set you back a few bucks. (But don't forget to leave them a little something at the counter!)

So there you have it, folks, a rock-star worthy lunch with dessert for next to nothing! Pretty soon you'll have cut your monthly expenses down so much that you'll be strutting down the aisles at Big Lots in your sexy red-soled Louboutin's in no time.

Sapp Coffee Shop
5183 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 665-1035

Scoops Ice Cream
712 N. Heliotrope Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90029
(323) 906-2649

Catching Up With Oishii Eats At Golden State Café

Damn you, flu, for making me miss Jeni of Oishii Eats' and Dylan of Eat, Drink & Be Merry's wedding celebration! Of all the weekends that my husband's and my immune systems decide to get freaky, it just had to be that weekend. Damn you to pieces.

Having been busy with growing a human being and with a crazy job that had me driving to and from the West 626 and Anaheim every day, it had been almost a year since I last saw the match-made-in-food-blogging-heaven. I was really looking forward to seeing the two of them because they're just such a fun couple who appreciate each other, their family and friends, and their endeavors with a commitment and enthusiasm that is unparalleled. But the other reason I was looking forward to seeing them has a slightly selfish reason to it.

Basically, Jeni and Dylan represent an aspect of my life that I've been itching to reconnect with.

2006 was the year my life took a major beating when my Dad passed away. But it was also a year of great change for me not only in dealing with my own pain of losing my Dad but also in helping my family cope, getting married and starting a new job. I went on quite an emotional and physical roller coaster ride that year, but I managed...largely in part by blogging. Because it gave me an outlet with which to mentally escape--even if for just a few minutes each day--my food blog saved my sanity.

2006 was also the year that was, in my mind, the Golden Age of So-Cal Food Blogging. Not because the food blogs at that time were any better than the ones that have sprung up since then--that's not what I'm saying. It was, rather, a time when there weren't as many of us around, and a time when food blogs were just starting to get noticed by the general public. It was still a novelty for restaurants to see diners pull out their cameras and take photos of what would in a few minutes be digested. I met Jeni and Dylan at a food blogger meetup at Musha Torrance in 2006, coincidentally, on the same night that they met each other. It was awesome to finally have a face to associate with some of their earlier posts that I remember reading: Jeni tag-teaming on a post with her ALL-CAPS slinging mom about the Wat Thai Temple, and Dylan teaching his neighbor how to cook a date-worthy meal. As the months went by and my own posting began to fizzle out and eventually grind to a screeching halt because of increasing work and family commitments, I watched Jeni and Dylan grow, both as a couple and as bloggers. I watched their blogs evolve into the noteworthy sites that they are today with accounts of their tasty travels, beautiful photographs, and educational information that any food lover would appreciate.

They have both told me at one time or another that I was an inspiration to them to start blogging, but now that I am writing again, I am looking to them for mine. We've all come a long way since 2006--alot of the bloggers from that golden year now have husbands, wives, children, more children, new jobs, new homes, you name it. I'm hoping that 2009, despite all the crap that's going on with the economy today, will be a renaissance of all things good from 2006, foodblogosphere-wise: The Rebirth of Slick, The Rebirth of Cool. I, myself, having started to write again, have already seen how it's helped me cope with all the recent changes in my life.

"Hey, let's hook up soon," I wrote in an email to Jeni recently, "It's been too long...I miss you, and I need some inspiration!"

So that's how we ended up at the newly opened Golden State Cafe one late Friday afternoon. The husbands were still at work, but that was fine 'cause that way we got to rant away about all the things that they do and do not do that bug the crap out of us. (Sorry, Isaac and Dylan...we still love you though.)

In a neighborhood that's already an eclectic mix of everything from Jewish delis to art galleries to turntable shops, Golden State Cafe joins the club by showcasing what owners Jason Bernstein and James Starr believe to be some of the best food and drink that our golden state has to offer. In this small but airy industrial space you can get dogs from Let's Be Frank, gelato from Scoops, beer from Craftsman Brewery, and root beer on tap from Virgil's, amongst a slew of other locally sourced goodies.

Jeni and I, feeling particularly snackish, opted for their burger--made with Harris Ranch beef, and topped with farmhouse cheddar, brown sugar bacon and arugula all on a brioche bun--and their Mild Italian sausage--grilled and topped with a choice of two toppings, which for us were the sauerkraut and garlic aioli. The not-too-heavy portions and flavors were fine for two girlfriends who wanted to chill and do lots of catching up. The inclusive sides that we chose--fries with hazelnut romesco, and a lemony Persian cucumber salad--were perfect for picking at while not only talking about the latest goings-on in our lives, but also snapping away with our DSLR's at our plates of food and the restaurant itself. Having a meal with someone else who understands why it's important to take a few seconds to style your food is inspiration at its best.

Had we gone to the Golden State any later that day, catching up and chilling would have been a little more difficult as I hear the place gets packed at night. But this new café has me interested enough to come back and try some of their other offerings like their salami sandwich or grilled vegetable sandwich as well as to explore some of their beer selections.

I'm so glad that I finally got to catch up with the so very kawaii girl that I first saw giving a thumbs up to some taco truck on Mulholland. And I couldn't be happier that you found true love with the guy whose post about a 12:30 am after-work snack at West LA's New Japan first caught my attention. I have a feeling that 2009 is going to be a good year for our So-Cal food blogosphere. Thanks for the inspiration, you two, and all the best in life and love.

(I think this post had more sap than the Sequoia Forest!)

Golden State Cafe
426 N. Fairfax Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 782-8331
http://thegoldenstatecafe.com

When One "O" Is Better Than Two: Euro Pane, Pasadena

Pasadena's Euro Pane has been on my must-try list of eateries for God-knows-how-long but has been bumped towards the bottom for the same God-knows-how-long. It wasn't until a recent jonesin' for French macarons that I bumped Sumi Chang's Colorado-Blvd-east-of-Old-Town bakery and café to the top.

Not to be confused with macaroons, those lumpy coconutty cookie thingies that are all too often left behind on the office cookie platter, French macarons (with one "o") are a completely different species. I first discovered these lovely little domes at Kristy Choo's Jin Patisserie and at Michelle Myers' Boule and have been craving the light airy texture of flavored almond meringue, luscious ganache or cream filling and adorable, sherbety colors ever since.

Europane's macarons are not as dainty as your typical macaron, which usually measures a little larger than a golf ball. Rather, they're as big around as a tennis ball, an attribute which at first made me wonder if any quality would be skimped for quantity. Their delicate meringue crust gave way with a slight chewiness, each bite containing a bit of cream. My absolute favorite flavor was the salt caramel whose subtle sweetness was enhanced by grains of sea salt. The pistachio and hazelnut flavored macarons weren't as delicious as the salt caramel but were still good, while the raspberry flavor was just *meh* in my opinion.

Not only does Euro Pane make a mean macaron, but their other baked goods such as croissants, caneles, tarts, bread pudding and cookies are also worth the trip. And don't forget about their sandwiches either. Their open faced egg-salad sandwich is like none I've ever had before where slightly-on-the-soft-boiled-side eggs mingles with arugula on a slice of crusty rosemary-currant bread. As an added bonus, you get one of their yummy sugar-sprinkled butter cookies on the side...score!


Euro Pane
950 E. Colorado Blvd, ste 107
Pasadena, CA 91106
(626) 577-1828