Search Results: richard foss
Every time you sit down to a breakfast of bacon and eggs or pancakes, you participate in a ritual that is unlike the way most of the world eats. While some other cultures have traditional foods to start the day, America probably has the most varied selection of items eaten only at breakfast of anywhere…
Read MoreSometimes I hear from someone who mentions a place that just opened and asks why I haven’t reviewed it yet. Do I want to let some other publication beat me to the story? They’re often surprised when I respond that I’m not concerned about this possibility. Any restaurant is likely to have problems when they…
Read MoreA well-established brand is a cherished thing in any industry, something usually tinkered with only when someone else files a claim that they had it first, or when bad publicity makes it no longer an asset. There are exceptions, and they’re usually when a company changes some aspect of their business so that the old…
Read MoreBrooklyn Brick Oven consistently delivers New York flavor. Want to argue? Fuhgettaboutit by Richard Foss I had to try some pizza on my first visit to New York, and did so with low expectations. Expat Manhattanites like to brag about how good it is, but there seems to be an element of ritual about it.…
Read Moreby Garrick Rawlings “We opened in 2020 with Victor Krummenacher (co-founder of Camper Van Beethoven) and (composer/multi instrumentalist) Eugene Chadbourne. It was utterly fantastic. We were really off to a running start. Two days later the pandemic shut down everything,” Richard Foss said of Collage: A Place For Arts and Culture, an imaginative performance venue…
Read Moreby Richard Foss The Chinese takeout container with its stylized pagoda on the side has been a symbol of fast food since shortly after that term was invented in the 1950’s. Some people have an almost Pavlovian reaction to seeing them thanks to so many childhood meals that began by opening those paper boxes to…
Read MoreThai cuisine was once regarded as unlikely to succeed in America because it was too spicy, too sour, too strange to American tastes. The breakthrough came because a rock band promoter named Tommy Tang opened a restaurant that not only softened the more assertive flavors, but had a menu that carefully described the unfamiliar items.…
Read MoreHistory books say that the idea of putting meat between slices of bread was invented by an inveterate gambler sometime in the 1770s. John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich (and yes, there is a town in England called Sandwich) was a talented civil servant, patron of music and sports, and also a member of the notoriously…
Read MoreI was in a restaurant where the menu lists signature dishes, and it caused me to think about what my actual signature looks like. This is a distinctive scrawl that inspired my wife to remark that it always looks like I happened to have a pen in my hand during an earthquake. On the bright…
Read MoreIt has been 40 years since the movie Blade Runner and the cyberpunk movement in literature depicted a future world in which Asian, particularly Japanese, culture blended with a future high-tech California. It was a chaotic, visually fascinating place where billboards writhed and morphed, strange electronic music pulsated, and food was elegantly presented but almost…
Read More2022 was a year of extraordinary diversity in the dining scene by Richard Foss Sometimes I look at previous columns about the best restaurants of a particular year to analyze patterns. The year of Italian restaurants was followed by the march of sushi and ramen joints, and another year the sound of burgers flipping was…
Read MoreAs far back as the 1930s, dining in California was noted for a casual blending of indoor and outdoor spaces. The emphasis is on the casual – movie stars showed up in fancy dress at restaurants on the Sunset Strip, but their home entertaining was more likely to be a barbecue on a covered patio,…
Read MoreOne of the more enjoyable food fads of the previous decade was putting cross-cultural things in tacos, such as pastrami with sauerkraut, fried chicken with mashed potatoes, and of course Korean bulgogi with kimchi. Hermosa Beach was host to an establishment that received lasting but unfavorable publicity for foie gras tacos, among other concoctions, and…
Read MoreWhen I heard Lunada Market was launching a restaurant, I had some assumptions about what they’d serve. The place already had a deli with a salad case and a full produce section, so it would be easy to make a menu of cold cut sandwiches, throw together some cheese and charcuterie trays, maybe offer guac…
Read MoreI have sympathy for the people who write menus for creative restaurants, I really do. I used to consult on menu design, and have experienced the struggle to put the essence of a unique dish into a few words. It’s made immeasurably more difficult by the fact that there are so many regional and stylistic…
Read MoreOver the years I’ve praised some establishments for going above and beyond what was expected. When a local sports bar started serving specials based on the home city of the teams that were on the field during playoffs, I cheered the initiative even though I didn’t care who won. A neighborhood bar that comes up…
Read More