Don’t be so modest, Tara. You can take that question mark off the sign. Yak is the enlightened meat. It’s lean like buffalo but juicy like beef. It’s raised at high elevation in the Himalayas and in Colorado, this mystical creature that exists, in my experience, in exotic children’s books and adventure tales, up among [...]

Somewhere in the world is a person microwaving Kraft singles on a Mission tortilla and covering it with Pace salsa. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve done it. It’s delicious, even if it is a high-density, high-sodium brick of cheese flour covered in a sauce that is way too many parts sugar. I’m not judging, [...]

I love diners with a love that transcends the quality of food, to the point where personality and convenience can be enough to make or break a meal before the food ever hits the table. I’m a big fan of Norm’s in L.A. at two in the morning. I’m a big fan of Denny’s when [...]

“Street food” is a misleading term, at least in this country. A hot dog stand in suburban Chicago probably has more square footage and seating than three San Francisco Thai restaurants. Mariscos German and Mariscos El Pescador in San Diego are theoretically taco trucks, but they always camp out in parking lots with permanent seating, [...]

I grew up knowing that I was on the very edge of Los Angeles. My proof was Colima Road, a stretch of smoggy two-way lanes dominated by Mandarin and Korean print, save the occassional taco truck and L.A.’s easternmost branch of Tommy’s. As the years have gone by, this and other satellites of Southern California’s [...]

For the next week, I’ll be writing short posts on the meals I enjoyed during a two-week vacation in my native California. Every time I’m handed a bowl of chips at a Mexican restaurant, I get the feeling that my life is a series of salsa verdes, each more addictive than the last. The distinctly [...]

For the next week, I’ll be writing short posts on the meals I enjoyed during a two-week vacation in my native California. Exactly what the hell is “California pizza?” A casual glance at my home state offers glimmers of hope, but only amidst a tasteless slurry of industrial-grade delivery chains, “New York” style pizzerias that [...]

For the next week, I’ll be writing short posts on the meals I enjoyed during a two-week vacation in my native California. There’s a bar in Long Beach that recognizes what every pickled egg in this country is missing: chilies. Rather than submerging its hard boiled eggs in beet-tinted brine, Joe Jost’s imbues them with [...]

For the next week, I’ll be writing short posts on the meals I enjoyed during a two-week vacation in my native California. My first hour in California runs like clockwork: Get off the plane. Find a restroom. Pick up my baggage. Drive to In-N-Out. Plenty have followed this routine for years, and plenty others have [...]

I want to go to Japan to get drunk. You’d think I’d have overcome my immature overseas American mold by now, but that’s reason numero ichi that the far east sits at the top of my To-Go list in recent years. It is not due to my appreciation of Japanese beers, my ambivalence toward sake [...]