Gold Standard

You can find my review on the event here at FoodGPS.

You can also find my wonderful flickr photos here.

I've decided that if I want to please you readers more, I'll have to create more content, or at least publish one thing a day. That's what all bloggers try to do. I know what you guys do. Either you have my on your favorite RSS reader like Google Reader, or you bother with typing in my extremely difficult blog name manually into your Firefox, IE, or Safari (or Camino! my favorite).

Anyways, here's a penny for your thoughts, or rather...a thought for your penny:

Food Events



Generally I think these things are overpriced and not worth the effort. There are few times when events like yesterday's Gold Standard might be worth the price (especially at the Goldstar discounted price of $42.50 after fees), but usually the restaurants, even big-name restauarants, bring a salmon dish or a pork dish. These are cheap ingredients that don't need to be prepared a la minute and rarely. You're much better off throwing your money at a sitdown place like Hatfields, whose wonderful $85 seven course tasting menu comes with up to 15 different courses if you're a two-top (restaurant lingo for a table of two).

That said, the best part of about yesterday wasn't really the food, but meeting Jonathan Gold. I've been a huge fan of his writing and style ever since I delved into the food world. His approach and commitment to ethnic cuisine and good food in the city of Los Angeles is frankly inspiring. I hope that one day my name would conjure up even a hint of his literary and culinary excellence.

I know he didn't just get there in a heartbeat. He had to start off somewhere (actually he was covering punk and gangster rap in the 80's when I was still living off baby food). But I always tell Javier of Teenage Glutster (soon to be "Glutster" since he won't be a teenager) that we can get to, or even surpass Gold's influence because we are young, dedicated, and passionate.

I'm only five years removed from teenage hood and figure to still have fifty good years because my teeth fall out, my palate loses sensitivity, or my jaws fail (the third is probably the most likely...I really need to fix my TMJ).

Why we blog

I often wonder why there are so many interesting people that pursue food. By that, I mean, why do certain people so much time thinking about, writing about, cooking, breathing, living, drinking food? And what good does it do the casual blogger, one whose sustainence is not received from this pursuit? Pleasure - it makes us happy and it makes other people happy to read about. That's my explanation any way.

Some of you have noticed that my relationship has been documented over our two blogs (hers being Choisauce, where she focuses more on our daily and weekly activities). It was great to finally meet Jeni and Dylan of OishiiEats and EatDrink&BeMerry, respectively. They were hanging out in front of the Mozza booth eating the last plate of burrata that Nancy Silverton had prepared, generously provided to them by Javier and Aaron of FoodDestination. I love Jeni and Dylan because I remember reading them over the years (perhaps not as assiduously as it may seem) and recall that post about how they first had a date at a taco truck and knew that it was love from then on. Oddly, and not on purpose, I had a similar experience with Christine on a fateful late August evening. You'll hear more about that night later, but just know that it was fun meeting what I'll call our "precedessors," the first food bloggers to fall in love.

Anyways, it was great to meet everyone in the local food blogging community. I first ran into Neil of FoodMarathon, chill as usual and hanging out in the main room. I met Matt from Diglounge and his girl Angela. I saw Aaron, Javier, Fiona of Gourmet Pigs (and her dude Sam), Jeni & Dylan, H.C. of LA-OC-Foodie, and even the enigmatic Tony C. of Sinosoul.

I don't have a ticket to the Planned Parenthood food event coming up with heavy hitters from all over the Westside, but I do believe I'll have a ticket to the Project by Project event this year. Last year I repped Scoops and got to mingle with a slew of great chefs (more like compliment them and offer them ice crea) so I'm pretty sure that'll happen again.

Food this week

I'm pretty sure I'm one of the luckiest guys in the world. Christine is at the market getting some delicious food for dinner tonight (which she'll be cooking). Danny's coming over too so we can show him some homecooked Korean food.

Later on tonight we'll be heading to The Varnish, which I recently reviewed. It's our fifth time in 2 weeks (eek!). Eric Alperin has already said that we're his best customers :)

I have the Zocalo event with Jonathan Gold and some great panel members: Chef Roy Choi of Kogi, Nancy Silverton of Mozza, and Jazz of Jitlada Thai Restaurant. The panel focuses on What is Authenticity? It's a decent question - let's hope they actually get to it this time.