The Burmese sure love to mix things up. Seriously, at a Chowhound lunch at Mingalaba, almost every dish we ordered involved tableside mixing. It’s nice for once to have some idea of what ingredients are in an exotic and unfamiliar dish, but what’s with the national passion for blending?
Chowhound poster Moomin once wrote:
“Thoke” is […]

We arrived at my friend Carol’s eco-conscious store a bit early for her summer solstice, but very hungry. Happily, the shop is right across the street from Mustard Seed Cafe, purveyor of my favorite turkey burger of all time. I’m not even a turkey burger fanatic, but in the years that I lived in this […]

Wes and I recently went back to L.A. for the weekend, where we stayed with a friend in Hollywood, putting us strategically close to my favorite Thai restaurant of the moment, Spicy BBQ by Nong & Family.
An article in the L.A. Times about regional Thai restaurants alerted me to this tiny, family-run place in (of […]

In Korean-heavy L.A., grill-it-yourself bulgogi or kalbi is as much a hometown food as tacos from a truck. So it might seem strange that when my mother, who is Korean and lives in Chicago, would visit me in L.A., she’d say, “Let’s get Korean food! But not barbecue.” Soups and stews are the things she […]

I’m not really into restaurants of the moment, although sometimes I hear about a place that shone bright and brief until something fell apart in the delicate balance supporting it, and I wish I’d gotten there before it snuffed. But usually it’ll take me a few months to try out something after I hear about […]

I never look for Chicago deep-dish pizza, or Chicago hot dogs, wherever I’m living because I know I can get some of the best whenever I visit my parents. The best in my original hometown? I’m still trying to figure it out. My mom likes Giordano’s, but it’s grown into a full-on chain restaurant, and […]

For a dish that was once an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink invention of fishermen’s wives, bouillabaisse has come a long way — if you venture to Marseille, its birthplace, to find the best you’re more likely to be trolling the city’s Michelin-starred eateries than any waterfront shacks.
After reading two New York Times articles praising L’Epuisette (one by R.W. […]

On the last stop of our whirlwind temple tour, Daveena and I landed in Madurai and decided we were tired of picking up the first random guide who approached our rental SUV. Instead, we asked our hotel to find us a guide for Sri Meenakshi, and braced for the cost. We lucked out: The assistant […]

As we pulled into Kumbakonam, I took note of the brightly lit and bustling Meenakshi Bhavan. Since we’d had such a good meal at Saravana Bhavan in Chennai, I felt warmly disposed towards any establishment with “Bhavan” in its name, although I suspected there were probably quite a few.
We ended up enjoying some things that […]

This giant rock at Mahaballipuram is known as Krishna’s butterball. I thought it must be a relatively modern nickname, but apparently the concept of a ball of butter is not that new, and Krishna was known for being very fond of butter.
I’m guilty of posting things a bit out of order … Mahaballipuram is just […]