Posts by Richard Foss
RESTAURANT REVIEW – Bettolino Kitchen
Bettolino Kitchen: Modern times from old Italian family Italians have an whole vocabulary for places where you can buy a meal, depending of the level of formality, culinary specialty, and style of decor. They know the difference between a ristorante, trattoria, cucina, osteria, enoteca, bari, and locanda, plus a variety of regional terms with more subtle…
Read MoreLa Esperanza brings Central Central America to the fore [restaurant review]
Twenty or thirty years ago, if you asked most Americans to name items from Mexican cuisine they would be stuck after they mentioned tacos and burritos. The more culturally sensitive at least suspected that that the country might have regional variations, but some probably believed that Mexicans ate nothing but tacos and burritos, perhaps with…
Read MoreThe simple pleasures of the North End in Hermosa Beach
The legendary North Hermosa Beach tavern is beloved for its bartenders, throwback vibe, and food, not necessarily in that order.
Read MoreRESTAURANT REVIEW – Cal-Ital star in the making
Lou’s on the Hill innovative blending of Italian and Californian cuisines promises to make it the area’s newest destination restaurant When you’re considering a restaurant for a special occasion, the character is at least as much a factor as what they serve. We all can think of a place we don’t visit because the food…
Read MoreA La Carte for 18 June
It’s Alive! The Boardwalk Is Alive! Three places have opened within a week of each other on the Redondo Boardwalk, adding life and color to the area. The Slip’s menu fits the Blue Zone standards for fresh and healthy food and the redecorated interior is quite pretty. It looks like they’re going upscale with their…
Read MoreSpecialties of the House [Feature]
In the age of the megastore, a few small, specialized businesses still thrive in Old Town Torrance by William Foss There was a time when most stores specialized in delivering just one product or service, before the advent of ‘department’ stores that do almost everything. It might seem that specialty retailers are becoming obsolete in…
Read MoreRESTAURANT REVIEW – Orlando’s Pizzeria and Birreria: where Italy and Canada meet, with delicious results
Ask most Americans about Canadian food and they’ll mumble something about maple syrup. Savvy diners might mention poutine, the Quebec specialty of French fries topped with gravy and cheese, but it’s not too likely that they’ll come up with anything else. In fact Montréal is one of this hemisphere’s great dining cities, with items…
Read MoreMBMS Fundraiser Features Vegan Cuisine
Think of the menu at a typical gala dinner and certain culinary clichés pop up – the plate of shrimp as an appetizer, followed by the entrée that earned speaking tours the nickname “the rubber chicken circuit.” There are vegetables on the plate because the lump of protein looks lonely all by itself. That won’t…
Read MoreA La Carte 05/21/15
The big news this week comes from El Segundo, where several restaurant projects were announced. The most interesting is Sausal, which history enthusiasts will recognize as this area’s name during the Spanish rancho era. Chef Anne Conness, formerly of Tin Roof Bistro, will serve a menu derived from Early California recipes. The flavors of the…
Read MoreRESTAURANT REVIEW – The Proud Bird keeps on flying
Part aviation museum, part flight deck for LAX, the iconic local restaurant offers a dining experience unlike any other the LA area If you’ve driven past the LA Airport on Aviation you’ve seen the Proud Bird’s eye-catching collection of real and replica aircraft. The project was the dream on an aviation-obsessed restaurateur named David…
Read MoreDivine Provence [Restaurant review]
Before a book called A Year In Provence came out in 1989, most Americans had never heard of this sun-drenched region of Southern France. That book launched a thousand vacations among people who had never thought about visiting the French Mediterranean, but suddenly had to go there. It also started a craze for Provençal food…
Read MoreBites at the Beach
Chefs and brewers are collaborating at Bite at the Beach on Saturday in Manhattan Beach. “We have paired breweries and restaurants and they’re coming up with combinations that will complement each other,” says MB Chamber CEO James O’Callaghan “We have 24 of each, so there will be that many unique pairings.”
Read MoreRESTAURANT REVIEW – Downstairs Bar is up to the task
Downtown Manhattan Beach’s best kept culinary secret In some of my columns in the past I have made the distinction between a restaurant that serves liquor and a bar that serves food. The difference is a matter of architecture, atmosphere, and menus, as well as a certain indefinable something that suggests an orientation toward either…
Read MoreBoardwalk Hideaway [restaurant review]
Pia, a ten-seat Italian-Japanese restaurant, might be the quirkiest dining concept in the South Bay. It’s also delectable. Kurt Vonnegut wrote a delightful passage about listening to a radio broadcast in a foreign language and imagining that the frantic announcer was describing a race between unlikely vehicles. It’s a picture you can create in your imagination,…
Read MoreInvasion of the juice bars
Some believe the trend towards fresher, healthier, more varied juices began in Redondo Beach with a mysterious surfer/juicer named Bruce in the 1970s. Forty years later, it has come full circle. A few years ago I was driving with a friend who saw a juice bar and asked, “What’s the deal with juice bars? I…
Read MoreA La Carte for 16 April [dining news]
High-Powered Chefs on Rosecrans… Winning a James Beard Foundation award is one of the most prestigious awards that a chef can aspire to, and an elite group of honorees will be cooking at Lido di Manhattan on May 14th. The “Celebrity Chef Tour” dinner will feature local heroes Brooke Williamson and Nick Roberts of Hudson…
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