Weekend is time for a trip to your local market. I missed the Portland market, but, was able to catch the Eugene Farmers Market last weekend. The best I have ever been to…. super fresh, organic produce and tasty hot meals too. Our local Hollywood and Silverlake farmers market are good, but, ain’t got nothing on this. Take me back! See you on the upside.

Darn good coffee in Oregon.

Heating up hot water for the coffee on these burners.

Brick oven pizzas! Crazy, I didn’t know they made huge portable ovens like this.

Nice, big tamale.

Angie and artist Charlene Liu.

There is no better way to get together and catch up with our artists and friends over some good food. From Portland to Eugene, we had the best time ever and lots of good eats. Thank to everyone that gave us their suggestions on our Facebook and Twitter, we hit most of them!

Broder Cafe with Kate Bingaman Burt…. an incredible Swedish breakfast joint.

Thai appetizer at Pok Pok with husband and wife duo, Aaron and Ayumi of APAK. I was a bit skeptical of this Thai joint at first… but, it was surprisingly authentic and delicious!

Portland had tons of little cluster food trucks. This in the Alberta Street area…. a wonderful little burger with JD Hooge and Betsy Walton.

This was probably the craziest of spreads on our trip. Thing you need to know about artists Charlene Liu and Isami Ching… they are foodies and amazing cooks. Don’t judge by the home made spread you see here… it’s an amalgamation of our leftovers from the weekend we spent with them. To break it down, we had smoked ribs, oysters, biscuits, and potato salad the morning before we left. Sounds like a funny mish mosh… and I admit, it is. But, it was so darn good and worked in a weird left overs kind of way.

Below are also a couple of pictures and video from where we originally got the oysters and the fine day at the beach we enjoyed them. We bought 48 oysters between us. Bring me back.

My perfect LA weekend will consist of a night like this. We brought out the barbie from hibernation, not quite perfect grilling weather yet, but, we are getting ready for sizzling Summer. This was a quaint, spontaneous grill night…. can’t wait for friends, drinks, and backyard bbqs!!

Angie tweeting, mom commanding the grill. Thanks mom.

I blogged a few weeks ago about my brother Troy and his new jerky biz, Swee Dee Dee Jerky. He debuted the culinary delight at the San Francisco Underground Market and sold out within hours. Troy was giving tasters and people instantly bought not just one bag, but, multiples. It was that good… and to no surprise, this was a recipe that has been passed down through the family, I remember eating the jerky on special occasions and outdoor family outings. Good to see my little brother revive this recipe for the public and even better to see people devouring it. You can order a bag online at sweedeedeejerky.com and emailing him at sweedeedeejerky(at)gmail.com. He makes to order, so just email him for the details! He’ll send it to you in a cute, little hand stamped bag and a little note about when it shipped and how to store it. Because this is all natural and no preservatives, you should eat it in a reasonable time… but, I guarantee that will not be a problem, it’s totally addictive, one bite and you end up eating the whole bag. I already got the Poketo crew hooked on “the meat treat with the sweet heat”…. I’m like the pusher man.

Swee Dee Dee Jerky will be at the next San Francisco Underground Market slated for June 4th so mark your calendar.

We know it’s only Tuesday, but there is something to look forward to this weekend!

I’ve been browsing through the new Lomography store in West Hollywood, and was impressed by the sheer size of the space. Two floors of ultimate lomo experience. Not only do they have every product imaginable, but they also hold really creative workshops that are intimate enough for you to make new friends and highly engaged with the city of Los Angeles.

All photos via Lomography

One event to look forward to is their Diana Mini workshop this Saturday from 1-3 pm. Already own a Diana mini camera? Free entry. Or, get a loaner with a free roll of film and shoot your Saturday afternoon away in the streets of Los Angeles.

They will also be throwing a Light Painting Workshop on March 23rd where they will be teaching you how to create stunning, highly saturated images of light streaks from one of their loaner lomo cameras.

Then I would suggest a restaurant for lunch that is down the street from the store called Hugo’s. I saw it on the Food Network’s, “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” and it was a special breakfast episode. This place is packed, but the wait wasn’t too bad (around ten minutes?)

I had the “Pasta Mama” dish for brunch which consisted of fresh pasta scrambled with eggs, garlic, parsley, Parmesan cheese and Hugo’s special seasoning. It’s a simple dish that originated as a last minute hearty breakfast of delicious leftovers. And lots and lots of garlic! Here’s a pic of the “Pasta Papa” dish which is basically the Pasta Mama + Bacon, chicken italian sausage, and scallions.

We were at Poketo are all hugeeeee Top Chef/ Top Chef Masters fans. So you can only imagine our reaction when we discovered that Top Chef MASTER winner, Rick Bayless will be opening up his first restaurant outside of Chicago in the City of Angels! Woo hoo!

Set to open some time in April, “Red O” will take the place of what used to be Moustache Cafe restaurant on Melrose Avenue. I’m sure many people will be skeptical about his take on Mexican food, especially in a city that prides itself on its wonderful Mexican cuisine that’s affordable and pretty much as real as it gets before Mexico itself. He is planning on making his menu lighter, catering to the diversified palettes of Californians with a very hand-picked tequila selection. (Very important.) He was my favorite on the show more so because of the passion he had whenever he was being interviewed on his food.

I loved watching his show on PBS: Mexico- One Plate At A Time

He’s def. legit in my book. Can’t wait!

Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz around San Gabriel’s food scene, and knew I had to contact my old roommate from college to show me around the area. In the past few weeks, I’ve discovered so many hidden gems: dim sum, pho, banh mi, warm and gooey red bean desserts…My newest discovery?? All you can eat HOT POT @ Amrose Restaurant. I was unable to take pictures when I went, but these pics taken from their Yelp page pretty accurately represents my experience there:

It’s basically like the Chinese version of Shabu Shabu. Supposedly the dual broth they serve you is more of “Szechuan”-style with their bold seasoning and spicy broth. And for 15 dollars, you can eat all you want–even seafood and meat!

Lots of different variation of sauces. We had the garlic oil one.

All topped off with some good ol’ Taiwan beer.

Highly recommended for anyone willing to track out into the valley.

Amrose Hot Pot
529 E Valley Blvd
San Gabriel, CA 91776

I am obsessed with two cooking shows featured on YouTube: Cooking with Dog, which focuses on Japanese cooking, and Maangchi, who focuses on Korean cooking.

There are a couple of dishes that I dream of eating. Why not make it? Simple. I suck at cooking. So, I wonder if anyone located in Los Angeles can recommend any awesome places they know of that specialize in the following dishes:

Where can I find a restaurant that serves Sanma Takikomi Gohan (Japanese Mixed Rice with Pacific Saury)??? It’s been beautifully made in this video,I hope someone can spare me the misery of actually having to cook this myself!

Does anyone know where to get awesome Ichigo Daifuku?!?!?!

I wonder if they have this in other fruits too…

It’s interesting to compare both Cooking with Dog and Maangchi’s cooking styles. Cooking with Dog, whose dishes have been showcased on this blog post is very refined, always magically done in perfect portions for 1 person, and have intricate cuts that require tiny tiny fingers. Maangchi‘s style is very hands on, uses a lot of sesame oil, and requires more intuition than calculation.

Check them out!