Jonathan Gold - One of our Favorites...

ONE OF OUR FAVORITES - JONATHAN GOLD

Jonathan Gold, Pulitzer Prize winning food critic for the LA Weekly, Gourmet Magazine, and more, is one of our favorite writers.

If you just moved to LA (welcome my acting/screenwriting friend!) add these two books to the bookshelf your over-priced Los Feliz apartment. Lord knows you didn't come to LA to read, but trust me, you NEED these books, like, now.

The Thomas Guide 2008 - Los Angeles County Street Guide

and

Counter Intelligence - Jonathan Gold

Sure you can read his articles every Thursday in the LA Weekly, but he only has one restaurant review, and guess what - everybody reads that. Try getting a reservation at El Sazon Oaxaqueno after a Gold write up? (Ha! Trick question! They don't take reservations!)

Instead, pick up Counter Intelligence. With hundreds of restaurant recommendations - most of them extremely affordable to downright "cheap" - you'll be instantly converted to Gold and believe in his subtitle: "Where to eat in the real Los Angeles."

Oh yeah, and he's also one of the best writers out there. Of any genre. Here are some quotes from Counter Intelligence:

"Lavishly buttered bowls of grits appear at breakfast, served with hot cornbread, eggs any way you like them, and pungent, profoundly salty slabs of real country ham-the kind of breakfast that any sensible person would trade for the ability to squeeze into a pair of size-6 jeans."

-Gold on Johnny Reb's

"Hot Dog on a Stick is yet another gift Southern California has bestowed upon the world...A summer behind the fryers at Hot Dog on a Stick is almost the archetypal first teenage job, and the garishly costumed employees figure in local teenage iconagraphy as surely as lifeguards or cheerleaders."

-Gold on Hot Dog on a Stick

"The cooks are Asian; the waitresses Peruvian. The walls are decorated with pictures of campesinos and llamas and gory bleeding Jesuses; above the serving counter sit plaster Japanese good-luck cats, paws raised in greeting...Across the street is a well-stocked liquor store where you can pick up a six-pack of Sapporo to drink with your dinner.

-Gold on Mario's Peruvian Seafood

"Like all good hamburgers, a Pie 'N Burger burger is about texture: the crunch of lettuce, the charred, slightly friable surface of the meat, the outer rim of the bun crisped to almost the consistency of toast...The slice of American cheese, if you have ordered a cheeseburger, does not melt into the patty, but stands glossily aloof form it, as if it were mocking the richness of the sandwich rather than adding to the general effect."

-Gold on Pie 'N Burger
(The best damn hamburger joint in the world, I dare you to find a better place. Dare!)

Hungry? Me too.

-KV