My Los Angeles Food Tour, March 2023

Food hawkers, stellar char siu, Thai brunch, Sonoran tacos, bagels, Chinese tomb sweeping foods, croissant trends, BMI, garlic noodle fest

I love to eat and when I’m on the road, I compare eating out to going to the beach when I was a kid. My friends and I would park our gear on the shore, run into the ocean to body surf, bake on our warm towels to a sandy crustiness then repeat over and over again until we felt satiated (or a parent said it was time to go home). I often forgot to reapply sunscreen and got sunburned. I once got caught in a riptide and a lifeguard rescued me. Despite all that, I always went back into the ocean. It was part of my Southern California upbringing.

Nowadays, I live in cold-ish northern California, love my sun hats and sunscreen, and don’t aspire to ever browning up like a Bain de Soleil advertisement. Similarly, I can’t eat and drink the way I used to. For many years I consumed food and beverages as if I were at the beach on a hot summer day. I paid for it and by late 2019, I felt ill, stressed, and freaked out. Years of indulging (it was my professional obligation, yes?) got me in trouble. My doctor thought a strange bulge in my lower abdomen was a hernia but it turned out to be a digestive thing. Getting rid of that “thing” and getting myself on a healthier path inspired Ever-Green Vietnamese. My desire to fix myself turned out to be a journey back to my vegetable-driven Vietnamese culinary roots. “We are about agriculture,” my mom recently said.

Since late 2019, I’ve lost a good fifteen pounds and kept them off. I don’t deprive myself but rather, prioritize healthy eating, with produce and whole grains being more top of mind than meat, dairy, and other processed foods. That approach is easy to maintain at home. Once you’re out and about, it gets challenging to have a good food time and stay healthy.

This past week, I went on a mini vacation to Los Angeles (look at the above view from Griffith Park!). Here’s how I managed to check items off my food ‘hit list’ without feeling guilty or worse yet, feeling unhealthy.

Mom’s Fried Cha Gio Fest

We visited my mom first and she and I agreed that we’d stay in and cook. Since my dad passed, she has gone to more Vietnamese restaurants with my siblings but overall, has not found them to be super satisfying. “It’s always nice to have someone else do the dishes but the food can be same-same,” she said.

Under her watchful eyes, my sister, brother and I wrapped 160 cha gio pork and crab imperial rolls and Mom fried them. Wine and gossip fueled our work, though my mom made sure our rolls were somewhat uniform. My mother likes to make super big batches, partly fries them, and freezes them so she can treat us later on.

The day we rolled and fried, we ate the ‘imperfect’ rolls as lettuce and herb wraps dunked in nuoc cham dipping sauce — a nice Vietnamese-approach to balanced eating. Counter something rich with lightness. In Ever-Green Vietnamese, I have oven-fried cha gio recipes, which are less tricky to make and extra healthy to eat. Below is the book’s vegetarian cha gio photo by Aubrie Pick.

Semi-Cooking In with Friends

Our friends John and Mike wanted to meet up in Los Angeles, and instead of going out, I suggested that we I bring food over so we could cook a simple dinner. I brought a tub of Mom’s cha gio plus the veggie accompaniments, asparagus for a simple stir-fry, plus jarred Yai’s massaman curry sauce that we embellished with chunks of boneless chicken thigh, king Trumpet mushrooms, and a couple potatoes lingering in their kitchen. Mike finessed the curry with fish sauce, shallot, and garlic. John got a pot of rice going and we had a glorious evening catching up, cooking and eating. Dessert came from the bakery case at a nearby Whole Foods — where I also purchased other provisions like brown basmati rice (cooks up relatively fast), broccoli crowns, carrot, and baby bok choi.

While we ate, Mike, a doctor who frequently travels to inspect hospitals all over the nation, said he was happy to be eating at home, “It’s healthier and less expensive. And, we can relax and do whatever we want.”

Food Hawkers and Chinatown Char Siu

The next day, we went to Smorgasburg LA, an outdoor food hawker and market in downtown Los Angeles (take Alameda to easily enter the parking structure). We started with pizza topped with chorizo and followed it with pad Thai from Radna Silom (which also sets up in front of Thai Town’s Silom market) and Micheladas. It’s free to enter the market and it’s great for people watching. The food was fun but there were few vegetables. This is Radna Silom’s pad Thai made with pressed tofu, crunchy little shrimp, and a little egg worked in.

Los Angeles Chinatown is near Smorgasburg. For that night’s dinner with a friend, Victor, I placed a to-go order at Pearl River Deli for a double order (1 pound total) of Johnny Lee’s signature char siu pork. Johnny’s char siu is just-right tender, a little fatty, and full of savory-sweet flavor. It’s not red from food coloring, but mahogany from fermented red tofu and other seasonings. Victor was born and raised in Chinatown where his father was a well-known chef and maker of dishes like tomato beef chow mein (I shared the family recipe on my site). Now Vic lives in Santa Monica, about 20 minutes from Chinatown, if the traffic gods are on your side. He adores good Cantonese food and my aim was to deliver that plus a bit of hipster-ish food from his old neighborhood. (Whether you eat in or do takeaway, on Hill Street, look for the Chinese lanterns and modern moon gate opening to the restaurant.)

At Victor’s place, I made a pot of brown basmati rice and prepared the baby bok choy and carrots with staples in his kitchen — oyster sauce, soy sauce, a touch of sugar, and toasted sesame oil. For dessert, we raided his cupboard and made a pot of chrysanthemum tea (for digestion). We only managed to eat half of the pork. Vic already planned to add char siu to instant noodle soup lunches.

Thai Town Lunch and Street Taco Dinner

Los Angeles is home to the biggest Thai community in the United States, which is why I was delighted when my friend Minh Phan, the lauded chef-owner of Porridge and Puffs and Phenakite, suggested lunching at a favorite Thai cafe attached to a motor hotel on Sunset Boulevard across from a 99 cents store. Remember all that when you go to Siam Sunset. In the strip mall next door, Jitlada gets lots of food media attention, but Siam Sunset is neighborhoody,, simple and deliciously balanced (not too sweet or spicy).

Buddhist monks, families and groups of friends were at Siam Sunset. We ordered tom yum rice noodle soup, fried tofu, and fried mussels from the specials menu. From the regular menu, we ordered fried rice accented by gapi (fermented shrimp paste) plus Chinese broccoli (gailan) seasoned with salted fish. I could have ordered a salad but Thai salads, like Viet salads, are usually meaty because they are celebration food. The gailan was tucked away in the stir-fried section of the multi-page menu. It was beautifully wokked.

Griffith Park is nearby so we drove there and casually hiked/walked for about 45 minutes to see the Hollywood sign and take in the Los Angeles basin on a clear day. We then headed back to the Airbnb for my husband to nap and for me to take a meeting. (Yup, I work while traveling, especially with book launch soon.)

LA Tacos and Bagels

Los Angeles is also taco town (there’s a publication titled L.A. Taco!). Drive around and in working class areas, you’ll see food trucks and street vendors selling tacos in many manners. I strategically chose an Airbnb in Highland Park within striking distance of York Boulevard, which is dotted with old and new Latinx businesses in addition to some amazing food trucks. The El Ruso truck parked on Avenue 56, off of York, serves Sonoran-style tacos, caramelos, and sobaqueros using handmade chewy Sonoran-style flour tortillas, which typically contain lard or shortening. Sonoran wheat flour has a moderate amount of protein but enough elasticity so it’s not just fluff; it’s wheat with borderlands history. What a treat.

The caramelo, as I learned from the El Ruso staff, had lightly caramelized melted Mexican cheese sandwiched between two tortillas. You add your protein and I chose the carne asada for a salty, beefy hit. Add-ins include raw cabbage, radishes, and pickled onion, along with hot sauce and light guacamole.

I love the sidewalk seating with plastic stools reminiscent of eating in Vietnam, but eating from food trucks can be a gut bomb. To make a healthy meal, I brought the El Ruso treats back to the rental and served them with steamed broccoli and cremini mushrooms.

For our final dinner in Los Angeles, we had a vegetable-centric meal at buzzy Kismet. The next morning, we picked up a dozen freshly made, chewy bagels from Belle’s Bagels (the cacio pepe is as good as the classics) and drove home, feeling spiritually satisfied and not too physically destroyed. A good vacation.

Can you see my pattern? One meal out then another meal in. Breakfasts are also eaten in because I prefer launching the day with a simple, light meal and coffee.

On past vacations, I championed eating out twice a day but I’m learning to moderate things yet still create opportunities to try exciting foods wherever I go. I’m practicing and gearing up for my Ever-Green Vietnamese book tour, which is expanding as we lock in more dates with partners and community folks.

Tomb Sweeping, Croissant, BMI, Garlic Noodles

While driving home, I thoroughly enjoyed Clarissa Wei’s story on Chinese Qingming tomb sweeping traditions and the recipes that people prepare to celebrate the deceased, as much as Julia Moskin’s piece on croissant trends all over the globe.

From a 2021 NYT story titled “Is B.M.I. a scam?” this capped off our long commute:

Rather than focusing on body size as a gauge of health, Dr. Tomiyama said that your blood glucose, triglyceride and blood pressure results can be better windows into your well-being. How you feel in your body is important, too, she said. “Can you go up a flight of stairs and feel good about how you feel after that? How are you able to live your life in the body that you have?” she said.

If you’re seeking better health, prioritize behaviors that are more within your control than your body mass index, Dr. Tomiyama said, like “better sleep, more exercise, getting a handle on stress and eating more fruits and vegetables.”

I’m not purist or absolutist. The article strangely got me thinking about Vietnamese garlic noodles! Before book launch takes up all my time, I’m going to slide in a 3-week deep dive into the cultish noodles (including recipes, of course!). You’ll hear from me twice a week for most of April. The noodle deep-dive is for paid subscribers but free subscribers will always get partial peek and you can do a 7-day free trial run too.