Xoia surfs the Vietnamese wave into Echo Park

It's only fitting that my first meal at Echo Park's new Xoia started with pho tacos. The restaurant is owned by longtime Echo Park residents Jose Sarinana and Thien Ho, and the food is mostly homestyle Vietnamese, influenced by Ho's heritage fro the city of Hoi An. This article from the Eastsider explains how the restaurant came about. Just a few years ago, I never would have believed that the Silver Lake-Atwater area would giver near-Eastsiders a choice of Indochine, Viet Noodle Bar, Gingergrass and Pho Cafe, and now Echo Park has its own version with just a touch of Latin influence -- at least in the tacos.
Since the launch of Kogi BBQ truck, pretty much every cuisine serves tacos, and these juicy tacos made with pho beef just needed a touch of soy sauce and housemade salsa to bring them to life.

Pho beef tacos

Xoia is still in soft-opening stage, with a limited menu and dinner service only. But in a few weeks, more menu items will be added and lunch will kick off too. The former paint store is bright and modern, decorated with Sarinana's abstract paintings, with a small patio that's nicely enclosed so that diners don't have to sit right on the Sunset Blvd. sidewalk. A clutch of bloggers were invited Monday to try some signature dishes, and I liked both the tacos and the beef pho. With a heartier, more flavorful broth than is sometimes found in the nouveau Vietnamese spots and a jumbo helping of noodles, this is a solid bowl of pho for $8.50.
The menu also has spring rolls, vegetarian pho, banh mi at around $6.50, chicken curry and an intriguing noodle dish, Mi quang, with thick rice noodles, shrimp, pork, mint and sesame cracker chips. There's no liquor license at the moment, though they may apply for one down the line.
Xoia
1801 Sunset Blvd.
Echo Park

213-413-3232

Good Magazine's decade in food

Eastside bon vivant Jon Huck has passed along Good magazine's intriguing decade in food.
- It's fun to realize it's already been 10 years since Carrie Bradshaw starting eating cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery -- and Magnolia is finally making it to L.A. all those years later.
Other highlights:

2002: The Julie/Julia project is one of the early blogs that launches a craze for food blogging that continues to grow.
2004: Yelp launches, giving earlier sites like Chowhound a run for their money and elevating dirty Internet tricks to a new level. Also, Julia Child dies.
2005: The word "locavore" becomes popularized.
2009: The White House organic garden is planted.
No entries for 2010 yet -- have you noticed any food milestones so far? Also no entries for food trucks...clearly it's not comprehensive, but the food scene has come an incredibly long way in the last decade.

Malo es bueno: Silver Lake's booziest brunch

Mango banana French toast with piloncillo syrup

Technically I guess it's possible to have a boozy, leisurely brunch at several places in Silver Lake: Cliff's Edge, Edendale Grill and Dusty's come to mind. But it would be hard to find a better combination of potent yet refreshing cocktails and zippy Mexican brunch dishes than Malo, where several bloggers/writers were invited to try brunch and some new cocktails this weekend.

 A salsa flight and guacamole are de rigueur at Malo

Malo makes an excellent margarita of course, but the Medicina Latina adds a strong jolt of ginger to the lime and tequila with a mist of Mezcal. Matt enjoyed the extra-spicy Bloody Maria made with tequila, while a new drink made with gin, mint, and smashed peaches was also a hit. I wouldn't have thought to order

scrambled egg tostadas ($8), but they were terrific; I actually liked them better than the chilaquiles. Either decadent Mango and banana french toast with warm piloncillo syrup ($8) or spinach enchiladas with a touch of the fiery creamy salsa and cool avocado slices would make the perfect morning-after dish.

Scrambled egg tostadas

In addition to lots of other brunch salads, vegan choices and egg dishes, there were two pancake creations we didn't try: bacon cheddar pancakes and buttermilk and queso fresco pancakes, so a return trip is in order. And don't be afraid that the desserts will be too sweet -- both the flan and tres leches cake are nicely calibrated not to be cloying. I've always been partial to Malo and their organic margaritas and ground beef pickle tacos, but their brunch is a super-pleasant way to soak up some morning sun on the patio before hitting the Silver Lake Farmer's Market, Spice Station and Cheese Shop of Silver Lake to stock up for dinner.

Who could object to such a scene?

Picnic tables in front of Papa's Tapas on Wilshire

I know being a restaurant owner is no picnic, but I despite my generally good feelings for councilman Tom LaBonge, I think his call for more regulations for food trucks-- including prohibiting them from using metered spaces at all --  is generally a poor idea. Take the stretch of Wilshire which seems to be the source of the most complaints. I've worked there for 15 years, and I've been complaining about the food around there for just as long. The lack of street life around there was dreary, considering that thousands of people work in the area and need to eat lunch. On Thursday our office building at 5900 Wilshire set up picnic tables in front of the piece of the Berlin Wall improbably propped up on the lawn. There were kids in strollers, office workers, museum visitors, all sharing tables and talking about which trucks they liked. It was worlds better than the sterile sidewalks with only a few chain restaurants of the previous 14 years. The petition put together by the Mobile Food Truck Vendors is up to nearly 6,000 signatures -- it couldn't hurt to sign it. Do you think the trucks require any more regulation than they already have?

Veggie, garlic shrimp and beef tacos from Papa's Tapas

Have you been to Blasphemy yet?

Here's an amusing review of the new restaurant Blasphemy. If it sounds like a spin-off of the Gorbals...well, maybe that's intentional...or not.
It's from local writer Adam Baer. Here's an excerpt:

Served alongside tamarind-pickled rhubarb cigarettes and nanogreens on a thin slab of recycled local asphalt from Melrose Avenue, Blasphemy's Bacon-Schmaltz ($39) comes paired with a Manischewitz-Guinness smoothie served in a shot glass, and any one of the day’s special desserts, which can range from sweet cotton candy knishes ($12) to Nutella-glazed smoked salmon sausages on car-bomb-shaken Dublin crème ($16).

Adam Baer's Bacon Schmaltz: a review of Blasphemy, from Grin & Tonic

Mooi: Some like it raw

Mooi represents the new Echo Park with a vengeance: it's fashionable, yet funky, with a decadent sounding selection of dozens of flavors of ice cream -- yet the ice cream is made from raw cashews, and the "orange chicken" is made from jackfruit. Located in the old Jensen's Rec Center building, the look is fetching, with menus made from Dr. Seuss books, mismatched vintage furniture and an ice cream counter up front.And of course the patrons sport beards worthy of a deep woods logging camp. At lunch, though, you won't get to try the jackfruit chicken or enchiladas with sliced walnuts -- the lunch menu is quite small, with a soup, a few salads and two "sandwiches."
I use the term loosely because truly, a slice of cucumber on a clump of raw grains mushed into a patty does not a sandwich make.

A mild salad of apple, cucumber and zucchini cubes in a curry dressing was fine because of course, salad is normally raw. Though the sandwiches were basically a joke, I quite liked the ice cream. Given the caloric content of cashews and coconut, I'm guessing it's nutritionally similar to the real stuff, but my chocolate chile and Layne's Cracker Jack ice cream had a mapley sweetness,with a touch of salted caramel -- and pretty good in their own right.

I'd like to say I'll be back to try the more ambitious dinner menu, but who am I fooling? There's plenty of other places that actually apply heat to their food, so I'll probably pass, unless I'm totally jonesing for some apricot cashew ice cream.

Mooi 
1700 W. Sunset Blvd.
Echo Park

Zaatar Factory: A savory Lebanese journey to Burbank

 Khachapuri comes in egg, cheese, potato and sausage combos, and is cooked to order.

Over here at Eating LA, I mostly leave cupcakes, donuts and brownies to other bloggers. But give me a good loaf of French bread or a spicy cheese-stuffed burek, and I start to get a lot more intrigued. The one-year old Zaatar Factory in Burbank is one of many excellent Lebanese or Armenian bakeries in L.A. baking burek stuffed with spinach or cheese, meat-topped lahmajune and sweet tahini bread and cookies. The small cheese burek ($10 for about a dozen) would be perfect party hors d'oeuvres. But the friendly bakery has a wider selection than many, adding meat or potato-stuffed burek in a half-moon shaped turnover and freshly-made khachapuri.
Unfortunately I was in a bit of a rush, because the real attraction at Zaatar Factory is the khachapuri, sort of a Lebanese pizza-like breakfast bread, with eggs, cheese or sausage topping a foccacia-like base. The bakery is to-go only, so you can take it home and reheat, or just scarf it down in the car. They take about 15 minutes to make, so call ahead or browse in the tiny but well-stocked Lebanese market next door, which also serves grilled meat sandwiches.
The maneishe bread is topped with the bakery's namesake zaatar mix of marjoram, sesame seeds, thyme and oregano. This one is half zaatar, half pepper sauce, and it's dynamite if you take it home and top with a little feta or mozzarella and melt it in the toaster oven.

Zaatar Factory

2909 N. Glenoaks Blvd.

Burbank

(818) 859-7353

 

 

Forage launches Home Growers Program

Responding to the crackdown on home gardeners contributing produce to their restaurant, the folks at Forage have taken action and started the Home Growers Program. If you're just hoping to bring in a bag of extra lemons every so often, this probably isn't for you, but if you're a more serious gardener, Forage can help you become certified to supply to restaurants. What a great, progressive way to support urban farming!

(pictured, a Highland Park family who grow guavas, corn and more)