Tinga: Flavors that sing ... but do the prices zing?

Flat-iron steak tacos at Tinga

Tinga has been open on La Brea near 2nd for nearly a year, but many people still haven't noticed the tiny storefront with two tables outside near the larger Cafe Midi. Inspired by the approach of Santa Barbara's La Super Rica, husband and wife team Chris and Jerry Baker didn't replicate the menu, but brought handmade tortillas and the same careful approach to spicing found at the venerable stand. Instead of a scruffy patio, Tinga is tucked into a narrow space with a long communal wood table, blackboard menu wall and industrial feel.

chicken tacos with salsa verde, Tinga

I wanted to be able to say that Tinga's $8.50 taco plate was too expensive or that their compostable plates and utensils were too precious. But after recently eating at an old-school Mexican restaurant with even higher prices, rancid chips and watery salsa, I'd gladly give up on the chance to get a $10 jamaica margarita in exhange for real taste in my food. Actually Loteria's tacos are the same price, and Tinga's tacos are even bigger and meatier. In fact, I almost wish the Pechuga lemon-brined chicken breast tacos or the flat-iron steak tacos were chopped into smaller pieces instead of served in large slices. The taco toppings are dynamite, like addictive salsa verde on the chicken tacos or dog-snout salsa and pickled onions on the steak tacos. For easier eating, try the slow-cooked cochinita pibil pork tacos, which truly are spicy-spicy as the menu advises. The menu has expanded since the August 2010 opening, adding tortas and burritos to tacos and quesadillas. Don't look for elaborate dishes -- this is simple street food, but made with the highest attention to flavor and quality. In addition to the crispy, fresh chips that come with the tacos, don't miss the Elote especial -- a tangy-sweet-spicy combo of roasted corn, lime and poblano chile. There's plenty of other choices for vegetarians, like potato tacos and a mushroom quesadilla that intrigues even a devoted pibil-hound. Aguas like jamaica and watermelon lemonade are strong and not overly-sweetened, while dulce de leche-laden alfajore cookie is just the thing for dessert.
Sure, street tacos are great. But when even Baja Fresh charges $6 for two tacos, it's only logical to pay a dollar or two more for something you'll still be thinking about several days later.
Tinga Buena
142 S. La Brea
323-954-9566
(now open every day till 9 pm, Sundays to 7 pm)

Eat Real Fest: Watermelon pickles meet steer butchery

So after a couple of successful Oakland festivals, Eat Real is heading down to Helms Bakery near Culver City on July 16 and 17 for a giant artisanal food fair. Along with local favorites like Cast Iron Gourmet bacon and Lindy and Grundy are Miracle Mile Bitters and Carlsbad Aquafarm Oysters and localish breweries including Eagle Rock Brewing, Craftsman, The Bruery, Stone and Lost Abbey.
A slew of classes and demonstrations cover DIY subjects from bitters to sauerkraut to steer butchering, pretzel making and an ice cream lab. Music, a food lit fest and more make this a pretty ambitious fair, so we're looking forward to working on our pickles in July. The best part? Entry is free, so all your money can be spent on artisanal jams and such.

Broome St. General Store: A little bit of everything cool in Silver Lake

There's plenty of room on Broome St.'s patio for having coffee and pastries.

Broome St. General Store has taken over that sweet little bungalow on Rowena near the Coffee Table formerly occupied by Zanzabelle and Freight. Where Zanzabelle sold ice cream, coffee and nicely-designed vintage toys, Broome St. concentrates on coffee, sandwiches and desserts, and nicely-designed kitchen items. Broome St. is named after the New York street where one of the owners, Sophie Esteban, had her first real kitchen furnished with items found everywhere from Dean and DeLuca to Chinatown.

Kitchenware is has a simple appeal.

So the general store offers a little taste of everything she and co-owner Peter Graham like: Lovely reusable glass canning jars and carafes, dishes and housewares from Japan, vintage items from Esteban's collection, even elegant grey t-shirts and of course, the quintessential Silver Lake necessity, Dude No. 1 Beard Oil.

Packaged food items include raw honey and Morris Kitchen ginger syrup, in addition to jams, candy -- and bloody mary mix.

There's no kitchen, but a meal can be cobbled together from sandwiches and salads from HeirloomLA, sweets from Cake Monkey and croissants and pastries from Valerie Confections. We tried an excellent cup of Panama Hartmann Honey pour over coffee from New York's Gimme! Coffee; there's also espresso and French press coffee. Want to make perfectly-brewed pour-over coffee at home? Pick up one of those Clever Pourover brewers here. Open only six days, there's lots more to come at Broome St. -- special cakes and desserts from Valerie are in store when the shop starts opening later in the evenings in a few weeks, so Silver Lake will finally have that dessert-and-coffee place locals have longed for.
Broome St. General Store
2912 Rowena Ave.

(323) 570-0405

Moko Culver City: Modern Korean with a happy ending

Moko's watermelon granita (photo courtesy GourmetPigs)

Moko has replaced Gyenari on the busy stretch of Washington Blvd. in Culver City that offers a large choice of restaurants, so every restaurant has to really pull its weight. Apparently Gyenari wasn't pulling them in anymore, so owner Will Shin re-concepted and brought in a new chef, Gary Robins. Obviously Robins is not Korean, and though the food revolves around a Korean theme, it brings in Vietnamese and other Asian influences for a whole new take on Korean food. I was invited to try out the recently re-opened restaurant where we concentrated on the panchan, or side dishes, dumplings, selections from the crudo and skewers menu as well as pancakes and rice cakes.

Lychee semifreddo with berries (photo by GourmetPigs)

The desserts were the real surprise, incorporating Asian flavors in fresh ways. We couldn't stop sampling icy, refreshing watermelon granita and housemade lychee semifreddo sprinkled with chile. The showstopper is a plate of housemade orange ginger, strawberry and anise marshmallows with a bowl of melted chocolate and delicate cinnamon-tinged graham crackers for creating s'mores toasted on the tabletop burner.

scallops with crispy leeks

What to order before dessert? Korean bbq dishes offer a la carte selections for tabletop grilling like marrow, marinated kalbi beef, prawns and vegetables. Panchan have imaginative touches elevating them to interesting dishes in their own right, from beets with apple-smoked bacon and the rarely-used jujube fruit to Asian pear and kohlrabi salad and asparagus with crisped garlic. Snapper and hamachi crudo were light and fresh, while a pork belly scallop skewer was a rich take on surf and turf. Duck confit, pork belly or grilled prawn ssam wraps are like giant tacos on thick rice wrappers, a perfect bar snack with cocktails like the Thai basil cooler or several good draft beers.
Moko Restaurant
9540 Culver Blvd.
Culver City
310-838-3131

Would you go veggie for 30 days for GoodLA?

Good is doing some excellent work with its local Los Angeles community news and events. They support everything from food swaps to beer bike rides, and you can't argue with doing good. The magazine/integrated media platform emailed me to ask if I'd like to post about their June challenge, which is to go meat-free for 30 days to help save the planet. I'd love to support Good and all they do, but that's just too long for a foodblogger to go without carnitas, sushi and shortribs. Actually I don't eat much meat at all, but I feel better if I keep up a fairly steady supply of fish, poultry and the occasional pork belly-scallop skewer like last night at Moko. But I'll try to be mindful of choosing more sustainable poultry and meat this month, and maybe get a bit more ambitious with some vegetarian main dishes, just to be a good sport. Which is probably more than most foodbloggers would do, since they tend to skew thoroughly meatarian like this Ruth Bourdain graphic mocking the new government food recommendations.
What do you think? Would you go meat-free for a month? Do you think it would make a significant environmental difference?