Best thing I ate: Really great udon on Costa Mesa’s Ramen Row

Founded in 1978 by people “who practiced yoga together”—which might just be another way of saying “hippies”—this Costa Mesa natural-foods market recently moved from its original flagship store on 17th Street to new digs at the site of a recently...

As a teenager, Yoonjin Hwang won a piano scholarship playing Chopin’s polyrhythmic “Fantaisie-Impromptu.” Later, at Oberlin College, she studied the pipe organ, exploring its profound range of timbres. To disappear now into a bowl of her pork...

Spoon By H 7158 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles   

Have you tried battera sushi? You really should. It’s a brick-shaped thing, vinegared sushi rice pressed into a mold over lightly pickled mackerel and a transparent slip of seaweed, and it’s usually served sliced like bread. The oil of the saba,...

The morning after my last meal at Maestro, Danny Godinez’s new Mexican restaurant in Old Pasadena, I pulled the leftover barbacoa out of the refrigerator to see if I could salvage enough for a taco. There were still a few scraps of lamb left, but...

When the weather gets hot, the noodles get cold. And here are some of the coldest. Yu Chun — How cold is Yu Chun’s mool chic naengmyun? So cold that it gives you an ice cream headache. So cold that the tangy beef broth builds up in soft drifts in...