Around the World in 60 Miles (Or Less)

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

We decided to go on a "budget" world cuisine tour around Los Angeles.  What better place to start than the Los Angeles Farmers Market?

To get there, we parked at The Grove mall -- wowowow, a mall with a concierge and valet parking (and people in the bathroom to wipe your hands and take your money)!  This is a really interesting place to people watch - think GQ and celebrity spotting ;)

Walking past Santa's house, M can't help but try to eat the lollipops

Unfortunately, the day was still early and our stomachs were smaller than our itinerary, and hence, we only made two pit stops out of a possible twenty! Phew. Our first stop was Moishe - delicious Lebanese! M, K, and I shared the lamb kebab with two sides

Ikra (an eggplant dip) and Mouhammara (another dip made from walnut, red peppers, and pomegranate). The lamb was perfect

and the roasted peppers burned our tongues. We kept eating through tears...

Next stop was Pampas Grill, a Brazilian churrascaria where grilled meat is sold by the pound.

Churrascaria literally means "barbeque" in Portuguese. This style of cooking was developed in South Brazil. Tantalizing cuts of beef, chicken, pork and fish would be seasoned and barbecued on skewers over open fire pits by the ranchers, who were known as gauchos. They then carried the freshly cooked meats to the tables, and sliced juicy portions off the skewers on the plates. Each was free to choose from any or all of the meats. 

Oh my, we had about 1 lb. of beef, chicken, and lamb seven different ways! Garlic meat, bacon-wrapped, garlic meat, spicy, garlic meat, sausage, and more garlic meat. YUM

Feeling quite full, we thought it was safe to wander around. What a neat market!

A hot sauce store with hundreds of private label sauces

Eple, a fruit juice store

There was even a Singaporean/Malaysian/Indonesian food stand; a crepe store; butchers, fruit and nut stands and even a few "junk/tourist souvenir" shops. Of course, one must always try the self-proclaimed homemade ice-cream stores. Here, M and K give their approval ;)

After the farmers' market, we thought we would visit Koreatown. On the way, we spotted this fantastic building! It's not just painted to look like it is angled. It really is. Very neat.

Han'gul signs

Not finding much in Koreatown other than blocks and blocks of strip malls with Korean restaurants (sadly, we were too full to even attempt getting out of the car to check out the menus at many yummy-sounding tofu houses and BBQ places), sundry shops, and businesses, we headed for

Olvera Street

We toured the Avila Adobe, the oldest residence in Los Angeles, and learned a lot from a very enthusiastic docent. Don't miss this gem!

We bought Mexican Cascarones (confetti eggs) and cracked them on each other's heads. Ole!

Now, we will have good luck but most of all, we had FUN! We are definitely making these for Easter! :D

For dinner, we went to Honduras via El Katracho. We had chips that were sprinkled with cheese and sauce while trying to decide what to order. Finally settled on casamiento (rice and beans), sweet corn tamale (which was out of this world), pastelito (small meat empanada), a taco-like appetizer with ground beef, sliced plantain with pork skin (plantain chips with fried pork rind and lots of cabbage and sauce), and baleadas (yummy).

What a whirlwind tour!  I'm quite dizzy, but I suspect it's from eating too much food.