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Who Says Californians Eat Healthy?

This yummy picture of eggs benedict was taken at the Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica.

This place has become our new favorite brunch spot. Aside from delicious food and outdoor dining by the pool (it's a teeny pool, practically just for show), the place is never crowded. Which means there is no haggling for a table nor do you have to wait an hour to get seated. You can pretty much show up at prime brunch hour--10-11am--and eat right away.

So even if you are staying in the Travelodge by the Santa Monica Pier you can brunch in style at the Viceroy.

Insider Tip: If you are driving to the hotel, try to nab a metered spot in front to save yourself the $8 valet fee. Even better, if you are staying in the area in Santa Monica, rent a bike--it's the local way--and peddle over to the Viceroy instead.

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YouTube / Blogs / Food / Food Porn / → All Tags

Seoul Food #2: Naked Jokbal

Seoul Food #2 has arrived. Seoul Food is the food segment of Michael Hurt's SeoulGlow video podcasts. In this episode, host Susan Choung takes on jokbal, or pig's trotters. That would be pig's feet. They're big business over there.

So big, in fact, that there's a jokbal neighborhood in Seoul. Most of the restaurants have been around for decades, and each claims to be the first to serve the delicacy. Making its second Seoul Food appearance is the Korean "ghetto napkin," or standard-issue roll of toilet paper that's found at food stands and casual restaurants.

But the tease of perfectly balanced layers of pork skin, fat, and meat isn't over. This episode is "to bet continued." Stay tuned and salivating.

Related Stories:
· SeoulGlow #6 - Susan Eats Jokbal! [SeoulGlow]

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Durian Cupcakes Are the New Pot Brownies

Ah, durian, scourge of the Singapore hotel. Not only is this magical fruit of Southeast Asia banned from most upmarket hotels in Singapore, it's even hated by culinary demigod Tony Bourdain. (The dude eats seal eyes; it must be bad.) But in case you were wondering how one might approach the otherwise unapproachable durian, here's a suggestion from KL foodblogger Babe in the City. She took an ordinary peanut butter cupcake recipe and swapped some pungent durian pulp for the peanut butter. If you're lucky (and your neighbors unlucky) enough to have access to both durian and a kitchen at the moment, there's an interesting worldly food adventure to be had.

[Photo: Babe in the City - KL]

Related Stories:
· Durian Cupcakes [Babe in the City]
· Eight Minutes of Durian [Jaunted]

YouTube / Blogs / Food / Food Porn / Culture / → All Tags

Korea's First Video Podcast

Expat Michael Hurt has been producing audio podcasts over at his website, Scribblings of the Metropolitician, for a while. Hurt's audio dispatches provide an invaluable English-language peek into life in Seoul, South Korea, and such essential components of existence there as coffee shops, public transportation, the holy convergence of donuts and WiFi, countryside diversions, and, most importantly, Korea's first Hooters restaurant!

Now Hurt has taken to the world of visuals to produce SeoulGlow, which is, if unconfirmable as Korea's first, certainly one of its very best video podcast series. In the episode above, the first of what will hopefully be a long line of "Seoul Food" installments, former Food & Wine editor Susan Choung schools us on some Korean street food basics, including how to cleanse your palate with Soju liquor and wipe your chops clean with toilet paper (the Korean "ghetto napkin").

All shows are either in English with Korean subtitles or vice versa, depending on the circumstances. Props to Hurt for extracting the "Soul Glo" song from Coming to America for use as his theme song. The College Entrance Exam episode is also not to be missed, if only because of the completely dumbfounding enthusiasm for tests among Korean highschoolers. Welcome to culture shock!

Related Stories:
· SeoulGlow [Official Site - via Mary Eats]
· Scribblings of the Metropolitician [Official Site]

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Pic Pick: Sweet Potato Season

If you're hating winter right now, know that it brings some good along with the bad. In Hong Kong (and elsewhere around China), sweet potatoes are in season. That means the sweet potato stands are out on the streets in full force for a limited time only.

This photo, snapped by former America's Next Top Model contestant/current HK working model, Elyse Sewell, displays that classic winter treat in all its glory, but you'll have to click through for the higher-quality version. Sewell called her snack "unutterably divine."

[Photo: Elyse Sewell]

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· feeling kinda freaky and that's no lie [Elyse Sewell]

Restaurants / Food / Barbeque / Food Porn / → All Tags

Finger Lickin' Memphis: Central BBQ

If you're a Yankee who has read and watched a lot about southern barbecue but never actually experienced it, you could likely be scared shitless. The prospect of diving face-first into the big bad world of Q is daunting. Like ordering coffee the wrong way in Vienna, or a cheesesteak the wrong way in Philly (you get the idea), one just expects to be yelled at, spit on, or both. Fear comes with the territory when you're a newbie, especially a newbie to such a huge culinary establishment.

So imagine our surprise at Central BBQ, a low-key Memphis joint with nary a chip on its pork shoulder: the place attracts normal people, it's staffed by normal people, and you won't get stampeded if you actually have to, like, stand and study the menu for a second. We parked, entered, contemplated, ordered, and carried out without incident. And the food rocks.

We chose a turkey sandwich, no slaw, with mild sauce and a side of greens. The sandwich is classic no-frills fare: just good ol' turkey slathered with sauce (which, by the way, has quite a bit of zip even in the "mild" variety) and served up on a white hamburger bun. It was slippery, messy, and addictive. Also, by the time you read this, we'll probably still be smelling like barbecue sauce--a true mark of quality.

A look at the rest of Central's menu reveals an irresistible selection for all palates: pork ribs, chicken, pulled pork and even portabella mushroom sandwiches. The pulled pork especially is notoriously delicious.

Related Stories:
· Central BBQ - Memphis [Official Site]
· Jaunted in Memphis (July) [Jaunted]

Restaurants / Food / Food Porn / Berkeley / → All Tags

Tacubaya Kicks Hippie Tofu Sandwiches Out the Door

Visiting Berkeley California doesn't have to be all about the hippie hang-outs and buying tie-dye t-shirts on Telegraph Avenue.

Fourth Street, located off the 80 Freeway near the marina in West Berkeley, is a few short blocks that combines mainstream stores like Crate & Barrel Outlet and Anthropologie with independent shops. Nestled in the middle of the Fourth Street stretch is Tacubaya, an authentic Mexican taqueria.

While not a full-service restaurant (you order at the register, get an order number, pick your own table and the food is then served at your table), the food is pretty bad-ass. And it's not just Taco Bell-style tacos either.

The menu is chock-full of top-quality northern Mexican breakfast and lunch items handled with panache. Barbecued Niman Ranch pork fills al pastor tacos, while cactus in revueltos norteños is a crunchy foil to the surrounding melange of scrambled eggs, tomatoes and green onions. Sopa de tortilla is a slurp-worthy exercise in overkill, loaded with chicken, avocado, spinach and globs of cheese.

We took in the above tortilla soup which we liked but we liked the chips and guac and the chicken tacos much better.

Insider Tip: Portions are large and more expensive so bring a little more here than you would to Taco Bell.

More pics of Tacubaya after the jump.

Related Stories:
· Tacubaya restaurant reviews [CitySearch]

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Chips Off the Old Block

Hooray for Crisps! Catalogers of product porn Cool Hunting have stepped away from their appreciations of Italian toothpaste to catalog the ups and downs of English crispery, or potato chips, as they are called in `merica.

Obviously, potato chip taste technology has changed drastically in the last twenty years. Finding, say, ketchup flavored potato chips in Canada used to be a big deal. Now, the flavors are all over the map in the UK: Smoked Salmon with Horseradish and Capers, Smoky Streaked Bacon, Bloody Mary, even Pesto and Wholegrain mustard. Makes Sour Cream and Onion--still one of our personal favorites--seem a bit dull.

Cool Hunting picks Tyrell's crisps as the best, citing their wide range of flavors and artisinal production methods. We hope to figure out how to get a case of them to our apartment by Memorial Day.

Related Stories:
·   Potato Crisp Round-Up [Cool Hunting]

Food / Food Porn / Restaurants / Vietnam / Hanoi / → All Tags

Get Pho for Your Money

Sticky Rice did some pho sampling in Hanoi the other day. This is important information--there aren't going to be very many cold nights left before summer begins, and we're not the biggest fans of steaming bowls of soup in the summer. Then again, none of those places deliver from Hanoi to Manhattan anyway, so we're stuck drooling from afar.

Nonetheless, he comes away pretty impressed; the beef broth stock is tasty, and the strips of beef--so thin that they are cooked by the heat of the broth--are only briefly stirred, but not too rare. It's topped with chili and lime--just like the peanuts at Trader Joe's!

American soups need more raw meat cooking in the soup while you're eating it; that's the clear conclusion to be drawn here.

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·   Famous Pho [Stickyrice]

Food / Food Porn / Curacao / Bonaire / Restaurants / → All Tags

Curacao Chow

Travel Writer Alex Robertson Textor was in Bonaire and Curacao at the end of March. He'll be filing five dispatches for Jaunted this week about the relatively unknown (unless you're Andruw Jones) Caribbean islands. The fourth, In Search of Antillean Grub, starts below and continues here. Alex, when not traveling and writing, is a Senior Editor over at EuroCheapo.com. Take it away, Alex:

After a number of failed attempts to eat local food on Bonaire (the highly touted Gibi's Terrace has closed, and the location a local gave us for the house where Gibi lives and continues to cook up culinary masterpieces for takeout yielded no evidence of Gibi) we were hungering for a break from the formulaic Eurofusion of the tourist restaurants on Bonaire.

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El Bulli and Fat Duck Still the Best

All you Spainophiles can rest easy, El Bulli is back on the top of Restaurant magazine's list of the 50 best restaurants in the world for 2006. Phew. We were sweating bullets about those results.

Britain's Fat Duck, responsible for unleashing all that gastropub nonsense on the world, got knocked down from its perch, but only to #2. Twenty-dollar Shepherd's Pie will never go out of style, will it?

Spain's Mugaritz, run by the "foie gras king" Adoni Aduriz, made an impressive debut at #10.  And Delhi's Bukhara, which we recently haterated on, retains a place on the list at #46.

[Image via IanL/Flickr]

Related Stories:
·   World's Best Restaurants Announced [IOL]
·   Top 50 Restaurants [Travel Bloggers]

Food / Food Blogs / Food Porn / London / Britain / → All Tags

Feeling Chipper

Noodlpie, one of the better food ex-pat blogs that's based in Saigon, is heading to London next month for a visit home. Where does a diehard foodie go to eat in the UK? Understandably, English grub will be the cuisine of choice when he's back in Blighty, at Two Brothers and The Old Ship.

Two Brothers is a fish and chips shop, though fried and breaded haddock wrapped in a newspaper is not all they offer. A quick glance at the menu reveals jellied eels, smoked haddock in cream sauce with fresh tomato and cheese, and cod's roe in batter. Mmm... fish-tacular.

The Old Ship is a local pub, and it looks like the shepard's pie is the meal of choice over there. Might we recommend some bubble and squeak, too?

We're not that sure about leaving those spring rolls behind for jellied eel. We know which one we're be craving, and it's not the one that's jellied.

[Image via Canadian Veggie/Flickr]

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·   One pie and mash... [Noodlepie]