Midtown Lunch

This pizza cost $5.36

I’m going to make this super short and sweet because what I’m about to tell you is pretty easy to understand.  IF YOU’RE NOT FOLLOWING 800 DEGREES ON INSTAGRAM YOU’RE MAKING A HUGE MISTAKE.  Every single morning they post a photo of their “Pizza of the Day” which, if you choose to order it on said day, will be given to you at 50% off.  11am until closing.  Any and all locations.  Half off.  The pizza of the day.  If you keep the toppings to a minimum, 800 Degrees is already a great deal.  Half off 800 Degrees is a stupid good deal. The day I went it was a margherita w/ caramelized onions, bacon and pine nuts. Today it’s salami and broccolini.  Of course it helps if you’re willing to eat anything and everything. To order just let the pizza maker know you want the “pizza of the day” and they take care of the rest.  You pay somewhere around $5, the end.

800 Degrees, multiple locations

This morning I’m making the annual trek out to Indio for the craziness that is Coachella. Not for the music, the fashion, or the pool parties (lord knows I’m too fat and uncool for all of that) but for the eats.  The festival has really outdone itself food wise this year, supplementing the corn dogs, crab fries and spicy pie with restaurant pop ups from famous L.A. chefs, fancy Outstanding in the Field dinners, and more casual stands from some of the best restaurants in L.A. (think: Eggslut, Kazunori, & Beer Belly).

As part of Tumblr’s Creatrs project, you can follow my Coachella food diary all weekend long over on Food is the New Rock while listening to our recent episodes of the podcast with Jonathan Gold, David Chang, and Dave Sitek from TV on the Radio.

Little Osaka is dead! Long live Sawtelle Japantown, the new City Council approved designation of the ramen and sushi filled strip of West L.A. between Olympic and Santa Monica.  But while the name Japantown is a great homage to the roots of the neighborhood, it doesn’t really do justice to the geographic variety of foodstuff that’s popped up in the past few years.  We’re talking soup dumplings (ROC), pho (Nong La), Korean flavored sausages and rice balls (Seoul Sausage), pizza (Slice Truck), burgers (Plan Check, Bachi Burger), and Korean tofu stew (Seoul House), all of which will make you think twice about waiting on that line for Tsujita.  Even prepared foods chain Lemonade has a branch opening on the street this week.

But the most exiting new arrival is Kitchen Story, a Korean street snack specialist that took over the old Hong Kong Cafe space.

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If you stalk my lunching on Instagram you likely noticed an uptick in the dumpling consumption over the past month.  It’s true, I love me some dim sum, pan fried potstickers, and, of course, xiaolongbao.  But I was also putting together this Dumpling Crawl of the San Gabriel Valley for Lucky’s Peach’s dumpling month.  It’s a bit more intense than the 2 Hour Taco Crawl of L.A. I put together a few years back, requiring a bit more planning and discipline.  Plus eating this many dumplings in 4 hours is a lot more punishing on your body than you would think. Not to mention the pain in your heart you might feel as you drive by Lunasia, Chengdu Taste, 101 Noodle Express, Shanghai Dumpling House, and Mama Lu’s without stopping. Or skipping places entirely that didn’t fit on the route (I’m looking at you, Kang Kang Food Court.)  But with 4 people (3 will leave you with too many dumplings to eat, 5 will make it harder to get a table and divide the dumplings) and a pocketful of cash (a lot of places don’t take credit cards) you can have an epic afternoon of dumpling eating that you won’t soon forget.

Any places I left out?  I’d love to hear about them in the comments.  You know… for Version 2.0.

Delicious Vinyl, the L.A. based record label that brought the world Tone Loc, Young MC, and The Pharcyde, just opened a pizza joint called Delicious Pizza on Adams Blvd, just east of Culver City. A joint project between Delicious Vinyl’s Mike Ross and Fred 62’s Fred Sutherland, the little pizza shop is not just fodder for our Food is the New Rock thesis, they’re also making some pretty great pizza.

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