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March 2, 2010 | 11:00 pm

Nine Ways to Make LA the “Ultimate Food City”

Posted by Rob Eshman

Touchy touchy.  Last week in Foodaism I dared suggest that Saveur magazine may have been overhyping things by declaring Los Angeles “The Ultimate Food City.” To read the bawling, angry, acting-out reactions to my post you’d think I called for every Yelper to be sent to bed without his Kogi.  So this week I’ll do what any good child psychologist would have suggested I do first: use positive language. 

To reiterate my basic point: LA has wonderful food.  It has bountiful ethnic restaurants and markets, some very good high end places, and an impressive web of farmer’s markets.  Saveur got all that right. But LA is not yet the ultimate food city; it is not even a great food city.  That was the thrust of my criticism. I didn’t mean to insult those who just discovered Koreatown, where I’ve been working and eating for the past 16 years, back when there were more bad Fillipino places there than good Korean ones (Who else remembers the Jitney Café?).  And who knew that Palms has such a loyal fan base. You’d almost think it was, I don’t know, Venice.

Yes, I love that I can—as I did not long ago—stop on the way to work at the Argentine café Grand Casino for a yerba mate and a cornetto, continue onto Koreatown where at lunch a Korean chef will show a Latino busboy how to make my Japanese sushi roll, then pop into the Tar Pit on the way home for a meeting and drink a glorious concoction of bay leaf infused vodka, oloroso sherry and flamed orange rind, grab a cupcake for the kids at Famous Cupcake, then have dinner at Ado, where the chef/owner is in the kitchen and the maitre d’ owner would hold his hand on a light bulb if you told him it was too bright. That is a good food day, in a very good food city. (Not average though—usually I make my own mate, grab an avocado sandwich from Sunny and Charles at Trimana, and make dinner for the family at home).

But here, on the positive side, are the Nine Ways to Make LA a Great Food City.  Read to the end, then add Number 10:

1. Open a Massive, Throbbing, Heart-Stopping, Hunger-Stirring Big-Ass Perpetual Farmers Market.


Think Wednesday Santa Monica Farmers Market,  but indoors in a landmark centrally-located building, open 7 days a week. Think Les Halles of the 19th century, updated to the 21st. This would be the jewel in LA’s food crown—a showcase for the finest locally-grown ingredients, a ready market to encourage new growers and artisan food makers, a place for chefs and diners to mingle, a spur for new food and food education.  Yes we have Grand Central and the Farmers Market on 3rd and Fairfax, and maybe these could morph into that, but they aren’t there yet.

2. Triple the number of Food AND PROVISION trucks

Those food trucks descending like fine smelling SWAT wagons into Venice and Holywood and Mid-Wilshire prove that in a city that makes it hard to get to food, there is an abundant market for food that gets to you.  Build on that success. Bring back the bakery and vegetable and seltzer trucks that used to cruise LA—one of my happiest childhood memories is of the Helms Bakery truck that regularly honked its horn in front of my Encino house, bringing the Mad Men-era housewives and us kids out for bread and a glazed donut.  The Japanese man who sold vegetables out of the back of his truck soon followed.  Besides making sure good food permeates the city’s long stretches of mediocrity, a new food truck flotilla would create impromptu neighborhood meeting places.

3. Free up zoning and licensing to mix food businesses and residential areas, and F the NIMBYs.


When I dared dis Palms in my last post, what I meant was that between Pico and Venice boulevards to the south and north and between Lincoln and National (to be kind) on the west and east, there is NOTHING TO EAT.  Nowhere to stop.  If you want to walk from your house for a cup of good coffee, you will walk for a mile.  True, at the scale of fully tanked-up car LA’s food is spread out before you like Babbette’s Feast, but driving from course to course does not a great food city make.  The key is to integrate high quality corner stores, cafes, restaurants and bars into neighborhoods.  Make good food a part of the block, not a distant destination.  Of course when proprietors try to do that, neighbors load on so many conditional users the bottom line won’t pan out.

4. Loosen after hours regulations and encourage more late dining out

A lot of great dining happens after 10, in Madrid, in Bangkok, in Buenos Airies. This town closes up too early. What about keeping the lights on the Venice Boardwalk on warm nights, and turning it into a strolling promenade like the Zattere in the real Venice?  Let people linger, eat late, enjoy.

5. Improve public transportation

To be a great food city you need to have diners who can get around to eat it, explore it, stay late enjoying it.  Many commenters pointed out the fact that LA’s miserable public transportation system makes that difficult, but that, they say, is the problem with LA, not LA’s food.  To which I say, quoting Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive, “I don’t care.”  Doesn’t matter whose fault it is, it is an irrefutable damper on LA’s ability to be a great food city.

6. Encourage City and Suburban Agriculture

The more stuff we grow, the stronger our ties to good fresh ingredients and the chefs who turn them into good food.  Turn lawns into artichoke plots, empty lots into tomato fields, sideyards into chicken coops—a pygmy milk goat or two on every block!  Make it easy and legal to sell the excess at neighborhood farm stands.

7. Invest in Yummier Schools

I believe that children are our future. No, really.  The more money and time we put into programs like Alice Waters Edible Schoolyards, the more the next generation won’t settle for calling LA the ultimate food city, yet.

8. Zone for More Outdoor Cafés, Especially on the Coast

As I said, we have the best weather and the fewest outdoor cafes; some of the nicest beaches and the worst coastal dining.  Let’s convince the county and the powers that be that there is revenue in smart restaurant growth along the beaches.

9. Make the Supermarkets Part of the Solution

Jim Murez, who runs the Friday Venice Farmers Market,  rightly points out that LA food revolves around the car and the supermarket.  When you consider the quality of the supermarkets, you understand a lot about how far we have to go to improve people’s understanding of how good food can be. But that’s where we are, and that’s where we need to start. So here’s the plan: encourage the supermarkets to carry more local food and produce; to hold more nutrition, cooking and gardening demos, to use some of their hardscaping for demo gardens, to work with local chefs to promote better eating and cooking.

That’s my list of 9.  What’s your #10?

 

15 Comments — Leave your comment

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#7 is absolutely true.  We really need to invest on the education of the children.  Better education, brighter future.  The government must do something to make this possible for our future generation.

Comment by Anthony Wilson on 3/03/10 at 3:18 am

I’m not going to claim this is the perfect food city- but as somebody who just moved here from NYC, I can tell you that L.A. is far better than you give it credit for.  And based on your description of K-Town, I’d say it sounds like you might just be a little jaded from being here so long.  (Every city has loads of mediocrity.  You just don’t experience it as much unless you live there.)

I’m assuming you would consider New York City an “ultimate food city” (or at least *better* than L.A.) and yet with the exception of late night dining and good public transportation, they don’t have any of the things on your above list either.

Just a little food for thought…

Comment by Zach on 3/03/10 at 9:42 am

Zach, you’re an idiot.  This article is spot on.  I just moved from NYC in August, 2009, and LA pales in comparison foodwise.  There’s no signature dessert place, all the great restaurants are clustered in a few areas and so forth.  LA is built around fastbood, cheap burgers, Mexican and so forth.  The ideas in this article are great, but won’t happen because no one owns property in LA and renters don’t have high standards.

Comment by Joe on 3/03/10 at 12:49 pm

haha… I’ve been called worse.  I suppose if being an idiot means not really caring about finding a city’s “signature dessert place”, then yes- I’m an idiot.


I think you misunderstood my comment. I’m not saying this list is bad, or that L.A. wouldn’t be improved by implementing these things.  I’m just saying that if New York can be considered a great food city without these 7 things, so can L.A.

You say LA pales in comparison to NYC- and yet, NYC doesn’t have a 7 day a week indoor landmark farmer’s market.  It is far more difficult to open a street truck in NYC than it is here in L.A.  The Nimby’s are just as bad in NYC as they are here.  There’s no encouragement of suburban agriculture, no good food in schools, far fewer outdoor cafes, and the supermarkets are terrible.

What I’m saying is L.A. is an awesome food city whether it implements this list or not.  Then again I love pork and Asian food… so that might be where we differ.

Comment by Zach on 3/03/10 at 1:02 pm

Joe: you are rude and you are ignorant, which is a bad combination if you want anyone to take you seriously. Foolish statements like “there’s no signature dessert place” in LA and “all the great restaurants [in LA] are clustered in a few areas” and “no one owns property in LA” (hilarious!) only proves your ignorance. Los Angeles and New York are great food cities but they are great in different ways. NYC has many more “fine dining” restaurants (Daniel Boulud, etc.); Los Angeles has better Chinese and Korean food and of course farmers markets that remain open all year long. Each city has its problems and its virtues as do their respective restaurants. Yes, you need to drive to most places in Los Angeles, but the city has some great walking neighborhoods as do West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. And while NYC is a great walking city that’s really mostly true of Manhattan and certain areas of the other boroughs, which is one reason a lot of New Yorkers who can afford to own cars. I know parents in NY who drive their kids to school each day just like LA parents do. In any event, the problem with Rob Eshman’s original article is that it was (as he now admits) too negative. One thing that the blogosphere reminds us, unfortunately, is that it’s really easy to tear apart the efforts of other people, and in this case he tore into Saveur’s celebration of Los Angeles far too harshly. Eshman didn’t put a dent in the arguments in that issue, particularly Jonathan Gold’s ode to Los Angeles – he just showed that he seems to suffer a bit from the classic and unnecessary inferiority complex that grips some Angelenos. In the end, comparing Los Angeles to any other city is a dead end: we live here. Let’s see what is good about the city and celebrate it and let’s see what’s bad about the city and fix it. But please let us finally stop comparing Los Angeles to other cities - it is not New York, it is not Paris, it is not San Francisco, and so forth. It is Los Angeles, sometimes for worse, of course, though often for better.

Comment by GG on 3/03/10 at 2:39 pm

I totally agree with you, Zach.  I lived in NY for two years and while they do have some excellent restaurants (that you can easily plunk down $50 or more for a meal at), their grocery stores are terrible and I don’t think I made it to a farmer’s market more than twice in two years.

Comment by Joe on 3/03/10 at 2:44 pm

Hey Rob, I’m not sure if you’ve heard but the Ag Secretary will be in East LA tomorrow.  He’s focusing on child nutrition, WIC and school feeding programs.  Here’s the info: Thursday March 4: Join a community discussion about Child Nutrition. With Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack This is the Secretary of Agriculture… See More’s first visit to East Los Angeles. Come join Secretary Vilsack and other local leaders and community organizations to discuss the importance of nutrition assistance programs like WIC and the National School Lunch Program. Thursday, March 4, 2010 3:00 PM-4:30 PM East Lost Angeles Community Center 133 North Sunol DriveLos Angeles, CA 90063-1429. Please RSVP by contacting the USDA Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships by email at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or by phone at 202-720-2032.

Comment by Holly on 3/03/10 at 2:59 pm

Holly thanks for the tip. I was a Vilsack supporter—maybe the ONLY one, when he was in the primary: 
http://www.jewishjournal.com/rob_eshman/article/undressed_up_20070302/

Comment by Rob Eshman on 3/03/10 at 3:32 pm

@joe: No offense, but living here since “August 2009” is probably your problem. It can take quite a while to really see beneath the surface layer of Los Angeles to notice all the things you never imagined were there. I have lived here for over ten years now and I have found that there is FAR more than “fast[f]ood, cheap burgers, Mexican and so forth.” I can’t remember the last time I ate fast food or cheap, gross food. There is more than enough for me to eat a lot of really amazing (and affordable) meals without ever having to resort to McNuggets or the like.

Comment by KT on 3/04/10 at 1:09 am

Oh, and LOL at “signature dessert place” and your comments about renters. Stop and listen to yourself for a moment, is that really the kind of person you want to be?

Comment by KT on 3/04/10 at 1:15 am

Great list and great piece about what was written in Saveur’s L.A. issue. In line with your number 5, improving public transportation, my number 10 would be create a real subway system that would make great pizza and Chinese food accessible to everyone without having to drive anywhere. Yes, I’m a New Yorker, and yes, I’m home- and foodsick.

Comment by Lori on 3/05/10 at 8:02 am

For a #10 I would suggest more small scale tempeh production (see:www.maketempeh.org) which would result in more healthy options in whatever kind of cooking one loves.
We made it commercially for nine years in MI and restaurants went crazy over it.

Comment by betsy on 3/06/10 at 12:38 pm

I think all of these would be improvements on an already great food city. I would add as #10, or an addendum to #6, to encourage more community supported agriculture. I recently visited friends in San Jose who picked up their weekly box of produce, which they pre-paid for on an annual basis, in effect advancing the farmers the money to operate the farm. There’s a little of this available in LA, but it’s much more expensive and less accessible.

Comment by Kayte on 5/02/10 at 10:55 pm

#9. I agree on this point and even to extend it further, shouldn’t the ultimate Food City be a compassionate and responsible one? Does anyone else think it’s strange that you can get a mango 7 days a week (every week) at a grocery in LA? By staying responsible and using “seasonal” ingredients we show appreciation for whats available and therefore respect what we have.

Comment by CriminalLawyer on 4/12/11 at 5:00 pm

You’re absolutely correct about the food trucks—they’re popping up left and right. It’s interesting how the conventional food truck has turned into a high quality meal (French, lobster, etc.).

Comment by San Fernando on 11/17/11 at 12:37 pm

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