Foodie Round-Up: Merry California Christmas Edition!

• Are you lazy? A terrible cook? Don't care about Christmas? Where are you going to find someplace to eat that's open during the holidays? Chinese food is a great option, of course -- and Gayot lists some other fine dining places that are serving up deals on Christmas Eve.
• Looking for a last-minute book buy for the chef in your life? The LA Times lists the year's top cookpook picks.
• JGold celebrates the opening of another cousin of the San Gabriel Valley's famed Golden Deli, the new Vietnam Restaurant, which offers a "magnificent seven-beef dinner, a procession of sweet beef salad, beef wrapped in charred la lot leaves, ground beef baked with vermicelli into a crumbly meat loaf and grilled beef filets twisted into chewy cylinders, beef daubed with sweet satay sauce, and slices of beef that you simmer in a tabletop cauldron seething with boiling vinegar." Oh. Oh. Hungry. Very hungry.
• Craft beers, vegansexuals, civet poop coffee, and locavores: it's the Chowhound Year in Food round-up.
• Still no word on when exactly San Yoon's Culver City branch of Father's Office will be opening -- mid January is EaterLA's best guess -- but signage is up!
• The Well Fed Network announced its 2007 Food Blog Award winners, including a few of our favorites, like Ruhlman, 101Cookbooks, and Lunch in a Box, cause decorative fruit sculpture is fucking rad.
• What happens when a grocery store's computer system crashes right in the middle of prime holiday-dinner-shopping time? Well, at this Connecticut Whole Foods, the manager just gave away the groceries with a smile. The store ended up giving away $4,000 worth of items.
• Sarah over at The Delicious Life has Christmas goodies of another sort: a Dozen Delicious Stocking Stuffers.

Photo by ellwoodite via LAist Featured Photos Flickr Pool