When I lived in Japan, I often ate a communal stew called nabe in the wintertime. One of the staple ingredients within the myriad of possibilities of a nabe is konnyaku. Konnyaku is a firm translucent gelatin with black spots that is completely flavorless. After a few months, I felt comfortable enough to ask a close friend why Japanese people eat the flavorless konnyaku. The answer surprised me. It's the texture of the konnyaku......

Orlando, Florida's Walt Disney World is quite a different ride than our local Anaheim day-tripping Disneyland. For one, the Florida theme park is all about kids and family, family and kids and some more kids, kids, kids (so there is Pleasure Island, but the name is just sort of weird to start with). So other than never growing up, what else is there to remember about a few days at the massive theme park? Food.......

Here are a few spots for eats and drinks that we are looking forward to seeing open: 1. We were very excited to pass on to you that last month was National Grilled Cheese Month, and now we're gearing up for the impending opening of Culver City's Meltdown, which is a (mostly) grilled cheese eatery that's slated to open as early as this week. Their menu, which is available online, looks like an ooey-gooey......

Recently we checked out downtown's noted Ciudad, and had a generally enjoyable time. Bottom line: good food, great drinks, and uneven service at times. Despite the drawbacks of our experience, this bright and colorful spot draws raves from devotees, most of whom give the enthusiastic thumbs up to their cocktail hour offerings. In a move that seems on par with many local restaurants' initiation of specialty nights to fill tables (Jar's Mozzarella Mondays, for......

If we learned one thing this weekend, it's that it's darn hard to come up with a fun, original, low stress, easy to propose to a large group of people, last minute place to grab a drink and some eats after a shindig on a Saturday night. We tend to work fairly well under pressure, save the "okay so where do you wanna go right now?" kind. We had to take into consideration folks......