Los Angeles

Pacific Coast Food: An Insider’s Guide to L.A.’s "Russian Costco"

This beige-walled, gray-roofed supermarket, squeezed between razor wire-rimmed industrial warehouses and North Hollywood train tracks, isn’t much to look at. The name, Pacific Coast Food, fails to hint at what one may find inside: a nirvana of edible nostalgia for those who grew up in the Soviet Union and Communist Eastern Bloc. Colloquially, it’s known as the “Russian Costco,” after the American wholesale giant, and a more fitting name for the aisles upon aisles of snacks and mainstays coming from Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus region. The business was initially opened as a wholesaler in 2010 with San Fernando Valley’s Slavic, Baltic and Western-and-Central Asian communities in mind; notably Studio City’s huge Russian enclave and the Armenian strongholds of North Hollywood and Glendale.

Los Angeles

Hanchic: Where Bouillabaisse Meets Bulgogi

The 2.7 square-miles of L.A.’s Koreatown holds one of the densest concentrations of restaurants, bars and nightclubs in the U.S. Hundreds of restaurants specializing in traditional Korean cooking buzz within the borders of the world’s largest such neighborhood. Here, Angelenos sample san-nakji, a plate of chopped live octopus, the tiny tentacles clinging to the cheeks of those trying their best to slurp down the wriggling pieces. Goat lovers delight at Mirak Restaurant, where the staple is a fortifying black goat stew known as yumso-tang. The menu at Palsaik is devoted entirely to pork belly and its purported health benefits. Destinations for grill-it-yourself barbecue, soondobu jjigae (a stew based on soft tofu, meats, chiles and other items), rice porridge and cold noodles are legion.

Los Angeles

Naan Hut: Baking an Ancient Bread in a New Land

Even as traffic slithers to a crawl west of the 405 Freeway on Santa Monica Boulevard, drivers may be hard-pressed to notice the small storefront known as Naan Hut standing on their periphery. Neither its name nor its red-and-yellow signage offer any indication that a 1,000-year-old Persian tradition of baking naan sangak is upheld within these walls in the heart of Tehrangeles, the unofficial name for the West L.A. stomping grounds of L.A.’s Iranian diaspora. An ancient bread, legend ascribes the origins of sangak to the 10th-century Persian military. Soldiers would march together carrying small river stones known in Farsi as “sangak,” arranging them together at their day’s destination to aid in the special technique of baking this bread come chow time.

Los Angeles

El Jaliciense: OG Birria From Jalisco

Birria is among the biggest culinary buzzwords across the U.S. today – only it’s not the goat-based Jalisco recipes that get the attention. birria de chivo, the signature dish of the state. Most people, especially Jaliscans, traditionally think of birria as being made from goat. Hector’s version, tatemada, involves a final roast of birria de chivo in the oven, making the skin charred and crisp. When the hour strikes eight on Saturday morning, Hector Ramirez pulls the wooden handle on a cast-iron lid sealing his self-constructed, propane-fueled, cylindrical oven and unveils his birria tatemada.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles: State of the Stomach

It’s Sunday morning in Los Angeles. Behind the white door of a single-story house that blends in with its suburban neighbors, Jalia Walusimbi starts her day as she does every other. Stripping the tough green skins from a cluster of plantains, she plunks the peeled fruit into a boiling pot to prepare a dish of matooke covered in peanut-based binyebwa to pair with the samosas, mbuzi goat soup and luwombo she’ll shortly place before the homesick Ugandan expats and curious culinary tourists who visit the informal restaurant she runs from inside her Van Nuys dining room.