LA's Cochon 555 Moves to Downtown on June 2, 2019

If you're unfamiliar with Cochon 555, this event is an annual staple in multiple cities around the country. Cochon 555 is a food event and competition meant to highlight heritage pigs. In each city, 5 chefs partner up with 5 pig farmers and prepare some nose-to-tail pork dishes. The winner from each city is crowned Prince of Porc and will move on to compete in the big finale. What that means for us is an afternoon filled with pork (and booze). For this year, the Los Angeles event will take place on Sunday, June 2 at City Market Social House.

This year's participating chefs include Kat Hu and Justin Yi (Hock+Hoof) with Marin Sun Farms, David Johns (Mason) with Rancho Llano Seco, Jason Mattick and Ivan Marquez (Broken Spanish) with Marin Sun Farm, Ben Diaz (Nixo Lounge) with Peads and Barnetts. Brian Redzikowski from Kettner Exchange who made this (adorable!) pork bun (Pic Mac Bao) last year will also be returning to compete, this time partnering with Cook Pigs Ranch.

There'll be a lot of more food than from the competing chefs, though. There'll be a tartare bar, cheese bar, oyster bar, and even a veggie bar. Some of my favorite bites last year besides than the Pic Mac Bao is this lechon kawali from Maynard Llera (H.wood Group)

Silva's Fresh Eatery and Churrascaria, a More Affordable Brazilian BBQ in Orange County

As I'm sure many of you guys do, I like my all-you-can-eat Brazilian BBQ, but a lot of the places like Fogo are too expensive to go frequently. If you're in Orange County, though, you have a more affordable option: Silva's Fresh Eatery and Churrascaria in Santa Ana. Instead of the over $60 usual price tag, Silva charges $29.95 per person and $24.95 for weekday lunch. There's also a "Power Lunch" option that gets you one pass through the buffet line.

At Silva, they don't come around the tables with your meat, but instead it's buffet style and diners can come up to request the meat they want. They have picanha, garlic picanha, tri-tip, skirt steak, leg of lamb, etc. Pretty good selection of cuts for the price, if you ask me.

They also have salads as well as other cooked items available on the buffet line.

Farmhouse Brings Farmer-Owned Restaurant to Beverly Center (Beverly Hills, CA)

There's a lot of farm-to-table restaurants these days, especially in California, but how many have a direct connection to a farm? Farmhouse, located at the Beverly Center, is actually owned by local farmer Nathan Peitso from Kenter Canyon Farms. Just to give you a perspective on the farm, I read that more than 20 years ago chef Alice Waters was getting lettuce from Kenter Canyon Farms (founded by Nathan's mother) for her salads at Chez Panisse, so yeah.

Now Nathan Peitso has opened a true farm-to-table restaurant in Beverly Hills, with Chef Craig Hopson heading the restaurant.

While eating in Beverly Hills is not known to be cheap, you should know that Farmhouse has a seasonal Harvest Menu that is three courses for $48 per person. You can choose from 3-4 options from each course. This is quite a nice deal to have in this area!

We ended up ordering a la carte but with a mix of items that were available on the prix fixe menu and not. We started with the Beets and burrata with pomegranate vinaigrette ($16)

This is a classic combination - and isn't the presentation just beautiful? You can tell from the photo how fresh the beets were.

Lightly cured albacore, marinade of vegetables, chili, coriander, citrus

Despite the chili and coriander garnish, the flavors didn't overwhelm the albacore.

A Peruvian-Italian Menu at Los Balcones Hollywood

Los Balcones has been revamping both their locations and each one is different. I recently reviewed the Mestizo cuisine at Los Balcones Studio City and now I checked out the Los Balcones in Hollywood. The Hollywood location has recruited Chef Michelangelo "Miguel" Aliaga to helm the kitchen.

Chef Aliaga hails from northern Peru but he started his cooking career in Florence, Italy. In LA, he's worked at various Italian restaurants including All'Angelo and Cecconi's. Now, at Los Balcones he's able to combine his two roots. Los Balcones' menu still has the classic Peruvian dishes you'd expect to see like lomo saltado and ceviche, but he's also melding Peruvian and Italian cuisines in others.

During my visit I mainly stuck to the Peruvian-Italian dishes so I can try what the chef is getting creative with, except for the beef heart anticucho I got for the appetizer. I just have to get beef heart anticucho when I see it.

Anticucho (grilled beef heart, panca pepper, potatoes, rocoto sauce, $16)

When they do it well like they do here and the beef hearts are tender, you can't go wrong.

Agnolotti de seco (homemade ravioli stuffed with lamb and cilantro sauce, finished with rocoto aioli, $20)

A classic pasta dish but with distinctly Peruvian flavors with the rocoto aioli. This is a great representation of how the two cuisines work together.

Where to Drink Cocktails in Boston: Back Bay

Back Bay is a bit of a touristy area of Boston with Prudential Center, Copley Square, and more, but that doesn't mean there aren't bars worthy of your visit. Here are some of my favorite places to grab a cocktail in Back Bay.

OAK Long Bar + Kitchen

Oak Long Bar is the bar at the Fairmont Copley Square. Since it's a swanky hotel, so is the bar. The drink prices reflect that as well, but it's home to one of my favorite drinks in Boston: the Smoked Chai Manhattan. You can read more about the bar here.

Nahita

Nahita is worth a visit for the gorgeous interior alone, but fortunately the cocktails match the interior. The cocktail menu changes seasonally and there's usually a clarified milk punch on the menu (which is one of my favorite things!)

Tokyo Hamburg in Koreatown Dishes Out Japanese-style Hamburg Steak

What is hamburg? In Japan, don't confuse hamburg ("hambagu") with hamburger ("hambaga"). Hamburg / hambagu is actually like Salisbury steak. Hamburg steak is a patty of ground beef that originated in the town of Hamburg in Germany, but has become very popular in Japan (after German immigrants brought it there) since the 1950s.

In LA, there's now a place in that specializes in this. Tokyo Hamburg at the edge of Koreatown, as the name suggests, serves Japanese style hamburg. Here, the ground meat comes seared on the outside but still raw inside. It is served with a sizzling stone on the side, and diners are supposed to take small pieces and cook them on the sizzling stone. ($13.99 for the original hamburg)

Milk and Eggs, a New Kind of Grocery Delivery Service

These days, it's hard to find time to go grocery shopping. Thankfully, there are a few grocery delivery services out there. I recently got to test out Milk and Eggs, a service where you can order farm fresh food online and they'll be delivered to the LA and OC area. What's different about Milk and Eggs is that they get their food from the farms, butchers, bakers - basically the foodmakers directly instead of sending someone to buy your food from other grocery stores.

They're delivered in these reusable bags (which they'll pick up on your next order). If you want to save money, they also have curated farm sampler bags.