Pig: A Restaurant - A Foodie Parody

You know you love to make fun of people - foodies, bloggers, ourselves! Now there's a whole comedy show making fun of the restaurant world, which is playing at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in LA on Thursdays January 26 and February 2.

Pig: A Restaurant is written by Leila Cohan-Miccio. The premise is apparently the opening party for the "most pork-obsessed restaurant in Brooklyn" (I already know many people who can relate to that ...). I don't know my comedians/comedy writers, but I know Gothamist, Eater, Grubstreet, and Saveur have sang praises for it. And hey, it's only $5 to see the show! So why not, right?

Here are the deets:
http://losangeles.ucbtheatre.com/shows/view/2850
Tuesday Jan 26 and Feb 2, 8pm
$5
UCB Theatre
5919 Franklin Ave. Hollywood, CA 90028
(323) 908-8702

Durian, from Indonesia to Singapore

Among all the sticky fingers and durian burps came the anticipated question: Should we get another one?
Our tummies were full, we seemed to vacillate but we all knew the answer: Yes.

Fruits. They're what you grab at grocery stores and farmer's markets, to be eaten as snacks or accompaniments to your meal. Garnishes, palate cleansers. But not durian. In Singapore, durian sellers have set up tables and chairs. They will open the fruits up for you to enjoy right there and then.

This practice is spreading to part of Indonesia, too, like in Medan. I think this is partly for two reasons. One is that the stinky fruit is banned from public transportation like MTA and buses in Singapore, so it's harder to buy and take them home. Second, unlike berries that you'd eat as snacks, when you eat durian, you want to eat them.

You may think all durians are alike, but once you land in Singapore you'll realize you're wrong. There are as many varieties of durian as there are in the family of oranges/clementines/tangerines! One of the more popular is the butter durian (pictured above), smaller but sweeter than the durian monthong from Thailand. A box like the one above was S$10. The durian sellers can also tell you which ones are sweet vs "bitter" (they're not really bitter but has more of a subtle bitterness or more fermented taste underneath the sweetness). How? I have no idea until I eat them, but somehow they can. This isn't variety dependent but is a characteristic of each fruit.

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Cebicheria Erizo (Tijuana, Mexico)

Chef Javier Plascencia from Tijuana can be likened to Wolfgang Puck in Los Angeles, dominating the Tijuana dining scene with numerous restaurants. Capping off the weekend-long Baja Culinary trip this past year was a tasting at one of these restaurants, Cebicheria Erizo, specializing in fresh seafood (including, of course, ceviches). Seafood from fish to octopus to clams are displayed in refrigerated cases as you enter; daily specials written on the blackboard above it. For our visit, though, we left it up to Chef Plascencia to serve us whatever he wanted.

To whet our appetite was a shot of leche de tigre with cucumber, fish jerky, and sea urchin (erizo de mar, the restaurant's namesake) hidden at the bottom.


Following up was a bowl of lightly spicy callo de hacha, Baja scallops with chicharrones

Instead of scooping up ceviche with tortilla chips, why not take it to the next level with chicharrones? Better yet, can we replace salad croutons with chicharrones from now on?

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