Los Angeles: Topanga Canyon, Koreatown

After studying Saveur’s March Issue devoted entirely to food culture in Los Angeles on the airplane from JFK to LAX, I was ready to do some athletic eating. My host for the first night, a childhood friend and actor, took me up into Topanga Canynon at sunset to show me some house’s he’d put bids on. Apparently, living in the semi-wilderness right outside of LA is a dream for many.


The landscape of this place is strange and beautiful. 1970’s farmhouses are built into the hills, draped with Tibetan flags and overgrown vines. Vintage cars seem to be born out of this canyon, now vestiges of another era. Farm animals of all sorts wander the inclines and horses are a common mode of transportation.


We stop in at The Inn of the Seventh Ray that sits beside a river bed, a legendary restaurant, said to once be run by a cult, also a scene out Ms. Dinsmoor’s decaying garden in Great Expectations. It’s too early to eat so we move one.

We wined back down Topanga Canyon Road to the Pacific Coast Highway. Rush hour traffic gives me time to take in the twilight hour on the other coast. By nature of the fact that the sun sets in the West, I think California wins on the sunset front. Unless, of course, you live Downeast.
We meet up with a Korean actor and my friend’s new girlfriend, also in the industry. From the moment he walks in the door, he’s trying to get into character for an audition the next day. The role is a thirty year old male with aspergers and an obsession with the human genitalia. He asks me if I want to get “down and dirty” in reference to dinner time and I responded . . . “yes, filthy.” So we head to Koreatown and hit up an all you can eat Korean BBQ joint for $18 a head. Our guide quits his character in order to communicate with the staff in Korean, so I’m feeling pretty confident that we aren’t going to get the gringo treatment. Most of the families in the place are Korean and their tables are crowded with what seems to be the order of the day. We start out with a big beautiful bowl of salad greens with ground red pepper, thick rice papers, kimchi,tofu dipped in egg and fried, a Korean pancake made with scallions and zucchini, a bubbling cauldron of egg souffle, plenty of steamed rice and a variety of Korean condiments.


Then comes the meat, cow’s belly, fatty shavings of bright red beef, cubes of tenderloin and some marinated beef with a sweet and salty flavor that is so good, I feel like shedding a tear. I wash it all down with a light Korean beer and sit back in my chair, sated. I’m going to have to buy new jeans for this trip. One size bigger.