The Fried Chicken Report (LA)

And now my little chickadees, what you've all been waiting for...the outrageous, crispy, crunchy and sometimes spicy

Fried Chicken Report(also known as the not-too-thorough list of my top fried chicken spots in Los Angeles, because a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do)

But wait! Before we dive into the Los Angeles chicken scene, you should know about my earliest treks into fried chicken land, started when I was a wee girl back in the N.J. then taken over the river to the big city (and Harlem and Raleigh/Durham)...

All Hallow’s Chocolate

Hello,
There are two schools of competing thought regarding why I love chocolate...

The first is that my adoration for all-things-Hershey was inborn. As a toddler my favorite word was “candy,” which I proclaimed repeatedly in a certain supermarket aisle probably before I could walk. Favorite game, Candyland; favorite movie, “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (featuring favorite song, Sammy Davis Jr.’s “Candyman”) and in my humble opinion, Halloween was a much better holiday than a silly old birthday.

Where I've been foodie-ing about

Happpppy October!

A few days ago as I reviewed my calendar, and my waistline, it seemed to be that lately I've been trying new tastes at new-to-me restaurants. Ok so yes Zankou has been visited many times; otherwise, here is the list of places, mostly in order of appearance and each with a link to more information, including what I devoured in the last 10 days that was so darn good:

French Macaroons S'il Vous Plaît

Bonjour,

As you can tell from the last entry, I adore French food. Some favorite items include:

• Poulet frites (crispy roast chicken with so tasty frites) and steak frites
• Real almond croissants (you know, not from Starbucks)
• Pan-seared foie gras (Oh boo, I'm an evil foie gras eater! Well I hardly eat this anyway, just once in a long while)
• Grande salade – A southwestern France specialty in a giant 2-quart salad bowl: salad greens tossed with walnuts, radishes, ham, and small chunks of pancetta tossed with cream dressing, with a molten-yolk fried egg on top, covered with a layer of roasted potato slices on top of the whole thing. Yes it is a salad FEAST!
• Kir Royale – Because it's a part of the very civilized tradition in which restaurant hosts offer waiting guests an apéritif of Champagne mixed with crème de cassis.

Steak Frites of My Dreams?

Hello,

This week my weekly ritual of looking at the NY Times Wednesday Dining section came a day late, as it is Thursday.

Turns out this week's section is a special Restaurant Preview, covering the of-course-bajillion restaurant openings in NY this fall by all the star chefs and wanna-be star chefs, flooding the city's eaters with too many food options once again in an autumnal mass frenzy of new dining establishments in my old town.

Vietnamese Food a Go-Go

Dear Peeps of this here Fobloog,
I bet you didn't know this, but since moving to LA I've denied myself a great pleasure... the joys of Vietnamese food. No worries, though. I'm happy to say that all changed last Friday, when my friend Joe and I ventured to San Gabriel for some Golden Deli action.

Golden Deli, per Chowhound.com, is a great spot to get all kinds of Vietnamese food. Joe wanted to try their Pho (traditional Vietnamese soup) and I wanted to try their Bun Bo Nuong--most people order this cold vermicelli noodle dish with grilled pork (as Bun Thit Nuong), but I got it with grilled beef like I've had it at University Pl. & 13th St. in NYC. Uh huh, that's a picture of my fave dish up there!

Food Movies

Hello readers! Welcome to this posting about Food Movies, a topic I've been meaning to discuss with you so you never accuse me of not offering you a well-rounded and complete fobloog experience.

In my life, one measure of cinematic greatness is if a movie successfully illustrates a sliver of life you hadn't thought of before. If what I see opens up my heart and mind in a new way, if it touches me emotionally and that feeling lingers after I leave the theater, then I know it's done its job and is a really good movie.

Which leads me to the topic of great food movies. These are a rare breed inspired by the story of a person, a family, or a community. They contain marvelous food scenes, mostly in the foreground. And there aren't too many of them.

My Recchiuti Confession

Well hello. This week's post is simply something I wrote for a monthly contest in April 2006 when I was still a New Yorker, and it won the contest in February 2007. While enjoying a new Snickers Dark bar tonight I just realized, dear readers, that most of you have not read this.

The contest was for Recchiuti Confections in San Francisco, my favorite U.S. chocolate company (see link at right), and the prize was a glorious black box ($40 value, see left). When I never heard from Recchiuti after sending this in, I thought I didn't win and was like, hello? But as it turns out, they were saving my passionate letter for their Valentine's issue (copy-edited way down of course) and I received my black box while at USC and I think I may have shared, oh, 2 pieces. So here it is...my full-length chocolate missive, containing factual events and slightly exaggerated feelings (you'll never know how I truly felt, now will you ;)

My Recchiuti Confession – a true story, by Marly Miller, Brooklyn NY

Fried Chicken Report Teaser 2

Peeps I'm gonna be honest with you... surprisingly, there's a lot of fried chicken in LA. And... it's still bathing suit season.

Yeah this means I can't try all the oodles of fried chicken (F.C.) I want to for the F.C. Report. Instead, you know it, another F.C. Teaser (without a southern accent) while I stretch out my taste-testing over a few months, updating along the way, and ultimately announcing the winner of the L.A.F.C. (also could stand for L.A. Fat Chick) Report later on.

Now, this week's entry is just as relevant, a sorta long-ish true food story about a man named Austin Leslie, photo above. Here goes...

Fried Chicken Report Teaser

Helloooo fried chicken fans of LA, or I mean, people who wish they could find fried chicken goodness in LA. The rumored illustrious Fried Chicken Report is coming to a fobloog near you, but not until next week (or the week after). THIS is your Fried Chicken Report Teaser.

My friend Joe B., and are you sitting down, confessed that years ago he had the pleasure of visiting the Kentucky Fried Chicken factory... in Kentucky! In my imagination it's only a mystical palace where urban legend says they grow chicken parts electronically without brains, not a bona fide stop on the Kentucky chicken trail. So this was very exciting.

Food Poetry in Two Styles

Hello… so we’re going to take it down a little this week, with some food poetry. Specifically, two pieces of different origin and style.

The first piece was on display at the Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia. I saw it there in June 2001 with Pina (this unaltered photo was taken there).

Love this poem, written by a present-day Asian Canadian poet who describes the migration of tea from China to Scotland way back when. It caught my eye because not long before the trip I’d worked for Lipton and was still a bit tea-focused, though even without Sir Thomas whispering in my ear, it still struck me as lovely and an important story to tell.

Fobloog Gripe List (2007)

Below is the conversation that preceded this posting:

Marly -- Hmm, what should I write about this week, maybe it's time to hit that Korean fried chicken place finally...
Diet -- Rubbish! You will not go there and that is final!
Marly -- Don't you take a hint, we're through!
Diet -- I'm the boss of this house, no new food experiences until you lose 2 more pounds and I don't mean British Sterling.
Marly -- Listen you can't control me Diet, I'm gonna squash you...
Diet -- Not if I squash you first (evil wringing of imaginary hands)

Planet Marly Goes on a Diet

Oh readers, you've been so patient with me. How long have I been promising to post my years-in the-making Fried Chicken Report. I know you're waiting for this, and I am soooo sorry.

Truth is, while reminiscing about crispy skin I've also self-elected myself to review all of Ben & Jerry's new flavors (Stephen Colbert’s AmeriCone Dream, Willie Nelson’s Country Peach Cobbler, Cinnamon Buns, revamped S'mores, although not yet getting around to Banana Split or Crème Brulee)...and that's when I realized, while in the changing room at the bathing suit store, that taste-testing ice cream and fried chicken is not conducive to wearing a bathing suit!!

I Heart Seattle

So I am begrudgingly back from Seattle, the city that I feel still serves the best food in the land.

To commemorate the impetus behind the visit I purchased this artisan's plate of "the salmon." Ah yes, copper river salmon, you were mine. *sigh*

And it was cold, and cloudy, and one day rainy, and just to tease me on my departure day it was bright and sunny... but no matter; it was great to be back!

Instead of going back to old haunts per usual, this creature-of-habit tried some new stuff, and rediscovered some old. While all this news now appears on the City List at right, there are still a few more bits to share about why I Heart Seattle:

New - Marly's City Must Lists

Ok fellow food explorers, it's time to introduce the list I've been compiling for ages, my tried-and-true city favorites, each item sampled personally at least one time -- ok probably more like two, three or ten times! (*blush*)

If you've known me awhile you may have heard some of this before, though this is just the beginning. The list is going to be BIG, it's going to grow baby, and new things will be added as my beloved food adventures continue onward.

You'll notice, unlike other reviews or lists, that this one is short & sweet (& salty too! lol). Expositional verbiage has been left out so you can get right to the need-to-know: where to go and why. Do you have time to read through pages of text to get to the pearl? I didn't think so. Do I have time to provide links for every pearl you find? I knew you'd understand that I don't :).

Chocolate with a dash of vanilla irony

At left is the chocolate stash now in my house. The next time you see me I will be several chocolate pounds heavier and quite happy about it.

There are some people who choose the flavor of chocolate over vanilla every time. Ironically, most of the chocolate we eat in desserts or candy contains vanilla, as an additive used to bring out the flavor of chocolate. One exception is a French chocolate bar named Chocolat Bonnat, and it's a fantastic discovery once you taste a 75% dark chocolate bar without vanilla and realize the influence vanilla has had on your chocolate taste buds all these years. (Btw I can't seem to find this for sale online now, so if in San Fran visit Cocoa Bella in the Westfield San Fran Center on Market & 4th.)

Where I've been, where I'm going 5/10/07

Where I've been:
A few weeks ago Dan K from NYC came to town and we went to Soot Bull Jeep, the best Korean BBQ place I know of. Since I am known for ordering redundancies, we had the steak and the spicy pork (3rd time). Dan of course went back to New York singing a new song that went something like this... "When I need a spicy kick, Ktown Q to my ribs does stick. It's good to try new spicy things; sometimes even I tire of buffalo wings."

Then last Friday Sussy took me for my first visit to Cobras & Matadors, Hollywood Blvd. location. It so happens I haven't had the big food O in a long time, and this place did it. Can't live without items: almond & cabrales-stuffed bacon-wrapped dates in a port reduction, cheese plate, churros. Can live without: the socca, which I'd hoped would be like the famous chickpea pancakes of Nice (only seen photos) but these were thick and covered in a curry-spiced honey. Why, why?

It's time to visit Planet Marly

Too many years ago when I worked at my 1st New York City ad agency (in the creative dept. making ads for Transformers), it became clear that this Jersey girl wasn't ready yet for the big city. So after six months of scripts and storyboards at a frighteningly low salary, I headed back to the home state, but not without the idea to start a greeting card company called Planet Marly. The name of the "company" made sense to everyone, especially colleagues and old friends who'd often said in the past "What planet are you on, Marly?" :)

Well the company never happened. I'll admit I was distracted by other things in Princeton...ok by a guy named Chuck who made buffalo wings. I never met Chuck, but I sure consumed a lot of buffalo wings. Yes I can still see the orange stains on my fingers, which really did prevent me from making greeting cards (yes yes that's only one reason why the card company never happened, you got me!)

Since then life's taken me straight to the path of foodie--not to be confused with a food snob as some folks describe it. Specifically my interests relate to what to eat and where, and in sharing that knowledge, because you never want to say you visited a place for a day and missed out on an incredible food opportunity!

With that, I introduce my blog, in the hopes that this time when I am distracted by the proverbial buffalo wing, you can read about it here on my planet.

Cheers,
Marly

(ps: this is me en route to dinner in Paris)