City of Gold (2015)

[bunniefuu]

♪♪

[instrumental music]

‐  If you were the guy who
lifted my cell phone last year

you may have noticed
that the camera roll

is rich in taco snapshots.

My inner life
tends to be measured

out in radishes,
meat and limes.

If you peered closely
at the tiny images

trying to figure out
who might spend so many

of his days in proximity
to small tortillas.

You may have inferred
that a startling number

of the tacos
came from a single source.

Guerilla Tacos,
a tiny operation that pops up

a few days a week
in Downtown Los Angeles.

Guerilla Tacos is a pretty
singular taqueria

the creation of Wes Avila

whose culinary training came
under Alain Ducasse in Paris.

Avila was crafting tacos
in empty storefronts

or stairwells or garage spaces
deep downtown

and there were rumors about
tacos made with diver scallops

weird vegetables and
sushi grade yellow tail.

When I published a list
of the best dishes of

I included his taco made
with roasted squash

rubbery Oaxacan cheese

and a hint of chili
and charred tomato.

The tortillas don't seem
to be made to order

but they are
fresh and toasty enough.

The taco equivalent
of the energy

of what Chinese cooks
sometimes call

"The breathe of the wok,"
is in full effect.

A Ducasse disciple, quitting
his job at an haute cuisine

pop up to serve
charred octopus tacos

on a downtown street corner.

You're not gonna find cooking
like this anywhere, but LA.

[instrumental music]

[music continues]

[music continues]

I'm an LA guy, I drive.

I am, I am my truck,
my truck is me.

I'm going a slightly
screwy way.

I got off on the
instead of the

which I probably
shouldn't have.

[instrumental music]

Everybody in the world has
an idea of what
Los Angeles is.

Everybody thinks they know
what Los Angeles means

even if
they've never been here.

And if you live in Los Angeles,
you're used to

having your city
explained to you

by people who come
in for a couple of weeks

stay in a hotel
in Beverly Hills

and take in
what they can get to

within minutes
in their rented car.

The thing that people find
hard to understand I think

is sort of
the ‐‐ the magnitude
of what's here.

The huge number of multiple
cultures that live in the city

who come together in this
beautiful
and haphazard fashion.

And you know, the ‐‐ the fault
lines between them

are sometimes where you find
the most beautiful things.

[instrumental music]

I mean, I became a food writer
completely by accident

but it became
what I aspired to.

The idea of celebrating,
you know

the ‐‐ the glorious mosaic
of the city

on somebody else's dime
was just completely fun

and completely exactly
what I wanted to do.

I mean, I kept feeling
as if I was getting away
with something.

‐  There definitely is a
Jonathan Gold Los Angeles

and it's a Los Angeles that a
lot of people didn't know about.

He, like Raymond Chandler
showed you a vision

of Los Angeles
that was a new vision.

‐  Jonathan changed
the food writing world

because he was one of the first
restaurant critics

which was, who was perfectly
happy in..

I guess I even think happier

writing about the hard
to find small restaurants

in tiny little communities.

‐ Hi, how you doin'?
‐ Good. How are you?

Can I get a huarache de
with flor de calabaza?

‐ Flor de calabaza huarache?
‐ Yes.

‐ Sure.
You want cheese on that?

‐  Yeah.
‐ Okay.

‐ He was going to these places

where food critics
didn't always go

and he went
to mom and pop places

where generations of tradition
were being passed down

in the cooking.

LA is great that way
because you don't have to travel

far to taste
like you traveled far

and ‐‐ and I think that's what
made him such an interesting
writer

because he was so curious
about that type of cooking.

‐ This is a little sauce right
here from my grandmother.

She, she came up
with this, with this sauce

so my mom just wanted me
to bring you guys some

so you can taste it
and see how good it is.

It's really, it's really,
really good.

‐ Oh, there's
salsa de semillas inside.

‐ Yeah,
salsa de semillas.

It has peanuts, uh, uh,
garlic, uh, hojuelas..

It's really good.

‐ Thanks.
‐ You're welcome.

‐  The saddest moment
in Boyle Heights street food

most aficionados would agree

was the evening
the breed street vendors

were finally chased
from their scene.

This gathering had always been

rousted by the cops
every so often.

It was amazing
how quickly the circus

turned into a deserted
parking lot.

But Carmen Castellanos,
the soul of Antojitos Carmen

had been working
Boyle Heights since the 's

and after a brief stretch
on a sidewalk

next to an MTA building sight

she scraped together
the funding for a real
restaurant

just around the corner
and brought along her family.

Other LA restaurants
began as street food

but none quite so vividly
as Antojitos Carmen.

You want these guys
to succeed.

‐ He became a, a ‐‐ a figure
of the democratizing

movement in, in culture,
not just in writin'

not just in food writin', but
in the ability to tell stories

about America and the city
of Los Angeles in specific

through a series of, you know
restaurants and food experiences

that other people weren't
writin' about. He gave it value.

[instrumental music]

[laughs]

‐ It's good.

So, Alice, we.. I wanted to talk
about some of these, uh

pieces we wanted Jonathan to do.

‐ Good.

‐ Um, suggestions rather.

‐ Right, well, I, I feel
the most important thing

and we've talked a little bit
about this before

is the Grand Central Market
piece.

‐ It's true, it's at that
tipping point.

It's been a symbol of a certain
kind of Los Angeles

for a very long time.

As it's been redeveloped
or the new restaurants
are coming in

or the ‐‐ the new
fancy butchers

it's gonna stop being
this sort of place that you

associate with the smells
and the tastes and the..

The look of that part
of Los Angeles

into being the sort of
precious artisanal

you know,
aren't we special to pay

$. for a skirt steak
kind of market.

‐ You know, can a pupuseria

exist next to, uh,
a fancy cheese store?

‐ Yeah.
‐ Is that the challenge that
these, that the owners now face?

‐ It is. I mean, I like
a lot of the new places

and I shop there all the time

but you have to have a place
where you have

like the, the tastes of

sort of last century
Los Angeles

existing with
the ‐‐ the modern taste.

There's something cultural
about it,
and there's something

about it that has become
part of Los Angeles

that I think
is sort of magical.

It's like when do you start
cutting into the flesh and bone
of the market?

And that's, that's a hard
question to answer, and I think

that would be something really
interesting to address.

‐ Yeah.

‐ I ‐‐ I'm hoping we can get
to that piece

sooner rather than later.

‐ Whenever we talk about
criticism in New York..

... Jonathan Gold's name
always comes up.

We're always like,
I wish we had Jonathan Gold

as our chief critic in New York

because I think
he's very fair.

I think what separates Jonathan
from the rest of the critics

is that his empathy level
is higher than anybody else's

and I think that shows
in his ‐‐ in his writing

but this is what pisses me off
about J. Gold.

I was in a place
that did very esoteric Chine..

Uh, Korean chicken barbecue.

I was like, "This is great.
I'm not gonna tell anybody
about it."

And then, in the corner I see
Jonathan Gold's review

and I was like, "m*therf*cker."

He knows every place.
I don't know how he does it.

You know, I don't know any
Korean that knows more about

Korean food than Jonathan Gold.

I don't know anybody
that knows every taco stop.

‐ I was at the wrong truck,
there's another fish one.

‐ I know.
That one's good too.

The ‐‐ the Cuatro Vientos has,
it has always been down there

and sometimes
the line is longer.

‐  Un taco!
‐ Ready to order?

‐ Uh, yeah, sure.

You guys tweeted about a, uh

tostada this morning,
that sounded really good.

What was that?

‐ Yeah.

‐ Yeah.
‐ Okay.

‐  I met Jonathan
pretty much right away.

He walked into the newsroom.

He look, acted like he
owned the place practically

and I thought he was
one of the bigger writers.

It turned out he was
just a proofreader

at the time
and I was an intern.

He invited me
up to his apartment

for his mom's, uh, peach pie

so, um, that ‐‐ that
changed a lot.

He sent roses the next morning.

‐ Oh, thank you very much.

‐ When I woke up this morning
and saw that tweet

it's like,
I know I have to come here.

‐ Yeah.
It's very super spicy.

‐  Oh, good.
‐  That looks great.

‐ It's amazing for us, people
like him, uh, that, that writes.

He said that, uh, these
tacos are number for him

and, uh, a ‐‐ actually
we're in
the process of getting a loan

from the bank
to get another truck done.

People asking us to go
to Orange County and San Diego.

‐ Here, I'll hold this.

‐  I gather that it's unusual
for people who've married

as long as we have,
to wanna hang out

together so much of the time,
but we kind of do.

‐ You know I've been wanting
you to do the piece on anonymity

for a long time?

There's still that old idea
of a restaurant critic

has to be anonymous,
but you know..

‐  Laurie doesn't edit
my pieces anymore

but she has this odd ability

of getting the best
out of her writers.

‐ And that's, uh,
we're doing an excerpt?

‐ Maybe, like, ,
like, inch little story.

‐  The weird way
that she does it with me

is probably, maybe not great
for the marriage

but it's,
she suggests something and..

...I'll, like,
say that's a really..

N ‐‐ no, that's not the way it
works, but in the way of, like

explaining to her that that's
not the way it works

I understand how it does work.

‐ I mean, other people have
written about it,
but not ‐‐ not in the way..

I don't think in the deeper way
that you want to do it.

‐ You think the history
of anonymity in a restaurant?

‐ That'd be, that'd be
very cool.

[instrumental music]

‐  It would probably
be ideal to be anonymous.

I mean, I ‐‐ I was certainly was
in the early part of my career.

I mean, I would go to Spago,
basically looking like

a punk rock kid with my friend
who had one pair of pants.

And ‐‐ and we were not
being ushered

to the nice table
by the window

but any cri, any critic
who does restaurants

is gonna be recognized
soon enough.

Especially,
in the age of social media

where somebody will
tweet your picture

before you've gotten
your first cocktail, right?

I mean, the people
who disguise themselves

probably aren't getting away
with it nearly as much as they
think they are.

‐ I'm wearing this mask
because I'm an anonymous critic

which means that none
of the restaurateurs

or very few of them recognize
what I look like.

‐ Oy, gevalt.
‐  I almost ‐‐

‐ Oh, you didn't know that
I was gonna wear this thing?

‐  Well, I heard
that you were..

‐  I believe it's a positive
value, other people
disagree with me

but I'm always wanna
on the side of the consumer

and, uh, have a meal
experience that's a..

... just like what a normal
person would have.

People have told me that
there's pictures of me
in the kitchen

but it's with the mask on.

[laughter]

‐  I mean, I think
it is essential to get

an unbiased look at
how a place is cooking

because they will treat people

that they know are writing about
them very differently.

Ruth Reichl did that famous
review of Le Cirque

where she went in disguised
as this sort of

frumpy woman and got treated
like garbage and then

the next week went in dressed
as herself and was treated

like a queen and wrote
a parallel review.

‐ I do all the
stuff you're supposed to do.

I always reserve
under different names

I switch up the names
I reserve under

I switch up the phone
numbers that I reserve under.

I mean, I have a whole series
of throw away phones

that I use just
for reservations.

It's ‐‐ it's kind of like the

it's ‐‐ it's kind of like
the fat man's version

of the "Bourne Identity,"
I think.

[laughter]

[instrumental music]

‐ Sir, nice to see you again.
How are you doing?

‐ Good. How are you?
‐ Awesome. That's really good.

‐  Bonsoir.
‐ Bonsoir.

‐ Hello.

‐  I never know
when Jonathan is coming.

I don't know the night before,
you know, I don't know.

It's really the last minute, you
know, I never have a reservation

for Jonathan Gold, people.

No, it's another name
and boom, he's here.

♪ Do do do do do ♪♪

Panic in the kitchen.

The beans, the beans are f*cking
al dente, man, you eat the
beans?

You have nothing to do, John?
You have nothing to do?

‐ No, I have stuff to do, but..

‐ But what?

I'm always excited to cook
for him because Jonathan Gold

is a critic who is very
open to trying new things.

‐  Oh, my God.
That's insane.

I saw the corn on the cob
when I came in

so this is amazing
to see it turned into this.

‐  This is great.

‐  So what makes Ludo Ludo?

‐  Part of it is growing up
as a chef in a way

that almost nobody does anymore.

You know,
having the good fortune

to work his way up
in the kitchen

with three of the most
interesting chefs in France

and I think the way he just..

He loves Los Angeles.

He ‐‐ he likes working
with the produce here

he likes the kind of people
who live here.

He wanted to do something
that was personal

that ‐‐ that meant something
to him as a chef

and Los Angeles
has always been the place

certainly in the United States,
where you can come

and you can...reinvent yourself.

‐  Sometimes as a chef
we don't see what we create.

When Jonathan Gold
gave me an amazing review

for Ludo Bite in ,
I did not realize what I create

but Jonathan opened my eyes.

Wow! I just realized
I created a new concept.

‐  Food and writing have gone
together throughout history.

If you look at France
in the th century

or China in the th century,
uh, there wasn't just food

there, there was food
and someone writing about it

food and someone
thinking about it

and that relationship
is what turned food from fuel

to food into an art form.

It's true of literature,
it's true of plays

it's true of all
cultural art forms

that writing is what
made them digestible

so to speak by the masses.

You're trying to tell a story

make that experience
into something much bigger

but at a certain point, everyone

I mean, look at Yelp,
it's such an American thing

where everyone then
believes they are the critic

and they are the expert.

[instrumental music]

‐  You know,
now everybody thinks

"Oh, I can go to
a restaurant

and write what
I think about it."

And if I use words like

toothsome, you know, then,
"Hey, I'm ‐‐ I'm a food writer."

‐ They all seem to
use the word amazing now.

"It's amazing!
The Mexican corn is amazing!"

You know, it's like, amazing
doesn't tell me anything.

‐ What is the
role of the critic

is a question that's being asked

and I think every area
of culture right now

because it's, like, "Well, why
do I need a food critic

"if I have Yelp, and why do
I need a book critic

if I've got Amazon reviews?"

I think what a critic brings
to the table is knowledge.

You know that
he's done his homework.

You know, if you're really
interested in a subject

you are gonna find the critics
that ‐‐ that speak to you

that you don't
always agree with

but that, that speak to you

that you feel
you'll learn something from

that you ‐‐ you found a new way

of seeing something after
reading what they had to say.

‐  The biggest thing
in restaurants over

say the last years
has been

the introduction of diversity.

[speaking in foreign language]

When Craig Claiborne
in the 's

was reviewing expensive
restaurants in New York

they were almost all French.

Then as you start to get
cuisines from all over

you can't look at cuisine as
a singular thing anymore.

There can be a thousand
different restaurants

that are great in
a thousand different ways.

‐  Two pieces of legislation
in and in

increased the number
of migrants

abolished standard quotas which
favored migration from Europe

opened up, uh, i ‐‐ immigration
to a much wider range of people.

LA was a leading edge
in diversity
population growth.

The immigrant population
has defined the country.

It's defined Los Angeles.

We are what we are
because of our diversity.

‐ Green bean..

...carrot, bell pepper..

‐  My name Tui. I'm the chef
of Jitlada restaurant.

I came America in .

I never went to
cooking school, but I learned
from my grand mom.

She teach me everything,
you know, like, uh..

What is this, what is that..

Like, uh, you know,
how to grow the lemongrass

how to grow the coconut,
how to grow the turmeric.

In ,
I bought Jitlada restaurant

but at first we lost money.

‐ We're going to Jitlada
right now.

It's my favorite
Thai restaurant in Los Angeles.

It serves all kinds
of Thai food

but what it specializes in is
the extremely spicy, aromatic

pungent cooking
of Southern Thailand.

"Warning, if you do not eat
spicy food, do not order this."

The ‐‐ the spicier it is,
actually the better it tastes

because the flavors
come into balance

because that's the way
it's designed.

‐ He have very good palate
on his tongue

because he can separate, like,
"Oh, you have this in here."

I ‐‐ I start laughing.
Especially with my Thai coffee.

No one in the whole wide world,
even my family

doesn't know what
I put in there, but he know.

I learned from
the customer
that Jonathan Gold

important for the people
in America.

And then one day he came here

and they all laugh
and they say

"Jonathan Gold in front of you."

And I remember my leg,
shaking like this, like

"Oh, my God,
is it Jonathan Gold?"

But still I didn't know
who is him, just the name.

‐ Well, thank you.

If she, if she brought it out
with this

then you know it's hot.

‐ This is extra chili that
you can pour on the beef if..

[speaking in foreign language]

‐ It's, it's spicy enough.

[laughs]

[laughs]

‐ Oh, no, it's fine.

‐ Oof.

‐  After he writes about
our restaurant

the people, they waiting,
you know, before we open.

They bring the newspaper.

I want to eat southern
Thai food, and after that

we are the famous restaurant
everyone know.

I, I feel, like a, so proud,
you know

if she like to learn in America,
you know?

‐ Bye, thanks again. Your, your
food is always so good.

‐ Well, thank you.

[instrumental music]

‐ One of the amazing things
about Los Angeles

is that there really
is a thereness beneath
the thereness.

And of course,
some people think

what the hell is this place?

[instrumental music]

‐  I think that you can build
a city any shape you like

as long as it works.

And you say,
"Works, Los Angeles works?"

Everyone tells you
that it doesn't work.

‐  Reyner Banham's
book came out
in the early 's

and he was the first person who,
I think made sense

of Los Angeles
for an awful lot of people.

The changes
that were occurring
in Los Angeles

were typical of a lot of
changes that were happening

in other cities
in this country.

And somehow or other,
Los Angeles had got there first.

‐  Right then, Los Angeles
needs some explaining

because it's normally regarded

as an unspeakable
sprawling mess

though certainly not by me.

‐  Pretty much all cities
in the th century

the th century,
grew from the centre outward.

Los Angeles was different.

You were getting
a post modern arrangement

whereby their peripheries
were more important
than the centre.

And all of these
different centers have grown

and they collided
with each other

into one giant megalopolis
of to million people.

And the city is so large
and so sprawling and so diverse

that it allows for the, the
interseses between the major
spaces

to be occupied by people
to create what they want.

And this is where Gold,
as a critic of urban living
comes in.

He provides a map for us.

His culinary mapping becomes
a cartography of the region

and through leading us,
we come to understand
our city.

‐ Los Angeles is a lot of
self‐contained communities.

We have communities
of people here

who are not cooking for tourists

and they're not cooking
for the newspaper critic

and they're not cooking
for the glory of it.

They're cooking
because they're filling

a specific need
that their community has.

Because of that, it becomes
almost the... anti‐melting pot

less a melting pot than sort of
a great glittering mosaic.

[instrumental music]

There's no end to the fun
in the San Gabriel Valley.

And this is, uh,
El Monte proper.

Ca ‐‐ can't you feel the
electricity and excitement
in the air?

People not from Los Angeles
sometimes don't understand

the beauty you can find
in mini malls.

That's probably the best dim sum
in town at the moment.

That's the remaining, uh,
Chinese Islamic Restaurant.

Oh, this, this is Lupe's,
this is the place I love.

In case you think
I love everything

the stuff in that restaurant
is absolutely disgusting.

That place we just passed
called Pho Huynh is famous

for boiled ox penis
in your pho.

That place, uh, uh,
has like the best, uh, nim nong.

You ‐‐ you have another
pho place.

Oh, yeah, there is it.
It says, "Pho Kim."

Or Pho Kim?

Which is..

Sometimes they don't, like,
think these through.

This is Yee‐Lou
which is interesting

because it's a really
old‐fashioned

Chinese American place that's
been taken over by Chinese

who are doing
Chinese American food

as an exotic food
for Chinese people to eat.

In here is a Nanjing Kitchen

which specializes
in this duck dish that's just..

I'm not sure it's the most
pleasurable duck in the world

but it's perfect in its way.

It's sort of a, a boiled duck
with absolutely

all the fat taken out of it.

But there just happens to be

you know, in this
completely ordinary place

there, there happens to be
extraordinary food.

It's the miracle of
entry level capitalism I think.

[instrumental music]

‐  My name is Genet Agonafer,
and I'm from Ethiopia.

I cam , Valentine's Day
with my son

with my ‐year‐old son.

Lemeneh Tefera is his name.

I moved to LA to provide
my son with education

and I was working
as a waitress for many years.

I raised my son being a
waitress for many, many years.

And that adorable son
is my grown son now.

I have another picture.

This is when he graduated
from medical school

and he's been practicing
medicine for years.

This space opened up
and my generous son

took cash advance practically
on all the credit cards he have

and opened it for me.

I was very busy at first,
and then / came

and then just
completely at a standstill

and my son was pumping money
to keep the place alive.

And then all of the sudden,
the review came

and I was, like, "Oh, my God."

Every day I would have
people out lining up.

Celebrities come.

I could not cook
the doro wat fast enough.

But for me, it was so important
to tell my son I could succeed

and whenever he comes here,
now he's just so proud.

‐  It takes a special
temperament
to be a food critic.

You need to have, you know,
a mixture of, sort of

um, ego, and, um

and‐and interest
and  obsession with food

that very few people have.

‐  My first year
out of college, I was working
downtown

as a proofreader,
and I was bored out of my mind.

So I decided to make it
my project to eat

at every restaurant
on Pico Boulevard.

Pico Boulevard is kind of
Los Angeles' back porch.

It goes through
a remarkable swath of town.

There's a place called
the El Salvador Cafe

on the eastern end.

That was one of the first
Salvadoran places in town

and way at the
Santa Monica end was a place
called Tom's No.

which had my favorite
chili fries in town.

Those were really good
chili fries.

Pico, in a certain sense
was where I learned to eat.

I also saw my first punk rock
show on Pico, was sh*t at

fell in love, bowled a

witnessed a Kn*fe fight,
took cello lessons

raised chickens, ate Oki Dogs

and heard X Ice‐Cube Hole
and Willie Dixon perform

though not together.

It was fascinating
to go every night

and to sit into a place and have
my plate of rice and beans

or my papusas and listen
to the dialogue around me

to look at the stacks of
newspapers people were reading

to, you know,
seeing what was on the TV

that was perpetually on
in the corner

to see what people
were talking about.

I gradually started to find
things out that I didn't know.

The Mexican restaurants
weren't all just Mexican
restaurants

and they were from
different regions of Mexico.

This was the time
in the early 's

when the wars were bad
in Central America

a lot of people migrated
to Los Angeles.

And they started out
selling street food

then they opened
little restaurants

and by the time I was
in the middle of my project

they had colonized
an entire strip.

I learned this very quickly
as a journalist

that if you randomly go up
to somebody on the street

and start talking to them

they're probably
not gonna talk to you

they're gonna think
you're odd and brush you off.

But if you're doing it
in a restaurant..

... you have a context
in which to be

so you'll sit down
and they'll feed you

and they'll be nice to you,
and maybe there'll be some
gossip.

It was the year
that I got to know

Los Angeles as Los Angeles.

[instrumental music]

Hello‐o‐o.
‐ Hello, there, darling.

How are you?
‐  Okay.

‐ You saw what I wrote, right?

I answered somebody's tweet.

I said, you know, "Yeah, he'll
do a Kuala Lumpur restaurant"

but what, there's,
like, one of them.

[laughing]

‐ Yeah, and ‐‐ and then
another person said

"Oh, he'll run out of
restaurants in Koreatown."

I ‐‐ I refrained from saying,
there are restaurants
in Koreatown.

It's not gonna happen
in your lifetime, buddy.

I seem to be going through
a Korean foods fixation.

‐  Welcome back to "Good Food"

it's that time where we check in
with our resident gourmand

on where to eat this weekend
in Los Angeles.

So where are we going?

‐ We're going to
a restaurant called Soban.

‐ And what is their specialty?

‐  They're specialty
is Galbi Jim.
They're famous ‐‐

‐ I remember the first time
I went to a Jonathan Gold

approved restaurant
from the "LA Weekly"

and, you know, you drive
into a mini mall

and you're, like, "Really?"

You know, "Really?
I'm not gonna be waylaid?"

I'm ‐‐ I'm not gonna be mugged
walking into this place?

And you walk in and it's, like,
"Oh, yeah, it's people

it's just people."

‐ This isn't the El Bulli
of sandwich shops

but he does, kind of,
use his toys

in making them which makes
a lot of it fun.

‐  He's so much more
than a food writer.

Jonathan is
a cultural commentator

who uses food
and restaurants as a way

of creating these little
commentaries on modern life.

[instrumental music]

I've been eating lately
at Chego, the new restaurant

from Kogi Auteur Roy Choi, the
architect of the truck‐based

restaurant phenomenon,
and the only chef I know

whose food is capable
of attracting

several hundred people to an
Eagle Rock parking lot
at midnight.

Chego specializes
in rice bowls

wavy, baroque constructions
that splice

all the flavors of the city
into great splooshes

of combinatorial DNA.

Pickled watermelon radish,
sautéed ong choi

crumbled cotija cheese and a
spurting slab of pork belly

that's been burnished as
lovingly
with Korean chili paste

as a ' Impala show car
has been rubbed with lacquer.

‐ David!

‐  Kogi's taco
is a new paradigm
of a restaurant

an art directed take
on Korean street food

previously unimaginable
in both California and Seoul.

Cheap, unbelievably delicious

and unmistakably
from Los Angeles.

Food that makes you feel
plugged into the rhythms

of this city
just by eating it.

‐ We're working on some
new dishes right now.

This is, um, it's summertime
here in Los Angeles

so we're working on a tomato,
watermelon, goat cheese

Thai basil, soy, chili,
lemongrass dish.

In all of my properties,
the only litmus test is

when we eat it, can I just throw
this down and say, "f*ck."

If we say that,
then, then, uh

then the dish makes it
to the menu.

The small kitchen keeps us
together, keeps us focused.

There's nowhere
to move around

so you have to be really
creative and move here, boom.

It's all about muscle memory,
boom, boom, boom.

It's fun, it makes
for a lot of jokes too

because we bump asses
with each other all the time.

Especially right here.

This is the danger zone
right here.

[laughter]

You know, the weird thing
about my ‐‐ my first interaction

with Jonathan is, uh,
he helped me figure out

what we were trying to do.

Kind of like, "Oh,
this is what Kogi is."

We're kind of, like,
this Justice League

of, like, kind of weird,
warped super heroes

that came together
to feed the city, you know.

When he writes about me,
he understands..

... and is able to articulate
the little

kind of secret, you know..

You know, tangled webs
I have inside

that I'm trying to put out
into the plate.

He, like, understands it.

I never explained it to him.

He gets exactly
where that came from.

Like, we were trying
to recreate..

...how Asian kids grow up
and eat in their home

um, and what their
refrigerators look like

but also how stoners eat.

In that first review, he was
able to capture that moment

you know,
of ‐‐ of what was happening.

Anthony!

‐  I kind of
like that Italian beef.

They have those Italian beef
sandwiches that's marinated.

Alice always said
it was marinated

because it was such crappy meat
that they have to marinate.

‐  Modern food writing starts
with Calvin Trillin.

He was saying, that,
you know, everyone reveres

these French restaurants that
no one wants to eat at

and you know, and it's the,
the colloquial food

that's really important,
and I think that's, you know

that was, like, the battle call
for both Jonathan and for Robert

and then for a lot of people
who have followed after.

‐ Alright, what are we gonna do
here, Jonathan?

You're the guy, you're
the expert, you're the food guy.

‐  I was probably
a sophomore in college

and I, I was house sitting.

Among the books in the study
was "American Fried"

you know, Calvin Trillin's
first book.

And I read it, and I was
utterly fascinated by it.

I read "American Fried"
and "Alice, Let's Eat"

so many times.

Yeah, I ‐‐ I imitated him
absolutely blindly
when I started.

Trillin was writing
about eating

he was writing about
the culture of eating

and it was obviously
the way to go.

‐ You know, I always say that
if I'm in a strange town

and I don't know where to eat,
I go up to the motel clerk

grab him by the necktie
and pull him over the counter

just to get his attention

and I say, "Not where you took
your parents

"for their
th wedding anniversary

"the place you went to
the night you got home

after months in Korea."

And the second place
is really good.

‐ And I think
your ‐‐ your idea

has become almost the norm now

that if you're gonna be
a newspaper critic or a writer

in a, in a big town,
you better

you know, know among
the good rib stands

which, which is up
and which is down.

‐ Why?
That didn't used to be true.

[instrumental music]

‐ This ‐‐ this is, uh,
King Taco which is beloved.

It's not necessarily
my favorite

but it's very good tacos,
you know,
pretty good  al pastor

and one of the great things
about it is they actually

have a truck parked
outside the restaurant

sort of this canopy,
place of honor

and if you come on
a weekend night, there'll be

an hour wait for the truck,
and you can walk right up

to the counter
at the restaurant itself.

I've had the tacos at the truck
and at the restaurant

and it's correct, you actually
do want the ones from the truck

but it's, I've always wondered
why the taco

honors the truck so much.

My theory is that taco eating
is...it's almost a verb.

Taco should be a verb, right..

The ‐‐ the, the tortilla,
the tortilla's hot, the ‐‐ the,
the meat's hot

they combine,
the sauce is sloshed on it

and then you're almost eating it
in one continuous motion

from the way it comes from the
grill to the guy to the counter.

I know it's overly romantic.

[indistinct chatter on TV]

[chuckles]

Yeah.

Yeah, that was a great place.

And speaking of that, um..

...if, if we're looking for
somebody for the picnic

if we're doing
a sandwich thing..

I mean, there's some
interesting people

doing sandwiches right now,
but, uh, Fred Eric

has this new place
attached to his Tiara

called Delish.

I'm definitely
a great procrastinator.

I suppose when I need to have
an attention span for something

I ‐‐ I have an attention span
for something, but..

...it's ‐‐ it's, it's hard,
it's hard to explain.

So for some reason
you wanted that, right?

‐  Yeah, that was great.
I think that's perfect.

‐ I mean, o ‐‐ otherwise I
would have sent the call away.

[laughs]

A ‐‐ as is my want.

Keep as new..

Maybe if the internet
went away

but even before the internet,
I mean, I would always find

you know, books
and magazines

I had to read before I could
finish an article.

Now, I have
the attention span of a gnat.

‐  Being Jonathan's editor

it's like being someone's,
like, teenage stalker for me.

I knew he won't
turn his piece in

even if he agrees to do it

and then I realized that
what it was gonna take

would be, you know,
bordering on psychotic levels

of, of e‐mail and phone
and text harassment.

[cell phone ringing]

‐ Hm, I'll call
when I get back.

You know, actually I went
to somebody who specialized
in writer's block.

I mean, that was her thing,
and she just threw her hands up

and usually I do writer's block,
I do people who can't write.

There's something
that keeps them from writing

yet you publish , words
a year. Clearly you're writing.

That, I'm not, I don't deny that
what you're experiencing

is something, but I have
no idea what it is.

I mean, I could
sit down and I can say that

"Oh, you need to do
this piece a week early"

but I end up like, you know,
torturing one paragraph for

you know, and a half days

and then somebody calls
and starts yelling at me

and the rest of the piece will
be done in an hour and a half.

‐ So...alright.

What else we need
to talk about is what you think

you might be doing in terms
of reviews for the next
couple of weeks.

‐ I think next week will be, um

this new
Szechuan restaurant in..

...surprise, Alhambra.

‐ Mm‐hmm.

‐ That, um, is called
the Chengdu Taste.

Like, there's, um,
there's a dish on the menu

called intriguingly enough, uh..

..little sister's
spicy rabbit.

‐ Yeah, great.

‐ I don't think
they're actually cooking ‐‐

‐  Rabbit?

‐ Oh, it's rabbit,
but I don't think

it's, like,
the little sister's rabbit.

I think it's in the style of..

...the way a little sister
would make it

unless it actually was ‐‐

‐  I sort of regard him
some days as my younger

much smarter little brother

um, and I'm the first born,
and I'm the responsible one

and I have to make
the trains run on time

and he's the funny, smart,
talented one, and I, uh

there's probably some love
buried down there deep inside

but um, uh..

...it's, sometimes the role
is difficult to play.

So, how difficult, alright

is it gonna be
to photograph there?

Is there gonna be
a language barrier?

There is gonna be
a language barrier.

‐ We need to take care
of that this afternoon.

‐ Okay, I'll do that.
‐ Okay, um ‐‐

‐  You come up
with the cattle prod

I'll come up with the copy.

‐  Awesome.

‐  Chengdu Taste.

Everybody's excited about it.

Not 'cause we haven't had
Chengdu style food here before

but the sort of freshness,
the, the vividness
of the flavors

the fact that everything
is not just lashed

with oceans of chili oil

makes it sort of
a really appealing place.

One thing that I try
never, never to do

is to pretend expertise
that I don't have.

I like to come to it the way

that I assume most of my
readers are gonna come to it..

... that I don't necessarily,
no more than they do

and I find out
Chengdu is the largest city

and the capital
of Sichuan proper.

Um, it's inland, so there's
probably not gonna be

a lot of sea food..

...although these
pictures are all, like

you know, abalone crab.

I very rarely take notes
in a restaurant.

I'm more involved in, sort of,
observing
the music of the meal.

I mean, you could take notes
when you're having sex too

but you'd, sort of,
be missing out on something

and I go to restaurants
usually or times

before I review them.

In the case of places
where the cuisine
is unfamiliar to me

I may go many, many
more times than that.

I think my record is .

[sighs]

Uh, let's get
the...the fish with green chili.

They ‐‐ they don't have
that chicken dish you like

but they have, uh ‐‐

‐ That's okay.
I mean, I don't ‐‐

‐ And the wonton with ‐‐
‐ Okay.

‐ I've been thinking
that you'll like

the water boiled fish.

A lot of, uh,
Sichuan peppercorn..

[instrumental music]

‐ Hi, how are you today?
Nice to see you again.

‐ Nice to see you too.
Thanks.

I mean the sense
of discovery of eating

something you've never
had before is exhilarating.

But what's even better
I think is

you get through
the exhilaration

you go through
the infatuation phase

for the next couple
of meals and then maybe

if you're really lucky,
you get to the place
of understanding.

I mean, I wouldn't pretend
to know anything at all

about Burma from having had
two dozen Burmese meals, right?

But there was, uh, certainly
a point where I thought

I knew something about Burma
for having that

and it's, like, seeing
a movie or something

like, seeing a documentary.

It gives you the illusion
of understanding things

and maybe you have a different
context to put things in

and sometimes that's,
that's all you can ask for

and sometimes that's enough.

No shortage of bean sprouts.

‐  The book that
we oughta write

would be some sort of popular,
populist thing

on all these communities
and who runs what

and all the stuff that I always
wanna know the answer to.

Between the two of us,
the number of hours spent

not writing that book..

...it would be,
it would take a lifetime

not to write that book.

‐ Yeah, sure.
‐ Okay.

‐  You will probably find
this Chengdu style cooking

lighter, cleaner, and less
likely to wake you up

in the middle of the night
with chili oil induced
nightmares.

The food is still quite spicy,
flavored with a vast array

of fresh, dried, pickled
and ground chilis.

The almost electric charge
of the peppercorns

brings out the flavor
of the filets and chilies.

The taste flits
around your lips and tongue

with the weird vibrancy
of a flashing Las Vegas sign

where the pepper sauce
with the wonton

obliterates
everything in its path

like a mysteriously
pleasurable
punch in the mouth.

[keys clacking]

‐  The little secret
that people don't get about

Jonathan's writing is the way
he uses the second person.

He'll start a review
something like

um, you probably have found
in the past

that deer penis is not
really worth the effort

that the, that the amount of
gristle and fat and bone

is just to high in proportion
to the amount of stringy meat

you're able to pull off,

but that's because
you've never had deer penis

at this Vietnamese restaurant
that specializes in it.

In the first paragraph, he's
formed a bond with the reader.

You know, you and I are people
who eat deer penis

and you know even though
the readers

even though .% of his readers

has never ordered
or eaten deer penis

he brings you to his table
in a way that

I've never seen another
restaurant writer do.

[instrumental music]

‐  It takes great writing
and great storytelling

to elevate food criticism
to what Jonathan does

and Jonathan was the
first Pulitzer prize winner

for food criticism.

‐ The fact that someone could
write about food in such a way

as to get the attention of
people not in the food world

but in the journalism world,
in the cultural criticism world

to me was hugely significant.

‐ I think the fact that he got
the Pulitzer for food criticism

sort of put the stamp on food
as a, um, a subject

worthy of, of serious inquiry.

‐ Thank you,
‐ Are you guys
interested in wine?

‐ Coffee is fine. Thank you.
‐ Right. Sounds good.

‐ Have you ever
been on any kind of a diet?

Have you ever made any
sort of dietary restrictions?

‐ Hm, no.

[both laughing]

‐ I mean, you've read
all the stuff that, like

cooking is actually
what makes us human.

‐ Right. I had to explain
to my year old.
Like, what's the diff..

It was like, she's like,
"We're animals."

I'm, like, "Yeah, we're
animals." She's like

"So what makes us people?"

And I was like, "Well, we cook."

And she seemed satisfied
with that.

That's the difference
between me and a monkey

because I will puree
the banana for you

and he will just
throw it at you.

So what's,
what's your next thing

for "Lucky Peach" going to be?

Or what ideas
can I steal from you

and then put into "Lucky Peach?"

I'm taking hagfish

and you threatened to take me
to the hagfish restaurant.

‐  I didn't thr*aten you,
did you go to the hagfish
restaurant?

‐ I have not yet been
to the hagfish restaurant.

[chuckles]

I didn't think that
you were f*cking with me

but your description
of the hagfish..

‐ Well, the first thing about
the hagfish is that it's not

really delicious.

It's like eel,
only a lot worse.

Really? Like muddier? Blander?

‐ It's bla, it's blander

and the filets are gelatinous

but sort of everything
about the hagfish

is bothersome, right?

The fact that it's this
weird hybrid

of a vertebrate and
invertebrate

it's really sort of
an early species and the..

It has a cranium,
but it really
has no other bones.

‐ And then the slime thing.
‐ And the slime thing.

You could put a hagfish
in a gallon bucket of water

and the bucket will turn
to solid slime in seconds.

‐ Jonathan doesn't write about
food because it's weird

like that's not, I don't think
that's ever a sole motivator

though he is,
like, uniquely good at finding

horrible things to eat.

Um, he writes about it
because people eat it

and that's a part
of their culture and their world

and if you learn about that,
then you're connected to them.

‐ Now we're
going down Westwood Boulevard

and towards,
what was for so many years

Junior's Deli,
which was the deli

my family grew up going to.

For, uh, reformed
Jewish families in Los Angeles

sometimes like
your deli is more telling

of who you are
and what your status is

and how you grow up
than the show you went to.

If your family
went to Nate'n Al's

you were,
you were kind of fancy.

If your family went to, uh..

...Labels Table,
you were probably

pretty close to working class,
but if your family was going

to Junior's, you were, you were
doing alright.

You ever been here before?

‐ No, I never have.

‐ It's kind of like
a social scene in Tehran

that's reproducing itself,
like years later.

‐ That's cool.

‐  It's funny that
everybody thinks

we had this sort of like
gourmet upbringing, right?

Just remembering the stuff that
we ate when we were kids.

‐ What do you mean?

Iceberg, salad..

Um, orange jello, French fries

cream wafer sticks,
and Dr. Pepper.

That was like the perfect meal.
What are you talking about?

‐ When you describe
it like that, it sounds like

one of those typical last meals
that prisoners request..

[laughs]

...before they go
to the electric chair.

‐  We just had that a lot.

‐ We did have that a lot.

‐ So have you eaten
any endangered species lately?

‐ Yes,
I had an ortolan soufflé.

It was, it was delightful.

My brother
and I are pretty different.

I mean, he's an
environmentalist.

He lives to save the ocean.

And I'm the guy
who bought the truck

that was the single most
polluting vehicle

in consumer reports that year.

I'm not proud of it, but Mark
definitely pointed it out to me.

‐ Dinner at the Gold table
was always a blood sport

because all of us brothers
were always

ragging on each other
all the time.

How can you say, "Okay, this is
an amazing sushi place"

and say,
"Don't eat the blue fin"

when you're still getting
people to go to that place?

‐ Well, I'm,
I'm subtler than that.

‐ Mm, yes and no.

You're the one who was on a
Korean whale eating tour.

I have to be an
environmentalist

because Jonathan's eating
everything I'm trying to save.

The question is whether
or not you go to the point

o ‐‐ of using a regulatory
mechanism to have this country

lead by example.

I've often thought that one
of my biggest achievements

was getting my brother to write
and op‐ed piece on a bill

that we were pushing to ban on
the sale of shark fin products

in the state of California.

Believe me,
I'd like to see, you know

shark's fin soup
banned tomorrow..

It took me months to get him
to write that piece

but I read his piece
and my anger melted away.

"But as much as
you might love conpoy

"dried flotation bladders,
crab eggs, braised fish cheeks

"and the other esoterica
of Cantonese seafood cooking

"It is hard to work up
an appetite

for the bitter taste
of extinction."

I had people who worked on the
bill say that that was one

of the most critical aspects
of the entire campaign

to get the bill passed, and so
the power of how well he writes

really made a big difference.

[instrumental music]

‐  My dad always wanted
to be a writer

and he was very talented.

‐ My father was probably
the most overeducated

probation officer in the history
of Los Angeles County.

He really wanted to be an
English professor.

He was all but dissertation
in American Literature

but LA County probation
paid a lot more

than being an English professor.

So, our household
was all about culture

and we were just exposed to,
you know, any book we wanted.

Doesn't matter what our
financial situation is

that book would appear.

‐ There was always
music playing

usually my dad's infatuation

with either
Mahler or Italian opera.

And there was the idea
that the culture of the nation

was sort of like flowing
through our living room.

‐ What are you working on?

‐ Oh, well, yeah.

Okay, so here, here, here it is.

‐  Oh, I remember this.

This was in your
painting class.

‐  Yeah.
‐  Dark stuff.

Isabel has always drawn,
even when very young, or

she used to paint and draw
pictures like incessantly.

I mean, it must be hard
living with writers, right?

I mean, people who are

who basically judge
or you think judge

every single sentence
that you say.

Maybe that's why
she went into cartooning.

"Cold okapis!"

Looks like I have, like,
a split lip

like a dog, that's good.

[instrumental music]

I hope my kids have grown up
with culture in the way

that I grew up with culture.

I mean, I do this thing
where we go to a museum

and we stand in front
of a painting for half an hour

and we talk about the painting

and every single
thing about it.

And the idea of being able
to spend that much time

with your child and having
that dialogue about it

is ‐‐ is just wonderful.

These are all like
members of the congress

or something, right?

‐  Yeah, yeah.

‐  None of them were so
stoked about these, right?

‐ I mean, I think he was
the first caricaturist.

And he was very vicious
in his things

but he was also
like really accurate.

‐ Well, you might not have
to see eyes on that one.

It's like when you're writing
something

and you're just describing
something as a, as a writer

you can't list
every single detail.

You've gotta pick
just a couple of details

that let the reader see
and then they'll build

the person up
in their imagination.

And so, like this guy,
you know, he's round

and he's squat
and he's froggy

and, you know, like there's
nobody in the world
with a nose

that's that big.

[instrumental music]

‐  In just a few months, La Tia
has already established itself

as one of the most serious
Mexican restaurants

in Los Angeles in complexity
and deftness.

I always end up with the quail
in the traditional black mole

so dark that it seems
to suck the light out

of the airspace around it.

Spicy as a novella
and bitter as tears.

Mole whose aftertaste
can go on for hours.

La Tia's mole n*gro
appears so glossy and rich

that I'm always tempted
to test its consistency

by stabbing an index finger
into it
and the resulting stain

lingers as long
as the empurpled digits

of patriotic Iraqi voters.

The last time
I was as inspired
by glossy black

it was part of Charles Ray's
infamous sculpture Ink Box

and it was enshrined
in a major museum of art.

[radio buzzing]

[indistinct chatter on radio]

[radio buzzing]

[indistinct chatter on radio]

[radio buzzing]

[indistinct chatter on radio]

[radio buzzing]

‐  Hey, this is Garth Trinidad
from KCRW and I am here

with Jonathan Gold,
food critic and writer

who actually got his start
writing about music.

‐ Yeah, I was the classical
music critic at the "LA Weekly"

before I did anything else

and then later got to write
about Los Angeles hip hop.

‐ So we're going to be talking
about some of his favorite songs

as part of the KCRW
Guest DJ project.

♪ Flow my tears ♪

Can we talk about the song
that you picked

"Flow My Tears" real quick.

‐  Sure, uh, I was a classical
music geek growing up.

I was locked in a, uh,
small room with my cello

for most of my adolescents.

Uh, I played, you know
viola da gamba.

That's the way to get
the chicks I'm telling you.

John Dowland was probably
the hit composer

of the Elizabethan era,
a little bit afterwards.

"Flow My Tears"
was more or less

the "Stairway To Heaven"
of like .

♪ Where night's black bird ♪

♪ Her sad infamy sings ♪♪

‐  My dad wanted a string trio
with the three brothers

and I was the worst
violinist player ever.

Josh was probably
the worst viola player ever

and Jonathan's the guy
who had some talent

and really stuck with it.

He knew every single opera and
every classical music piece.

They used to have a contest
on the radio

on classical music
and opera trivia

that he would excel
and dominate on.

‐ He didn't grow up
with rock and roll

the way most of us did
just because his parents

were mostly listening
to classical music

and because he was so obsessed
with the cello, that was..

The cello
was kind of his whole life.

So he experienced like there's a
kind of radical shift

when he heard, you know,
punk rock for the first time.

‐  You brought, okay, a track
from the Germs, "Forming?"

‐  "Forming" is the first
LA punk single

ever recorded in Los Angeles.

♪ Rip them down hold them up ♪

♪ Tell them that I'm your g*n ♪

♪ Pull my trigger
I am bigger than.. ♪♪

Punk rock is sort of what
got me out of my shell

and somebody dragged me
to the Whisky

to see a show of, you know,
X and The Screamers.

I was just..

"You can do this?"

"It's possible to do this?"

And it was as transforming
as anything I've ever done.

[indistinct]

♪ Realize all your lies ♪

♪ Hide behind
your suits and ties ♪

♪ The life you lead
your mouth to feed ♪

♪ Is it really based on these? ♪

♪ What you do
will get you through ♪

♪ A humdrum life
here in the zoo ♪♪

‐  I think punk rock
is one of the things

that's really helped
shaped his world view

and his ideas as a critic.

The idea of disruption
and, and pushing boundaries.

When Jonathan came in
and was first a critic

the fact that the "LA Times"
was reviewing, you know

a burrito place, was disruption.

[instrumental music]

[indistinct]

‐  That's delicious,
I love mezcal.

‐  Mezcal on an empty stomach.

Welcome to LA.

[speaking in Spanish]

‐  My dad was a mezcal maker
in Oaxaca

and things were going really bad
for my dad in '

and that's when, um,
the peso devalued

so there was an economic
downfall in Mexico

so he decided to move here.

So he just started
kinda exploring LA

and this area
where we are right now

Koreatown, there was a lot
of Latinos and a lot of people

from Oaxaca that lived
in the area.

So my dad opened
a little food stand

and it became very popular
among people from Oaxaca

because they just knew
that's where you went

to get Oaxacan food.

So he was like, you know, um ‐‐

"Let's open up a restaurant."

It was this little hole in the
wall, maybe like tables

and we opened
like a little alley

it was like totally illegal.

So one day my dad
walks in and was like

"Where are all of these
white people coming from?"

Because there were all
these white people.

Somebody was like, "Don't you
know you were in the
'LA Times?'"

In fact, Jonathan Gold
reviewed the restaurant

before the Spanish
speaking media.

And now the restaurant's run
by my sister, my brother

and myself, and we sit
people here.

‐  These are so delicious.

‐ The grasshoppers?

‐ They're so delicious.

I think there's things,
I mean one, it's insects

and two, it's a whole animal,
which is still

really hard for Americans.

I mean, if we're going to
survive as a species

we're going to eat insects.

‐ We are.
‐ I mean, unless we're idiots.

‐  For us,
the Oaxacan community

we owe him a lot
because in Oaxaca

people are really
looked down on

because we come
from an indigenous background

and to have someone put it
out there and say

come and taste
this Oaxacan food.

I think it even helped me
as a person

to embrace my culture
because people cared

about my food and people cared,
and people were really like

"Oh, your food's like,
your food's cool"

and I was like,
"Yeah, my food's cool."

[instrumental music]

‐ Hello.

‐ He's a funny guy.

The don of dogs.

‐ How you doing, Duane?
‐ What's up, big guy?

‐ Same old, you?

‐ Hot dogs.

‐  So, so you're, you're back
to the cart.

‐  I'm back to the cart,
we're doing it big again.

We did this just
to let people know

hey, what's happening,
we're about to get back open.

It's cool because I'm getting
a lot of my old customers

who were hot dog cart customers,
pulling up saying

"I could have sworn,
I saw your little peanut head

"standing over there,
so I had to come back

over here and see
what your hot dogs were like."

‐ Earle's Wieners
is opening up!

‐ years, since what '?

‐ '.
‐ '

‐ Crenshaw suave, baby.
‐ Lotta dogs.

‐ There's no tidy way
to eat one of these.

I've always felt
a little uncomfortable
about claiming hood.

I grew up in South LA,
but I obviously

my family moved out before..

... when I was still very young.

We had moved there,
or my parents  had moved there

in the late 's
when my dad was a teacher

at Audubon Junior High School

which was this sort of
beautifully integrated school.

There were, you know..

There were lots of black kids
and lots of white kids

and lots of Japanese kids,
and it seemed like

that was gonna be
the future of LA

and he wanted to be part of it,
so he moved into the community.

Some of my earliest memories
are of the riots in .

You know, sitting at the top
of our hill

and, and seeing the fires
burn down below

of seeing the tanks
go along Crenshaw Boulevard

and after that
the neighborhood changed.

[instrumental music]

‐  We're here
with Jonathan Gold.

So you brought Funkadelic with
the classic "Maggot Brain."

‐  Maybe you remember
in the old days
when you could actually

buy like, um, soul records
in liquor stores.

I was or
when I was trying to buy

uh, you know,
beer on a false ID.

And I picked up "Maggot Brain"
because I loved the cover.

Got home and put it on
and the guitar solo

Eddie Hazel,
it's just amazing.

It just keeps flowing.

It has a sort of, uh, majesty

that you expect from somebody
like, you know, Wagner

the concept
of the endless melody

the one that goes on forever.

Almost all of blues guitarists

just peter out in the middle,
they have nothing more to say

so they did the wa wa wa,
but Eddie Hazel doesn't.

He always has something new
to say, and the tune

and the chord progression
keeps folding in on itself

and showing itself
in all of these

you know, wonderful
miraculous ways.

[instrumental music]

‐  Please join me in welcoming
Jonathan Gold.

‐ Thank you.

Hi.

I, in some ways I think
come to you as an emissary

from the world of failure

a rare citizen
of the wide country

where things do not turn out
exactly as you've planned.

I'm here to say
that that's okay.

Still, when I wake up
in the morning

I don't feel
like a semi‐successful writer

a chronicler of Los Angeles

I feel like a failed cellist

which was more or less
my UCLA experience.

But all of us, especially
those of us in the arts

experience failure,
and it is this experience

of failure
that makes us strong

that helps
make us who we are.

Did my UCLA
acquired knowledge help me

when I wrote about hip hop
in the s?

Not directly, but it was a way
of listening
that gave me a way

to understand the music
in an important way.

Did my experience in writing
about opera and new music

have anything to do
with food writing?

Yes, as it turns out,
on a very basic level

criticism is criticism.

An aria is in some way

equivalent
to a well‐cooked potato

and both the comprehension
of form and the ability

to describe abstract sensation

which I learned to do
as an undergraduate

in music and art courses here,
turns out to be exactly

what I needed to know.

[hip hop music]

‐  I think the great human ill

is, uh, contempt prior
to investigation.

Jonathan takes that idea..

It's a really comfy idea
for a lot of Americans

and he just, he just blows it
the f*ck up.

[music continues]

‐  Jonathan Gold
is my guest DJ.

Okay, man, so you brought
some LA gangsta rap.

Some Los Angeles gangsta rap

and you brought "G Thang"
from, uh, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg.

Now, listen, the rumor is
you were in the studio

a lot of the time with them
when they were actually

recording "Doggystyle"
and stuff like that.

‐  Yeah, yeah, I was.

‐  This was when you
were really writing

about a lot of that music

during that time.

‐  Right, LA hip hop was great,
but nobody ever heard it.

Everybody just heard
the New York stuff

and Dre was the guy
who figured out

how to slow it down,
made it gangsta.

Chronic, I think was the total
breakthrough album.

It crossed over
to the bouncing cars
to the hanging out

and barbecuing in the park.

It was less
about bang bang bang

and it was more about,
this is the neighborhood

you live in
and you're enjoying it

and y'all are invited
to the party

and there's something beautiful
about that.

♪ It's like this and like that
and like this and uh ♪

♪ Dre creep to the mic
like a phantom ♪

♪ Well I'm peepin' and I'm
creepin' and I'm creep‐in' ♪

♪ But I damn near got caught
'cause my beeper kept beepin' ♪

♪ Now it's time for me
to make my impression felt ♪

♪ So sit back relax
and strap on your seat belt ♪

‐  You know,
after the Los Angeles riots

there was a lot
of hand wringing

about what had gone wrong
in this city

and there was a movement
to like get to know

who your neighbors are

but long before the riots
and after Jonathan Gold

was introducing us to people
and to neighborhoods.

‐  There's a certain level of
Utopian thinking in his work.

There's a certain level
of dedication

to asking the question
how we live.

He talks about
the miscegenation

between races in essence
appearing over the table.

Those food nations
become an integral part

of the way he sees Los Angeles

in a way
Los Angeles comes together.

♪ It's like this and like that
and like this and uh ♪

♪ It's like that and like this
and like that and uh ♪

♪ It's like this and we ain't
got no love for those ♪

♪ So just chill
till the next episode ♪♪

[instrumental music]

‐  There's so many different
ways to tell stories

about Los Angeles, and
of course, uh, telling stories

through food is one of the ways
Jonathan Gold does that.

Um, and the piece
he's going to read

represents another way
of talking about Los Angeles

in a moment when, um,
the fabric of the city

kind of looked like
it wasn't going to hold.

So, Jonathan.

‐ This is an older essay
written, uh, the week

after the, um,
the riots in

and... it..

Well, I'll, I'll, I'll read
and you can, you can hear.

Um, I can't tell you
how much I love Los Angeles.

"It is o'clock and the light
has started to fade

"as I sit on the floor
of my apartment

"staring at the spot where
the rain not so much dripped

"as oozed from the door jam.

"For the last decade or so

"I have lived
in a creaking apartment

"probably swank in its day

"that has been
home to a dog trainer

"a fiddle player
and a series of writers

"in a smartly column building
in an aging neighborhood

"nobody has yet
bothered to name.

"Downstairs a baby
cries out in Spanish

"in the distance
the ghetto boys

"boom from a passing truck.

"For the fifth time,
in about an hour

"I think about
the other parts of town

"the ones with croissant shops
on the street corners

"and air conditioned
shopping malls

"and neighbors who look like me.

"Before the fires of April,
there were different kinds

"of ethnic restaurants
within a minute walk.

"Now, there are just .

"For a while, everything
in the neighborhood

"seemed just a little more
ominous.

"The Saturday night g*nshots
a little louder.

"The omnipresent sirens
and helicopters

"a little closer to home.

"When you spend some time
in my neighborhood

"you'll learn the rhythm
of the place.

"The mornings when the
Mexican's food truck

"shows up on the corner.

"The hour when Filipino
teenagers

"snack on liver buns and
Coca‐Cola at the pancit shop.

"The peaceful time
in late afternoon

"when the avenue
flows majestically.

"Guatemalan women walk home
from Ralph's

"with bags of groceries

"balanced expertly
on their heads.

"Salvadoran construction
workers crowd

"into the local Korean
noodle shop

"for steamed dumplings.

"In this neighborhood, most of
us are just passing through.

"Transients on our way
to more permanent homes

"in Long Beach
or Huntington Park.

"We are all citizens
of the world.

"We are all
strangers together.

"But to my Korean landlords,
this neighborhood is home.

"I have been awakened
before dawn

"by the rhythmic thud
of their pounding garlic

"into paste on the back porch.

"I've stumbled out the door
with an armful of wet laundry

"only to find
all of the clotheslines

"taken up by drying fish.

"I've also come home from work
to find the back stairs spread

"with leaves of cabbage,
curing in the hot sun.

"Even when their son was sh*t

"a half mile south of here

"there was questioning
of their sense of place.

"The landlords keep
to themselves and so do I.

I often wish that they would
invite me over for dinner."

Thanks.

[applauding]

[instrumental music]

[music continues]

[jazz music]

‐  Alright, man, you brought
some Louis Armstrong.

We gotta talk about Louis.

Uh, "Tight Like This," why did
you choose this track?

‐  I think it's by the best
driving music there is.

♪ Oh it's tight like this ♪

♪ No it ain't tight
like that either ♪

♪ I said it is tight like this ♪

♪ Let it be tight
like that then ♪

♪ Oh it's tight
like that Louis ♪

♪ Oh it's tight like this ♪

♪ Now it closes like that ♪♪