More I heart food: Okonomiyaki no more

I fell in love with Okonomiyaki a year ago when my brother introduced me to this dish in a little Mom & Pop (Mama-san & Papa-san?) bistro near the many-red-gated Fushimi Inari Shrine on the outskirts of Kyoto. The base is a batter made from egg ,flour, yam and cabbage that gets fried up on griddle or a teppan. From there, you can add pork, beef, fish, oysters, scallops, daikon, vegetables, shrimp, shiso leaf, cheese, kmchi, and you can top it with fish flakes that seem to dance in the heat . According to my brotherl, okonomiyaki means "your choice, grilled", so sky's the limit. We ordered some variation of the above, and then striped it with Japanese mayo and a brown sweet sauce. Have you ever seen anything more beautiful? I was hooked, instantly. In Japan this is considered bar food, which is all the better for me! I ate Okonomikyaki at least 3 more times during my twelve days in Japan, sampling the regional variations as I went from Kyoto to Tokyo to Hiroshima to Osaka.

Sadly, upon my return to the States, I wasn't able to find it anywhere. After searching far and wide--if asking for Okonomiyaki in some sushi or rice bowl joint, should I find myself in one, counts--I had concluded that no one serves this famous Kainsai dish or a fair substitute within a reasonable distance from my home....

Until today! While doing my weekly stroll through the Silver Lake Farmer's Market, I decided to check out the Crepe Guy's omelet menu. It's limited to three omelettes, but each are about $6 and all of them sounded tasty. I went with the Andalusian--smoked scallops, onion, mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes and cheese in a mushroom garlic sauce.

After chatting with the sugar cane smoothy/raw vegan taco people in the booth next door and sampling some of their goods, I I came back to the crepe booth to find my omelet waiting for me. Oh man!! The texture! The flavors! The hot goey gruyere, the lightly chewy scallops, crisply browned onions and fresh veggies all encased in a fluffy pocket of eggy love. And strikingly similar to my first taste of Okonomiyaki. It ain't exactly the same, but Crepe Guy's andalusian omelet is awesome in its own right.


Tip: If you're ever looking for a cheap Saturday brunch in Silver Lake that won't entail waiting in line with a dozen hipsters for half an hour, walk over to the farmer's market and get your crepe or omelet on for $4-$6. And there's delicious small-batch roasted coffee a few booths down at La Bodega de Cafe Organico for $2. Just get there befor 1:00.

I heart food.

So I'm dealing with this gluten-intolerance thingy (self-diagnosed, naturally) and the more I experiment, the more it becomes painfully apparent that I actually am gluten-intolerant, instead of just flirting with a gluten-free diet. I ate breaded calimari last night and felt like shit. Same thing the night before when I ate breaded vegetables. I don't normally eat that much crap, but I was in a bar at dinner time both times and... whatever, leave it at that. The bottom line is, I was casually playing the role of Noble Wheat Avoider and now I can no longer take little side trips off the Road Less Gluten without experiencing serious gut problems. Which totally sucks. Bye-bye to donuts, cookies, brownies, sour dough bread, pizza, sandwiches, croutons, French Toast, pancakes, waffles, cereal, pasta, lemon bars, rhubarb pie, cookie dough ice cream, garlic bread, dim sum, okonomiyaki, calamari, gardenburgers, Smart Dogs, crispy wontons, baklava, and a gagillion packaged products containing wheat-based thickening agents--forever. Or at least until the next time I'm at a bar and I say "fuck it" to imminent gastric distress.

Sometimes, the gossip blogs just get it right.

Believe the hype. Paris Hilton is even more over-exposed than all her press would indicate. How do I know this? Because I've seen her out in public no less than three times. This is significant because I'm more or less a hermit by L.A. standards. And yet I have managed to encounter Paris three times in three separate locations, and none of them were the airport or the grocery store, my usual celebrity hotspots. Granted, one place was last weekend's MTV Movie Awards (admittedly, not hermit-like, but the tickets were a gift from someone who couldn't go). I suppose you could make the argument that if there's one place one should expect to see Paris Hilton, it's at the MTV Movie Awards, a gratuitous, youth-oriented pop-culture kudofest signifying little more than its own existence. And I'd agree with you. But even considering the scene, one isn't guaranteed of being corraled in the aisle for five minutes because Paris, surrounded by her retinue of three massive body guards, is slowly primping and pouting her way to her seat. I and about fifteen other people received that distinct privelege among the thousands of messy-haired Twenty-tweeners, industry schlubs, and tarted-up stick women in attendance. I can die now.

What's the point of this? Nothing, really. There never is a point when you're talking about Paris Hilton, except maybe to indulge in a little self-loathing when you're done. Or to include a link to the super-snarky gossip blog What Would Tyler Durden Do's rad vitriolic response to Paris's premature release from jail. It almost redeems the dignity I lost in reading it in the first place and then taking the time to write this. Almost.