Didactic tasting menus a new genre? (And will there be a pop quiz?)

El Bizcocho at the Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Diego has installed former Saddle Peak Lodge chef Steven Rojas to helm the stoves, and the restaurant's tasting-menu-only offerings go into full swing next month. (Ex-El Biz chef Gavin Kaysen left last fall for Cafe Boulud in New York.)

Rojas will prepare spontaneous menus of five, seven or as many courses as the guest wants. The restaurant also will debut its "Les Secrets de la Cuisine" menu -- "educational tableside tastings" -- including studies in mushrooms, Port, salts, dessert wines and butter. Two points off if you don't know your Bordier butter from your Plugra.

El Bizcocho, Rancho Bernardo Inn, 17550 Bernardo Oaks Drive, San Diego, (800) 675-8500.

-- Betty Hallock

Photo credit: Geraldine Wilkins/Los Angeles Times

If you feed them, they will come

Stop at the omelet station, grab a made-to-order mocha frappe, accept a tin of home-baked cookies or make sure you visit when you're hungry for lunch -- because the Mexican-food buffet looks terrific. This is the way real estate agents in Malibu, Beverly Hills and Los Angeles are luring each other to view homes that have just come on the market. Read the story in today's Home section by Times staff writer Ann Brenoff.

--Susan LaTempa

The Nickel Diner opens in downtown L.A.

L.A.'s 5th Street, long considered the bleak heart of skid row, has been known for decades as "the nickel." Now a new diner, also called the Nickel, opened two days ago on Main Street, between 5th and 6th streets. That a trendy eatery perfectly set-dressed to resemble a pre-WWII-era diner, down to the old-school wallpaper, big red booths and scuffed floor tiles, would offer up such a tongue-in-cheek reference to this deeply troubled neighborhood is a bit disquieting.

Worse than that, however, are the glib drug references on the menu, which includes offerings such as "Smac and cheese" and 5- and 10-cent "bags" of food combinations. (Get it? Nickel and dime bags?) Also on offer are a variety of morning and afternoon pastries dubbed a.m. and p.m. "fixes."

Valerie teams with LA Mill for Black Velvet toffees; chocolate skulls spotted in Williams-Sonoma catalog

Los Angeles-based chocolatier Valerie Confections has been busy. Its selection of uber-delectable toffees is expanding, with a new toffee flavor made with LA Mill's Black Velvet coffee -- "Toffee Noir" is crisp, delicate toffee made with ground coffee beans and enrobed in Valrhona 61% chocolate. Also in the works is a line of chocolate bars in collaboration with San Diego's Extraordinary Desserts, which Valerie will begin selling in November.

Meanwhile, those amazing Mori Ex Cacao chocolate skulls (in flavors like Scorched Caramel and Bitter Brandied Cherry) that were a collaboration between Valerie and D.L. & Co. last fall are still available at Valerie Confections. Plus, spotted in the latest Williams-Sonoma catalog: Valerie's solid-chocolate skulls.

Black Velvet, skulls ... Is it already time to refresh the fake blood on the old Medea costume?

Valerie Confections, 3360 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, (213) 739-8149.

-- Betty Hallock 

Photo of Valerie chocolates from Valerie Confections

Library Bar gearing up to serve food

Will Shamlian and Michael Leko's Library Bar in downtown L.A. is about to open a kitchen. Manager Carlos Perez says that a menu is currently in the works and that the kitchen will most likely be up and running in a couple of weeks.

"We've been saying 'a couple of weeks' for about a month now,' " Perez jokes. "That's got nothing to do with us though, it's all about construction and permits."

According to Perez, there will be about a dozen menu items, including specialty burgers and fries. Beyond that he says the food will not resemble typical bar food. "There won't be buffalo wings or shrimp poppers or anything like that," he says, adding that the chef is a friend of the owner and will be creating similar menus for Shamlian's Sapphire bar in Studio City and for a new bar that the group is planning to open in Manhattan Beach.

-- Jessica Gelt

Photo: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Economy's down so kitchen gardens flourish

With its temperate, sun-soaked climate, Los Angeles is prime home-garden territory, so it's little wonder that Marta Teegen, the founder of Homegrown Los Angeles, which offers gardening classes to green-thumbed Angelenos, says her courses are regularly filling up these days.

Surely her packed rosters also have something to do with a smattering of recent news reports about the renewed bloom of the American home garden. With the economy in a slump and gas and food prices riding high, it seems that families feeling the pinch have taken to growing their own vegetables, much like they did with the liberty gardens of World War I and the victory gardens of World War II, as well as during the economic downturns of the '70s and '80s and briefly after Sept. 11.

In May, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the nation's largest mail-order seed company projected that "sales of herb and vegetable plants and seeds might outpace last year by as much as 40% to 50%."

Teegen, who grew up on a farm and started her gardening career helping private chefs plant gardens at their clients' homes, says she expanded her reach to helping citizen gardeners because of the enthusiasm shown by the public.

"People are much more interested in learning how to do it themselves," says Teegen, adding that her most popular class is her "container gardening" class.

"People don't have much space," she says. "But you don't need to have much. You can grow an

Theyyyyy'rrrre back ... taco trucks!

Taco trucks are back. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge today overturned an ordinance passed in April by county supervisors that made it a misdemeanor to park a taco truck in one spot for more than an hour. Read more here.

White truffles, a controversy at Craft

White truffles have landed on the menu at Craft in Century City, and people just can't fathom it. White truffles in August? "Preposterous," says one naysayer. "Nothing until October at best."

Better believe it, says Craft chef Matt Accarrino. He says it's the earliest he's gotten them. "They are coming from Tuscany [not Alba], I'm told.... very fragrant." On the menu, there's Fontina and mushroom raviolo with an egg yolk and white truffle; Yukon potato pierogi with white truffle, Gruyere and cabbage; scrambled duck eggs with white truffle brioche buns. "I even made a truffle icing," Accarrino says.

Last year, a more-than-3-pound white truffle (what Brillat-Savarin called "the diamond of the kitchen") was dug up in Tuscany in November, the world's record. Macao casino owner Stanley Ho shelled out $330,000 for it.

By the way, because of repairs being made to its floors, Craft will be closed beginning Saturday, Aug. 30, and will reopen for dinner at 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 5. Reservation lines will remain open, except for Sunday, Aug. 31, and Monday, Sept. 1, for the Labor Day holiday.

Craft, 10100 Constellation Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 279-4180.

-- Betty Hallock

Photo of white truffles in Italy from the Associated Press

Rustic Canyon to open a new cafe and bakery in 2009

Rustic Canyon Wine Bar & Seasonal Kitchen plans to open a bakery-cafe and retail space next spring about two blocks down the street from its restaurant, near the soon-to-open Santa Monica Seafood.

Owner Josh Loeb says Rustic pastry chef Zoe Nathan (whose star has been rising these days) "will be running the whole thing as far as food goes." Loeb isn't able to disclose the exact address yet because there's still a tenant in the space, but he says he's already signed the lease.

The new cafe, which is not yet named ("We've been bouncing names back and forth," says Loeb), will be open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and will serve breakfast, lunch and take-out dinner. Expect farmers market salads and sandwiches along with pastries and fresh-baked bread from an on-site bread oven. There will also be gourmet retail items for sale in the cafe's marketplace.

Explaining the expansion, Loeb says, "The kitchen at Rustic is so small, we just can't do everything we'd like to do in it."

— Jessica Gelt

Photo by Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

Tomato food fight

A reveler is doused with tomatoes during La Tomatina, the annual food fight in Bunol, Spain. Each year tens of thousands of people hurl truckloads of tomatoes at one another, sending knee-deep rivers through the small town. See photo gallery here.