Food FYI: Tomato's downfall, still more burgers, haute Israeli?

BETTER RED?

There a fascinating story from Gina Kolata at the New York Times about how the push for redness in tomatoes led to the downfall of flavor. A similar thing happened years ago with the Red Delicious apple, which was originally pink with pale green stripes and good flavor. As plant breeders focused on making the apples more red, the flavor deteriorated; it was found (too late) that the red pigment being produced actually had a bitter flavor.

MORE BURGERS!

Our great Battle of the Burgers wasn't enough? National Geographic has a book out on the 10 best of everything (yeah, I know, huh?), and it includes hamburgers. Local winners are In-N-Out (well, duh), and Apple Pan (have to confess, never understood the love). They also like the burgers at Gott's Roadside in St. Helena (used to be Taylor's Refreshers) and one of my personal favorites -- Blake's Lotaburger in New Mexico (the green chile cheeseburger is amazing).

IS ISRAELI THE NEXT THAI?

OK, maybe it's a stretch, but one of my favorite cookbook authors, Yotam Ottolenghi, has a book coming this fall on the cuisine of Jerusalem (look for an interview with him in the next couple of weeks from our own S. Irene Virbila). And one of my favorite food bloggers, Paris-based David Lebovitz, is positively paroxysmic over his meal at Haj Kahil in Tel Aviv. Do not look at his photos before lunch!

ALSO:

The French and their vegetables

Canned beer makes a comeback!

"Praise the Lard" aprons and T-shirts. Don't we all?

-- Russ Parsons

Photo credit: All-American Selections

Sang Yoon's Lukshon to open this fall in Culver City

 

Details of Sang Yoon's long-awaited Culver City restaurant Lukshon are starting to surface. Chef-owner Yoon says he and his partner, James Bygrave, expect to open Lukshon "in a few months," featuring a creative, modern menu based on Southeast Asian flavors. 

It sounds ambitious: contemporary dishes that showcase Southeast Asian cuisine and its multicultural culinary influences stamped by French, Dutch and Portuguese colonization. (Yoon isn't forthcoming with details about specific dishes yet.) Despite the name's play on the Yiddish word for noodle (luchen or lucksh), it's not a noodle shop. From the man who imported water from Scotland to mix with his Scotch whiskey at Father's Office and has an experimental test kitchen, expect obsessive inspiration from niche Asian ingredients. He will be making his own sambals and sriracha.

25 delicious deals

There are deals, and then there are delicious deals. But at a time when restaurants' offers of "buy one get one free" and "half-price on Wednesdays" are as commonplace as tuna tartare or beet salad, sometimes it’s tricky to distinguish the two.

This is definitely an eater’s market — but just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean it’s a bargain. If a $5 cocktail isn’t well-crafted, or an appetizer that costs less than a cup of coffee fails to excite your palate, then it’s not a delicious deal.

So, wading through the low-price hype, L.A. Times Food section writers found 25 of the best values around, including $1 specials at a favorite San Gabriel Valley noodle house, a 10-course Indian thali feast, a $14.95 lobster dinner with a million-dollar view, the happiest happy hour and our top spots for all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue. Check it out:

Photo: At the Beachcomber in Malibu, the $14.95 lobster dinner special is too good to pass up, especially since they throw in the million-dollar view for free. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

 

Food on the run: where to eat along the 2009 L.A. Marathon route

If you think it's grueling to run 26.2 miles, imagine how it feels to endure four, five ... eight hours of being supportive under the broiling Los Angeles sun. (Distance running: It makes golf look like a high-impact sport.) Fortunately, Joshua Lurie, the man behind local food blog Food GPS, has compiled a list of 77 eateries -- complete with a handy Google map -- along the 2009 L.A. Marathon route. Your boyfriend/best friend/mom probably won't stop for a mulita and a Belgian waffle, but that doesn't mean you can't. Because for some of us, a food marathon is the only kind of race we'll ever run.

-- Elina Shatkin