ramblings of a Seattle travel, food and photography hound
Jonathan Gold knows a thing or two about Southern California food. (He no longer is with us, though his legacy and influence remain.) The Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer once named Golden Deli one of L.A. area’s 99 essential restaurants. Located in a strip mall in the food mecca of San Gabriel Valley (SGV), doing business... Continue Reading →
The park ranger held it up between her thumb and forefinger. It was a mere two inches long. “This is a sequoia cone.” Behind us was a colossus, the General Grant sequoia, the second largest in the world and located in Kings Canyon National Park, standing at a prodigious 268 feet in height. That a seed... Continue Reading →
To say that I was privileged to see fall colors at Sequoia National Park is an understatement. This gift was totally unexpected. The plan was simply to experience the giant sequoias. While the ancient trees lived up to expectation, it was a bonus that the dogwoods, maples, aspens, cottonwoods, oaks and willows were changing color... Continue Reading →
It's a breathless exercise to climb the roughly 350 steps to the top of Moro Rock, which summits at 6,725 ft ASL. No, this is not the Morro Rock along the California coast but a granite monolith in Sequoia National Park. The effort to complete the climb of 300 feet is worth it for the... Continue Reading →
So what's a giant sequoia supposed to do when a huge boulder gets in its way? Why, suck it up, of course.
I had my doubts that I could find a shrimp dish to equal the ones from Fumi's Shrimp Truck in Kahuku. Their shrimp is reason enough to trek out to the North Shore of Oahu. My favored combination of garlic, butter and sriracha (optional) sauce is a heaven-sent recipe. That was before I found Don Pepe... Continue Reading →
It's pretty much a sure thing that where there is a line out a restaurant's door, therein lies good food. The first two times I walked past Eggslut in L.A.'s Grand Central Market (GCM), the queue was astonishingly long. No other food establishment in the Market came close to being as popular. I'm not particularly keen... Continue Reading →
Any pretensions I had that a good vegetarian ramen could never be made was dashed recently. The revelation happened when my sister-in-law had me sample her OG Ramen from Ramen Hood, a completely vegan stall in Los Angeles' Grand Central Market. Visually, it looks like a 'typical' ramen, broth like milky tonkotsu, slices of chashu floating on... Continue Reading →
Exasperation sometimes ends up for the better. Along the San Gabriel Valley Asian food mecca of Valley Boulevard, I was looking for a restaurant (whose name I couldn't recall) where several of us had wonderful noodle soups many years ago. (At my age, my memory plays tricks; Kam Hong Garden is in fact in Monterey... Continue Reading →
I kept my eyes open throughout Death Valley for signs of wildflowers. It was one reason why we wanted to visit. Last year, the national park experienced a superbloom that happens once in a blue moon because of specific environmental conditions. It's not enough that California got literally drenched this January and February, a record downpour that broke a years-long... Continue Reading →
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