Issue #3: 2025
Note: p. 2 isn’t loading on here for some reason so I’ve copied and pasted it here
Letter from the Editor
Ian and I play this game sometimes where we just name every past or present restaurant we can think of in any given area of Los Angeles. Recently, we played it with Malibu, and it turned out there were way more than we remembered: Nobu (obviously), Taverna Tony, Malibu Kitchen (they made a great tuna salad), Howdy’s, SunLife (where David Duchovny met his current gf who worked there and also happened to go to our high school), Malibu Seafood (when Neptune’s Net is just too far), Duke’s (where I burnt my wrist on a chafing dish at Ben Samel’s bar mitzvah), D’Amore’s Pizza next to the good part of Zuma Beach, Paradise Cove (Eric’s favorite restaurant, but also a Mike Love kind of place), Coogie’s (I still dream about their nachos, saw Rob Reiner there once), that one McDonald’s, and that Thai place next to the old American Apparel that Ian was fired from that we went to with Tati of all people. We could not remember the name…
That place was called Cholada Thai, as you by now surely know, and it, along with The Reel Inn, Gladstones, and other legendary institutions (every restaurant on the PCH is legendary really) burnt down, along with other various structures in the various fires raging on in LA right now. Thankfully, LA is really fucking big. Most of the victims of these fires aren’t dead (though as of this writing at least 24 people are). Lots of things burnt down (as of this writing are still burning down), but talk of renewal is already afoot (mushroom concrete anyone?). According to The Lookout and the native people we stole it from, wildfire is as natural a part of the LA ecosystem as a 40-year-old man with too much lip filler. A fire also doesn’t seem as scary as an earthquake for some reason, maybe because you can see it. Maybe because it’s beautiful. But right now at least, it feels like some appendage I didn’t know I had has been violently ripped out of me. It’s not like I particularly thought about these places. I’m even hesitant to call them all familiar. But they were there. Part of the background. Where most things are, until they are not.
This issue of Radicchio Salad was planned to be truncated as Chris and I are still figuring out how to do what we’re doing. If you work at/own a restaurant and happen to be reading this, we just want to thank you so much for doing so. You are our appendages. If you don’t, continue being excellent to each other.
Much love,
Ori
P.S. If you want to feel more things, jump to p. 11 for a love letter to the Bay Area sake scene by Sara Brande
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