LA Times Critic Calls Konbi's Food a "Complicated and Delicious Feat"

Absolutely everyone seems to love Konbi in Echo Park, including the Los Angeles Times. The daytime Japanese sandwich shop earned plenty of shine this week thanks to new Times food critic Patricia Escárcega, who finds herself amused by the delicate and precise dishes inside the 500-square-foot space. She says in her weekly review: Technically precise cooking, made to look easy, is a hallmark of Konbi. The eggplant katsu sandwich gets the most love in the piece, but there's still plenty of room to sing the praises of a well-lit egg salad sandwich held together by an "immeasurably rich dressing" that includes Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise.

Indeed, at least part of the appeal of the place for Escárcega seems to be its photographic dominance, as Konbi's well-layered sandos do seem to be clogging social media feeds all over the city. She says: "If you've spent any time scrolling through L.A. food Instagram posts in the last few months, there's a good chance that one [Konbi's Japanese carry-out sandwiches] — cut into neat thirds and stacked, cut-side up, on pretty blue ceramic dishes — has populated your feed."

For Times critic number two, it's all about the new Hayat's Kitchen in Hollywood. The longtime North Hollywood staple pushed onto Cahuenga late last year with plans to expand its dinner menu as well as its bakery options, and though the full form of the place has not yet been realized, critic Bill Addison still finds a lot to enjoy.

Addison notes adoringly that Hayat's relies on "immaculately fresh beef" for the raw meat standard known as kibbeh nayeh, and says of the fried kibbeh iteration also on the menu: A buzzing fragrance of allspice hits the olfactory system when you break open Fahed and Shatila's version; dip it in unstrained yogurt for cooling contrast. This is my favorite savory dish at Hayat's Kitchen. If I were dining solo I'd order the fried kibbeh alongside, say, some respectable tabbouleh and be content.

In total it seems that with just a few months under its belt, Hayat's is still finding its final form. Owner Hassah Shatila promises that housemade pitas and more sweet dishes are on the way, though already the ma'amoul — "soft, patterned cookies stuffed with minced walnuts or, best of all, date paste trilling with orange-blossom water" — are a hit.

2018 Was the Year That Netflix Ruled Food TV

By adopting a ravenous approach to the food world, and relying on fresh voices to tell their stories, the streaming giant ruled the culinary TV game this year

"I think one of the main reasons I like Domino's is because I'm being told by the culinary snob patrol that I can't like it,” says David Chang in the pilot of his Netflix series Ugly Delicious. The Momofuku chef/restaurateur is setting up a scene wherein he works a shift as a pie-maker and a delivery driver at America's most popular pizza chain. "It's not something I eat all the time, but it reminds me of growing up — because this is literally the pizza I grew up eating,” Chang says as he enters a suburban Domino's location.

In the Domino's kitchen, Chang looks like a kid in a candy store, admiring the toppings bar, the conveyor belt oven, and the digital order-expediting system. "This is very exciting for me to see,” he tells his manager during training, "because this is years and years and years of a lot of people's efforts to make it as streamlined as possible.”

By expressing his un-ironic love of Domino's and its delivery operation, one of the most acclaimed chefs of his generation is forcing viewers to rethink their own conceptions of "quality” in the food world. This moment and many others in 2018 helped make Netflix a singular player in the food TV space, one that is broadening the scope of culinary entertainment, and bringing new audiences into the mix with each new release.

The company that gave the world the the Upside Down, Zoya the Destroyer, and Hot Santa likes to do things differently than its peers in Hollywood and Silicon Valley. While a lot of food media companies spun off an endless stream of top-down recipe videos and edgier versions of Diners, Drive-In and Dives in 2018, Netflix went in a completely different direction by finding a group of new TV stars and building series around their unique culinary points of view. Meanwhile, the company also quietly amassed a number of excellent non-original food shows to add to its library.

With a heady mix of celebrity food crawls, no-nonsense cooking segments, and smart conversations about the legacies of the foods we love, Ugly Delicious got the year off to a roaring start. Queer Eye launched a new kind of celebrity chef in Antoni Porowski, the makeover show's charming and effortlessly cool food expert. Nailed It!, a comedic ode to cake fails with a delightful hosting duo, became a viral sensation. Tim Burton-esque series The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell explored the craft behind show-stopping spooky desserts. The docuseries Rotten turned a seemingly snooze-worthy subject — big agriculture — into a scorching expose about American greed. The Final Table married the international fine dining scene with a high-stakes culinary competition. And Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat introduced TV audiences to the genius of Bay Area chef/author Samin Nosrat.

It's an impressive slate for a company that previously only released two original food series: the auteur-obsessed Chef's Table, and the Michael Pollan-starring origins-of-cooking show Cooked. Whereas those shows were serious and borderline-scholarly in nature, the 2018 class of Netflix originals presented a much more democratic approach to the world of food. The message from shows like Ugly Delicious and Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, it seems, is that good food is everywhere — in home kitchens, tiny lunch counters, open-air markets, and Michelin-starred restaurants — and the world is a better place when you know about the techniques involved, and, most importantly, who's making it.

This eclectic roster of shows is a product of Netflix's unusual production style. Instead of acquiring and creating content to fit demographics — an old TV term used to describe groups of people categorized by age, race, and gender — Netflix aims to appeal to niche audiences that the company refers to "taste clusters.” The biggest hits play across several taste clusters, and build steam as more of these small audience groups discover the shows that embody their specific tastes and interests. Many new Netflix series — take Nailed It! or The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell, for example — were rolled out with little fanfare, but became hits as more viewers made a connection to these shows and started spreading the word throughout their social circles.

Although most of the best shows usually have a travel element of some sort, there's really no unifying thread to Netflix's 2018 food slate, other than the emphasis on distinctive personalities — and this, too, fits in with the company's master plan for building a bigger audience. "There's no such thing as a ‘Netflix show,'” chief content officer Ted Sarandos recently told New York Magazine. "That as a mind-set gets people narrowed. Our brand is personalization.”

Most of Netflix's new food shows were also aligned with the big conversations happening this year regarding diversity and representation. But there were, however, a few missteps along the way. Although the critics generally praised Ugly Delicious, some viewers and publications took issue with the fact that the barbecue episode completely omitted African-American chefs' contributions to the genre. A season of Chef's Table focusing on pastry — a field that is full of lauded female chefs — only included one women out of the four people profiled. Despite its international focus, The Final Table's grand finale focused on two North American chefs and two Australians, all of whom were white men. And the new season of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee was peppered with gay jokes, as well as a condescending remark about a non-Anglo name, from host Jerry Seinfeld.

Taking all of the Netflix original output into consideration, these sour moments are relatively few and far between, and both the company and its creators seem receptive to the feedback. After a few publications (including this one) criticized the Chef's Table series for its tendency to profile white men, the makers of that series announced two new seasons profiling more women and people of color than ever before. And while promoting Ugly Delicious at last year's Code Conference, David Chang also addressed the issues with his show, live on-stage. "I've read every criticism, whether it wasn't inclusive enough through African Americans or through women, I just know that we had one season, and we did our best, and we had no intention of trying to be exclusive,” he told Eater's Amanda Kludt and Recode's Peter Kafka. "And hopefully there's a second season, and we'll be able to do it better.” Chang and his partner Morgan Neville are currently working on that second season.

Now that Netflix has established itself as the hottest brand in food TV, its growth may depend on its ability to keep telling more stories that have never been told before. In anticipation of the release of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, Nosrat hinted at this idea while pondering the future of her show (though no announcement about a second season has been made yet). "Whatever I do next, I do think that the most meaningful part of this for me was getting the opportunity to work with a lot of different people who are not historically shown on television,” Nosrat told Eater. "Not only people of color, but focusing on home cooks rather than restaurant cooking — focusing on the grannies. Any time I could, I was bringing that kind of stuff in, because I do feel like what we get to see on TV is pretty limited.”

In typically secretive fashion, Netflix is keeping much of its upcoming food TV calendar tightly under wraps. But if this year's growth is any indication, there's a good chance that TV audiences will be introduced to a whole new set of people, places, and delicious things in 2019.

Afyonkarahisar: City of heroic history, delicious food

Due to its location on the crossroads of favorite holiday destinations, Afyonkarahisar province has always been our stopover point during our car journeys; hence, it was high time for me to get in the car and discover Afyonkarahisar for good. I do not have an eye on its famous sucuk, which is a kind of dry, spicy sausage. Turkish cherry bread pudding was the one that whet my appetite. I still remember the taste of the dessert served with delicious Afyonkarahisar's kaymak, which is a creamy dairy product similar to clotted cream. Lamb kebab, döner and village bread with poppy seeds are other dishes also still haunting my memory. So, let's take a quick visit to Afyon as the weather cools and winter is at the door. Let's rest in its healing thermal waters, eat and drink plenty.

We can divide Afyonkarahisar into two sections, new and old. Old Afyonkarahisar is the area where old mansions now run as restaurants and boutique hotels are located. We can also call it the bustling and crowded part of the city. The bazaars and the famous castle of the city are also here. It's perfect for getting lost in the streets and photographing historic buildings.

First stop: Afyonkarahİsar Castle

We can start our visit to the city with Afyonkarahisar Castle. The castle, which has continuously passed through different hands, starting from the Hittites to the Ottoman Empire, was the subject of many legends. Today, we can only see the walls of the castle, located across from the Grand Mosque in the center. To reach the castle, you need to climb 1,000 stairs. The food in Afyonkarahisar so delicious that the idea of doing a little exercise by climbing up to the castle doesn't sound so bad. An endless Afyonkarahisar view is waiting for you on the hill. The entrance to the castle is free. Afterward, you can take a breather in the old mansions that have now been converted into cafes or eat gözleme, a flat bread filled with meat, spinach or cheese. Both the stairs and the fresh air tend to make people hungry.

Where Great Offensive started

Apart from the thermal hotels, Kocatepe is often the place visited first. You will have an interesting experience if you go with a guide to the place where the Great Offensive was kicked off on Aug. 26, 1922 by Commander-in-Chief Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. In almost every city, there is a grand mosque. This one is known as the Mosque of 40 Pillars, as it was built on a total of 40 wooden pillars. You can visit the mosque dating back to the Seljuk period between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Afyonkarahisar Mevlevi lodge is one of the oldest ones in Anatolia. Afyonkarahisar has become an important center of the Mevlevi order. The Mevlevi lodge, which is thought to have been built in the 13th century, was restored in 2008 after having survived many fires and was put into service as a museum. There are dervish rooms, kitchens and cemeteries in its garden. You can visit the museum free of charge.

Journey to the past

You can visit Anıtpark, which was erected in the memory of the city's salvation from Greek occupation in 1936.

Triumphal Museum next to the government office was used by Atatürk as headquarters during the Great Offensive. It is open during working hours.

If you are interested in antiquities, there is also an archaeological museum with a rich collection. It is open every day but Mondays.

Çeşmeli Konak (mansion with a fountain) is also the first special museum and serves as a culture and art center.

Pastries, sucuk, kaymak and more

Afyonkarahisar definitely deserves a gastronomy tour; moreover, its cuisine offers much more than the bread pudding, kaymak and sucuk, which I mentioned in the beginning.

Everyone has heard of İkbal Restaurant, which was founded in 1922. It has two branches: One is on the main road, while the other is in the center. In general, vacationers take a break on the road; however, the taste of the restaurant in the center is different. Its tandır is delicious. Do not forget to leave space for cherry bread pudding.

Have you ever tried sucuk döner? It is a dish you should absolutely try in Afyonkarahisar, and the best place to eat it is Gamze Döner. Don't forget to order some foamy handmade ayran, Turkey's famous yogurt drink, with it.

Almost everyone has visited Şefika Aunt's house in the village of Ayazini. She is also famous and was on nearly every television channel. Her gözleme with potatoes, cheese, spinach and mixed ingredients are very tasty. She grows the products she uses in her own field.

Aşçı Bacaksız (Chef Bacaksız), which has been serving since 1840, is now one of the cornerstones of the city. You should stop by to try famous its lamb kebab, which takes three days to prepare.

Salim Chef was a cook at the palace in the past. His grandchildren run the restaurant, which was named after him in the grand bazaar in the center. In the restaurant, you can try dishes like tandır and güveç kavurma.

If you want to take some cherry bread pudding home, visit Aftat. They pack it so well that it will reach your home still ready to eat.

Here's exactly what to eat when you're getting over food poisoning

One second you're enjoying some food from your favorite takeout spot, and the next you're logging your best running time yet while frantically searching for the nearest toilet. Anyone who's ever experienced food poisoning—which is caused by food that's been contaminated with bacteria or other infectious organisms—knows it's all sorts of miserable. And the recovery process is anything but easy-breezy. Rather, it's a full-time job looking searching vetting the proper food for upset stomach.

A couple hours after eating contaminated food, the wave of nausea, vomiting, and/or diarrhea hits like a brick. Then as you're getting over it—which can take days—the sheer thought of food can be traumatic: something you ate just caused you a whole lot of pain, and no one wants to experience round two. Because of that, there are some rules to keep in mind in order to ensure your stomach stays happy.

First, skip out on eating things that can upset your stomach even more—including dairy products, caffeine, alcohol, and anything that's high in fat or highly-seasoned, says the Mayo Clinic. The Oregon Clinic also recommends avoiding any raw veggies, citrus fruits, or hot or cold beverages, which can also make your symptoms worse. Once you start adding foods back into your diet, it's best to go for bland options that are easy for your body to digest, such as saltine crackers, bananas, toast, and rice. On top of that, it's also recommended to replace any fluids you've lost by slowly sipping on water, as well as options like apple juice, weak tea, and vegetable broth.

As long as you take things slow and don't get fancy with your food, your body will be able to get the sustenance it needs to recover. Unfortunately, that means ditching avocados and matcha lattes—at least for a while.

5 Ingredients for Health: Starting with Food

On Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg, Dr. Robert Graham—board-certified physician and founder of FRESHMed NYC—combines mainstream medical practices with therapies inspired by ancient wisdom: an integrative model of medicine. "My dad was a biochemist, so I grew up in this integrative model. One of the things that really stood out is my mom was distrustful about the conventional Western model. She still thinks she's the only doctor in the house, because food is such a powerful medicine, especially from her culture," said Graham.

You can listen to Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg on Apple iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play Music or wherever you consume your podcasts. While you're listening, subscribe, rate and review the show; it would mean the world to us to have your feedback.

"I realized there had to be some new model of healthcare that honors the ancient wisdom or traditional medicine approach and incorporated, safely and effectively, into the conventional medical model," explained Graham. In 2016, Graham started FRESH Med, an integrative health and wellness center. Through his practice, he aims to address the root causes of today's diseases, rather than the symptoms of them, with traditional medical methods such as yoga, meditation, and healthy food. "I'm just a new messenger of an old story," said Graham.

At Graham's practice, however, science supports every treatment. "My three pillars of what I do, from food, to meditation, to positive psychology—whatever I recommend—I always tell all my patients: it has to be safe, effective, and evidence-based. That's what we call science," said Graham.

Food is Graham's first ingredient for health at the practice: plant-based diets can cure diseases for patients and the planet. In 2013, Graham created Victory Greens, the first edible organic garden on a rooftop hospital that provided patients with healthy food. Graham also recently completed culinary training and has taught more than 200 healthcare workers and medical residents how to prepare healthy meals—inspired by his belief that if doctors have healthy habits, their patients will too. "The best thing you can do for your health is cook your own food," said Graham.

With five new ingredients for health—food, relaxation, exercise, sleep and happiness—Graham is seeking to place the tools for healing directly in the hands of patients facing disease. "I don't believe hospitals are where health begins; it happens in our communities, our homes, our kitchens, and our gyms," said Graham.

Easy ways to reduce your food waste

The week-long Eid Al Adha holidays have come to an end and people all over have shown the precarious symptom of being unable to find the will to go back to work. Many decided to travel; some expats flew back to their home countries, while the rest stayed back in Oman and enjoyed the long holidays with their friends and family here.

Festival holidays are always special, as you know there is always something to look forward to. Celebrations galore, new clothes, exchange of gifts, and of course the delicious food that you always overeat, which can send you into a food coma for the next couple of hours. During these nine days, Oman did not just celebrate Eid Al Adha, but the Indian expats from Kerala also celebrated their harvest festival, Onam. The celebrations are as grand and large for both festivals. They involve new clothes and lots and lots of food. While during Eid, the meal is meat-heavy with shuwas and biryanis, Onam is associated with the sadhya, which is a number of vegetarian dishes served on a banana leaf.

However, what follows after savouring the sumptuous meal is what people fail to ponder over. Huge quantities of food are prepared, a lot of it eaten, but a lot more goes to waste. According to Be'ah, Oman Environment Services Holding Company, food accounts for 27 per cent of municipal waste and its cost is estimated to be OMR57 million in a year. The amount of food is generally higher during festivals, especially Ramadan and Eid.

It's not just in homes that we find food being wasted in painful portions; it's the same in restaurants too. Food wastage is a huge problem that needs to be looked into. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), every year, 1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted. This is equivalent to the amount produced in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.

But for those who wish to consciously reduce the amount of food they are wasting at home, there are some easy ways that may just lead to saving kilograms of food. Cook less and count the number of people you are preparing the food for instead of cooking in bulk. Make sure you look at the expiry date on products before buying them and use them before they expire. Avoid impulse buys and always keep a grocery list that you will stick to.

Most importantly, make use of your leftovers. There are many innovative ways to use leftovers that you can find on YouTube and prepare a delicious meal for yourself. Every time you have the urge to waste some food on your plate, remember there are thousands of people starving in different parts of the world without even one square meal. In fact, one in every seven people in the world go to bed hungry and more than 20,000 children under the age of five die daily from hunger.

It is also up to hotels and restaurants to adapt sustainable practices that help in stopping/avoiding the mass wastage of food. Certain hotels in the country resort to methods such as recycling and reusing leftovers in innovating ways. Excess food is quite often recycled to the staff cafes. Hotel chains have even urged charities to focus on food wasted in hotels and restaurants and redistribute them among those in need.

World chefs gather to tackle issue of food waste

If you have ever thrown out food because it's started to spoil, or left food on your plate uneaten because you were too full or didn't like the taste of it, then you - like many others, myself included - have been guilty of food waste.

Roughly one-third of the food produced in the world is lost or wasted before it ends up on the table.

Food loss is food that's spoilt before it reaches the retail stage. Food waste is food that's fit for consumption but not consumed and discarded.

In a world where one out of nine people goes hungry, reducing the amount of food waste can be said to be a moral imperative.

And when you factor in the greenhouse gases emitted by food that ends up in the landfill, then it becomes an issue of sustainability as well.

The World Association of Chefs Societies, or Worldchefs, is tackling this issue head-on, through Feed the Planet, a Worldchefs initiative run in partnership with Electrolux and AIESEC.

At the Worldchefs Congress in Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur, Chris Koetke, chairman of Feed the Planet, told an audience of chefs and culinary students, "If you can improve your bottomline through looking at food waste and improve things on the planet, why wouldn't you?"

Feed the Planet has launched what's called the Food Waste Challenge - a plan that encourages chefs worldwide to start measuring the amount wasted from their kitchens, and make a commitment to cut the mountain of discarded food.

"Those of us in white coats - we cook a lot of food; we use a lot of energy; we use a lot of water; we make a lot of waste," said Koetke.

"So we have a responsibility to the larger society, to the planet, to make sure we're doing well in each of those categories."

ReTaste, a pop-up, not-for-profit restaurant in the Swedish capital of Stockholm takes the concept of reducing food waste one step further.

Twice a week, ReTaste serves up seven-course meals using mostly produce that would otherwise have been thrown out by supermarkets.

It's a collaboration between two companies, Retired Hen, a food sustainability consultancy, and Pauls Kok, a restaurant.

In an on-site demonstration at the Worldchefs Congress, ReTaste chef Christopher Ekman whipped up some dishes using produce given by local supermarkets. His menu included pasta made from stale bread that had been ground down and then mixed with flour, eggs and salt.

Ruth Osborne, cofounder of Retired Hen, had a message for her audience: "You make incredible food out of premium products. And … if you use your imagination, take those skills, you can also make incredible meals out of less than premium products. And teach people that actually, they're valuable and worth the enjoyment."

My takeaway from Worldchefs Congress is this: we all have a part to play in reducing food waste - whether it's finishing the food on your plate, or consuming that misshapen fruit.