(I posted this on chow hound and then ipsedixit directed me here)
Oh god, Los Angeles, and Los Angeles chow hounders, I miss you.
It’s been three years. I moved to Utah. Did I tell you this? I think I forgot to say goodbye. I left in this horrible rush and insanity. In the end, I had to choose between an academic career and food and food writing. Probably I made a mistake. Anyway, I almost chose the food writing, but it looked like the LA Times food section was collapsing, so I got out.
So I live in goddamn Utah now and there’s like one good Pakistani restaurant and one good Vietnamese crawfish restaurant and that’s it. THAT’S IT. I can’t believe I took for granted the ability to just cruise down San Gabriel or East LA and have my pick of… anything. Everything.
To my old friends on Chowhound: I miss all of you.
The real reason I’m posting is selfish. I think I get to return for like 3 days in a month. So, what have I missed in the last three years of my Utah exile? What are the absolute deadliest, most important things? What has San Gabriel boiled forth? What has Koreatown boiled forth? There’s one half-way decent Korean restaurant in Utah. Tell me. What have I missed?
One last thing: I’ve gotten a bunch of e-mails asking me if I ever indexed my food writing for the LA Times. I finally got around to it. It’s here:
If anybody has any updates on any of these places - closings, changed owners, sudden losses of glory, let me know, and I’ll make a note of it on my list.
I’m not doing restaurant reviews anymore - I think doing it for money burned me out. But I’m starting to direct my philosophy work in the direction of thinking about food from a more philosophy-of-art angle, and this will show up there.
Oh LA. God, I miss you.