Health

Ayara Thai in July 2020 in Westchester. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) A pandemic-era outdoor dining program credited with helping Los Angeles restaurants survive at a time when so many have shuttered or are struggling was set to expire at the end of the year, possibly leaving hundreds of restaurateurs in limbo. On Wednesday, … Read more

I tried every smoothie at Erewhon, including Hailey Bieber’s $17 skincare smoothie There’s something a bit too on-the-nose about Los Angeles’ trendiest health food store being called Erewhon. The 1872 Samuel Butler novel that inspired the store’s name satirizes a utopia in which those in ill health are treated like criminals, and money confers prestige … Read more

Starbucks, Dunkin’ and more: Who has the best frozen coffee drink? It’s winter in the United States, and while that may mean something different in California than it does in, say, Maine, it’s still cold. The Chicagoan in me hangs his head in shame as the 50-degree temperatures feel like a polar vortex to my … Read more

(Photograph by Jessica Miller / For The Times; food/prop stylist Danielle Campbell / For The Times) 1 If you, like me, have trouble running more than one errand per day, you understand the relative importance of the few things that you do get done. One of those things is usually lunch. And that lunch is … Read more

We tried every paleta flavor at Mateo’s Ice Cream, where each is a frozen work of art Although there’s no foolproof way to escape the convection oven that is a summer day in L.A., there are, in my mind, a handful of obvious remedies: Run through a sprinkler. Take a cold shower and drip dry … Read more

The official bottled water power rankings We have a lot to get to, so let’s jump right into the official Bottled Water Power Rankings. First: Everyone should have access to safe drinking water. This piece is not an endorsement of bottled water. Plastic bags, bottles and takeout containers are all an enormous detriment to the … Read more

Yes, fast-food soft serve is still the best soft serve. These are the top 7 brands, ranked We’re rapidly approaching the official end of summer, but there’s nothing saying you have to roll back your summertime habits. Keep going to the beach. Keep up the picnicking and outdoor movie-ing. And keep enjoying one of the … Read more

(Photo Illustration by Diana Ramirez/De Los; Photos by Katrina Frederick/For The Times)

How Los Angeles became the epicenter of sushi in America The history of sushi in Los Angeles spans decades, a sweeping chronicle of entrepreneurship and a sprawling city’s culinary evolution. Though the first mention of sushi in this paper goes back to 1899, L.A.’s love of raw fish with rice took hold in Little Tokyo … Read more

What makes L.A.’s sushi scene so great? I found answers in Tokyo At a tiny sushi counter in this boundless capital’s southwest suburbs, nine of us sat silent and alert waiting for Koji Kimura to finish readying his lunchtime service. We whispered our drink orders to the restaurant’s lone server while listening to indistinct sounds … Read more