A-Frame Lands 1.5 Stars; Goldy Hits Red Medicine

1) Culver City: This week Sher treks out to Roy Choi's (Kogi) A-Frame where she reassures diners not to worry, “The crowd here is an easygoing, friendly bunch,” meanwhile the food is “?messy and meant to be picked up and eaten with the hands.” Overall the dining room feels "...loud. It's rambunctious. It's fun." After one sits down at an elongated communal tables or near the toasty fire pit, SIV announces, “Time to order some munchies, first and foremost the furikake kettle corn buttered and dosed with seaweed and hot pepper. It's hard to keep your hands out of the bowl? Blue crab cakes are another highlight — tender, almost too soft crab cakes, browned on the outside, to wrap in spiky perilla or lolla rossa lettuce leaves and dip in a ginger lemongrass sauce. The combination of flavors is seriously delicious. Baby back ribs, stacked like logs, air-dried and sticky with hoisin-chile glaze, is another good one to share. But at $9, better make that two orders.” However, not all dishes pass with flying colors. "There's an oddball main course salad too, a warm chicken salad spooned onto warm (and very sweet) cornbread along with an Italian sausage ragù — and that same salsa verde. This just didn't work — too many flavors, too much sweetness.” SIV finally concludes that “A-Frame's food won't win any beauty contests either. Rough and ready, it's more about generosity than presentation. Everyday food at everyday prices. And that's an exciting development” worth 1.5 stars. [LAT]

2) Beverly Hills: And, as expected, Gold (who didn't get booted) files his thoughts on Red Medicine. Right off the bat, the article subtitle says it all, "Jordan Kahn's Vietnamese eatery deserves notoriety for its food, too." Goldy is a fan. A huge fan: "Red Medicine deserves to be known for unusual cocktails; for its list of obscure high-acid wines that go perfectly with the sweetish, herbacious cuisine; and for its food —Kahn's cooking is probably the most modern in Los Angeles at the moment...And if you pick your way through the menu, and ignore what the dishes happen to be called, you will find that most of them are stunning...It is easy to order too much here...But there is too much to love here, and too many reasons to return." [LAW]

The Elsewhere: "The Find visits Torrance for Ramen Yamadaya, Eastside Food Bites hits Bottega Louie, Diana Takes A Bite at Fraiche, Eat: LA tries Studio City's Loteria, Gastronomy picks OB Bear in Ktown, and e*star LA samples Black Cat.