1) Westwood: There's no official review this week, but a lucky little Find from C. Thi Nguyen in the form of Café Glacé. Known more for its Persian-style pizza than for its namesake, this spot attracts the local UCLA crowd for its selection of American items made Middle-Eastern. Take the "chips o panir: Lay's potato chips topped with toasty melted mozzarella." Who knew Iranians could be so white-trashy? According to owner Sam Alishahi, this is a popular snack in Tehran. Then there's the pizza: "This is pizza like you'd find all over the streets of Tehran... [t]here's no tomato sauce, just the slightest touch of ketchup — it's the Persian style... The cheese is fresh and white and just on the cusp between juicy and oily. The top is intensely brown with a baked cheese crust; little, intense streaks of oregano peer out from beneath the brown cheese-crackle... It's made by Iranians for Iranians, guided by a distinctive, charmingly un-Italian aesthetic." [LAT]
2) Koreatown: Pork again! Gold goes back for more, this time in the form of Korean-style Japanese tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet) at Wako Donkasu. As is typically the case at pork-centric spots, there's a lot to like. Gold appreciates "the vibe of the place, the brusque cheerfulness and big portions..." The worse you could do here would be to avoid the pork and go for one of the grilled cheese items or "the orosi cutlet, fried pork onto which a 2-inch layer of grated daikon has been troweled." Gold admits, "I probably wouldn't get it again." Order right, though and your table will look like this: "cabbage salad lightly dressed with a squash-inflected dressing, a bowl of miso soup perhaps, and the pork cutlet, which is the size and shape of a deep-fried Zagat guide, perfectly crunchy, trimmed of most of its fat." Excellent. [LAW]
The Elsewhere: Eating LA loves Beer Belly, Gourmet Pigs takes us to Mohawk Bend, Mr. Gold also tastes Flying Pig Cafe, and My Last Bite takes us to Black Market Liquor Bar.