“HAFZI” AT MEYMUNI CAFE ~ SAWTELLE
This Saturday, August 8, Meymuni Cafe is holding "Hafzi", what it calls “the world’s largest gathering of half-Persians,” at its Sawtelle restaurant. The event will feature Mexican-Persian fusion dishes by chef Ronnie Munoz of Camello, as well as themed flash tattoos by Mexico City-based artist Dariush Gaderi, who has Mexican-Persian heritage himself.
“It’s a celebration of being Iranian in Los Angeles,” Meymuni owner Shaheen Ferdowsi tells L.A. TACO. “There are so many people who have kids with non-Iranians. At our cafe, we’ve met so many. That's why I put this event together.”Some of the flash tattoos being offered by Gaderi. Image via Meymuni Cafe/Instagram.
Ferdowsi says the tattoos are based on Mexican folklore and Persian mythology, with the designs also making their way onto t-shirts.
Meanwhile, chef Ronnie, who is known for exploring the intersections of Mexican and Middle Eastern cuisines, will be making dishes like lamb shank in an hoja santa amazake; Persian esquites in a brown butter mushroom dashi with cotija anejo and a “Hafzi” Tajin mixing black lime, burnt leeks, chipotle, tahini mousse, and saffron aioli; achiote-and-saffron-marinated joojeh pita with avocado tahini mousse; and an hoja santa mast-o-khiar.
“There's . . . nowhere else, other than L.A., where you’d you find these two cultures in such proximity, which is also why there are so many half-Persian, half-Mexican people,” says Ferdowsi, who himself lived and worked in Nayarit.
Aug. 8, 12-4 p.m., 2485 S. Sepulveda Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90064
“INJERA EDITION VOL. II” ~ LINCOLN HEIGHTS
The chefs of Studio Saba are popping up with chef Abby Gebreegziabher for “Injera Edition Vol. II,” centered on traditional Ethiopian dishes with a focus on seasonality, at Zizou in Lincoln Heights over three dinners this Saturday, Sunday, and Monday night.
“We like to ask ourselves, if our ancestors and family members back home had access to Southern California produce, what would they do with them?” Studio Saba chef Fresenay Mengesha tells L.A. TACO.
The star of the show is a veggie platter ringed with stews, salads, stir-fried vegetables, and legumes, with doro wat (the Ethiopian special occasion dish of chicken stew spiced with a berbere blend made by Abby’s aunt in Addis Ababa) and ribeye tibs, a stir fry beef dish with caramelized ginger, aromatics, and the East African clarified butter known as nitter kibbeh. And of course, plenty of injera.
The special of the parties will be asa tibs, a whole fried fish favored in many Ethiopian lake towns, made with a little dusting of flour, salt, and tomatillo-assisted chile mash, and paired with spicy condiments.
For dessert, there will be coffee with a tiramisu, infused with the Ethiopian herb rue; and an avocado, lime, and coconut sorbet with a housemade summer berry cordial called a vinto. Meanwhile, there will be all vinyl reggae sets by Total Protection Sound System for the Saturday and Sunday dinners.
Aug. 9-11, 5-10 p.m., 2425 Daly St. Los Angeles, CA 90013, reservations here
BOBO THAI ~ SILVER LAKE
A dozen interpretations of pad thai. That’s the promise made by Bobo Thai, a newly opened Silver Lake spot from a Taiwanese restaurant group.
There’s the traditional “1938,” which comes with pork belly; the “Hot Stuff,” which cranks up the heat with chiles, tofu, and smoky sausage; an “Easy Lover” with creamy green curry, makrut lime, and chicken; and a variation that marries tum yum with pad thai. There’s also a vegan pad thai.
Additional Bangkok-inspired items include pad see ew; shrimp toast; pork jowl with a lime sauce; fried shittake mushrooms; and eggplant fries with green curry; as well as cocktails like the “Tom Kha Booze” with gin, ginger, lemongrass, lime, and yuzu.
3705 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90026
A TASTE OF ROSIE’S ~ NORTH HOLLYWOOD
We can never get enough tender oxtails into our systems and if you’re anything like us, you need to know about A Taste Of Rosie’s in North Hollywood, offering made-to-order Caribbean cuisine with Southern soul food inspirations, for pickup via a text or DM.
Available items include a pasta with wood-fired jerk shrimp or oxtails; slow-cooked oxtails over jus-layered Spanish rice; honey jerk chicken wings; and what looks like some of the most legit jerk chicken we’ve seen in L.A., made in a smoker built atop the grill.
Owner-chef Ty Hickson is an actor-musician from Harlem who has lived in L.A. for nine years and launched Rosie’s three months ago on his manager’s outdoor patio. Ty named the business for his great-grandmother, an honored chef in New York’s Baptist community.
“I had been playing around with restoring old photos and had this picture of my great grandmother,” Hickson explains. “When I restored it and it bought it to life so profoundly, I immediately knew that I had to do this thing in her name. Because she [is] the matriarch in the family and she really was the epitome of the conservative black Southern Bell, but also had a lot of West Indian Caribbean and Latin Caribbean influences from within the family.”
A Taste of Rosie’s serves Wednesdays through Sundays, from 3 P.M. until it’s sold out. Ty accepts orders by DM, but prefers texts, so nothing is missed while he’s cooking.
You can find Ty’s number on A Taste of Rosie’s Instagram page.
SPAM MUSUBI COOKIES @ LEI’D ~ CULVER CITY
“Happy national SPAM Musubi Day!”
That’s what we might just say if it was Saturday. Then we’d probably go and hand you one of the SPAM musubi cookies Lei’d Cookies is making with a Waikiki hotel called Romer House. If we celebrated such things. And pegged you as a SPAM person.
You can get those, which bear a seared slice of SPAM with sticky rice on a black sesame “musubi” cookie, starting tomorrow for a limited-time.
Or if you’re not a SPAM person, go for a POG Cookie, which is a fat cookie made with passion fruit, guava, and orange and stuffed with li hing mui guava mochi, with the additional option to have it with guava jam cheesecake ice cream from Sad Girl Creamery. That definitely deserves its own day.
8588 Washington Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232
