PASSIONATE RATIONS

Los Angeles is a phenomenal place for food, if you can get over the hype of oh-so-many too-trendy establishments and just get down to good eats.

It is a strange and wonderful landscape, offering everything from vegan fare to game meats, Moroccan to Peruvian cuisine.  I even recall eating at an Australian-themed restaurant where the meats were cooked at your table on hot stones.  It was the first place I experienced Shabu-Shabu—a tasty Japanese method of eating in which you submerge very thin slices of meat (usually beef) and/or vegetables in a large pot of boiling water or broth set in the center of your table before dipping it in sauce and eating, usually accompanied by white rice.

Indeed, the events surrounding Asian cuisine provided some of my most memorable culinary adventures in the City of Angels.

Wonderfully, L.A. has a huge Asian population.  While living there, I had the distinct pleasure of becoming associated with several members of the Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association (SCCLA).  Every year the organization took over a huge venue in Chinatown for a gala event, consisting of a traditional ten-course Chinese banquet.  Everyone who was anyone in the law-related professions would attend.  The last year I attended Bernie Parks was still police chief.  He was there.  Gil Garcetti, Los Angeles District Attorney (with the O.J. Simpson matter as a claim to fame) was there.  Jim Hahn, then the city attorney, subsequently the mayor, was there.  As I recall, Antonio Villaraigosa, then a state assemblyman, now mayor (after defeating Hahn), was also there (but maybe that’s just wishful thinking, since I’m a fan).  It was all very exciting, since—L.A. being a media city—these guys were always in the news.  I felt star struck when I shook Jim Hahn’s hand.

And then there was the food.

A ten-course meal is quite impressive.  It’s something for which you have to mentally prepare (in other words, come hungry).  From shark-fin soup, to chicken (traditionally prepared with head and feet), to jellyfish it is not a place for vegetarians (sigh).  Or people in a hurry.  No.  It is for people who love good food and good company, who want to linger over fried rice and laugh with the joyous masses.  This, truly, is the best of what food gives humanity—community, sustenance.

Maybe this was how I finally knew I’d met the one.  His tai chi class also had an annual banquet.  By coming together we doubled the feast.  For this, I love(d) L.A.