Nothing brings people together quite like great food, which is why after a successful launch last year the Los Angeles Times Food Bowl is back for its second year with even more to look forward to.

This year’s Los Angeles Food Bowl once again kicks off on May 1st for a full magnificent 31 days celebrating LA’s always evolving food and drink scene. While shining a light on LA’s food scene the festival will simultaneously work to raise awareness and funds to fight against food waste, hunger, and promote sustainability and waste reduction with the help of festival charity partners and its events. For the month of May the Food Bowl will have LA buzzing with over 250 events that will include the chefs and restaurants responsible for making Los Angeles a food destination. From dining events, panel discussions, chef collaborations, volunteer projects, night markets, and cocktails this upcoming 31 days of food has something for everyone.

The official launch party will be taking place at Rossoblu this year and will feature an all star lineup of the best LA chefs creating “Things in a bowl.” The launch party will also be announcing the Restaurant of the Year and the winner of the Gold Award. Last year’s Restaurant of the Year award went to Locol (Roy Choi and Daniel Patterson) and the Gold Award was presented to Wolfgang Puck. For the first time ever the launch will also be open to public to share in the festivities.

With May only being months away the anticipation and excitement for the Food Bowl continues to grow. It is set to be a month full of excitement and endless delicious moments so mark your calendars for March 31st when the full list of events are released so you can start planning your May food event schedules.

Editing by Frances Vega

DineL.A.’s Restaurant Week is underway and if you’re anything like us the foodie inside of you is overwhelmed with excitement!

With over 300 restaurants participating in the event by offering prix fixe lunch & dinner menus, it’s the perfect opportunity to treat yourself and finally try that restaurant you’ve been eyeing for months. Participating restaurants stretch the from Santa Monica to Pasadena and everywhere in between, so the options can seem overwhelming, but the menus posted on the dineL.A. website make it easier to narrow down your selections. While the $15-$20 lunch menus and $29-$49 dinner menus might entice you to head right to the biggest names in town, Restaurant Week is also a great way to explore your neighborhood a bit more and try a meal that would have been much more of a splurge any other week of the year.

For our Restaurant Week pick we chose the dinner menu at Osteria Mamma in Hollywood, and we were not disappointed. The Sgamberata salad with tiger shrimp and arugula, Linguine alla Carbonara, and the Tiramisu were the stand-out favorites from the night. The mustard dressing on the Sgamberata was the perfect compliment to the peppery arugula, and the Carbonara sauce on the linguine wonderfully rich without being overwhelming. Paired with the included glass of wine and finished off with Tiramisu, the menu is an excellent sample of the delicious fare Osteria Mamma has to offer.

All of the selections on the Restaurant Week menu are available at Osteria Mamma year-round, so don’t miss out on the chance to try them while the deal lasts!

A record setting 67,000 people attended the Natural Products Expo West this weekend. The Anaheim convention center could barely house the 3,000 exhibitors and getting through the whole expo was pretty much impossible (even if you arrived when doors opened and stayed all day).

2. Vegetarian Plus Meals: This company specializes in frozen meat substitutes. They were sampling everything from vegan tuna to vegan lamb vindaloo. The tuna salad was the standout for me. It was the first time I’d tried vegan fish that didn’t have a weird rubbery texture. But really all of their “meats” were really tasty. The only downside is, almost all their products contain wheat so it won’t work for people with Celiac disease or a gluten intolerance. I didn’t know about the wheat until after I’d tried four different samples. Needless to say, things did not end well for me.

3. Silver Hills Gluten Free Bread: I’m very picky about packaged gluten free bread. Most of the time they all taste like really thick cardboard, but the Silver Hills bread actually tasted like regular bread. The samples they had out were topped with coconut oil, which turned the bread into a nice light dessert. I fell deeper in love with this bread when I saw that it is certified organic, non GMO, vegan, and only 80 calories per slice.

4. Shasha Co. Lemon Snap Cookies: Cookies with prebiotics and probiotics? Nothing like eating cookies to help your digestion. The company also has two wheat free flavors made with spelt flour. I fell in love with the lemon snaps.

5. Vega Protein Bars and Powders: Vega is plant based and all their products are vegan. They are not non-GMO verified yet, but the labels do say they use non-GMO materials. I like them because the powders are gluten free and taste much better than most protein powders. The Vega One line also incorporates other essential vitamins to help maintain a balanced diet. For example, the Vega One smoothies have two servings of vegetables in each serving.

6. Black Bear Energy: This company uses B12 instead of relying on caffeine to give customers an energy boost. The concentrated B12 spray got me going in 20 minutes. I felt energized, but not jittery like when I have too much coffee. The creators of this line boast that they use the best forms of B12 (hydroxycobalamin & adenosylcobalamin). Apparently most B12 supplements use Cyano-B12, which contains trace amounts of cyanide. I can’t really verify how true their claims are, but I do know the spray and drink taste a lot better than the typical B12 supplement (have you ever tried the pills? They taste like vomit).

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"Top Chef" runner up Stefan Richter (courtesy of Bravo TV)

“Top Chef” alum, Stefan Richter, will celebrate his 15th anniversary in the U.S. this week with a special anniversary menu at his restaurant L.A. Farm.

The European chef is offering three courses for just $15 on April 9 and 10. It is his way of showing how thankful he is for all the success he’s garnered in the last 15 years.

Originally from Tampere, Finland, Richter began studying the culinary arts in his teens. He worked in various European kitchens before eventually settling in the U.S. after he was chosen as part of the creative team for the opening of the Bellagio Hotel in 1998. Richter appeared on two seasons of “Top Chef” and was a guest judge on the Finnish version of the show. He opened his restaurant Stefan’s at L.A. Farm in 2009.

The anniversary menu will include Gravlax with salmon, dill mustard sauce and watercress; Smoked Potato Soup; and German sausage with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes in a beer sauce.

The three courses will be offered between 5:30 pm and 10 pm on both days only.

Stefan’s at L.A. Farm is located at 3000 Olympic Boulevard, Santa Monica.

With hot summmer weather already taking over New York, what better way to cool down than with ice cream? Emack & Bolio’s SoHo, known as ice cream for the connoisseur, has become my favorite go-to place for ice cream, smoothies, and coffee!

Emack & Bolio’s opened in Boston in 1975. The store was named after two homeless men that the owners, who were lawyers, did pro bono work for. Each individual E&B store is slightly different, putting their own personal touch and creativity. The one thing they all have in common? Incredible, unique, ice cream. With flavors like Deep Purple Cow, Pumpkin, Mud Pie (Coffee ice cream with Oreo’s and chocolate pieces!), the choices are endless.

The Emack & Bolio’s SoHo is located at 73 West Houston. The store carries the E&B ice cream (Grasshopper Pie is a must try!) and coffee, but also has amazing smoothies (the Get Off Your Acai is my favorite). What stood out to me though, were the specialty waffle cones. I’d never seen a Rice Krispie cone until I walked into E&B. Famous photographer Terry Richardson had to stop to take picture of the cones (which you can see here).
If you’re in New York City, make sure you add Emack & Bolio’s to your to-do list.

HBO kicked off the first night of its Boardwalk Empire promotion on Tuesday with free drinks and goodies for customers.

From 7-9 P.M. every person who walked into the Varnish in downtown Los Angeles received a free drink, salt-water taffy, and the really lucky ones also got a flask. The promotional staff only had five flasks to give out so they were eyeing customers to see who was really enthusiastic about the experience. The flask itself was a plain tin flask with “Boardwalk Empire” engraved on the front.

Most customers didn’t notice the flask; they were there for the free drink. There wasn’t a specific drink menu for customers to order from, but all the drinks had to have Canadian Club whiskey in them. Since many people didn’t know what kinds of mixed drinks to get with whiskey, they went with the bartender’s recommendations. The most popular drink of the night was the Ward Eight. It was small, but strong and still had a semi-sweet taste to it. The drink was made with whiskey, lemon juice, orange juice, and pomegranate grenadine. Other great drinks were the Cobble Hill and Brown Derby.

Besides great drinks, the bar itself had a great ambiance. It was small and dark, a great place to bring a date and just hang out. All the servers were dressed in 20s style clothing and a pianist was on hand serenading customers. He sang and played upbeat ragtime and jazz tunes. Because it was a Tuesday night it wasn’t very crowded either. The location was really the only negative of the event. The Varnish really is a speakeasy style bar. It is a bar within a bar, so a person who has never been there before would not be able to find it from the street. Parking was also difficult. Most of the metered parking was taken and the lots were deserted and unattended—not the type of place a young person would want to walk through alone at night. Overall the event was a great homage to the past.

Overall rating: 8/10

Most University of Southern California students are not aware of it yet, but the school just opened the only table-service restaurant on campus, Moreton Fig.

It’s only been open for a week but it already has the potential to become a great place to eat. The restaurant itself looks like a five star restaurant. The bar has its own lounge area equip with couches, marble counters, and friendly bartenders. Despite its expensive look, the restaurant is not insanely overpriced. The priciest dish on the menu is a flat iron steak for $19.50; steak connoisseurs know this is a fairly decent price. I was in the mood to spend money so I went ahead and ordered it. The presentation was very impressive and the steak had a great flavor. Diners be warned though, the duck fat fries it came with were not my favorite. The steak is served with a side of six thickly cut French fries that are slowly fried in duck fat. They’re weren’t terrible, but they don’t taste like traditional fries either.

My lunch companion and I also ordered appetizers, dessert, coffee and some wine for less than $80. Everything was fairly delicious, but two items stood out above the rest. They have an appetizer called the “Stonefruit” bruschetta; it is nothing like any bruschetta I have ever tasted. It’s made with fruit instead of tomatoes. Each slice of bread was topped with a combination of nectarine, pluot, and apricot. The best one on the plate was the pluot and almond bruschetta.

The other highlight of the day was the restaurant’s Étude Rosé wine. Generally speaking, Rosés are known for being sweet and light, but this one was very dry and you could taste the deep flavors from the red grapes. Étude was my favorite, but the other wines we tried were also great. For those that do not like Rosé, the wine list is fairly long and everything is served by the glass.

The entire experience only had one negative; service was a little slow. Everyone was extremely friendly and knowledgeable, but there was a little bit of a lag in between table visits. I assume that is probably normal for a brand new restaurant so I do not think it will be a problem in the future.

Environmentalists should also take note that many of the ingredients are organic and locally grown. The menu also has special symbols for vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free dishes. The award-winning Lark Creek Restaurant Group created Moreton Fig. The restaurant is named for the two towering century-old Moreton Bay fig trees standing in front of it.