Somebody asked me for travel stories today and I had to throw up my hands. The most adventurous thing I've done so far is the Thai barbeque place I just visited. The buffet of raw meat and vegetables (some meant to be grilled, some not) were like a bunch of "NO!" illustrations for a travel health brochure. But it smelled so good ... the routine would have been familiar to any LA resident who's visited Koreatown. The main difference was that instead of the marinade, it was all about the delicious, chili-rich dipping sauces. Ok, a few random points:

Why it's better here
Find any popular food stall where you can watch your meal get cooked in front of you, and you get:

• Fresh-cooked food
• from fresh ingredients
• from a stall that does just one thing, and well enough to have a following
• in a country that cares about food.

Khao Soi
It's the new hamburger: tasty, addictive comfort food. Egg noodles, meat, etc, in a curry soup, topped with crunchy noodles. There must be somewhere in LA that has it. This is a perfect letter to Jonathan Gold at the LA Weekly actually: "ah yes, that delicious northern Thai specialty. There are several places in Los Angeles that claim to offer the real thing, but only one ..." etc etc

Also

• Fried rice doesn't suck.
• I had the best fried chicken of my life here.
• Met someone from Taiwan who claims chicken satay is a Malaysian dish.