[Chimp]

I don't want to derail, but it’s the overall LA food culture that has a bad rep compared with SF or NY, at least among the foodies and chefs I knew. And it’s well deserved. Sure, some of the top restaurants here can compete with great ones in the other cities (Ortolan and Providence come to mind), but that’s not the point. I’ll try to explain…

When I lived in the mission in SF and went to culinary school, I was a short walk to 3 fish markets, 4 or 5 butchers, and at least a dozen groceries or produce stands that sold really high quality produce (often organic and always seasonal). I was also a short walk from an unbelievable cheese store that carried illegal but amazing imported cheese; several excellent and independent wine stores; two bakeries, each of which made breads and desserts better than pretty much anything you could get anywhere in the entire LA basin; and an Italian import store with homemade pastas and imported cured meats and cheeses. Even the local Ralph’s carried really high quality bread like ACME and excellent produce.

Every neighborhood in SF seemed to have the same concentration of retail food choices. Every one of these local joints had stuff at a far quality than even food stores in LA you have to spend all day in a car to get to.

In addition, the big, destination food meccas in the Bay Area have no equivalent in LA. None. Places like Berkeley Bowl or the Ferry Plaza just don’t exist here.

Even the chain grocery stores were stocked with better quality stuff than here in LA. I mentioned Ralph’s. Whole Foods was the same story.

It’s kind of a critical mass issue. There are a few places in LA that by themselves would be similar to what you could get in SF or NY. But they are few, and very, very far between. If I am cooking for friends in LA, it is pretty much an all day ordeal to shop for the right ingredients. And at the end of the day, I’m still annoyed because there was something I couldn’t get. In SF, you could find top quality stuff all around you. For example, the only places in all of LA that I have found so far that have a decent fishmonger are Fish King in Glendale and Santa Monica Seafood. You can also get good quality, but prepackaged, fish at some of the Japanese markets. That’s it. That’s the list. In SF, you could find super-fresh fish in dozens of places….you were never more than a 5 minute drive from it. The same is true for pretty much any category of food.

I think it has to do with the fact that people here aren’t knowledgeable about food. In SF, it’s a big part of the culture. There seemed to be far more people interested in cooking and dinner parties in SF than here. People in LA just don’t care or know much about food, IMO. They wouldn’t know that a menu at a restaurant should change every month to keep up with the seasons. They even like the coffee at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for crying out loud.

There are even a small number of areas where LA food is superior to SF’s. Sushi is the big one for me; I would assume Korean food is another. But overall, it’s really no contest. And that’s not because I’m a hater. I grew up on the East Coast and have lived in SF and LA for the same number of years. There’s no bias. I just don’t think anyone can objectively say LA isn’t inferior when it comes to food.