The Good, The Mid, The Terrible #6
LA's latest London Import, pancakes that will blow your mind, 3 excellent Bay Area restaurants, and more
Hello! It’s been a busy few weeks, including a quick trip up to the Bay Area to speak at SALA, a South Asian arts and literature festival. I got to meet several writers that I have long admired and grab a few quick meals with friends and family. This was the first trip in a long time that didn’t involve me staying in San Francisco properly and I spent more time bopping around Palo Alto and Oakland, which was fun for a change of pace.
I love Georgian food, which is actually quite widely available in NYC, but not as much in LA. We popped into Bevri in Palo Alto for a quick dinner (with my friends Hetal and Pooja who owns the incredible ice cream brand Malai) after a long day in the sun and post our panel and I was delighted to see a full menu of khinkali, the giant Georgian dumplings including a version filled with mushrooms and another filled with cheese. We of course also ordered every type of khachapuri and I am always floored with the amount of cheese found in Georgian food. I was very appreciative of the Georgian salad that arrived tossed in a creamy walnut-like pesto dressing which was a welcome foil to all the dairy. Would go back for the khinkali and salads!
I was also able to swing into the Palo Alto location of Zareen’s, the beloved Pakistani restaurant that has a handful of locations around the Bay. It was packed, which was so fun to see, and after eating there I totally get why. The halwa puri, the sheermal, the desi omelette, the perfect masala chai — I wish they would open in LA.
On the way to dinner that night we also stopped by Koolfi Creamery, a charming queer-owned desi ice cream shop in the Bay. The ice cream flavors were inspired — I was partial to the banana gulab jamun — but the real genius is the dosa ice cream cone. The team pours dosa batter into a pizelle press (what is traditionally used to make waffle cones) and the result is a cone that is as crispy as a normal waffle cone, but with the tangy, savory notes of a good dosa. It counterbalances the sweetness of the ice cream incredibly well, and I hope to see more dosa ice cream cones in the future.
The last stop was Jaji in Oakland, which specializes in modern Afghani food. There’s so few Afghani restaurants in the country but so many of the dishes and sauces remind of the South Asian kitchen, so I always find the cuisine to be incredibly comforting. Jaji is a beautiful space, with soaring high ceilings, but it still manages to feel quite warm. There is so much to love about the meal — it’s clear husband and wife duo Sophia Akbar and Paul Iglesias are obsessed with what they do — but I would go back for the bolani alone and the stuffed eggplant, aka bonjon borani, and all of the perfect saffron rice. I left so full, but would absolutely love to get back.
Okay lets jump into this week’s newsletter which has my unfiltered thoughts on:
— London’s Berenjak opening in LA
— the latest Graza collaboration
— Chuck E. Cheese’s latest concept
— my newest pancake recipe obsession
— a surprising celebrity wine
and so much more:
The Good