T. Nguyen

Trader Joe's now has its own house brand of Sriracha sauce. Which, if you walked into the store with hummus on your mind and thus were not prepared to see rows and rows of the sauce innocuously lined up next to packages of dried kimchi (also apparently a new item, though maybe not one that we're particularly eager to try), you may or may not have nearly dropped your free sample-sized cup of coffee in surprise.

That Trader Joe's has a house brand Sriracha sauce, though, makes sense. A sizable part of the population is completely obsessed with the Thai hot sauce, especially Huy Fong's version (see: a cookbook, lollipops, attire). Thus we couldn't resist comparing Trader Joe's Sriracha to the ever popular Rooster sauce. Some Food Fights just write themselves.

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Hope Lee

faux shrimp at Soho Thai

Lomita is known for two things -- a railroad museum and as the place where Olympian Jim Thorpe died -- and veganism isn't one of them. But thanks to Soho Thai Fusion Bar & Grill, that might change.

Soho's menu features a "Vegan Zone," which includes soy chicken, soy shrimp fish, soy crab, soy salmon and tofu steak. These items can be substituted into any of the eatery's "regular" meals, with a handy reassurance that you aren't getting animal flesh because the menu states that these dishes contain "No Meat, No Fish, No Poultry, No Eggs, No Milk, No MSG, No Fish Sauce, No Animal Products."

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Courtesy Pingtung

Pingtung

A new restaurant called Pingtung is soft-opening today on Melrose in West Hollywood. The restaurant, which bills itself as an "eat-in market," will operate as a casual cafe in the daytime, then go for a more glam vibe at night with cocktails and Asian nibbles.

The restaurant is owned by Li Ping, and is named after her hometown of Pingtung, Taiwan. The food covers a lot of ground: noodles, dumplings, dim sum, sushi rolls, bánh mì and other "tapas-style" dishes drawing influence from Taiwan, China, Vietnam, and Japan. The opening menu includes everything from ramen to shumai to galbi to spring rolls.

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Nanette Gonzales

Second 626 Night Market

Mark your calendars for June, July and August. The 626 Night Market is coming back to the San Gabriel Valley. Think sticks of cumin-sprinkled lamb skewers, bucket loads of putrid tofu marinated in day-old brine and cups of bubble tea brimming with foam. What's new this time around? A 350-foot terrace beer garden.

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Susan Ji-Young Park

Läghmän with lamb sauce at Silk Road Garden Restaurant

Silk Road Garden opened last year in a busy shopping center populated with Chinese restaurants. If you're keen on assertively seasoned hand-pulled noodles with distinct Chinese flavors, you won't find it here. The aromas of pork, caramelized soy sauce, smoky ginger and garlic, oil and spices heated beyond the flash point, and the musky charred scent of well seasoned woks are entirely absent. Instead, you have the distinct scent of grilled lamb, slow-cooked meat broths, baked dough and cumin of Central Asian cooking.

At Silk Road Garden, Uyghur and Muslim tapestries and photos of Xinjiang cultural life adorn the walls. Small shelves are lined with wooden Uyghur dolls reminiscent of Russian matryoshka.

Open less than nine months, proprietor Asker Abuduxkur is still training his staff and will continue to add dishes. Ququra (alternatively spelled "chuchura"), soup made with thumb sized dumplings, isn't available yet, though it's on the menu. But manta, ququra's fist sized cousin, bursting with juicy minced lamb and onions or pumpkin, are available.

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Clarissa Wei

Siomay from Indo Kitchen

Indonesian food is fundamentally earthy: Think of spicy red sambal sauce paired with ayam goreng (fried chicken), or fish paste balls and a creamy peanut sauce over lean bean sprouts and crispy green vegetables. Meals are sometimes served on banana leaves, and each dish is designed to stuff you full. And if you're into exotic fruit, all of these places serve up a mean durian milkshake.

The cuisine is as diverse as the 18,000 islands on the archipelago of Indonesia. There isn't much of it in Los Angeles. In the States, there are only 44,000 Indonesians compared to the six figure count of Chinese, Japanese and Koreans, respectively, and the restaurant figures reflect that statistic.

Turn the page for our round-up of five great Indonesian restaurants in Los Angeles.

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A. Scattergood

Daikokuya in Arcadia

As Daikokuya prepares to celebrate 11 years of delivering steaming bowls of tonkotsu ramen to the slurping masses, it has been amazing to watch the rest of Los Angeles catch up. There are ramen shops in Torrance for the noodle-obsessed, in West L.A. for those who follow best-of lists, and all over Little Tokyo, where Daikokuya's most heralded location sits. This city is positively ramen-obsessed.

Now, Daikokuya is looking to give back to all of those hungry hordes that have braved the mild Los Angeles weather for a shot at their rich pork ramen. The namesake Daikoku Ramen, a savory mix of long-simmered pork bone stock, kurobuta pork slices, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, green onions and a soft boiled egg, regularly retails for $8.95. But from the date of their 11 year anniversary on Wednesday, Feb. 20 through Friday, Feb. 22, those same bowls will be $5 (at the Little Tokyo location only). The generous offer is valid for all three days, from open to close.

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Farley Elliott

The Yoshinoya Beef Bowl

Let me preface all of this by saying that I've never been to a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl, and I'm willing to bet that you haven't either. In fact, I don't know anyone who has dined at a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl, and my contacts folder reads like a who's-who of questionable eaters. Yet, inexplicably, those orange-and-white huts are everywhere. There is an off chance, I suppose, that you've experienced a taste of the namesake beef bowl on some late night, after confusing the Yoshinoya logo with the Jägermeister logo and stumbling your way inside. It's not hard to do.

For the rest of us, there are questions. What's it actually like inside a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl? Where did it come from -- and why won't it leave? More importantly: How's the food?

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Silk Road map

Los Angeles can, yet again, boast about having the most variety, if not depth, of something. Home to the most diverse Muslim population in the United States, Los Angeles County is full of halal restaurants. Halal means permitted or lawful according to Sharia (Islamic) laws. In the realm of dining out, the key factor for observant Muslims -- besides avoiding pork and its byproducts -- is halal meat or meat from animals slaughtered according to religiously proscribed procedures.

As a food-history buff, we couldn't help getting a little dreamy trying dishes with roots in ancient Mesopotamia and cultivated during eras of caliphates, Moors, spice routes, Silk Road caravans and vast colonial empires. Though our actual journey involved a small economy car, every congested freeway in L.A., strip mall dining -- and a parking ticket.

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C. Pete Lee

If you look up Mishima on the Internet, you may discover a wide variety of things: It's the name of a city, town and village in Japan; it's the surname of one of Japan's most important authors, Yukio Mishima (see also: seppuku); it's a musical group from Barcelona; and it's even a style of pottery. You may also find a packaged food company founded by Yukata Mishima that owns and operates a Los Angeles-based restaurant with the same name. Mishima, the restaurant, on 3rd St. near the corner of La Cienega Blvd., which opened in 1993, will close its doors on Feb. 4.

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