Farley Elliott

There's not much going on around this stretch of Venice Boulevard. The bisected street hasn't quite hit Culver City, and isn't close enough downtown to simmer with Pico-Union's Central American spices. Sure, Tacos Leo is nearby and you can find a serviceable pupusa at Con Sabor down the street, but the Venice Plaza strip mall at Venice Blvd. and Hauser Blvd. is an often-overlooked run of nail salons, beauty salons and a weary check cashing place. But tucked right into the mix -- or in one case, around the corner and out of sight -- are a couple of dine-in Mexican restaurants and a faded dessert shop.

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Farley Elliott

It seems only fitting that L.A. Weekly's newest recurring feature, Strip Mall Rat, would begin with one of the most infamous intersections in the city: Santa Monica Blvd. and Highland Ave. The corner strip mall and surrounding sidewalk has long been known as a haven for all sorts of unsavory characters, from prostitutes and drug dealers to run-of-the-mill shady types who seem to think hanging out in front of a doughnut shop is the best way to look tough in Los Angeles.

Well, there's more than just a Donut Time outpost at Santa Monica and Highland. Between the check cashing place, the adult bookstore and the weed dispensary is a bare-bones Indian restaurant and a funky sushi joint. There's also a corner Subway, but don't they just build those things in automatically with every new strip mall?

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Amazon

In case you missed the arrival of the distinctive rectangular maroon book in your mailbox, you should probably know that the 2013 edition of Zagat's Los Angeles restaurant guide is out. Noteworthy for many reasons, not least of which because Michelin no longer publishes in Los Angeles.

So what's new this year? Michael Voltaggio's ink. was voted 2013's Top Newcomer with a 26 out of Zagat's 30-point scale. The Top Food award goes to Urasawa, one of five Japanese restaurants in the top 10. Michael Cimarusti's Providence won TYop Service, 101 Coffee Shop gets the nod for Most Popular restaurant, Grill 'Em All Truck beat out Kogi for Top Food Truck, In-N-Out Burger won for Best Buy and yes, the Cheesecake Factory won something too, getting named Most Popular Chain. From Urasawa to Cheesecake Factory. Gotta love surveys.

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Michelin

Historical Michelin tire ad

The Michelin Guide released their New York rankings yesterday, with the usual fanfare and oohhing and aahhing about who got stars, how many they got, and what that means for the cultural validity of the city's dining scene.

For Los Angeles, this time of year might sting a little, bringing up the fact that we no longer get Michelin ratings after the company decided to "suspend" their guides here in 2009. Chefs especially seem to feel jipped that Michelin doesn't take their efforts into consideration. We've heard many chefs complain that Michelin ought to come back to L.A. When the rankings came out yesterday, Michael Voltaggio tweeted "who thinks its time for @MichelinGuideNY to come back to LA?"

But perhaps we shouldn't fret. Today, Vanity Fair published a devastating piece by A. A. Gill, with the basic opinion that the Michelin Guide had ruined French food and is doing no better for New York. If you love a good take down this story is worth reading for its vicious prose alone:

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R.E.~/Flickr

Choices at Grand Central Market

What You'll Need:

• A general idea of the type of cuisine or specific dish you would like to eat, or not eat
• The number of people in your party
• A price range of how much you would like to pay for your meal
• The part of town where you will dine
• A note of any special considerations (i.e., kid- or dog-friendly seating, a strategically placed television so you can keep an eye on the Dodgers no matter where you're seated, an intolerance of communal tables, you only eat purple foods that start with the letter Q and other dietary restrictions, etc.)
• Pen and paper

Steps

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The USDA says 91% of U.S. farms are classified as small, usually family-run businesses, grossing less than $250,000 a year. That's a lot of local food production run on a shoestring budget, if any at all, with little to no access to customers outside of direct sales at a farmers market.

Then there are local, seasonal eaters looking for close-to-home farms, community-supported agriculture or local farmers market locations and schedules. Finding one unified, regularly updated and easy-to-reference source that connects you with nearby farmers no matter where you are in the country has been the stuff of dreams. It's also a seemingly Sisyphean task when you consider that the aforementioned 91% drops by an estimated 300-plus farms each week.

The Locavore app -- a project of Local Dirt founder Heather Hilleren -- achieves what was previously thought impossible: a seamless, well-managed and thorough app connected to a network of more than 35,000 farmers. They even get the local "what's in season" info right, down to the number of weeks left in the season, customized to your GPS-identified location. It seemed too good to be true, enough that we ran it through a serious obstacle course trying to find something wrong with it. What we found, after the jump.

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arnold | inuyaki/Flickr

Kyochon's fried chicken

In our last handy food flowchart, we tried to point you in the right direction for those times when you just need a bowl of phở to comfort your soul. Today, our flowchart helps you navigate the city when you're in search of another type of comforting soul food: fried chicken. And because sometimes you want that chicken with a side of kimchi pancakes or Japanese pub grub, we threw in a few suggestions that will satisfy your craving by way of Koreatown or the local izakaya.

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"Know What"

Images of app

The Computer Age. The Digital Revolution. The Information Era. Many also say it's the Food Age. We're bombarded by facts and opinions on how, what and where to eat. How to choose? That's where technology helps by putting ideas into our hands, literally. More and more, travel and food guides are looking not only to the Web to share tips but also, of course, to apps. Examples include Zagat, Yelp and Urbanspoon. And hey, even LA Weekly.

Know What, an L.A. and San Francisco travel guide with plenty of food and drink ideas, is the newest to sidestep books and websites in favor of the app. Unlike other food guides we've written about recently, it doesn't focus on one specific slant. (Clean Plates lists what it deems healthy, sustainable options, and the Restaurant Opportunities Center National Diners' Guide considers labor practices.) Instead, "Know What" gives a variety of slants, each presented as an app-within-an-app. It's geared for locals and tourists alike.

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Clean Plates Los Angeles 2012: A Guide to the Healthiest Tastiest and Most Sustainable Restaurants for Vegetarians and Carnivores, released last week by New York City-based "health coach" Jared Koch, is more than another list of restaurant recommendations. First, the book's 52-page "Design Your Own Diet" section is intended as education for those who want to change lifestyle and eating habits. Then come the reviews, a selection of 106 dining spots including choices in Beverly Hills, Hollywood, West Hollywood and Pasadena plus the Westside, South Bay, and San Fernando Valley.

It is admirable that Koch winnowed it down to so few. (Even with the assistance of eight "talented food critics.") LA Weekly's Voiceplaces.com lists more than 20,000 in greater L.A. Koch began with a couple of hundred possibilities, according to the book. He chose restaurants serving produce from small, local farms and organic, grass-fed, free-range meat not injected with hormones or antibiotics. As well, Koch valued menus with filtered water, high-quality salts, natural sweeteners, wheat- and gluten-free options, plus plenty of vegetables.

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As we've noted before, among the many ways you can ID a food lover in this town is the presence of a mole-stained copy of EAT: Los Angeles in the glove compartment of the car.

Along with, say, a dilapidated copy of Jonathan Gold's "Essential Whatever," the Mozza2Go boxes, the super hip Ink.Sack black lunch bags, the Daikokuya chopsticks, the valet tickets from the SLS hotel, etc. So, time to upgrade, as the 2012 edition of the Los Angeles food guide comes out this Saturday, October 22.

The new edition, the fourth from Prospect Park Media in Pasadena, has all the lovely features from previous versions, plus the inclusion of Favorites, a collection of short lists of the authors' personal favorites in various categories; expanded food truck coverage; and more than 150 new reviews of places to eat, drink and/or shop. There are 1,292 listings in all.

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