Anthony Pino Photo

Patries and pies at Twist Eatery

At Twist Eatery, the new bakery café that opened on La Brea Boulevard this past Monday, the menu covers Morocco, California and the Mediterranean, in the form of sandwiches, bowls and salads. The mix of influences is a map of owner Joelle Bercovitch's upbringing.

"I'm from several different places and backgrounds, so all those different countries have influenced the way I bake and the way I cook. I was born in Morocco, then I lived in Montreal for quite a long time. My parents have a French and Spanish background," Bercovitch says. "I'm also an American at heart. I love comfort food, hearty dishes, and baked goods like carrot cake. I've combined all this into a lot of my recipes. That's how I came up with the name."

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A. Scattergood

Connie & Ted's

If you've spent any time dining at Providence, Michael Cimarusti's Melrose Avenue seafood palace, you'll know how much the chef and co-owner of the place loves his fish. Since it opened in 2005, the restaurant has earned accolade after accolade, including Best Restaurant, 2012 in these pages. But for all of its myriad charms, Providence is hardly the kind of low-brow fish shack that Cimarusti loved going to as a kid, when he spent summers visiting his grandparents in Rhode Island, fishing and eating lobsters and steamers along Narragansett Bay.

So it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that when Cimarusti started to plan a second restaurant, his thoughts turned to the clam houses of his childhood. Connie & Ted's, named after Cimarusti's maternal grandparents, will open its enormous doors in early June.

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Clarissa Wei

Bukkake udon from Tsurumaru

While Japanese noodle fanatics have been gawking over artisanal ramen joints, another type of noodle business has been growing, albeit at a much quieter pace, within Los Angeles. The noodle of choice? Handmade udon.

According to Yoko Isassi, a Japanese cooking instructor in Los Angeles, the composition of udon is quite simple. The basic ingredients are wheat flour, water and salt. "There's typically a 13% gluten content," she says. "Every udon shop has their own specific type of mix."

There are two new handmade udon shops now open in Little Toyko, Marugame Monzo and Tsurumaru, both of which have opened within the last year. Although both restaurants craft udon from scratch, Tsurumaru specializes in Osaka-style udon, while the style of Monzo's noodles originated in the Kagawa Prefecture on Shikoku island.

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B. Rodell

Meat pie at Bronzed Aussie

Despite being a food-obsessed culture, Australia has no true defining cuisine of its own. Massive immigrant populations (Asian, Middle Eastern, Greek and Italian), as well as the country's wealth of seafood, have influenced burgeoning New Australian restaurants, but the traditional food of Australia is basically British food: steak, sausages, fish and chips, boiled veggies, etc.

Australia can claim a few things as its own. Because much of the Italian immigration to Australia happened after the invention of the espresso machine (unlike Italian-Americans, who mainly came to the United States before the machine was invented), many Italians brought machines with them, and Australia has its own coffee culture that has developed over the last 100 years. It's close to Europe in many ways but also distinct.

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A. Scattergood

Ramen at Tsujita Annex

With the dollar-yen exchange rate so good right now, you may be reading this in a Tokyo tsukemen shop. Lucky you. But if you're still in L.A., you might consider heading over to Little Osaka, where the beautiful noodle palace of Tsujita L.A. has recently expanded across the street. Lucky us.

A few weeks ago, Tsujita Annex opened in the space that previously housed the short-lived ramen shop, Miyata Menji.

That Tsujita has expanded should come as no surprise to anyone who has spent time waiting outside the original shop at lunchtime, when long lines often snake down the street as the usual crowd waits for a table at which to consume tsukemen, the dip ramen in which the restaurant has specialized since its opening in 2011, which is served only at lunch.

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Farley Elliott

Chego in Chinatown

Although the official opening date isn't until this Saturday, the new Chego digs inside Chinatown's Far East Plaza has been working out their Ooey Gooey Fries, rice bowls and half-pound Chego Burger for a few days. Papi Chulo himself tweeted out a photo of the full Chego spread a few days ago, which can only mean one thing: It's time to eat.

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Anne Fishbein

interior of now-closed Chego on Overland

From Roy Choi's Twitter feed, and I quote: "We don't think anyone's been as excited about Chego in Chinatown as us. And, well, maybe you. Which is why we're sending you the invite. Finally. Ooey Gooey Fries and Chubby Pork Bellies shall be had once again...With maybe a little ping pong on the side. Trust. It shall be a Grand Opening that Far East Plaza shalt not soon forget."

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Trois Mec

The above (awfully cute) photo is pretty self-explanatory, right? For the uninitiated, Trois Mec is the new culinary experiment brought to you by Ludovic Lefebvre and the Animal guys, also known in real life as Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo.

That's the Who. Where: a kind of reassuringly crappy strip mall diagonally across the street from Mozza and down the street from Street (to orient you, food-wise); no sign other than the defunct Raffallo's Pizza; no valet; opaque windows; locked door till they want you in there. When: began last week, ongoing. Why: maybe ask the chef (Ludo), who will be chatting you up, if you're agreeable and he's in a good mood, as he and his stellar crew serve you very beautiful dishes (on very beautiful actual dishes, some from local ceramicists, some from Ludo's French grandmother, or so he says), which brings us to the ...

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Jessica Ritz

AltaEats

Naming a neighborhood restaurant after its own neighborhood, or what's perceived to be its neighborhood, can be dicey business in greater Los Angeles. Take AltaEats, located on North Allen Avenue near New York, for example.

Chef and co-owner Paul Ragan notes that the restaurant he recently opened with his co-owner and wife Angela Visca falls within unincorporated Los Angeles County, and "I have a Pasadena address. However, we feel it's Altadena." Since the couple lives up the street from their business, and Altadena has historically resisted annexation by its neighbor to the south, AltaEats' name sounds legit enough to us.

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Emily Dwass

Mike Kalenda in the bike shop

The opening of Pedalers Fork was still three days away when cyclist Keith Michaels rolled up to ask for a screwdriver -- not the drink but the tool, which he needed to fix a tire. Bicycle guru Mike Kalenda was already at work in the Calabasas restaurant's on-site bike repair shop and was happy to lend a hand.

Michaels, of Woodland Hills, spoke for many area cycling enthusiasts when he said: "We're all really excited about this. It's amazing. The idea of a place like this is pretty cool."

The eagerly anticipated, two-story, bicycle-themed venue opened this morning in an Old Town Calabasas spot next to the Saturday farmers market. Customers can order organic Ten Speed Coffee, a $10 breakfast or even a $10,000 handmade Moots bicycle.

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