Tell you more? It’s halfway over already. Each Saturday this August, there’s a party going on in Los Angeles Chinatown. And it’s free to attend.

If you’ve ever been to a trade show in Taichung, Hong Kong, or Guangzhou, you know nobody parties harder than the Chinese. The LAPD might put the kibosh on epic partying, but still…

There will be food trucks (not free), KCRW DJ’s spinning tunes on the iPods, and my pal Eddie Lin from Deep End Dining leading us into who=knows-what sort of exotic Chinese food with chefs from local restaurant Golden Dragon (5pm – 6pm) and Hop Woo BBQ (8pm-9pm).

I’ll be there for the earlier Eddie show. Come out and rediscover Chinatown.

According to the the Huffington Post and the New York Post, DiFara’s, the legendary Brooklyn pizza shop, has plans to open outposts in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Texas and Arizona. Am I excited? Hell yes. But also concerned that it won’t be the same thing.

The 42 year old  Dominick Demarco, Jr. has plans to expand on the pizza legend built by his father. But here’s the thing – in the Brooklyn shop, Dom Senior makes all the pizzas himself, and has for decades until recent years when his health hasn’t been so hot. Sure, the Grande cheese and the other ingredients matter, but Dom Senior is what makes DiFara’s so good. Can Dom Jr. teach all the minute steps in the pizza making process to someone else? We’ll see about that.

Also according the the NY Post story, the Baker’s Pride deck ovens used in Brooklyn will be replaced with Wood Stone gas and wood ovens in the new locations. The domed Wood Stones don’t cook the top of the pizzas in the same way as deck ovens. I don’t know what Junior is thinking, but he’s already changing what works.

The NY Post story claims that Dom Junior wants to alter the local water to chemically replicate New York City tap water. The myth that NY pizza or bagels can’t be produced outsite of New York is bullshit, and I proved it during my own bagel baking experiments. See also the fact that Joe’s Pizza in Santa Monica is just like the Joe’s Pizza in Greenwich Village.  Joe didn’t foist the NYC tap water lie – Joe himself moved to L.A. and taught his staff how to make the dough correctly.  The fact that Dom Junior is already pitching the water myth sounds like he’s setting up an excuse for failing to produce pizza like his old man’s.

So bring it, Junior. I can’t wait to try the pizza, and I’ll be the first one to say I was wrong if you pull this one off.

Fab’s Hot Dogs, the San Fernando Valley dog house, is moving to a bigger location down the street this spring (or summer). The sausage slingers, slammed since the exposure on Food TV’s Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, needed desperately to expand out of their tiny, nine seat hole in the wall.  The owners confirmed today that they signed a new lease in the Loehmann’s Plaza, down the street from their current Reseda location.

Seating will expand, parking will improve, and hopefully, so will the wait to get a couple of dogs. What makes this place special? For starters, this is L.A.’s only place to get a ripper, a deep fried dog famous in its native New Jersey. Want a grilled dog? Steamed dog? A bacon wrapped street dog? A pastrami dog? Also – tater tots.

Fabs Hot Dogs
Now:
6747 Tampa Ave.
Reseda, CA 91335
818-344-4336

Starting Spring or Summer 2010:
In the Loehmann’s Plaza Shopping Center
Tampa Avenue and Victory Boulevard
Reseda, CA

It’s like when two people you know would hit it off finally meet. This week, Pulitzer Prize winning food writer Jonathon Gold happened (finally) upon my BBQ contest teammate Neil Strawder’s BBQ stand at the Atwater’s Farmers Market. It’s only been a year since Neil quit his banking career to run BigMista’s BBQ full time, Mr. Gold. <\eyeroll>.

Neil tells me that J Gold stopped by at 1:30pm, long after almost everything was sold out. He scraped together a few leftover pieces of meat and made an impromptu sampler plate. Not the best way to impress L.A.’s most influential food critic, perhaps, but what can you do?

In this week’s Squid Ink blog on the LA Weekly, Gold said,

If Bigmista could scrounge together a lunch this splendid from scrapings and bin-leavings, I can only marvel at the possibilities afforded by the food he actually means to sell.

Hopefully, my two friends can start spending more time together, and get to know each other better. If anyone can appreciate the wonders of real BBQ, it’s these two. Congratulations, Neil, for the well deserved props.