LA Weekly’s Gold Standard was basically a dream food marathon come true; a stellar list of LA’s best restaurants all serving their finest dishes in one building. All the food bloggers were there as well has hundreds of others. Everyone seemed happy, even when it got crowded. I was there by 2:30 and knocked out Animal, Providence, Meals by Genet, Renu Nakorn and Chili My Soul before most people had even checked in.
It turned into a day of friendly food competition with notables squaring off:
Palate’s pork
being cooked behind the curtain
vs Animal’s pork belly.
Jazz brought enough food from Jitlada to feed 2,000 people. I ate the dry curry beef before taking a picture…
vs Renu Nakorn who pre-packaged their shrimp,
salmon panang and Thai beef salad.
One of my favorite dishes of the day was Babita’s shrimp topolobampo and gueritos relleno
vs La Casita Mexicana’s green ceviche (another picture omitted due to consumption).
The music in the Tiara Cafe room, supplied with Faux Pho by Chef/DJ Fred Eric (unfortunately not pictured himself)
vs KJAZZ in the other room.
My other favorite thing of the day was Clementine’s hot chocolate. It was so thick it was almost hot chocolate pudding.
My wish would be that there were monthly Gold Standards because it saves me a ton of mileage on my car. It’s also good to see so many foodies in a city supposedly devoid of its own cuisine.
foodmarathon.wordpress.com 
March 16, 2009 at 5:28 pm
sad! no comments! dang, i wish i got there early and was able to try everything. maybe next year.
March 31, 2009 at 5:34 pm
I would think that an LA food convention would appeal to a marathoner such as yourself. Good seeing you there, especially since you missed out on the South Bay Japanese marathon. Tiara Cafe utterly confused me.
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