Welcome to DiningInLA.com! We eat, write, think and take in the spectacular, sexy, occasionally seedy but never-stagnant qualities of our city.

We live in Silver Lake, over on the northeastern side of things, and slowly we're building our culinary experiences. Select a Category on the right to get started.

Know a place we should try? Leave feedback or click the Contact link to suggest new places to tickle and tantalize our taste buds (but without silly review-style sentences like that one).

Dave and Bianca

So as you've probably surmised--after checking this site three times daily for the last couple of weeks, as my dreams tell me--the reviews have slowed.

It's purely scheduling. School has started, with its heavy load of reading and writing, and several work projects have swamped my everyday doings and reduced them from wild culinary shenanigans to a bleary-eyed, late-houred routine.

Some reviews are waiting in the wings.

Dave

I have a question for you.

For the most part, the focus of the rapidly expanding universe of the "food blog" has been to display the cuisine. People write about their experiences, posting large photos of salivation-worthy edibles, stacked atop each other. Sometimes the stack of big, heavy photos is the entire content of the entry.

When I read food blogs, I prefer some kind of textual content, some cleverness or insightful writing or indication of "I know what I'm talking about" experience. I need more than just a stack of "OMG I wanna EAT that" plates that take several minutes of scrolling.

When I started this site, the images were pretty small, accents to the posts themselves, like "pull quotes" for a magazine article. The text wraps around the images like a news column.

Dining in L.A. has been, and continues to be, a forum for my writing. I like my bar set high. It should be able to stand on its own as content without imagery, like an entry in Counter Intelligence.

I have no idea whether DILA accomplishes this.

I'm thinking about the photos on this site. The photos have always been taken with an eye toward looking good, nicely cropped and shined up, but still fairly small. They have grown over the years since what we've described has needed more detail.

I can put larger ones here, ones that span the entire width of the column, breaking the writing into blocks. I can continue as is, as I believe the thought outweighs the visual. I can, of course, do both. Some upcoming reviews seem to need big photos, like the lovely vegan pizzas from Cruzer, so I'll try it out. Let us know what you think.

So my posts are starting to get comments which are obviously spam: a line or two of vaguely appreciative near-English, a fake email address, and a link.

Examples:

"I came across your blog, i think your blog is cool, keep us posting."
"Interesting post i totally agree with the comments above. Keep writing"
"I see a lot of interesting articles here. Bookmarked"
"Nice post, i think i saw something similar on http://{spammy URL inserted here} and they talk about similar issues."

... This one has its own emotional stuff to work out, I guess:

"@Markus I get your drift on where you were going there. I often think of my past and use it as a means to analyze where I am and where I want to get to. Where I struggel is balancing it all out. How do you guys balance things out?"

... And I like this one, translated apparently from Martian:

"I like MAC very much,i think the brand is our ladys' love.
but i think MAC Gel Eyeliner is so decipensiveas to out of our phrase.
it's special for these young ladys who just have a low salry job. Though we can buy the charming goods in those brand's shops ,we can get it from internet with lower price ,
it's said that buying MAC Concealer and MAC Makeup Brushes will get MAC Brow pencil discount,
that's great!,it's good for our ladys to get it asap!"

... [sic]!!

They do it so that if the comment appears on my blog, they've got a free link back to their spammy site, which makes Google think that lots of people link to them, making them appear valid and pushing them higher in the rankings. Gnome-Sayin'?

Hey, I think it's a good thing. It means at least the spambots have found me out, so my blog is not as near the bottom of the web heap as it could be. I just delete the comments and move on.

However, I got this one:

"Just want to tell you that your website content is interesting, but you must improve site design"

... Hey, you machine-packed tin of pork meat! You bonavasitch! This is based off a b2evolution template, yes, but all the graphics are mine, you reprobate! Why I outta!

Wonder what makes them think a comment like that would go unnoticed.

So I gave some hand-wringing excuses, begged your indulgence, and allowed myself to ease up on reviews while I desperately tried to get work done, write some essays, and read some textbooks.

I promptly got sick. The fever thing, the congestion thing, the cough thing. A small squad of antibiotics and other assorted pills later, and I recovered.

Then the cough returned, with a revenge complex. I have been sounding like the end of any movie with a Doc Holliday character in it, and generally suffering from malaise and exhaustion. A stronger dose of antibiotics and a steroid medication later, and I am pulling through it.

So I am short on reviews. I've been recovering with some ramen from Mr. Ramen, some tenshin men from Koraku, some matzoh ball noodle soup at Billy's, and spicy Thai broth from Wat Dong Moon Lek. Lunch during work has been quick jaunts to Tarascos and Las Glorias and Bulan Thai.

Hopefully we'll have some new experiences for you, soon.

Dave

Probably, if you're one of the four or five dear, kindly people who visit this site, you've noticed the frequency of reviews has been a bit like a receding hairline.

I like to blame terrorists and penguins, because it's easy and fun. I look up from my work and realize oh, pus and hellation, my last review was five days ago. Bad blogger. No taco.

But, I may also take a bit of time off, for three primary reasons:

1) Work. My schedule has been fairly frantic and cramped, and my radius of lunchtime eateries has been swept like a radar screen. When I am hunkered down over a stubborn bunch of code, I am unable to escape for a leisurely lunch to visit somewhere new.

2) School. This is another semester of twenty or so books to read for classes, and it eats most ravenously into my food-writing and research time. I am more likely to be on JSTOR at the moment than on Yelp.

3) Health. I, shaking my head sadly over test results, am doing some battening of the hatches. Some numbers are too high, others too low, and while I slaver at the thought of writing about pancakes colored with a latticework of pale cream and grilled brown, or glistening, chewy-at-the-corners heaps of carnitas bursting with their own porkiness, I need to take a break.

Ah, but Dave, isn't this simply an opportunity to review healthy and vetegarian places? Sure, and I will. I haven't yet been to Paru's Indian on Sunset, or the Elf Cafe in Echo Park, Cinnamon in Highland Park, or even Cru, which is close enough to visit on foot. But there aren't that many. Besides, I am unlikely to bother reviewing a fair chopped salad at a restaurant renowned for its juicy, near-blasphemous steaks. It's unfair to the restaurant, and you.

It's not forever. I do have some reviews lined up and will post them, and will always continue to gather new worlds to conquer. This is my second-to-last semester before graduation. My culinary choices will be spread with moderation. Cobwebs will not accumulate.

Thanks as always if you've been here.

Dave