Breakfast the next morning was at OTUS Thai Kitchen & Coffee (1253 N. La Brea Avenue. Tel: 323-969-8611. www.otuskitchen.com) on the edge of West Hollywood. Chef and owner June Kasama’s pretty sidewalk cafe, named for the superior Otus camera lens, is an innovative breakfast-driven entry in L.A.’s prominent Thai scene.
Growing up in Northern Thailand, she loved going to market and cooking with her mother. Coming to L.A. to pursue a master’s degree in economics, her passion for food led to “helping out” at a traditional Thai restaurant. Faced with selling the business when the head chef suddenly retired, her career took an unexpected detour.
“The prospective buyer suffered a heart attack just before the contract signing,” recalled the sweetly shy Kasama. “But my mother’s fortune teller advised me to keep the restaurant.”
Even after a subsequent kitchen fire, Kasama was determined to proceed. Renovating the space into a bright modern eatery with seating out back, she revamped the menu based on her passion for breakfast.
OTUS Thai Kitchen & Coffee Chef-Owner June Kasama (Photo by Jeff Heilman)
American staples like French toast and pancakes share the menu with Thai classics like kai-kata, a Thai-style egg bedded on ground chicken with Chinese sweet sausage and green onions. “It’s a Joke” is her hearty riff on classic Asian rice porridge (congee, or jok in Thai), topped with a poached egg, shittake mushrooms and fresh ginger. Her Vietnamese coffee infused with fresh orange and vanilla is a sweet surprise.
Featuring produce from the West Hollywood Market and ingredients from a Thai market downtown, Kasama’s MSG-free menu includes lunch and dinner dishes such as khai soi, a classic Northern Thai curried noodle soup.
Peruvian cuisine is also widespread in Los Angeles, with Mario’s Peruvian & Seafood (5786 Melrose Avenue. Tel: 323-466-4181. www.mariosperuvianseafood.com) in Hancock Park among the trusted mainstays. Squeezed into a tiny corner strip mall, the no-frills space, offering a 40-plus item menu of appetizers, soups, salads, and beef, poultry and seafood dishes, was packed for lunch.
I’m used to modest sized ceviche appetizers. Not here. My entrada of ceviche mixto was a plate piled with lemon-dressed raw fish, shrimp, octopus, and squid, plus onions, spices, and boiled potatoes. This was the real deal, along with saltado de camarones, shrimp sautéed with onions, tomatoes and cilantro. It’s all I had room for.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House (www.barnsdall.org/hollyhock-house) provided the first of several cultural intermezzos. Dating to 1921, Wright’s first L.A. commission sits atop East Hollywood’s Barnsdall Art Park alongside the L.A. Municipal Art Gallery. Evoking an ancient Mayan-meets-Egyptian temple, the newly renovated building is one of eight major Wright works nominated for UNESCO World Heritage listing in the 2019 round. Featuring panoramic views of the Hollywood Hills and L.A. Basin, the park sits within Little Armenia.
Lunch With Susan Feniger
Julia Child with Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger
In 2018, celebrated chef-restaurateurs, TV personalities and cookbook authors Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken became the first women recipients of the annual Julia Child Award from The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts. Established in 2015, the award recognizes “an individual (or team) who has made a profound and significant difference in the way America cooks, eats and drinks.”
The business partners, who met in the all-male kitchen of Chicago’s Le Perroquet in 1978 and were close with Child, are pioneers on several fronts. Their L.A. fame began in the 1980’s with their eclectic, globally inspired menu at City Cafe and successor CITY Restaurant. In 1985, after discovering the tastes of Oaxaca and the Yucatan from their Mexican colleagues, they toured Mexico in a VW Bug to immerse themselves in the recipes and ingredients of authentic street and homestyle cooking. The result was Border Grill (www.bordergrill.com), their groundbreaking Modern Mexican restaurant, food truck, and catering concept.
From the plantain empanadas and Peruvian ceviche to the Mexican chopped salad and roasted cauliflower, their adventurous spirit was present in every bite of my lunch with Feniger at the Downtown L.A. location (445 S. Figueroa Street. Tel: 213-486-5171). My favorite was the sensational sweet potato and black bean taco, enlivened by grilled corn relish, poblano peppers and, house-pickled onions. With outdoor patio seating, this lively urban cantina features stylish Mexican-inspired murals throughout.
They have also long been at the forefront of community support. “Giving back is a huge part of what we do,” said Feniger, whose leadership includes 14 years on the board of the multi-venue Los Angeles LGBT Center (www.lalgbtcenter.org), which turns 50 this year.
With roles including co-chairing Simply diVine, an annual fundraiser featuring L.A.’s most popular restaurants, wineries, spirit vendors, distilleries, and craft breweries, Feniger’s latest initiative is spearheading a culinary arts training program for LGBTQ youth.
Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger
Photo: Anne Fishbein
“Offered at the Center’s new multi-million-dollar inter-generational Anita May Rosenstein Campus, our commercial teaching kitchen will prepare kids to work in the restaurant industry. They will also cook meals for resident LGBTQ seniors. Graduating up to 100 students each year, it will also provide these young kids, many displaced or kicked out of their homes, with the family foundation that restaurants provide. Young talent in the kitchen keeps me young—I am incredibly excited.”
–Jeff Heilman
