Counter: Vietnamese small plates, Guatemalan big breakfasts

The lamb skewers at Garlic & Chives restaurant in Garden Grove.

Sept. 5, 2015 12:05 AM PT

In between repeating heat waves and much nail-biting over the (now surging, thanks to some serious pitching) Dodgers, summer in L.A. has been a pretty great time for exploring food, particularly from some of the zillion cultures we have represented in this town.

What this has meant this week is a trip to Garden Grove for Jonathan Gold, who reviews a newish small plates Vietnamese place. Barbara Hansen, who wrote for this paper for decades, eats a LOT of Guatemalan breakfasts. Starry Kitchen returns. We check out Chinese-Korean restaurants. And — big news for us — Charles Phan is coming to town to open a Slanted Door. How much do we love plates of Vietnamese food, especially in triple-digit weather? A rhetorical question.

And be on the lookout for Wednesday's In the Kitchen newsletter, with cooking tips and news, including new recipes from the L.A. Times Test Kitchen.

—Amy Scattergood

Sticky rice and garlic fries

This week Jonathan heads to Garden Grove to check out Garlic & Chives, a newish Vietnamese small plates restaurant. Want sticky rice? They have that. But they also have deep-fried salmon belly, toothpick lamb, fried sea snail rolls and, yes, garlic fries. You are in the Mall of Fortune -- maybe check out Brodard while you're there too, which Jonathan likes a lot too.

Kathy M.Y. Pyon / Los Angeles Times

Guatemalan breakfasts for you

If you haven't eaten a proper Guatemalan breakfast either lately or at all, Barbara Hansen finds six excellent versions of one for you. What is it anyway? Think steak and eggs, longaniza and plantains, crema and tortillas — and that's just one plate at Amalia's, a restaurant-and-patio that your car can probably find on its own already, as it's right across the street from Sqirl.

Amalia’s signature breakfast is gargantuan -- steak, longaniza, fried plantains, eggs, black beans, crema and bread or tortillas.

(Amy Scattergood / Los Angeles Times)

The return of Starry Kitchen

For all of you who've missed Nguyen Tran's tofu balls and banana suits since he and his wife Thi ended their latest pop-up, good news for you. Jenn Harris reports that the pair is opening a new Starry Kitchen pop-up later this month out of Button Mash, a new barcade project in a strip mall in Echo Park. This time, with arcade games!

Nguyen Tran and his wife, chef Thi Tran, hold a dish of Singaporean chile crab at Starry Kitchen when it was a pop-up restaurant in Tiara Cafe.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

More fun in DTLA

The renaissance of downtown L.A. continues, this time with the development of City Market South, in the Fashion District. The big news, as Jessica Ritz reports, is that chef Charles Phan (pictured on the left) is opening an outpost of his wildly popular San Francisco Vietnamese restaurant the Slanted Door. That sound you hear is Bay Area transplants cheering. And that's not all that's going into the space: Phan’s new neighbors will include Rossoblù from Sotto chef Steve Samson (pictured on the right), and a bar from barmen Pablo Moix and Steve Livigni.

Chefs Charles Phan (left) and Steve Samson (right), both of whom have upcoming restaurants in the downtown L.A. project.

(courtesy Slanted Door and Sean Murphy)

6 great rosés

S. Irene Virbila has been drinking again, this time exploring the world of rosés — a pretty great wine to drink in the summer. From the whole wall of rosés at Helen's Wines, in the back of Jon & Vinny's, to wines from France and the Central Coast, the pink wine is about more than the cool color.

Rosés come in every shade from pale onionskin to salmon, from coral to rose petal pink.

(Ringo H.W. Chiu / For the Los Angeles Times)

A Chinese-Korean mashup

Love both Chinese and Korean food? Why not consolidate your dining out and have them both at the same time? Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee considers five restaurants in town that blend the traditions of both countries into one menu. That means lots of dumplings, black bean noodles and seafood noodle soups.