Page 4 - Uncle Anthony News Today

Mcdonalds. and if it was a birthday and a special celebration, you wanted to kick it up a notch and go a little bit more special, then it was sizzler. >> anthony: this is a judgment-free zone, where there are no mistakes, a world to explore incongruous combinations without shame or guilt, free of criticism from snarkologists, because there are no snarkologists at sizzler. >> david: obviously heres all the accouterments for making a nice nacho, taco salad. and here is -- >> anthony: right. >> dav...

>> anthony: here at sawada, step right in to some curried goat, samosas, tandoori chicken. oh, yeah, and this -- lahori fish curry, with no small amount of chilies. >> anthony: its such fragrant, aromatic, delicious food. >> roy choi: this is really good. >> anthony: what good food are you likely to find within the confines of koreatown? >> roy choi: we have el salvadoran and guatemalan all around. koreans all throughout. pakistani and bangladesh food. yeah, oaxaca takes over all of eighth stree...

>> anthony: a few blocks over, the iconic filipino fast food chain, jollibees. laugh all you want, but ask any filipino. they love this drive-through mutation for specialties like this fried spam sandwich thing. but its the desserts where it gets really crazy. >> anthony: decisions, decisions. >> roy choi: here we go. uh, well take one aloha burger and then one spam little big bite. >> cashier: all right. anything else? >> roy choi: uh, lets do a halo halo, and thats it. all right. >> anthony: o...

This is what were known -- its thinly sliced rib-eye, marbled rib-eye. >> anthony: oh, its beautiful. roast gui. thin-sliced rib-eye. and bulgogi. thinly-sliced, fat-marbled beef, barbecued table-side. >> roy choi: for us koreans, its kind of funny that barbecue has become the gateway to our food, though. >> anthony: hey, it could be worse, i mean -- >> roy choi: it could be worse, yeah. >> anthony: at least its delicious. >> roy choi: its delicious and were like, "okay, this is the, this is the...

>> anthony: did cops come at all? >> roy choi: i was here all three days. i didnt see any cops. >> anthony: well, where did they set up their front line? >> roy choi: rodeo drive. >> anthony: where did the forces of law and order set up their perimeter? not here. koreatown was left to its own devices. the official borders are third street on the north end, olympic boulevard to the south, vermont avenue on the east, and western avenue to the west. thats three square miles left pretty much to burn...

>> roy kim: uh, no. >> roy choi: yeah. [ laughter ] >> roy kim: well, he still controls the restaurant. >> roy choi: you just do the work. >> roy kim: i just do the work. [ laughter ] as a korean, he knows. >> anthony: we start with bonchon, all those delicious little freebie plates of pickles, preserves, kimchi, a spicy squid snack or two. no bonchon? no meal. >> roy choi: and you know what this restaurant has that a lot of restaurants are going away from? is the, um, is the chair-less rooms. >...

Low-riding. >> estevan: the old timers, they used to cut the coils or put bricks or sandbags in their trunk to make them lower. and then around the 70s is when it got popular. >> anthony: why these particular models of cars? >> estevan: its pretty much always been, uh, late 50s, all the way through the 60s, and into the 70s. and then the 80s came up. they started bringing in the cadillacs and the regals. the most classic, well-known car for low-riding probably is the 64 impala. >> anthony: how m...

>> anthony: what do you do if youre a locavore in l.a.? you look around. whats local and delicious, artisanal and authentic, and as iconically l.a. as it gets? if youre roy choi, you see tacos. and with kogi truck, roy choi brought one of the first great mutation mash-ups of korean and mexican to the people. what started as one truck became four trucks and three brick- and-mortar restaurants to go with them. >> roy choi: for me, kogi was always one truck in my mind. but then the lines got big, y...

Mix it in. >> roy choi: mm, thats good. >> anthony: mm. yeah, all tofu should be spicy, by my way of thinking. its so good. >> roy choi: yeah, its really good. >> anthony: koreans can well remember when nobody was interested in their food. now its confusingly au courant. must be strange for the owners, whove just been doing what theyve been doing for years. >> roy choi: like, for example, like, us sitting here like this, the questions a lot of people are asking me in korean, like, im telling the...

Theres no reason to congratulate you, because this is like what we do. >> anthony: that sounds awful, honestly. that sounds, like -- totally joy -- >> roy choi: thats my -- life, man. >> anthony: totally joyless. >> roy choi: yeah. >> anthony: uh, what did your parents want you to be when you grew up? >> roy choi: for me, a doctor or lawyer. >> anthony: right. youre obviously not a doctor or a lawyer. did you finish college? >> roy choi: i finished college and i went to one year of law school an...