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LA Weekly
Restaurant critic for LA Weekly
PROFILE
Besha Rodell
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FROM Besha Rodell
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
A zero-star rating for starred restaurant reviews A tale of two restaurants. The first is run by world-class butchers, where you see whole animals roasting over a fire pit, and seasonal vegetables are pulled from the nearby farmers market. It’s rated three stars. The second restaurant is a hipster taco joint. Cheap asada tacos with homemade tortillas and buckets of agua fresca made with fresh fruit. It’s also got a three-star rating. Yes, there’s a problem with the starring system when it comes to restaurants. And one restaurant critic is taking a hard look at whether or not she wants to keep using it.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Are L.A. Restaurants Price-Fixing? Some of L.A.'s swankiest restaurants are being accused of price fixing. If you've eaten at upscale places like Republique or Lucques in the last year, you may have noticed that a three percent charge was added to your check to pay for employee healthcare. One customer was unhappy enough with the fee to file suit on Tuesday. She's claiming that the restaurants got together to agree on the charge -- and that's price-fixing.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
The Best L.A. Restaurants of 2014 Where can you find the best meal in Los Angeles? Two prominent restaurant critics duke it out over what place should get top honors for the year. They also talk about the great food spots they agree on, and their secret guilty eating pleasures.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Foie Gras Ban Stands The Supreme Court has refused to review California’s ban on foie gras. What critics had dubbed “the delicacy of despair” was outlawed by California’s legislature in 2002 and the law went into effect in 2014. Specifically, the law prohibits the “force feed[ing of] a bird for the purpose of enlarging the bird's liver beyond normal size” - though possession of foie gras is not a crime. The main foie gras producer and some chefs were outraged - and have been fighting the law since it was passed.
Good Food
40 Oz To Freedom L.A. Weekly Food Critic Besha Rodell won a James Beard Award for her article " 40 oz to Freedom " in the online magazine Punch. She writes that this one bottle taught an entire generation how to drink and how not to drink.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Where Should We Go To Eat? In a land of endless options, it’s an unenviable task to come up with a list of the best restaurants in Los Angeles. But that didn’t stop L.A. Weekly restaurant critic Besha Rodell from giving it her best. She joins us to discuss her list of “99 Essential Restaurants.”
Recommended
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Should we keep rebuilding in fire-prone Malibu? Private firefighters successfully defended Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s $50 million mansion from the Woolsey Fire. Insurance companies with a lot at stake have recently started hiring private wildfire defense teams to protect their clients’ properties.
The Organist
The New World Where do speech balloons come from? How does time move from panel to panel? This week we explore the techniques of comic-book storytelling through Chris Reynolds’s graphic series, newly anthologized as The New World. Join us as we travel deep into the artist’s world to find the source of these bizarrely mundane comics’ depth and beauty.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
What both sides of the US-Mexico border look like as migrants arrive The migrant caravan has started arriving at the border. Thousands are expected over the coming days in Tijuana, where there has already been violence between locals and migrants. North of the border, some 6000 U.S. troops have been waiting. We visit both sides.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Why reading on a page is different from reading on a screen Reading literature not only stirs up empathy, it changes our brains. So what happens to our brains when we no longer deep-read, but skim through pages in between digital disruptions, or read only short blurbs on our phones and other devices?