UnHip LA

I swear I am not a Foodie but it appears that I blog a lot about food.  This is all because I hang out at BiggestMenu.com.  The site and the friendships I have made there have massively educated my taste buds - I am now a betel leaf addict (Thanks WCX).

So I’m excited to visit two new grocery stores in the SGV:  Whole Foods on Arroyo Parkway in Pasadena, and Fresh & Easy on Foothill Boulevard in Arcadia.  The Whole Foods is a new 77,000 square foot operation that I read has a huge in-store dining area and a quiet room for massages. I’ve always enjoyed eating at Whole Food’s hot food bar, so yay for all this.  Their calendar has some fun (and free) food tastings coming up.

Fresh & Easy is a grocery store concept from the U.K. in which fresh, ready-made foods are available at low prices.  Since I am not much of a cook, I often cruise the ready-made aisles of grocery stores.  This store supposedly is full of ready-mades so I’m excited!  I remember shops like this when I visited London many years ago - I’d just pop in grab a good sandwich and go.  I wished that such things existed here and now they do.  Grabbing a fresh sandwich is much nicer than getting tuna fish in a triangle, something which I’ve done way too many desperate times. Fresh & Easy also appears to have a good corporate culture and offers health benefits to part-timers, how nice.

You can read more about both stores here:
www.freshandeasy.com

www.wholefoodsmarket.com 
Click on Whole Foods link to see their calendar for tastings: December 2, 8, 9, 15th look like good days to shop and snack on holiday foods.  Jonathan Gold in his review of Whole Foods suggests that one could easily make a small plate of samples from the store.

Whole Foods Market
465 South Arroyo Parkway
(South Arroyo Parkway and Bellevue Drive)
Pasadena, CA 91105
626.204.2266 
Store hours: 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., daily

Perhaps I’ll be back with photos.  I wonder what kinds of salads are there.

This looks super-cute. It’s an exhibition of stuffed toys made to look like food.  Tonight’s their opening (with free food) and then the show runs till Dec. 2. 

http://munkyking.com/

This is in Los Angeles on Melrose Blvd, which would be treading into hipLA, but I think for this show it’s worth the risk. 

I caught Ang Lee’s new masterpiece "Lust, Caution" last night.  I left thinking, "Man, Ang Lee is really disturbed and has a wacked-out take on love."  In all his movies I have seen, most notably, "The Ice Storm," "Brokeback Mountain," "The Wedding Banquet." and now LC, I don’t recall any tender romances. Sex seems to mean take people by surprise, wrestle them, inflict pain, and then afterwards pretend like it didn’t happen, but then end up liking the brutality of it all and declaring you’re in love.  Ang Lee is the Ingmar Bergman of Asian directors.  Ah, I would hate to be Ang Lee’s wife!  I give him major props though, the film is beautifullly shot, the costuming exquisite, and the acting cruel but powerful.  Tony Leung and newcomer Wei Tang gave disturbing and daring performances (I suggest they both do a comedy next.).  A matronly Joan Chen gave a fine performance.  I hope they all win awards!

Seeing Hong Kong and Shang Hai during World War II under Japanese rule was quite interesting, especially since I just visited Hong Kong. It’s an international city now and then. I doubt I could ever watch this movie again though.  It left me feeling ill, perhaps this is a metaphor for what the Japanese did to Hong Kong and Shang Hai.

In other tragedy news, I saw "Laaga Chunari Mein Dag" ("I have stained my veil") by Pradeep Sarkar at the good ol’ Naz 8.  It’s been a week or two since I saw the movie and I don’t really think about it, so that puts it at about average fare for Bollywood movies.  I do recall it being entertaining but cheesy at many points, but what Bollywood film isn’t cheesy?  My friend hated it and declared it anti-woman (and he’s a guy).  He actually got mad at me in the car for saying I liked it.  All the acting of the main characters was excellent; they could make this preposterous storyline of a village girl who becomes a high-class escort to support her crumbling, son-less, family pretty believable.  Rani Mukherjee gave a great performance but perhaps even more memorable (or just had the better part) was Kokona Sen Sharma playing her younger sister reaping the advantages of her sister’s sacrifices. Kokona’s character gets an MBA and a great job at an ad agency while her sister meets clients as "Miss Natasha."  Abhishek Bachchan makes a guest cameo which, you know, I loved as I am president of his Meetup fan club (okay, no such club exists but I do love the mischievous yet compassionate Abhi who marries divorcees, prostitutes, and single mothers in his movies.  Abhi is the knight in shining armor.)

So there you have it - two movies I saw recently.  I don’t recommend either, but I bet both will rack up some awards.  Both did have excellent acting.   

Lately after eating bird spit, I have developed an interest in Traditional Chinese Medicine, also known as TCM.  I found out that there is an exhibit on TCM going till Feb. 8 at the Center for Healthy Communities in downtown L.A.  How exciting!  Here are some shots of a great herbal tea brew I drank on a street corner in Hong Kong.  I am not sure what all the herbs were but the pictures show the ingredients. Do you know what these things are?  The tea was warm and sweet and medicinal but in a good way.  I really felt good after drinking it.  My next stop will be to take these pics to a herbal medicine store in Monterey Park and say, please recreate this brew for me. 

I like how this looks like abstract art. 

Exhibit - "From the Abundant Pharmacy: Traditional Chinese Medicine in Los Angeles’ Chinatown”
The California Endowment’s Center for Healthy Communities