The street
Pico Boulevard one of the most interesting in the city. It starts at the beach in Santa Monica and runs all the way to the southern section of downtown Los Angeles. It rides alongside cemeteries, parks, hoity toity golf courses. It begins with in an area of opulence, and ends in
Skid Row. Most interestingly of all, it hits probably the largest variety of the ethnic clusters of the city (going west to east): Persian, white, Jewish Orthodox, African American, Ethiopian, Korean, Guatemalan, El Salvadorian, Oaxacan, and many other Hispanic groups.
Magically, amazingly,
Jonathan Gold (the first food critic to ever win the Pulitzer) decided to spend a year eating at
every single restaurant on Pico Boulevard. I cannot imagine taking on such a task, but he went through to the end. Gold is a huge advocate for great traditional food that comes from those with little money. He is known for finding the abandoned hidden-gem Thai place and making it a huge success. He describes the health inspection rating system for Chinese food as: "'A' stands for American Chinese, 'B' stands Better Chinese, and 'C' is Chinese food for Chinese." He's a god to the Los Angeles food world, with hard core fans that go here he goes and eat the same insane/spicy/strange dishes that Gold orders. By giving a glowing review of a struggling place, he can save it from closing down.
Gold's objective while eating on Pico was to go to every restaurant eat the most traditional/famous thing on the menu. This led to some usual and not-so-usual suspects of shenanigans. He wrote a short article about his experience in the
LA Weekly, but there was also an excellent segment on it in a
This American Life episode. It’s the last act and starts about
40 minutes in. Highly recommend giving it a listen.
