A plea for tenderness with Thee Makeout Party

As you’d expect from a band with a song title just one letter away from Wreckless Eric, Anaheim’s Thee Makeout Party have a bratty power-pop sensibility that’s struck a chord or three amongst the adolescents (and Adolescents) of Southern California. (Though bassist Lee Rickard also skates like Tony [...]

Whether you’re looking for something light enough to forget the effects of last night’s reunion with Jack and José, or you just want to indulge yourself before the clock strikes noon, an omelette is almost always the best choice—you can’t go wrong with a couple of eggs stuffed with whatever’s clever. But if you want [...]

Tacos carved to order at El Toro Bravo

PHOTO by RICK POON
There’s a steady pounding pouring out of El Toro Bravo, an uncertain sound like the dull thud of a drum in the distance. You can hear it from the parking lot, but you can’t see it—pull up to the place at any regular hour and [...]

Weird horror with Chris Isaak

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY
Chris Isaak has made a career out of singing like Roy Orbison, looking sort of like Morrissey and acting in movies like That Thing You Do and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. His best records echo Orbison or Presley’s finest but just missed our current dark period [...]

Mother’s Market
While other gourmet grocers are spreading out beyond organics (jumping onto and over the “green” trend), Mother’s Market has kept its shelves healthy. The market has always done that, though—the place has long been as much a vitamin and supplement shop as it is a traditional market. So it’s not surprising that all the [...]

Central to the restaurant’s neighborly enthusiasm is Plums’ excellent breakfast. Thanks to the restaurant’s cold-weather style, the menu brings a most welcome addition: fish. Unlike the café’s Oregon pepper bacon (heavy slabs outlined with black pepper), its seafood dishes (an alderwood smoked salmon hash, a Dungeness crab and asparagus omelet) still eat light and are [...]

Peter Hook in motion

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY
Right before Peter Hook—New Order and Joy Division’s ex-bassist—picked up deejaying, a friend warned him: the loneliest place in the room was behind the turntables. Despite the thousands of people in front of you dancing, you’re totally alone up there. “When you’re deejaying, there are no fans,” Hook says [...]

North by Northwest at Plums Café

PHOTO by RICK POON
There’s a sharpness in the air around Plums Café, a clean scent that makes for the kinds of brisk breaths that usually only occur when flowers and trees all exhale at once. It’s hard to notice at first, but that crispness is part of Plums’ patio, a [...]

What makes Pupusería San Sivar’s pupusas remarkable isn’t just variety—it’s that each one fluffs up in the same style as a flour tortilla, lightened to the point that they might as well be injected with air. It’s with that puffed-up edge that the pupusas are able to fare so well as a meal of their [...]

YACHT and Mika Miko make the end of the world even weirder

YACHT started as the acronymic pen name (Young Americans Challenging High Technology) for Jona Bechtolt, then beating up a MIDI controller and a PowerBook while screaming out Scout Niblett covers and Donnie Darko references. Back in 2004, his only record was Super Warren MMIV: [...]