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: [...]

Respect and a check with C.R.A.C.

PHOTO by ANGELICA GARDE
Two sentences into a C.R.A.C. interview (“This is Ta’Raach.” “This is Blu.”) and they run right to fundamental questions of craft and creation before they even sit all the way down—is Pete Rock the best producer because he has the best record collection? Does Blu need more [...]

Busywork and its year of total harmony

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY
When Dan Sena co-founded Busywork with fellow resident DJ GMO (Guillermo Arce) his life was in limbo: He’d been floating between various dead-end temp jobs and his band, Bullet Train to Vegas, was stuck working on a doomed follow-up to 2005’s We Put Scissors Where Our [...]

Pupusería San Sivar’s puffed-up pleasures

PHOTO by RICK POON
Even if you can’t see them, chances are the staff at Pupusería San Sivar can see you. That’s partly because of the two-way mirror that feeds into the kitchen, but it’s mostly just a simple fact of the lunch rush, the staff spread thin by eaters packed in [...]

German Pilsner

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Pilsner is a light-colored, yet incredibly delicate and flavorful beer with historical ties to Pilsen, Bohemia, in the Czech Republic. The naturally soft waters of the region allowed brewers to be the first to make their beers with a base entirely of pale malted barley, absent of “specialty” grains. Early pilsners [...]

The frightening beauty of Six Foot Owl’s ‘Closing Thoughts’ tees

Most of Six Foot Owl’s hand-painted T-shirts and jackets verge on being a bit too romantic for my tastes. The “clothing art company,” founded by high school friends Brianne Cirel and Johnie Thornton, plays with images both sorta cute (piano keys, telephone poles, ants tracking down [...]

Matt McCluer starts band, IHOP closes

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY
Two years ago Matt McCluer released his last official solo record—at least he says it was his last. A Good Day to Rock was 15 home-taped pop songs with ooh-ahh harmonies, double-tracked vocals and therapeutically selfish breakup lyrics, opening with “I fell off the earth/but I promise [...]

What makes Moscow Deli the most worthwhile is its fresh foodstuffs. For the obvious entrée, order the pirozhki, which are baked to a golden brown and stuffed with chicken. Unlike the Polish-style pierogi, the pirozhki benefit here from the addition of yeast in the dough, which lightens the football-shaped puffs to dinner-roll-like levels. For possibly [...]