Perhaps the single most important draw at Pâtisserie Chantilly is an appropriated staple of most Japanese pastry shops—the cream puff. Here, the pâte a chou dough succeeds in its seeming imperfection—craggy spheres that actually look as though they’ve been touched by human hands. And instead of a precise injection of cream, Chantilly’s filling nearly spills [...]

Pâtisserie Chantilly’s creamy dreams

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Most of Pâtisserie Chantilly’s pastries are a matter of memory, classic concoctions of culinary history so baked into our collective consciousness they’ve become monuments to the French tradition. Some were born between the walls of stately palaces; others received simpler, less immaculate conceptions hundreds of years ago. But centuries-old [...]

There are, of course, segregated sections of Kotosh’s menu that list distinctly Japanese and Peruvian dishes, but the best and most interesting offerings come from when Kotosh lets the two cuisines collide. One of the best examples is the tiradito de atún, a Peruvian-style tuna sashimi that pays its respects to both ends of Kotosh’s [...]

Beyond fusion with Kotosh’s transcontinental tastes

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Kotosh seems like it is a world away, located a stuttering drive down PCH past tangles of pipes and smokestacks and into those worn-down blocks beyond the 710. But that’s only half the trip. The rest finishes up in Lomita, where palms shoot up from nearly every [...]

Rolling Blackouts borne out

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY
“I was borne out of being average because of my rock band,” said D. Boon once, pestered and pissed-off and pushed in an interview, and that is a part of the South Bay SST ethic to revive and admire—not just the built-in DIY anyone-can-do-it but the idea that anyone [...]