Bakery on Figueroa, year unknown. From the LAPL Photo Collection.

Cathy from Gastronomy Blog is full of good ideas. For instance, San Gabriel Valley eaters have her to thank for the handy acronym for the impossible-to-remember JTYH Restaurant: Justin Timberlake, You're Hot! Easy, right? You'll never embarrass yourself in front of the Chinese knife-cut noodle set again thanks to Cathy.

But perhaps her best idea to date is EAT MY BLOG, a blogger bake sale benefiting the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. As soon as she sent out the call for blogger-bakers, I offered to help, and joined Laurie from G-ma's Bakery and Diana from Diana Takes a Bite on the planning committee. Several weeks, hundreds of emails, forty-plus bakers and one planning dinner at Canelé later, the sale is on and I couldn't be more excited.

Click here for the full-size menu.

Come out to Zeke's Smokehouse this Saturday, December 5th from 10 AM to 4 PM and pick up treats like pear and walnut mini coffee cakes, pumpkin swirl brownies, rose and sweet corn macarons and orange and saffron caramels. There will be a couple vegan options and some gluten-free goods as well. Everything will be priced from $1 to $3 and all proceeds will go to the LA Regional Food Bank, which provides food to the hungry all over LA. Rob and I spent one Saturday morning volunteering there, building bags of food for the elderly, and I can personally vouch for the important and inspiring work they do. (You can read more about the LA Regional Food Bank here and find out how to volunteer with them here.)

I'll be making black sesame cupcakes with matcha frosting and cranberry caramel almond tarts, should you want to eat my blog, but no matter what, this Saturday's sale should be a great time. Just ask this guy, who clearly understands how fun baking can be:

Icing a cake, year unknown. From the LAPL Photo Collection.

EAT MY BLOG
Saturday, December 5th from 10 AM to 4 PM
Zeke's Smokehouse
7100 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90046

UPDATE: The event was a huge success, selling out in the early afternoon and raising $3,000 for the LA Food Bank. Take a look at Cathy's write-up and photos for more details. Thanks to all the bakers and sweets eaters who stopped by!

Taking pictures of noodles.

I was jet-lagged after a four-day trip to Massachusetts, tired from a late-night arrival and subsequent full day of work, and cranky after a long search for parking. But there was no way I was going to pass up the Thai boat noodle battle organized by Tony C. of Sinosoul, a soupy showdown in Thai Town sure to satisfy my craving for real Thai food. (An ill-advised visit a couple days before to Thai Place in Salem, MA -- not my idea and not recommended -- had only sharpened my craving.)

Jade noodles.

In one corner: Sapp Coffee Shop, made famous by its appearance on No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain. Our table of eleven annexed the center of the restaurant, but the staff was smiling and calm despite the big group. At my end of the table, Jessica, Louise , Maya and I chowed down on jade noodles -- a tangle of pale green soup-less noodles dotted with peanuts, herbs and chunks of barbecued pork -- while waiting for our boat noodles.

Sapp's boat noodles.

We didn't have long to wait. We moved our plates aside for the steaming bowls of thin rice noodles and dark broth, the table quickly filling up with orders of #2 (boat noodles) and #3 (boat noodles with offal). In Thailand, where boat noodles (kuaytiaw reua) were once sold from boats floating in the canals in the central region of the country, you are given your choice of noodle type and meat. What anchors the bowl is the intensely dark, chili-flecked broth which, if made well like Sapp's, hits you with a wave of beefy flavor that just keeps going, deep and endless as the ocean. (Mmm...boat noodle ocean...) As an added bonus, the bowls at Sapp are garnished with chicharrones, which soak up the broth and turn into beautiful little sponges of juicy, chewy porkiness. Before I knew it, my bowl was empty and it was time for round two of the showdown.

Dad finishes the noodles.

But first Tony came around to check on us. One thing I really enjoy about eating with Tony is that afterward he inspects your plate to make sure you ate everything and urges you to eat more if you didn't. He's like a Chinese mom. But at Sapp he also turned into our dad and finished off the noodles that didn't get eaten, head bent over the bowl, intent on not wasting a single noodle. It was awesome.

Ord exterior. Ol' Grumpy Jackson is inside.

After a brief stop at the dessert shop next door, we walked down the street to the second competitor: Ord Noodle. With its peeling white Eames shell chairs and chartreuse walls, Ord looks a bit like a down-at-the-heel Pinkberry, young families and tattoed Thai kids filling the tables and posters of weird comedy acts covering the walls. Unfortunately the staff seemed none too pleased to see such a large group walking in about 15 minutes before closing and we were grumpily told to wait while they pushed a few tables together. Most of us were already pretty full, but luckily Ord offers boat noodles in both small and large sizes. They also give you a choice of noodles, so I tried the wide rice noodles for variety. I wouldn't bother specifying a spiciness level, though -- while distributing the bowls, the waitress responded to "Is this the medium spicy?" with "It's the same thing!" while stalking moodily back to the kitchen. Excuuuuse me, Crabby Gabby.

Ord's boat noodles.

Ord's broth was quite different from Sapp's: sweeter and spicier with a more pronounced star anise flavor. It was also murkier, settling into layers after sitting undisturbed for a minute, and missing that mile-long finish. I liked the slippery bounce of the wide rice noodles, but the tripe and beef slices didn't seem as fresh as Sapp's, and let's be honest: noodle soups are all about the broth. From a brilliant stock comes brilliant broth, and I am not alone in my obsession with the ideal stock; in Le Guide Culinaire a certain Mr. Escoffier writes, "Indeed, stock is everything in cooking...Without it, nothing can be done. If one's stock is good, what remains of the work is easy; if, on the other hand, it is bad or merely mediocre, it is quite hopeless to expect anything approaching a satisfactory result."

Sounds so dire, doesn't it? It is quite hopeless to expect anything approaching a satisfactory result. HOPELESS.

If you couldn't already tell, Sapp's boat noodles were the big winner for me, as were the panchi from Bhan Kanom we got on the way back to our cars. Crisp and toasty on the outside, warm and soft on the inside, these sweet little cakes of griddled taro and coconut were just the right finish for our boat noodle battle.

Thanks to Tony and the other bloggers/eaters not mentioned above -- Alexandria, Marie, Pauline, Rick, Sook, Wesley -- for a fun night of noodle gluttony!

Sapp Coffee Shop
5183 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 665-1035

Ord Noodle
5401 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 468-9302

Bhan Kanom
5271 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 871-8030

Isaan, the northeastern region of Thailand, is the poorest area of the country, beset by droughts, floods and depleted soil, making for a hard-scrabble life as far as eating goes.

Yet somehow the food is seriously great. Isaan cuisine is more sour and spicy than what is found in nearby Central Thailand. Som tam (green papaya salad) -- a.k.a. the dish I'd most like to be stranded on a desert island with -- is from Isaan, where it is served with sticky rice rather than the usual steamed jasmine rice. Sticky rice is the staple crop I'd learn to grow on my island, in case you didn't know. If it wasn't for the whole girls-getting-married-when-they're-as-young-as-14-for-the-dowry thing, I'd wish I had been born in Isaan, so I could have spent as many years as possible eating the food.

Perfect sticky rice.

So I was excited for Khun Dom, a Thai restaurant in a barren region of Melrose, an area beset by graffiti, exhaust and generally awful traffic, making for a hard-scrabble life as far as eating goes. The place secretly specializes in Isaan-style salads, a fact apparently unknown to most of the patrons, who load their tables with pad Thai, fried wontons and the other usual Thai menu suspects.

Nam tok and greens.

With that in mind, Rob and I ordered three salads: beef nam tok (grilled beef salad), nam kao tod (pork and crispy rice salad) and som tam with dried shrimp, along with the essential sticky rice. After the rice arrived, wrapped neatly in foil, the beef nam tok appeared, accompanied by a plate of Thai basil, Chinese long beans, cabbage and other greens -- the perfect thing to munch on between fiery bites of beef. (It wasn't until my first visit to Thailand that I realized why my dad used to often chow down on, say, a fourth of a head of cabbage alongside his stir-fry and rice. I always just thought he really liked cabbage.) The nam tok ended up being Rob's favorite dish, the grilled beef dripping with spicy lime dressing and meaty juices.

Lovely and tasty nam kao tod.

The nam kao tod was the highlight of the meal for me -- I loved the gingery bite and the slick, crispy bits of rice -- but what made it even better was following up each mouthful with a chomp of fresh greens and a chunk of perfectly cooked sticky rice. Isaan synergy! The rice was a restaurant sticky rice revelation, delicately chewy, without the unfortunate soggy spots often found at the bottom of bowl.

Som tam, you are too sweet.

The only disappointment was the som tam, which was overly sweet and not spicy at all. Next time I'll try the blue crab som tam instead of the dried shrimp.

There's no alcohol on the menu, but I bought a beer at the shady liquor store next door, which the waitress kindly opened for me and poured into a frosty glass. Sitting in Khun Dom sipping a cold beer and munching on nam kao tod and greens could almost make me forget I didn't go to Thailand with my sisters this summer. I'll just pretend it's my own Isaan desert island.

Bliss.

Khun Dom
4681 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90029
(323) 663-1086