Tag Archives: food

Downtown Eats

November 28, 2017 Shelly Hacco

By Shivam Goyal

As most USC students know, there are plenty of places to eat around the school area. Ethnic cuisine, fast food, and even some awesome dessert places are all located within a mile of our beautiful campus. However, USC students also have another great asset on hand – Downtown LA, where several fun restaurant atmospheres exist and are perfect for when you want to try something new. I spent last summer trying to discover new eateries in downtown so that I’d have new food choices during the school year. I found out that downtown has a multitude of cuisines for all different people, whether they are looking for something fast, formal, or even unique!

Wokcano (800 W. 7^th Street) is a Japanese sushi and noodle restaurant located about 7-minutes away from the USC Campus (when driving). They provide premium sushi for a low cost, as well as an affordable happy hour. I would describe the environment as casual and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for small portions of Asian cuisine on any given night. I tried the Pad Thai and it was one of the best noodle dishes I’ve had since coming to USC.

Another excellent choice, for those of you looking for a quick meal or drink, is Sixth Street Tavern (630 W. 6^th Street). It is a small bar with excellent appetizers and a relatively affordable happy hour menu. This restaurant caters primarily American dishes, with a few ethnic options mixed in as well. I have tried the Grilled Cheese at Sixth Street and I will definitely be going back for more!

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Travel

The Delicious Joy of Malaysian Food Culture

May 30, 2017 Shelly Hacco

By Ida Abhari

My summer as an intern in Southeast Asia, broadly, and Malaysia, specifically, taught me a lot of things, ranging from the serious, like the intricacies of refugee resettlement, to the surprising, like the importance of food culture in Malaysia.

Malaysians, whether Chinese, Indian, or Malay, take eating very seriously. Everyone warned me that eating out in Malaysia would be cheaper than buying groceries and cooking. Since I really enjoy cooking, I didn’t want to believe them, but after several grocery trips and hundreds of ringgits (Malaysian currency) later, I was forced to admit that eating out was infinitely more desirable.

Malaysian cuisine is rich in flavors. The most ubiquitous dish is nasi lemak, a dish consisting of rice steamed with coconut milk and pandan leaves, served with fried chicken and a boiled egg. Malaysians don’t pronounce the “k” in nasi lemak, and I was also surprised to learn that nasi lemak is also often eaten for breakfast, albeit in smaller portions. Another ubiquitious and delicious food, roti canai (pronounced with a “ch”), is a flatbread cooked with copious amounts of oil and can be filled with eggs, onions, or other savory or sweet fillings.

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L.A. Life, Uncategorized

Must Try Places For Those With A Sweet Tooth

April 10, 2017 Shelly Hacco

By Jasmine Zahedi

Last year at my club volleyball banquet, I received the “most likely to find a five-star ice cream place anywhere” award. A running joke with my coaches and teammates is that no matter where we travel to for our tournaments, whether it’s Louisville, Kentucky or Kansas City, Missouri, I’m in charge of Yelping and finding the best restaurants for dinner and dessert. I pride myself on this skill and am particularly confident in my ability to choose the best places to satisfy a person’s sweet tooth. My personal favorites in Los Angeles include:

Magpies Softserve

Silver Lake

I first tried their soft serve with some of my teammates, who also have a sweet tooth, after our annual club volleyball holiday party. What impressed me the most was actually not the soft serve itself, but the chocolate honeycomb I chose as a topping. The honeycomb added a perfect “crunch” to already decadent soft serve. Fun fact: all their soft serve flavors and toppings are made in-house.