Newsletter: Counter: Kurdish cuisine, pambazos and wine

It’s been an interesting week in the world of restaurant criticism, with New York Times critic Pete Wells’ no-star review of Oakland’s Locol, Roy Choi and Daniel Patterson’s northern branch of their Watts “fast food” restaurant triggering not a little conversation. A bit more locally, as it were, Jonathan Gold treks to a Kurdish restaurant to consider what a former scientist from the Iraqi city of Mosul is cooking in a Conejo Valley minimall. What to do with all that free-floating anxiety, political and otherwise? Maybe order a dish named for happy clerics. Right.

In other news, there’s an impressive new wine director in town, a pretty fun food truck for Australian film buffs, restaurant news from Carlos Salgado, and we mark the passing of Bill Coleman, a beloved farmers market farmer.

– Amy Scattergood

More reasons to head to Agoura Hills

If you find yourself craving Kurdish cuisine, where to go? It shouldn’t surprise you that Jonathan Gold is here to help with that, guiding you to a minimall off the 101 where he finds what’s apparently the only Kurdish restaurant in the Western U.S. At Niroj, chef-owner Luqman Barwari has put on his menu kebabs, kunefe and mele gej, something that’s both delicious and worth ordering just for its translation: “Dizzy Clergy.” (Just read the review!)

Kunefe, a desert of shredded filo dough stuffed with Kurdish cheese and topped with pistachios and homemade syrup at Niroj.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times )

Happy drinking at République

Our wine writer Patrick Comiskey gets us up to speed at the Hancock Park bistro République, where when one wine room door closes another opens, metaphorically if not actually. Maria Garcia has just taken over as wine director, becoming one of the most influential Latina sommeliers in the country. As if you needed another reason than chef Walter Manzke’s rotisserie chicken to raise a glass.

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Sommelier Maria Garcia sits for a portrait with a glass of wine at Republique restaurant.

  (Patrick T. Fallon / For The Los Angeles Times)

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Sommeliers Maria Garcia and Taylor Parsons from Republique restaurant are seen in December. Parsons left the restaurant in January, and now Garcia oversees the wine program.

  (Patrick T. Fallon / For The Times)

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From left: 2007 Domaine Marquis d’Angerville Volnay Champans, 2008 Salvioni Cerbaiola Brunello di Montalcino from Italy, 2009 Vignobles Levet Co™te-Ro™tie Les Journaries wine from France, Sandlands 2014 Chenin Blanc California and 2013 Cha‰teau Fosse-Seche Saumur “Eolithe.”   (Patrick T. Fallon/ For The Los Angeles Times )

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An employee prepares food as bottles of wine stand on shelves at Republique restaurant.   (Patrick T. Fallon/ For The Los Angeles Times )

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Bottles of wine rest in the cellar above tables at Republique restaurant.

  (Patrick T. Fallon / For The Times)

Pambazos, in a truck

The next time you work up an appetite by binge-watching all the “Mad Max” movies, maybe head to the Mad Pambazos food truck — where the two chefs who run it have conveniently named the dishes on the truck for the movies’ characters. Fun, right? There are pambazos, which are salsa-dipped sandwiches, and a dozen bottles of hot sauce. And all those pix of Tom Hardy on your iPhone.

The Toecutter sandwich from the Mad Pambazos, a food truck that specializes in pambazo sandwiches.

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times )

A taqueria, an izakaya

Taco Maria chef Carlos Salgado is taking his marvelous food to the desert, helping to revamp a Palm Springs hotel and bar. And in other food and drink news, a popular Mexican restaurant closed after almost three decades in Koreatown, another Blue Bottle coffee shop opened in the Bradbury Building in DTLA (that sound you hear is all the La Marzoccos now running in this town, for which we are absurdly grateful) and more.

Chef Carlos Salgado of Taco Maria in Costa Mesa. Salgado signed on to be a culinary partner at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs, where he’s revamping the menus at the hotel’s restaurant and bar.

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants, the authoritative annual guide to local dining, is online for subscribers and now features his 2016 Best Restaurants. If you didn’t get a copy of the booklet, you can order one online here.

“City of Gold,” Laura Gabbert’s documentary of Jonathan Gold’s Los Angeles, is available on Amazon.

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