Cuisine

  As the sun set over Angkor Wat, the temple built for King Suryavarman II in the 12th century, I nosed my Vespa out into the line of three-wheeled tuktuks, bikes and cars. In my pink crash helmet and Gucci bike goggles, I felt as frivolous as an extra in the '60s movie "Quadrophenia," but my mission was a serious one: I was planning to travel the nearly 200 miles from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh in three days, stopping on the way to sample some of the weirdest and most wonderful foods Cambodia has to offer.

Nobu Hotel, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd. S., Las Vegas; (702) 785-6677, http://www.nobucaesarspalace.com . Doubles $169 to $459 a night. Adjacent to the hotel is the dramatic 12,775-square-foot Nobu restaurant, whose Latin-infused Japanese cuisine (entrees $14 to $95) informs the hotel's in-room dining menu; hotel guests get preferential reservations. At Qua, the Caesars Palace spa, therapeutic treatments are $50 to $1,200.

Re "Mexico Is Savoring Its Roots," June 23: Thanks for the keen insight into changes in Mexico. It really changes my opinion when I read about the country's new trend in cuisine, an "$11.50 dish, a favorite of senators" being a plate of worms. JOHN CROWLEY Redondo Beach

Get a taste of the Maya Empire  - flavored by a touch of California cuisine - at an international chef series underway in Tulum, Mexico .    In May the series, sponsored by Zamas Hotel and Que Fresco ! restaurant, will feature Chef Alicia Jenish of the Grand Café in San Francisco . Her May 4-8 sessions will focus on the café's brasserie style of cooking and incorporate touches of Mexican and Caribbean cuisine. Other chefs and mixologists will lead sessions throughout the rest of the year and into 2014.  "We're excited to have a talented roster of chefs and bartenders visiting us," said Susan Bholken, a co-owner of the hotel.

EVENTS L.A.'s gourmet food truck onslaught has been the culinary story of the last few years. At the KCRW Global Street Food festival, local twitterati will get a reminder that this is how the rest of the world has eaten since well, the first street-side ad hoc stove. "Good Food's" Evan Kleiman hosts a discussion on the scene with Jonathan Gold, chef Jet Tila, Gustavo Arellano and food writers from Malaysia and Mexico City. And, yes, there will be tasting from India Jones, Nom Nom Truck, Let's Be Frank and many others.

Sometimes it's not the places you travel that you remember most, but the people you meet. That's certainly true of Kaaloa's Super J's Authentic Hawaiian restaurant on the Kona Coast on the Big Island of Hawaii. I was on a mission to try as many plate-lunch places as I could. Surely I must be missing something, I thought, after yet another meal of mushy rice, overcooked meat and bland macaroni salad. Then, our last night on the island, our hosts at Pomakai “Lucky” Farms bed and breakfast insisted we try local favorite Super J's. We'd driven past it several times and it didn't look like much, basically a convenience store with some chairs out front.

What can one say except I am in complete agreement with S. Irene Virbila regarding the horror of the near $400 meal served with panache at Bastide ["Foie Gras Pina Colada?" Nov. 3]. The foie gras sorbet did me in. The sauces and/or drizzles on everything clogged the palate. But you said it much better. Thanks for telling it like it is. Jane J. Wallace Los Angeles It was with great dismay and disappointment that we read S. Irene Virbila's review of Bastide. We dined at Bastide and had many of the same dishes she reviewed.

Doug Organ is a good chef, as chefs go, and as chefs go, he's going. Having reigned both as the enfant terrible of local haute cuisine and the darling of the county's self-described "foodies," this 24-year-old master of the roasts and hashes (and the beurre blancs and sautes a la minute) soon will be departing his home range in search of more scintillating foreign stockpots.

I've always had a soft spot for Chaya Brasserie in West Hollywood. I love the soaring emerald bamboo grove in the middle of the room, the charming Asian-accented brasserie decor and executive chef Shigefumi Tachibe's sophisticated French-Japanese cuisine. By all rights, the place should feel dated but isn't in the least. After some 26 years (it opened in 1984), the Chaya brand is still going strong with Chaya Venice, Chaya San Francisco and the newish Chaya in downtown L.A., plus several macrobiotic M Café de Chaya cafes in the Los Angeles area.

In 1889 Richard D'Oyly Carte opened a hotel between the Strand and River Thames that was unlike any other that had ever been built in London. Rising over the ruins of the 13th-Century Palace of Savoy, its seven stories were the first in the city to be constructed of concrete and steel with electricity supplied by its own generating station and a private artesian well supplying soft water. Other extravagances included the 67 bathrooms, elevators panelled in Japanese red lacquer and speaking-tubes that enabled communications between floors.

Eating at Coachella is one of my favorite things to do, and not because the food is stellar. It could be from the exhaustion of running tirelessly over the fields from stage to stage, or the heat, but each year I drop all semblance of a sensible diet and find myself splurging on the deliciously gluttonous greasy-spoon options that dot the field. Sure, there are lighter choices like salads, tofu and tempeh sandwiches, falafel, freshly cut fruit, etc. But after two Heinekens and a dance-off in the Sahara tent with that group of glassy-eyed girls that seems a perennial at Coachella, I prefer to play the game of what's the best worst meal I can find.

Jar hosts guest chefs: Israeli chefs Assaf Granit and Uri Navon of Machneyuda in Jerusalem will be paying chef Suzanne Tracht's restaurant Jar a visit April 13 for a one-night-only dinner collaboration. In honor of Israel's 65th Independence Day, Granit, Navon and Tracht will prepare a four-course dinner comprised of dishes such as sea fish tartare; shikshukit , cooked minced beef and lamb in a Mediterranean spice mixture with tahini and yogurt; calamari with dates, honey, pomegranate concentrate, porcini mushrooms, harissa, cherry tomatoes, confit of onion and garlic with tahigort and burnt aubergine paste; and basbousa , a wet semolina cake with tahini ice cream and fresh fruit.

New head chef at Patina: Joachim Splichal, founder of Patina Restaurant Group, names Charles Olalia executive chef of Patina, his landmark restaurant at the Walt Disney Concert Hall downtown. Olalia, 29, was formerly chef de cuisine and started at the restaurant in 2010 after working as a private chef with Oracle and in the kitchens at the French Laundry in Napa Valley and Guy Savoy in Las Vegas. 141 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 972-3331, www.patinarestaurant.com . New in Silver Lake: Hyperion Public has opened in Silver Lake, serving "contemporary American cuisine with light organic options, paired with craft and local tap beers, wine and cocktails.

Playa on Beverly Boulevard, the 2-year-old "urban Latin" restaurant from chef John Sedlar and his partner, Bill Chait, will close Wednesday. "While the restaurant has been critically successful and John has tremendously enjoyed the creative process of introducing Baja and Mexi-China inspired menus to Angelenos," an announcement said "the concept has not met the high expectations John and Bill set for it when opening two years ago. " ...

Hinoki is a fragrant cypress most Japanese associate with extremely expensive bathtubs, popular with the wealthy because the wood is used to build the soaking tubs at onsen , Japanese hot springs. Hinoki wood is also used to build the counters of the most prestigious sushi bars; long, smooth planks that are sanded every day and given weekly baths of milk. Hinoki & the Bird, on the other hand, is the new Century City restaurant from David Myers, who became well-known as the auteur behind restaurant Sona until it closed in 2010 and who runs the Melrose Avenue brasserie Comme Ça and the South Coast Plaza pizzeria Ortica.

The inimitable Zagat has just released its 2013 "30 Under 30" awards, honoring the top young culinary talents in the Los Angeles area.  The 30 honorees were feted Monday night at a cocktail party at the Emerson Theatre with Zagat founders Tim and Nina Zagat on hand to do the honors. The Zagat survey, which started as a homemade newsletter and morphed over the years into a publishing juggernaut, has embraced the digital age. The guides are now online, and coverage of this event included a live feed  and a Google+ Live Hangout.

Like a classic storybook bistro, with smart burgundy awnings, lacy curtains and flower boxes at the windows, Mantee exudes a warm and welcoming aura. So why is the small dining room so empty? Because most diners at this diminutive Lebanese-Armenian restaurant are eating out back in the impossibly romantic leaf-shaded patio with its lush potted plants massed in every corner under the golden light of Parisian-style iron street lamps. And the guests? They're partying like there's no tomorrow.

The inimitable Zagat has just released its 2013 "30 Under 30" awards, honoring the top young culinary talents in the Los Angeles area.  The 30 honorees were feted Monday night at a cocktail party at the Emerson Theatre with Zagat founders Tim and Nina Zagat on hand to do the honors. The Zagat survey, which started as a homemade newsletter and morphed over the years into a publishing juggernaut, has embraced the digital age. The guides are now online, and coverage of this event included a live feed  and a Google+ Live Hangout.

Culinary students, listen up. It's not the most scintillating headline, but SF chef and author Joyce Goldstein 's piece " Culinary tradition needs to be taught " in the San Francisco Chronicle food pages is worth reading if you want to be a cooking professional. After recounting an episode during a class she was teaching at the Culinary Institute of America's Greystone Campus in St. Helena, Goldstein gets to the point: "I think what really surprised us was our realization that today you don't have to know about or be in love with food to attend cooking school.

In celebration of Chinese New Year, the Hammer Museum    published Los Angeles Times restaurant critic Jonathan Gold 's picks for the best regional Chinese food in Los Angeles. It's your map to the San Gabriel Valley by regional cuisine. Beijing style: Beijing Pie House , 846 E. Garvey Ave., Monterey Park. Try the lamb pie and pan-fried meat cake. Chengdu style: Lucky Noodle King , 534 E. Valley Blvd., #10, San Gabriel, (626) 573-5668, www.luckynoodleking.com.