Travel Channel’s Andrew Zimmern takes on Los Angeles in ‘Bizarre Foods’

Andrew Zimmern, the seemingly up-for-anything host of “Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmern” on the Travel Channel, has shown us edibles like deep-fried chicken gizzard in Minnesota and bull penis soup in Bolivia. Can’t afford the trips or simply don’t want to brave the new menu options? The series lets you discover bugs, guts and other exotic delicacies through Zimmern’s eyes.

And it was only a matter of time before he made it to Los Angeles. The stranger-than-fiction food program attempts to showcase some of the most unique grub in the City of Angels on Tuesday.

“I wanted to do a big city and I love the multiculti aspect of L.A. dining,” Zimmern says. “Ten years ago, I think L.A. got a lot of grief and it wasn’t thought of as a food town. I think that’s changed in the last decade. It’s a case of who’s opening what kinds of restaurants and what kinds of attention it’s getting and I also think the locavore movement really benefits cities like Los Angeles that has such immediate access to food that’s all around them.”

So how out-there is the L.A. food scene? Like some other “Bizarre Foods” episodes, there’s a mix of high-end restaurants, family dinners at home and some of the best street vendors in the area. Zimmern grabs a cow’s tongue torta at a taco truck and Korean blood sausage and pork parts at Western Soon Dae in Koreatown with his doppelganger, Lee Hefter, executive chef of Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining. He also gets a shot of wheatgrass and barley at Mr. Wisdom’s Organic Health Foods Hari Krishna Restaurant in South Central and eats a whole piglet with deep-fried pig’s ears at Ford’s Filling Station in Culver City (pictured). Puck himself makes a cameo before Zimmern nibbles on tempura chicken testicles at the celebrity chef’s Chinois on Main in Santa Monica.

“I think eating and dining are just as valid,” Zimmern says. “It’s just as much fun to sit in a minor league ballpark and watch a minor league game as it is to sit in a major league ballpark during the pennant chase. I certainly enjoyed my taco truck experience with Lee, for example, just as much as I enjoy sitting down to a three-hour food fest at Bastide.”

As the economy suffers, Zimmern says he believes his foreign episodes will have a stronger audience “because the worse things get, the less people are able to travel and the more aspirational they become.” Lucky for Angelenos, he argues that delving into our ethnic-rich boroughs is pretty close to being in the real thing.

“The most important thing with ethnic dining in American cities is that the cooking in ethnic restaurants in those cities is the cooking for subsequent waves of immigration,” Zimmern says.

He argues that the best way to find good ethnic food in your city is to find which group is immigrating there now and head to their restaurants. A good example in L.A. is Koreatown. “The Koreatown Korean food is nearly identical to anything you would find in Korea because they’re cooking for Asian immigrants,” Zimmern says.

Spotlighting these discoveries is all part of Zimmern’s master plan for his show.

“I actually had to fight for domestic shows when we were first putting together the program,” Zimmern says. “I really felt that Americans wanted to see a sense of themselves. And I also thought that the most surprising stuff would be the ones that are right under your nose that you hadn’t thought about.”

Think you can do better than Andrew Zimmern? Share your favorite “bizarre food” find in the Comments.

The Los Angeles episode of “Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmern” airs at 10 p.m. Tuesday, with repeats running throughout the week. Check out the Travel channel’s website for more times, shows and a trailer. Newbie adventure gourmands and those planning their next food vendor field trip can check out the Los Angeles Times guide to Street Food Worldwide.

-– Whitney Friedlander, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Photo: Andrew Zimmern and Eddie Lin of DeepEndDining.com at Ford's Filling Station in Culver City/ TravelChannel.com]

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 13, 2008 at 10:08 am by Whitney and is filed under California, Celebrity, Gourmet, Los Angeles, News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.