City of Gold

A travelogue of Los Angeles by a failed cellist who drives a pickup truck and occasionally eats out of food trucks. Jonathan Gold was jarred out of complacency by “Forming” by The Germs which prompted him to join the band Overman in the ’80s, so it’s not all that farfetched that his style of criticism has been called “disruptive.” The film smells like a backyard cookout at sunset in a city of food that cannot be found outside of Los Angeles. Seoul food. Genghis Cohen (Chinese-Kosher) and gearhead burgers from haphazard multiple communities between Boyle Heights and Alhambra, Gold visits the restaurants food critics did not go to and wrote reviews that used food as commentary on life in and around downtown LA. When I saw Andrew Zimmern (from Bizarre Foods) I knew there was going to something off-kilter present, and it comes in the form of dishes that range from deer penis to hagfish (which is described as not really delicious gelatinous fillets o slime). From having grown up in LA witnessing knife fights, seeing X and the Screamers and eating at Oki Dog, this writer for The Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly validates the culture of eating in all its diversity and wonder.

[R]