We have some issues with Chrissy Teigen’s guide on where to eat in Los Angeles - Los Angeles Times
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We have some issues with Chrissy Teigen’s guide on where to eat in Los Angeles

Chrissy Teigen has a new website and a guide for where to eat in Los Angeles.
Chrissy Teigen has a new website and a guide for where to eat in Los Angeles.
(Christopher Polk / Getty Images)
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Chrissy Teigen doesn’t know it, but she’s my pretend best friend. And sometimes (she doesn’t know this either) best friends get into fights.

The model, cookbook author and TV host is beautiful, her family is beautiful and everything she touches is beautiful (and turns to internet gold). On Monday, she dropped a new website, CravingsbyChrissyTeigen.com, devoted to all the things Teigen likes to cook and eat. There are recipes, of course, and links to her enamel cookware collection at Target plus cute home videos of the fam: husband John Legend, daughter Luna and son Miles.

And then there’s her list of where to eat in Los Angeles.

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On it, there are several categories including Asian, Mexican, BBQ, Italian, sushi, meat, fried chicken, breakfast and dessert. I appreciate that the Chrissy Teigen food pyramid includes “fried chicken” and “sushi.” But I’ve got some issues with the rest of this list.

Where to begin. There are just three sushi restaurants, none of them from Little Tokyo or Sawtelle. But Nobu Malibu is on the list, as is the $275-per-person kaiseki restaurant n/naka, where just one of the more than a dozen courses is sushi.

There are five “Intercontinental” restaurants (including Vespertine) and just three Mexican restaurants. Looking for Sonoratown, Guelaguetza, Guerrilla, Broken Spanish, Teddy’s Red Tacos, Mariscos Jalisco — I could go on forever — on Teigen’s list? Sorry, you won’t find them.

Instead, Teigen lists a single Mexican restaurant, a single stand and a single taco truck. Though she questions actually including the truck on the list because she’s afraid “they will never be avail” to come to her house again.

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Of Cactus on Vine Street, Teigen advises: “Wash it all down with horchata (a cinnamony almond drink that’s much more delicious than it sounds).”

She lumps Korean barbecue, Vietnamese, Thai, Taiwanese and Japanese food (and, oddly, a Vegas-originated Cajun seafood restaurant called Hot n Juicy) under the “Asian” category. There is not a single restaurant in the SGV on this list.

There’s also this:

“If you need to ease into Asian foods, try the fried chicken sandwich (one of their signature dishes), crab and cream cheese filled wontons and sweet and salty chicken wings,” Teigen writes in her list of dishes to order at Night + Market, Kris Yenbamroong’s trio of excellent Thai restaurants. Why not add the orange chicken from Panda Express to that list?

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The list skews a little basic, with recommendations for the Polo Lounge (home of the $60 Niçoise salad) and Il Pastaio, the celeb magnet in Beverly Hills.

“We go there for lunch a lot,” Teigen writes of Il Pastaio. “We love the pastas. If you can get them with truffles, do that!”

You know who else recommends getting a truffle shower on your pasta at Il Pastaio? Foodgod, a.k.a. Jonathan Cheban, a.k.a. Kim Kardashian’s best foodie friend.

I respect Teigen and her opinions. I respect where she likes to eat. I’m also happy for any restaurant in Los Angeles that gets a shoutout from a big celeb. But if you’re going to publish a guide on where to eat in Los Angeles, do your fans and yourself a solid and eat at some Korean restaurants that don’t serve barbecue, explore where and how the states of Mexico are represented in Los Angeles and please, please visit the SGV.

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