Grub StreetLos Angeles

• New York
• Los Angeles
• San Francisco
• Chicago
• Philadelphia
• Boston

Everybody's talking Kang Ho-dong Baekjong these days, and today Jonathan Gold breaks down the barbecue spot owned by a South Korean "alpha-wolf extrovert who convulses with laughter at his own joke" who just got his groove back. Enduring the two-hour wait for a table at this pseudo "Korean Hard Rock Cafe," and finds the food is "of surprisingly high quality." Counting six replays of "Gangham Style," Gold notes, "Sobriety is not considered a virtue here" and recommends getting the shaken dosirak, "a Korean kid's lunch box" that "the waiter whangs...around until its contents rearrange into a crude bibimbap." Slipping into his favored, oft-imitated Jay McInerney narrative mode, the critic concludes, "A glazed look overtakes you — beer and meat and soju...You are going to be feeling this in the morning." LAT]

Coffee addiction, coffee obsession, and coffee zealotry are reaching a peak. You may buy your beans at Whole Foods, but a new Travel Channel show depicts the length coffee-hunter Todd Carmichael will go for a cup of mud and a new film called Honduras Coffee Project explores a Central American coffee farm buoyed by Downtown's Handsome Coffee Roasters. To satisfy for your own cravings, you won't need a passport, but you will need to head out to Costa Mesa, where Food GPS spots a new height in twee coffee connoisseurship called Theorum at Portola Coffee Lab at Orange County's O.C. Mix.

We've tallied the random results in our contest for three pairs of tickets to this Saturday's Wine Riot, a difficult struggle with our emotions, as we really wanted everybody who entered to win. But there can only be three winners today, each of which will get a pair of tickets, and three winners we have. Thank you to everybody who sent us an entry. If you still want to go to Wine Riot, tickets for either of the two sessions are available online. To find out who won our contest, simply look beyond the jump below.

A story in Malibu-Patch is setting off a volley of support for chef and co-owner Paul Shoemaker, who announced the closure of his restaurant, Savory, on Wednesday. The article quotes Zan Marquis, Savory's co-owner and landlord as the owner of Point Dume Village where Savory is located, accusing Shoemaker of defaulting on his rent payments, absolving himself of blame in the shutter. The GM of Savory responds that this assertion is "totally distorted," and claims in the comments that she has the "Quickbooks and bank statements to prove it." We asked Shoemaker himself for a response and he says simply, "Absolutely false. Zan Marquis is not a truthful man." And that's not all.