The line to get into LA Weekly's Gold Standard 2012 on Sunday snaked and curved through the second floor of the Petersen Automotive Museum.
These were VIPs, who had paid a premium to get in an hour early but had to wait as if they were common folk.
The crush was in part a tribute to restaurant critic and Pulitzer Prize winner Jonathan Gold, who has left LA Weekly, making this the final Gold Standard, the last chance to pick up an LA Weekly wine glass, to wipe one's fingers on an LA Weekly napkin and to taste food from places singled out by Gold in his LA Weekly reviews.
Aisle after aisle of booths dispensed as eclectic an assortment of food as you could find in one place, attesting to Gold's wide-ranging tastes.
There were generous amounts of baked goods, ice creams and gelato and plenty of wine, beer and mixed drinks. It seemed as if LA's top purveyors wanted to honor Gold by providing really good dishes and generous tastes.
Ink showed off its modern LA cuisine with "tacos" of beef tongue and beef tendon in lettuce leaves, not tortillas (above). What looked like cheese on top was horseradish snow.
Cacao Mexicatessen handed out suckling pig carnitas with beans and the trimmings on crisp tortillas (above).
If you were hungry for braised pig tails, The Spice Table had them (above).
Lukshon, which produced one of Gold's 10 Best Dishes of 2011 (stuffed Monterey squid), offered tastes of salt-cured Hawaiian butterfish with northern Thai namjin sauce.
Jitlada provided its southern Thai dishes, and Night + Market posted its menu (above) in Thai as well as English to make sure everybody understood. Its spicy sausage bites were pure northern Thai, unaltered for timid American tastes.
Chefs Jaime Martín del Campo (left) and Ramiro Arvizu of La Casita Mexicana brought chocolate and ancho chile tamales along with a couple of their moles.
And Tsujita L.A., from Sawtelle Boulevard's Japanese restaurant row, plated artful arrangements of flounder and tuna sushi (above).
It was a hot afternoon, so cold drinks were in demand, like Lotería Grill's pineapple and prickly pear agua fresca (above).
Ice creams also went fast, including Saffron Spot's cones of saffron silk, rajbhog and mango ice creams, dished up by Smita and Dr. Kishore Vasant (above).
Bulgarini Gelato scooped up flavors such as pistachio, plum, strawberry and salty yogurt topped with olive oil.
No sooner were you in the door than you came to Nickel Cafe's tempting strawberry crumble donut holes. And when you finished one of those, you could move on to Meyer lemon or bacon and maple donut holes.
Huckleberry must have brought its entire stock to the tasting. Its lavish display of cakes, cookies and other treats (above) never seemed to run out.
Short Cake, the new bakery in the Original Farmers Market, had plenty to offer too, including cute heart-shaped brownies, silky peanut butter bites and brunettes, which are like blondies but made with dark sugar and topped with pine nuts and thyme leaves.
Mozza didn't bring pasta or pizza but butterscotch puddings (above) accompanied by rosemary pine nut cookies.
The prettiest dessert came from Starry Kitchen (above). The cool little cups contained lychee panna cotta with a tracing of salted plum sauce and a flower.
The tasting lasted from 1 to 5 p.m., an hour longer for the VIPs. Even that much time wasn't enough to taste everything. One has to marvel at the way Gold ate all this and much, much more during his days at LA Weekly.
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