Notebook On Cities And Culture

Colin Marshall sits down in Culver City with Matthew Kang, food writer, editor of Eater LA, author of the blog Mattatouille, and proprietor of the Scoops Westside ice cream shop. They discuss the difference between eating on Los Angeles' west side and elsewhere in the city; how he manages to sell that health-conscious region on ice cream; the willingness of eaters, nowadays, to get back to the occasional bit of unhealthiness; how he prides himself on introducing unusual flavors to the public through the friendly medium of ice cream, even when kids' parents insist they "just get the chocolate"; how he got into food writing through Yelp during his previous career as a banking analyst; his explorations of Los Angeles through the Zagat guide and as a "hugely involved commenter" on Eater; what he experienced on his Koreatown days in childhood, an ideal place for him as it provides "Korea, but not in Korea"; what it meant to him when he discovered a time capsule of a greasy spoon buried in a Beverly Hills office bu