Valentine's Day -- that hulking Cupid of a holiday -- is just around the corner. And as it lurches toward your person toting its painful little arrows, you suddenly realize one of two things: You are either uncomfortably single; or you are blissfully attached but wholly unprepared to satiate the monolithic desires of your loved one when it comes to the expectations of the ultimate Hallmark card holiday.

Well, relax. Taking your date out to eat is always a fine plan. And fortunately for you, Los Angeles' restaurants are dolled up and ready for your Sunday arrival. Just make that reservation, and don't forget the flowers. Here's your guide:

Photo: Sweet treats at Zov's Bistro for Valentine's Day. Credit: Zov's Bistro

 

All recipes that appear in the L.A. Times' Food section are tested and perfected in our Test Kitchen before they're deemed fit to print. (That means you don't have to worry about a trial run before serving one of our recipes to company.) Rest assured, they should work the first time out of the gate. Here's a look at this week's recipes:

Beijing-style pork and cabbage dumpling filling

Boiled dumplings

Humphrey's Restaurant's Cajun shrimp and corn chowder

Lao Yi's boiled beef and leek dumpling filling

Momofuku's Crack Pie

Shrimp dumpling filling

Want more? Check out our recipe collection at www.latimes.com/recipes -- and bookmark it. We're constantly adding new dishes.

-- Rene Lynch

Join us on Twitter @latimesfood and Facebook at facebook.com/latimesfood

Photo: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

Wal-Mart is in the news today:

The retail giant has a program called Heritage Agriculture that's bringing local and organic produce and meat into its stores. So, the Atlantic's Corby Kummer bought a big supply of ingredients from Wal-Mart's local selection, bought the same ingredients from Whole Foods, and staged a blind taste test with a bunch of foodies. Read the rest:

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Procter & Gamble Co. announced plans to produce “family-friendly” television programming that will serve as a vehicle to  advertise dog food, batteries and cereal sold by the companies. The first venture -- first reported by the Wall Street Journal -- will be a two-hour movie that will air on NBC on April 16, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, and P&G, the biggest packaged goods company, said Thursday in a statement. Bloomberg reported that the adventure movie, “Secrets of the Mountain,” features a single mother and her three children who use P&G's Duracell batteries for flashlights and feed their dog the company's Iams pet food, said Jeannie Tharrington, a spokeswoman for Cincinnati-based P&G. The family eats breakfast cereal from Wal-Mart's Great Value private-label brand, Tara Raddohl, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman in Bentonville, Ark., said by e-mail.

Photo: Associated Press

On Saturday, amid the cacophony of firecrackers and other pyro-noise, most of China will be up all night to welcome in the Year of the Tiger. In the north, that will mean televisions blaring, watermelon seeds cracking, mah-jongg tiles clacking and, most important, people wrapping and eating dumplings:

Dumplings resemble the ingots that once were China's currency, so eating them brings hope of an auspicious and fortunate year. Some cooks even stuff a lump of sugar in a dumpling to ensure sweetness, and sometimes, a coin is hidden inside. If you don't break a tooth, you're considered lucky for the year.

Want to make your own dumplings? Read the rest of Lillian Chou's report from Beijing -- and her recipes for all sorts of dumplings.

Photo: Lillian Chou / For The Times

"I just picked this from my backyard" is a phrase usually supplied by someone handing over a clump of kale, or maybe a calla lily bouquet. But it could easily apply to a pot of herbal tea.

It's completely doable here in California, where mild weather allows any backyard garden to become its own Celestial Seasons. Camomile, thyme, rose hips, ginger, endless varieties of mint, lemon grass and lemon balm, and even allspice all can be grown relatively easily, and all make great herbal teas. Tempted?

Check out Los Angeles-based garden guru Lili Singer's story about growing tea in the garden.

Photo credit: Karen Tapia-Andersen / Los Angeles Times

Rain was pouring down when the doorbell rang. “Something in this package smells like it’s burning," the UPS driver told me as he handed over the bulky package. I checked the return address. "You know why? It's hickory-smoked bacon from Tennessee!" I said. And does it smell smoky!

I’d called Benton's last week to see what happened to the order I’d put together with several friends. “Mr. Benton is in the smokehouse smoking it now,” the voice on the other end of the phone told me. Great! The bacon is so famous, they sometimes run out of it for weeks on end. 

My husband had used the last of our Benton’s bacon to make Bacon Dashi with Potatoes & Clams from the Momofuku cookbook by David Chang (Clarkson Potter, New York, $40). Although I loved the flavors in the dish, I thought using a pound of that sublime hickory-smoked pork belly to make a double recipe of bacon dashi was a waste of good bacon. My husband, of course, didn’t agree, but promised he'd lay in a new supply.

And so now, our entire kitchen smells like great smoky bacon as two big 13-pound slabs sit there ready to be divvied up. I’ve been hooked on Mr. Benton's bacon ever since we ordered our first batch several years ago.

You can order the bacon vacuum-packed and thick-sliced (minimum order 4 pounds), or get an entire slab. Shipping is by UPS, and a $3 handling and packaging charge is added to the UPS shipping quote.

We’ve now got enough for a summer’s worth of BLTs or corn chowders. If it lasts that long.

Benton's Smoky Mountain Country Hams, 2603 Highway 411, Madisonville, TN 37354; (423) 442-5003. Thick-sliced bacon, $5.25 per pound; slab bacon, $4.59 per pound. Shipping (at least on my order) works out to just over $1 per pound.

-- S. Irene Virbila

Photo credit: S. Irene Virbila

 

Who would have expected it? The best plate of fries in Los Angeles is hidden in a Lebanese kitchen, completely invisible in the back corner of a Burbank strip mall, near a gigantic neon clown sign hawking liquor.

The place is Hayat's Kitchen, and the dish is potatoes harra, and this may be the only place in the universe you can get this particular version, with freshly fried American-style French fries in a pool of fragrant olive oil, doused with sautéed cilantro, red pepper flakes and . . . what's this white goopy stuff? Is it melted cheese? Nope, it's pungent, creamy garlic paste. This plate of fries is so intense and over the top that you might be able to use it to revive the recently deceased.

And then there are the desserts....read more here in C. Thi Nguyen's report.

Valentine's Day comes every year in a dust devil of chocolates, heart-shaped cards, cupids, Necco Sweethearts and dread. But this year, it's so much more: this year, Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year happen on the same day.

This is a rare convergence -- it's only the third time since 1900 -- and it won't happen again until after 2030. Added to that, it's the year of the Tiger, which traditionally symbolizes great passion. All of this can signal only one thing: No one should be staying home eating bon bons on the couch. It's time to paint the town red, which is the color of Chinese New Year, after all.

So whether you're going out with a loved one or just gone head-over-heels in love with yourself, Los Angeles is hosting plenty of parties for the fun-loving or romantic-leaning person over the Valentine's Day weekend. Go get 'em, tiger: Here's your nightlife guide.

Photo credit: Richard Derk / Los Angeles Times

 

Researchers at Dartmouth Medical School analyzed the use of food, beverages and restaurant brands in the top 20 movies for each year from 1996 through 2005. They concluded: "Food, beverage, and food retail establishment brands are frequently portrayed in movies, and most of the brand placements are for energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods or product lines. Movies are a potent source of advertising to children, which has been largely overlooked."

Read the rest of the story at our Booster Shots blog:

Photo credit: Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times

Entertainment Weekly divulged which chefs will grace the upcoming cast of "Top Chef Masters," Season 2. We're seeing a few repeats here, as local chefs Ludo Lefebvre and Mark Peel will return. Govind Armstrong, who judged an elimination challenge last season, will come back to compete in Season 2 as well. Kelly Choi will return as a host, and Susan Feniger will make her first appearance as a contestant.

Here's a full list of contestants:

Jody Adams -- Rialto Restaurant, Cambridge, Mass.
Govind Armstrong -- 8 oz. Burger Bar, Los Angeles
Graham Elliot Bowles -- Graham Elliot Restaurant, Chicago
Jimmy Bradley -- The Red Cat, New York, N.Y.
David Burke -- David Burke Townhouse, New York, N.Y.
Wylie Dufresne -- wd~50, New York, N.Y.
Susan Feniger - Street, Los Angeles
Debbie Gold -- The American Restaurant, Kansas City, Mo.
Carmen Gonzalez -- Chef Consultant, New York, N.Y.
Maria Hines - Tilth, Seattle
Susur Lee -- Madeline's, Toronto
Ludo Lefebvre -- Ludo Bites, Los Angeles
Tony Mantuano -- Spiaggia, Chicago
Rick Moonen -- Rick Moonen's RM Seafood at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas
Mark Peel -- Campanile, Los Angeles
Monica Pope -- t'afla, Houston
Thierry Rautureau -- Rover's, Seattle
Marcus Samuelsson -- The Red Rooster, New York, N.Y.
Ana Sortun -- Oleana, Cambridge, Mass.
Rick Tramonto -- TRU, Chicago
Jerry Traunfeld -- Poppy, Seattle
Jonathan Waxman -- Barbuto, New York, N.Y.

-- Krista Simmons

Follow me on Twitter @kristasimmons

Illustration credit: Bravo TV

Bastide, the on-again-off-again-on-again restaurant on Melrose Place, is now open for dinner. The restaurant-cum-bookstore (an Assouline book shop is located inside) has been serving lunch since December. Chef Joseph Mahon says he is "focusing on technique- and ingredient-driven food and flavor combinations that are traditional and refined and interpreted in our vision. We want it to be a touch more accessible than what it has been in the past. I hope people will feel at ease coming in."

There are steak frites, braised lamb shanks, roast chicken, sous vide salmon, tarts, soups, oysters, a selection of composed salads and crudo, Mahon says. "I love the yellowtail," he says. "The yellowtail is browned with brown butter, sliced thinly and marinated with white soy." 

Mahon will be blogging about dishes at his new website, www.chefjosephmahon.com. "I'll be updating three or four times a week, describing specials and dishes and stuff that's going on in the restaurant. With any types of special there's a picture with a short description."

For anyone hoping to spend Valentine's Day on the romantic patio at Bastide and doesn't already have a reservation for dinner, the restaurant is booked. "Valentine's is just one of those days," Mahon says. "Hopefully, we'll be as busy on other days."

8475 Melrose Place, West Hollywood, (323) 651-5950.

-- Betty Hallock

Photo of kampachi and watermelon dish by Joseph Mahon, from www.chefjosephmahon.com

SEE THE NEW MENU. 

Last week, Matt Geller, vice president of the SoCal Mobile Food Vendors Assn., told us he'll be opening up a mobile food truck lot in Little Tokyo at 216 S. Alameda St. The project is on schedule, and the mobile food court will open Thursday for lunch service.

Readers of our last post expressed hopes that there would be more than the three to four trucks per service Geller had planned, but their preliminary posted schedule shows that the lot is currently sticking to those numbers. Here's the lineup at present:

Thursday, 11 a.m.

• Kabob N' Roll
• Tasty Meat
• Vesuvio

Friday, 11 a.m.

• India Jones
• Komodo
• Slice Truck

Friday, 5 p.m.

• Flying Pig
• Fresser's
• Grilled Cheese Truck
• Sweets Truck

Saturday, 5 p.m.

• Barbie's Q
• Frysmith

-- Krista Simmons

Follow me on Twitter @kristasimmons

Photo: Let's Be Frank hot dog cart. Credit: Stefano Paltera / For The Times

Headlines from today's L.A. Times

-- Reporting from Port-au-Prince: Since Haiti's founding, its important institutions have had foreshortened lives: The presidential palace has been burned down twice and again lies in ruins. Thirty-two rulers have been toppled. One leader was thrown out, returned and was sent packing again. U.S. troops ran the country for nearly two decades, left, came back and left again. Over the last century and a half, though, against considerable odds, one national institution has survived intact -- Rhum Barbancourt.

-- William "Bill" Binder, who for years ran Philippe's, the Los Angeles eating institution famous for its sawdust-covered floors and trademark French dip sandwiches, has died. He was 94.

-- Farm Aid: Meet the volunteers of the Santa Monica farmers market.

-- Hide your Fritos. First Lady Michelle Obama might be coming for them. Just joking. The White House officially launched its fight against childhood obesity Tuesday morning, and a task force that will help bolster Obama's national public awareness campaign. "I love burgers and fries, and I love ice cream and cake, and so do most kids," the first lady told Robin Roberts on ABC News' "Good Morning America." "We're not talking about a lifestyle that excludes all that...The question is how do we help people balance that out..." OK, we can live with that.

-- Edible art: Fallen Fruit teams with LACMA to encourage fellowship surrounding food.

-- Rene Lynch
On Twitter @renelynch

Photo: Haitian sugar cane growers have been hard hit by the Jan. 12 earthquake, as have Barbancourt's own workers. One-fifth of the rum maker's employees were left homeless. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Amid concerns about corrupt practices in the food industry, nine people have pleaded guilty to charges including racketeering, money laundering and bid-rigging in a federal probe of SK Foods:

To his friends, Randall Lee Rahal was just a food salesman, someone who routinely left his home on Shadyside Road in Ramsey, N.J., to crisscross the country hawking California tomatoes.

The 61-year-old sold them pureed. He sold them crushed. He sold them roasted and mashed into paste. His clients were food manufacturers, supermarket chains and other commercial buyers who turned his products into soup, ketchup and salsa.

But in the eyes of the Justice Department, Rahal was Tomato Enemy No. 1 -- a produce scofflaw who allegedly peeled off $100 bills and carried cash-stuffed envelopes to bribe buyers from leading food companies in a decade-long racketeering scheme that may have led to higher prices for consumers at the grocery store.

In a series of court filings starting in 2008, federal prosecutors in Sacramento allege that Rahal, nine others and SK Foods of Monterey, Calif., used more than $330,000 in bribes from 1998 to 2008 to subvert competition and nail down deals to sell the company's tomato paste, peppers and other products to Kraft Foods Inc., Safeway Inc., Frito-Lay North America and B&G Foods, among others.

-- P.J. Huffstutter

Read more here in today's Business section.

Photo: The conveyor belt at a tomato paste production facility. Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times

There's a new address to remember for anyone interested in cocktails. It's not a rum bar on a lonely stretch of Western Avenue on the edge of Hollywood. It's not a swank lounge on La Brea, nor is it another downtown speakeasy. It's 320 Main, a three-month-old near-the-shore steakhouse in Seal Beach where owner Jason Schiffer has crafted a menu of classic drinks and original cocktails, such as his Gaucho Cowboy -- an Old Fashioned made with rye and tequila.

The bar is stocked with spirits such as Hirsch small-batch bourbon, Bols genever and Damrak gin, Zaya rum, and Metl Silver Mezcal. You'll see Schiffer behind the bar, a black trilby on his head and a shaker in his hand. Locals have taken note.

"We just came in one day and Jason was handing out tastings of cocktails served in shot glasses and we said 'Ok!' " says one local, sitting at the bar with his better half. He may be partial to Kona Longboard Island Lager, but her usual is now Schiffer's Sagabatida (Sagatiba cachaca, coconut syrup and fresh lime juice). "I love the coconut," she says.

Classics on the menu include a Mai Tai featuring Appleton Estate 12-year rum and the Corpse Reviver No. 2 with Hayman's Old Tom gin, Cointreau and Lillet, each followed by a paragraph-long description. Schiffer's own creations include the Muskrat Hunter -- Hirsch bourbon with Damiana, orange Fernet and bitters -- and the Scintillator -- Zaya rum with Grand Marnier, absinthe and bitters.

His Moscow Mule is made with Russian Standard vodka, fresh ginger puree (instead of ginger beer) and fresh lime juice, served in a traditional copper mug. "People love the mug," Schiffer says. Perhaps too much. "They keep taking them."

320 Main St., Seal Beach, (562) 799-6246, www.320mainsealbeach.com. Open Tuesday to Sunday.

-- Betty Hallock

Photo: Betty Hallock

When Melkon Khosrovian and his culinary-school-trained wife, Litty Mathew, founded Modern Spirits in Monrovia five years ago with the goal of making and selling their own artisan vodkas, they focused on finding just the right balance of Belgian chocolate to orange zest and celery to Malabar peppercorns. They figured well-honed palates and "beautiful, expensive bottles" would be enough to successfully enter the burgeoning artisan distilling market.

They were hardly prepared for many of the day-to-day challenges, such as navigating state liquor regulations, battling with large spirits companies for retail store shelf space, and persuading consumers to pay top dollar for a hand-crafted product. As Khosrovian and many of his juniper berry-obsessed colleagues have discovered, the daydreams of selling small-batch, hand-crafted spirits on the merits of taste alone are hardly reality in a business dominated by large corporate distillers with deep advertising pockets that offer similar, and often less expensive, products. Read more here:

Photo: Modern Spirits' infused vodkas, from left, pear-lavender, chocolate-orange, and tea. Credit: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times.

Because I apparently had nothing better to do while watching the Super Bowl on Sunday afternoon, I busied myself by eating Fritos and guacamole -- the calorie count tempered with the occasional cherry -- and took notes on all of the food-and-drink-related commercials.

By my count there were 22 total, six of which were for Budweiser and Bud Light and three of which were for Doritos. Also adding to the lineup were: Snickers, Coke, Papa John's Pizza, Dr Pepper, Carl's Jr., Denny's, Jack in the Box and Taco Bell. Conspicuously missing was Pepsi.

Also conspicuously missing? A big laugh. Although Super Bowl XLIV reportedly had the most ads of any Super Bowl, for my money, it also had one of the most uninspired groups of Super Bowl commercials I have ever seen. And I've been watching. I dated a football fanatic for 10 years (one who made me memorize every team in the league, and quizzed me regularly on the rules of play -- the abuse!).

The only chuckle I got was during the Bud Light commercial featuring Auto-Tune and T-Pain. Auto-Tune is zeitgeisty thanks to Mr. Pain, and just absurd enough coming out of the mouths of a bunch of geeky football fans, to be truly funny.

The most disappointing commercial for me was the Simpson's spot for Coke. The bizarrely off-key half-time show featuring the Who and the Tron-like light show was naturally imbued with more scathing "Simpsons"-esque satire than that commercial had in a single pixel. What a wasted opportunity to bring the funny.

Open for only a couple of weeks, Elements is a sophisticated restaurant with a grown-up design scheme that is tucked into the side of the historic Spanish colonial building occupied by the Pasadena Playhouse. The restaurant is the joint effort of executive chef Onil Chibás and chef de cuisine Alberto Morales, who also run Pasadena's Elements Catering and Elements Café.

With Elements Kitchen, they have stepped squarely into the world of fine dining. And they've done it with creativity and verve. Read more here:

Photo: Beefsteak tomato tartare at Elements restaurant in Pasadena. Credit: Glenn Koenig, Los Angeles Times

 

Let's see if we got this straight: McDonald's will help you dunk like LeBron, Snickers will keep you from playing football like you're Betty White, dogs will do anything to get their paws on Doritos, and having a house made out of Bud Light cans would be really cool. Think Sunday night's Super Bowl seemed like it had a lot of ads? You're right. Commercials took up nearly 48 minutes of the game — the most for any Super Bowl. Read the rest of the story, and watch ad highlights, here.

Photo credit: (AP photo / Doritos)

 

Sugarbird Sweets has expanded from its original lineup of marshmallows and now sells hand-blended teas and dainty scones. You may have seen my friend and proprietor Kei Okumura's Sugarbird stand at the South Pasadena and Larchmont farmers markets.

Among her most popular teas, named after friends' children, are Fiona, a blend of organic rooibos with red raspberries, vanilla seeds, honey, rose hips and hibiscus flowers, and Zoe, a blend of organic green tea, mint, vanilla seeds and cacao nibs, inspired by chocolate mint ice cream. Mini scones have chocolate chips or mixed berries in them. And her latest marshmallow flavor is Meyer lemon with vanilla.

And as Valentine's Day approaches (still scrambling for a gift?), Okumura has put together a special Valentine's Day box that includes her specially blended Valentine's green tea (called Aileen) -- with berries, rose and hints of chocolate. Also in the box are marshmallows and another bag of tea of your choice. She has collaborated with XT Patisserie to include a dozen assorted macarons from pastry chef Xuan Ngo (whose macarons are nothing less than extraordinary).

Sugarbird Sweets & Teas Valentine's Day box: $47, available at www.sugarbirdsweets.com.

Larchmont Farmers Market, on Larchmont between 1st and Beverly, Sunday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. South Pasadena Farmers Market, Meridian and Mission, Thursday 4 to 7 p.m.

-- Betty Hallock 

Photos: Sugarbird Sweets & Teas