Plugs — Priyanka Mattoo

L.A. food and drink recs from a memoirist + LINKS

Plugs is The Angel’s recs column. Every week, you’ll get six picks—a restaurant, a bar, a shop, an ingredient, a person, and a treat—from someone in Los Angeles who knows what they’re talking about. (Plugs are for paid subscribers of The Angel only. However, if you’re in the restaurant industry and want a free subscription, hit me up. :))

#37 is Priyanka Mattoo, a writer, filmmaker, co-founder of the podcast network Earios, and, most importantly, the author of Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones, which is hot off the press! I just cracked my copy open, so I won’t (frankly can’t) provide spoilers, but I was lucky enough to meet Priyanka at

Julia Sherman

’s house a few months back, when she read from her memoir (and I did, in fact, tear up). Priyanka was born in Kashmir before her family was forced to flee and has since lived in 32 different places, from England to Saudi Arabia, Michigan, Rome, and now Los Angeles. In recent years, her writing has been published in The New York Times, Vulture, and The New Yorker. Her excellent story How to Extract a Mother’s Rogan Josh Recipe Over Zoom was featured in Best American Food Writing. Priyanka is very sharp and very funny, and food is her love language. Here are her L.A. plugs!

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Restaurant — The Gelson’s poke bar

The poke bar at the Gelson’s on Lincoln and Ocean Park, which I did have a Hawaiian friend approve — it’s seasoned so well, and the fish is so good, and they have enough variety (Shrimp! Tofu! Octopus!) to make it fun without feeling tacky. A chapter about the Gelson’s seafood program is going to make it into my next book, once I track down the guy who started it — a Japanese Hawaiian fellow who seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. He trained the guy who did the seafood at Bristol Farms, which is why they also have poke, although I like theirs less.

I cook almost every single meal my family eats, because I’m a psycho, but so many of the prepared foods at Gelson’s are made with care that I stop by there when I don’t have the time or energy to make things from scratch. I found their turkey chili recipe online – chili purists, look the other way– and make it at home all the time. I also get their “ham off the bone,” which is a thick-sliced ham that makes for a great sandwich, but is mysteriously not in the cold cuts section.

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