Grilled cheese gets hip in L.A.

In Los Angeles, it seems, they've gone all ga-ga over the simplest of edible pleasures: the grilled cheese sandwich.

Forget fugu. Roll over radicchio. According to an article in today's New York Times, grilled cheese is having its moment in the sun as the hottest foodie-food around.

Hooray cheese!

Here's what the story has to say about it:

Buttery, salty and enduringly simple, the grilled cheese sandwich stands unrivaled in the universe of simple gastro-pleasures. It is the gateway sandwich to the land of hot sustenance, the first stovetop food many children learn to prepare by themselves.

But in Los Angeles, the grilled cheese is less a starting place than a destination, an object of outright mania, not just at workaday coffee shops but also at any number of well-regarded restaurants, where it’s slathered with short ribs, decorated with piquillo peppers or topped gently with a quail egg.

Let's hear it for those Angelenos, arbiters of good taste and breeding. Ok, maybe that's too much. But if chefs in La-La Land are turning cheese sandwiches into menu centerpieces, the place has something going for it.

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