The latest thing in great restaurant ideas? Pinot Bistro in Studio City has announced a new service for busy worker bees: Cuisine Rapide, a $20 lunch menu guaranteed to get you in and out of the restaurant in 45 minutes. The menu will change week to week, but expect to enjoy apps and entrees like beef tartare, onion soup with Comté cheese, steamed mussels with French fries, frisée spinach salad, and tarte tatin. This......

Sometimes when the weather or the world is a little too harsh, I get a craving for something I call "Mom food". Most people call it comfort food. Stew is the quintissential mom food, and Bistro Provence in Burbank serves a beef bourguignon just like mom would make, if mom were an award-winning French chef. Executive chef Miki Zivkovic, formerly of Pinot Bistro, uses the most tender of celery and fresh carrots. We are......

No time to find that special someone? Check out HurryDate, a speed dating service that hosts parties at fun spots around the city. The set-up is pretty typical: you have brief one-on-ones with about a dozen "dates," and a whistle blow indicates it's time to move on to the next potential love connection. Everyone gets a scorecard to mark "yes" or "no" after each date's name, you enter that info. in the HurryDate website,......

It's been a while since LAist shared the dish on local food events, so we're doing our best to recoup and serve up a tasty mouthful of food tidbits today. Speaking of today, Planned Parenthood's Los Angeles Guild is hosting Food Fare 2006 today, and attendees will sample an assortment of local food and wines from 150 wineries, restaurants, and catering outfits to benefit PPLA’s Campaign for the Advancement of Reproductive Health. We're a......

Share our Strength's Taste of the Nation is an annual event aimed at raising money to fight hunger. With over 60 cities in the U.S. and Canada participating, the event uses the power of sponsorship and the generous donations of participating chefs and restaurants to ensure that 100% of the ticket price goes to the cause. The Los Angeles event is Sunday June 5th, and has two levels of support aimed at giving donors......