L.A. Plugs — Tasbeeh Herwees
Food, drink, and leisure recs from the No Bad Days author + LINKS
Plugs is The Angel’s recs column. On most Saturdays, you’ll get six picks—a restaurant, a bar, a shop, an ingredient, a person, and a treat—from someone in New York or Los Angeles who knows what they’re talking about, plus a selection of Angel-curated links. Plugs are for paid subscribers of The Angel only; upgrade your subscription to receive all six!
#97 is Tasbeeh Herwees, the writer behind No Bad Days, “a newsletter about Los Angeles,” which has quickly become one of my immediate opens when it hits my inbox. Tasbeeh is a native Angeleno, proud political activist, and possessor of a true gimlet eye when it comes to reporting on all of the things that make this city so alluring (and occasionally infuriating). Her bylines have appeared the Los Angeles Times, GQ, Teen Vogue, The Fader, VICE, Bon Appétit, Vulture, and more, and you can rest assured that whatever she writes will be sharp and incisive. From her home base in East Hollywood, here are Tasbeeh’s Plugs.
Restaurant: Flavors From Afar
Some people may remember Flavors from Afar from when it was located in Little Ethiopia, and it operated on a “chef-of-the-month” model, where all the chefs represented different refugee communities. It quietly closed down a couple of years ago, after it earned nationwide recognition for its incredible dining program.
And just as quietly as it disappeared, it reappeared—this time in East Hollywood, on a stretch of the boulevard that is overpopulated with smoke shops and was desperately in need of a restaurant like this one. Flavors from Afar remains an extension of the Tiyya Foundation, an organization co-founded by owner Meymuna Hussein-Cattan to support refugee families in the states with employment opportunities, professional training, and community resources.
Flavors from Afar is also one of the few places in L.A. where you can get koshari, a carb-heavy pauper’s dish from Egypt that I crave often but rarely have the energy to make myself. Though they no longer have a chef-of-the-month program, they continue to offer a global menu, highlighting lesser known cuisines. On the weekends, you can even catch a live jazz show inside the restaurant.
