Why Los Angeles Is the Most Exciting Food City in the World Right Now

Prawn brains are splattered all over my shirt, the right side of my face is numb from chili pepper overload, and a spiky shrimp rostrum just shanked me in the finger. I’ve rarely been happier. I’m sitting inside chef Bryant Ng’s airy, industrial restaurant, Cassia, a few short blocks from the Santa Monica Pier, devouring a plate of Vietnamese Sunbathing Prawns that are so brazenly spicy, so joyously messy, and so riddled with charcoal-grilled flavour that eating them is