The year 2010 in food was marked by tectonic shifts in the way we perceive food and restaurants. Which is not to say that it wasn’t, well, more than a little paradoxical. On the one hand, it was the year when the anti-restaurant became the coolest thing in restaurants - Test Kitchen with its constantly changing cast of chefs; all of the various pop-up restaurants; even underground suppers, where people pay for dinners in private homes. And of course, there is the whole food truck phenomenon. Name a specialty and there is probably a mobile restaurant serving it, complete with website and Twitter feed. Above, Food blogger Misty Oka photographs a dish. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Also, 2010 was the year food truck pioneer Roy Choi, one of the founders of Kogi, the Korean taco truck, opened not one, but two brick-and-mortar restaurants. Above, the roving Kogi Korean taco truck in 2009. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)
Then there was the day so many diners were so eager to claim tables at chef Ludo Lefebvre’s just-announced pop-up restaurant LudoBites 6.0, that they crashed the Open Table reservations website. Above, Lefebvre and his wife Krissy. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times))
It was the year we got serious about healthy eating: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa established a Food Policy Council for the City of Los Angeles; calorie counts became required on some menus; and the military declared that childhood obesity was so bad it threatened national security. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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It was the year we began to look at our beloved farmers markets with a slightly jaundiced eye after widespread reports of cheating made us wonder where all this stuff was really coming from -- small farmers or the produce market? (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
In August, in one of the largest food recalls ever, one company had to pull more than half-billion eggs off the market after a salmonella outbreak. (Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images)