Feel that Southern cooking in L.A. is as scarce as deviled eggs at a church picnic? Visit Flossie’s in Torrance, where two bills and change buys you catfish plus three sides and corn muffins. Half a dozen other homey plates are offered—meat loaf, smothered chicken—but the main event is the sideshow: black-eyed peas, red beans with rice, and a corn pudding you could hand out on Halloween. To wash it down? What else—sweet tea.

 

Best Soul Food, June 2004

 

Soul food joints rarely disappoint—in part because they aren’t trying to impress. They offer comfort and preserve tradition, nourishing something deep within. Eating at Flossie’s, a Delta shrine in a Torrance minimall, makes us want to hug someone. The fried chicken is a work of love, the chilled banana pudding worth a letter home.