I’ve had the good fortune to savor many dishes in life, and my books have the food stains to prove it.

Like many kids, reading shaped my awareness of the world beyond my backyard. Narratives involving food pulled especially deep. The descriptions were so palpable I could taste them through the pages, but I didn’t stop there. I recreated literary meals with whatever ingredients I could find onhand and dined with characters all over the world.

My itinerary was quite impressive.

A typical day might start in Sweden via Britt J. Hallqvist’s Bettina’s Secret, where the namesake protagonist eats tasteless food while holed up in a hospital room with a compound leg fracture. She dreams of “rye bread, anchovy paste mixed with a little cream [and] thin slices of onion on top, or strong cheese with sliced radishes.”

I slathered the halves of a pumpernickel bagel with a thick layer of horseradish mustard and piled on a few slices of turkey breast. Anchovy paste was not indigenous to midwestern supermarket shelves during the early 80’s, but I did find a jar of capers in the back of the refrigerator. I sprinkled a few on my sandwich.

Later on, I would travel to Umuofia, Nigeria via Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, where Okonkwo celebrates the Feast of the New Yam with yam foo-foo, and a hollowed out gourd filled with palm wine.

For this occasion, I rubbed sweet potatoes with vegetable oil before baking them, then mashed them with butter, salt and honey. I recreated the palm wine by finding an olive green and brown coffee mug from the 70’s (those gourd vibes, tho!) and filling it with catawba, a sparkling grape juice with a brownish hue and musky flavor that was as close as it got to my drinking libations without actually breaking the law.

Years passed, and I was an adult living on my own in Los Angeles. Curiously, the sorry condition of my pages did not improve.

I was off to Whipsnade, England via Norah Loft’s Avoiding Dunstable, where a misanthropic Mr. Fairweather imbibes excessively at his godson’s wedding, gets behind the wheel, and takes a backroad shortcut. There he happens upon a phantom hotel and is greeted by an apparitional butler who serves a hallucinated dinner of “consomme, saddle of mutton, and gooseberry tart with cream.”

Trader Joe’s seasoned rack of lamb paired nicely with one, and a glass of late-harvest Zinfandel rounded out the meal perfectly.

Finally, I arrived in Provence, France via Gerald Durrell’s The Entrance, where a bohemian couple recounts the acquisition of a horrifying true crime manuscript. Their dinner guest attacks “a black truffle the size of a peach encased in a featherlight overcoat of crisp brown pastry, guinea fowl wrapped in an almost tangible aroma of herbs and garlic, and a special bottle of Gigondas.”

I eagerly attacked a heaping plate of the same.

Just kidding. Dinner that night was a bag of SkinnyPop and three clementine oranges because my stove’s pilot light was out. But I did have a glass of Gigondas, because, well, accuracy. And the SoCalGas tech was a no-show the following evening, so I went to Awash instead.

Having dinner at Awash is a lot like dining inside the pages of a book, albeit more paradoxical. As with all restaurant visits, it requires a certain level of interactivity and immersion, but the experience quickly devolves into something insular. I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.

It boils down to this: if you’re a critic, the food at Awash is a virtuoso. The performance will blow you away. If you’re an existentialist, the food at Awash is all there is. Nothing else exists.

The color scheme is unassuming as you enter the restaurant, and the decor is nondescript and functional. The vinyl-upholstered, metal banquet chairs at the tables go largely unnoticed until they squeal across the tile floor as you pull them out to sit down. Once seated, they’re immediately forgotten until they squeal across the floor again when you pull them out and stand up to access the restrooms through the partition doors at the side of the bar.

The freshness of the ingredients is a standout quality, and the seasonings are balanced and never overpowering. The legumes and vegetables have a clean, bright flavor. The crispy whole fish is sweet and expertly fried. The injera bread complements the food without upstaging and readily soaks up every last bit of deliciousness.

In addition to being delicious, every dish is presented in an accessible, eater-friendly way. The chicken is filleted into perfectly sized, easy-to-handle chops that fit comfortably in your fingers and never feel overwhelming or sloppy in your mouth. I can’t help but wonder what physics voodoo was involved in the configuration, as the execution is that good.

I’ve never been to Awash on a first date or in the company of attention seekers looking to preen and posture (sometimes one and the same). Dining there is reserved for occasions with the people I treasure most, and with whom I feel relaxed, comfortable and natural: peeps that don’t judge me when I eat SkinnyPop for dinner or leave the pilot lighting to the professionals. When you look around the room, you’re met by the kind eyes of the owners, and tables filled with adoring couples, happy kids and other patrons that seem to share an established sense of intimacy. Part of the fun of paying the check and struggling with the chairs before standing up to leave is proposing a return date with friends for the next visit.

I’ve lived in Los Angeles for twenty years and dined at a lot of restaurants, both hole-in-the-wall joints and high-end establishments that pride themselves on a fine dining experience. Many of the fine dining experiences were impressive.

Aesthetics, exclusivity, hype and expense are variables that often work in tandem to build the perception of quality.

The food at Awash is a virtuoso. The performance will blow you away.

In Avoiding Dunstable, Mr. Fairweather thinks to himself, “He knew that were The Grange [phantom hotel] within ten miles of his home, he would dine there every evening.” Then he passes out in a freshly-turned-down, hallucinated bed clutching a hot water bottle.

He wakes up to “… the worst headache he had ever suffered … in his car … head on the steering wheel [looking] out over what appeared to be a field of sugar beet, young leaves shining in the level rays of the early morning sun.”

The food at Awash is all there is. Nothing else exists.