one that got me was in a controller you can:

     return Model::Find('asdf=1');

and it outputs a json serialized array as html. so your ajax action is like one line of code, yay. or you can $row = Model::Find('asdf=1'); and manipulate in php from there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSt9rBa_oUM this guys series on laravel is really good.