Filed under: Food, Santa Monica | Tags: breakfast, Huckleberry, Rustic Canyon, Santa Monica, Zoe Nathan
I don’t like paying a lot for breakfast because it’s stuff I generally can make at home; at the same time, it’s probably my favorite meal to go out for when I can. There’s something lovely about lounging around at the beginning of the day, eating, talking, and contemplating the hopes and plans for the rest of the day, rather than bitching over dinner about the regrets and anger about that assignment you should have taken at work because you badly need the billable hours. Welcome, Huckleberry!!
Huckleberry Cafe is the bakery/day-time offspring of Rustic Canyon and its James Beard-nominated pastry chef, Zoe Nathan. This place has been in the works for a while; along with Santa Monica Seafood a few doors down, we’ve been busy with excitement over their simultaneous openings. I’ve been particularly excited about Huckleberry, because Santa Monica severely lacks in solid breakfast fare. Don’t give me the overpriced Bread and Porridge; Snug Harbor is meh; and Swingers is good but typical. The openings of these places also were a nice distraction from yet another shit week at work, this time infused with potential layoff politics. I wanted to start a pool to place bets on the date that they will announce the bloodshed; so far, no takers.
Back to the more important topic: food. In the tradition of all things beachside, the cafe is super airy with lots of natural light. I really like that. A huge menu showcases breakfast items (pancakes and eggs), and a huge counter showcases their pastries. A lot of pastries.
We got there around 9:30am on Saturday, usually a decent time to get breakfast around here, but it was already mad with activity, with all manners of white people and their families at every nook and cranny of the cafe. Other than one Asian woman, we again were the only non-white people there. I guess all the rest of the Asians were over at Amandine. We got into the huge line and surveyed the menu – for brunch, it goes from $8 for two soft-boiled eggs all the way to $12 for brisket, “green” eggs and ham, and poached eggs. Coffee is $2.75. Whenever substantive breakfast choices top $10 and the coffee is over $2 … well, you’re starting to pay lunch and even dinner prices, just for breakfast. That’s dangerous.
Whenever I bitch about not having enough affordable food options in Santa Monica, someone inevitably reminds me of Bay Cities or Santa Monica Seafood. I’ve talked about Bay Cities before; Santa Monica Seafood, though, is a different story. At its former location on Colorado and 11th, it was primarily our local source for fresh fish and amazing …ly expensive mango salsa. In addition to fresh fish, a very tiny portion of the shop was devoted to non-fish, but fish-related essentials, the cashier counter, and general walking space. Not totally comfortable, especially when it got Bay Cities-crazy during peak hours. Effective yesterday, SMS has moved to the corner of 10th and Wilshire.
I think the prior tenant was Carl’s Jr. and/or some other fast food restaurant. Before totally gutting and renovating the space, SMS opened its then-shabby ass storefront with a fairly limited menu with even more limited operating hours, sort of an experimentation lab while it decided on its menu and got used to the kitchen. The girlfriend and I hit up the pre-fab SMS and while the food was good – your basic chowders, fish and chips, etc. – the space was horrendous: retro 70s baby turquoise lacquered pastel, fast food-style booths and tables, and horrific linoleum. I mean, you felt like you were eating in a fish tank. What they did with the space is amazing.
This week was crap. Crap. One of those weeks where all sleep was lost, and lost with it was patience, tolerance, and calm with everyone in my immediate vicinity. Thank god I spent the better part of Saturday with a couple of positive, not-angry yet still constructive people over in Echo Park. And guess what I saw through my rain soaked window right after I left? Two Boots!
Now, if there is one thing that Echo Park needs on its way to gentrification, besides a gelato parlor, it’s a good pizza-by-the-slice joint. And you can not get more authentically pizza-by-the-slice than an imported New York institution like Two Boots. I say “New York institution” as if I really know my New York institutions, but really, I don’t. I’m California borned and raised; I visited New York once, in February. It was mofo cold; I thought I was going to die. Of course, I ate what you’re supposed to have when in New York: pizza and bagels, if only to have some credibility when I scream “LA IS NOT NEW YORK” at NY transplants who belabor their angst about not being able to find decent pizza, bagels, or Chinese egg rolls here. Now, the pizza there is great, for sure, but since I do not have the fortune, or misfortune, of having a lifetime experience of eating perfectly crusted pizza, I am proud to say that I am not a snobby pizza connoisseur. I’m not going to sit here and argue whether the crust lends itself to the perfect fold, or whether there are enough air bubbles on the slice. To be honest, I didn’t even know people folded their pizza in half and ate it like a taco until I was in college. All this is just pizza to me.
Two Boots is a homey little joint on Sunset, a little atypical from the New York pizza joints (like Joe’s) that you’re (I’m) used to seeing on David Letterman. All pies have a clever name in honor (or not) of someone: the Mr. Newman (which I mistakenly read at first as the Mr. New Man), the Mr. Pink, the Mel Cooley. Many of their offerings are Cajun fusion, which sounds weird in a city full of bad Asian fusion, but there it is: you can get crawfish, fish, etc on top of your pie. They also have po’ boy sandwiches, but at $7.50 each, they certainly aren’t po’ boy prices (I recall having shrimp po’ boy sandwiches in Biloxi for less than $4 even). At $3.75 each, a slice isn’t exactly po’ boy prices neither. The prices are expensive sign of things to come in Echo Park.
Also a sign of things to come: white people, and a lot of them. For two hours last night, it was raining like mad, but that didn’t stop the Eastside denizens from popping in. Many looked like they just stepped out from an Elvis Costello and/or Belle & Sebastian concert: small glasses, plaid blazers, brown, flared pants, and Frank Zappa’s bowler hats, all apparently from New York, all loudly thanking their lucky stars that Two Boots followed them to their little section of the galaxy.
Filed under: Culver City, Food | Tags: Ben Ford, Culver City, flatbread, Ford's Filling Station, Indiana Jones, onion rings, polenta
The girlfriend got a high score on her GMAT this weekend. She was bragging to all her friends, our dog, acquaintances, and people she just met. To celebrate, we went to Ford’s Filling Station, a place she’s wanted to try for a while (more so because of the son-of-a-celebrity-factor, as Ben Ford owns it), but was hesitant previously because of negative reviews regarding price and portion size.
Sometimes I forget what it’s like to walk down Culver City’s main drag. It’s part European, with its restaurant row and plentiful patio sidewalk seating. It’s part Disneyland, with its restaurant row and plentiful patio sidewalk seating. In all cases, I always forget how many white people there are in Culver City. Go gentrification!
I need to have a full-fledged post on this topic, but for better or worse, gentrification and economic revitalization of a neighborhood results often – not always – in good food. Or, was it that the good food resulted in gentrification and economic revitalization? In any case, Ford’s Filling Station opened up when Culver City just was being christened the Westside’s old-but-new Awesome Place to Live. Located right next to Honey’s Kettle, which itself is planted next to Akasha, which I would like very much to try but have not gotten to just yet, Ford’s Filling Station is owned by Harrison Ford’s son. This alone probably got it through its initial stages.
Filed under: Food | Tags: burrito, Kogi bbq, Korean taco truck, taco truck
Making do on a promise to Alice over at Kogi, I gave the now-fabled Korean BBQ taco truck another shot, sans peoples ordering “one of everything.” Instead, I did what most people did – Twitter for location (they were in Silverlake, near the new lofts on Sunset that took them for-ever to build), find parking, get in the line, order one or two things, like normal people. Surprisingly, the line wasn’t bad at all – less than 20 minutes, which, as I said before, is pretty much the maximum I’d wait. Unfortunately for all of you wanting to taste the hype with the least effort possible – literally since the night I went, Kogi has had a slew of publicity, from popping up on Evan Kleiman’s Good Foods show on KCRW to getting some ink in the LA Weekly courtesy you-love-him-or-you-hate-him Jonathan Gold. This means: the lines are tremendous. They are promising a second truck, but it won’t be here for a bit. So, choose your taco battles carefully.
The line was only a truck and a half long when I queued up. Right after I go there, a pair of Kogi newbies came up behind me: “Ooooh, it looks so looong!!” I had to tell them, essentially, You have no idea. Better to stay put now or risk really knowing what a long Kogi line looks like next week. Ten, fifteen minutes later, I ordered a $5 short ribs burrito. Five minutes later, I had my food. That was the best part! (FYI – They’ve put a cap on the number of tacos you can order – 3 – which makes total sense, because it really eats up the time. Why y’all ordering so many tacos!!)
The short ribs burrito was pretty good last time, but without being encumbered by having a taste of everything, and eating while it was freshly made – - – one of the reasons why lawyers have such poor social relationships is because we are taught, trained, and encouraged to think, that we’re always right. Even when we lose, it’s because the judge screwed up, it’s because of a mere technicality, it’s because of something other than well, we had a shit poor argument. This mentality leeches into our personal lives, and so everyone, justifiably, hates us. I have to break out of my institutionalized training for a second and admit that, fine, Aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice, you’re right, it is better this time around. The short ribs are delicious and again, I absolutely love that they do not fear putting eggs in something other than a breakfast burrito.
There’s a lot of Pinkberry (ugh, PInkberry) hype with Kogi, more so since Mr. Gold, with his angelic aura, has confirmed for us all that Yes, It Is Good. Is it worth it? The prices, absolutely, no question. The better question is, is it worth the wait? I say, 20 minutes max, but I know a couple of people who have waited upwards of 30 minutes. This is a total of an hour, from getting into line to eating your order. That is a lot of time to spend at a food truck. Some of us have time and don’t have anything better to do, so that is fine, and great, and a grand hipster foodie adventure for all. Some of the other us don’t have time and do have things better to do, so we’re not privy to the luxury of the wait. Womp womp for us.
