Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: carne abodabo, coctel campechanga, Culver City, El Salvador, Gloria's Cafe, pupusa, seafood
Sometimes I get really strange cravings that make me want to get pregnant just to see where my cravings will take me. For example, every once in a while, I have a craving for slice from Cheeseboard Pizza, or for a Mission-style burrito. Super American comfort meals at Brownstone Cafe – in Middletown, Pennsylvania of all places – has no duplicate out here. Coffee at Vivace Cafe in Seattle. While destined to be unsated, these cravings make me happy. I think you get to know a city well by what it eats and what you take away from its eats. When I start craving foods unique to a city, it makes me feel that, however long or short my stay, I got to know it on more than a superficial level.
Last night I had a first: a pupusa craving. Pupusas! They have such funny names. Saying the word makes me grin. Pupusas certainly aren’t unique to LA, but I’ve had some of my very best here. I feel that the hit-or-miss ratio is higher here than San Francisco; in SF, if I walk into a random pupusa shop, it is 50% likely that it will be great, 50% likely that it will be an oily mess. Here, it’s more like 70-30. The fact that I had this craving makes me happy. This makes me feel like I am living in LA properly.
Where to go? My pupusa sources are usually out in the Eastide (meaning Silverlake/Los Feliz/Echo Park, not “Far Eastside”, meaning “east of downtown” – I get it, intentionally failing to recognize “true” Eastside neighborhoods like Highland Park blissfully denies their existence in favor of their gentfiried (and dangerously spreading!) neighbors to the west. But with the disclaimer that Yes I do recognize this distinction, I’m going with the popular meaning on this one.) Out here on the Westside (this is the part where the beach cities argue that they are the “true” Westside and everything else is just Mid-City), I really do not have my pupusa bearings. Someone suggested we try Gloria’s Cafe in Culver City. There we went.
One of the most difficult things about this food blogging business is remembering to bring my camera with me everywhere I eat. During the day, my cell phone camera is great. During the evening, not so much. Alas, it will have to do. This makes me sad, because these photos don’t nearly capture everything we ate so happily.
Gloria’s Cafe sits between a tire shop and liquor store, and has a big old-school non-blaring-digital billboard in its parking lot. Here is another thing I love about LA food: the best ones are often hanging out in the randomest of spots. See Nook Bistro. Come to think of it, this is like people as well.
It’s super cute inside. Colorful, bar in the back, tables not too crowded together. There is a lot on the menu – Salvarodan food and a page full of Mexican. First in order, of course, were the pupusas.
If you order only the pupusas (as opposed to a pupusa plate that gives you a pupusa plus sides), you have to order at least two, for the price of $4.50 (total, not each). There are a few flavors – pork & cheese, cheese, cheese and herbs, and beans and cheese. We ordered pork & cheese and cheese & herbs.
The way you are supposed to eat a pupusa is to throw the coleslaw on top and pour the sauce all over everything. The pork and cheese one in particular was delicious. The pupusas are made of thick corn tortillas, so the weight and strong flavor of the pork is able to withstand the weight of the corn. Added to the coleslaw and sauce, it was perfect. The cheese and herbs, on the other hand, while good, was a bit overwhelmed by all that corn-iness of the pupusa and the intensity of the sauce. The girifriend, either accidentally or purposefully, took a break from the colelsaw + sauce combination to taste the pupusa on its own and noted that it actually tasted better without the condiments. I tried it, and she was right, it did! The cheese and herbs, able to escape from all the flavors of the sauce and coleslaw, was able to speak out from underneath all that corn. You could taste the subtle herbs better without all the other flavor distractions. Overall, though, the pork and cheese was better.
Next: more food.
Filed under: Silverlake/Los Feliz, Uncategorized | Tags: "Best Fish Tacos in Ensenada", "fish tacos", "Los Feliz", Prop 8, Protest
Quick stop to the Best Fish Tacos in Ensenada before doing our civic duty and protesting in already gay-friendly Silverlake and Los Feliz. Oh well.
LAPD also decided to stop in for a quick munch before doing their protecting-slash-threatening duty of monitoring the protest.
Now, there are two things, and two things only at the Best Fish Tacos in Ensendana: fish tacos (of course) ($1.50) and shrimp tacos ($2.00). They just started selling homemade drinks and horchatas. They also just got air conditioning, I think. Last time I was there, it was blistering hot, but everyone sat through it anyway because the tacos were that good.
It used to be that you were to order at the front, hand over your money, have it rejected by the uber friendly owner who would say something like, “Ahhhhh, not yet, wait until you eat them, you might want some more and hey, why don’t you just take one of yours for free, see aren’t you glad you didn’t pay yet??” Hence, this ordering-then-paying process was completely on the honor system. It also was very confusing when there were a lot of people, some of whom were new and didn’t get it, some of whom were old and were shouting new orders, and some of whom decided they had their fill and were trying to figure out how much they owed. All this at the same time. I’m a bit relieved that this methodology, while happy, also has been relieved in favor of paying up front, like all things in life should be.
Filed under: Food, Uncategorized | Tags: Bay Cities, Santa Monica Food, shiba, Under $10
Oh, puppies. I was supposed to be telling all of you about the joys, frustrations, and joys again of training a puppy. I was training her via the clicker method – do what I taught you, I click a button, pup gets a treat. The click ends the behavior, so she’s then free to move about the cabin.
Alas, puppies do things like break their foreleg when jumping off of something — which is what our little puppy did at doggie daycare. I know, the first thing everyone asks is: Who was responsible! How could this have happened! They were negligent! (The last exclamation isn’t a question, but it seems to be the last thing anyone says before they stop to let me answer.) Doggie day care attendants tell me that she just jumped off of something and landed badly/horrifically. She’s in the small dog group, and I’ve seen all the equipment that they play on, so I don’t know if the height of the equpiment is to blame. My puppy, the little shiba inu that she is, loves to climb up and jump off of everything, so really, this may or may not have been bound to happen. In any case, I’m going to review the videotape – they have videotapes of their day care rooms! – and we’ll see what happened.
To fix the broken bones and make sure they heal and set proper, she needs a plate screwed on the fracture. So, yesterday I dropped her off at an animal hospital. The pup is out of commission for the next 6 weeks! The good news is, I get to sign her cast. Exciting! The bad news is, her leg cost me my arm and leg.
There goes the pony I always wanted.
So what does a depressed first-time dog mother do after a healthy round of negotiations with the “Client Liasion” to reduce the price of puppy’s surgery and then kissing pup goodnight for now?
Ah, yes: the dog mother goes on a date with the godmother living in Bay Cities, Santa Monica.
