Sorry; as someone asked me, “What the hell have you been eating all month?”  Well, I’ll tell you: not much.  Lots of work, lots of repeated business at places I’ve already reviewed, lots of forgetting to eat, lots of coffee dinners, and not a lot of time overall.  Here’s a short one: the holy ramen house of Daikokuya.

I was in Echo Park a few days ago with a friend and had one of those moments where I’m grasping for straws as to where to eat. As someone who nerds out, and is a total snot, about food, I feel like such a disappointment whenever I can’t think of somewhere to go. My problem was that I had been to the Echo Park area at least once every week or so for the last few weeks, so I was really tired of all the nearby joints. My friend asked me what I would eat if I could have anything right then, a question that was a lot like the “What would you do with your life if you could do anything right now?” discussion we just had. Unlike that conversation, I did come up with an answer: pho. On cold days, that’s all I want. Neither one of us felt like driving out to the Valley, so what is a good alternative? And that is the story of how we ended up at Daikokuya.

Daikokuya, possibly the best known ramen house in the city, at least among the hipsters who love all things Little Tokyo even as they work quickly towards gentrifying the area. Others looove Santouka, located in the Mitsuwa market on Centinela, and which I always, always forget about when I am craving ramen on my side of town. Anyway, Daikokuya.

Like almost all noodle soups, the make-or-break ingredient is the broth. Unlike the clear, light, but complex broth of pho, proper ramen broth is heavy, cloudy, pre-grits cornmeal-colored dark. Daikokuya prides itself on making its broth from pork joints and bones overnight, “from an undisclosed location.” Not sure why; I guess there is/was a time when broth poaching was all the rage. In any case, it has done well in guarding its giant vats of broth from jealous broth robbers. It’s constantly crowded, a function of its broth, its limited, dive-like space and its popularity post-Jonathan Gold. Everyone lines up, often out the door (which really is not hard, because the waiting area is tiny), but service is quick and people are in and out fast.

$8.50 gets you an enormous bowl. For the more experienced (read: not me), you can modify your bowl similar to the way you modify your In-N-Out burger: firmness of the noodles, richness of the broth, etc. From what I hear – but not yet tried – the gyozas also are excellent.

Back to the star of the show: the broth. The broth is warm, rich, meaty, and thick. This has the benefit of forcing you to not swallow too fast and actually taste – almost eat – what you’re drinking, a step I skip when slurping pho broth from my soup spoon. The liquid holds all the solids together; the noodles, egg (yum), and veggies sit peacefully like a good little archipelago that I would like to visit when I get my head out from all these pleading clips.

Some people quibble with the noodles that Daikokuya uses, and I think they’re right. They’re just too…eggy. Too thick, too much to chew on in the middle of already meaty broth, and I really think they make you unnecessarily fuller than you should be at the halfway point of your bowl. This isn’t to say that that this bowl of noodles is horrible; you could do so much worse, even in Little Tokyo. It’s great when you’re downtown and bored of all the variations-on-an-old-theme restaurants popping up, or you’re in Echo Park looking to bond with a friend over hot soup. It’s particularly great because it’s open so late – we were in there around 11pm, and they were gladly filling up the bowls for all the Oliver Twists asking for more.

I’ve got my eye on Santouku, Rameniac’s top LA-area ramen house for the last few years running. It probably earned a bunch of points just for keeping the hipsters at bay over at Daikokuya.

! Glad to be back !

Daikouya
327 E. 1st Street
Little Tokyo
Mo-Th 11am-midnight
Fri-Sa 11am-1am!
Su 12pm – “till the soup is gone!” I don’t know what this means, but take your chances.

New Location in Monterey Park (the website has a cute Eater LA-type “Monterey Park Watch”)
111 N. Atlantic
Monterey Park
Soft opening stage; call (626) 570-1930 for hours

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.

I chose the fried egg sandwich – bacon, gruyere, arugula, and ailoi – ($9.50 – $9.50!  I had to double check my receipt; I thought it was $8.50).  The girlfriend ordered the “green” eggs and ham with prosciutto on a house-made English muffin ($12).  No coffee for me, I draw the line at paying more than $2.25 for a cup of house brew, and that is only if I expect to stay there all there and reap the benefits of the free refills.

The fried egg sandwich:

Other than the bread, there isn’t a whole of of substance here – the bacon slices were not that big, so you ended up with essentially a very well-done (as in, cooked perfectly) egg atop some greens and a big chunk of bread.  The problem here is that you got too much of the bread, as if that were an acceptable substitute for meat, which it’s not.  To its credit, the bread was nice, thick, crusty, and substantively soft. It was great on its own.   I ended up taking off the top slice and eating this like an open-faced sandwich.  Overall, good, but not great.  The egg sandwich at The Kitchen is ten times better.

This was the better dish: the “green” eggs and ham:

Turns out the “green” eggs and ham are actually eggs topped with pesto! The prosciutto and can’t-stop-eating-it English muffin is what did us in. This is one that made me rethink my taste buds for a second – are English muffins supposed to taste like this? Chewy, light, marshmellowy. And, unlike the bacon over on my sandwich, the amount of prosciutto here was surprisingly very generous. (So generous, in fact, that we took some off and added it to the fried egg sandwich. That made it much better.). The pesto itself didn’t add a whole lot, but it was good.

We figured it out during our meal – Huckleberry is a lot like Clementine over in Century City, with its excellent pastries and sandwiches in a cute cafe setting. There are not enough of these types of places in this city in general, so I’m grateful to have it here. Even more than that, I find Clementine to be a bit stuffy, the service absurdly slow, and the people indifferent and dismal, so having Huckleberry so near is nice. Unfortunately, both are expensive, though Huckleberry still has the upper hand: the portions are much, much bigger than the less-than-Oprah’s-fist-sized meals that you get at Clementine. I’m definitely going back to the try out the rest of the pastries and mayyyybe for lunch (sandwiches are over $10, and a whole roasted chicken is overpriced at $23), but probably not anytime soon just for breakfast – it’s a bit much more than I’m willing to pay for that first meal of the day. (Not others though; people were shelling out $30+, even at these early hours! Does this say more about : 1) the lack of great bakeries in Santa Monica; 2) the surprising non-effects of the recession on some people, me included (so far); or 3) both?). This leaves me in the same spot I was before Huckleberry opened – without a solid, relatively inexpensive breakfast joint on this side of town. Oh, how I miss The Kitchen. Sigh.

Huckleberry
1014 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica
Wed-Sun 8am-4pm

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.

It’s a cafe, no, it’s a fish market; it’s a cafe, no, it’s a fish market … in a somewhat odd combination of Whole Foods and The Hungry Cat, SMS is at once a full service fish market, a full service cafe, and a full service oyster bar. Contrary to other early reports, we didn’t have to hover over others, Father’s Office-style, to poach their table.  Instead, we put our names down on the wait list, saw that there was no host at the station, and, confused, went over to order at the cashier’s.  It was only when we tried to poach someone’s table that we were informed (kindly, hurriedly) that there was actually a wait list.  Since the people on the list before us had left – ostensibly, also confused – we sat down legally at the table we were were ready to steal. It was also at this point that I realized between us, one black guy in the back table, and one potentially Japanese guy next to us, we were the only non-white customers in the entire crowded cafe/market. If I think about things like this too much, I get really socially awkward and self-conscious about my life choices.

The menu offers a variety of seafood — crab cakes, chowders, halibut, seared tuna, cioppino.  We settled on sharing an appetizer, a potato and parmesan frittata ($6), and an entree, pan roasted halibut ($17).  The girlfriend ordered one hama hama oyster ($1.75).

The oyster.

I do not like oysters, or clams, or things in their shells generally.  Something about their nasty, slimy, wet bodies freaks me out.  The girlfriend loved the oyster though, and, at $1.75 a pop, considered this a fantastic deal one only could get during happy hour at a shit bar near the beach.  We all will have to trust her judgment on this one.

The frittata:

Mandoline-thin potato slices, egg, and bits of sturgeon caviar layer to create this frittata, topped with rock shrimp and mascarpone. Pretty decent, but a little bit bland. This was surprising because you’d think either the caviar, the shrimp, or the marscapone would have given it the needed flavor, but the flavors at the top didn’t quite trickle through the starch. But, really, at $6, there isn’t a whole lot to complain about here.

The halibut:

This was a little dry, which was unfortunate, because the halibut itself was excellent. The variety of grilled (but cold! Why do places insist upon serving their grilled veggies cold!) also was a nice complement. $17, though, a bit much to charge for this small, not particularly thick piece. It was the most expensive thing on the menu, I think.

Overall, even though the food itself wasn’t spectacular, I could definitely see it going back there very soon. Like, tomorrow. I want to try everything on the menu, and I would like some to poach some fresh salmon. I still think it’s really odd that there is full service at the tables, because I can’t imagine that things run smoothly during peak hours: some people crowded at the front, waiting for a table; people congregated at the tables; servers squeezing past everyone to serve the congregation their food; and non-cafe customers perusing the store for items. A bit of chaos, no? Maybe I will have to see it to believe it. To their credit, our servers tonight, clearly harried by an insanely busy opening and day-after-opening days, were kind, helpful as they could be, and immediately corrected any mistakes they or the kitchen made. One tired server, bless her heart, said to someone through gritted teeth, “It’s been a GREAT two DAYS!” Aw.

In addition to adding a cafe component, SMS has a Bay Cities catch-all component – they’ve expanded their non-fish, packaged item selection considerably. For example, there is a whole corner of wines:

There also is a little refrigerated section for cheese; shelves full of sauces, pastas, and La Brea Bakery bread. The prices are hit and miss – a few of my favorite cheeses, Affinois brie and Petit Basque, are cheaper here than at Bay Cities and Beverly Hills Cheese Shop. On the other hand, the packages of creme fraiche were definitely at least a buck or two more than the same package at Trader Joe’s. The fresh fish selection, of course, is hard to beat, but, like almost all fresh seafood, it is not cheap (i.e., striped bass is priced $19.99/pound – which, incidentally, probably is just a buck or two more expensive than Whole Foods, and probably more fresh). Is it worth it? I unhesitatingly say absolutely, it is, in the same way that organic chicken is worth the extra expense, based just on flavor and without regard to any politically correct, liberalizing need to justify our food sources. But, again, it’s expensive, and prohibitively so. It’s not something we all can justify; even the highest of principles falter in the face of the lowest of bank balances.

So, if we can afford it, we’ve got two spots for fresh seafood meals – here or The Hungry Cat. The Hungry Cat is better, no doubt, but for a neighborhood spot, SMS is so great, I smile just thinking about it. For some odd reason, Los Angeles severely lacks in low- to mid-range places that serve fresh seafood, so I am ecstatic that SMS is open. I can’t afford to pick up fish there all the time, but when the time and recipe is right, it’s totally worth it.

Santa Monica Seafood
1000 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica
(310) 393-5244
M-F 9am-9pm
Sunday 9am-8pm

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.

Back to the pies – for those of us who don’t want fused pizza, there are more traditional pies as well, but the only catch is that their names don’t not inherently tell you a whole lot about the pie.  Or, maybe it does.  It does?  I picked up a slice of the Larry Tate: spinach, tomatoes, garlic on a white pie. I guess this is a symbol of profit driven corporations: spinach. Really?

Sorry, I gobbled this one up way before I had a chance to take a picture.  The white sauce had a slight bit of kick to it, just the slightest, but it was there, and the cheese was soft and fluffy, not the plastic white Velveeta that you sometimes end up with when pies are tragically left out too long.  Regarding the all-important crust, the make or break factor of a pizza – well, I kind of see what New Yorkers are bitching about when they say LA has no good pizza.  The extra cornmealed crust gives it a fantastic little big crunch that doesn’t crumble like an overdone brownie and doesn’t splinter into a million little pieces like Pizza Hut’s thin crust. Sorry, I’m sure comparing the two in the same breath is sacrilegious, but tough beans. That’s my frame of reference, and the frame of reference for the too many of us who grew up on the pizza from Pizza Hut, Domino’s, and Papa John’s. We know what we’re talking about.

The Tony Clifton – mushrooms, red pepper pesto, onions, mozzarella – made sense. Tony Clifton definitely was on shrooms.

This also was tasty for the same reasons as above, plus it had the added bonus of a saucy sauce. The pepper pesto had a bit of a – dare I say, Southern – kick to it, and, even though it was a bit thinner than I would have preferred, it still was a happy change to the basic marinara-and-mushroom formula. Together, it all melded very well. And I don’t even like mushrooms!

In short: wow, great slice, and heads and heels above a lot of soggy, greasy pizza in this city.  But, as good as it was, I’m not fawning at their doorstep, which a few of the gushing Sons of Man were doing.  But, I do see why those bowler hats did come in to pay their respects: on this side of town, a good slice is hard to find.  I think Hard Times is meh at best; Nicky D’s, used to be better; Masa next door has a different type of pizza going on, so that’s an unfair sneaker-to-boot-type of comparison; and Pizza Buono – which is literally a few stores down the block – is great, but they don’t do slices. Two Boots is definitely worth popping in for a slice or two if you’re between errands and/or shopping, now or in the future. Welcome to Echo Park! The gelato parlor is on its way.

Two Boots
1818 Sunset
Echo Park
Mo-Th 4pm-1am how awesome is that!
Fr-Sa 4pm – 2am
Su 4pm-11pm
(213) 413-2668 for delivery

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.

The menu we had that day was unfortunately pretty limited. Not sure why; we should have asked. In any case, what we did end up with was pretty good, but overpriced. Typical for the area. First up, onion rings. $4.

8 onion rings @ $4.00 = Were they worth 50 cents each? Well – yes and no. If you want to splurge on onion rings, these would fit the bill. I hate overbreaded onion rings – or, overbreaded anything, though one could make a pretty good argument in favor of overbreaded fried chicken – and these were thinly breaded red onion rings. The batter was light and clung onto the rings well. Pretty damn tasty, if pretty damn expensive.

We also got the sturgeon; at $8 for two pieces, it reminded me of when we got two seared scallops at Restaurant Zoe in Seattle: amazing … ly expensive.

The bread was way too toasted, but other than that, these were really damn good. Not fishy in the least, cooked flaky, good juice. But at $4 each – sashimi expensive. Not really worth it. $2 each maybe.

Entrees:
The waiter recommended the polenta cake, which the girlfriend fretted over, because polenta is not meat. Non-vegetarians fret about getting vegetarian dishes, for fear that it won’t fill them up sufficiently. Sorry, vegetarians, it’s true. We don’t know how you get full.

Underneath all that frisee was an excellent polenta dish. Polenta is hard – it’s usually either too gummy (as result of overmixing), too uneven (as result of non-constant stirring), too soggy (as result of too much liquid), or too flavorless (as result of everything). This was none of these. On its own, without the accouterments (roasted tomatoes, mushrooms), it was still perfectly cooked: a little crisp on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside, good flavors that accentuated the corn without being too gritty. The girlfriend was very satisfied and satiated. We understand you vegetarians now.

I got the pesto flatbread with toppings that I can’t remember – burrata, bacon, scallions, I think. It was actually called something way fancier than that.

The thin crust was great; not so thin that it couldn’t hold up the enormous weight of the cheese and toppings, not too thick that it became all about the crust and took away from the toppings. It was crispy without being hard. The toppings themselves were delicious – not very heavy at all. Best of all, it was only a buck or so overpriced, and it was more than enough to fill me up.

For dessert, a pear crisp.

This was probably the most disappointing part of the meal. As the girlfriend said, it tasted like it was out of the can, even though I really don’t think it was (the imperfect shapes gave it away). The crisp crumble was a bit mealy, didn’t taste like anything, and was a little too crispy in places. Overall, it was ok at best; next time, if we really needed dessert, we should stick with the chocolate

I wanted to like Ford’s Filling Station so much than I did. There were good parts that really took off, but in the end, it just didn’t really end all that well – the pear crisp, the total bill. Really, if it was just a few bucks cheaper, it really would have made all the difference. Damn. So close.

Ford’s Filling Station
9531 Culver Blvd.
Culver City
Mo-Tu 11-10
We-Sat 11-11
Su 10-10

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.

It was my birthday recently. There’s a huge, mental gap between 26 and 27 that I didn’t anticipate; it didn’t hit me until a few days after my actual birthday, on Saturday morning. I managed to stave off yet another quarter life crisis by concentrating on the Really Important Thing: Food. We were having a birthday dinner party on Sunday; because we were making quite a few things from Suzanne Goin’s Sunday Suppers with Lucques cookbook, this meant we needed to prep everything day(s) in advance. Sigh. Such a wonderful cookbook, but the recipes have onion-sized layers that require much too much forethought and planning. I was supposed to spend all of Saturday prepping everything, but I forgot I had to 1) contemplate the meaning of 26-going-on-27; 2) de-mullet, i.e., get a haircut; and 3) buy groceries. Running in and around Silverlake after my haircut, I needed a food break, but it had to be quick, because I had groceries to buy, ingredients to prepare, life directions to overanalyze. I also had a hankering for a cheeseburger.

Yuca’s is one of Los Angeles’s prides and joys; we’re proud of big, James Beard-ed things in small packages. Known primarily for their tacos and burritos, people from all over apparently battle traffic to line up for a Yuca’s burrito or taco. Mother Herrera, sitting on a stool as you step up, takes your order and writes it on the back of a brown paper bag if you’re taking it to go, on the bottom of the paper plate if you’re getting it for here (“for here” meaning, one of 4 tables at the shack, the tiny stool on the side of the shack, a random chair scattered about the shack, or the back of my Yaris). She tallies the price of your order and you submit payment to the kind lady who is doing triple duty of receiving payment, cooking, and packaging. The remainder of the 4 people squeezed in this shack are doing their part to grill and cook everyone’s order. This is the real Five Guys.

Sorry for the non-posts again, but with me thinking that I am going to get laid off soon, with the girlfriend thinking she’s definitely going to get laid off soon, with the dog not contributing squat because of labor laws, etc, we just haven’t been eating out as much as we used to. I compensate by giving you information that we both can use: free doughnuts!!

Krispy Kreme celebrates Obama Day (i.e., Inauguration Day) with your choice of a free doughnut. They’re calling this event “Freedom of Choice” which screams “ABORTION” but it’s not really about that. Or is it?

UPDATE 01/16/09(mostly for c): A ha! The pro-lifers have their panties in a bunch over this. CHOICE quote (ha ha!):

“A misconstrued concept of ‘choice’ has killed over 50 million preborn children since Jan. 22, 1973. Does Krispy Kreme really want their free doughnuts to celebrate this ‘freedom’?”

[The answer, of course, is a resounding YES! GO, freedom, GO!]

Krispy Kreme

The end of the month is dineLA’s Restaurant Week and a Half wherein participating restaurants have special pre fixe 3 course meals for $16-28 for lunch and $26-44 for dinner. The idea here is to try different places you normally wouldn’t go to, usually for cost reasons. But, is it really worth it? I’ve found that sometimes you end up paying what you would have paid had you just ordered the items off the menu, except you don’t get the benefit of the full menu; sometimes all you save is a buck or two; sometimes you save lots more; sometimes you save a lot but the portions are noticeably tinier. Let’s take an example.

Here’s one place that caught my eye – Akasha in Culver City. Have heard great things, have been wanting to try it for a while. They also give you a coupon for coffee in their bakery when you sign up for their email list. Hurrah!

Akasha: dineLA lunch menu for $22. The menu cost of these dishes are in brackets ([ ]).

Appetizers: Choice of

• soup [$7];
• cannelinni Bean Hummus, Truffle Salt, Flatbread, Marinated Olives [$8]; or
• Grilled Artichoke – Smoked Paprika Aioli [$9]

Entrees: Choice of

• Grilled Steak – Bibb Lettuce, Picked Red Onions, Oregonzola, Tarragon Mustard Vinaigrette [$16];
• Masala Spiced Wild Shrimp – Local Greens, Red Leaf, Pistachios, Picked Onions, Yogurt-Tomato Chutney Dressing [$16]; or
• Punjabi Mung Beans and Rice – Local Greens, Tandoori Flatbread, Tomato Chutney, Raita [$14]

Desserts: Choice of

• Assortment of Mini Desserts from Akasha Bakery [not offered on their regular menu, probably around $8-9];
• Ice Cream Trio – Choice of three: Vanilla Ice Cream, Soy Vanilla Gelato, Pumpkin, Toasted Almond, and Chocolate Hemp Gelato [$8]; or
• Sorbet – Choice of three: Tangerine, Coconut, Acai, Pomegranate [$8]

Assuming you get the most expensive things offered – grilled artichoke + grilled steak + any dessert – had you ordered these items off the menu, the total would be $33. That is $11 more than the pre fixe menu, or approximately the cost of the dessert (approximately). So, you end up ahead with dessert, plus two bucks to help cover the tip. Not too shabby!

By the by, dineLA’s dinner at Akasha is $34, a little high for my range right now. It’s high for a lot of our price ranges right now and five months from now.

The only catch is that Akasha is only open for lunch Mondays through Fridays. Grumble grumble grumble. As the international law student once said to me when I explained how the law school curve works: That is suck.

dineLA Restaurant Week
January 25 – 30; Feb. 1-6, 2009
must check website for participating restaurants.

Just got this in my inbox – my top 5 favorites Lucques will be having a special “All-American” dinner on January 20th in honor of our new administration. To be sure, you’re going to get a lot of whitewashed liberals stupidly toasting to the End of Racism attending, but the upside is that you’ll also get a fine American meal, including mini-pork burgers, lobster rolls, choice of stuffed trout, beef brisket, or mac & cheese, and a slice of home-dog American apple pie. It’s like that movie, American Pie.

The catch: the End of Racism is very expensive – $50/person (which, really, isn’t too horrible considering that Lucques’ always excellent Sunday Suppers are $45/person, every week).

Toast!

Lucques
8474 Melrose
reservations (323) 655-6277