Two Boots Pizza - Echo Park, Ca

For reasons that are entirely arbitrary I grant fancy-pants pizza much more leniency than fancy-pants hamburgers. I suppose the one un-arbitrary reason is that even the fanciest of pantsed 1-2 person pizzas top out in price at around $14, as opposed to burgers that can top $20 for what is, at best, a hearty appetizer. Plus, pizza has always existed in the whambamthankyoumaam variety and the classier forkandknife variety, as opposed to the hamburger which had been a filling fast food and diner standard up until, oh, about 1999 (to pick a wholly arbitrary date).

I judge pizza against two standards. The Lanesplitter Standard and the Pizzeria Delfina standard.

The Lanesplitter Standard: Inexpensive, generously topped thin-crust pizza in a dive-y environment with plentiful modestly-priced booze available.

The Pizzeria Delfina Standard: Moderate-to-expensive, thoughtfully topped with premium ingredients on a thin, lightly scorched crust baked at high-temperatures.

Two Boots, the recent NYC transplant to Echo Park, compares favorably against the Lanesplitter Standard but it's a bit more ambitious than Lanesplitter and a bit more expensive (and served no beer), so overall my impression was mixed.

I had two slices. I opted for the more unusual selections. First was a "Bird" slice--buffalo chicken, blue cheese, scallions, jalapenos, on a white pizza. This was a pretty good slice, though not very spicy. I would've liked more scallion and jalapeno and less blue cheese which hid itself in stinky pockets throughout the pizza. The second slice, Bayou Beast, with crawfish, andouille, and jalapenos, was a disappointment. Sparsely topped, it just tasted kinda salty.

And that was my general complaint: the pizzas were salty as hell. And not because the components were particularly salty--the crust, sauce, cheese, everything was loaded with cheap-tasting salt. Fine for a pepperoni slice from some dive, but when I'm eating crawfish and andouille on a pizza I want to taste crawfish and andouille.

My secondary complaint: the pizza was soggy. This is my frequent complaint with Lanesplitter too, but whenever I get a slice from Lanesplitter it's usually pretty crisp (as opposed to a pie which is always soggy in the middle). At Two Boots, even the slices were soggy at the ends. Lame.

My tertiary complaint: the pizza is too lightly topped. With inexpensive pizza, you can forgive the shortcomings in sauce and crust because there's a heap of tasty toppings. Not so at Two Boots. If you're not going to load up on toppings, your sauce and cheese had better shine, but Two Boots' sauce and cheese is serviceable at best.

Still, it's the most interesting pizza I've had in LA and the prices are still pretty good, even if they're a few cents more expensive then some of my old favorites. I'll give it a go on a regular basis--and they deliver to my neighborhood. Bonus.

The All-Time Greatest Thing of All Time

So Chowhound, the grande dame of foodie message boards, is home to the closest approximation of reasoned dialogue in the internet food world. Part of that is because Chowhound aggressively moderates its message boards to keep discussion on topic, cordial, and as objective as possible. Food professionals are not allowed to comment on their own establishments or directly about a rival, flamers and fucktards are kept at bay, and purely malicious comments are deleted.

But if you're a regular Chowhound reader, you'll often catch choice gems in the brief window before they're deleted that will make your day. Sort of like when you find a Wikipedia article that reads "Bob Dole likes golden showers" before it refreshes with the truth that Bob Dole merely tolerates golden showers when Liddy insists.

A chef friend of mine sent me this screenshot from Chowhound (click for full size):

As a bit of background, Mark Malicki, the angry respondent, is the chef-owner of the St. Rose Cafe in Santa Rosa, the target of the poster's vitriol. And you know what? Good for him. The guy who wrote this post is clearly a high-functioning moron who won't ever be coming back and anybody who would be upset with Chef Malicki for his comment shouldn't be going to his restaurant anyway.

And now a guy like me who'd never heard of this place before will make a point to visit the St. Rose Cafe the next time I'm in Santa Rosa. You gotta support the cause, you know?

Plus I'm intrigued by this "bag of dicks" he has on his menu. Never heard of that before. I think it's Greek.

Had the chicken fajita pita at Jack in the Box today, desperate for food but with very little time. That's one of the best fast food items for the urban hobo. Spicy, whole grains, and a decent amount of veggies.

Well, at least he doesn't have hands any more....

Molecular Gastronomy gone horribly awry....

http://www.thelocal.de/society/20090713-20575.html

But at least this happened in Germany. They have the technology. They can rebuild him.

The Future of Wine?

I'm tired of wine. Let me explain. I'm tired of the wine regions that people care about. Napa, Sonoma, all of France, most of Spain, northern Italy, and lets throw in Paso Robles just for kicks.

So where then do we look for the next great wine region that we can plunder and and force into over-price-itude?

Old World: The re-emergent Eastern European wine scene is of interest.... Slovenia was quickly ravished by nearby Italian winemakers, but further down the Adriatic coast in Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia have some great white wines at great prices. Red wine is still tricky for this region, but we'll see how that develops.

A good spot for red wine is Portugal. Just like Spain fifteen years ago, Portugal is seeing a new generation of winemakers taking over and modernizing the process, creating wines with a little less funk, a bit more stability, and a bit more approachability from a new world palate. Check out wines from Alentejo for an easy point of entry.

New World: I'm still not sold on Australia. I think they make some decent wine but it's all ripe, straightforward stuff until you get into the ultra-premium range. New Zealand is worth a watch, but their varietal selections are limited. South Africa makes some very cool wines and price points seem to be coming down in recent years. Some of my favorite Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon comes out of South Africa.

In South America, there is some quality coming out of Argentina but you have to sift through the acres of cheap swill that represents the bulk of Argentine imports. Uruguayan Tannat is stellar, but it's a tough sell. I like Chile for its price point.

Which brings me to the United States. In California, I encourage you to stock up on Mendocino County wines before the prices get prohibitive. Lake County is producing some nice inexpensive stuff and the Sierra Foothills is underappreciated for its quality. We'll see some more emerging AVAs from the Central Valley producing wines of quality, akin to what we've seen from Lodi AVA and Clarksburg AVA. I dislike Washington and Oregon's nice but expensive. I'm very intrigued about what's coming out of Arizona and think that's a region to watch. I'm underfamiliar with New York wine, but I like Caberner Franc. I also like wines from Western Virginia and North Carolina, but it's expensive to get the wine out here and production is still too small for real value.

In conclusion? Mendocino, Sierra Foothills, Croatia, Portugal, and Arizona.

Cookbooks About Actually Cooking

So I'm reading Mark Kurlansky's new book, The Food of a Younger Land. It's not actually his book, he's more of the annotator/editor. Sort of like how Flavor Flav doesn't really write Public Enemy songs, he just adds his two cents here and there and wears a clock.

The book is a printing of the scrapped Depression-era WPA project called America Eats. Like the immensely successful WPA guidebooks that were published in the 1930s, America Eats would offer insights into regional cuisine and, just as much, regional food culture. State projects submitted notes and essays to one of six regional headquarters who then compiled the information into guides like "The South Eats" and "The Northwest Eats." Unfortunately, flagging interest in the WPA during the waning days of the Depression combined with disparate regional funding slowed the project and World War II put a decisive end to the program entirely.

Kurlansky makes no attempt to recreate what the theoretical guide book would be. He simply presents the article he's selected with short introductions. He lets the vintage writing from the late 1930s speak for itself.

It's an engaging read because it reflects how recipes should be written. The recipes aren't quite as haphazard and whimsical as 19th century cook books (where a "good joint of mutton" was a common ingredient), but they do require an active engagement with the cooking process and the local culture behind the recipe.

Cookbooks now are about measuring ingredients, aseembling, setting timers, and walking away. Even as recently as the 1930s where clocks and timers were rather common, recipes required vigilance, advising you to "cook until done" or "cook until bright green." Sure there are some specific measurements, but there are also directives like "cover with water, add more if needed" and "if you want spicier, add more Tabasco."

Now we treat cooking as a sort of paint-by-numbers rote exercise instead of a fluid act of creation. This is why we can never make something "like Grandma used to make it." Sure Grandma followed recipes, but she wasn't a slave to them.

The best contemporary cookbooks for real cooking I've found are How To Cook Everything and The Best Recipes in the World by Mark Bittman who, despite his recent late-to-the-game Locavore transformation, still does a good job of integrating food, culture, and history into his recipes.

And if you haven't read Kurlansky's Salt or Cod, you really must. They're indispensable food history books.

HFF out.

Let's take this literally....

So this website is called Horny For Food. Sometimes I write about the interrelationship between food and sex. I like the blurry boundary that exists between the two. It's interesting.

So let's take food and sex literally. I am now about to do Google Image searches for several different food items. I'll let you know how many results (not pages, results) deep I need to go before a pornographic photo pops up. SafeSearch is definitely off.

1. Cucumber: 26 (16 if you count the picture of a very penis-shaped sea cucumber)
2. Banana: 57
3. Watermelon: 489
4. Sausage: 43
5. Cheese: 586 (actually a photo of a topless Mischa Barton highlighting her cellulite, but I'm counting it)
6. Donut: 110
7. Mayonnaise: 97
8. Pepper: 285
9. Melon: 12 (and not what you're expecting. Try the search yourself)
10. Pie: 55
11. Hamburger: 343
12. Manwich: 60
13. Tortilla: 736
14. Roast Beef: 62
15. Gravy: 675
16. Taco: 199 (I'm actually surprised how far I had to go for that)

Well that wasted some time.

Caduceus, Merkin, & Tool - Oh My!

There are lots of famous wealthy people who decide to diversify once they strike it rich. It's about brand building I suppose. Or maintaining a 360-degree media consciousness. Actors open restaurants, singers start clothing lines, strippers become porn stars and then become escorts. It's all about squeezing money out of every possible stream, channel, and orifice.

But in most of these instances, it's not a labor of love. It's just a bunch of big companies figuring out new ways to make money on the same crappy Chinese sunglasses. Jay-Z is no more a fashion designer than Sasha Grey is a legitimate actress.

But when the motivation to use your considerable financial resources to pursue non-autochthonous business ventures is pure--driven by an honest passion--you get some damn good salad dressings. Or, in the case of Caduceus Cellars, some really good wine.

The baby of Tool/A Perfect Circle/Puscifer frontman Maynard James Keenan, Caduceus Cellars represents an effort to bring world-class winemaking back to Arizona. Maynard was at Silverlake Wine last weekend presenting a few releases from Caduceus and its brother, Merkin Vineyards.

Only one of the wines poured was from the Arizona vineyards--they were planted in 2004 so wine from the first harvest was just bottled this past year--but there's nothing wrong with what they've been doing so far using fruit mostly sourced from Paso Robles. Eric Glomski takes the lead on the winemaking, but after a short conversation with Maynard (where we talked about yields, distribution, and temperature, amongst other things), it was eminently clear that he's more than just a money guy. He's out there in the dirt, in the cellars, and has a clear mission for his winery and a very active hand in the winemaking.

First up was a white wine (the Arizona one), Dos Ladrones, roughly equal parts Chardonnay and Malvasia Bianca. Girlfriend Charlie and I were both, at first pour, turned off to the wine. It was very tight and tasted underripe. We were thinking "Oh hell, some over-hyped celebrity wine here." But as the wine warmed (reaching about 57 degrees, Maynard said, the wine is at its best) it opened up beautifully. Really beautifully, actually. Very cool stuff and I think clearly expressive of what Arizona white wine can be.

Next up was the flagship "Primer Paso" wine, made up primarily of Syrah with a dose of Malvasia (from Arizona) in there. What would prove to be a trait of all the Caduceus wine was what made it eminently appealing: there was a lot of acid for a red. This was a food wine.

My favorite of the tasting was the Naga, a primarily Sangiovese blend made from Paso Robles fruit. Unlike most Sangioveses I've had from Paso Robles, this wasn't overly extracted and the acidity shown through nicely. Mostly Italian-styled, but with more bright fruit.

As much as I did like the Naga, I'm stoked on the Merkin Vineyards Chupacabra. The one thing about Caduceus Cellars and the cachet attached to its owner is that they can charge quite a bit for their wine. The wines are priced fairly given the quality, production size (tiny tiny) and the serious costs associated with starting up a vineyard from scratch, but I'm not going to lie: there are plenty of wines to be had of comparable quality for considerably less. But the Chupacabra, made from an annually changing blend of varietals (mostly Cab & Syrah), hits a nice ~$20 price point and serves as a solid introduction to the style of the more prohibitively priced Caduceus wines. Big fruit, good tannins, and that brisk acidity--a good barbecue wine for summer.

What was just so cool was to hear a guy who could easily use the novelty of his star power to make some horseshit crap but instead he's made wine a part of his life, all while campaigning hard for what could be a new major wine region in the United States.

So the only negative opinion I really have about the wines is that they're really expensive. But with the Chupacabra and a growing estate vineyard, hopefully Caduceus/Merkin will have more wines across the price spectrum.

Caduceus Cellars Wines are available throughout Los Angeles, including at Silverlake Wine, The Cheese Store of Silverlake, Liquid Wine & Spirits, and select Whole Foods.

www.caduceus.org

Big news! Michelin Man dumps LA, Vegas, citing irreconcilable differences, general malaise

So this is something. Apparently the Michelin Guides won't be publishing either a Los Angeles or a Las Vegas guide for 2010.

I think this is a good thing. In the short time that Michelin's been active in these markets, very little has happened. The fine dining market in these two money-above-all-centric cities has been absolutely stagnant. The list of Michelin-starred LA-restaurants reads like a who's-who of bland and dull. When your biggest openings are fifth or twelfth efforts from non-indigenous chefs like Michael Mina and Gordon Ramsey, you know your city's shit just isn't straight. And from watching the Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel penned classic "Multiplicity," we know what happens by the third or fourth iteration--you end up with a retard who still gets to fuck Andie McDowell.

LA's neighborhood dining has flourished, don't get me wrong--Animal, Street, Palate, Barbrix, Father's Office, all pretty exciting stuff. But LA's $100 a plate restaurants are a list of dreary Cal-Med retreads and fusion endeavors that reak of the late 1980's. Why isn't Los Angeles nurturing its local chef-owners to produce stand-alone restaurants of a destination calibre? Where are the restaurants like SPQR, Range, Redd, and Cyrus in the SF Bay Area? (Meaning restaurants that have opened in the last five years or so that are innovative and appealing and not backed by giant restaurant groups).

Money can't buy honesty and it definitely can't buy class. Thanks Michelin for taking a temporary hike.

Kogi - Los Angeles, Ca

There're trends. There're innovations. There's novelty. There's quality. Often, a restaurant achieving two of those four benchmarks will enjoy fabulous success. A novel concept will retain its clientele if the quality is good. A trendy restaurant can endure if it continues to innovate. A restaurant with a quality product can persevere without any of the other three criteria but it can't hurt to throw in a bit of novelty and innovation here and there, at least to please a prick like me (c.f. Chez Panisse Cafe).

So it's kinda surprising that a weird little quirky taco truck mastered all of those benchmarks, did it quickly, and capitalized on it vigorously.

I'm no fan of trends or bandwagons. I'm a skeptic to the very core. You really have to prove to me why you're so freakin' awesome, I'm not just going to accept it. Point is, I never sought out Kogi. It sounded kinda cool but it also sounded like relatively simple street food, albeit kinda unconventional: Korean meat and accompaniments presented in the charming aesthetics of an East LA taco truck.

What we see with Kogi is the perfect confluence of events. It launched in Los Angeles, a city unequaled in the nation in terms of its street food (fuck you New York). It launched during a recession when value dining was at peak demand. And it shrewdly utilized social networking (especially Twitter) to (artifically?) generate a cult demand for its product. The result? What was a quirky experiment in fusion cuisine became a regional sensation with national coverage. A phenomenon that tore up the food blogs for almost a year. Motherfucking Kogi.

I give Kogi massive credit for taking up residence at the Alibi Room in Culver City. Most of us who aren't total trendy douche bags find something weird about waiting two hours for a taco truck, so knowing that we can go to a fixed location and get most of the offerings on a regular basis is a very good thing.

So it was that I met up with Hollywood Legend Kenny at Costco in Venice (he was getting his tires rotated) and we had two hours to kill, so I proposed hitting up the Alibi Room for some Korean BBQ Taco Action which, coincidentally, is the title of my current adult film project.

We showed up early--5:30 when the bar opens--so we knew we'd have to wait for our food. But, showing up as early as possible is key as the Alibi Room quickly filled up and 99% of the patrons were eating Kogi. A good number were eating Kogi and drinking nothing but water, so I wonder how much the Alibi Room is really making in this relationship.

The Alibi Room is a nice space. Lots of room, big bar, comfy lounge areas. Not a bad way to kill a half-hour before our food arrived. Good beer selection and friendly staff too. Kenny and I both ordered taco combos (chicken, pork, short rib) and we shared an order of sliders (short rib) and a kimchi quesadilla.

Did I mention I was a skeptic? I am. I really freaking am. It's easy to get my respect but pretty damn hard to earn my admiration.

So knowing that, I say without qualification: Kogi was fucking good. Really fucking good. Really really fucking good.

I mean, it's the perfect fusion of cuisine. What is Korean bbq? Meat and pickled shit. What's a good street taco? Meat and pickled shit. Throw in some cilantro and they're basically the same cuisine except for skin color and math aptitiude.

I'm sorry I'm a racist.

Tacos: really nice. I actually kinda like how they griddle the tortillas so that they're vaguelyslightlykindacrisp. Short ribs were, as most have reported, the best. Tender, meaty, and vibrantly flavorful. Spicy pork was also very good, though not particularly spicy. Chicken was excellent but, compared to the other two meats, it just didn't shine. It's like being Scarlett Johansson in the same room as Anne Hathaway and Zooey Deschanel: excellent doesn't hold up against spectacular (unless you're showing off your ass at the beginning of Lost in Translation--that's spectacular with a capital T--but Kogi's chicken isn't Scarlett Johansson's ass, it's Megan Fox's ass, nice but not splooge-worthy).

Kimchi quesadilla: Also very very delicious. Good cheese, well made, excellent non-gas-inducing kimchi, and nicely griddled tortilla. A surprising highlight of the meal.

The sliders: the only dud. Mediocre roll. Great meat. Too much cheap cheese. I wouldn't kick it out of bed, but why get the middling sliders when you can get superb tacos for the same price?

Which brings me to the matter of price. Even here, in residence, Kogi tacos were eminently reasonable. Three tacos were $7 and in a town where it's hard to find a delicious diarrhea-inducing street taco for less than $1.75, that ain't bad. $2.333333333 for a taco that you're able to enjoy in a cushy chair? That's an extra $0.5833333333333 well spent.

So I guess that every now and then something comes around that is both worthwhile and trendy. Unlike Goa or Pet Rocks, Kogi provides a real quantitative value and it appears to have launched imitators (Chinese fusion tacos, fine-dining food trucks) which will ensure that Kogi's legacy lives on.

Kogi Korean BBQ
@Alibi Room
12236 Washington Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90066
www.alibiroomla.com
www.kogibbq.com

The Yelp!ification of Opinion

So I recently wrote about sandwiches. I think I was pretty clear that I was just talking about sandwiches I liked from places I've been. I didn't pretend that I was an expert on sandwiches. I didn't pretend that I'd been to every sandwich place in town or that I was making an unequivocal list of the best and anything not on my list was bad.

Apparently, however, every positive mention of a business means you are, by definition, damning every other similar business you aren't mentioning. My sandwich post garnered the most comments of any post I've done in a while and all were ostensibly from new readers, most of whom were soiling their panties over my failure to mention their favorite sandwich shop.

Come on fuckers, I didn't title my post "the best sandwich in LA" or any other crap like that. I was just writing about good sandwiches. And so sorry I didn't go to your little sandwich shop in Santa Monica, but have any of you been to all the sandwich shops that I listed in my post? I mean, if you have then I'll think a bit more about caring for your opinion. I still won't care for it, but I'll at least consider it.

Now I will respond to each comment:

"56295629 said...

Does Bay City Deli not fit some equation here?"

And what equation would that be? Borderline illiteracy + opinion = dipshit? Because in that case, it does fit into the equation.

What equation it does not fit, however, is the subject of my post which is PLACES I'VE BEEN. I haven't been to Bay City Deli. Sorry.

"tin said...

Artisan Cheese Gallery in Studio City has superb sandwiches!"

I've heard this. I haven't been, hence not writing about it. But that's the Valley, and the only things in the Valley are porn stars and pumpkins.

"Francisco said...

Seriously, the exclusion of Bay Cities completely invalidates this list."

Now I don't want to go to Bay Cities because apparently its fans are militant retards. Sort of like NOW on a short bus. Nothing invalidates anything. Please check the subject. It's a list of places I've been that I've liked. It makes no pretense to comprehensiveness or objectivity.

"SR said...

I'll second Artisan and third Bay City. And throw in Langer's for good measure."

Cool. Good for you. But I don't recall asking "Give me your recommendations for some other good sandwiches."

Does the internets really have most of us convinced that every little musing is an objective unequivocal assertion of truth and value? Or do we really just love our little parochial sandwich shop that much? Or do most of us not read?

Just to check: "I really like Bacaro."

Now I hope to get a flurry of comments declaring my statement invalid because I don't also like some place I've never been.

Save it for Yelp!

And tell your mom I said whaddup.

Short Cuts

In a perfect world I'd chop all my veggies and slow-cook all my sauces. But last time I checked North Korea had the bomb and Ray Romano's still alive, so it's clearly not a perfect world. Here are a few of my favorite culinary shortcuts:

1. Frozen garlic cubes. You get these little frozen bits of chopped up garlic--like all great things a product of Israel--at Trader Joe's. They're quick, convenient, and actually contain pretty much just garlic (unlike a lot of the other garlic pastes or jars of chopped garlic). A little tricky to use at first--make sure you keep your stove top temperature pretty low and keep stirring the cubes around until they melt into your oil--but when you figure it out you get a flavor and aroma that's pretty damn close to freshly chopped garlic.

2. Pasta sauce. Yes, I know. I use jarred sauce. I'm sorry. But I mean, really, unless I'm making from-scratch sauce from fresh tomatoes, what's the REAL difference between making a sauce from canned tomatoes and from a nice simple ready-made marinara? You can still add your sausage, veggies, and herbs--it's just that initial heavy lifting that's been done for you.

3. Salad dressing. Yeah, I'll even buy vinaigrettes. It's just easier and usually tastes better.

4. Salsa. Actually, this isn't so much a short cut, but I just really like cheap, cooked, room-temperature jarred salsa. It actually tastes like something, as opposed to salsa crudas or salsa fresca which just taste like cold and cilantro.

This wasn't a very interesting post. Sorry.

A Really Good Sandwich

I like sandwiches. I also know how to make sandwiches and inevitably my homemade sandwich that costs me 95 cents is 10 times better than the $5 fast food/deli sandwiches out there and at least as good as the $9-$12 "gourmet" sandwiches that white people like.

But as someone who spends his days on the road and frequently finds himself inside businesses that deal in said expensive sandwiches, here's my quick take on a few of LA's standouts. Note that I'm sticking to take-out "gourmet market" sandwiches and panini and not deli sandwiches (kosher or otherwise).

Larchmont Village Wine, Spirits, & Cheese is perhaps the flagship sandwich counter, located on weird Larchmont Ave which is equal parts quaint and Beverly Center--one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles, yet the sandwiches at this neighborhood wine shop are your best bet for gourmet dining. The simple set menu (all around $9) of nicely thought-out sandwiches leaves Larchmont with a line out the door most every lunch hour.

Pros? Top quality meats. Well composed sandwiches. Delicious bread. Lots of produce. Half-size sandwiches are a perfect inexpensive light lunch.
Cons? Menu rarely changes. Sandwiches are tough to eat on the road.

Cheese Store of Silverlake has stellar panini and, believe it or not, friendly helpful staff. The selection changes daily and showcases newly arrived cheeses, charcuterie, and condiments. Virtually every ingredient in a panini is available for sale in the store. Go for any sandwich that has muffaleta or a chutney. While the panini are the draw, their un-paninified baguette sandwiches also rock. A recent baguette with brie, arugula, and fresh strawberries basically made me jizz my pants.

Pros? Hot, tasty, portable sandwiches. Fresh ingredients. Great cheeses and chutneys.
Cons? Often light on the fresh veggies. They run out of sandwiches quickly.

Goudas and Vines, a relatively new addition to Santa Monica, has great simple sandwiches. The designs aren't any different from what you'd get at your local Safeway, but the ingredient quality is several steps up.

Pros? Fairly inexpensive. Quick. Friendly.
Cons? Uninspiring combinations.

Venice Beach Wines, fresh from a recent remodel, has added a great selection of cheese, charcuterie, and the inevitable pressed sandwiches that come with that territory. The lamb and manchego sandwich rocks.

Pros? Inspired combinations. Nice indoor/outdoor space to enjoy your sandwich in.
Cons? Limited selection. The small space can get easily overwhelmed.

So yeah, get your sandwich on. The Earl will appreciate it.

Bar Hop - Downtown LA

So I live in Downtown LA now, which I absolutely love. And I'm aware of the humor that it was only after moving to the most suburban of big cities that I actually moved into a city center to live in a converted warehouse on a rutty street with close-up views of LA's idiosyncratic downtown skyline.

A friend informed me that our lack of towers and spires is due to the arbitrary decision to require all skyscrapers in LA to have a helipad on top. True.

I'd been out a few times in downtown prior to my move but not recently. And since I moved to the "Arts District" I've only really been out in my 'hood and adjacent Little Tokyo, since the rest of downtown is blocked off by a moat of warehouses and poop-on-your-car hobos. That all changed last week.

After our below-mentioned dinner at Barbrix, the restaurateur colleague of mine headed back to my place and called a cab to truck our asses into the Old Bank District/Historic Core/Whatever the fuck marketing name realtors come up.

But first we needed to make a stop.

"Kind Eddy's" my colleague told the cab driver, who looked at us with a mix of awe, shock, and disdain.
"What's that?" I asked.
"A dive bar in Skid Row."
"Oh."

Damn. I wore my good wristwatch.

"Here." My colleague requested to the cabby. The cabby seemed concerned that he was stopping three storefronts away from the bar.
"You sure you don't want closer?"
"Nah man, it's cool."

And out we went. We strolled past a few Skid Row denizens, including a gentleman being arrested by a pair of LA's finest, with no harassment and popped into King Eddy's at the corner of 5th & San Pedro.

(It should be noted that, thanks to a rather vigorous ramp up of law enforcement coupled with an increase in social services, Skid Row is actually a pretty decent 'hood. It's dirtier than SF's SoMa, but seems safer overall. The drug problem has been more or less addressed and reduced to small-time pot dealers hocking "cabbie" and prostitution in this most sex-focused of cities is unenforceable at best, so what you're left with is, well, people who live on the streets and/or in the many [many] SRO hotels in the area.)

On to King Eddy's. Just like the trailer for an internet porn site that tricks you into getting a trial membership, the idea that was presented on paper of King Eddy's was so much more appealing than what the bar actually was. Because "cheap ass dive bar in Skid Row" sounds as immediately intriguing as "Big Tits Round Asses," by the fourth or so video it gets pretty tedious and now you're on the phone trying to cancel before the monthly rebill kicks in.

Point being, once you get inside, King Eddy's is your pretty prototypical dive. Cheap drinks. Cheaper food (reheated stuff from Costco). And a clientele drawn from the neighborhood: the homeless/underhomed, legitimately employed SRO occupants, the aforementioned small-time dealers, a handful of ladies/transwomen of the night, and a cluster of the young and adventurous. The bar boasts an "A" Health Department grade and is "Zagat Rated." It also has great flat screen TVs, friendly bartenders, and a dude in latex gloves whose sole job is to walk around with a rag and disinfectant spray and clean off every surface regularly. Cool.

After our beers we left and walked the not-even-two-blocks to Main St., which begins the "real" gentrified downtown LA. It'd be like if you your first girlfriend was a chubby transwoman you picked up at King Eddy's and your second girlfriend was Scarlett Johansson AND you picked up the latter while still copulating with the former; that's how proximal $$$ downtown LA is from !!! downtown LA.

First stop, some queer speakeasy-ish bar (Varnish) in the back of Cole's. It was nice, but that whole "mixology" thing is so 2005. And I wouldn't even have minded except that I ordered a "well Manhattan, up" and I was immediately informed that they "don't have a well." The fuck you don't have a well. Every place has a well. Well just means whatever the fucking default spirit is you serve you pretentious douche. I understand that this might mean that my drink still costs whatever the going rate is for a premium cocktail. I get that. All I was indicating by my request was that I want something simple, classic, and quick. And I would've forgiven even that except the waitress THEN asked if I'd like to try some fucking rye and bullshit drink on their "cocktail list" as if I should be fucking honored to try some fucked concoction that a couple of high on their horse 22 year-olds came up with while stoned. I cut her off mid-sentence. The drinks took for fucking ever, too.

But my Manhattan was, actually, excellent.

Next stop was The Association. Now this was a bar I could support. Good vibe, friendly bartenders, appropriately lit, and a cocktail list made up of nothing but standards from the golden age of American drinkin'. They proudly proclaim that their "newest" drink recipe is the James Bond-inspired Vesper dating from the 1950's. We can never hope to match the drinking prowess of our grandparents, but if we hope to even come close we need to master the drinks they drank: boozy and strong and not the queer shit made up of syrups and homemade bitters and fresh squeezed juices that pass for "cocktails" in places like Varnish. My French 75 was fabulous.

Following the Association, we went to the Crocker Club. Located in an old bank vault, complete with thick swing-open vault door and booths set off in money cages, the Crocker Club was pretty cool. At this point I was drunk as hell so I really don't remember much, but my overall feeling was quite positive.

And then our evening took a turn for the awesome, because we hopped into a cab and headed back across town to Sam's Hofbrau.

Sam's Hofbrau is a strip club straight out of From Dusk 'Till Dawn, minus the vampires but with a lot of guys who look like Harvey Keitel. It's a topless/bikini place so there's plenty of booze to be had and a good mixed up crowd of equal parts men and women, hipsters and gangbangers. No cover. Cheapish drinks. Delightfully authentic dancers. Five thumbs up.

Last stop before a cab dragged our asses back to my apartment was a taco truck parked just outside. It was the best fucking taco I've ever had.

Because every drunk 3AM taco is the best fucking taco you've ever had.

Where we went:
King Eddy's - 131 E. Fifth St.
Varnish - 118 E. Sixth St.
The Association - 610 S. Main St.
The Crocker Club - 453 S. Spring St.
Sam's Hofbrau - 1751 E. Olympic Blvd.

Barbrix - Silver Lake, Los Angeles

In what is the earliest initial visit HFF has ever made to a new restaurant, I headed to Barbrix with a restaurateur colleague on their third day open. It was rockstar fabulous across the board, even at this early stage.

We showed up early to kick off our evening that ended up wending through some of the seamier parts of Downtown Los Angeles (King Eddie's anyone?)--but that's a different post. Our early arrival was inadvertently shrewd as the place was packed with a line out the door by 7PM.

The space is well designed and pleasantly simply--a welcome relief from the oft overexecuted ripped-from-the-Hanging-Gardens-of-Babylon LA dining rooms that would be more appropriate as VIP lounges in Vegas strip clubs. There's a front patio with a cluster of tables, a big square wine bar in front, a bunch of tables (actual tables), and a back dining counter at the open kitchen.

The wine list is stellar (no surprise given co-owner Claudio Blotta's track CV) and dirt dirt cheap. No glasses over $10. No bottles over $55. A handful of very good bottles for under $20. A global selection of small-production labels, the most quotidian of the bunch is the Qupe Syrah. Wines on the list are priced only nominally over retail and well under the 3x wholesale bench mark that even the most casual LA restaurants seem to use as a starting point.

We went with one of the priciest bottles, the Sean Thackrey Sirius Petite Sirah at the absurdly low price of $55 on the freakin' list. Delicious, subtle complexity, pleasurable without tasting a damn thing like stewed prunes and grape jelly. Paso Robles this isn't.

We had a lot of food (it's all small plates), so I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff. Roasted cauliflower salad was great, very well done. Wild boar sausage with white bean ragout was fabulous. Porchetta-style pork belly was really nicely cooked, though the skin was absurdly (bordering on inedibly) crisp. Shrimp and chickpea "tortillas" (actually soccas): very good. Crostini misti (crescenza/fig/prosciutto, favetta & pecorino, jidori chicken liver pate) rocked, particularly the pate. Crispy grilled polenta with mushrooms: simple, tasty. The kitchen proved adept at the eclectic menu, showing themselves just as at home with pasta (an excellent beet arancini). The only so-so dish was the pork rillettes. It was fine, but I wanted stronger seasoning and a little more fat.

Now here's where it gets really weird. Service was excellent. When I walk into an LA restaurant staffed mostly by cute girls in their twenties (which is every restaurant that isn't staffed by ripped men) I'm immediately skeptical. The emphasis on looks above all else in a service staff has rendered LA service either mediocre and neglectful or eerily over-trained but under-engaged, vacantly rattling off info about the menu like a Hungarian speaking English phonetically. But at Barbrix the staff was very well-trained (you can tell they've had the opportunity to taste everything on the menu) while remaining honest and personable. I like idiosyncratic service. I like individual service. I like personality. The fact that everyone's hipster pretty (it is Silver Lake, after all) is merely a bonus.

And, seriously, I'm not trying to blog-fellate Barbrix but it's just so easy: even our fucking espressos were perfectly pulled, nice temperature, thick crema.

Our tab was like $150 including a generous tip, but that was with a pricey wine and way too much food. You could easily eat there for $30-$35 a head with wine. That's the sweet spot for a neighborhood place, which is what Barbrix is (and doesn't pretend to be anything else). It's the price that'll get locals in on a weekly basis. A lot of affluent and adventurous people live in the neighborhood and they need a place to eat. Keep the prices down, the menu evolving, and the atmosphere friendly.

It's a simple formula but incredibly easy to fuck up (cf. most every restaurant in Los Angeles).

Barbrix
2442 Hyperion Ave.
Los Angeles, Ca 90027
323-662-2442
www.barbrix.com

HFF Reexamines: The Tax Question

EaterLA linked to this article in Bon Apetit regarding tipping on takeout and delivery. I agree wholeheartedly on takeout: tip a couple bucks, regardless of price. The author's opinion on delivery is also good, 15%-20%. Though I'd bump that down toward 15% on the scale actually as a delivery driver is, generally, tipping out much less than a server at a sit down restaurant. A server is going to tip out 20%-40% of his gross tips in a given night, a driver very little if any.

But here again that canard of tax comes into play: "at least 15 to 20 percent of the check before tax," he writes.

You should tip AFTER tax. Always. Here's why: a server has to pay taxes based on GROSS sales. Because of years of service staff underdeclaring tips and restaurants turning a blind eye, the IRS set a benchmark a several years ago of a minimum assumed tip income of 8% of gross sales, information which the restaurant has to provide as part of its payroll accounting. Not net sales, gross sales. Gross sales include tax.

So if a server grosses $200,000 in a year, the IRS will assume a minimum tipped income of $16,000 on top of his or her wage income for the year. When you factor in tip-outs and (in some cases) credit card service charge deductions, you get a situation where if you tip less than 10% the server is at best breaking even, at worst losing a bit of money.

That distracts from the main point, though: why does a small fraction of a small fraction matter? I know sales tax went up, but not by much. The difference between tipping before and after tax is the difference of 9.25ish% of whatever percentage you were planning to tip. A 20% tip? It's a difference of 1.85% of the total bill. Assume you have a $200 (before tax) tab. A 20% tip would be $40 before tax or $43.70 after.

You're really going to squabble over $3.70? And that's on a sizeable tab. More importantly, are you really going to squabble over $0.37 on a $20 tab? It's not a procedural issue, it's a generosity issue. When I go out (restaurants, bars, hotels, cabs) I smile, say thank you, and tip generously. I don't make a lot of money, but I'm probably making a bit more than whoever's serving me (or maybe not). And those few extra bucks I spend in gratuity come back to me in the form of better service, room upgrades, neighborhood discounts, and free drinks. It takes time to build those relationships, but they pay off.

So here's HFF's ironclad rule for tipping: for competent, attentive service tip at least 20% after tax. Only for egregiously rude service should you tip less than 15%. Period. When in doubt, round up. Those extra pennies will come back to you, as the no doubt racist idiom goes, "in spades."

Bizarre Foods: LA

So I'm watching Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods trip to LA (I know it aired last fall, but I missed it then so bear with me).

Cool stuff. A lot of things I didn't know about. For instance: Typhoon, the Pan-Asian restaurant at the Santa Monica Airport of all places. It's time to put my krugerrands where my mouth is and head to Typhoon to try crickets, scorpions, Thai white sea worms, and ants. Who else is in?

I'm also embarrassingly underfamiliar with LA's taco trucks, having have eaten at all of, well, one I think. Maybe two. I was really drunk.

And his visit with Nobu Matsuhisa is a reminder of what happens when true, honest innovation takes hold: you have a bunch of plastic surgeried housewives eating octopus tiradito and uni shooters. When culinary risk-taking comes from a lifetime of experience coupled with blind (perhaps even foolhardly) commitment to the correctness of your culinary decisions you get great authentic food that is approachable.

Take note.

HFF Quickie: Street - Los Angeles, Ca

Had lunch at Street, the love-it-or-hate-it new restaurant from Susan Feniger located in Hollywood on Highland just off of Melrose.

Pretty good stuff. Their lunch combos featuring your choice of a small salad and small dumpling plate for about $14 is a good deal. My radish cake with sweet Chinese sausage and egg was more than awesome and my "New Jerusalem" bread salad with jerusalem artichokes and feta was also nice, though I prefer softer bread than the garlicky croutons served here. They're tough to stab with a fork.

Sweet and spicy millet puffs served in lieu of bread are delicious.

The table also shared the puri appetizer which was simple and tasty and a dessert of Turkish doughnuts glazed in rosewater. Retarded good.

Service was friendly and knowledgeable. Food took a little bit longer to come out of the kitchen than it probably should, especially the doughnut dessert which took quite a while.

Street's interesting, fresh, and reasonably priced given the quality of the ingredients and the space. Check it out.

Street
742 N. Highland Ave.
Los Angeles, Ca 90038
323-203-0500
www.eatatstreet.com

Budwesier American Ale

Let's go back in time, shall we?

It's 1919 and everyone's sittin' pretty. America has had two centuries of quality small-production local brewing, wine making, and distilling. We're kickin' it, enjoying a brew or three--and a lot of whiskey and gin--and well on our way to becoming the biggest swingingest dicks on the planet. And then.... WHAM-O! Prohibition and the Vosltead Act come right out of the blue and end boozing as we know it in America.

(It should be noted at this point that Prohibition as a movement had existed in America since its founding and many states had already enacted alcohol restrictions and outright exclusions at the time the Eighteenth Amendment had passed. And the passing of the Volstead Act did in no way end the production, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages in America. -ed.)

The greatest casualties of Prohibition weren't American Law & Order or the scores of deaths from organized crime bootlegging or Joseph Kennedy's acquisition of massive wealth. Hardly. The greatest casualty was America's boutique winemaking and, especially, its tradition of (for the lack of a better term) microbrewing.

Brewing is an intimate endeavor. Unlike winemaking, which can be done essentially spontaneously, even the crudest, crappiest beer requires a significant level of human involvement. Brewing requires cooking. Beer is nowhere near as shelf-stable as wine or spirits. Brewing requires fires and cauldrons. Brewing is best done where it had always been done until the late 1800's: small, local breweries. Every tavern brewed its own beer, kept in casks in the cellar for the consumption of guests and villagers. Monasteries brewed beer. And even when beer production began to be industrialized, the cost of transport kept beer an, at best, regional endeavor.

Finally, a few American entrepreneurs, perhaps Adolph Coors most notably, took advantage of a few technological innovations (primarily refrigerated rail) to begin distributing beer super-regionally, just in time for the banishment of alcohol production in America.

Prohibition killed every small brewery in America. Big breweries which were backed by larger holding companies could stay in business producing near-beer or malted milk, putting a handful of well-heeled giants in prime position to expand once the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed.

(Wine was spared such a fate because many wineries could stay afloat making sacramental wine and by selling grapes to home winemakers. Smaller production winemaking was able to recover more quickly than brewing, though it did take several decades.)

When Prohibition was repealed it wasn't a magic switch that Roosevelt flipped to send all the booze flowing again: individual states, counties, and cities reallowed booze at their respective pace (Kansas didn't allow on-premise liquor sales until 1987), creating a situation that only large brewers could exploit. Advanced refrigeration and transportation techniques created a national distribution network and, in the grand Cold War American tradition, beer became as homogenous as the nation we pretended to be.

But pretend homogeneity is just that. As the long tail of America grew and grew, shrewd innovators began to capture the lucrative market of the disaffected and craft brewing came back strong. In 1977 Jimmy Carter formally legalized homebrewing and American beer lovers began reproducing the beers they had drunk and loved in Britain, Germany, Belgium, and beyond. Some of these homebrewers had enough success to make the foolish decision to go commercial and, even more foolishly, succeed at that as well.

So full and complete was the craft brew revolution that the big American brewers belatedly tried to jump back into the game, like Chrysler attempting a hybrid a half-decade into the post-Prius world. First, macrobreweries half-heartedly made some of their own niche beers (remember Red Dog? No? Good). When that failed, macrobreweries began partnering in distribution deals with successful smaller brewers. Have you ever noticed that Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen is almost ineveitably lined up next to Anheuser-Busch beers at bigger bars? That's why.

Instead of opening the doors for smaller brewers, these partnerships succeeded in macro-izing formerly niche producers like Sierra Nevada, Pyramid, Sam Adams, and Red Hook--to the detriment of all (based on my purely empirical evaluation).

Eventually the American macro-breweries gave-up, quit, and let themselves be bought-out by bigger, more diversified European beverage companies.

So where are we now?

Budweiser has released a malty, dry-hopped "American Ale." And it's not bad at all. It tastes significantly like Newcastle, but with a bit more hoppy bite on the finish. Good structure, but a bit lean on the mid-palate. Actually, I'd call it a dead-ringer for Newcastle, if not a slight improvement thanks to the added edge of hops on the finish.

Couple this with Michelob's pleasant Amber Bock and maybe we're seeing macrobreweries returning to their roots. Because if you can't beat them (or buy them out) you might as well join them.

Maybe Budweiser can capitalize on the hipster anti-elaborate backlash and chisel themselves a Pabst-like niche with craft brew-lovers who've become disenchanted with the douche-y developments in the last decade or so of American microbrewing (how many neo-Belgian beers do we need? Seriously!); a mainstream punk rock volley against the eighteenth note nonuplets of late 70's prog.

What More Do You Want?

The level of assumed entitlement in this post-Yelp! world is amazing.

There was a time where a consumer and a business-owner obliged each other with this simple, basic ground rule:

If something purchased did not meet the consumer's satisfaction and that item could be reasonably returned (or was faulty, or was only partially consumed in the case of food) then the business-owner would accept the return and refund their money. That's good business.

Now it seems that only "kinda" liking something is grounds for demanding refund and sending a dish back is grounds for an entire check to be comped.

Two cases in point:

Consumerist Blog writes about purchasing a chimichurri salmon dish at Trader Joe's and finding a dead, cooked worm on the fish as he's consuming it. That's gross, sure. Fine. So he returns the uneaten fish and the worm to his local Trader Joe's and gets a refund and several complimentary items. Well done Trader Joe's. However, on the blog, Consumerist is annoyed that he hasn't received any response from Trader Joe's corporate. What possible response would they have that wasn't already addressed by his local store? What does he want? Free TJs for life over a stupid worm? Come on! Organic matter exists with other organic matter and every so often you'll find unintended organic matter packaged with intended organic matter. That's life. I'd be more concerned about finding inorganic matter like broken glass or "bleach-like" substances. But a worm on a fish? Especially a dead one? Who cares? Pick it off and keep eating.

A recent Yelp! review of Street in Hollywood had this to say:

"I ate their on Saturday night. The food ranged from good to forgettable. The left side of the menu (small plates) is MUCH better than the right side. In a city like LA, with amazing and authentic Korean and Thai restaurants, there is little reason to eat korean BBQ short ribs or mediocre Bibimbop here. My biggest complaint is that we were not seated until 9:30pm when we had a 9pm reservation. To make matters worse, they did not offer to buy us a round of drinks and only took a few appetizers off the menu when we asked them to "do something" at the end of the meal. On a $250 bill (before tip) they took of $17 worth of apps. Many of the cocktails cost above $10, so this really was not much. (BTW, the $16 cocktail is SO over in LA; just ask Bar 1912).

Overall, they need to shore up the way they run the restaurant. Relying on Ms. Feniger's hard earned reputation alone does not make a great restaurant. Unless they shore up the front of the house and focus the food on being unique, STREET will fail...and there will go Ms. Feniger's rep. It will be a long time before I spend my $$$ here again."

Oh, so you weren't blown away by the food and you had to wait 30 minutes to be seated for a reservation? Okay, so that sucks. Oh, but they comped some appetizers? Cool, so what's the problem? You could've left if you didn't want to eat there. Should they have maybe comped a little bit more? Sure. But you were the entitled prick who asked that they "do something." When I was a waiter that was a cue for not caring if you ever did come back.

So what should you reasonably expect when a restaurant fails to meet your expectations?

For egregious wait times for a reservation: comped drink or appetizer.

For unacceptable food: either comped or replaced, if replacement causes a significant delay then perhaps the entree or a drink should be comped.

For an incorrect order: replacement and, if it causes a significant delay, a comped drink or dessert.

For unacceptable service: a lot of discretion here, ranging from free drinks to gift certificates to a total refund.

Basically buddy, for having to wait 30 minutes for your table (and knowing your type it was probably more like 15) you should MAYBE get a free drink while you waited.

You're lucky you didn't get a cockslap across your face.

Kickin' It Old School: Castlewood Country Club, Pleasanton, Ca

There was a time when America was truly great. When marital rape was legal and the only Negroes on a golf course were caddies, greenskeepers, and W.E.B. DuBois. I got to experience a whiff of that era on a recent trip to the venerable Castlewood Country Club in the foothills of Pleasanton. And let me tell you, that whiff smelled strongly of Burma Shave.

My parents, for reasons still vague, were recently invited to join the club (they let Jews in now!) and they accepted as social members, providing access to all the facilities and two tee times a year on the admittedly beautiful golf course.

I was up seeing my parents for the recent pan-religious holidays and we went to the club on a Friday night, wearing the requisite sport coat. We were greeted by the friendly young hostess and ushered into the bar for a cocktail, which we enjoyed with an appetizer of fried calamari which was surprisingly tender and tasty. I didn't actually enjoy my cocktail which was probably the worst Rob Roy I'd ever had, tasting strongly of scotch for the first half of the drink and strongly of vermouth for the second.

We moved into the dining room which was really really nice in a very old school way. Sort of a hybrid of a vintage downtown SF steakhouse and a vintage North Beach strip club, all overlooking a shady golf course.

I was charmed by the menu which offered a "complete" option for every entree. For $4 extra you got soup or a house salad and a scoop of ice cream for dessert. My mom informed me that this used to be standard.

You know what? The food was actually pretty damn good. I mean, the ingredients were of middling quality and questionable seasonality, but the preparation was impeccable and there were flashes of innovation in the flavor combinations.

I went with a lettuce salad with Fuji apples and candied pecans to start--pretty nice, though the supersweet apples and the supersweet candied pecans made for a supersweet salad.

For my entree I steered clear of the who's who of circa 1963 menu items and opted for the "appetizer" of mac and cheese with lobster meat and vegetables. Pretty tasty and more than enough for an entree.

The wine list, although small and offering all of ONE non-sparkling wine that wasn't Californian, was well thought out and not as predictable (or slavishly devoted to Livermore Valley wines) as one might've thought. We had a Paraiso pinot noir from Monterey County. Good stuff.

And a quick note on the service. Did they know a shit ton about food? Not really. Was the service attentive, friendly, professional, and deferential? Absolutely. It was really great service. They replaced flatware and napkins, cleared dishes promptly, and were generally convivial.

Why can't we have such service at places that don't feel like a time warp? Why?

So yeah, I do recommend Castlewood Country Club to y'all. Of course you have to be a member so, well, nuts to you.

Seventh busiest restaurant in California?

Restaurant Industry magazine released its list of the nation's Top 100 Independent Restaurants (by estimated gross sales).

Most of the list isn't surprising; many of the restaurants are in either New York City or Las Vegas, including the mind-boggling Tao Las Vegas which grossed $68MM in 2008 (almost twice the number two on the list, Tavern on the Green). The California entries are mostly recognizable: SF downtown expense-account/tourist mainstays Slanted Door, Scoma's, Boulevard, and Cliff House along with Los Angeles meal machines Gladstone's Malibu and Lawry's The Prime Rib.

Can I just ask what's up with definite articles and Beverly Hills steakhouses? Lawry's The Prime Rib? Morton's The Steakhouse? Wolfgang Puck's The Cut? (Yes he is).

Actually he's probably not. He's Austrian after all.

But in all this list of LAs and New Yorks and Chicagos and Miamis is a very very odd and eye-catching outlier: Coalinga.

That's right, Harris Ranch Steakhouse is one of the 100 highest grossing restaurants in the country, and the seventh highest in California (between NYC's Ruby Foos and Asia de Cuba). Adding to my bafflement is the fact that not only are they higher grossing than a lot of serious Vegas restaurants (Aureole, Eiffel Tower, Spago Las Vegas), but Harris Ranch Steakhouse also has one of the lowest per person averages on the list at an estimated $33 a head.

Holy fucking crap, 474,323 people dined at Harris Ranch Steakhouse in 2008. That's more people than dined at half of the restaurants in the top 10.

So a half a million people hopped off I-5 while going to/from somewhere and had a leisurely steak dinner in a hot, stinking, hellhole.

I lived in the Bay Area. I live in Los Angeles. I drive up and down I-5 a lot. I've never considered eating there. Hell, I can only remember stopping for gas there once. I tend to avoid it because the town smells like cow shit and the gas is usually a bit more expensive than elsewhere.

Plus I don't consider driving on I-5 to be a leisurely endeavor. I'd rather not spend a couple hours eating at a restaurant, I just want to get wherever the fuck it is I'm going. I stop for gas and a piss once, maybe grab a drive-thru bean burrito, and keep on my way.

So who are these people? I mean, the LA-SF drive is only about five and a half hours, so that can easily be done between meals (bring a Clif Bar), so it's probably OC/San Diego folks making the longer drive. Or maybe truckers? Indulging in one good meal on the road? Steak and a blowjob under the methane-shrouded moon?

Point is, if I were a high-class truckstop hooker, I'd hang out at Harris Ranch.

Second point? I'm eating at Harris Ranch next time I make the drive up I-5 (if I'm not in a rush).

Bottles Bottles Everywhere

LA County Supervisors are "drawing heat" (not really, but that's what a newscaster would say) for their bottled water with custom-printed labels. The bottles of water (allegedly Arrowhead) have their labels removed and an LA County-logo label placed on them by a modestly paid intern. It prevents free advertising on cable-access TV for bottled water companies, they reason. It costs barely any money and takes very little time.

But that's not really the point, is it? No public official should be drinking bottled water, period. Everyone should have reusable bottles. Put taps and filters in municipal buildings if you want to improve the taste but no bottled water ever. Bottled water is a scourge on the planet and it's in bad taste for public servants to be drinking it in any economic climate.

An odd bit of info in that LA Times article? Three years ago Mayor Villaraigosa told employees to buy their own bottled water. Despite that, spending on bottled water has doubled in that time, to $189,000 a year.

The city could buy reusable bottles wholesale for ~$3 each, most of which would last several years and be way less douche-y.

Cannibal hooker!

Enough said.

HFF Presents: Recession Indulgences

We're all spending less. Most of you are probably still employed, but you're working more, or making less, or maybe you're just perpetually pissing your pants in fear every hour on the half-hour.

But even if you're fearful, you still want to have a good time. Good times make the world go 'round. Gone are the $300 dinners at Gordon Ramsay and the $500 handjobs from Gordon Ramsay, but there are still a few ways to behave decadently without spending decadently.

1. Intelligentsia Coffee. At ~$14 per half-pound or $4.50 for a brewed cup, Intelligentsia is the Rolls Royce of coffee, even if Intelligentsia is infinitely more reliable. Sure it's more than double the prices of even its quality competitors, but it really is that freakin' great. Don't make it your daily drinker, but enjoy a cup of French press every few days to wake up or wind down. Bay Area edition? Blue Bottle.

2. Dinner at Bacaro. I know I've been flogging this spot, but I really do love it so. If you still want to have a semi-upscale and hip night out without dipping into the emergency stash of hundreds taped to your taint, then Bacaro it is. With reasonably priced wines (included a nice new red wine for $15/carafe), fixed price small plates ($7/dish or 3 for $19), and killer happy hours ($1 off wines by the glass on Mondays and $5 small plates from 5-7PM every day) you can have an indulgent night out without having to pimp out your boyfriend for cab money home.

3. Sake. If you've never had a good sake before, hit up a trusted retailer and ask for a recommendation. You'll be surprised what you can find for around $20 a bottle. Take it home, sit down on your stoop or porch or balcony or whatever, take a deep breath or two, and slowly sip.

4. Sex on a Sunday morning. I know this requires some advanced planning for those who don't co-habitate, but give it a try when (and as often as) you can. It'll be self-explanatory.

I Love Pizzeria Delfina

So Pizzeria Delfina, home of (to my mind) the best mid-priced bourgie pizza in San Francisco, is giving Yelp! a nice big old cockslap across the eyes. How are they doing that? By dressing their staff in t-shirts proudly emblazoned with quotes from some of their worst Yelp! reviews.

I've always strongly believed that, with the exception of some very specific niche businesses and out-of-the-way establishments, Yelp! reviews have virtually no impact on whether a business, especially a restaurant, succeeds or fails.

Restaurants succeed based on quality (of both food and management), value, and location. That's it.

Read about Pizzeria Delfina's big fuck you to Yelp! (and see one of the t-shirts).

Have I Mentioned I Hate Yelp!?

I'm ecstatic about the increasing negative press shoved upon Yelp! Most recently, Yelp! CEO Jeremy Somethingman defended Yelp!'s decision to not remove content that is blatantly false by saying that Yelp! can't take action based on the remarks of a business owner "who has skin in the game."

That's retarded. And you sir are retarded Mr. Somethingman. Sure if the business owner says "I don't like this review, take it down" you don't. But if the business owner can prove a review is VERIFIABLY FALSE, then of course you should take it down.

I like to think that in some small way I helped start the coalescing of this anti-Yelp! bandwagon. Everybody climb aboard!

Here's a deep dark secret: I have a Yelp! account. I started it solely to make fun of one reviewer who had a particularly asinine review. However my sarcasm was perhaps too good and she took my backhanded compliments as fronthanded compliments and proceded to, near as I could tell, ask me out on a date. Weird. Point is, because of my Yelp! account I receive the weekly Yelp! newsletter.

This newsletter is perhaps the steamiest pile of shit I've ever read.

Observe:

"Welcome to Westchester! In case you’re a little lost, it’s that place you were stuck in during your six hour delay at LAX. Yup, sound familiar now?

No Yelp!, it still doesn't sound familiar. Because A, why would I leave LAX during a mere six hour layover? And B, how the fuck would I know it was Westchester if I did?

It may not seem like much, but this little nook nestled in-between Culver City and Inglewood boasts dozens of hotels, three universities, a bustling cultural scene... and a plethora of choice restaurants. Who knew getting stuck at the airport could be so much fun? Well, yelpers did, of course!

Once again, if you're STUCK AT THE AIRPORT you're not leaving the airport to go to Westchester. Also, nooks aren't nestled, things are nestled in nooks.

Westchester definitely holds its fair share of LA history, much of which might lie within the walls of classic steakhouse The Buggy Whip, which Ethan H calls "strange and awesome." Strange, perhaps, but their steak has Ethan reverting to caveman terms within seconds: "Me like steak. Me like tasty steak. Me like BIG, tasty steak." Guess that about sums it up!

Why does Westchester hold its share of LA History? Elaborate please. And what sums what up? Me like steak sums up the history of LA in the walls of a steakhouse? Assembling words in order and punctuating them with a common American idiom does not a statement make, Yelp!

For historically delectable diner fare, Mishka F recommends the chicken and waffles at Pann's: "It was instant gratification. The chicken wings were fresh outta the fryer while the waffles were exactly the way fresh waffles should taste. Woah."

Continuing with this history conceit I see. Well--nothing else to say on this one, actually.

Need a quick, perhaps more timely, breakfast? Hit up The Coffee Co with Diana L for a blissful breakfast burrito: "It had melted cheese on top! I heart melted cheese, especially when I'm not expecting it." Um, surprise?!

What exactly is a timely breakfast? Is that an egg that knows that morning's stock prices? Or a pancake that makes an astute joke about foreign exchange rates? And you weren't expecting melted cheese in a breakfast burrito? Are you autistic?

Melted cheese might also be a major factor at Truxton's American Bistro, where Robert H fell head over heels for their Gilly Burger: "I had completely ignored my buddies' conversations as I was one with my burger... I have a new love!" Our hearts are melting with just the thought of it!

Whoever writes this steaming bloody runny feces of a newsletter really likes to superficially link clauses together with like words. Also, melted cheese is a major factor about what at Truxton's? It's just a factor? Is that it? A factor at Truxton's American Bistro is melted cheese? My head hurts.

Being in LA's jetsetter mecca, it would only be appropriate to highlight some global gastronomy, including Swiss-inspired Chalet Edelweiss. Known for great fondue and pizza, Jefferson L touts that "the food is tasty and the draft beer selection is refreshingly unique." Lederhosen, here we come!

Why are you going to lederhosen? Lederhosen are clothing. You can come in and on lederhosen, but I don't think you can come to lederhosen.

East and West collide at KC Cafe, bewildering the heck out of Melina L: "Crepes... and boba? Once I got over my confusion and settled in, I was one happy snacker."

Actually, there was this thing called "imperialism" and it brought lots of French food and culinary techniques to southeast Asia, starting over a hundred years ago. The Vietnamese and Japanese do crepes like Melina L. does four dicks at once: with a smile, a nod, and a lot of skill.

Craving a feast from the East? Caroline C Thai's one on for Ayara, while Lee S admits that Kanpai Sushi "makes me want to work harder, just so I can afford my next fix of pepper toro, sea bass skewers, and baked spicy creamy blue crab hand roll (a roll so good they gave it a seven-word name!)." Mmm, sounds far from an inflight meal to us!

Ugh.

I'd Title This Post "Hidden Gems" But That'd Be Really Lame

A quick showcase of a few great spots in LA that you should, nay, must, visit on a regular basis:

1. Bacaro. I don't know why the LA food press isn't giving this place more love. Great food. Great wine. Simple stylish space. And fucking amazing prices. Each "small" plate is $7 or 3 for $19. And from 5-7PM each plate is $5. They've also started doing a stellar brunch on Sundays. www.bacarolosangeles.com

2. Allston Yacht Club. Another great little spot off the beaten path. Or rather, off the path where people are beaten. That path being Sunset Blvd. in Echo Park. But they're usually beaten well after the restaurants are closed. Just kidding. Nobody gets beaten in Echo Park. I don't think. But another great wine-oriented eatery with inexpensive small plates and a small eclectic wine list. www.allstonyachtclub.com

3. Wurstkuche. So this place isn't really a hidden gem, but it's out of the way and awesome. Sausages, beers, and fries in a friendly industrial Arts District space. I just had the Austin Blues sausage, which was fucking great--made from smoked pork it tasted like some Texas barbecue in sausage form. www.wurstkucherestaurant.com

4. CitySip. Not the cheapest wine bar in town, but it easily has the best selection (40+ wines by the glass) and a slowly expanding food menu. And as great as the wines are, the draft beer selection just might be the best small selection of California craft brews around. www.citysipla.com

The Oven

In our push for bigger, better, and more complicated experiences, certain commonplace pleasures get pushed aside and we forget about them in favor of their flashier, smoother, and tighter counterparts: four door sedans; potatoes; pornography with vaginal sex and pubic hair.

But you know what? Sometimes those simple gifts really are the best gifts, especially when styled into a photorealistic likeness of Mickey Mouse.

Naturally, what I'm referring to is using the oven to cook.

In our excitement over enamelware, grills, pressure cookers, and All-Clad frying pans, we forget that just roasting something in the oven is a beautiful thing.

Sure it takes longer than stove top cooking, but it's largely unattended work. For instance, I took out a roasting pan, poured in some frozen vegetables and a couple chicken breasts and poured a can of tomato soup over it all. It's now in the oven at 400 degrees and will be my dinner for a couple days.

Yeah it's going to take a good hour plus to cook (because all the components are frozen), but I'm sitting on my ass drinking wine, watching the Oscars (which were so fucking tame and lame--maybe next year there'll be burlesque shows), and writing this while it cooks. A tiny bit of advanced planning means dinner is cooked while I do whatever the fuck I want. It's like having a 1950's housewife without the closet lesbianism.

So don't neglect your oven. It's there and waiting for you. Just keep tabs on what's cooking so it doesn't dry out and serve whatever you're cooking with whole wheat couscous.

Permit Maze

Good article in the LA Times today about Los Angeles' notoriously complicated permitting process for restaurants.

Nobody's denying that regulations are crucial for public health and safety but when a restaurant can be told to move forward and then be told they shouldn't've moved forward by a different city agency that didn't talk to the first city agency, that's lame. That's lame and it holds up hundreds of potential new jobs for restaurant workers.

Latin America in LA: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

As pan-ethnic as the Bay Area is, Los Angeles is indisputably the epicenter of of Latin-American, Hispanic, and (especially) Chicano life in California and (maybe) the country. From eastside taco trucks, tamale carts, and traffic island fruit salesmen, to the scores of taquerias and that indisputed king of fusion cuisine, the Bacon-Wrapped Hot Dog, LA is home to a wide variety of authentic regional Hispanic cuisine and contemporary Cal/Mex dining.

So it's surprising that the Nuevo Latino dining movement that took hold on the east coast (primarily in Miami and New York) never really reached California in any major way. There're a handful of places in the Bay Area: Fonda, Limon, and Platanos jump to mind immediately, but none of these restaurants really developed the reputation of some of the powerhouses in New York.

But with the recent openings of Rivera, Casa, and Provecho in downtown Los Angeles, as well as the lone Nuevo Latino attempt from the late 90's, Ciudad, still hangint around. are we finally seeing Nuevo Latino in LA?

The answer is.... Not really.

The Good:
Rivera, the new restaurant from pioneering American Southwestern chef John Sedlar, is pretty freakin' great. Stellar, impeccably prepared food (the highlight was a piece of black cod that was one of the freshest pieces of fish I've ever had), innovative wine list featuring selections solely from Spain, Portugal, and Latin-America, and cool cocktail selections at reasonable (for LA) prices. We went soon after the restaurant opened and they were being conservative with their menu, so it wasn't taking the risks that I think I think the restaurant intends too, but Rivera will grow with the neighborhood and the talented kitchen and knowledgeable service staff will grow too. The best meal I've had in LA so far.

The Bad:
Ciudad's food felt as dated as the space: a holdover from an era before there was a Chevy's on every block and mango salsa with corn was a novelty. The concept is cool enough, bringing signature cuisine from all over the Spanish-speaking world to one location, but the execution was less than great. The empanada tasted like something one might buy frozen from Costco and reheat at home; not bad, just boring. My fish entree was nicely done but the tres leches dessert was just a pile of sugar-loaded sponge cake with sugar on top and some sugar on the side. Service was very friendly and knowledgeable but the wine and cocktail list was unremarkably mainstream, and the general vibe that of an expense-account lunch/happy hour cash cow. Which I suppose is fine if that's what they're going for, but with the pedigree of their chef-owners I would think they'd be looking for something a bit more cutting-edge.

The Ugly:
Did lunch at Casa, the new place downtown helmed (until recently) by Kris Morningstar. Didn't do their dinner fare (where the place turns a bit more chic) and instead had the taqueria-style lunch. Once again, a pretty cool concept: pick your vehicle (taco, burrito, huarache, ensalada) and pick your meat (pollo asado, pulled chicken, carne asada, chile colorado, al pastor, cochinita pibil, Baja fish, or veggie) and then tweak your accompaniments as desired. Receive your food. Pay. Simple in theory, but with lines out the door and time-consuming freshly prepared food, there are massive backups in more than one location, and lots of things are forgotten, so don't count on your special requests being fufilled. Once you get your food, there's often nowhere to sit, the box your food is in is difficult to eat from, and additional condiments are hard to come by, including the offered "additional salsa on the side" which never came with any plate I saw come out of the kitchen. They really need to tighten up the ship on the service/logistics end because the food is really fucking good. My cochinita pibil burrito was rockstar and pretty authentic to my gringo palate. But although fairly-priced for the quality of ingredients offered, Casa is still close to double what you'd pay for in a taqueria or taco truck, and if you're not offering any extra amenities (prompt service, easy seating), then there's a lot of competition out there.

Didn't do Provecho yet. I'm intrigued and I'll let you know when I do.

Alice Waters Hate

So I'm in the process of retooling the purpose of HFF. Without having decided anything specific just yet, I think it's going to involve more frequent and much shorter posts, focusing on trying to give you quick breaking news or my short takes on events and articles in the food/wine/restaurant world. Fewer restaurant critiques, still some long-winded diatribes.

In the mean time, check out this commentary on one of the NPR blogs.

While I appreciate the author for taking Alice Waters' hegemony to task, I am disappointed that he so off-handedly dismisses the idea of local eating. In fact he conflates being a "locavore" with the real target of his contempt, California Cuisine. Locavorism is just eating food that is grown/produced within whatever arbitrary rule you decide (most say 90 miles) a reasonably noble objective. California Cuisine is about using the best local ingredients and preparing them simply. Simple to the point of dull. But there are plenty of restaurants doing weird, wacky, innovative things with food while still using local or regional ingredients.

Case in point, the fabulous lunch I had at Redd a while back definitely was not short on innovation and cross-cultural influences, but it was still made from largely local (or at least California/Pacific coast) ingredients. And of course French Laundry has built a global reputation on its cuisine produced largely from very local ingredients but drawing on diverse classic and modern influences for a wholly unique culinary experience.

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

I've been blogging for a long-ass time. Here's something I dug up from my old blog when I was a student at UC Berkeley. Enjoy.

Monday, March 25, 2002

I swear, I need to get the fuck out of this town. Too much to do around the SAME GODDAMN PEOPLE EVERY DAY. I don't know what it is, but every 6 weeks or so I just get fed up with Berkeley and need to hit the road somewhere for a few days just to relax, unwind, and drink a whole fuckin' lot. I've never been more fed up with this town than I am now. I'm seriously annoyed, peaved, bordering on downright angry.

Just because I graduated in the top 5% of my high-school, scored pleasantly high on my SAT, am holding down a 3.7+ here at Cal, and hope to graduate with honors and go to grad school, doesn't mean I didn't take time to learn how to wipe my own ass.... To use hyperbole, of course. I'd like to think that I could get by if all of a sudden I was without a computer for a week, that I could cook my own food over an open fire that I started myself with maybe one match..... That I know not to walk in front of moving cars, or that at the very very least I can hold a conversation with a girl and not automatically think that she wants to jump my bones. Seriously though, there are some people at this school who couldn't do one or all of those things. There's something about prestigious academic institutions, where our future leaders are made, that bring out some of the most utterly ignorant and self-absorbed people in our fair state; whether they be student, faculty, administration, or staff. Or even city councilmembers.

Berkeley kids, by and large, lack something I call common sense, or even practical sense. I don't know whether that's because their parents sheltered them too much because they were "gifted" or because they just have no interest in worldly knowledge, but there are certain things that you'd expect college-age people to know. If the light is red and there is a car driving down the road at a pretty good speed, DON'T WALK IN FRONT OF THE CAR. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. I wish people would stop protesting for a minute to learn how to change a flat tire or sew up a hole in one's pants.

My life is too complicated. Too much shit to do, too much shit that I own. I need to get a job where I live out of a suitcase; quantify my life into a couple of bags and just travel, maybe stay in a hotel here and there. That's the one thing I miss about my drum corps days, just getting on a bus for a week, sleeping on gym floors, nothing but one suitcase, a sleeping bag, mattress pad, and a bugle. Man that was great. Whenever I'm in Berkeley I'm a slave to the internet, to cable tv, to homework, to social life.... I'm not complaining, but it's just not streamlined....

Good news is after work tomorrow I'm going to head down to San Jose, catch the No Doubt concert with a friend of mine and the she and I are going to head down to San Luis Obispo/ Santa Barbara. Visit some friends, hit the beach if the weather's good, and just generally simplify. One suitcase, a sleeping bag, and a pillow.... Good times.

Catch you when I get back, fuckers. I should be in a better mood.

Godspeed.

A sign of the times?

A big thanks to this report from the AP.

I now have a new hero. The man loves his shellfish.

Is a recession slowing down the food blogs?

As a food blogger and a hospitality professional, I used to read a lot of food blogs. Now I don't, but I read "EaterLA" several times a day. It's sort of a meta-blog, offering pithy commentary on and links to interesting articles in newspapers, blogs, message boards. I read it to keep up on the openings and closings in the LA restaurant scene.

When I first started reading Eater, back in May, there were 4-6 postings a day. In the last few days it has gone down to 1-3. And 1-2 of those are typically "Board Watch" or a photo with a quick caption.

My theory is slowed economy=fewer openings=fewer things to write about. Though you think there'd be lots of closings to write about. (Un?)fortunately we're not there quite yet.

Actually, the real truth is that with layoffs happening at the drop of a hat, people are actually buckling down at work instead of reading and/or writing food blogs and message board posts during the work day. That's my guess.

Yelp! User Faces Lawsuit

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, an area Yelp! user is facing a lawsuit over his negative review.

He criticized a chiropractor over his billing practices calling him dishonest and alluding to insurance fraud. The chiropractor insisted that he was practicing standard medical billing procedures, claims he attempted to educate the Yelp! user and asked him to reconsider or change his review. The Yelp! user instead posted a second review accusing the chiropractor of manipulating his reviewers into giving him positive reviews.

Of course we all know that this lawsuit shouldn't exist because chiropractics shouldn't exist, but that's just one man's opinion.

I think the chiropractor faces a tough battle on this one, but at least he's attacking the principal Yelp! problem head-on: what liability does an individual have when he or she writes (or continues to have posted) VERIFIABLY FALSE information that can be shown to have a PROVABLY NEGATIVE effect on a business.

Thoughts?

Yelp! Hate (again)

Here's a Yelp! review of a California business of my acquaintance. I've removed the name of the business:

Reviewed by XXXX X.

I don't even know where to begin. I guess the beginning.

I was running late and meeting some of my friends to shop at XXXXXX XXXXXX. They had been talking the place up and I was excited to get some new threads. Anyways, as I said, I was running late and my friends had already been shopping for awhile. I walked in alone and
immediately a woman working there gave me a look of fear and quickly closed the register. Then, she came over to me and asked me why I was there and if I had an "legitimate" business or if I was merely there to shop lift. I couldn't believe it. I guess XXXXXX XXXXXX doesn't want
business from a black man. I didn't know what to say. I tried to ignore the hateful comment and just walk over to my friends who were trying on hats. I kept walking into the store and the woman working register stepped in my path and tried to block me. Again, I tried to
ignore it and just get over to my friends but she pushed her arms out to stop me. When she shoved me, she lost balance and fell over screaming that I was responsible for shoving her. My friends shot me a look of "What's your problem, why would you shove a shop girl?" I tried to explain to my friends that she shoved me and merely lost her balance, but the shop girl told the complete opposite story and my friends didn't believe me.

Things have never been the same for me since I lost my social circle. I know it's not the shops fault that they employee a racist woman or that my friends were so fair weather. But I can never walk by XXXXXX XXXXXX without being reminded of the racism that still lingers behind the pretence of our equality.

And now commentary from the proprietor of the establishment:

some fake person put a review up for the XXXXXX XXXXXX that is totally made up and false. you can tell by reading the review that it is false. there has never and would never be any type of incident like this at the XXXXXX XXXXXX. we run our business based on respect for
everyone and do not tolerate racism, sexism and homophobia and hate. we have NEVER had anything like this happen at the store. I need your help to flag this review based on slander and false accusations of racism and violence. it is interesting that the persons name or face
is anonymous. anyone who knows me and the store knows this is not true, but i fear that people reading this on YELP will believe it. I have tried to address yelp and they actually responded with flagging my review of my own store stating that " an owner of a store can't
write a review of their business" and suggested " i pay for a business account" where i can monitor my reviews. WHERE IS THE JUSTICE?

Without getting into this too much, a couple comments:

1. Even if the complaint by the reviewer is true, where does Yelp! get off attempting to extort money from a business owner in response to their complaint?

2. Why does Yelp! operate under this pretense of unbiased reviews? The review of a business by the business' owner is not necessarily any less biased than any random reviewer who has it out for a business.

Keep on keepin' on with the Yelp! hate. Send me more evidence.

Wurstkuche - Los Angeles, Ca

I recently watched "Milk" and what I found most intriguing was that thirty years ago people had the decency to display their bigotry, homophobia, and hatred right out in the in the open instead of couching it in rhetoric about "preserving family" or "I love gays but..." Because let's be honest there are fewer bigots and homophobes now then in 1978, but the bigots and homophobes today are bigots and homophones for the exact same reasons as then: fear and ignorance.

Wurstkuche, in the downtown LA Arts District, is neither a bigot nor a homophobe, but it does have the decency to present itself in an honest way: we grill gourmet sausages, top them with a few things, and give you some french fries with dipping sauces. Simple, honest, elegant.

Had the pleasure of eating at Wurstkuche last week and it was freakin' great. As you walk through the windowless storefront of the converted warehouse and stand in line to order your sausage in the spare entry room you feel like you're back in east Berlin circa 1983. The friendly smiling staff and the somewhat bourgie prices are the only indicators that Stasi operatives probably aren't pouring your beers. Probably.

Wurstkuche sells a couple dozen varieties of sausages broken down into three price tiers including "classics" like brats and hot italians ($6), "gourmets" like mango jalapeno chicken and Filipino marharlica ($6.75), and Wurstkuche's big draw, the "exotics," featuring such originals as buffalo, beef, & pork with chipotle, alligator & hickory smoked pork, and rattlesnake & rabbit with jalapeno ($7.75).

All sausages come on a nice torpedo roll with your choice of two toppings (sweet peppers, hot peppers, caramelized onions, sauerkraut) and an array of mustards. My duck and bacon sausage with jalapeno (topped with onions and hot peppers) was stellar. Rich, flavorful, moist, and well-balanced. My only complaint was the ultra-thick casing that was a bit tough to bite through. Girlfriend Charlie's sun dried tomato & mozarella with smoked chicken & turkey sausage was also fabulous (with a similar complaint).

Your only other menu option are thick cut frites in two different sizes ($3.50 or $5.50), available with your choice of two dipping sauces from a menu of about a dozen (soon to be two dozen). Sauces include housemade ranch, walnut blue cheese, and chiptole ketchup, as well as white truffle oil for a $0.75 premium.

The fries were great, unlike any thick cut fry I've had. They were fully cooked yet still firm in the middle, crisp, and lightly caramelized on the outside.

Beverage wise you have a choice of a couple dozen German, Belgian, and domestic draughts, another dozen bottled beers, and a pretty freakin' cool selection of artisan soft drinks.

Sure two beers, two sausages, and a large frites will set you back about thirty bucks for two people, but you'll be a helluva happier doing that than dropping $80 on dinner for two at 95% of Los Angeles restaurants.

Wurstkuche's open 11AM-10PM every day, soon to stay open until 3AM on weekends.

Wurstkuche
800 E. 3rd St.
Los Angeles, Ca 90013
213-687-4444
www.wurstkucherestaurant.com