It seemed like a good idea
Our week at the beach in LA is up. We packed everything and hit the road for home yesterday about 10 am.
Since we had no plans and no place we needed to be, Gail and I thought it might be nice to motor on up highway 101. It’s longer and slower, but much prettier and I-5 is just boring.
It was almost a good idea, but the route from Oxnard to Santa Barbara was miserable with heavy traffic. From Santa Barbara to Salinas is beautiful. Gentle rolling hill, winding roads, thousands of acres of vineyards.
Which made me think: what is the effect on the world of devoting so much of our arable space to growing things which we know are bad for us? Consider how much acreage is devoted to growing wine grape. Tobacco. Cocaine. Opium poppies. With people starving and rapidly diminishing energy and water supplies, is this something the people of the world should be doing?
I realize that farmers grow what makes them the most money. If spinach were more profitable than merlot, they’d grow spinach. So why are we valuing destroying our livers and lungs over feeding the starving?
Okay, back to the trip.
Although it is my absolute favorite roadside stop, Gail wouldn’t eat at Pea Soup Andersons in Buellton, so we had to go into San Luis Obispo and find a decent restaurant. Lunch was really good, it just wasn’t pea soup with all the mix-ins. SLO is a very pretty little town, with good places to eat and shop, so it’s a nice diversion on the way home.
This is what it looked like as we got up to the 156 turnoff towards Monterey:
The human version of what a sled dog sees. Photo by Gail.
A roadside grass fire caused a 40 minute back-up as we crawled so the lookie-lous could gawk at the big men in their red trucks. Fortunately for us, it was on the other side of the road, since the southbound backup extended over 10 miles and must have delayed people 2 or 3 hours.
Once into Gilroy, the road was clear and fast, and we pulled into the driveway about 7 pm, making it a 9 hour trip including our leisurely lunch. The rest of the family zoomed up the central valley, scarfed lunch at Fosters Freeze and were home in just over 6 hours.
I enjoyed the drive and the views, but wouldn’t want to sit in that traffic again. I guess I’ll have to stick with the fast and boring way in the future.
A very rare dinner
Dinner tonight at Cafe Pierre, in Manhattan Beach. Our last night down here, and a celebration because my brother David joined us as well as Cousin Marty, who was celebrating his 60th birthday.
Gail spent the morning googling fine dining, and came up with a winner. Dinner was not only good, the menu had many things you just don’t often see.
Sauteed Foie Gras, death on toast but oh so good.
For starters, I had the foie gras, which is rare and getting rarer. I don’t think you can even get the goose liver in California; this was duck. Still great, still way too rich and fattening to enjoy very often. Not to mention pricey. I don’t think I’ve had any since we were in Reno for the nationals a year ago last March, but it’s still as good as I remember.
Very large marrow bones
Gail had the marrow bones–another dish that’s almost all fat, hard to find on menus and extravagantly delicious. This portion was so large that Gail and I both couldn’t finish it, although it seems criminal to leave any. The soft, creamy marrow, spread on stiff crackers, is a delight you should try in the rare event that it is available.
Tuna Tartare
David, at least, had something healthy–the tuna tartare. A lovely presentation of a tower of the raw fish with waffle cut fries to scoop it up with.
Salad with burrata
Kate had the salad with the burrata–but she probably would have just ordered the burrata if she could. It’s one of those items which become popular seemingly out of nowhere, and then you can’t imagine living without. Fresh mozzarella, injected with cream. Add just the tiniest pinch of fleur du sel (French sea salt) and you’re in heaven.
Pork Belly
The appetizers were so good Gail just had 3 of them for dinner. Here is the pork belly–which sounds like it should be a backwoods Arkansas meal, but is on all the best menus these days. Her third appetizer were the escargots, in a modern presentation I can’t describe, but you would love.
Breast of Veal
My entree was the breast of veal, but not like the one mother used to make. This was just the sheet of tender veal, removed from the ribs and rolled, then dressed with a sauce/dressing of roasted peppers. The mashed potatoes were napped with olive oil, for a different and exciting presentation. I haven’t had a breast of veal in years, and this was just delightful.
Three people at the table ordered the 70 hours short ribs–ribs that had been cooked for 3 days, until the meat was just falling apart. I saw no leftovers.
Desserts, of course. The best was the bread pudding, which was the eggiest I have ever seen, and so good we ordered a second one.
Cousin Marty with his celebratory sunday.
We sang to Marty, undoubtedly annoying everyone else in the place.
We’ve had a lot of good food on this trip, but Cafe Pierre was a major highlight. Not only was the food excellent, but it was a pleasure to find a menu so different and varied. Most restaurants don’t have the nerve to stray from the common menu items, and Cafe Pierre earns plenty of credit for breaking free of the boring norms.
Hard to believe
But true.
This video is real, as far as I can tell. A genuine, honest-to-God campaign video, from a real candidate for president.
Probably not going to win, if this is any indication of the skill of his campaign staff.
How much more of this insanity will next year bring?
Downtown LA
After our lunch at Engine Company 28 yesterday, we went shopping in what is known as the fashion district. You probably have a vision in your mind of the garment district in New York, with people pushing carts of couture clothing around, models dashing from one photo shoot to a fitting to another shoot, big time designers arriving in their limos.
The “fashion district” of LA is nothing like that, but we were reading a great article on where to buy the best watches and the fashion district ended up being one of them.
What we saw was an endless string of tiny cubbyhole stores, all selling cheap merchandise. Lots of knockoffs, lots of gaudy trashy clothes. Everything for sale cheap, and available to bargain for even cheaper.
Mostly, we went down Santee Alley, which seems to be the headquarters for tacky in Southern California.
As you might expect, there were plenty of kids around.
Not everything there was clothing, there were accessories for many popular hobbies, too.
Leaving the “fashion district”, we drove through an area which was all yardage stores, dozens of them cheek-by-jowl. A business that was once mostly Jewish is now Hispanic and Asian and Indian. Then a few blocks further on, we passed the stores selling trim of all varieties.
There is clearly a great deal of clothing manufacture going on, as we found at our next stop: American Apparel. They have an enormous factory, where their sign proudly says they manufacture 1,000,000 articles a week. We arrived right after 3:00, when the day’s work is evidently done, as hundreds of Mexican and Asian women, and a very few men, streamed out of the building and into their cars. The granddaughters were shopping at the factory outlet, of course. They have some men’s clothes, but not in my size or for anyone over 22 years old anyway.
Then it was back on the freeway and our little rental by the ocean. More about our dinner next time.
We hit the big time
A few years ago, Gail and I bought a picture at Art Basel Miami, a photo of Havana taken through the windshield of a 1951 Plymouth loving maintained by one Alberto Rojas.
Today, we visited the Getty Center. They had an exhibition of photography about Cuba. And there, big as life on the Getty walls, was our photo.
I got a picture of it, and almost got thrown out in the process.
There it is!!
The Getty is an astonishing, amazing, impressive place. We only saw a small part of it today, and will have to go back. It’s cheap, too. In fact, it’s free. Parking is $15, but there is no admission charge and people come by bus or foot or bicycle.
Photography is permitted in the permanent collections, but not in the temporary shows which have works borrowed from other venues with varying rules.
I found an interview with Alex Harris, shot in the gallery right in front of what I think is his finest photograph:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aJ15qyzEhE%5D
We have wanted to see this museum for as long as it has been here, and finally made it today. We waited too long, I should think. The Getty is an incredible public resource, and should be visited early and often. It’s worth a special trip to LA.
A lunch most spectacular
Right smack dab in the middle of downtown LA is an old firehouse, the former home of Engine Company 28. The building was decommissioned in the late ’60s, and turned into a restaurant in the mid ’80s. We had lunch there today, and it was an experience we will long remember.
Given it’s provenance, is isn’t surprising that the decor is old-firehouse chic. Souvenirs, mementos and artifacts from fire companies decorate the walls, and the original fire pole still stands in the center of the dining room.
The menu is firehouse hearty, too. The meatloaf recipe is reputedly the original from the fire company that first occupied the facility. The place is mucho macho, without being chauvinistic.
There were 8 of us at lunch, and we ordered the usual ton of food. Even in very good restaurants, some days, the kitchen just doesn’t get it all right. The mark of excellence is how well they recover, and make it work.
Beet Salad. I was hoping for big chunks of the yellow and purple beets to make a great photo, but the salad was still just fine.
A staggeringly large plate of spicy fries. Too spicy for me, in fact, but everyone else loved them.
Grilled asparagus with walnut pesto and fresh mozzarella. Perfection on a plate.
Lamb shanks. Two entire lamb shanks. Enough food for a small Greek village.
Problem one: the menu said the lamb shanks came with pappardelle (wide noodles). I love pappardelle, and that was a strong part of the reason I ordered this dish. You will note the mashed potatoes on the plate–the house has changed, but not bothered to change the menu. I mentioned this to the waiter. He got me a dish of linguine to put the gravy on. I was a happy boy after that.
Liver and onions. Note the gorgeous sweet potato fries-- food fad I'm in love with.
Hard though it is for me to imagine, some people actually like liver and onions. This dish, though, was overcooked. Again, the house did the right thing, taking the plate back and bringing out another, cooked properly, in just a few minutes.
The results of a fine lunch.
There were a couple of other minor glitches–Gail didn’t get the guacamole for her nachos, I didn’t get the asparagus I ordered. The staff made everything right, and quickly.
It’s an experience we’ve all had–one thing goes wrong, then it all cascades and there are a bunch of problems. Meanwhile, things are going swimmingly at all the other tables. That’s life, and even in the midst of these relatively minor issues, it’s nice to see a well trained and motivated staff make work to fix the problems.
By way of apology, the house then brought out FIVE desserts for us. Apple pie, banana cream pie, lemon meringue pie, chocolate cake and creme brulee. Although we were stuffed, we didn’t want them to feel bad so we ate the desserts just to be polite.
Apple pie like my mom never made.
Lemon meringue pie fit for the firehouse.
It turns out that our waiter is also the manager–and his skill and interest in making it all right explain why he got promoted to boss. His name is Robert Perkins, and he runs the place for it’s owner, who turns out to be the celebrity defense attorney, Mark Geragos.
Robert Perkins, manager and waiter extraordinaire
It was a great lunch. Too much food, but you can hardly complain about that. Great service, not just from Robert but from the entire staff of runners, bussers, even the hostess–I made the reservation online, and routinely ask for a table instead of a booth. They called me within minutes to see if half booth, half chairs would work, and it did. These people are on top of their game.
I wish they had a place in the Bay Area. I’d like to eat here more often.
The undisputed king of sandwiches
The sandwich than which there is no finer, the Monte Cristo.
Great food doesn’t always come from the great restaurants. Sometimes a beach diner will be serving just the perfect thing. Like today–we went out for lunch to a sandy little place on the boardwalk, and there, right before my eyes, was the greatest sandwich known to man.
Yes, the not-so-humble Monte Cristo. Ham, turkey and swiss on white, dipped in beaten egg and fried like french toast. The highest aspiration of the short order cook’s career. The apogee of luncheon cuisine.
There are fads and trends in food, and the Monte Cristo has been on the downside for years. It’s too rich, too much egg, just too darned enjoyable for our abstemious times. We live in a world where egg white omelets with turkey bacon and dry toast are considered desirable, healthy, even noble. Just not tasty or satisfying.
Served with my Monte Cristo were sweet potato fries, which are fantastic, with the requisite side of ranch dressing to add tartness to the sweetness.
I’ve had the fancy, upscale molecular gastronomy at Alinea in Chicago, I’ve had prime beef at Mortons. Give me a Monte Cristo, dripping with butter and a side of jam anytime.
On the road again
Been home long enough, time to go someplace.
We’ve got a beach house rented in Hermosa Beach, so Gail and I hit the trail about noon. I’ve made the dash down I-5 so many times I’m on autopilot as soon as we leave the driveway.
…..
Ordinarily, I want to stop to eat at Pea Soup Andersons in Santa Nella, but we decided to get a few more miles under our belt, and planned on stopping at Harris Ranch. I guess everyone else did, too, because although it was about 2:00 when we got there, the place was packed and there was a half hour wait. There aren’t many things Gail will wait 30 minutes for, and a burger in a roadside cafe isn’t one of them, so off we went towards Kettleman City.
…..
Getting off the freeway, there is a collection of fast food joints, and a sign indication the city in one mile. So we tried the city–which is really just a wide spot in the road, with a couple of churches, a mini-market or two, five streets one way and six streets the other, and this fine dining establishment:
The best, and only, place to eat in Kettleman City
Being the adventurous people that we are, we went in. And promptly went back out. Dining facilities aren’t supposed to smell like that.
Back at the collection of fast food by the freeway, we saw Mike’s Roadhouse Cafe. Great!! At least it wasn’t part of a national chain of pre-planned blandness.
In fact, it was pretty cool. They have a huge collection of the trucks and cars that little kids would sit in and ride from the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s it seems, all in pretty good shape. The tables have little games and books to keep you, or your kids, amused. The menu is classic roadhouse fare, supplemented with the Mexican specialties that are mandatory in the central valley. Since “Mike’s” is owned by Polo and Juan Sandoval these days, one would expect the Mexican food to be pretty good.
I couldn’t pass up the chicken fried steak, smothered in country gravy. Gail insisted that I had to have the mashed spuds instead of the french fries, and she was right. Of course, I preferred the corn bread on the side.
Heart attack on a plate.
I suppose they get a kickback from the local cardiologist, or the coroner, but it was great.
Gail had the fish tacos.
"It looks great, if it doesn't kill me" she said.
It didn’t kill her. And she loved it.
…..
For 200 miles, I had been seeing signs saying the road was restricted to only 1 lane and there was a detour. We didn’t take the detour, and the one lane section was all of 1 mile long, and the slowest we went was about 60.
There was a bigger slowdown at one point because a cop was helping somebody with a flat tire, and everyone had to slow to 45 to watch this total non-event. People are such sheep.
…..
Traffic did indeed slow down in LA, but that doesn’t surprise anyone. The beach house is an architectural marvel, with all the most modern electronic controls for the lighting, the sound system, the “fireplaces” that don’t take wood, the fancy big screen TV’s that I hope to be able to figure out.
…..
Dinner tonight sort of atoned for the fat and cholesterol fiesta that was lunch–we went to a vegetarian diner, and I had what is laughingly called a burrito, except it had no meat, no sour cream, no flavor. It was healthy, I suppose. Vegetarians are so thin because nobody wants to eat much in the way of brown rice and beans. I bravely ordered the herb iced tea. When I wanted sweetener, the waitress told me it didn’t need any, but she’d bring me some. Food faddists find it necessary to tell everyone else how to eat, I guess. Oddly, for a wholistic, veggie place, the sweetener she brought was the dreaded pink stuff, the foul tasting, largely carcinogenic Sweet and Low. Instead, I tried the Blue Agave Syrup, which is supposed to be a good sweetener, but only if you like battery acid in your tea.
I’ll try many foods: I’m the guy who wrote about eating racoon just a few weeks ago. This vegetarian stuff isn’t bad, it’s just tasteless and boring. And not sweet. I like sweet.
…..
We’ll be down here for a week. Hope to play a little bridge, see the Getty Museum, soak up some sun. Stay tuned, the adventures continue.
The end of a short era
A very sad Khleber, our favorite waiter.
The restaurant business is hard at the best of time, and these aren’t.
Still, it was with great sadness that I read today that our favorite Oakland place, SR24, is closing this weekend.
You can’t blame the food, it was great. You can’t blame the service, we loved it, especially Khleber, our waiter extra-ordinaire.
So what’s left? Promotion, advertising, signage and location loom large, I should think.
Location is supposed to be all important, except when it isn’t. You can hardly find the French Laundry, a mostly unmarked building in tiny Yountville. You also can’t get a reservation there, because it is perhaps the best restaurant in the world and people will go anywhere to eat at the best. SR24 was good, but not world class, and it was in a tiny space in a weird triangular piece of land at the intersection of Telegraph and 51st Avenue–not a place people will be looking for upscale, comfort-chic food.
I liked their promotion–using the power of Facebook, they had an updated message every day listing the daily special pizza and the secret word to get a free drink at happy hour. We used that last one frequently. Facebook is pretty effective, and free. That’s hard to beat.
Signage? This may be a key item. After SR24 opened, I started to hear about it, but I didn’t know where it was. I must have driven right by it dozens of times, but never noticed their very small, unlit, not flashy sign.
Advertising? Who knows with advertising? It costs a ton and you can never tell how much good it has done. I can’t remember ever seeing a SR24 ad, but that either means they didn’t advertise or their message just didn’t get through the daily onslaught of ads we all face.
Khleber told us that management felt they needed another $1000 a day in sales to make it work, and it just wasn’t there. Of course, the general economy has a great deal to do with that, and there is nothing any of us can do to affect the situation.
So Gail and I are sorry to see them go, but not shocked. Even Bing Crosby’s, a very well financed corporate restaurant in Walnut Creek has closed in this recession. I hope all the staff get good jobs soon and the chef opens his own place and makes a huge splash in the foodie-verse. I sure like his food, and Gail will miss the tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.
Bad luck, good luck
Waiting for my plane to Chicago, they announced that due to thunderstorms around O’Hare, the flight was delayed for 1 1/2 hours. Not to worry about connections, because they were all delayed by the same amount.
So while I was sitting there, I thought I’d go up and see if I could get promoted to an exit row seat. Not very likely, but there wasn’t anything else to do.
The gate agent saw an open seat, but couldn’t book it. She kept trying, until she figured out the reason: the flight was canceled. Oops. Now she had to re-book me, and wasn’t finding anything out of ORD until tomorrow. This isn’t good.
Here’s the reason I’m very nice to these people, even though I know they lie to me incessantly. She kept trying, and found me a seat on Air Canada, non-stop to SFO. It’s a wait–the flight doesn’t leave Toronto until 5:10 (instead of the 12:00 flight I had originally), but since I don’t have to change planes it gets in about 3 hours later than originally planned.
Nothing is easy, though. I had to exit terminal 3, backwards through security and customs, get my bag (after they got it off the plane), take the shuttle train to terminal 1, check in again, go through US customs and immigration again, go through security again, and wander off to the gate. You know how much I love airport security, and this time I forgot to take off my suspenders, setting off the metal detector and triggering the full scan and pat down. America will be glad to know I am neither armed nor dangerous.
Now I’m dawdling over lunch because I have a chair, a table and an electrical outlet. Thank God there’s free wifi in this place. I’ll be home tonight, I hope.
Totally Unauthorized 