The Unvegan

‘Brewhouse’

Brews Over Burgers at Mill Street

June 24th, 2010 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit

I like this street corner.

For a night in Toronto, I really didn’t have much of a clue about where to eat. Finally, a buddy of mine told me to check out the Mill Street Brewery. I am always up for a microbrewery since that seems to be a lost art in LA, so I looked it up. It turned out that the place was actually pretty easy walk from our hotel, so we headed to Mill Street to see what we could find. After a twenty minute walk through a mildly sketchy part of town featuring a homeless pirate watering plants with a two-liter of Canada Dry, we arrived at the Distillery area. This part of town was once some sort of huge brewery, but now had shops, restaurants, bars and people testing Smart Cars and Segway Scooters. Even before we started drinking, our goal was to take a drunken ride on/in one of these (no, we did not achieve our goal). Continue Reading»

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Beer, Brewhouse, Burgers, Canada, hamburgers, microbrewery, mill street brewery, ontario, restaurants, toronto, Travel

The Peak of Brew Burgers at Grizzly Peak

June 22nd, 2010 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit

Looks much better with bacon on top.

Everyone in LA seems to know that the place has no good beer culture, yet no one has really done anything to fix that. Sure, there’s BJ’s (no good) and a couple other microbreweries that are difficult to get to, but come on, LA is a huge city that deserves more. So when I left LA for Ann Arbor for a bit of a bachelor party, we headed to the Grizzly Peak Brewing Company. I’ve loved the Grizzly Peak for a long time, even dating back to before I could drink their beer and drank their micro-brewed root beer. I have a lot of great memories of the place and hoped that my most recent visit wouldn’t be a disappointment. Continue Reading»

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Ann Arbor, Bar Food, Brewhouse, Burgers, grizzly peak brewing company, hamburgers, michigan, microbrewery, restaurants, Travel

Poor Execution at BJ’s Brewhouse

November 10th, 2009 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit

A hasty pizza.

I was especially excited when a BJ’s Brewhouse opened in Culver City. Los Angeles is known as a city short on craft and microbrews, and although BJ’s is a big chain, I hoped it would fill a much-neglected gap in beer and microbrewery food.

To start out the meal I ordered their Harvest Hefeweizen. Hef has never let me down in the past, so I expected it wouldn’t again. I was wrong. This was the sweetest beer that has ever tried to pass for a real beer. Don’t get me wrong, I think a Strongbow Cider or a Leinenkugel’s Berryweiss can be very refreshing on a hot summer day, but those beers are composed of fruit and you know what you’re getting when you order them. Sure, hefeweizen isn’t the most bitter beer, but BJ’s attempt at it tasted like they accidentally spilled a carton of sugar into my beer. Continue Reading»

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Beer, BJ's, Brewhouse, Burgers, Culver City, hamburgers, Los Angeles, microbrewery, Pizza, restaurants, westfield

Rants and Raves

Vegetarians Have Small Brains

February 25th, 2010

Vegetarian of the future!

And in unrelated news: water is wet, winter is cold and the sky is blue. Of course vegetarians have smaller brains, how else to explain their insane diet? According to an article on Signs of the Times, written by Unvegan Hero Barry Groves, so much of brain size is determined by fat intake. As he says, “About half our brain and nervous system is composed of complicated, long-chain, fatty acids.” Plants don’t have these fatty acids and our bodies aren’t exactly capable of making them ourselves. But you know what are capable of producing these fatty acids? Dumb herbivores.

Going Global at Plan Check

Fries of the world.

A couple of weeks ago, The Backyard Bite invited me to The Burger Culture Clash, sponsored by Stussy (which apparently still exists) and Plan Check. Plan Check, by the way, is a sort of new (since February) restaurant in West LA with Chef Ernesto Uchimura of Umami Burger fame. As my love of burgers, especially those of the umami variety, I jumped at the opportunity.

Although I arrived alone, I was not the only lone eater. Just next to where I was seated, I met e*star LA and we decided to share a meal called loneliness, because it’s better than eating alone. We made quick friends over our respective blogs and Midwestern roots, then got to work at dissecting the special menu, which Plan Check will be featuring for the next month if anything tickles your fancy.