In Los Angeles, there are supposedly really only two breakfast burritos. One is at the Corner Cottage in Burbank and the other is at either of the two Lucky Boy locations in Pasadena. I visited the newer location on Walnut Street and vowed to take down the “Famous” burrito (it’s literally the name of the burrito).
What’s in a name? A xiaolongbao by any other name would be just as soupy. Well, at least that’s what Long Xing Ji is banking on. You see, Long Xing Ji was once called Wang Xing Ji and was an incredibly popular dumpling spot in San Gabriel. Typically a wildly successful place would stick with a name that works, but for some reason that was not the case with Wang Xing Ji. Nonetheless, if the dumplings were as good as I had heard, I wasn’t going to complain about the name.
It’s not the most creative thing to name a restaurant after the street it resides on. It’s slightly more creative to name a restaurant after a distant street and the experience that the restaurant is trying to recreate. However, there are very few places that dare to be named for a street that’s right nearby, but not actually running by the place. Such is the case for Green Street in Pasadena, which happens to be on Shoppers Lane. Apparently Shoppers Lane just didn’t have the same ring.
Pork and booze are easily two of the greatest things that can be consumed on the planet, if not just two of the greatest things in general. Celestino in Pasadena is fully aware of this and has combined them in a pasta dish worth writing about. It is called the Pennette Con Prosciutto e Vodka, but it may as well be called Paradiso.
South Pasadena is a unique place. As a wholly independent city, it’s often thought of as a more hoity toity part of the area. Yet, it retains a charm that is distinctly “main street.” The part of Fair Oaks that runs through town features a pharmacy straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting, but more importantly it has Gus’s Bar-B-Q, which has been around since 1946.
It’s always important to have a solid Thai place nearby for when a) you want something delivered that is lighter than pizza, b) you have friends with dietary restrictions and c) you need some flavor in your life. Fortunately, I have Chao Doi nearby in Pasadena, which, after eating in the delivery style a number of times, I finally decided to dine in.
It’s pretty rare for me to turn to Yelp in the city in which I live, yet, when my step-mom was coming off of an intense battle with the stomach flu and was in need of simple meal, I had little choice. Thus, we found ourselves at Central Park Cafe in Old Town Pasadena and immediately learned that dinner not only did not include the omelet she was looking for, it was actually kind of a fancy place.
In the quest for something to eat between Burbank and Pasadena, I found myself in Eagle Rock. Once upon a time I only knew Eagle Rock for The Oinkster, but the past few years have seen a number of delicious reasons to visit appear. One of these is called the Patio. The Patio is all about burgers and beers, so clearly I was all about seeing what it had to offer.
The LA area isn’t exactly known for its pizza. Yet, while the nation has concentrated its pizza efforts on New York and Chicago, LA has quietly built up some great pizza places. I’ve done my best to review them as they’ve come, and the latest to hop on my radar is The Luggage Room in Pasadena. Based on the name, you might not expect pizza, but you’d be wrong because that’s pretty much all The Luggage Room does.
Bacchus’ Kitchen up in Pasadena has been on my list of places to eat ever since I arrived in Pasadena. It would have been on the list for a much shorter period of time, however, if they hadn’t surprised my family and me with a fixed price menu on New Year’s Eve clocking in at $110 per person. This was shocking because we were never told when we made the reservation and because they normal menu is shockingly reasonably priced – with steaks in the sub-$30 range. Nonetheless, the employees were super understanding when we left and I vowed to return.