In my attempt to consume some of the meatier delights from Jonathan Gold’s 99 Things to Eat Before You Die in LA, I convinced some of my coworkers to join me on a trip to Chili John’s in Burbank. In addition to reading about it on the list, I had heard a lot of other great things about the place, so I was surprised to find it pretty empty for lunch on a Friday. We all found a seat at the horseshoe-shaped counter and began our journey into chili.
Before spending a weekend of hiking in Joshua Tree National Park, we stopped at a little shop near the visitor center called the Park Rock Cafe. We didn’t need too much before a day filled with jerky and trail mix, but we at least wanted to get ourselves a square meal. There weren’t a lot of options, as you would expect. It was mostly sandwiches and all of them had some sort of vegetable plopped inside to ruin it. Despite this, I still chose their Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich, which came with onions and peppers. I ordered mine without those sandwich killers and then was given a choice between soup and salad. I made the obvious choice for soup, which was cracked lentils. I don’t really know how you go about cracking a lentil, but I do know that lentils are more of a legume than a vegetable, and legumes are just fine by me.
A lot of people visit China and are completely blown away by how different the food there is than the Chinese food they get back in the USA. Some are disappointed, some are overwhelmed, and some even like it. I am one of the latter, because while I lived in China, I couldn’t get enough of their food. I liked it so much that when I returned to my homeland, I avoided Chinese food for months, knowing that it just wouldn’t be the same. When I finally got up the courage to eat Chinese food again, I did it with the mindset that the Chinese food here just wasn’t the same as in the actual Middle Kingdom.
I think we can all agree that there are not enough places in the world that offer unlimited food. And the places that do are usually pretty bogged down by endless salad bars and other assorted vegetables. Manna Korean BBQ in Culver City is not one of those places. Instead of concentrating on veggies, they have decided to concentrate on meats. For only 16.99, you get all you can eat meats. And these aren’t just generic grade D meats, these are a collection of short rib, brisket, pork belly, pork, chicken, spicy chicken and beef.
It isn’t too often that my buddy, Joel, repeatedly requests that I go to a restaurant with him, so when he does I try to listen. After asking me to go to Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop in Beverly Hills with him a couple times, I gave in and went. I’m not sure what I was expecting when I walked in, but the place kind of had the air of an upscale Subway. But aside from that and the general shape of the sandwiches they served, to compare this place to Subway would be a severe disservice.
In my ceaseless attempt to find great unvegan food, the Valley has become my newest stomping ground. No, I didn’t just wake up one day and decide that there must be tons of hidden food gems in the Valley…my newish job made that decision for me. Right down the street from my office in North Hollywood is an Indian place called Salomi Indian Restaurant and one day at lunch we decided to check it out. The interior was a little bit fancy for lunch, but we were seated quickly. I took a look at the menu we were given and discovered that the prices were also a bit fancy for lunch. Just as I was feeling disheartened, one of my genius co-eaters asked if there was a special lunch menu. Our waitress said, “Yes” and we rejoiced.
Where the mac and cheese balls from World Fare were my appetizer at the Silver Lake Jubilee, I still needed to find myself a main course. After a long stroll around the trucks, I found myself at a truck that I had never seen before, called Lee’s Philly. Lee’s Philly is born of the same vein as many of the Kogi-style food trucks. Their specialty is gogi beef, but while they have fused it with tacos and burritos, they have also created a Philly cheese steak out of the stuff. Wording on their truck claims that they have “LA’s Best Gogi,” but I took it upon myself to be the true judge of that.
So like any good food blogger, I headed to the Silver Lake Jubilee over the weekend. For an event that wasn’t solely for food, it was amazing how all I really heard about the event was that there would be 34 food trucks. I didn’t even know LA had 34 food trucks (not counting the old fashioned kind). This sounded all good and well, but these sort of events seem to attract a butt-load of people and I was a little worried there would be a hassle for parking, getting in and then food. When I got there, though, I found no hassle at all. It was five bucks to get in and right off the bat I was bombarded with foodery. A long row of food trucks lined the center of the jubilee, burning up tons of diesel and serving up some interesting food.
Another great unvegan guest blog from @RGSpiegel.
A few weeks ago, I was watching a Cubs game on WGN and, being too lazy and preoccupied with whatever the internet had to offer to change the channel after the game (presumably, the Cubs lost), a special about the best places to eat brunch in Chicago came on. Featured first on this special was Nightwood, a restaurant in the Pilsen neighborhood on the South side of Chicago that served up brunch on Sundays. Although I am not one to typically seek out special places to eat breakfast or brunch (which is really just breakfast eaten later in the day because of being too hungover to move any earlier), I knew I had to try Nightwood when I saw that they served up a special unvegan treat: the bacon butterscotch doughnut. When I saw that this creation even existed, I immediately channeled my inner Homer Simpson.
EDIT: The Century City location is gone, but Lawry’s continues to carve elsewhere.
After a year or so of flirting around with the Asian options at the Century City food court, I finally decided to take the plunge into some of their meatier food. This is not to say that I wasn’t eating meat all along, but few restaurants exude meatiness more than Lawry’s Carvery, the food court version of Lawry’s Prime Rib steakhouse. I took to browsing their menu and even though there was a ton of meat, a few of the good-looking dishes included vegetables.