Michael Bloomberg, or should I say, Mayor Bloomberg of New York hasn’t exactly been much of a meat man in the past. As one of the richest men in the world, he decided to dedicate the rest of his life to public service in 2001. In truth, I know little to nothing of his politics, but I do know the man loves his steak.
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.
Just recently, West Hollywood’s Pinches Tacos branched out to Culver City and my buddy, Waldo, decided we had to try it out. I didn’t really know anything about the original place, but I figured it had to be good enough to build a second location. Since he was picking up, I checked out the menu online and found two tasty-looking tacos. The first was Pollo Mole and the second was Carne Asada. The menu was pretty vague about what came in each, so asked Waldo to order them without vegetables. He is a firm supporter of the unvegan way, so he was happy to get them ordered correctly.
It ain’t easy being a vegetarian. I’ve always known that, but apparently a member of the rodent family is discovering that as well. Water voles, a rodent found in British waterways, have long been vegetarians, but a recent study shows that they have abandoned that foolhardy eating habit and come to the better side.
While trying to be environmentally conscious, my office invited environmentally-friendly Green Truck over for some lunch. At first I was frightened by this, since the term “green” has taken on a pretty anti-meat connotation. It’s a damn shame, too, since green is the second-best color in the world. The best, of course, being orange. But I digress, back to some truckery. Despite the frightening name, the Green Truck did have some unvegan choices, including hot dogs and hamburgers. Even before heading out to the truck, I checked out the menu and decided I wanted one of their hot dogs. What’s more environmentally friendly than hot dogs? Well I guess since they are Niman Beef, they are quite advantageous for the environment.
On a pretty little Sunday afternoon in Culver City, my friends and I decided to try out a little place in Culver’s sketchville called J and J’s. After hearing tons of great meaty stories about this place, I knew it had to become an unvegan conquest. Alas, when we pulled up to the nondescript corner of West Adams and Spaulding, we found that the place didn’t do business on Sundays. A damn shame, but fortune wasn’t frowning upon us too much on that day. As we made our exit, we spotted an even more nondescript hole in the wall called Daddy’s Burritos. After a few moments of contemplation, we decided to try it out.
With a name like Al Gelato, you kind of expect to be walking into a gelato shop. This is not the case with Al Gelato in Beverly Hills. Sure, the place has gelato, but it is also a full-on Italian restaurant. Aside from realizing that it wasn’t just a gelato place, I also found that Al Gelato didn’t carry a lot of the pretension that Italian restaurants seem to have. There was no mood lighting, no fancy table cloths and no people with strange accents that weren’t quite Italian. Despite this, I found that the prices still fell into what you would expect in Beverly Hills, with very little under 10 bucks and pasta prices jumping up to 15 if you wanted any meat.
Oil. Let’s be honest…if you don’t work for an oil company, you probably don’t like it. You deal with fluctuating oil prices and the constant threat that it will run out and the whole planet will be screwed. Plus, every once in a while you get an oil spill, and that is no good for anyone, unless you are in PETA.