It seems like just yesterday that I packed up my bags in Michigan to move to Los Angeles, but alas it was nearly 10 years ago. A lot has changed in those 10 years, and aside from housing prices and traffic much of it has been for the better. Take, for example, breweries. Michigan was littered with them and I found LA barely had one (San Diego was strong, though). Now, they are much easier to find and have even come around to serving brewery food instead of fancy stuff (I’m looking at you, Golden Road, but glad that you have also fixed yourself up!) Highland Park Brewery is one of the new entrants and I set out to test both its food and booze.

The booze passed the test, plus Highland Park Brewery had a great selection of local guest taps. But I know all you really care about is food and so I should say that I ordered the Meatloaf Burger. It was made from beef and bacon blend, then topped with a fried egg, avocado and pimento cheese. Thinking that a meatloaf is essentially a giant burger, I kind of thought this would simply be a burger with a hipster name. It turned out I was wrong, as this literally looked like a slice of meatloaf. More than that, it tasted like a slice meatloaf as opposed to a burger, which is all at once a very clear and very ambiguous description. Just know that from a texture and density standpoint, this was meatloaf.

And that’s all good and well, but call it what it is – a meatloaf sandwich. I love a good slice of meatloaf as much as the next guy/gal, but it is important to set my expectations correctly. Because of these expectations, I couldn’t help but feel at least a little bit disappointed by the sandwich, which is sad because it was really an ideal mix of ingredients for an unvegan.

Nonetheless, the menu at Highland Park Brewery, just like the beers, is ever-changing. I am all but certain that the meatloaf burger is gone from the menu and has been replaced by something that may be described better. Whether that is the case or not, I certainly enjoyed the beers and can only mildly complain about the naming of my meal, which meant I was a happy man and would happily return.

Not too long ago, Vietnamese food suddenly became cool. At first everyone was probably like, “What the shit are pho and banh mi and how do you pronounce these things?” but now they’re all like, “It’s pronounced ‘fuh,’ idiot.” Somewhere in the middle of all this, Good Girl Dinette appeared in the formerly sketchy turned contentiously gentrifying neighborhood of Highland Park. Yes, just like every other damn city, LA has a Highland Park of its own.

Unfortunately, the Vietnamese food served at Good Girl Dinette pretty much all seems to have vegetables. Sure, they are amenable to veggie removal, but it would have been nice to see some sort of dish subsisting without veggies (except for, say, the winged appetizer). I chose the Slow-Roasted Pork Banh Mi without the pickled daikon and carrots because they suck. Thus the sandwich came with cilantro-maggi mayo and I picked spicy fries for my side.

The result was some truly delicious bread, some very flavorful pork and unfortunately a sandwich that relied on pickled daikon and carrots for moisture. In short, it had all the right flavor, but was a bit dry. Sure, you can blame me for changing the order, but you should really blame Good Girl Dinette for relying too much on veggies. Shame on you for thinking otherwise.

The fries, though, were quite delicious. They were flavored by jalapenos, which was somewhat surprising, cilantro and garlic. Maybe if they threw some of that pork on there they would have made for quite the meal.

Good Girl Dinette definitely seemed to take Vietnamese food to a more innovative place, but along the way it forgot that true innovation comes without veggies. Alas, I can only hope it will find a way to satisfy the meaty end of the spectrum by creating a nice balance with the already tasty food.