‘Los Angeles’
A couple of years ago, some dude named Ilan Hall from Top Chef opened a restaurant in downtown LA called The Gorbals. The food scene of LA was pretty excited, and so was I, but downtown is a bitch to get to. So I waited. And waited. Until finally, a 30% off deal came to me from Blackboard Eats and I realized I had a golden opportunity to brave the nighttime downtown traffic.
In a clear trend of awesome, Brats Brothers is one of the newest gourmet/exotic sausage/bratwurst places to hit LA (okay, they’ve been around since 2007, but just moved to a new location). Within 48 hours of learning of its existence, I made my way out to Sherman Oaks for lunch to see how it stacked up against its brethren. Made up to look all German-like and with a hostess/waitress that was also decidedly German (accent and all), Brats Brothers seemed a little more authentic than hipster-loving joints like Wurstkuche.
For a few months now, I have driven by El Nopal in Palms nearly every single day. And on just about every one of those days, I say to myself, “I want to eat there.” But it is not simply because I love Mexican food, it is because of what is written just below the name of the restaurant on their sign: Home of the Pregnant Burrito. I’m a pretty literal guy and assumed there was some sort of burrito fetus residing in the larger burrito. This proved to not be the case, but it does give me an idea for an awesome burrito if I ever open up my own Mexican place (read: never). Anyway, onto the burrito.
For a while now, I’ve been hearing about this place in Hollywood called Griddle Cafe. “Go to Griddle,” they say. “You’ll like what you eat there,” they also say. “They make pancakes with anything in them,” they continue, and then I get excited. You see, I like me a pancake, but a regular pancake can only be so good. Usually it tastes the best after a night of binge drinking, and it doesn’t matter if it comes from a box mix or the nicest brunch restaurant in the world. But I got excited about Griddle and finally made it out to Hollywood to see what all the pancake hype was about.
Hot dogs: the edible version of man’s best friend. Genius in conception and pretty easy to do well. But to do a hot dog great takes some skill and some food trucks have taken this easily portable meal to the streets to some success. Up in North Hollywood, The Wien brought its truck over to my office one day and I thought I should give it a try and see if it could compete.
Many months ago, someone was telling me about a delicious pizza chain from the Midwest called Godfather’s. Being from the Midwest, I was a bit surprised until he told me it was from that other Midwest. You know, like Kansas and stuff. Then Godfather’s started getting a lot more attention because of some dude named Herman Cain that wants to be President. So when I ordered some pizza delivery from a place called Godfather’s that recently appeared in Palms, I was thinking this was one and the same as the fabled Godfather’s I had heard so much about. I was wrong, for the first time.
After a long day of repenting and fasting, I needed a good Jewish meal to remind my body and mind what eating felt like. Since we were attending a comedy show later that night at The Laugh Factory, we decided to go to an ancient little deli next door called Greenblatt’s. And when I say ancient, I meant it’s been there since 1926. That means when my grandma was living in LA in the late ’40s, it was already old and she remembers its existence. To survive for 85 years anywhere, let a lone a big city where change is the only contant is quite impressive. I was eager to find out what kept Greenblatt’s ticking and to satiate my fully empty stomach.
To celebrate yet another Dine LA Restaurant Week, we found ourselves at Simon LA in the Sofitel Hotel in Beverly Hills. I’m not usually one for restaurant ambience unless that ambience is dingy and dirty, but I really appreciated the way that Simon LA was decorated. In our little booth, we were seated near the middle of the restaurant, yet felt like we were in our own little world because the booth was half-surrounded by some really cool woodsy decor. Not like backwoodsy, but modern and classy. I looked at both the Dine LA menu and the regular menu, then quickly came to conclusion: Dine LA was dead to me.
Not too long ago, a new bar/grill opened in Culver City called Rocco’s Tavern. If you are at all from my generation, the name Rocco evokes memories of one of the greatest Nicktoons ever: Rocko’s Modern Life. Okay, the name is spelled differently, which may explain why neither wallabies nor turtles were on the menu. Instead, the menu was chock-full of some typical bar food. With the Tigers game on the TVs surrounding the bar, I sat down, ordered a happy hour beer (2 for 1 from 3-7 everyday) and decided what to order.
Right around the time that Coney Dog was hitting LA straight out of Detroit, Papaya King was also making its way to the West Coast by way of some other city called New York. Never heard of it. Billboards glowed with the words “Papaya King,” yet this native Detroiter largely ignored the hot dogs of New York in favor of those from his native land. But when a Blackboard Eats discount for 30% off came around, Papaya King could no longer be ignored. I gathered a couple hot dog-loving friends and hit the road for Hollywood.
The first thing that should be made clear about Papaya King is that there are absolutely no papayas in the hot dogs. Yes, this is a little disappointing, but there is still very good reason for the name of the place. It is actually named for the papaya juice served there, which predated the hot dogs at the original New York location. That papaya juice is still important, but not nearly as much as the hot dogs.