‘Meat’
All-too-often restaurants claim to have “the best” blah blah blah in the world, but sometimes there is a restaurant that makes no claim to have the best of anything and lets the customers tell the good news. Langer’s Deli is one of the latter. Located in the not-so-posh neighborhood of MacArthur Park, Langer’s has become known for their pastrami. Many who have tried it have claimed it is the best ever, so to do the unvegan world a favor, I had to try it out myself.
The Stage Deli of West Bloomfield seems a bit out of place. Sandwiches are named after Broadway shows and aside from the one picture of Eminem, everything reeks of New York. Nonetheless, The Stage Deli is a staple Jewish deli in West Bloomfield Township. Rather than limiting themselves to sandwiches named for classic shows and actors, The Stage has modernized itself by throwing in such shows as Mama Mia and even movies like Casino Royale.
In an area saturated with delicious sliders like Greene’s Hamburgers, I never felt any need to visit White Castle in Michigan. Yet, somehow, on my last visit to my homeland I was convinced to take a drive out to Grand River and 8 Mile Road (yeah the same one that Eminem is from) in Farmington Hills to pay a visit to White Castle. The adventure getting there wasn’t worthy of creating an entire film, but still felt like a hike.
About a year ago, a new Turkish restaurant opened down the street from me in Palms. I was overjoyed at this and especially happy when I saw that they were open late on weekends. Unfortunately, I went pretty soon after they opened and was kind of disappointed with the results. Lucky for them, this was before I started a meat blog, so when I finally got around to paying them another visit recently, it was my first chance to give them an unvegan review. The restaurant is called Sofra Kabab Express and although “express” is typically applied to fast food restaurants in airports, this is nothing like one of those, even encouraging people to hang around and smoke hookah (nargile in Turkish).
No, this isn’t LA’s new mobile petshop, although that is a genius idea that someone should really get on. Instead, it is another one of LA’s constantly expanding collection of mobile food trucks. Dogtown Dogs specializes in hot dogs, which isn’t entirely creative considering the existence of Let’s Be Frank. Despite this, I tracked them down one night after hearing some pretty good things about their dogs. As with most mobile eateries, I ended up finding them parked near the Brig on Abbot Kinney.
This has been a big week in the world of meat-eating. Scientists in Holland or the Netherlands or whatever you call it have grown the first piece of in-vitro meat. In layman’s terms, they grew meat in a lab without killing any animals.
As a pleasant surprise, my girlfriend decided to pick me up some dinner from the California Chicken Cafe. They were supposed to have some great rotisserie chicken, so before she picked up, I took a look at the menu to figure out what to order. Since just about everything on the menu began with the word “chicken,” I was pretty happy. I decided to go with the 1/4 chicken (breast and wing) plus one side. Picking out a side was probably the easiest thing I’ve done since graduating elementary school. Of the 12 sides, only two were unvegan-friendly. These were the mashed potatoes and the fresh fruit salad. Feeling in a strongly savory mood, I decided on the mashed potatoes.
I had been hearing about a glorious and semi-new restaurant in downtown LA for months and finally I gathered up the strength to make the trek down the 10 and check it out. This new restaurant is called Wurstkuche and although there are multiple fun and interesting pronunciations for such a place, the one thing that is certain is that it means “sausage kitchen” in some Germanic language.
Arriving on a Sunday night, I expected the place to be packed, but was happy to find a relatively short line at the counter that gave me just enough time to decide what I wanted. The menu is limited to a wide variety of sausages and french fries. Although this seems kind of limiting, there is a sausage in their extensive list for everyone (even those dastardly vegetarians and vegans). The most intriguing part for me was the exotic sausages.
Meat eaters of the world have many enemies. They can come in the form of PETA or a hamburger that someone has decided to ruin with lettuce. One of the newest enemies, however, can’t be easily remedied by making fun of vegans or by sending food back to the kitchen. This enemy is global warming.
Another fine restaurant I went to in Las Vegas was called Rare 120 Degrees. This restaurant was off the strip at the Hard Rock Cafe, but was a perfect place to stop before seeing Santana there. We had a reservation and got in instantly. It was a good thing we had that reservation, too, because no more than fifteen minutes later, the place got packed. Before I even saw the menu, I heard classic 80s music and one of the greatest movies of all time, Better Off Dead, starring John Cusack, was projected onto one of the walls. I knew I had come to a great place.