‘Pasadena’
Houston’s is a restaurant that has been on my radar for a while. It had always looked like some generic and boring American restaurant until a buddy of mine told me it had one of the best burgers he had ever eaten. Nonetheless, it took receiving a gift card to the place to finally get me out to the Houston’s in Pasadena.
One of the newer and incredibly popular places in Pasadena goes by the name of Lincoln. Why? Well it’s on Lincoln Avenue, duh. It has a pretty trendy menu that seems to be pretty flexible and very much caters to people who have special needs. Except, of course, if your special need is the fact that you are an unvegan.
There are few places that invite unvegans in with open arms simply based on their names. Meat District Co. in Pasadena is clearly one of those places. With a menu consisting of meat products like bone marrow (which, shit, they were out of), burgers, ribs and steaks (plus something called the Meat Hook), I knew the hardest part of the meal would be deciding what delicious-looking thing to eat.
Along with The Apple Pan over in West LA, Pie ‘n Burger is renowned for not only having delicious burgers, but for having seemingly not changed at all in its 50+ years of life. Sure, there are a lot of classic burger spots around, but they have all had tweaks here and there as owners have been exchanged, neighborhood demographics have changed or competition has increased. At Pie ‘n Burger, the only noticeable difference is the price.
Some people like to say that Pasadena north of the 210 is a sketchy place. Those people obviously don’t know Pasadena, as “north of the 210” is starting to feature some pretty exciting spots. Take, for example, Lavender & Honey, a coffee/sandwich shop that appears to attract displaced westsiders and eastsiders.
Once upon a time, a little place called 800 Degrees decided it could redefine fast-food pizza. Needless to say, it was a success. And that success inevitably led to copycats like Blaze Pizza. Surely this is not a bad thing in general because it will ultimately lead to better or more affordable food, but in the short-run I set out to see if Blaze could deliver (figuratively, of course).
Often when I eat Italian food out, I am left thinking I could have just made the same dish at home. That’s why I usually go for gnocchi, which seems harder to duplicate at home. Nonetheless, When the wife found a little hole in the wall spot called Luciano’s in Pasadena, I wasn’t expecting anything amazing simply because there was too much on the menu. Not only that, the menu made it seem like everything (pizza, pasta, sandwiches) would be wonderful and that is often a bad sign.
Just off the main drag of South Lake in Pasadena is a little Thai spot that goes by the name Nine and Nine. What the name means is lost to me, but what wasn’t lost to me was their lunch specials for $7.50, which captivated me as I browsed the menu. Like most Thai places, the lunch specials menu was a small fraction of the whole, but it had curry and that’s all a guy like me could ask for.
Pasadena may be known for being incredibly white, but that doesn’t mean ethnic restaurants don’t exist. Take, for example, El Portal, a restaurant that feels like entering Mexico except not in a phony or kidnappy kind of way. It has been called the best Mexican restaurant in LA, but due to the fact that it is south of the 210, I had my doubts.
Around the LA area and the surrounding region is a small group of hot dog spots called Dog Haus. Despite the fact that this seems to portray some sort of Germanic hot dog spot, it’s really just a place for some creative hot dogs and burgers. And while the burgers were actually looking mighty fine, I just had to stick with the hot dog part of the menu.