‘Restaurants’
Portland has brand new bike share called Bike Town (you know, like Nike Town) and since my buddies and I were in town for a bachelor party with cars, it was a perfect opportunity to try it out. Thus, we set off one morning by bright orange bike to Doug Fir, a 70s-style diner/music venue/hotel. It was very Portland, to say the least.
All you can eat Korean BBQ is one of the greatest things (not just food things) ever created. It’s meaty, it’s flamey and it is interactive-y. Yet, not all KBBQ spots are created equally, with some charging a bit more than others. Oo Kook in Koreatown is one of those places that goes beyond the $20 mark, but I was hoping it would be worth it.
Somehow it took me nearly a year of working in Pasadena to discover Braise and Crumble just down the street from my office. It’s truly shocking because after discovering the place one day, I was back just a couple days later to get in on it again. Because of that, you actually get to see how two meals unfolded at this place.
While chicken and waffles are just about the most confusingly delicious combination of food. But there hasn’t been a lot of innovation in that dish for very long. Well, at least not until Bruxie came along, offering waffles as sandwiches. There are a number of options within the chicken category and plenty outside of it as well. I opted for what seemed to be their newest creation: Nashville Hot Chicken.
Sometimes when you’re traveling you just have to eat in. When you do, you should hope you’re staying somewhere like Le Parker Meridien in Midtown New York. Because if you do, you’ll be lucky enough to have Burger Joint downstairs. Burger Joint isn’t just some typical hotel restaurant, it’s a no-frills spot with a small menu consisting of only burgers, fries, and a pickle with prices that are pretty typical for New York.
The Park in Chelsea is quite literally a beautiful place to eat. It isn’t an actual park, but the marginally glassed-in courtyard area is so full of growing green things that a bird took an actual crap on my mother-in-law before we had the opportunity to order our food. No joke. But this was brunch, so we laughed it off, took down some Bloody Mary’ses and pressed on.
After a long evening of drinking in New York City, the only reasonable thing to do is grab at least one slice of pizza. Such is what I did in the East Village when I essentially stumbled into Baker’s Pizza. As fate would have it, I ran into my drunk friend on his way out (he had left the bar five minutes before), which convinced me that I was in the right place. Just like all pizza by the slice places in New York, there was a display case showcasing the available pies and my eyes wandered to the one topped with meatballs and ricotta.
Sometimes life beats the crap out of you. Other times, it gives you exactly what you want. So when what I wanted was some good new food in Pasadena, Spudds suddenly appeared and fulfilled the latter. You see, Spudds specializes in poutine and I am a man who loves his fries with gravy and cheese curds. Plus, as far as I know, Spudds is the only original (unlike Smoke’s Poutinerie in Hollywood, which as you probably know from reading up here has a number of outposts in Canada) poutine spot in all of the LA area.
A lot changed in Downtown LA while I was gone for two years. The Arts District, which is adjacent to Little Tokyo, had already had a bit of a resurgence that has kinda blown up. On top of that, Chef Neal Fraser, who is behind BLD, has popped out a couple new spots. When you combine these, you get Fritzi, which is like an affordably upscale fast-casual concept (yeah, I said it).
There is a saying attributed to Jonathan Gold that goes something like “‘A’ is for ‘American’ Chinese food, ‘B’ is for ‘Better’ Chinese food and ‘C’ is for ‘Chinese’ Chinese food.” The letters, of course, are in reference to the health code and if you’ve ever been to China, you would know this to be true. Thus, when I heard great things about the dumplings at Emperor Noodles in San Gabriel and then found out it had a “B” rating, I got pretty excited to try it out.