First off, no, there is no such thing as unlimited libation at Golden Road Brewing. But I just couldn’t resist making the painfully obvious Grateful Dead reference. Especially because there was nothing at all Grateful Dead about the brewery. As one of the few microbreweries in LA, Golden Road resides in a sketchy part of Glendale and is kind of personifies a blend of collar and hipster, at least in decor and architecture. The food menu tries to bridge that gap as well, but leans heavier on the latter than the former, with a frightening number of vegan menu items and a couple of sandwiches to scare any blue collar visitors back to the smelting plant.

Yet, despite the scary parts of the menu, I was excited to try out the brewery. I started with a glass of “Either Side of the Hill,” an amber beer (methinks) that tasted pretty nice. To go with the beer, my dining companion had ordered one of their giant Bavarian-style pretzels, which came with spicy Dijon mustard. For an extra buck, I added pimento cheese dip to the mix. On the menu, the pretzel was listed as vegan. I had previously thought that all pretzels were vegan until I was reminded of lard, and as soon as I realized that, the pretzel went downhill in my mind. Rather than a complaint, though, this is a testament to the fact that I didn’t realize anything was missing until I was told. Nonetheless, while lard would have improved the pretzel, it was also over salted and a bit dry (perhaps due to the lard). The pimento dip really came through, though, and made the pretzel pretty awesome.

We followed up the pretzel by splitting two sandwiches. The first was the Sloppy Joseph, made with stout-braised beef short ribs, fried shallots and house made BBQ sauce. Like I said…not exactly your blue collar sandwich, but certainly fit for an unvegan. In truth, they probably could have called this the Joseph or simply their BBQ Short Rib sandwich, as there was nothing sloppy about this sandwich. Yet, it made up for the misnomer by being delicious. The meat was tender and juicy, while the fried shallots added a bit of crunch to the sandwich without any intrusive flavor. I was quite happy with it and looked forward to our second sandwich.

But the excitement soon faded. We had ordered the Duck Confit sandwich, which was said to come with cranberry orange compote and herbed goat cheese, but Golden Road had decided to destroy this unvegan delight by stuffing two salads worth of lettuce in the roll. It made for a really uncomfortable situation that killed about five minutes of my life as I removed all unwanted visitors from my sandwich. By the time I was done, I really hoped this sandwich was worth it. Sadly, it was not. The duck had been pounded and rolled into an texture-less blob of meat that made Taco Bell ground beef feel like a filet mignon. There was flavor in there, but really not enough to justify the $12 price tag.

So while the menu was not ideal, I do hold out hope that Golden Road can see the light or at least light the way for more microbreweries to come. Their hipster-blue collar blend came together well with the Sloppy Joseph, but that and pretzel don’t make a menu worth returning for. Especially with all the terrible vegan dishes. I like what they are going for with beer and wish them the best with food, but if I go back it will be for a drink and not an eat.

Over in the land of Silver Lake on LA’s east side, my sister, girlfriend and family friend converged upon a restaurant called Home. The place looked nothing like my home and the menu items barely had some items I’ve ever seen at home, so I assumed the name was derived from some sort of Silver Lake hipster irony. We sat outside on a relatively cold Saturday for LA and I watched as the workers fumbled helplessly to try to keep the heat lamps lit while the women tried desperately to keep warm. It was unintentionally entertaining, to say the least, and I hoped the food would at least be half as good as said entertainment.

Looking at their specials, one thing stood out to all of us: red velvet pancakes. But it would have been silly for all of us to order our own set, so we decided to order them as a bit of a brunch appetizer. A brunchetizer, if you will. These things came out covered in a thick cream sauce almost like condensed milk, but not as sweet or sticky. Stacked three pancakes high, they were light and fluffy and everything you could want from a normal pancake, but with the added benefit of being made of red velvety goodness.

After eating my fill of the pancakes, I moved on to my main course (because only fools don’t eat multi-course brunches). I had ordered the “World Famous” Sloppy Joe even though the waiter had assured me it wasn’t truly world famous. Instead, he said it was just famous locally. He was quite the literal man, but despite being stripped of its title, I was still excited for the mildly famous sloppy joe. It had come with a choice of many sides, and I had gone with the waffle fries.

World famous, or not, I found Home’s sloppy joe to be damn good. Bursting with flavor, meat and slop, it reminded me of the Manwich of my youth rather than a depressing cafeteria food. The ground beef was tender and chunky, and without fail every time I took a bite an equal amount of slop went into my mouth and onto the plate. The insides had been padded with a soft, yet hearty bun, which kept the sloppy joe intact and refused to get soggy. Unfortunately, the rare bit of onion slipped into the joe, which was the only source of disappointment. These rare bits provided no flavor and were wholly unnecessary, but did not detract from the overall enjoyment of this great sandwich.

And then there were the fries. Honestly, I don’t understand why more places don’t serve waffle fries. After eating them at Home, I was reminded that waffle fries are just incredible. I’m hesitant to say they are the best fries in the world, but an average waffle fry kicks the ass off of a really good skinny fry any day. Even better, these waffle fries were the perfect conduit with which to scoop up the scraps that my sloppy joe left behind.

While not exactly reminiscent of my home, Home in Silver Lake certainly delivered. From pancakes to sloppy joes to waffle fries, everything I ate surprised me with flavor. Aside from my issues with onions and a feeling that they were short at least one waitstaff (presumably the one who knew how to turn on the heaters), the food from Home found a very welcoming home in my belly.