American Food

Food and LA. I love eating here, so many restaurants, so many different kids of food, so many places to try. But when I think up a list of all my favorite places to eat, the list is filled mostly with ethnic places, usually Asian. Which leaves me surprised. Why are there so few great American food restaurants? Not the expensive, must-reserve, Frenchified or Italianized places, but the every day eating joints where you can pop in anytime for a really satisfying meal.

I do like Pann's — it's one of my favorite places and a near perfect dining experience: great Googie architecture, great atmosphere, comfy booths, nice service, good comfort food. Musso and Frank is near perfect too. And there's Langers. Greenblatt's too. And I like Milk a lot. Du-par's has a fantastic Monte Cristo sandwich and their French dip isn't bad (but their service can be pretty annoying and the other dishes ho-hum). Phillipe's is fun. The Counter burger places are great too. And Fab Hot Dogs. But now I'm starting to run out of names, and for such a huge metropolis with so many restaurants, it seems like there should be so much more.

Often, I'll end up going to a place that gets mentioned in LA Weekly and I'll have a sandwich and think, "Wow. I could be at a Vietnamese banh mi place in the SGV. The food would be 80% better and I would have spent $5 - $10 less." A lot of the good American food places tend to be very specific too: like good only for breakfasts, good only for hamburgers, nice for Cincinnati-like chili (Chili John's) etc. There should be more places like Du-par's, only much, much better with less expensive choices. And the experience shouldn't be so inconsistent or so stressful. Like at The Golden State — getting a table can get rough, and the food can be really off (I once got sweet potato fries which were mostly black from having been burnt, and soggy, which defied my expectation because you'd think burnt food would be extra crispy — I mean, if you can't get your basic side right, what's the point of existing at all?). Oinkster is pretty inconsistent too (never go during the off hours, like 4 in the afternoon). Or at Father's Office, where the food is always fantastic, but the fight-for-your-own table situation so rough, the side to every meal is indigestion (last time we went, we had to play tag-team with another desperate couple — each couple stationing themselves at opposite ends of the restaurant, ready to swoop at the first signs of an emptying spot). The same at Apple Pan. The busiest Chinese dim sum houses give you numbers. Which is showing respect and consideration for your customers. After all, hospitality is as paramount as good food, isn't it?

I'd like a renaissance of American food. Not the cute interpretations at $20 a plate, but just good, classic fare, a nice blue plate special for $5.99. Last week, I spent an hour on the web looking for a basic caramel apple recipe — what I could find were the ones that advised you to buy candy at the store and melt it (telling you to buy the ready-to-use caramel wrappers is not a recipe)*. This is why I'd like an American food renaissance.

As an aside, here's an unscientific observation. The most demanding, enthusiastic and busy LA Yelp restaurant reviewers seem to be Asian. As a correlation, I often find Caucasian diners at American food restaurants to be not very discerning. Like I was at a nouveau Swedish restaurant and everyone around me was raving about the Swedish meatballs — I thought the meatballs were hard, not seasoned very well, and the milk gravy pretty appalling (I sighed and thought, "I could be eating the meatball plate at Ikea for around $6 — I would have gotten more meatballs, paid about 20% less, the food would have been more authentic, and tastier, too [I'm not saying Ikea food is gourmet or anything]."). To add to this, when I was in college, my fellow diners and I would spend hours complaining about how truly awful the dorm food was (mostly cheap cheese on carbs). The only diner to protest was Caucasian, and she said, "This is a lot better than what I got at home." Our hearts broke for her. So I wonder. Is the Asian food here so much better because Asians grow up eating good food at home (and I mean recent immigrants)? Certainly, there are a huge number of Asian immigrants concentrated in a very small area, but if they weren't so demanding, I'm sure the state of Chinese food in the SGV would be as blah as the state of the American food.

*I did finally find a wonderful recipe at Real Mom Kitchen. The caramel is to die for. Really.

10 Reasons Why I'm Glad To Be Leaving My 'Hood

1. Neighbor who screams bloody murder at her yakky dogs and plays her music super loud whenever she wants to score (usually sometime around midnight) and hires gardeners who like to throw their garbage into our property.

2. Landlord who rivals Mr. Roper.

3. A house that stinks in many, many ways, literal and metaphorical.

4. Sirens screaming up and down Laurel Canyon, up and down, up and down, up and down...

5. Press helicopters chasing Britney Spears.

6. Police helicopters tracking down "Prometheus", the local arsonist.

7. Sun going down two hours earlier than everywhere else because of the hills.

8. The homeless man in the white van who steals water from the front yard.

9. Our Amityville ghost who keeps screaming at me, "GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!"

10. All the honking, skidding and crashing right outside the door because idiots drive way too fast down a winding, mountain road, smashing right into the cliff wall.

10 Things I'll Miss

1. The local police officer who advised us to mace anyone who comes to the door.

2. Getting confused and saying Mt Vesuvius instead of Mt Olympus (the hoity-toity suburban development on the hill above us).

3. Arsonists who know their Greek mythology.

4. The local Country Store and the groovy, hippy guy at the counter.

5. The super nice lady at the laundry.

6. Louise and her dog Mac, who likes to kick up dirt at anyone he feels threatened by (which is everyone except Louise).

7. Having lunch out on our tropical patio and watching the hummingbirds.

8. Greenblatt's, and Milk.

9. Shopping at Bristol Farms amongst the D-list celebrities and super hot model/actors.

10. Calling Hollywood home.

Pastrami Heaven

Before moving to LA, I'd always thought New York was pastrami heaven. I now realize LA is pastrami heaven. In New York, pastrami is something you find in Jewish delis. And God forbid, you eat it in any other form except as a sandwich on rye with mustard. In LA, pastrami is everywhere. At hot dog stands, hamburger joints, taco eateries. And it's in everything, from burritos to double dips. A pastrami burrito? How good is that, you might ask? I have to admit, I haven't had any good examples. There's a famous one at the Oki Dog on Pico, but I couldn't see the point of it all (it was huge, with a lot of cabbage so it was like a pastrami stir-fry wrapped in a giant tortilla). Much more successful is the concoction at Oinkster, a huge pastrami sandwich on a bun dripping with red slaw and gruyere cheese.

Does that mean LA pastrami is inferior to New York's? Not at all. In fact, my all-time favorite pastrami is at Langer's. Langer's pastrami is sliced thick and framed with succulent fat — the prime rib of pastrami. And their rye bread is fantastic. I also like the pastrami at Greenblatt's, which is more like the New York deli kind, sliced thinner, a bit drier, but absolutely addictive. With Pastrami King now Pastrami Queen and Second Avenue Deli no longer Second Avenue Deli, there seems to be less and less things I miss about New York.