A fabulous birthday at Clifton's

My friend Charles is a tastemaker and boulevardier, a dj at the Standard Downtown, food writer and proponent of healthy foods. I met him in a food writing class, where he insisted on disgusting us all by writing about natto. So naturally he had his fabulous birthday celebration at Clifton's Cafeteria, where fortunately, there was no natto in sight.
We climbed up past waterfalls, past animated bears, past illuminated scenes of California, to the third floor Colonial room to find Charles' party, complete with a Clifton's chocolate banana cake and Clifton's balloons. Naturally, we considered choosing some rainbow-hued jello salads, but instead I went with a clever carrot salad/coleslaw combo, fried shrimp, garlic bread and a tamarindo drink. I liked the nods to the surrounding Latino community like various aguas and a fresh-looking fruit salad with papaya, although I was a little bemused by the counter lady, who wanted to dish up mashed potatoes with every dish including Matt's enchiladas.
While the food is nothing special, it's a cut above the hospital-level fare I was expecting: the birthday cake was pretty good, the salad uses lettuces that are not iceberg, and there are several fresh fruit and vegetable selections. If you've never been to Clifton's, you really must go there soon, and show your kids, because it's doubtful it will still be there when they're grown up. And Happy Birthday, Charles!

Taste test: Hot Stuff Cafe in San Gabriel

Our mission: Find a place for dinner with fellow blogger Layne of Manifeasto, three kids with varying degrees of adventurous-ness, and our two men. Region: somewhere east of Silver Lake.
I remembered the L.A. Times review of Hot Stuff Cafe in San Gabriel from a few months back, where steaks and grilled salmon mix with a few Burmese specialties (the owners were previously affiliated with the Burmese Romantic Steak House) and some fruity drinks, all in a bright, casual atmosphere with decent prices. "What kind of restaurant is this?" asked one of the kids. Well, that's a good question -- it's fusion cooking, but not in the Pan-Asian sense, but more in the Sawtelle Grill style where spaghetti with uni might be a special, and steak comes with a choice of rice, fries or spaghetti. At dinner, there weren't very many Burmese dishes in evidence -- apparently they're more likely to be found on the lunch specials.
One of the few more exotic dishes was a chicken cabbage salad we had to start, liberally annointed with hot sauce (at left). I liked it because it gave me an idea for an easy, healthy lunch idea: julienne nappa cabbage, add shedded chicken, mix dressing with Sriracha, feel virtuous all day.
The main courses aspire to fine cooking, with touches like espresso sauce on the duck breast, but they're kind like of the Famima version of sushi -- nice try, but it's not exactly Jar. My shortribs were pretty good, maybe not quite as flavorful as in the best places, but about half the price.
Matt's beef curry stew was mild but tasty, and Sam seemed to enjoy his steak frites. I think Layne's kids' had a different steak which wasn't as good, but their salmon and seabass (below) seemed competent, but not mind-blowing. One of the kids got an impressively tall apple drink; another got a green, strangely shampooey-tasting one. Sam polished off a tiramisu served in a cute cappucino cup, but I was too full to try the tea-flavored creme brulee.
For people in the San Gabriel Valley who get to eat Chinese food all the time, it's probably a nice change of pace to have a steak or grilled salmon once in a while. Otherwise, I'm not sure I'd make the trek when I'd usually rather have Chinese or Vietnamese food, but it served the purpose for that evening, with beer and wine to boot. And there's a kids menu, too.
Hot Stuff Cafe
315 S. San Gabriel Blvd.
San Gabriel
(626) 292-7975

You tell 'em, Leslie!

I've been looking for an excuse to rant about all the pseudo-environmentalism going on lately, and Leslie Brenner's review of Abode in the Times is the perfect chance. Leslie is much meaner than S. Irene (we still remember her skewering of Peninsula's restaurant), and thus much more fun. She writes that the supposedly sustainable and local Santa Monica restaurant sources luxury food items seemingly everywhere except California...whoops!
All this "green" talk is very nice, but I'm kind of tired of Vogue writers going on about expensive organic t-shirts and shampoo or film studios patting themselves on the back for using biodegradable plates for craft service. How do they think they're supposed to biodegrade after being trucked to a landfill forever encased in a plastic trash bag? It's not like they have a giant craft services field somewhere where plates are slowly being absorbed back into the earth. Sorry, but none of those fashionable efforts are going to do a damn thing to save the earth. Maybe if they concentrated on SUVs, factories, pollution from third world countries, and the government's collective yawn over alternative energy sources, they might get somewhere.

And memo to Times letter writers: OK, we get it already. "My favorite weekend" is a fantasy weekend -- it's not supposed to be about how people actually spend their weekend at the dry cleaners and Home Depot, because that would be boring. Of course, that doesn't stop many of the TV actors profiled from having incredibly boring lives anyway. But snaps to Sean Lennon this week, who gives a shout-out to my favorite place to eat in Malibu, John's Garden, where I used to get $1.00 locally-grown salads when I was in high school.

Go, go, Govind!

Last night Govind Armstrong hosted a reception at his restaurant Table 8 for his new cookbook "Small Bites, Big Nights: Seductive Little Plates for Intimate Occasions and Lavish Parties." Of course I felt immediately guilty that I don't have friends over for cozy little small plates gatherings where I'd just throw a few quail on the barbie or sear some Kobe beef and whip up a plate of mini Yorkshire puddings to go with. But there are plenty of simpler small plates alongside the more ambitious dishes, and I'll take a creamsicle cocktail and a carrot cake with cream cheese mousse right now, thank you very much.
Govind, a Valley boy who has an amazing cooking pedigree starting with interning at Spago at 13 and continuing at City Restaurant and many more, told me his Miami Table 8 restaurant is a whole experience for cooking for L.A. diners, many of whom are happy to eat dinner at 6 p.m. Miami diners like to drink, he says, and in keeping with the Latin influence, they eat much later. Although the restaurant is in a hotel, no one wakes up in time for breakfast and the late night schedule can be rough on the staff.
I hadn't been to Table 8 since the remodel and it's much darker and sultrier, which should be a good backdrop to Armstrong's new late night small plates menu, available until 1 a.m.
We chatted with Armstrong's manager about possibly taking him to TV -- she was hoping for a beachside, shirtless cooking show -- but the hunky chef hasn't yet decided on a theme.

Bistro K changing hands?

Chowhound's most inveterate gourmet diner Russkar reports that South Pasadena's Bistro K will soon change hands, with chef Laurent Quenioux opening a new place in Los Angeles. Hopefully Angelenos will be ready to experience his rather startling style of French cooking, with dishes like confit of duck gizzards, rabbit albondigas soup and poached veal tongue. And expect the new owners in South Pas to revert to a more crowd-pleasing menu, most likely.

Is the Kitchen the future of Chinese food?... and how just unhealthy is an In and Out burger?

Interesting story in Sunday's L.A. Times about the Kitchen in Alhambra: early on, the proprietor wanted to open the cleanest, most welcoming Chinese restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley. But despite a nice review from Jonathan Gold, he got a "B" on his last health inspection, several employees have departed and business is down. Were his goals unrealistic in the cutthroat world of Chinese restaurants?

Also in the Times: Steve Lopez challenges readers to guess the nutritional content of local specialties like Pink's hot dogs and Yang Chow's slippery shrimp. I'm not giving away my vote, but I'm pretty sure a plate of those shrimp is about the most unhealthy thing I've ever eaten.

Food events at the LA Times Festival of Books

Lots of chefs and authors will be at the L.A. Times Festival of Books next weekend -- on Saturday, the panel "Food Fight: When Did Eating Get Controversial?" features Barry Glassner, Marion Nestle and Michael Pollan. It's the closest we're going to get to the New Yorker Festival, so check it out.
Here's the cooking stage schedule for Saturday:

11:00am, Govind Armstrong, Author, “Small Bites, big Nights”

12:30pm, Dave Lieberman, Author, “Dave’s Dinners”

2:00pm, Cat Cora, Author, “Cooking from the Hip”

3:30pm, Ted Allen, Author, “The Food You Love to Eat”

and Sunday:

11:00am, Martin Yan, Author, “Martin Yan Quick & Easy”

12:30pm, Barbara Fairchild & Janet McCracken, Authors, “The Bon Appetit Cookbook”

2:00pm, Nancy Silverton, Author, “A Twist of the Wrist”

3:30pm, Lidia Bastianich, Author, “Lidia’s Italy”

Taste test: Ruen Pair redux

A few years ago I suggested Ruen Pair as a spot for a first date. As we were sitting down to a delicious meal of morning glory stems and papaya salad, the gentleman in question curtly told me, "Don't bring anyone else here on a first date. It's ok for me, because I'm into food. But you'll scare off anyone else." Of course, if someone were scared by a friendly, tasty little restaurant like Ruen Pair, then I wouldn't be interested in dating them anyway.
Well, Ruen Pair reopened a few months ago after closing to enlarge the space, and perhaps the gentlemen would now find it more to his liking. They've repainted and it's less cramped although nothing else has really changed -- it's still cash only, there's still no beer, and it's still an excellent place to try a large selection of Thai food.

But we weren't in the mood for stinky fish salad, or papaya salad, or fried mussels, or morning glory stems, all of which I've had before. So we ordered fish cakes, Chinese sausage fried rice and prik king with tofu. I know curries like prik king aren't really their specialties, but it so happens I had an amazing rendition of it at Ruen Pair years ago when eating with a vegetarian. Unfortunately, it was much less amazing this time, with a thin, runny curry sauce instead of the thick, intensely flavorful one I remembered. The fish cakes were fine, although rather chewy, and our favorite dish was the mild but comforting fried rice, where the fluffy rice played off the sweetish sausage and the bitter, crunchy Chinese broccoli.
With the fiery sauce mixed in, it combined sweet, porky, starchy, hot, bitter and crunchy in the way you hope for with the best Thai food. I'm not really dissuaded by the letdown of the other dishes -- Ruen Pair has plenty of good dishes, and we'll be back to try out some more. After all, where else can you sit down to a pleasant meal of three different tastes for $20?
Ruen Pair
5257 Hollywood Blvd. (same mall as Red Corner Asia, Ban Khanom Thai and Thai Patio)
(323) 466-0153

Jonathan Gold scores the Pulitzer

Congratulations on winning the first-ever Pulitzer prize for food criticism to L.A.'s own Jonathan Gold, who extols taco trucks and Korean offal as well ...if not better...than he describes top tier restaurants. The Pulitzer committee cited his "zestful, wide ranging restaurant reviews, expressing the delight of an erudite eater."
Not to diminish the award at all, but it probably didn't hurt that two of the Criticism jury members, film critic and Pulitzer winner Joe Morgenstern and USC's Sasha Anawalt are based in L.A. I've been a fan for a very long time...in fact, I recently unearthed a handwritten letter Jonathan sent me in the late '80s, recommending I try some barbecued pig uterus. Way to go, JG and the L.A. Weekly!

Taste test: Takumi is Little Tokyo's newest sushi surprise

hirami or halibut sushi

After weeks of sad little rushed lunches of supermarket sushi at my desk, I was starting to crave the real thing. I knew that somewhere out there people weren't eating ice-cold rice topped with completely tasteless tuna. But where to go? The Westside is bursting with great sushi bars, but that's not an alternative on a Friday night after work. Saito is good, but perhaps a bit claustrophobic. I love Sushi Gen, but I'm not willing to fight the crowds on a weekend evening.
So it was off to Takumi, where Hiro from Sushi Gen set up shop a few months ago with the former owner of Shin on Hillhurst. We snagged seats at the bar and watched as our neighbors inhaled quantities of uni and live scallops. Everyone was also ordering sea snail served in a giant shell. We went a little more subdued and started with lovely halibut sushi topped with a bit of red pepper, a beautiful huge bowl of ankimo (monkfish liver) with seaweed, a rich, melty plate of grilled butterfish, breathlessly fresh snapper with real wasabi and lemon and a trio of small, briny yet mild Kumamoto oysters from Washington state. We finished with orders of excellent toro sushi.
Takumi doesn't seem nearly as crowded as it should be for sushi of that quality, so get there now before the hordes from Sushi Gen figure it out. It's not cheap, though -- the toro helped bump our total up to $80 with two large beers. It wasn't a huge quantity of food but it was a completely satisfying meal. The room is pleasant and quiet, with soft jazz accompanying some serious fish-eating. I got a peek at the bill of the couple next to me, and it was $230 -- now that must have been a lot of sushi (omakase is $80 per person).
Takumi
333 E. 2nd St.
Little Tokyo
213-626-1793

Silver Lake's secret bakery: Treat Street

What's a secret bakery? It's not quite as hush-hush as an underground restaurant...it's more of a roving bake sale that's not being held to benefit anything, except for the benefit of people who crave coconut cupcakes, lemon-thyme shortbread or tea loaves with candied kumquats. Look for Treat Street to set up Saturday April 14 at the top of Micheltorena St. near Rock St...sshhh.

Luke Thompson, connoisseur of sushi and hooters

I must say, I was a touch skeptical when I saw that my friend Luke Y. Thompson had reviewed a sushi bar for the OC Weekly. I mean, I find his film reviews amusing, although not everyone agrees. But I wasn't so sure about his taste in food -- I know he likes sushi, yet he also consumes more fast food than seems prudent or chowish. But, more fool me -- Luke did a very nice job reviewing Takaraya in Orange. And just like one of his food-reviewing mentors, Meredith Brody, it was fun to see who he went with -- in this case, David and Julie, frequent commentors on Luke's and the late Cathy Seipp's blog. And he didn't mention hooters once.

A short trip to Provence...

...I wish! But I came about as close as you can get Wednesday at the Bel Air Hotel, where the Provence-Cote d'Azur Film commissions invited chef Jean-Andre Charial from the two-star L'Oustau de Baumaniere in Les Baux to give a cooking demonstration and cook lunch. He had a small cooking station set up on the lovely lawn, beside a stream where swans floated by... a serene setting for a very French lunch. Charial demonstrated a rather complicated dish of sauteed scallops with truffle-laced mashed potatoes and smoked bacon foam. The dish was finished with a tricky garnish which involved a sprig of chervil sandwiched in-between two paper-thin slices of fried potato...tres malin!
It was just like taking a very brief trip to France...so brief, in fact, that I had to leave before the pistachio souffle was served...quel dommage.

Times talk: Pazzo downtown?

Gelato fans must check out today's comprehensive guide to gelato and ice cream in the L.A. Times food section. Notable bits: Silver Lake's Pazzo Gelato is thinking of opening another outlet in the Downtown arts district, and Pasadena's famous Bulgarini gelato, which was formerly available only in a kiosk at the Pacific Asia museum, opens a permanent gelateria this Saturday 749 E. Altadena Drive in Altadena; (626) 441-2319.

Tuesday linkage: Should La Luna be saved?

On the lawns of Larchmont and Hancock Park houses, placards proclaim "save La Luna!" Today's Times goes over the lease dispute between the landlord and the restaurant owners. I'd like Larchmont to keep its quaint neighborhood character as much as anyone, but you can't really save a restaurant by putting placards on lawns. As Tom LaBonge says in the article, "That's a free-market issue." Because when you try to save restaurants that weren't meant to be saved, you end up with Chop Suey Cafe.

L.A.-based writer and Glass Shallot blogger Adam Baer gives Hillhurst Ave. the once-over in the New York Times Travel section, with more on his blog.

The Whisper Lounge: a sanctuary from the Grove

Sit-down restaurants at the Grove tend to skew corporate and excessive (Maggiano's, Cheesecake Factory). But the Whisper Lounge, hidden away behind the new Barneys store, is something a little different. I was invited to a press dinner there and was surprised to find a pleasant place with a dedicated husband and wife team behind it.
Design score: For some reason the covered patio and intime restaurant reminded me of a lounge hidden in a back alley of Cannes -- not a bad impression to have when you've just escaped from the dancing fountains of the Grove. There's a full bar and a piano player who might be a touch loud if you're seated nearby.
Now the chow: We had a lovely grilled scallop in a sea of bright green pea puree, a salad with the unusual addition of grilled haloumi cheese, homemade tagliatelle with Kurobuta pork ragu, a lamb duo and a very tasty chocolate-espresso creme brulee. The chef plays it fairly safe, not wanting to scare off the tourist crowd, but uses quality ingredients and sneaks in a few foodie touches to good effect.
What it's good for: Appetizers and a glass of wine, dessert or a full meal if you're catching a movie, catching up on some shopping or showing L.A. to out-of-town friends. The Grove might not be a first choice dining destination, but there's plenty of occasions when it might be handy to know about a civilized spot out of earshot of the clanging trolley. Discounts for CBS and WGA employees at lunch. There's even a kids menu and afternoon tea.
Not so much: Pretty much good for everyone, but not so much for kids later in the evening.

Is Sabor a Mexico the West L.A. version of La Super Rica?

cactus and chicken tacos, at left
That's probably a pretty rash statement, but Chowhound poster Dommy, who really knows her Mexican food, wasn't afraid to throw down the gauntlet. Sabor a Mexico is a small spot on National hard by the Santa Monica freeway on ramp, with the dining room and the ordering counter curiously bisected by a car stereo store. There are patio tables overlooking the scenic on ramp, and on weekend evenings they set up a taco table on the patio with $1 tacos.
But the menu extends far beyond tacos, to Mexico City style quesadillas, which are homemade tortillas stuffed with various interesting things like squash blossoms or epazote and deep-fried, more like an empanada, yet fairly light. There's queso fundido, chilequiles, several types of tortas, huaraches, breakfast and 17 different types of tacos -- hard shell, veggie, al carbon, guisado, you name it.
We tried it for lunch Saturday after the Ca Boom show in Santa Monica, and I'm not sure I'm going to switch my allegiance from La Super Rica right away, but it was definitely promising -- and a lot closer. Kathy enjoyed her tinga de pollo taco (stewed chicken in chipotle sauce). I wasn't too wild about the kind of bland grilled chicken taco, which needed a few of their many varieties of salsa to perk it up. But the nopalitos (cactus) taco and the quesadilla with squash blossoms were much more interesting and flavorful. The housemade jamaica drink wasn't quite as good as Loteria, but still much better than the industrial versions.
Sabor a Mexico is kind of a bastard nino between yuppie Westside Mexican food (no lard, only canola oil), and authentic Mexico City-style home cooking. Don't miss the awesome salsa selection, especially the creamy chipotle and avocado varieties. Plus, they deliver, it's cheap, and you can get some massive speakers installed in your car while you eat.
Sabor a Mexico
8940 National Blvd.
(310) 280-0380