Edendale Grill: Eight years in, it's still a work in progress

The Edendale Grill back when it was a fire station

This month's Los Feliz Ledger took me back to the Edendale Grill, which recently changed ownership. There's a new menu and a few tweaks inside, but the same problems remain: there's enough business from the bar that food is an afterthought -- too expensive for a not-very-interesting meal. But even the bar side could use a tuneup -- the beer selection is pitiful, wine service is non-existent and while the classic cocktails are fine, they could be doing a lot more with modern mixology.
The review was trimmed for space (or snarkiness?), so here's the rest of the piece. I'm not trying to take anyone down -- just wishing this was a place that I looked forward to eating at.

Silver Lake's Edendale Grill: Love the space, wish I loved the food.
Whether Edendale is more of a bar or has ambitions to be a real restaurant, it's not particularly good at either. The bartenders always seem to have fans, but the wine and beer list could use serious work. Wine from a middling list is even harder to enjoy served in cheap, heavy glasses. With nearly every bar and restaurant in town seriously stepping up its beer program, the best Edendale can offer is Racer 5 and Stella valiantly holding down a list of bland commercial brews. Special cocktails are on the overwrought side, though the standard ones are fine.
The restaurant recently changed hands, with former bartender Eddie Ebell taking over from longtime owner Melanie Tusquellas. Ebell kept the former chef but changed up the menu a bit, adding more contemporary-sounding dishes like wild blue crab salad, pork confit sopes and quail eggs on toast with proscuitto. The longtime tableside Caesar is gone, replaced by salads like pear, stilton and butter lettuce with a curiously flavorless lemon tarragon dressing. Alas, adding burrata cheese and pea tendrils to a menu isn't always enough, as the food continues to hover between competent and careless. Sea bass with grilled eggplant ($19) is a perfectly fine piece of fish. But a Harris Ranch burger requested medium rare has to be sent back since it's basically raw, and the rare replacement tastes only of blood with no apparent seasoning. It comes with fries that are just ok. Considering the huge number of non-meat eaters in the area, there could be more choices than salad, mac 'n cheese or veggie sopes.
But Ebell hasn't been overseeing the place for long, so maybe there's still hope. In case he's wondering how to get a little more respect in the neighborhood and sell more than just fried calamari at the bar, here's a few suggestions:
1) Locals appreciate the historic character, but they'd like to love the food as much. Bring in some guest chefs to stir things up, and ask patrons what they'd like to eat.
2) If it's really more of a bar, then go gastropub. Craft a killer beer list, add some taps, get some decent wineglasses and enlist a local wine store for advice on the wine list. Add a great burger (for $14, it better be excellent), learn to make irresistible fries, and add fish 'n chips or good pizza or reasonably priced small plates ($15 for tuna tartare?).
3) Continue to transform the inner dining room into a livelier space. Add some art and flowers, let people drink there even if they're not eating and make sure service keeps pace.

L.A. Craft Beer crawl: A sudsy success

Bacon brown ale and a Guelaguetza mole tamale on Las Perlas pat

The first L.A. Craft Beer Crawl started out on the toasty side -- it was at least 100 degrees as I boarded the Gold Line in South Pasadena to start the Saturday afternoon crawl. By the time I got to Casey's and Seven Grand, I really needed a beer. Starting out at Seven Grand with Craftsman's Fireworks Saison, I moved on to Las Perlas and tried Uncommon Brewers' Bacon Brown, which had only the faintest hint of bacon.

The Varnish served a wonderful Picon Biere cocktail

More to my taste was Eagle Rock Brewery's Populist IPA, and Belgian-style Blond from Brouwerij West, a new Palos Verdes Belgian-style brewery. Las Perlas was also serving smoky chicken mole tamales from Guelaguetza, the perfect pairing for the bacon beer. Hanging out at Las Perlas were Verdugo Bar and Surly Goat owner Ryan Sweeney and Craftsman Brewing's Mark Jilg. Everyone I spoke with was floored by the turnout -- more than 1,000 people roaming the steamy streets of downtown tasting dozens of great, mostly local beers.

Doing the entire crawl down to Cana and Golden Gopher might have been a bit much in that heat, so when I got to Cole's I basically holed up here it was dark and cool -- at the Varnish, where they were concocting refreshing and different beer cocktails. But first, I enjoyed both Taps Cali Gold XPA and Schwarzbier, which I hadn't tasted before. Also holing up at the Varnish were Jonathan Gold, Evan Kleiman, Ladyface Alehouse proprietors David and Cyrena, and expert booze bloggers including FoodGPS and SavoryHunter.

Taps served XPA, chocolatey Schwarzbier and Belgian white.

We also sampled Hot Knivez contraband Tonka Bean Porter, Tonka Beans are banned by the FDA because they contain possibly dangerous coumarin, and since I'm not going to be eating any fugu anytime soon, that's about as close as I'm going to have to get to living on the edge.

Autumn lights on warm beer-soaked night

On the way home I stopped by the Pershing Square Autumn Lights exhibit which was pretty cool, freaky and uncrowded, and a lot easier to get to than the Glow festival. I know -- there was also lots of great beer I missed from The Bruery, Dogfish Head, Unibroue, Alemsith and much more. The Beer Chicks, who organized the incredibly popular event, plan to do it again next year, so I'll just have to start in the other direction next time.

Lardon: One bacon truck to rule them all

Frisee aux lardons sandwich on a brioche bun

Even though the novelty of gourmet food trucks has pretty much worn off in the nearly two years since they've taken off, it's still possible to get a jaded food blogger excited -- basically, just add bacon. The Lardon truck was launched by Silver Lake residents and parents Heather and Jeremiah Crowley, and Jeremiah says he plans to park the truck in the less-popular areas so as to not irk restaurant owners. In the evenings, he'll often be down the street from his house at Sunset and Coronado St. in Silver Lake. We found him in front of Gingergrass Friday morning in time for brunch. Brioche French toast sandwich with crumbled bacon sounded amazing, but since I love frisee aux lardons salad, I wanted to try their version on a brioche bun. The sandwich with a fried egg, a nice clump of frisee and several delicious crispy lardons was a fun twist on a salad, though a few more lardons would have made it even more decadent. If you're going to have a bacon truck, you might as well go all the way, right? Kathy had the breakfast burrito with potatoes, cheddar, and smoky thick-cut bacon, but said a good salsa would have made it even better. The Lardon truck is still getting its bacon legs, working on details like finding a coffee supplier to go with the Bacon pancakes, but it's certainly off to a savory start. We'll be back to work our way through the pancakes, French toast, and BLT with blue cheese.
Follow the Lardon truck here to find out where to get your bacon on.

New in Silver Lake, Los Feliz and Echo Park: K2, Papa's Place and soon, Sunset Beer

It's not a mountain peak, just a mountain of hash browns: K2 as in Kokomo 2 has (finally!) opened on Sunset in the old EatWell space. For the old-old timers, back in the 80s this spot was home to Seafood Bay, a bargain-priced chowder and fish house. Here's a report from EaterLA, but for the record, I am way not into the SiLa moniker for Silver Lake. What's next, EcPa? LoFe? Expect Kokomo's giant salads, hearty breakfasts and satisfying sandwiches, some with a vaguely Cajun twist like the reliable blackened catfish sandwich.
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Papa's Place is now open on Hillhurst with an intriguing mix of Turkish and German sandwiches, sausages and salads. Bratwurst and tabbouleh, anyone? Here's a preview from UrbanDaddy; not much news yet from people who have actually eaten there. It's always good to see another reasonably-priced option in the neighborhood.
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Here's some more great news for Echo Parkians -- as if Cookbook weren't cool enough, now Sunset Beer will open early next year in the mini-mall opposite A Grocery Warehouse, reports the EastsiderLA. It's owned by the folks from Eagle Rock's popular Colorado Wine and aims to eventually have a tasting room and store with 1,000 bottles of craft beer. And if you want to argue about public drunkenness, head over to the comments section of the Eastsider blog.

Cookbook: Echo Park's new greengrocer features Zuni Cookbook this week

Happy shopper Beth with her Cookbook purchases

Cookbook is a charming little grocery that pretty much puts the seal on the gentrification of Echo Park. Owned by Marta Teegan, who is a gardener, chef and author, Cookbook is a greengrocer with a small but careful selection of organic fruits and vegetables, but it's much more than just produce: despite its small size, there's a smattering of all the things you've suddenly remember you needed.

A sweet idea: branches of Oregon blackberries for a vase

Of course exquisitely-selected foodstuffs don't come at Trader Joe's prices, but the prices seem fair for the quality. I managed to spend $40 in a heartbeat, but I came home with a full bag of olive oil, red wine vinegar, Maldon salt, aged gouda, a deeply flavored cantaloupe, a bass confit on walnut bread sandwich and a baguette baked by the folks at HeirloomLA, who also supply lasagna cupcakes, fresh pasta and sauce, cold salads and other prepared foods. 

A small but excellent selection of cheeses and butters

It's not easy to find decent bread on the east side of town, but Heirloom recently added a baker to help supply the businesses like Cookbook who need a better source of bread. 

Olive oil in bulk is reasonably priced (just don't leave it in a hot car - the cork might pop)

Each week, Teegen will choose a cookbook, and Heirloom will prepare dishes from the cookbook. This week: Zuni Cookbook.

A good selection of vegetables and herbs

Everything is impeccably sourced: Coffee comes from San Francisco's Sightglass, eggs from Teegen's favorite egg farm in Paso Robles, Strauss creamery milk, Dr. Bob's ice cream, Morning Glory brittle. I like that Cookbook is a local business that encourages people to actually cook instead of just buying coffee and cupcakes -- in fact I think every neighborhood could use a store like this. A Cookbook next to McCall's Meat and Fish, for example, would be the perfect combo!
Cookbook
1549 Echo Park Ave.
Open daily 8 am - 8 pm

Cham Korean Bistro adds killer beer and wine, tapas too

What's the one thing you need most after sitting for ages on the 110 waiting for a huge tree to be cleared off the freeway like I did last night? It's gotta be a raspberry lambic float with vanilla ice cream, which you may now obtain at Cham Korean Bistro in Pasadena, courtesy of the casual modern Asian cafe's newly-minted beer and wine license. At a press preview dinner last night, we tried just about everything from Cham's new Korean tapas menu as well as their regular menu, along with selections from the small but very well-edited craft beer and wine list.
 
tofu pockets with spicy tuna, blue crab, seaweed,  and mizuna

A jumbo bottle of Lost Abbey Devotion helped my forget about the tree traffic, while HC tried the Maredsous, an unusual but delicious pairing with Korean food. Cham is one of the new-style Pasadena restaurants -- that is, ones that don't suck. I had lunch there earlier this year, but this was a great chance to try more of their menu of healthy casual Korean food. The tapas menu is priced well for nibbling with beer and includes bacon-wrapped Korean rice cakes, fried calamari tacos with kimchi, tempura green beans and ahi tuna with chimichurri sauce.
 
Cham's watermelon salad is an amazing deal at $5, with cool, crunchy watermelon paired with feta, figs and arugula.
 
For a main course, it's hard to choose between japchae (yam) noodles with vegetables and egg or bibimbap ($10), which comes with either beef, chicken, pork, ahi or tofu. If you need something even heartier, there's also bbq meat platters and Korean shortrib stew. For dessert, the afore-mentioned beer float is a must, or try rotating specials like pumpkin angel cake or creme fraiche cheesecake.
Located in an office building near the corner of Cordova and Lake, Cham is a handy place for local students and anyone looking to get away from the generalized mediocrity of Old Town.
Cham Korean Bistro 

851 Cordova St., Pasadena
626-792-2474
See more photos from Cham Korean Bistro on Flickr.