Imperial Western Beer Co.: Before and After Photos of the Impressive Renovation of the Fred Harvey Restaurant

Imperial Western's cavernous main hall

Though I wasn't fortunate enough to get married there like some people I know, I've always loved the Fred Harvey restaurant at Union Station and hoped that someday it would re-open in its former glory. Designed by Mary Colter, the restaurant opened in 1939 and was the last of the Harvey Houses that operated across the U.S. at train stations and tourist attractions. The restaurant closed in 1967, so the re-opening as Imperial Western Beer Company comes 51 years later.

The vintage Powder Room

There were several attempts along the way to re-open the space, but the confusing mix of owners and the economics of running such a large restaurant in a spot that wasn't necessarily conducive to expensive fine dining made it challenging. But nightlife entrepreneur Cedd Moses came up with the smart idea of utilizing the vast and potentially wasted kitchen area as a full-scale brewery and making the atmospheric space into a kind of Grand Central Oyster Bar-meets-craft brewery, with a side of cocktails in the vintage Streamliner lounge.

Restored front booth area                                                          (Credit: Wonho Frank Lee)

All the vintage details like Colter's parrot-patterned cement tiles and Navaho rug-patterned floor are cleaned up and glowing. The aqua glass tiles of the kitchen have been carefully replicated, and loads of character-filled details also remain in the Streamliner Bar, the Powder Room and in the small patio bar that adds outdoor seating to the mix.

Head brewer Devon Randall has a lot of vats to fill

Making the space accessible and affordable, with menu items all under $20, is the right thing to do as transit improvements at Union Station make the area into even more of a hub connecting all parts of the city. The menu is from the Hungry Cat's David Lentz, with dishes like fish tacos, crispy oyster po'boys and house smoked mussels, as well as ribs, fried chicken and a burger for non-seafood fans.

Ready to brew!

Imperial Western is named for one of the great train lines that services Union Station, as are some of the beers like the Super Chief IPA. Moses' 213 Hospitality opened Arts District Brewing three years ago, so they've had some time to work on their brews before opening Imperial Western, which has 18 beer taps, with mostly their house-made beers.

The cooler doors were retained in the patio bar area

The challenge with a room that holds 435 people is getting everyone served and fed efficiently and keeping up the food quality. It's a challenge that was apparently too much for another large, historic venue, Clifton's Cafeteria, which has abandoned the cafeteria idea and turned into a multi-floor amusement park of a bar.

Streamliner Bar                                                                                        (credit: Wonho Frank Lee)

The cozy Streamliner Bar off to the left looks much the same as ever. The Varnish's Eric Alperin designed the Streamliner's menu of cocktails that are served on tap, perfect for rushed travelers, with reasonable prices under $10 per drink.

BEFORE: Abandoned kitchen area

Back in 2012, I took some photos before the restoration at the L.A. Beer Week festival, so it's interesting to see how sensitively it has been brought back to life.

BEFORE: A beer seminar in the main room

BEFORE: Original ceramic tiles at the Streamliner Bar

BEFORE: Powder Room

BEFORE: Kitchen area

BEFORE: Front booths

BEFORE: Streamliner Bar

Why Pok Pok LA Might Need to Make More Changes Than Just the Service Charge

Tamarind whiskey sour

From the start, Pok Pok has been in a tough place in L.A. Owner Andy Ricker kind of confused everyone first with a ticketed reservation policy via Tock that seemed appropriate only for a wildly popular place like Trois Mec. Customers were also confused by the 5% service charge that was one of the first of its kind in Los Angeles, leaving people not sure whether to tip 10%, 15% or what in addition to the 5%. He talked to Playboy today about the service charge issue and what the new minimum wage will mean to restaurants.

larb patties

Though Ricker later said he loves L.A. and meant no disrespect, the headline "Pok Pok's Tipping Experiment Didn't Work and Chef And Ricker Blames L.A." made it seem like L.A. isn't ready to treat its restaurant employees fairly, which is probably true. But if restaurants need to charge more to pay decently, it's probably easiest to just fold the costs into the menu prices. Though Pok Pok has now ditched both the ticketing system and the service charge, here are three other reasons it could still have issues gaining traction in the city with the biggest and most established Thai population in the U.S.

1) The size: It's still not clear how it's going to consistently fill the vast upstairs and downstairs space. Pok Pok is not only bigger than any other Thai restaurant in town, it's as big as the Chinese banquet and dim sum places that survive on weddings and family gatherings, not couples and small groups of friends. It's big enough to house the crowds that line up in Portland and Manhattan, but in a part of L.A. that's maybe not quite yet ready to be a happening nighttime restaurant destination.

2) The menu: Like Night + Market, Pok Pok's specialty is Northern  and Northeastern Thai cooking. After the Pok Pok's Phat Thai noodle shop opened in Chinatown with middling to positive reviews, I was excited to see what Andy Ricker could bring to L.A. that we didn't already have.

The verdict? After just one dinner, I'm not qualified to do a full review yet, but with so many great Thai restaurants in L.A., I'm just not dying to rush back. The signature roasted chicken was indeed nicely grilled and caramelized and used a much better bird than the average joint, and the fried larb patties had a good, complex flavor. But the server didn't seem concerned that we didn't finish the blah Jaw Phak Kad mustard greens and pork ribs, which seem to have now left the menu.

Why not offer the Phat Thai noodle menu too, so customers can have a wider choice of dishes like their excellent Phat Sii Ew?

3) The bar: That tamarind whiskey sour is as tart and refreshing as it was in Portland the first time I tried it, but I'm not sure I want it while I'm eating dinner at long banquet tables in the dining room. Beer seems like the best match for a spicy meal, but I might stop by if there was a dedicated cocktail space.

Why not turn part of the upstairs into a more intimate, funky cocktail lounge with the drinking snacks menu, and encourage people to come even if it's just for drinks? 

L.A. loves Thai food, but it also loves value and lack of pretensions. And noodles. If Pok Pok can strike the right balance, the city will welcome it with even wider arms.

Clifton's Cafeteria Re-Opens in Downtown L.A.: Don't Miss the Details!

The re-opening of Clifton's in downtown L.A. is one of the biggest events of the year, for everyone from tiki cocktail aficionados to historic preservationists to downtown revitalization advocates (ok, there's a lot of overlaps in those groups.)
Photos of Clifton's Cafeteria's wonderful restoration and re-opening after four years of rebuilding are everywhere. The stuffed bears! The rock walls! The giant tree!

The first and second floors will open (hopefully) this week including a cafeteria with much-improved food, seating area and bakery on the first floor and woodsy bar and cozy lounge on the second floor. Eventually there will be a tiki bar on the fourth floor with decor from the late Bahooka Polynesian restaurant in Rosemead, a sit-down steakhouse from chef Jason Fullilove and a speakeasy style bar in the basement, near the still-illuminated neon that was discovered during renovation and hadn't been turned off in decades.

"Edison" owner Andrew Meieran acquired the 1932 gem and has been laboriously restoring and redecorating for four years, but thankfully, he saved many of the vintage kitchen items that are now on display along with critters from the Natural History Museum and the giant tree in the middle of the restaurant.
 

Owned by a devoutly religious family since the beginning, Clifton's had never served alcohol, but a woodsy new bar on the second floor will now dispense classic cocktails from behind an antique bar with a burl wood counter.

When you go to sample a Moscow Mule and hand-carved roastbeef sandwich, don't miss all the period details that were kept and polished up, like the slicers, orangeade dispensers, art deco coffee urns and more. And don't forget to look down at tiled floors and ground-level dioramas, sure to be a hit with the kids. And finally, the jello. It's back, but in gourmet form, with lavender mousse and edible flowers this time around.

Quick Bite: Plan Check Downtown Revs Up on Wilshire

Clockwise: Plan Check's crab dip, Chef's favorite burger, fried chicken, cinnamon banana donut

What: Plan Check's new Wilshire Blvd. location in a recently-opened apartment building just west of the 110 is the third location in the budding mini-empire with Ernesto Uchimura as executive chef. Who would have thought that what's basically another gastropub, of which we already have so many, would do so well? But Uchimura picks busy locations, puts fun Asian twists on the dishes and cocktails and stocks the bars with a good selection of craft beers and Japanese whiskeys. Voila, a recipe for success in the elevated bar food game.
Where: 1111 Wilshire Blvd. -- not quite actually Downtown, but a short hop away
The space: Bigger than the Sawtelle location but smaller than the cavernous Fairfax one, this Plan Check has a long bar, some inside tables and a unique indoor-outdoor table with windows that close it off right down the middle once nights get chillier.
The food:  Uchimura was part of the team that invented the Umami burger, so some of the decadent burgers come with cheese crisps in the Umami way. I like the original Plan Check burger, but the Downtown location adds the Korean bbq burger with pork belly blended into the beef. Fried chicken, available in a sandwich or a main dish, is boneless and finger-friendly with an exceedingly crunchy coating and very moist chicken. If your arteries can take it, don't miss the baked crab dip, which marries mayonnaise-intensive Japanese dynamite sauce with large chunks of crab, topped with nori and spooned on toast.
The menu may be adorned with trendy touches like Uchimura's signature ketchup leather, pig candy and pimento cheese, but make no mistake, this is salty, rich drinking food that shares the DNA of places like Beer Belly and A-Frame. While everything I've had is well-calibrated, it's easy to overdo it on the overall richness of the menu. Fortunately, a salmon kale salad and tuna salad have been added at the new location. But a few more vegetables or lighter dishes might be nice.
The drinks: My favorite is the Little Osaka sour with bourbon, lemon and plum wine, but the Ginger Grant, with Pisco, sake, Aperol, blood orange and ginger is also refreshing and won't knock you out.

(this is written on the basis of a soft opening/press preview)

Tink's House: All Pop-Ups Should Be This Creative

Tink's house is located in a small unused office building on First St.

Is it an art gallery? A pop-up restaurant? An interactive progressive dinner? Tink's House, installed near Downtown L.A. from July 31 until Aug. 16, is all of the above. The entire project was planned by chef Jon Sewitz, who started the "culinary troupe" Samacon as a young teenager and cooked at places like Wolvesmouth and Noma, and 20-year old RISD art student Kelsey Isaacs. Now he's all of 19, and ready to head off to NYU in the fall to do "something non-food related." But this summer, they didn't want to just hang out, so they created Tink's House.

The kitchen room emphasizes the textures of materials and ingredients

Each room of the former small office building has been turned into an environment representing a room of the house, with its own sensory experiences -- music, textures, lighting -- and flavors to match with each of seven or so courses. Though they don't have a Twitter account and there hasn't been much publicity, all the dinners are already booked, and there's not much chance of extending the installation since everyone has to get back to school. So why am I telling you about our fun preview dinner? Well, for one thing, there's no reason other places -- or even your own dinner party -- couldn't incorporate some of the sensory ideas to enhance the eating experience. Plus, it's just great to see the kind of creativity that comes when chefs hang out with artists and start spinning ideas.

The Den has a sand-covered floor with the feel of a beach at night. Appetizers included lamb croquettes, with crunchy breading that echoed the sand.

The dining room is covered in orange netting. Even your bare feet feel caught in the netting, making you at one with the perfectly-fried pompano fish served on fine china with pompano tartare in the middle. 

Kelsey Isaacs explains The Kitchen, with foot-massaging balls, Astroturf, live plants to garnish rice bowls, and a wall of toppings for the rice..

Rice bowls could be topped with many ingredients including seaweed, shrimp chips, onion sprouts and just-picked herbs

In the bedroom: a roasted carrot with seaweed "hair" and oyster cream was a tad suggestive

The bedroom was all pale blue sheet-covered walls, benches and table, with lots of padding and dimmish lighting. We ate with our hands to enhance the sensual aspects of eating things like carrots with a lusty oyster cream sauce and spicy andouille sausages.

Sewitz's brother serves grilled sausages and vegetables on the plastic-covered, padded, bed-like table

Sewitz's cooking was very assured, so don't be surprised to see him cooking again in-between or after he explores other areas at NYU. All the courses flowed well, and the organization of the whole operation was extremely impressive. Now I want a padded room and a sand area for beachy dinners.

Wexler's Deli Updates the Bagels, Lox and Pastrami We All Love

L.A. has been a little behind in the artisanal deli movement. While Portland's Kenny and Zuke's has been open for years, Micah Wexler's new Wexler's Deli stall in Grand Central Market is the first stab at a new-style deli in our area. There's nothing wrong with Nate 'n Al's or Brent's, but operating from a small space in the newly-gourmetized market, former Mezze chef Wexler cures his own pastrami, corned beef and lox and partners with local bakeries to get the breads just the way he likes them. The rye bread comes from Etxea, while the bagels are a special bake done just for Wexler's from Santa Monica's New York Bagels. And of course the dill pickles are house-fermented.

On a quick trip recently, I didn't get a change to taste the pastrami (though the fact that Wexler grew up eating at Langer's is probably a good sign), but I did have one of the chewy, flavorful bagels topped with cream cheese and one of the best silky, mild loxes I've ever tasted. The bagels aren't quite as dense as a true New York bagel but they're certainly closer than most in L.A., with so much more heart than the typical doughy local specimen. I'm not much of a babka person but I couldn't stop eating the dark chocolate-laced cake. The sturgeon was also a winner. Keeping the menu focused in the tiny space allows Wexler to work on getting a few things completely right, and Beverly Hills should be very jealous that Downtown gets a place like this before they do.

Horse Thief BBQ: Crispy Edges and All That Texas Meat at Grand Central Market

Horse Thief has a large patio all to itself outside Grand Central Market

If you haven't yet seen the gradual revitalization of Downtown's Grand Central Market with new food and drink options like G & B Coffee, Sticky Rice Thai Food, Valerie and the Bulgarini Gelato cart, then the opening of Horse Thief BBQ is a perfect excuse to go.
Horse Thief has taken over the entire large patio on Hill Street directly across from Angel's Flight, and when the beer and wine license comes through around October, it's going to be a sweet beer garden for watching the buzzy Downtown scene pass by. But until then, Horse Thief is already a worthy BBQ stop, one of just a few restaurants in L.A. turning out carefully-smoked meats in the Texas style.
Texas style implies a focus on brisket, although the other meats -- pulled pork, pork ribs and juicy, spice-rubbed Mary's chicken -- are nearly as good.

Pulled pork at left, ribs, brisket and chicken in the middle. Add sauce to taste.

Owners Wade McElroy and Russell Malixi haven't run a BBQ joint before, but Malixi says he's a "brisket obsessive" and the attention to perfecting the meat shows. I've usually been more partial to saucy, spicy Kansas city BBQ hot links or pork ribs, but I'm an instant brisket convert now.
The meat's connective fat has somehow been slow-cooked just to the point before it liquifies, making the slices of beef extremely tender, while the outer edges are lovingly caramelized to a crispy black nirvana. I'm not a Texas BBQ expert, but I'm guessing this is exactly the combination the pitmasters are trying to achieve. The sauce comes in just one variety -- lightly-spiced and tomatoey, it moistens up the meat nicely -- but it's not the star of the movie like it is in Kansas City places.

After BBQ, take a ride on Angel's Fllight

Sides so far include an innovative jicama cole slaw, black beans to shut up your vegan friends, mac 'n cheese and potato salad with blue cheese and bacon. Soon to come are collard greens and cornbread. For now, meats are available by the half pound and pound, but sandwiches are coming soon, so I hope I'm finally due for jury duty.When the beer and wine license arrives, Horse Thief plans to stay open to midnight -- a huge development for the Grand Central Market area, which usually closes up shop in early evening. Check Horsethief's Facebook page for updates on their hours, but for now lunch every day is a sure thing.

Horse Thief BBQ 
Grand Central Market
324 S. Hill St.
Downtown L.A.

(I was invited to a press tasting for this restaurant, but I'm totally serious about the brisket.)

Chego Opens in Chinatown: Delivery to Downtown and Echo Park Planned

It's located inside Far East Plaza on Broadway (feelin' artsy with the color tools)

If you've walked or biked around Chinatown lately, you know that except for a few art galleries, almost everything looks about the same as it did when your parents first took you for dim sum in the '70s, '80s or '90s. It's nostalgic, but it could also use a little freshening up. Fortunately, Kogi BBQ truck mogul Roy Choi, who clustered his other restaurants around Palms in West L.A., has moved his most casual spot Chego to Chinatown's Far East Plaza. Although I mourn the tiny Mandarin Deli branch in that same plaza (it was the only one in the mini-chain to offer fish dumplings), Chego is a worthy replacement -- and one that stays open until 11 pm at night and offers curbside pickup with even DELIVERY coming soon.

Chego occupies a bright little corner spot, and there's also picnic tables outside

For the uninitiated, Chego's food is sort of like Asian fusion food that went to the beach, donned some flip flops, and then got shitfaced and fell in a bowl of sriracha. It's freakin' delicious, even if the saucing tends to the extreme side. And unlike the belly bomb kimchi quesadillas of the Kogi truck, Chego offers a seasonal veggie plate, a "$12 salad" for $8 and loads plenty of greens onto the various bowls.
Chego's signature dish, and the one that most befitting of an inebriated state, is Ooey Gooey Fries: a $6 boat packed with beer-battered potato wedges and topped with sour cream sambal, monterey jack and cheddar cheese, cotija, chilies, cilantro and pickled garlic.

Sour cream hen house: chicken, rice and then some

More modest eaters will be plenty satisfied with one of the "Big Kid Meals" -- $8-$9 rice bowls that include a vegetarian Kung Pau Noodle Bowl, Kimchi Spam Bowl, The Leafy T: Fried chili garlic tofu rice with fried egg and Chinese broccoli, Chubby pork belly, The Beefy T: diced prime rib rice and pictured above, Sour Cream Hen House, a devilish mixture of grilled chicken, fried egg, Chinese broccoli topped with sour cream sambal, Thai basil, sesame and red jalapeno. If you're not feeling rice-y, there's also a prime rib sandwich and half pound Chego burger.
Needless to say, you'll want to take young guys with you if possible, so you can justify ordering the Ooey Gooey Fries as a side.
Chego
727 N. Broadway #117 (in the Far East Plaza)
Chinatown
2 hours free parking in the lot next door
Open 11-11 Tuesday through Sunday
323-380-8680

Mo-chica's grand opening downtown is today: Alpaca si, guinea pig comes later

Peruvian chef Ricardo Zarate's Mo-chica seemed like a wonderful  find when it opened in Mercado la Paloma south of Downtown three years ago. Zarate was quickly hailed as a talent to watch, and for a while Mo-Chica remained, if not a foodie secret, at least somewhat under-the-radar with its early closing and no-alcohol policies. Then Zarate quickly shot to the top of L.A.'s food scene when he opened the ambitious Picca in Beverly Hills. Now Mo-chica too has grown up, moving from the folksy Mercado to an industrial chic space with a full-bar across from Mas Malo on Seventh St. It's bittersweet in a way, since the sense of a find and maybe a deal too has been lost, but longer hours and a more central location certainly allows many more people to experience Zarate's always on-point cooking, now with delicious cocktails from Brian Summers and Deysi Alvarez. We were invited to sample quite a few dishes from the new menu, which is a bit more compact and casual than Picca's, but with still with plenty of creative Peruvian flavors. Here's a few highlights:

Oaxacalifornia Love, left: mezcal, blanco tequila, pineapple-rocoto; , lime juice and Tha Doggfather, a potent and tangy Pisco sour

ANTICUCHO DE PULPO: grilled octopus, roasted potatoes, jalapeno sauce

CEVICHE MIXTO: halibut, prawns, scallops, squid, red onion, rocoto, leche de tigre, camote

ALPACA ESTOFADO alpaca stew estofado, tagliatelle, aji amarillo sauce, fried organic fertile egg

What does alpaca taste like, you ask? Not as funky as most goat, closer to an earthy beef than to meats in the lamb/goat family. The piquant sauce cuts the earthiness and the fried egg. 

SOLTERITO salad: lima beans, choclo, feta, olives, English peas, queso fresco, rocoto vinaigrette

An odd combo of incredients, and the pea leaves (?) were hard to eat. But the olives, feta, potatoes, corn and peas all played very nicely together.

SANGRESITA: morcilla crostini, fried egg, jalapeno salsa

Not my favorite of the dishes: I've got nothing against blood sausage, but it wasn't a crostini you could pick up like an appetizer, but rather resting on soft bread with a lot of sauce. Just didn't work as a knife and fork dish. (Also, Peruvians really like huevos, but be careful or you could end up with a lot of fried eggs.)

PAICHE: Amazonian fish, ajiaco de arroz, cherry tomato escabeche

Paiche is an Amazon river fish with a meaty texture and mild swordfish-like flavor. Paired with a deeply flavored saucy rice and vibrant cherry tomatoes, it's filling enough to be a main course and very satisfying.

Sol y sombra  creme brulee with fruits

 Our dessert was the fruitiest creme brulee ever, which was a good thing. Though I love a solid dish of cream -- who wouldn't -- this was lightened up with purple corn, pineapple, apples, apricots and raisins. Served in an adorable enamel mini-bathtub, I could have eaten one the size of a baby's bathtub.
Mo-chica
514 W. 7th Street (@ Grand) 
Los Angeles
213-622-3744

Hours
Sun.-Sat. 11:30a-3:30p (lunch)
5:30-11p (dinner)