"... The crowd that bellied up to Mercat's bar included the requisite number of flak jackets, afros and chucks but most of the patrons were that Zelig-like diner to be found in any hip upscale restaurant be it downtown or up. Designer glasses, well-done highlights or close-cropped gray hair. Who are they all? How many mid-level architects can one town feed?"
also, if we're going to talk about restaurant reviews...i love russell davies' eggs bacon chips & bean reviews.
here's a sneak...
"The ebcb is tiny too. But not stingey small. More like a perfectly miniaturised ebcb - as though it was a piece of Japanese electronics. They've just crammed all the joy and detail of a bigger fry-up into this smaller, more convenient package. Look at the way almost every component is dangling over the edge of the plate. Brilliant. And delicious."
David's list has become a sort of cultural phenomenon around LA. people upload it to their blackberries, laminate it and keep in in their glove compartments, etc...
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Just another perfect day
By JONATHAN GOLD
Wednesday, October 3, 2007 - 12:00 pm
It is still dark when I wake up, and I pad down the stairs to put together one last breakfast of biscuits, eggs and juice before the rest of the family gets out of bed. The biscuits are made with cultured Vermont butter and the soft, fine flour I mail-order from the Weisenberger Mill in Kentucky. I will serve them with the plum jam that my neighbor Kazi sometimes makes when she is not otherwise engaged as the principal violist of the L.A. Opera. The eggs are from the Kendor Farms stand at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market. The juice is from my own grapefruit tree. The music on the radio is the Emerson Quartet playing Haydn. If it were a weekend, I might also throw a center-loin Schreiner’s smoked pork chop or a hot Italian sausage from Alexander’s Prime Meats into a skillet, and maybe brew a plunger-potful of Krakatoa-blend coffee from Monkey and Son, but I’m not eating until later.
The oven beeps. The biscuits are golden and flaky. My wife and daughter slide into their chairs at the dining room table, and my 4-year-old son fetches today’s copy of the L.A. Times from the lawn, where it has miraculously not been soaked with sprinkler runoff. (Are the headlines true? Are the troops really on their way home? Did the Celtics really agree to trade Kevin Garnett straight up for Kwame Brown?) When I walk Leon to his pre-K class a little later, he remembers to hug me goodbye.
From the school, I drive to the gym, where I meet Melody Schoenfeld from Flawless Fitness, who has the unenviable task of directing me through the workout. (Why would I go to the gym on my last day on Earth? You never know when core fitness is going to come in handy on the other side.) I am in luck — it’s arms-and-shoulders day, no squats or lunges, and the mook who likes to work out to the Rocky soundtrack is nowhere to be seen. Even better, JACK-FM seems to have been struck by lightning during the night: Everybody’s reps are powered by a podcast of last week’s Chocolate City on KCRW, and the host, Garth Trinidad, has found some late-’70s Meters sides I have never heard before. The iron practically lifts itself.
As quickly as Melody strips calories off, Sumi Chang at nearby Europane puts them back on. I would ordinarily have a chocolate croissant but it is nearing the end of stone-fruit season, and I have a frangipane-smeared peach tart with one of Sumi’s perfect cappuccinos, layered with foam dense enough to support a spoon upright. It is a rather dry day — low humidity is bad for the skin but great for baked goods — and the puff pastry explodes into a million buttery flakes. I glance at the sports section. Garnett really does seem to be coming to the Lakers. It is a good day, considering.
I have a few minutes to kill, so I drive over to the Norton Simon Museum, where I spend a while looking at my favorite painting by Francisco de Zurbarán, a still life of lemons that almost tumble out of the frame, nipply, glowing fruit whose lusciousness affirms the existence of God more persuasively than a dozen stiffly pious Zurbarán saints. The beauty is almost enough to make me forgive Simon for dismantling and burying the irreplaceable contemporary collection of the Pasadena Art Museum when he took over the institution three decades ago, but even today I have only so much forgiveness in my heart. I take a short walk through the building to look at the big Sam Francis splashed against the wall, and I shake my head at what might have been. I decide to take the Pasadena Freeway, the most beautiful of all American freeways, into Los Angeles. I make a quick detour halfway into town for a deep-fried potato taco with guacamole at El Atacor #11. Five minutes later, I am back on the freeway, heading toward downtown.
It is a lightish day at the Weekly, and my wife agrees to have lunch, although she tends to roll her eyes at any intimations of end times. Laurie works hard; even today she brushes off any ideas of a long, winey lunch at Spago or on the sunny, art-strewn patio at Michael’s. We end up at Sapp Coffee Shop, a legendary Thai Town noodle joint, where I get the duck noodles and she gets the boat noodle soup — a dark, murky broth of beef innards lit up like a pinball machine with ground Thai chiles. For the first time in months we manage to get there before the fried Thai sausage with peanuts is sold out. Laurie blushes when my foot meets hers under the table, but then she says she needs to get back to the office. I tell her I’m thinking of going to the zoo, and she decides to come along instead of going back to work — it must be end times. We cruise through Griffith Park to hang out for a few minutes with the meerkats at the Los Angeles Zoo, and pick up our son at Travel Town, where a friend has taken him to play on the trains.
We pick up Leon’s sister Isabel at school, and we all go up to Bulgarini in Altadena for gelato. I get the gloriously bitter granita de caffé. Leon seems extra-excited about his scoop of banana. The four of us drive up to the end of Cheney Trail and scramble over the rocks to Millard Falls, where Isabel skips rocks and Leon pokes at centipedes as evening falls over the canyon.
Later, we all go out with friends for Sichuan fried chicken, water-boiled fish and stir-fried bacon with leeks at Chung King, followed by a quick nightcap of Lagrein at Louon Vine. Back at home, Laurie and I hold hands and wait for the dawn.
best restaurant review ever.
From the Gawker review of Mercat, a new place in NYC:
http://gawker.com/news/mercat/mercat-and-the-stylish-diner-253728.php
"... The crowd that bellied up to Mercat's bar included the requisite number of flak jackets, afros and chucks but most of the patrons were that Zelig-like diner to be found in any hip upscale restaurant be it downtown or up. Designer glasses, well-done highlights or close-cropped gray hair. Who are they all? How many mid-level architects can one town feed?"
I'd say it's a very good question...
Tacos Villa Corona for burritos
Soy Cafe for noodles
Lulus in Pittsburgh, PA right beside Pitt and Carneggie Mellon U. It's an Asian noodle place that's just incredible.
Yama's Japanese Restaurant in Morgantown, WV. Northern Japanese cuisine and a 7-course meal for under $15. My favorite place hands down.
the flan at "People" in Wicker Park Chicago in UN-FUCKIN-REAL!!! HOLY SHIT!
AND THEIR STEAK KABOBS WERE EQUALLY UNREAL!
you're in LA right tumbles?
been to SONA yet?
i know it was recently mentioned, but...follow your heart here.
also, if we're going to talk about restaurant reviews...i love russell davies' eggs bacon chips & bean reviews.
here's a sneak...
"The ebcb is tiny too. But not stingey small. More like a perfectly miniaturised ebcb - as though it was a piece of Japanese electronics. They've just crammed all the joy and detail of a bigger fry-up into this smaller, more convenient package. Look at the way almost every component is dangling over the edge of the plate. Brilliant. And delicious."
i love it.
prince's hot chicken shack - nashville, tennessee.
a cultural experience.
for those of you in LA, i put together this simple website using my friend David Chow's famous list of places to eat around los angeles...
www.chowfinder.net
David's list has become a sort of cultural phenomenon around LA. people upload it to their blackberries, laminate it and keep in in their glove compartments, etc...
and yes, his real last name is Chow.
I was just listening to something that had a bit of Jonathan Gold's review of a donut shop that makes donuts w/ fresh strawberry's. I was drooling.
mdler...is soy cafe in nyc?
whoah where is that donut shop?
i've heard about that donut shop when huell howser featured it in his show...so i had to search, i think this is it...
Donut Man
915 E Route 66 (Cross Street: Elwood Avenue)
Glendora, CA 91740-3608View Map
(626) 335-9111
The strawberry donuts are seasonal I believe... so don't just show up at any random time of the year.
And here's Gold's original article. No wonder the man won a Pulitzer.
I'm sorry, I'll hijack any thread in order to talk about burgers or donuts.
Il Mondo! Give me some of that sweet Chicken BBQ!
i now crave jonathan gold's writing...
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Just another perfect day
By JONATHAN GOLD
Wednesday, October 3, 2007 - 12:00 pm
It is still dark when I wake up, and I pad down the stairs to put together one last breakfast of biscuits, eggs and juice before the rest of the family gets out of bed. The biscuits are made with cultured Vermont butter and the soft, fine flour I mail-order from the Weisenberger Mill in Kentucky. I will serve them with the plum jam that my neighbor Kazi sometimes makes when she is not otherwise engaged as the principal violist of the L.A. Opera. The eggs are from the Kendor Farms stand at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market. The juice is from my own grapefruit tree. The music on the radio is the Emerson Quartet playing Haydn. If it were a weekend, I might also throw a center-loin Schreiner’s smoked pork chop or a hot Italian sausage from Alexander’s Prime Meats into a skillet, and maybe brew a plunger-potful of Krakatoa-blend coffee from Monkey and Son, but I’m not eating until later.
The oven beeps. The biscuits are golden and flaky. My wife and daughter slide into their chairs at the dining room table, and my 4-year-old son fetches today’s copy of the L.A. Times from the lawn, where it has miraculously not been soaked with sprinkler runoff. (Are the headlines true? Are the troops really on their way home? Did the Celtics really agree to trade Kevin Garnett straight up for Kwame Brown?) When I walk Leon to his pre-K class a little later, he remembers to hug me goodbye.
From the school, I drive to the gym, where I meet Melody Schoenfeld from Flawless Fitness, who has the unenviable task of directing me through the workout. (Why would I go to the gym on my last day on Earth? You never know when core fitness is going to come in handy on the other side.) I am in luck — it’s arms-and-shoulders day, no squats or lunges, and the mook who likes to work out to the Rocky soundtrack is nowhere to be seen. Even better, JACK-FM seems to have been struck by lightning during the night: Everybody’s reps are powered by a podcast of last week’s Chocolate City on KCRW, and the host, Garth Trinidad, has found some late-’70s Meters sides I have never heard before. The iron practically lifts itself.
As quickly as Melody strips calories off, Sumi Chang at nearby Europane puts them back on. I would ordinarily have a chocolate croissant but it is nearing the end of stone-fruit season, and I have a frangipane-smeared peach tart with one of Sumi’s perfect cappuccinos, layered with foam dense enough to support a spoon upright. It is a rather dry day — low humidity is bad for the skin but great for baked goods — and the puff pastry explodes into a million buttery flakes. I glance at the sports section. Garnett really does seem to be coming to the Lakers. It is a good day, considering.
I have a few minutes to kill, so I drive over to the Norton Simon Museum, where I spend a while looking at my favorite painting by Francisco de Zurbarán, a still life of lemons that almost tumble out of the frame, nipply, glowing fruit whose lusciousness affirms the existence of God more persuasively than a dozen stiffly pious Zurbarán saints. The beauty is almost enough to make me forgive Simon for dismantling and burying the irreplaceable contemporary collection of the Pasadena Art Museum when he took over the institution three decades ago, but even today I have only so much forgiveness in my heart. I take a short walk through the building to look at the big Sam Francis splashed against the wall, and I shake my head at what might have been. I decide to take the Pasadena Freeway, the most beautiful of all American freeways, into Los Angeles. I make a quick detour halfway into town for a deep-fried potato taco with guacamole at El Atacor #11. Five minutes later, I am back on the freeway, heading toward downtown.
It is a lightish day at the Weekly, and my wife agrees to have lunch, although she tends to roll her eyes at any intimations of end times. Laurie works hard; even today she brushes off any ideas of a long, winey lunch at Spago or on the sunny, art-strewn patio at Michael’s. We end up at Sapp Coffee Shop, a legendary Thai Town noodle joint, where I get the duck noodles and she gets the boat noodle soup — a dark, murky broth of beef innards lit up like a pinball machine with ground Thai chiles. For the first time in months we manage to get there before the fried Thai sausage with peanuts is sold out. Laurie blushes when my foot meets hers under the table, but then she says she needs to get back to the office. I tell her I’m thinking of going to the zoo, and she decides to come along instead of going back to work — it must be end times. We cruise through Griffith Park to hang out for a few minutes with the meerkats at the Los Angeles Zoo, and pick up our son at Travel Town, where a friend has taken him to play on the trains.
We pick up Leon’s sister Isabel at school, and we all go up to Bulgarini in Altadena for gelato. I get the gloriously bitter granita de caffé. Leon seems extra-excited about his scoop of banana. The four of us drive up to the end of Cheney Trail and scramble over the rocks to Millard Falls, where Isabel skips rocks and Leon pokes at centipedes as evening falls over the canyon.
Later, we all go out with friends for Sichuan fried chicken, water-boiled fish and stir-fried bacon with leeks at Chung King, followed by a quick nightcap of Lagrein at Louon Vine. Back at home, Laurie and I hold hands and wait for the dawn.
Just give me some Korean BBQ at Bann on W 50th St Between 8th & 9th Ave and i am happy.
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