California Cuisine Part 1

My last post was a stop on the way to California over fall break. This time, I will be discussing some good cheap eats I had around LA and next time will be the fancy ones. Some of the places I ate at were a random Mexican stand at a street fair outside a Children of Bodom concert I went to, Chano’s, fig tree, Panini Café, Roscoe’s House of Chicken ‘N Waffles, and the famed In-N-Out Burger.

In-N-Out is owned by a bunch of religious fundamentalists who put psalms on their cups, but that doesn’t stop them from crafting some great heart attacks.





I was accompanied by my friend whom I had come to visit and one of his fraternity brothers. Having lived in LA for some time, they dropped the bomb about a secret menu much like the one at Louie’s lunch (ask for the soup there). Though they only knew one item, they suggested that there were others. Following the suggestion, I got a burger and some fries “animal style”, which meant they were loaded with Russian dressing and pickles. I also got another cheeseburger and a milkshake. Here’s the full list of the secret menu: . However, Wikipedia says “Animal Style burgers include pickles, extra spread [Russian dressing], grilled onions, and mustard fried onto each meat patty.”



As far as the food goes, it reminded me a lot of Five Guys so I’ll compare everything to that. The burgers were juicier, the toppings (excluding animal style) and buns were pretty much the same, the milkshake was fattier and thicker, and the fries were a wee bit soggy and didn’t have that Five Guys crunch or peanut oil flavor. However, animal style is awesome. It’s like a Reuben if a Reuben were a burger. It was delicious and I pray to the god of food that this chain expands to the east.

Next on the journey was Chano’s, where I forgot to take pictures. This fine establishment is a Mexican restaurant that primarily deals in take-out, so that’s what we got. I got some Al Pastor tacos and split nachos. Al Pastor is the tastiest topping you can get on a taco and that’s my unbiased opinion. It’s pork slow roasted on a spit and then topped with pineapple. . They did a great job on it and with the nachos. Such a great job, in fact, that I kept yelling “Chano’s!” for the next few days. It’s also a really fun name to say.

Then came breakfast. We went to Fig Tree which has a special where if you come before 9:00 AM, the whole menu is half off. Though we came a bit late, our food took an hour to arrive, so they gave us the discount anyway. Sometimes it pays to have bad service. Since it was a nice day and I had the beautiful backdrop of Venice Beach and the locals’ hippie-mobiles, I got a mimosa. Decent mimosa, but it’s pretty hard to mess up on them. My friend and his girlfriend were astonished because nobody drinks before 10:00 PM, or pretty much ever, in LA.





Finally, the food arrived, but the wait was worth it. I split the breakfast quesadilla and puffed pancake, while nibbling on the missus’ corn pancake. The latter tasted like cornbread.





The breakfast quesadilla was cheesy and eggy, but not too impressive. The puffed pancake on the other hand was a glorious bastard. This was a dessert not breakfast, but I had no problem consuming almost the whole thing. I had to hold back a bit to save room for Roscoe’s. Inside was a doughy, sugary, center filled with ripe bananas and strawberries. Topped with powdered sugar and maple syrup, it was a diabetics worst nightmare, but oh so tasty. The walls were crispy and gave a very satisfying crunch when shanked. In other words, it was appealing to all five senses. A few hours later was my trip to Roscoe’s House of Chicken ‘N Waffles.





I bet you can’t guess what I got here.





Again following suggestions, I went for the mac and cheese and sweet potato pie. In retrospect, I’m thankful for his advice, but at the time I had no idea why I trusted a suggestion from this very annoying, meth-ed out, enemy of a friend.



The peppery fried chicken was drowned in southern gravy. Some people don’t get the gravy, but I was glad I did. It was delicious and worked really well the waffles. Their secret waffle batter recipe made a sugary and delicious waffle, albeit somewhat soggy. The mac and cheese was tastefully breaded and baked while the sweet potato pie tasted and looked more like pumpkin pie, though it did have that signature potato skin flavor. Both were delicious, soft, and addicting. I finished everything, but walked around with the worst food hangover/withdrawal before passing out for a few hours.

After waking up, we went to the Bodom show, where I lost my keys, including my car key, crowd surfing. There were no drinks sold inside, so we went to a bar and I had the best Bloody Mary of my life. This lady bartender must have gone through ~7 spices, Tabasco, horseradish, tomato juice, and a very generous serving of house vodka. Of course there was food to be had at the street fair outside. We were in Pomona, but there was still a distinctly different flavor here than in NYC. For example, the street fairs were still going at 11PM, something that would never happen in Manhattan.



These baby tacos were topped with Carne Asada on one and Al Pastor on the other. Of course the Al Pastor was better. So good, I went back for another and chased it with a tasty Tamale at the neighbor stand.

The morning after, we got take-out from Panini Café and had a Panini-style breakfast wrap with a Bloody Mary (decent, but not nearly as good as the one the night before). This wrap was amazing though. The eggs were not under or over done and the smoked mozzarella sold me completely. It all tasted even better with the Tapatio. I thanked my friend profusely for yet another amazing breakfast.



Later, we got some mediocre Pad Thai in Santa Monica. However, we went back to Santa Monica the next day and got some awesome food on the pier at Mariasol. I got an awesome Piña Colada and split some Ceviche and a seafood burrito. They were both loaded. The Ceviche had some cocktail sauce and some Tapatio on the side. All of the squid, shrimp, octopus, and calamari tasted even better with them. The burrito was also amazing with Tapatio. Without though, it still would have blown my mind. It had cheese on top and inside there was more cheese as well as snow crab, shrimp, snapper, and scallops. After eating there, we met an old friend from high school at a bar where I split some snapper sliders with her. If there’s one thing I really miss about LA, it’s the liberal use of fish for everything where the norm here is ground chuck.







Before heading back to school and running into way too many complications (keys), we went back to Chano’s where I got an Al Pastor burrito. It was even better than the taco I got there earlier. Damn I love that place.


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Delectable Dinosaurs

I love barbeque and have been hearing how good Dinosaur Barbeque is for a long time. Unfortunately, it has always been just a bit out of my reach until recently. On the way to the Syracuse airport, I made a stop to try the famed barbeque and was not disappointed in the least.

From the moment I entered, all my anxiety of it looking like a kitschy chain was thrown out the window. The establishment was rugged and smoky with no cartoon-y dinosaurs prancing about, as their logo would suggest.

The friendly staff told me to sit wherever I liked and then brought me a beverage of my choosing. They had Franziskaner on tap and it being one of my favorite beers, I got a pint.



Though I really wanted to try their deviled eggs, they wouldn’t let me have any less than 6 of them, so I settled for one of their sliders. This cute little rare burger was topped with mild cheddar while floating on a thin coating of pink Cajun mayo. It was incredibly tasty, especially towards the center. The Cajun mayo gave it a nice kick which complemented the already flavorful meat.





Finally, the main course arrived and the waiter explained the variety of barbeque sauces on the side. The front ones were all Dinosaur Barbeque originals and from right to left, increased in hotness. None of them were truly hot, but that could be just because I have been drinking 1 Million Scoville recently.

Every single piece of the traditional platter was magnificent. Though it looked like too much food for one person at first, after the first bite, I knew I would finish it. Other than the cornbread, both sides were specials of the day. The collard greens had bits of pork and ginger. It tasted a bit peppery, sweet, and fatty, yet still firm even through all the cooking. Next was the traditional mac and cheese, made with shells and sautéed mushrooms and broccoli. It was creamy, with the signature sharpness of cheddar. I really liked it, but it did not taste like “traditional” mac and cheese at all. For the last of the sides, the cornbread was sweet, light, and fluffy. Its flavor, along with the beer, worked wonders in refreshing my palate as I moved from dish to dish throughout the platter.



The meats were brisket, ribs, and chicken. I was sick and tired of dry briskets and had this been any less than perfect, I would most likely have given up all hope on brisket forever. Luckily, this brisket was tender, moist, and delicious. The sauce on it was great, but none of the meats really needed any. Since everything was already fantastic, the only sauce I added was the hottest one to spice it up a bit. Next was the chicken, which was incredibly moist on the inside, with tender, yet slightly blackened skin on the outside. Its skin had the blackened flavor, but yielded like rotisserie skin, making it orgasmic. Lastly, I descended on the ribs. They were incredible. Marinated for 24 hours and slowly pit smoked, they had a smoky flavor while barbeque sauce permeated the meat. Most of all, they were very tender. I had to be careful to make sure the meat didn’t fall off the bone so I could still eat them with my hands. They were the kind of ribs that when that beautiful first morsel of slightly charred, red, saucy, and tender pork first hits your tongue, you can’t help but close your eyes and smile. That’s right; those kinds of ribs. Taking all of that into account you can understand how I was able to turn that massive plate into the following.



Dinosaur Barbeque has the kind of food that results in massive, artery-clogging, enthusiastic, gluttony. I would highly recommend ditching whatever you have to do and going there right now. Maybe I’m not the best source to trust on the matter as a Manhattanite whose only legit experiences with barbeque have been in Tennessee and New Orleans, but I still love Dinosaur Barbeque. They have some of the best barbeque I have ever had and I can’t wait to go back for more.


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