The Golden Age of Ice Cream

Sweet Rose

In Los Angeles, we are lucky enough to be living in a golden age of ice cream. Ten years ago, high quality ice cream was sparse in LA. Now, there are excellent ice cream shops all over the place (with more coming). Here is a list of my favorite ice cream shops in the Sku Eating Area*

1.  Traditional Ice Cream

No one beats Fosselman's in Alhambra for old-fashioned, high butter-fat traditional ice cream. Sure, they give a nod to modernity with flavors like taro and lychee (which are both very good), but this place is still an old-fashioned parlor dishing it out the old way.  My favorite flavors are coffee & cookies and peppermint (which is especially good in a hot fudge sundae).

Mateo's Ice Cream and Fruit Bars at Pico & Vermont is a traditional  Mexican ice cream shop with excellent paletas and great tropical fruit flavored ice cream.

Top Round, the Roast Beef sandwich place on Olympic and La Brea, does thick, creamy frozen custard, the mid-western way, which you can get plane or in a concrete with various mix-ins. Probably the best frozen custard I've had in LA.

2.  Hipster Ice Cream

The new wave of ice cream definitely has some of that ridiculous hipster vibe - everything locally sourced from farmers markets, cacao percentages listed on a chalk board, uncomfortable metal chairs, flavors like uni-fennel sorbet and olive oil goat cheese swirl, but you know, the stuff can be really good.

In this category we've got Sweet Rose Creamery, probably my favorite (everything is great from the punchy fruit sorbets to the standards like salted caramel and coffee), Carmella (especially the ice cream sandwiches), Jeni's (where pretty much everything is good) and Salt & Straw, which is definitely the silliest (which makes sense since it's an import from Portland) but still quite good.

SnowLA

3.  K-Town Favorites

Koreatown has developed its own unique ice cream culture with places like Snow LA, HoneyMee (which has multiple locations in the LA area) and CottonHi. SnowLA is a shaved ice cream place mostly fun for the diverse toppings bar. HoneyMee has a really delicious ice milk soft serve base. I like it plain or topped with honey, though if you like the idea of a big, waxy honeycomb in your ice cream or ice cream in a hot dog bun, you can get those too. CottonHi is soft serve topped with cotton candy. It seems like a silly novelty, but the soft serve is really good.

Bulgarini

4.  Gelato

Bulagarini in Altadea was the winner of my gelato tour of many years ago, and it still towers above the competition.  Altadena is a bit outside the Sku Eating Area, but it's worth the trip. The yogurt gelato with olive oil is the classic, but the seasonal fruit is wonderful and the nut gelatos (e.g., pistachio and macadamia nut) are as trasnscendent as a frozen dessert can be.

As to more Sku-adjacent gelato, we are now lucky to have Grom, an Italian gelato chain that serves up great stuff just like you can get at an Italian train station. The only downside, and it's a pretty big downside, is that it's located at Hollywood & Highland. Rumor has it that we will be getting a Venchi, an even better Italian gelato chain, when Eatly opens in the Century City mall. 



Those are my favorites.  Did I miss anything good?  Let me know, but don't say Milk. Milk is an abomination, a really popular abomination where you stand in a long line to get beautiful, overly sweet, mediocre ice cream. God bless them though, because I'm happy to let people stand in line there while I breeze into Sweet Rose across the street.

*The Sku Eating Area or "SEA" is not an official LA culinary designation, but it is the area of the city in which I most frequently eat and therefore that with which I am most familiar. It includes an area of mid-city bounded by Hollywood/Franklin/Los Feliz Blvds. to the North, La Cienega Blvd. to the West, Venice Blvd. to the South and the 110 freeway to the East as well as the western San Gabriel Valley.

Recent Eats: Buns, Fries, Ice Cream and More

It's been a long time since this was a food blog, but I still get asked a lot about where I've been eating, so I thought I would do a brief, totally eclectic post which actually covered Sku's recent eats.

Republique, in the old Campanile space on La Brea is phenomenal.  The food is served family style on communal tables.  I went with a big group, and everything we had was very good; about half of it was mind blowing. And Jonathan Gold is absolutely right that these are the best fries in town and that the Bernaise sauce is nearly drinkable on its own.  Other highlights were the eggs and uni on toast, duck confit, and for dessert, a chocolate cherry bread pudding.  The cocktail menu was sadly unimpressive for a restaurant of this quality.

I was so impressed that I stop by for breakfast and they have what may be the best breakfast in mid-city.  The breakfast is a much more casual affair.  You order at the pastry counter and take a seat in the dining room.  This place has wondrous eggs.  The eggs on toast with asparagus and arugula was as simple as it sounds, but it was one of the best breakfast dishes anywhere.   The scrambled eggs are so pillowy soft and creamy they are almost a custard, sliced asparagus spears were perfectly cooked with just the right crunch, add toast from their bread and the slight bitterness of arugula with sea salt and...its hard to describe how good this dish was.  On top of that they had a perfectly executed kimchi fried rice.  At the bakery items are more standard but you must try the canelles.  The burnt sugar on the outside is crisp and sweet almost to the level of  a creme brulee crust which gives way to a creamy, custardy center.  I may have enjoyed the breakfast more than the dinner menu (though I would have liked a side of those fries)  

The Bun Shop. This new Koreatown shop is one of those Asian fusion food trucks that opened a restaurant.  This one is a great concept, Chinese style bao buns stuffed sandwich-style with all manner of fillings: pork belly, bulgogi, spam, chicken katsu and more.  They are slider sized and come with an order of macaroni salad or marinated edamame.  These things are great and highly addictive.  They make a great snack anytime, but you could see how this place could become a major late night craving, though it closes at 10 pm.  This place is all sorts of fun. Go there now!

Sweet Rose Creamery.  This Brentwood ice cream shop now has a branch on Beverly across from Pan Pacific Park.  As a huge ice cream fan, I'm always happy to see more great ice cream, and this is indeed great, with fresh ingredients and creative (though not insane) flavors. They have a standard menu with silky smooth salted caramel, strong coffee and other standard flavors and a changing list of seasonal offerings.  The seasonal offerings are particularly good, utilizing fresh cherries, orange and other seasonal ingredients.  This place immediately rockets to the top tier of LA ice cream; hell, it may be the best.  They also have homemade sodas and toppings, but the ice cream is so damn good that I've never gotten around to them.

I've never had much of a wait at Sweet Rose despite the fact that people continue to line up around the block for the mediocre ice cream at Milk, just down the street.  Just as well, hopefully those Milk drinkers won't find out that Sweet Rose puts their overly sweet  concoctions to shame.  They also make great coffee using Caffe Luxxe beans.

SnowLA. I'm not sure if snow ice has reached other parts of the country yet.  I first had it in Hawaii a few years ago, but it's been in the San Gabriel Valley for a while and is starting to make in-roads in Koreatown. An ice cream/shave ice mash up, snow ice is made by placing a large block of ice cream in a shave ice-type machine; then toppings are added that would be typical for shave ice or frozen yogurt.  The thin, ribbon-like shaved ice cream at Snow LA is airy and light and melts in your mouth.  I particularly like it topped with condensed milk and dulce de leche as well as "popping boba" that burst with mango, yogurt or strawberry flavor when you bite into them.  The snow ice at SnowLA on Sixth Street is the best I've had with a really fine texture and good toppings.

Isaan Station.  Great Thai comes to Koreatown.  Alright, we're not that far from Thai Town, but still, it's rare for good Thai to be available south of Santa Monica Boulevard.  Issan Station, on Western at First (just down from the Bun Shop) brings some T-Town to K-Town with its classic Thai street food.  Really great sour sausage, loads of larps and papya salads as well as soups and noodles.  This will definitely become a regular spot for me.

The Oinkster.  The Oinkster, the fast-casual-gourmet-hipster joint in Eagle Rock recently opened a Hollywood branch.  Despite all of the praise heaped on the Eagle Rock joint, I never went because I consider Eagle Rock to be nearly unreachable by major freeways and boulevards, and for some reason, it seems to take me longer to get there than to Monterey Park.  So I was excited to finally get to try Oinkster, where everything except the beer is homemade.  My favorite here was probably the pulled pork sandwich, which had a nice Carolina style vinegar based BBQ sauce.  The burgers were nicely flavored if over cooked. The pastrami, which is house cured, was quite good, though more in the style of The Hat (thin cut, greasy, fast food stand style) than Langer's (thick cut, juicy, deli style).  The homemade condiments were very good, particularly the chipotle ketchup (and I seldom like homemade ketchup), but the fries and onion rings were lackluster.  When you call your fries Belgian, you have a lot to live up to, and these were not crispy enough and needed salt.  The breaded-style onion rings were similarly bland.  All in all, pretty good food, though expensive (but that goes with the category).  A good option for that area of Hollywood.


Eat up!

Roast Beef and Frozen Custard: Top Round

Top Round is a new roast beef sandwich/frozen custard spot on Olympic and La Brea.  The sandwiches, which you order outside, are Arby's style roast beef sandwiches with various condiments and toppings, but none of them matter so much.  What you should do is get one of the sandwiches with extra beef and then slather it with their horseradish sauce, which had an awesome kick to it.

Then get some curly fries.  Fried in beef tallow, the fries come plain, or with one of a number of toppings: home made cheese whiz, beef ends and drippings or "dirty" with gravy, cheese and caramelized onions.  All of these were great except for the beef ends and drippings, which needed a little something else (cheese?).

When you finish your sandwich and fries, go inside and order a frozen custard concrete (sort of a flurry-type concoction).  The custard here is by far the best I've had in LA, smooth, rich and creamy with a clean vanilla taste.  The toppings are nothing special, but getting the concrete whips up the custard to a great, smooth consistency.  Usually when you see frozen custard in LA, it's soft serve.  This is the real deal and the true highlight of this place.  Sandwiches are good, custard is fabulous.

One of the owners of Top Round is Anthony Carron from 800 Degrees pizza.  Carron is a St. Louis native, and this place definitely has a St. Louis feel (my wife's a St. Louisan and I lived there for a year).  You can get provel cheese on your sandwich, which is a God forsaken processed cheese loved only by those who grew up in St. Louis.  And the frozen custard is a clear homage to St. Louis' great Ted Drewe's Frozen Custard stand.  But while St. Louis natives will undoubtedly love this place, so will everyone else.

Check it out!

Top Round Roast Beef
1000 South La Brea (SE corner of La Brea & Olympic - and there's a parking lot!)
Los Angeles, CA 90019
(323) 549-9445

The Best Things I ate in Paris

I was lucky enough to spend a week in Paris with my wife for our twentieth anniversary.  Having never before visited the City of Lights, I was excited to eat as much amazing food as humanly possible.  Based in the Rue Cler district, we branched out all over the city center and ate and ate and ate.  Given that it was my first trip, I make no claims to having uncovered anything veterans wouldn't know well, but these were my favorite things.

Cheese.  There are more cheese shops in Paris than anyone could make a dent in during a one week trip, but my very favorite was a small shop on Rue du Champ de Mars called Marie-Anne Cantin. They age their own cheeses and have a wonderful selection.  Epoisses is one of my favorite cheese and Cantin's had a wonderful grassy note, but I also loved their pungent Camembert, and their wide selection of aged goat cheeses as well as their butter.

Baguettes Cereal.  A baguette is a simple enough thing, but Paris baguettes are a wonder, with a density and richness absent in even the best baguettes I've had in the U.S.  While wheat breads in the US tend to be hard and flat tasting, the baguette cereal, a French whole grain baguette, is intensely flavorful, adding a zing to the regular baguette.  There were numerous boulangeries that had amazing baguettes, but one of my favorite cereal baguettes was at Nelly Julien on Rue Sainte Dominique.

Chocolate apes at Patrick Roger

Chocoalte Truffles.  The amount of cheese I ate in Paris was second only to the chocolate. Chocolate stores abound and display their wares like jewels in glass containers.  I'm a fan of the plain, cocoa coated chocolate truffle.  The two best I had were at Patrick Roger and La Maison du Chocolat.  The Patrick Roger truffle had a stronger and more complex flavor with a good balance of acid and bitterness. The Maison du Chocolat truffles may not have been as complex, but they had a creaminess that made them even more enjoyable.

Hot Chocolate.  Laduree is a chain of chocolate cafes.  Looking like a frilly English tea room, they might have been decorated by my six year old daughter, but they are oh so good.  Hot chocolate is everywhere in Paris in the fall, and the hot chocolate at Laduree is the best I had.  It's really a very thick ganache, much like the kind I make at home.   The serving is enormous and I'd recommend getting it with whipped cream (a la Viennoise) to cut the richness a bit because it really is more like drinking melted chocolate than any typical hot chocolate, though it is oh so good (and it'll give you a bit of a caffeine jolt as well).  They have great macarons as well.

L'As du Fallafel.  I thought it was curious that this little falafel stand seemed to be the single most recommended eatery in Paris by my friends and guidebooks alike.  Located in the Jewish corner of the Marais neighborhood, L'As dishes out falafel sandwiches to long lines day and night, and they are worth the wait.  These are small, perfectly fried, perfectly spiced falafel in a pita with a number of veggie slaws, grilled eggplant and an awesome, garlicky, hot sauce.  This may have been my favorite meal in Paris (I went twice).  The sweetness of the eggplant, the piquant sauce and the plethora of little falafel balls all comes together in perfect balance. You can go to the take out window or eat in, but the advantage of eating in is that you get your own little bowl of the hot sauce, which is a big plus.

Aux Merveilleux de Fred

Meringues from Aux Merveilleux de Fred.  These things are crazy.  Layers of meringue covered in whipped cream and rolled in chocolate (or other flavored) flakes.  Akin to a meringue layer cake, they come in various sizes.  They are creamy, chewy, melt in your mouth miracles of taste and texture.  The cream is not overly sweet and comes together with the delicate meringue to create a crunchy, creamy wonder.  The whole experience is like biting into a sweet cloud.  I'm not usually a fan of white chocolate but that was my favorite flavor.  The dark chocolate flakes overwhelmed the subtlety of the cream whereas the white chocolate just added to the creamy richness.

Ice cream. Ile St. Louis is a small island in the Seine that seems to consist mostly of ice cream shops.  Flocks of tourists window shop with cones in hand.  Most of the shops serve Paris' legendary Berthillon ice cream, but if you continue past the pretenders, you'll reach the actual Berthillon shop and find that its reputation is well earned.  Bold flavors and a creamy texture made this some of the best ice cream I've had.  We tried the rich, dark chocolate cacao, tangy passion fruit sorbet, and a creamy but nutty pistachio. 

Fine Dining.  I ate at a lot of bistros and cafes, but while in France, I wanted to do a splurge meal at a traditional French temple of fine dining.  On a friend's recommendation, I chose Le Pre Catelan.  The restaurant is located in Bois de Boulogne, a huge and beautiful (though somewhat seedy) park on the northwest outskirts of Paris.  The dinner menus at this three star Michelin eatery are extravagant and extravagantly priced, but they have a lunch prix fixe for 105 Euro (140 with the wine paring).  The lunch is an even better deal than it looks like as each course actually consists of two or three parts.  I will resist going through each course of this meal and say only that it was one of the most memorable meals of my life.  The ambiance, including the traditional French service with an army of waiters set in a beautiful dining room with a courtyard view, was of course memorable.  But, as part of my three part pork entree, the meal included probably the best cooked piece of pork belly I've ever had, with cracklin' skin, a thick, toothsome but somehow not fatty layer of fat and meat that was the rich essence of all that is good and porky in this world, all bathed in a pork jus (the other two pork courses were a braised pork in tomato foam and a sort of liquid head cheese served in a martini glass and topped with mayonnaise.  And of course, the cheese selection was wonderful, with a particularly well aged Mont D'Or.  The wine pairings added depth to each course, and unlike in most American tasting courses, the pours were generous and bottomless.

Not everything was perfect in the world of Paris food, but it was pretty close.  Sure, we had some mediocre bistro meals, and I can only imagine the world of tiny, out of the way treasures we had no clue about (and please let me know what they are!), but generally, the availability and quantity of amazing food was, well, just as true as everyone says it is.

Scotch & Ice Cream

No, Scotch & Ice Cream is not a new Ben & Jerry's flavor nor is it some combination ice cream parlor/speakeasy that just opened downtown. It's a new whiskey blog, and one you should read. Founded by my pal and regular commenter Regular Chumpington, Scotch & Ice Cream is his place to document his tastings. I always love to read RC's notes because he has a real gift for doing the whole flavor analogy thing (something that's never been my strong point). His reviews are helpful, entertaining and unpretentious.

And there's more than Scotch, including plenty of bourbon and some really interesting musings. So far though, the site is sorely lacking in ice cream. Come on RC, time to live up to your title.

Check it out!

We All Scream for Sweet Cream

People who are obsessive about coffee insist on drinking only straight espresso or drip coffee. In their view, milk obscures the fragrances and flavors that make the coffee distinct and exceptional. Whiskey lovers are the same way...ice numbs the palate, and while a little water is acceptable, neat is preferred. Yet in the world of great ice cream, the trend seems to be to create the most bizarre flavor combinations. Everyone wants you to try their new bacon-wasabi-cheddar ice cream.

Well, when it comes to ice cream, I like fun flavors as much of the next person, but I also like to taste it in its purest form, and that means sweet cream. Sweet cream is the basis of all ice cream. A creme anglaise (a custard of milk, eggs and sugar) with heavy cream. Creme anglaise itself is one of the wonders of the world and I am totally happy to eat it straight, but when you add cream and freeze it, it's sublime. Tasting the core ingredients stripped of any additives makes you understand that all ice cream really is "frozen custard."

When I lived in New England, sweet cream was on offered at all the great ice cream places. I've seen it occasionally since then, but recently it seems to have dropped off menus, or maybe it was just never as big in California.

So now, I make it myself in a little ice cream make I recieved as a wedding present many years ago. My only addition is a few teaspoons of maple syrup which adds to the depth of the sweet element but isn't enough to give a maple flavor.

After 40 minutes in the machine, it's soft, white, fluffy and pure. Ice cream at its most basic and wonderful form. Long live the sweet cream!

Random Vegas Thoughts - Coffee & Gelato

In reflecting on my Vegas trip, there are a few things I wonder about.

Why is there no great coffee in Vegas?

There is probably a greater concentration of good restaurants on the Strip than in any other similarly sized area in the country, but the coffee choices are downright embarrassing. There are passable espresso drinks but not a single third wave type coffee joint. It's ridiculous to go to places of the caliber, for instance, of Bouchon Bakery and have your pastry accompanied by a cappuccino that's not much better than Starbuck's. Even though the Strip is chronically unhip, this should still be a no-brainer for someplace like Intelligentsia or Stumptown. They would be swamped.


What's with all the gelato?

The other weird thing about Vegas is the plethora of mediocre gelato. It seems like each casino has three or four gelato places. Why gelato? When did it become so popular? And do you really need the 80 flavors that most places seem to carry? The cure for this is the awesome frozen custard at Luv It which is a bit north of the Strip and has become my regular stop for dessert after Lotus of Siam. If you go, order a Western sundae or a heavy shake. These are especially satisfying given that we really don't have any frozen custard in LA.

A Philly Diner in Tahoe

Completing my Northern California sojurn was a trip to the North Lake Tahoe area, centered in Truckee. Now, I've been to Truckee many times over the years and consider myself pretty familiar with its offerings, but I'd never made it to Jax Diner.

Jax is literally an old, east coast style diner in that the train style building originally housed a Philadelphia area diner dating back to the 1940s. It was shipped to Truckee in the 1990s where it now sits attached to a larger building.

Everything at Jax is homemade from the thick toast to the parmesan dusted potato chips to the crunchy potato salad. The day were there, there was a meatball sandwich special which had thick, moist meatballs on homemade rolls with a nice, tanky tomoato sauce. I was less impressed with the Philly cheese steak in which the beef got a bit too dry and I longed for more peppers.

The shakes at Jax, as one would hope, were excellent. Thick and cold and served with the extra in the metal cup with plenty of malt in the malteds.

We had lunch, but I'm guessing the breakfasts here are great. This will definitely become a regular stop for me when I'm in the Truckee area.

Jax Diner
10144 West River Street
Truckee, CA 96161
(530) 550-7450

Ice Cream Sandwich Head to Head: Carmela vs. Coolhaus

With summer approaching fast, it's ice cream sandwich time. The mere mention of ice cream sandwiches summons my memories of hanging out around the pool as a kid. Then we ate flavorless vanilla ice cream sandwiched between soggy, flavorless "chocolate" wafers. Now, ice cream sandwiches are trendy and you are more likely to find basil-avocado ice cream on hand-made chocolate-toffee cookies. I'm planning on doing some serious ice cream sandwiches this summer, so I thought I'd kick it off with two of the most well regarded: Coolhaus and Carmela.


Carmela Ice Cream

I've long been a fan of Carmela, and even though they now have a brick and mortar store in Pasadena, I still make my purchases at their Sunday Hollywood Farmers Market stand. Carmela's ice creams are fresh and bursting with flavor. The cookies are thin wafers-types, like a flavorful version of the traditional sandwich. The salted caramel sandwich features their lovely salted caramel ice cream sandwiched by chocolate wafers dotted with salt crystals. Carmela does a fabulous mint ice cream that radiates with garden-fresh mint flavor which is sandwiched in a chocolate wafer. The plain vanilla sandwich on a chocolate wafer is also wonderful, hearkening directly back to the classic. Everything about these sandwiches works, the ice cream and cookies are both wonderful and the proportions are right on, with just enough ice cream that each bite yields ice cream and two pieces of cookie.

Carmela Ice Cream
2495 E Washington Blvd
Pasadena, CA 91104
(626)797-1405
Also, stands at the Sunday Hollywood Farmers Market and Thursday South Pasadena Farmers Market.


Coolhaus Ice Cream Sandwiches

Coolhaus started as an LA food truck with an architecture theme - each sandwich is named after a famous architect or architectural movement. They are planning a store in Culver City, and in my neighborhood, you can find their sandwiches at Kalbi Burger. Coolhaus sandwiches are more comparable to the Its-It, with a more substantial cookie and larger scoop of ice cream, than the traditional ice cream sandwich.

I tried four Coolhaus varieties. My favorite was the Mintmalism, featuring a double chocolate cookie with mint ice cream. The mint ice cream was good, though not as transcendent as Carmela's, and it went well with the chocolate cookie. The Mies Vanilla Rohe, was a good solid sandwich with vanilla ice cream and a chocolate chip cookie, though the cookie, as with most of the Coolhaus cookies, was overly sweet. I liked the Thai Tea ice cream in the Thai Tea sandwich with a ginger cookie (which seems to lack an architect themed name), but the cookie was so heavily spiced that it completely overwhelmed the more subtle ice cream. Last, and least, was the Sir Francis Candied Bacon. Now I admit that I never jumped on the bacon dessert bandwagon, but the brown butter candied bacon ice cream in this was just nasty. The texture was icy and gloppy and while the candied bacon wasn't bad, there were also globules of fat (or was that the butter).

Coolhaus Ice Cream Sandwiches
Food Truck and coming soon to:
8588 Washington Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90232



The Winner

Carmela easily wins this contest. Other than the bacon sandwich, the Coolhaus collection was fine, but the flavors lacked the fresh, beauty of Carmela. The other problem with Coolhaus is that there was no sense of gestalt. The cookies were very sweet and often overwhelmed the ice cream, and the proportions were such that it was hard to get a bite of each element. It's as if more thought went into the clever architecture related names than the composition of the sandwiches themselves. Meanwhile, Carmela managed to perfectly synthesize the elements with strong, beautiful ice cream flavors and a subtle cookie that tasted good but didn't overwhelm.

There will be more to come this summer. Let me know if you have a favorite ice cream sandwich.

Nostalgia for an Age that Never Existed: Cafe 50s

Cafe 50s is a 50s theme restaurant that opened about five months ago on Vermont north of Melrose, right across from LACC. There is another branch in West LA.

This place is like Johnny Rockets on steroids. Seriously, the place looks like Nick at Nite threw up all over it. The walls and ceilings are covered with a distractingly busy montage of period magazines, movie posters, campaign literature and other kitsch. The wait staff wear retro waiter uniforms, there is a predictably nostalgic soundtrack and each booth has the obligatory mini-jukebox. I half expected to find "white" and "colored" bathrooms, but luckily, that wasn't the case.

The menu here looked promising. It included plenty of old school classics like a monte cristo and chicken fried steak but with some updates like sweet potato fries and a bacon blue cheese burger. The food, though was uniformly mediocre. The burgers are sad little overdone patties with iceberg lettuce and unripe tomatoes (I guess that may well be what you would have gotten at a real '50s diner). The monte cristo had a decent crust but was cold in the middle, and while the regular fries and onion rings were decent, the sweet potato fries were flavorless and the garlic fries were just regular fries with a pile of raw garlic on top.

The thing to get here, the only thing, are the milkshakes. The menu lists nearly 50 shakes of every variety, but I'm a simple guy, so I opted for a vanilla malt. It was wonderful...thick and creamy with a goodly amount of malt in every sip (lack of malt in malts is one of my pet peeves). The excess is served in the metal cup, as it should be. The only thing that would have improved it would have been homemade whipped cream on top instead of the canned variety, but overall it was great shakes.

So if you are in need of a shot of nostalgia skip the food, grab a shake and an order of fries and enjoy the nostalgia for an age that never existed.


Cafe 50s
850 N. Vermont Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90029
(323) 906-1955

Home Affogatos

One of the best things about having a home espresso machine is the ability to make affogatos. It's shocking how something this simple can be this delicious. To wit: one small scoop of vanilla ice cream, one shot of freshly pulled espresso; I add a dollop of wet whip cream. Heaven in a cup.

Hey, pour in a shot of Irish Whiskey and this would make for a great St. Patrick's Day treat, sort of an Irish Coffee on steroids.

Affogatos on Hillhurst - Gelato Bar

Gelato Bar, one of my favorite gelato destinations, opened a branch in Los Feliz last summer. Tragedy of tragedies, though, they did not have an espresso machine when they opened. This is tragic because Gelato Bar's Studio City location makes the best affogatos in town (see my LA Gelato Tour). The affogato, as you hopefully know, is that sublime combination of gelato and espresso. At Gelato Bar it's topped with a bit of whipped cream and some chocolate crunchies. (While I preferred their previous style of topping the affogato with cacao nibs, it's still great).

I don't know how long it's been there, but I'm happy to report that the Hillhurst branch now has an espresso machine, perfect not just for affogatos but for expertly prepared espresso drinks using coffee from Sonoma County's Ecco Caffe. This move, by the way, has immediately catapulted Gelato Bar into the title of best coffee in Los Feliz.

Gelato Bar (Los Feliz)
1936 Hillhurst Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 668-0606

Disney's Soda Fountain - Great Shakes, Bad Food

The Disney Soda Fountain, adjacent to the Disney owned El Capitan theater, is like a small Disneyland outpost in Hollywood. Enter it and you could very well be in one of Disneyland's many shops where food, gifts and Disnified decor intermingle. The cramped space is divided about half and half between a gift shop and a soda fountain with a few tables. I had lunch at the Fountain a few weeks ago after watching a Tinkerbell movie at the El Capitan and expected the food to be roughly the same as the movie, recognizable and kid-friendly but overhyped and utterly unoriginal. On balance, I was about half right.

The food at the Fountain was uniformly bad. My French Dip was served on a roll that should have been parbaked but wasn't. The meat was sad and dry and the jus was little more than tepid salt-water. The pastrami sandwich was similarly uninspired with a few slices of deli pastrami on cold, supermarket-style rye bread. The hot dog was a lackluster Hebrew National.

But this is a fountain and they should really be judged on their fountain drinks. I figured there was some hope here, since at Disneyland, the sweets are nearly always better than the savories, but I was surprised at what I got.

I ordered a simple vanilla malt and what I got was a nearly flawless version of the classic specimen. The shake was thick but sippable through the straw, the malt was perfectly balanced with the ice cream, and yes, they even gave us that sadly endangered species, the metal cup with the overflow shake. Had they used home made whip cream instead of the can, it would have been perfect.

I wasn't expecting this milkshake to be so good partly because of the low quality of the food and partly because of the various absurd ice cream items on the menu, including various Disney themed toppings such as Mickey Mouse shaped sprinkles and Tinkerbell green marshmallow cream (which seems more akin to what you would get if you stepped on the fairy). I must say, though, that I'm now interested in trying some of their sundaes and other items.

The Fountain is usually packed after the more popular movies so avoid it as you're coming out of the latest Pixar release, and instead, go during show time, or better yet, take in a Tinkerbell movie.

Disney's Soda Fountain
6834 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90028
(323) 817-1475

Gelato Bar Los Feliz - Now Open

Last year, when I embarked on the LA Gelato Tour, Gail Silverton's Gelato Bar in Studio City was one of my favorite spots. Now, they have opened a second location on Hillhurst, in the space of the old Hollywood Gelato (which didn't come out so well in the Tour).

The gelato at the new location is just as good as the original's (though the servings seem smaller). Unfortunately, the Los Feliz branch has no espresso machine, which means no affogato. This is a serious oversight, since Gelato Bar makes one of the best affogatos around. Hopefully, it will soon be corrected.

They also carry Cake Monkey and other pastries.

Gelato Bar
1936 Hillhurst Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 668-0606

Vegas Journal: (Slightly) Off-Strip

While staying on the Las Vegas strip, we took a one-night jaunt off strip, back to the real world for Thai food and custard.


Lotus of Siam

There may be no more universally heralded restaurant in Vegas than Lotus of Siam. Praised by Jonathan Gold as the best Thai restaurant in North America as well as the best restaurant between the coasts, this Sahara Avenue strip mall Thai spot is a regular pilgrimage for visiting foodies.

Lotus of Siam is only slightly off strip. If you take the Las Vegas Monorail to the last stop, you get off right at Sahara and it's just about a mile walk east to Lotus of Siam.

If you frequent LA's great Thai restaurants in Thaitown or North Hollywood, you will immediately see a couple of differences from what you are used to. First, Lotus of Siam is the first Thai restaurant I've been to in a while that is mostly patronized by non-Thai people, or at least that was the case the night I was there. Second, they have an extensive wine list, focusing on German Rieslings. The crisp, sweetness of Rieslings, it turns out, are perfect for the spicy Thai flavors.

Now, I am sorry to disappoint, but I don't feel I can do justice to Lotus of Siam. Usually, to review a Thai restaurant, I would order at least five or six dishes, but our party was two people without a refrigerator in our hotel room to take food back to, so we were limited in our ordering.

Because of our limitations around quantity, we opened the extensive menu and skipped directly to the Northern Thai section, reputed to be home to the best dishes. The two dishes we picked from that menu were very good. The Northern Larb, a pork larb, similar to other larb's I've had but without lime, was excellent. The sourness of a traditional pork larb was replaced by a deeply, rich, meaty flavor, the type of flavor that appeals to your most basic flesh-eating instincts; I sopped up the juice with my sticky rice. The second main dish was a red curry with vermicelli and coagulated pork blood. It was very good, with deep, earthy flavors of pork and blood and some good spice. We also got a fried catfish salad from the regular menu; there were nice bites of fried catfish, but the salad was less interesting than the other dishes and didn't really come together as a whole.

While all the dishes were very good, I wasn't struck by lightening, as I sort of expected since this is the best Thai restaurant in the world, etc., etc. But as I said, I don't want to judge on this limited exposure to the menu; mostly, I want to go back and try more, especially some of the sausage dishes.

Lotus of Siam
953 E. Sahara Ave. Suite A5
Las Vegas, NV 89104
(702)735-3033


Luv-It Frozen Custard

For dessert, we meandered northeast to Luv-It Frozen Custard, a little stand just off Las Vegas Boulevard in the seedy area north of the strip. Luv-It has a variety of custard flavors and toppings. I ordered a Western: vanilla custard with hot fudge, caramel and pecans. This was good custard. Creamy without being slick, a nice vanilla flavor with no chemical aftertaste. Good frozen custard is hard to find in Southern California, so I was very happy to have this treat. Both the smooth, luscious flavor and the stand-around-eating-it ambiance brought me back to my days of eating Ted Drew's in St. Louis. Good times, good custard, and a perfect off-strip dessert after the spicy Thai food.


Luv-It Frozen Custard
505 E. Oakey Blvd.
Las Vegas, NV 89104
(702) 384-6452

The LA Gelato Tour

Recently, I've been in a gelato phase, lapping the stuff up like a thirsty mutt near a puddle. I've also been downing my share of affogato (gelato doused with espresso). Obsessive that I am, once I got the gelato jones, I had to try a broad swath of SoCal gelato and write it up.

Before we start, a brief note on the distinction between gelato and ice cream. Generally, gelato uses more milk and less cream than ice cream, so it actually has less fat. Because it is churned at a slower rate than ice cream, gelato also has less air whipped into it than ice cream. The rich, thick characteristic comes from the lack of air, not from added fat. Traditionally, gelato did not have eggs in the custard base, which ice cream generally does.

That being said, as a practical matter, there is a lot of murkiness in the distinction. Many people simply consider gelato to be an Italian style of ice cream and judge it based on presentation (e.g. laid out on trays rather than in tubs) and aesthetic rather than anything technical. I pretty much just went with places that called their product gelato. Note that I did not include Scoops on Heliotrope here since I believe they call their product ice cream, but hey, you all know Scoops rocks anyway and I was after places that were new to me.

Not every place offered an affogato but I tried to have one at each place that did (though I did miss one). The beauty of the affogato is that the rich espresso melds with the gelato and forms a heavenly coffee ice cream float. When done well, it is a beautiful gestalt of flavors, halfway between a solid and liquid but filled with flavor. When done poorly, it's a scoop of ice cream sitting in a cold puddle of coffee, a sad affair to say the least.

As I am wont to do, I've broken the contenders out into tiers to rank them.


FIRST TIER

Bulgarini Gelato, Altadena. I'm happy to report that the hype surrounding this Altadena gelato shop is well deserved. Tucked away in a run down strip mall anchored by a Rite-Aid and a Kragen on East Altadena Drive, just west of Lake, Bulgarini was my favorite gelato. The best flavors here were transcendent in both flavor and texture, particularly the olive oil yogurt, a fluffy, light as air tart frozen yogurt with a smooth olive oil taste topped with olive oil. It reminded me of some sort of olive oil foam you might get at Bazaar. The day I visited there was also a beautiful sheep milk and parsley gelato with madeira. Also excellent were the regular chocolate and the lemon cream. The Florentine chocolate, a chocolate with sea salt, had a nice chocolate flavor but was a bit too salty to have more than a bite.

Affogato is an off menu item at Bulgarini but they do make it. The one I had was very nice with a nice crema on the espresso and good proportions, but although they said it was an item they served, they asked for instruction on how to do it correctly. It was nice enough, but I would stick to the excellent gelato at this place.

Bulgarini Gelato
749 E. Altadena Dr.
Altadena, Ca. 91001
(626) 791-6174


Gelato Bar, Studio City. The biggest surprise in my gelato tour was how well this relatively unsung gelateria compared to the others. Owned by Gail Silverton, sister of Nancy, Gelato Bar offers innovative (though not overly weird) flavors that are bold without being too sweet. Their gelato is a perfect textural, specimen, rich and creamy with a dissolve in your mouth quality. It's neither as innovative nor as transcendent as Bulgarini but it is perhaps more what I think of as traditional gelato (at least in my American experience) done about the best way it can be done. My favorite flavors here were the chocolate sorbetto, stracciatella (chocolate chip), mango, ricotta and Veneziana (candied orange peel with chocolate).

The affogato at Gelato Bar was the best of the bunch. Made with a perfectly pulled Ecco Cafe espresso, whipped cream and Valrhona cacao nibs, the Gelato Bar affogato shows the importance of proper espresso preparation in the dish's composition. Gelato Bar makes a great espresso with a thick head of crema which blends perfectly with the scoops of gelato, creating that lovely synthesis that is the affogato. Why this place hasn't entered the pantheon of great LA gelatos is beyond me, but you owe yourself a trip.

Gelato Bar
4342 1/2 Tujunga Ave
Studio City, CA 91604-2751
(818) 487-1717


SECOND TIER

Pazzo Gelato, Silver Lake. I'd been looking forward to this popular Sunset Boulevard shop, but unlike Bulgarini, it did not live up to the hype. While I liked the milk chocolate, which had a Mexican chocolate spice to it, the flavors, in general, were too sweet, not intense enough and generally lacking in excitement.

The pazzagato, Pazzo's version of the affogato, got points off for using canned whipped cream and too much gelato. It's tempting, I'm sure, to load the cup up with gelato for the affogato, but moderation is part of the key. Too much ice cream turns the espresso cold and gives you the aforementioned cold puddle of coffee. And while I love Intelligentsia espresso in cappuccinos, it's too tannic for affogato, which really calls for something darker. The popularity of this place leads me to have serious questions about hipster tastes.

Pazzo Gelato
3827 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
(323) 662-1410


THIRD TIER

Al Gelato, Beverly Hills adjacent. This was another disappointing one for me. I'd heard a lot of praise for Al Gelato, on Robertson, but it simply didn't live up to the hype. The issues were similar to Pazzo Gelato: unexciting flavors, too sweet and a texture that lacked the rich and creamy qualities that I crave, and was even a bit icy, which is a cardinal sin of gelato. Al Gelato makes an affogato, but I didn't get to try it.

Al Gelato
806 S Robertson Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90035
(310) 659-8069


Hollywood Gelato, Los Feliz. Hollywood Gelato, on Hillhurst in Los Feliz, was simply uninspiring. The flavors were too sweet and the gelato was icy. It lacked the rich and creamy qualities that make a great gelato. Apparently they are not doing so well as they have scaled back their hours fairly severely. They didn't have an affogato on the menu.

Hollywood Gelato
1936 Hillhurst Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 644-3311


TO SUM UP

Best Gelato: Bulgarini with honorable mention for Gelato Bar

Best Affogato: Gelato Bar

Back to the Frier: Fear and Loathing at the LA County Fair

I love the LA County Fair and head out to Pomona every year for the festivities, but this year, I am worried that the fair food at has officially gone overboard. It all dates back six or seven years ago when the first fried Snickers bar appeared at the fair. The fried Snickers bar created food-oriented media coverage that went beyond the typical corn dog and barbecue fair food staples and people flocked to the fair to check it out. That is the earliest I remember the fair being a real food destination.

The thing about the battered, deep fried Snickers bar is that it is terrific. When done well (which is not always the case), the innards melt into a mash of chocolate, caramel and nuts which soaks into the fried batter in a most pleasing way. There are several fried Snickers purveyors at the fair, but the best is the Texas Donuts stand, near the Blue Gate parking entrance. This year, the stand added a new candy bar, identified only as a Fried Reese's. Now, this was not a peanut butter cup, so it must have been one of the Reese's bars. Since I don't really eat Reese's candy bars, I couldn't really tell which one it was, but based on an internet search, I'd guess a Fast Break. In any case, it was delicious; peanut butter cream and melted chocolate oozed out into the battered covering and made for a gooey, peanut butter treat. I've always wondered why they fry all manner of inappropriate things at the fair but don't fry more candy bars. Clearly they should.

But I digress, the fried candy bar is a good product, but it started a trend of frying more and more absurd things simply to get attention. Then, they started covering equally absurd items with chocolate. Now, the fair food pavilions look more like something from This Is Why You're Fat than anything you would want to eat. It is a victory of shock value over taste.

This year, selections included chocolate covered bacon, cotton candy, pickles and Cheetos. The new fried item of note was the Zucchini Weeni [sic], a battered, deep fried hot dog stuffed zucchini. I couldn't bear to try one.



The battered, deep fried zucchini was courtesy of Chicken Charlie, the fair's most prominent fried food vendor. Charlie is the one who first brought deep fried Twinkies, Oreos, frog's legs, Coke, s'mores and White Castle burgers to the fair, as well as the monstrosity that is the Krisy Kreme fried chicken sandwich. Charlie gets a lot of publicity for his efforts, but the truth is, I've never really enjoyed anything that I've purchased from his stand. The Oreos are not bad, but most of the food is lackluster. It's high concept, low quality, and a symbol of what has gone awry in Pomona.



So what was good at the fair this year aside from the deep fried candy bars? Well, I finally stopped at the cute little gingerbread house near the farml. The warm gingerbread cake was moist and nicely spiced, but it was topped with an ultra-light tasting whipped cream. Had it been topped with a heavier whipped cream, or even better, a homemade one, it would have been great.

And Dr. Bob's ice cream is always a fair treat. I was looking forward to the soy sauce ice cream I had heard reports about, but they weren't serving it the day I went. Instead, I had some wonderful blueberry ice cream, with strong blueberry flavor and lots of mashed blueberries throughout.

Even though I've grown a bit cynical about fair food, I look forward to the experience every year, and I will undoubtedly be back in 2010 to try the chocolate covered, deep fried ostrich fillets or whatever next year's specialty happens to be.

Fair Report 2008
Fair Report 2007

Unlucky Devils

It's always sad to see the decline of a good restaurant. More than once, I have witnessed a much loved eatery decline into mediocrity, and it's never fun.

I was a big fan of Lucky Devils when it first opened, with their juicy burgers, perfectly cooked fries and luscious, toasted pecan shake. I stopped going for multiple reasons, including the shrinking shake but also the inconvenient lack of high chairs once I had a high chair bound child. I recently went back a few weeks ago and was sorely disappointed.

The once great fries were now salted to death. The shake remains small but now also had a somewhat sour taste that was unpleasant and seemed to have less of a toasted pecan taste as well. The burgers were fine and the cobbler with frozen custard was still very good. Gone from the menu was one of my favorite desserts, the Kentucky Cream Cake.

In addition, the place itself doesn't look great. I'm not sure if they are in the process of remodeling or have just let it fall apart. There are parts of the walls which appear to be stripped of paint. The old TVs which ran a montage of extreme sport and nature shots have been replaced by regular TVs playing basketball games. In other words, the aesthetic, along with the food, has suffered.

The patronage has, as you might expect, dropped off. I went on a Thursday night and the place was empty. There was one other person there, a solo diner, during any part of our meal. The economy you say? Perhaps, but Loteria Grill, only two doors down, was packed on that same night.

I guess nothing goes on forever, but I will always remember the toasted pecan shake the way it was meant to be.

Gelato Bar

I happened upon Gelato Bar in Studio City recently and really enjoyed it. I had a coffee-mascarpone, a white chocolate gelato and a number of other excellent, very creamy and well flavored gelatos. Very good stuff.

I also ordered an espresso, which usually would be a throw-away at a gelato shop, but was very nicely pulled with a thick head of crema...intriguing.

I will definitely be heading back.

Gelato Bar
4342 1/2 Tujunga Avenue
Studio City, CA 91604
(818)487-1717

Come Fry With Me: Our Annual Sojourn to the LA County Fair

Every September we pack up and make the trek to the Pomona Fairplex for the LA County Fair. It's one of my favorite days of the year, a ritual marking the beginning of fall with fried food, barbeque, a curious number of hot tub vendors, farm animals and beer, lots and lots of beer. You can find my report on last year's Fair here. This year, I yet again indulged in an orgy of fried foods, sweets and meats and lived to tell about it.

Fried



It is a Fair tradition, and perhaps even a legal obligation, that every year, something new and unexpected must be plunged into the deep fat frier. Among the new offerings given the deep fried treatment this year were cupcakes, spam and pop tarts. Among the most repulsive sounding, though, was the deep fried White Castle burger, an entire White Castle slider dipped in batter and deep fried. To me, this demonstrates that the deep fried fair food phenomenon has moved from things that might actually taste good (Snickers, Oreos, artichoke hearts) to a focus on shock value, not unlike the booths asking fifty cents to see the world's smallest horse or largest steer (and hearkening back to the bearded woman and other freakshow oddities). As if sliders weren't gross enough on their own, the closest White Castle is more than 1,500 miles away from LA. So, these are frozen burgers dipped in batter and fried...double plus yuck.



I also have to say that Chicken Charlie's, the most prominent fried food stand at the Fair (pictured above), is pretty mediocre. There is good fried food if you seek it out, but I've never been particularly impressed by Charlie's. While I avoided the puke inducing sounding deep fried White Castle and spam, I did have an order of frog's legs. They were terrible. The order came with just two measly legs on a large bed of fries. The frog's legs tasted like tough, overcooked cod. Even the fries were mediocre, which for a place that touts its frying abilities, is pretty disgraceful. This is consistent with my experience last year with the monstrosity that was the Krispy Kreme fried chicken sandwich. Thankfully, they did not see fit to repeat that failed experiment.

For years, my favorite fried snack at the Fair has been the wonderful deep fried Snickers bar available at the Texas Donut Stand. The Stand lies about 100 yards to the right of the Budweiser Clydesdale display as you enter the Fairplex. Dropping the kids at the Bud stables, I headed out for my Snickers. To my shock and disappointment, Texas Donuts was nowhere to be found. I looked everywhere. I mean, sure, fair stands come and go, but Texas Donuts is an institution, and the deep fried Snickers was the initiator of the new fried novelty trend. It can't be gone.

Defeated, I wandered back toward the race track. There I saw a new mini-donut and ice cream stand that advertised a deep fried Snickers. Had this stand replaced Texas Donuts? I bought the Snickers, dreaming of the gestalt of melted chocolate, caramel, peanuts and fried batter, all blending into one magnificent experience, transcendence on a stick. But it was not to be. The new Snickers wasn't melted enough, the batter was too chewy; it just wasn't the same. I was utterly defeated, my favorite fair food destroyed, how could they do this to me?



Later, as we exited the Fairplex and drove around the outer gate, we saw through the gates on one of the hidden, out-of-the-way alleys...a Texas Donut stand. One stand, hidden away where only those who happened to turn into that lonely corner to see whatever was going on there (raccoon wrestling? bottle cap collections? masonry demonstrations?) would see it. Did they still have the Snickers? Was it still just as good? I'll have to find out next year.


Barbequed

I'm nearly always disappointed with fair barbeque. It always smells great and then tastes just okay. But this year, upon entering the Fair, I saw the much heralded Outlaw Grill,a grill, filled with charred meats, as big as a semi.



Actually, a grill that is a semi.




Faced with this amazing contraption, I had to try a sampling, so we indulged in a pulled pork sandwich, a brisket sandwich and a turkey leg. The pulled pork was decent, though not at all exceptional. The brisket was horrible; mealy and lacking in flavor. The best of the lot was actually the turkey leg, which surprised me because I tend not to like those giant, Flintstone sized turkey legs that they sell at the Fair. The ones I have had in the past are as touch as leather with a flavor to match. This one, however, was moist and tender with a good turkey flavor. And, of course, it's big enough to feed a family of four, or one hungry child.

Turkey leg, before,

...and after.


Dr. Bob's Ice Cream

I've long been a fan of Dr. Bob, but his pints, which I usually pick up at Bay Cities or Surfas, are never as good as the fresh scooped ice cream we get at the Fair. His famous strawberry, sour cream, brown sugar ice cream is grainy and indistinct out of the pint, but at the Fair, it's a perfect blend of sweet and fruit with a wonderful creamy texture. My favorite flavor, the Works, which is a blend of Scharffen-Berger chocolate and cacao nibs, does pretty well in the pint, but is still that much more wonderful in the cup or cone. This year, the old Dr. Bob's stand may have been my single greatest joy at the Fair.


The Cycle of Life

The great thing about the Fair is that you get to observe the full cycle of life. The barnyard exhibit houses fresh litters of pigs, baby goats, and the cutest little bunnies. Next year, they will have grown into the mothers feeding their young, and the year after that, they'll be battered, fried and shoved on a stick.

Next year's pulled pork sandwich.


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