We Eat LA

The spaghetti and clams at Sotto.  I promise you it does not suck.

Sorry I haven’t updated this blog in awhile. I’ve been busy watching “Sherlock” on the BBC, which is a modern adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s supersleuth. Leave it to the Brits to combine serial killing with math conundrums.  It’s like hard core porn sprinkled with extra addictive methamphetamine for nerds.

Speaking of life-wasting television programming, it dawned on me after watching the four thousandth repeat of “Friends” that sitcom pals always live in the same building.When is the last time you lived in the same building as a close friend of yours? College? Never?  What the fuck? The entire cast of “Three’s Company” lived in the same 90 foot radius. It never happens - unless you happen to be eating at Picca, the newest L.A. arrival of Peruvian cuisine extraordinaire (this blog has already profiled Mo-Chica and Chimu).  

Picca is located right upstairs from its Italian foil, Sotto (also profiled on this blog). Its building is officially the 227 of west L.A. eateries. 

The place was jam packed when I went on a Wednesday night at 9 pm. The food was worth eating four inches away from complete strangers. The highlights: conchas a la parmesana (scallops with parmesan and spinach), the rocoto/aji amarillo/sea urchin shooters, the duck leg with cilantro rice, and chicharron de costillas.  

My god.  Great meal.  Come after prime-time hours if you want to hear your dinner companions or yourself think.  And bring a friend - perhaps one that lives in your building.

Picca, 9575 West Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90035, (310) 277-0133.

Some of you may not know that soft tofu, one of my favorite things on earth, is a bean curd made from emulsifying soy milk until it becomes solid in its coagulated form.

At Jinya Robata, you can order the “organic” tofu that puts the emulsification process right at your dinner doorstep.

10 points for creativity, I have to admit…but the child in me still yearns for the version that has had a little more time to catch its breath…a little more time to embrace its firmer, cubic form.  This drive-in movie version was a little sloppy.  But the food at Jinya otherwise is quite good.

Jinya Robata, 8050 W 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90048, (323) 653-8877.

Good-natured white guy behind me in line for Chimu (the new Peruvian downtown rival to Mo-Chica): “Hmm, should we get lamb shank or tongue?”

Other good-natured white guy next to him: “Ew, tongue? I’m going with the lamb shank.”

And there you have it folks.  The caucasian fear of beef tongue, front and center. Now, to the friend’s credit, he professed his own love for lengua so at least I can superficially entertain the notion that I’m simply being racist here.

But I’ve seen it time and time again. Are some muscle organs simply off limits? Do people equate tongue to testicles?  Is it the unconscious association with the muscle organ most us relate to bad french kissing or Jabba the Hut? 

I don’t know and I don’t care.  I’m taking a stand here against consumptive close mindedness.  Er, at least next time I’m taking a stand.  This time I got a pork and cheese pupusa from Sarita’s and the lamb shank from Chimu.  It was fucking delicious.

Chimu and Sarita’s Papuseria, Grand Central Market, 317 S Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90013

Third Street east of La Cienega is getting crowded as shit. Lots of new eateries amidst taxpayer-subsidized urban development programs.  One of these new places is a really tiny, casual pizza joint called Olio.

Pretty decent pizzas (no beer or wine served yet), although despite the waiter’s protestations to the contrary, the burrata was added a little too early to the burrata margherita, resulting in the loss of the crucial cold texture that I crave so much.  I had much better luck with the eggplant pie.

Olio Pizzeria and Cafe, 8075 W 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90048, (323) 930-9490.

Two of the very best things at Sotto, a new Italian restaurant located a mere mile away from my apartment and the Fox network lot, are not pictured below amongst the sardines with fennel and crushed olive-pistachio vinaigrette or the highly regarded casarecce (braised lamb ragu, egg and pecorino).

No no, my friends - two of the very best things I tasted here are the chickpea panelle and the spaghetti with clams and zucchini.

Both of these items have a few things in common: they both radiate the illusion of being simple and light. They are neither. Their brilliance and complexity is in their simple presentation, but the facade belies their robust flavor and texture.

Frankly, I could have eaten three tubs of the pasta.  The darker casarecce was tasty, but in a bout of reverse-starch jungle fever, I found myself being drawn toward the lighter spaghetti.

I’m sure there is an additional racial metaphor in here somewhere, but I’ll let it go.

Sotto, 9575 Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90035, (310) 277-0210.

When people alternately describe a restaurant as having both “great food” and also being in kind of a “dumpy area”, you know for a fact I am going to kow-tow it immediately to such a place.  The City of Angels is built upon such eateries: sublime omakase sushi joints located in barren strip malls, great Chinese haunts located in nondescript Alhambran bomb shelters, and the world’s best pastrami sandwiches located on possibly the crappiest block in town.

Sultan Chicken is no different.  It has an “A” health rating, but I’m not quite sure how. I’m also not quite sure I care.

This is not a place to take a first date. However, this is an excellent place to take a fourteenth date. The rotisserie chicken here is on par with Zankou’s - try the #1 special with the garlic sauce. It is moist, delicious and the skin is glowing to perfection. My colleague also tried the chicken provencal (or is it provencial?) special with eggplant, which was lauded with personal accolades.

I’m coming back here soon, because I’m tired of schlepping to Hollywood for a good garlic chicken. Also, no need to bring a jacket on a cool spring day - its like 86 degrees in the shop. Try to snag a table outside amongst the Downtown riff raff.

Sultan, 311 W 6th Street, Downtown Los Angeles, CA 90014, (213) 236-0604.

Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino in any non-“Heat” movie.

Expensive furniture and little children.

Jean shorts/sandals/tank tops and any guy.

These are things that are independently non-offensive, but nauseating when thrown together.

You can add a “John O’Groats bacon and cheddar biscuit” and the “Santa Monica stairs workout” to the list as well.

John O’Groats, 10516 West Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90064, (310) 204-0692.

Years ago, I happened to make the superficial acquaintance of a Hollywood producer with a bit of a “reputation.” Not a reputation for artistry or problem-solving know-how, but rather one of a more lascivious nature: local legend had it that he had slept with so many women, he had reached the carnal tipping point. He no longer found the idea of sex to be that stimulating.

Um, what? I was flabbergasted. Who does this asshole think he is?  How dare he casually disregard an aspect of life many uphold to be of prime importance, if not sacred (my strict Catholic friends, I’m looking at you).

This past Sunday I thought of this man for the first time in years after finishing a meal at Salt’s Cure on Santa Monica Blvd.  By all accounts, it was a first-rate brunch and I felt satiated and grateful I could partake in it.  But I couldn’t shake that nagging feeling of being….jaded.

French press coffee?  Meh.

Los Angeles Magazine stating that this place will “have you counting the days til next Sunday morning”?  Yawn.

Duck hash with a ham (locally raised) & cheese sandwich?  Snooze.

Pork liver terrine with mustard seeds?  Hmpth.

Is it hard for me to get excited anymore? Have I become the self-indulgent, self-satisfied, ennui-ridden food equivalent of the douchebag Hollywood producer? Have I lost my way?

Such existential thoughts of terror flashed across my mind for the remainder of the day.  However, the next morning, I woke up with an acute craving for the tangerine roll I started my Sunday brunch with, and all was right with the world again.

Salt’s Cure, 7494 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90046, (323) 850-7258.