Canny Maunderings Threnodies Psittacisms Sciolisms Recommendations ScobberLinking MuzzyStrumpets
Here are some recommendations, of
various kinds. Enjoy, I have.
Lola Gaspar
211 West 2nd Street in Santana
Thanks god there's another place
open on Sundays in downtown. Lola
Gaspar is great, no matter what the OC Weekly's had to say (somebody woke up on
the wrong side of the bed I guess).
I've had the lobster BLT (have I mentioned the soft spot I have for the
age old BLT), the burrito, the cheese plate, the meat plate, and some other
stuff off the menu, and have not been disappointed yet. I usually stick with a Blue Moon. A nice place (before it gets too loud)
for good, dim conversations. At
least once I've seen patrons pulling out their laptops. Good to see that one can go to a place
and "work" while enjoying themselves. The hanging light is fantastic. Update: holy
shit they have Absinthe! No
really! Thanks god that the US
federal government decided to legalize wormwood. Whether or not Lucid's frenchie-style "superieure"
absinthe which is served up at Lola Gaspar is the one for the purist or not, I
am just tickled fluorescent-green that I have the option of acting pretentious
and drinking an absinthe outside of the confines of my dank dwellings. The absinthe fountain that they have,
but don't use, sure is pretty to look at to boot.
Britta's Cafe
4237 Campus Drive in Irvine
This review is a long time coming
from me as I've been going to Britta's for some time now. I tried and tried to find Stealhead
likeable, but they never found me likable. They always treated me like a college kid. Britta's, on the other hand, treats you
like you are an adult, as though you are human. The bar is usually open and quiet, with no TV's. It is a nice, big, beautiful
old-school-ish bar with tall wood, and all the right appointments. Four to eight beers on tap, of the
American, German, Irish, and British persuasions. Excellent wine selection, and a full bar. Get hungry, score a wood fired
pizza. Such a nice and calm place
in the sea of bland Irvine-ness.
Oh, get the cheese plate to expand your horizons.
Broadway Billiards
225 1/2 North Broadway, Santana
I suck at pool, and having two
goat heads on the wall doesn't make my score higher, but it does make the game
better. What a fantastic Santana
landmark! Subterranean. Dank. I usually try and skip budwieser, but I can't here. A pitcher of it and an hour of pool,
doesn't set me back much. I rue
the day when they have to go ADA.
I'm all for the ADA, but not at any cost, and not at the cost of this
historical treasure. The magic
music box is stocked with a great variety of music as well. Hungry? Cup 'o Noodles.
Come on!
Rancho de Mendoza
104 East 4th Street, Santana
Holy shit are these beans
good. Better'an La Sirena's. Upstairs its cumbia (which I can't
stand for too long, as it puts me to sleep faster than Gangie's warm milk), and
downstairs its food. Breakfast is
fun. Coffee's not that bad
either. Music gets too loud, even
downstairs, sometimes. But that's
just me.
Cafe Lucca
106 North Glassell Street in
Orange
www.cafelucca.com
This place is becoming my favorite
cafe in southern California. Its
no Cafe Stradda up the Berkeley way, but it sure beats practically any other
cafe I've experienced in this land of Starbucks. But from looking at it, you might think that Cafe Lucca is
trying to do too many different things to do any particular one of them
justice. Hearty, rustic menu items
for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, gelato, espresso, niche beers, with seating
for the lazy sun soakers out front, the college study crowd in back, and the
antique shoppers in the middle–all in the same place?!? Well, so far they've pulled it off. I forgot to mention, the atmosphere is
out of this Orange County world.
No really. I've been in
cafes all over Europe, and this is the closest one I've found in the
cafe-forsaken land. Tall ceilings,
beautiful, wooden doors, nice and pleasant music, and courteous staff that
won't continual annoy you with questions.
S٤. (Only drawback so far
is that their americanos are ridiculously large.) A Small update.
Americanos can be ordered in smaller portions, but you must
specify. More importantly, I am
floored by how good the mushroom soup is.
I've never been a fan of mushroom soup, but this stuff is out of this
world! Seriously. Also, the cold pasta salad is
good. But the soup!
Tacos Colima
519 South Main Street in Santana
Wow. Yesterday it was bowl of Pozole (the white kind, instead of
the red kind), and two tostadas de ceviche. Twelve bucks for a big bowl of pork and hominy and two heaping mounds of
shrimp–not bad at all. But
it was worth much more than we were charged, given the flavors. Wow. Next time I'll go back to my old favorite, the suedero
torta, for old times sake. It
closes at nine, and is in the parking lot of the a seafood place (which means
that the waitress would work at Hooters if there was such a place
here–and thanks god there ain't) where you can get a bowl of turtle soup
to go with your venison steak.
Hollingshead
Burrell's BBQ
305 N Hesperian Street in Santana
http://www.washington-square.org/Restaurants/Burrells_BBQ.htm
I'd never had good dirty rice till
I had it here. I was nervous about
straying away from beef ribs, but they'd earned my trust with the consistently
good, wood smoked beef ribs. And I
trust them even more now. It was
dirty. I found a chicken wing of
all things. And since then, when
out for a walk, I stopped by for a four dollar fifty cent bbq sandwich. Good lord was it tasty. They don't serve alcohol, so bring your
own beer if you eat in the beautiful garden.
Red Lion Tavern
2366 Glendale Blvd in LA
Here's a place were some of the
waitresses actually speak German, where you can get something like an authentic
beer garden experience. Ten good
German beers on tap, and authentic Bierstube menu items. I've had the wieners and the potato
salad (of course), and they're good.
One of the only places I feel at home in LA these days (since Father's
Office went to shit half a decade ago). I could do without the silly costumes they make their
wait staff wear.
Teri's Cigar Company
310 East First Street in Santana
I love Teri's Cigars. I've never met Teri, but I've met his
kids who handle the daily operations, two excellent gentlemen. Before I found this place, I had smoked
cigars every once in a while, never knowing which cigars I liked, having always
forgotten. Moreover, I had always
felt like folks at cigar shops were too ... arrogant. But when I discovered Teri's, all that changed. I smoked every cigar they had, to try
them out. They have ten cigar
types, but when you count in the variations of wrappers, they have eighteen
different cigars. I decided on a
favorite, the Cuban Round Small, with the lite wrapper. They describe it as "Medium and
Full." Oh lordy is it a nice
cigar. Smoked while drinking a
glass of iced Pulque from Gonzalez Market ... a perfect day in Santa Ana (yes,
you heard correct, you can get Pulque at Gonzalez). Only down side are their hours; I think they close at 4:00 or 4:30 on weekdays, and 12:00 on
Saturdays. But that is a small
price to pay for buying cigars directly from the dudes who make them. Well worth it in my book.
Pena's Mexican Restaurant
1221 East 1st Street in Santana
Good lord is the food good! Of course had tacos de cochinita pibil,
but then also a bowl of the green pozole.
This is perhaps the best "sit-down" Mexican I've had. The food was delivered to me by one of
the owners, which impresses me beyond belief. Uncommonly wanna-be authentic
atmosphere too (just like "authentic" Irish places). And an unexpected plus: the coffee is
really good. And thank god the TV
wasn't on when I was there.
El Indio Tortillas Factory
1502 West 5th Street (At Pacific)
in Santana
elindiotortilleria.com
Wow. Tried the Costillas Con Chile Verde. Costillas are, as I understand it, beef
ribs cut laterally, so that the ribs are just like disks. Those are the costillas you get from El
Toro, or from Bodega. But these
costillas tasted like pork, and the bones seemed to be of a smaller
diameter. Regardless, the meat
fell off the bones, and into the pool of chile verde. Sweet Jesus.
Rice and beans of course.
And the tortillas. These
tortillas are different than the ones the sell for take-away. I asked if they were "con
mechanica, or manos" (my Spanish sucks–perhaps I asked,
inadvertently, if I was supposed
to eat them with my hands or with machines, but I don't think so). The waitress said
"manos." However they
were made, they were some awesome tortillas. When I go back next time I'll either have the six
taquitos for 4.50, or I'll have a mulita for 4.00, what ever that is. No beer, but lots of good michoacan
pride hanging on the walls.
Chowder Barge
611 North Henry Ford Avenue in
Wilmington
This place is easy to
misunderstand. You walk into the
place, sit down, and look at the menu and think you've walked onto a David
Lynch set, only this one ain't "all white at the bottom." More than half of the items on the menu
are fried; the beer tastes watered down; the place stinks of tar; the entire
barge is listing, ever so slightly; and the waitresses look like they belong in
the school cafeteria. Fireplaces,
hanging from the ceiling, occasionally sway. Sit near a window, which is easy, and you have a view of the
bilge. You get sick and have to go
to the bathroom, just quietly slither past the wall-eyed, toothless, frisky,
drunk dude at the bar and you'll be fine.
I love this place for what it is, genuine. I've eaten the fired seafood, I've drank the beer, and I'll
do it again. You order a pitcher
for seven or eight bucks, and if the waitress is friendly, which some are, your
mugs will be brought full of beer, in addition to the pitcher of beer. You can't get that at the Yard
House. It is very difficult to
find. Once you do find it, you'll
discover it's located in the middle of a floating trailer park.
German Drinks in Orange
County: Within a half-hour drive
from UCI's campus are a number of great places to have German beer on tap, find
obscure, bottled German beer, and in some cases, excellent German food. At the
top of the list has to be Hollingshead on Main Street in Santa Ana, and then a
close second is Mattern Sausage on Chapman Avenue. Both places close early, but
both have a great selection of German beer and Stube grub. Old World in Costa
Mesa has a Ratskeller with a good selection on tap, and good food. If you are
feeling fancier, there's the Phoenix Club which has an okay bar, but they do
have some good traditional entertainment on occasion. There's also the
Jagerhaus not far away from the Phoenix Club, also in Anaheim, with good food,
but no real bar to speak of. But its all about Hollingshead and Mattern
Sausage.
Fabrizi Espresso In Salzburg:
Fabrizi Espresso serves the finest coffee in Salzburg. It was there that I was
able to get the most work done. Two Glockenspeil employees (Mike and Charlie)
decided to go into business on their own while the Glockenspeil is being
renovated. They are now in a building which was erected in 1258. Particularly
nice about Fabrizi Espresso is the fact that an owner is always there. It takes
on a home-away-from-home feel after a while, something that can't be found at
Tomaselli's or any of the other big coffee houses.