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The Man Who Ate L.A.1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Itinerary | Home
Here, where the American dream runs on wheels, the many pit stops offer old-world flavours along the way. One second, you’re rolling through a Hispanic neighbourhood, but duck into the Löwenbräu Keller and you might as well be in a classic German-American restaurant in Milwaukee. Park at a mini-mall on Santa Monica Boulevard, and next thing you know, you’re indulging in basturma, an Armenian salami-like cured meat, and soujouk, a kind of sausage. East of Hollywood, in Little Armenia, I was not at all surprised to see that an often raved-about chicken joint, Zankou, was strictly an order-at-the-cash, Formica-table kind of place. But that shouldn’t fool you about the quality of its feature dish. Zankou’s rotisserie chicken is the most delectable bird imaginable and what everyone in the chicken game should aspire to: moist but with a good bite, served beside an intense garlicky paste whose specific composition is the source of many local speculations. Since L.A. is all about going from place to place in 20-minute car rides, this makes so-called progressive dining (where appetizers, entrées and desserts are eaten at different places) all the more interesting. If you’re like me –starting your progressive meal with ice cream at the marketplace, following it with an entrée of Korean pork belly barbecue and finishing with a round of taquitos – you should be able to see much of the real L.A. at the same time. Focusing on those relatively inexpensive places where people do not go to show off but to eat well and enjoy themselves helps, I think, open your senses to the life of what is, despite the smoke and mirrors, a working city. In fact, after landing at LAX, I headed straight from the airport to Randy’s Donuts for a quick coffee and cruller, just to stand in the shadow of Randy’s 32½-foot-high doughnut – a landmark as significant to L.A. and its general esthetic as the Hollywood sign. Afterwards, wondering about the purple blossoms of the jacaranda trees, I went along Pico Boulevard in Westwood, where I could smell the burgers cooking at the Apple Pan even before I stepped in. With its screen doors and red leatherette seats, the Apple Pan has the feeling of a country wayside kitchen. They even serve sodas in old-fashioned conical paper cups, and the waiters have a strange custom of pouring out a big slop of ketchup for you on a paper plate to dip your fries in. Choosing between the steak burger and hickory burger can be trying when you’re not yet quite comfortable saying, “I’ll have one of each.” California cuisine, that dependable fusion of bistro styles that has influenced so much of contemporary food thinking, is a relatively recent invention, and Angelenos were just as tardy as the rest of North America in coming to arugula salads and apricot reductions. In Culver City, not far from the studio where they film Jeopardy!, the aroma of frying corn tortillas wafts through the area near the underpass, generally hypnotizing passersby in a way that fruit confit does not. While some may claim they are not authentically Mexican, Tito’s Tacos specializes in the kind of taco that is indigenous to California, the ur-model that dreadful taco kits try to replicate in supermarkets everywhere. But Tito’s beef tacos on crisp shells could charm the world. The only choice you have is with bright orange cheese or without and, whether you’re a Canadian tourist or George Clooney, if you want one, you have to stand in line. |
