Friendliest Place to Dine: Daphne’s Greek Cafe March 18, 2008

I don’t ususally eat fast food. I’m not a health nut by any means (you probably figured that one out by now), but I just think they are evil (with exceptions of sub shops).  The only time I would eat at a place like McDonald’s is if it is the absolute last place I can grab something to eat before I die of starvation. After I watched Morgan Spurlock nearly kill himself by only consuming items purchased at the Golden Arches for a month in his documentary, I began asking myself if I wanted to keep putting that kind of junk in my body. And the answer was a big, fat, greasy, supersized ”hell no.”  Sure, I eat food that are not good for me all the time (more than I care to admit), but I don’t have any desire to pollute myself with artificial, chemical-laden food like the ones served at fast food joints. (But I must say, those cocaine-laced French Fries still taste pretty darn good.)

What I’ve noticed in the last few years is the emergence of places that I call “semi-fast food” – restaurants that serve delicious, relatively-healthful food quick, and I’m so thankful of these places.  One of my favorite “semi-fast food” establishments is California Chicken Café that offers a generous portion of rotisserie chicken, salads and other comforting sides for people on the go (although the place specializes in chicken, it is very vegetarian-conscious). Another one of my favorites is Daphne’s Greek Café that features a colorful array of affordable Greek food.

I love everything about Greek food – spanakopita, falafel, dolmas, hummus, feta cheese, pita, everything. I also love the fact that Greek food in general is very friendly to people with particular dietary needs — whether it be no meat, low carbohydrate or low fat  – and we can all still have good, satisfying eats.

For lunch, two vegetarians ordered Vegetarian Plates …
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And one Adkin guy ordered a steak salad (the spicy feta cheese here is amazing!) and we were all very, very happy (so happy that we had to force ourselves to return to work). 
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Daphne’s Greek Café
1781 N. Victory Place, Burbank, CA 91502
★★★★☆

French Cafe for the Young at Heart: French 75 Bistro January 30, 2008

As a kid, I always hated getting stuck in the “kid’s table” at parties. You remember those tables, don’t you?  They were the ones in the dark corner where your parents stick you in with other smelly kids while they and other grown-ups indulged in good conversation and way better food than what we kids got.  While sitting on a cheap plastic chair and enduring annoying brats pulling my pigtails from each direction, I promised myself that I too will sit at the grown-ups’ table someday and enjoy a party with dignity.

Twenty-some years later, equipped with maturity (although questionable at times) and a bank account (if you can call it that), I now had the luxury to seat myself at a grown-up’s table with my grown-up friends.

The table we grown-ups selected tonight was in French 75 Bistro, a little French restaurant tucked away in the lobby of an office building in Burbank. We sat ourselves at the (fake) candle-lit bar and ordered fancy champagnes and cocktails, along with fancy appetizers. As I took a sip of Pomegranate Kir (a bubbly with pomegranate juice … yum), I realized that I had finally made it. I was not a kid anymore! I was da shit, ya’ll!  I was all GROWN UP! Hooray!

Then, on the way to the ladies room located in the back of the restaurant, all my beliefs came to a shatter. On the other side of the bar was a REAL French restaurant – an elegant, sophisticated, upper-class dining room where they served dishes like Filet au Roquefort and “Luxe,” (filet mignon and lobster beignet with béarnaise sauce) to people dressed up in fancy dresses – a far cry from the order of happy hour French Fries we were sharing at the bar. Here, in a pair of beat up jeans and raggedy sweater, I was once again back in the dark corner of the room.  I never felt more like a kid. 

But when I returned to the table and looked at my friends, I realized that this was where I belonged — at the kids’ table — and there was nowhere else I’d rather be. We were crazy, loud, playful, happy, carefree and completely childlike, and I loved everything about it. Maybe I’ll never become one those elegant, sophisticated, mature women that I always wanted to be, but that’s okay because the kid’s table is where the real fun is.

Check out what the kids ordered: 

Lobster Bisque with Sweet Paprika Cream

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Dungeness Crab Cake with Corn-Pepper Sauté, Spicy Provencale Aioli

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Spicy Tuna Tartare with Avocado, Crispy Sesame Wafers, Chile Sauce

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‘Bistro Burger’ — 8 oz. Ground Angus Sirloin on Toasted Brioche Bun with French Secret Sauce and Roquefort, Cheddar or Gruyere Applewood Smoked Bacon upon request

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Crepe

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Bread Pudding

 

French 75 Bistro
3400 W. Olive Avenue, Burbank, CA 91505
★★★★☆

To Die For? Takeshi Ramen October 14, 2007

Although I grew up in a Japanese culinary culture where ramen is a staple in almost every household, it never became something that I ate regularly. Don’t get me wrong, I like ramen very much, especially the Hakata-style. Nothing rivals the richness of the milky flavor of tonkotsu broth with thick noodle.  I could never pinpoint the exact reason why I refused to welcome it into my regular culinary repertoire (I would eat it, say, once every five to six months) but the only thing that comes to mind is my mother telling me that I would die from eating ramen growing up because of its high sodium content in the broth.  As a result, I’ve always associated ramen with slow, painful death. Threats and guilt always works in the Japanese family.  Very healthy, I know. 
However, once in a blue moon, against my mother’s warning, my body yearns for the salty bowl of ramen, especially when it gets colder outside as it has been lately. So when my epicurean friend suggested going to a nearby ramen restaurant that he frequents for lunch, I jumped at the opportunity to indulge in the ultimate Japanese comfort good.
Takeshi Ramen is a little ramen shop located on Brand Avenue, in the heart of Downtown Glendale. The regular clienteles consist of business people from the surrounding office buildings and the place gets a little busy during the peak lunch hour. This explains why it took us a while to get seated, not to mention the fact that there was only one poor guy serving the place that easily sat 50 people (I’d say about 15 tables).
But the wait gave us the chance to look through the menu that consisted of everything you can think of in Japanese lunch menu, from standard ramens (shoyu (soy sause), miso, shio (salt) and tonkotsu (pork bone)), curry rice, ginger beef and hiyashi chuka (cold ramen) and assortments of desserts.

We ordered a plate of fried oysters and gyoza for appetizers to share and we each ordered tonkotsu ramen as our main dish. Oysters and gyozas were just okay and I’ve had better, but I was just happy that I was having something other than my regular salad bar lunch from the office cafeteria or a packed lunch I bring from home to save a little bit of money.

Well, I’m not a ramen expert (I even think Umakacchan, the instant ramen, is friggin darn good) but it was not bad. The noodle was cooked with a little bit of firmness left, the broth milky, rich and satisfying, and the chashu pork was tender and flavorful. I added a swirl of rice vinegar and chili oil to mild out the flavor and it kicked up the flavor to the next level.
Although ramen is still not something to die for, so to speak, I would definitely incorporate Takeshi Ramen into my regular lunch rotations.
I think mom will be happy with that.

Takeshi Ramen:  126 North Brand, Glendale, CA 91203

★★★☆☆

A Timeless Treasure: Porto’s Bakery and Cafe October 10, 2007

Maybe I have OCD. Not severe like Melvin Udall but I do strange things sometimes that are quite unexplainable, which makes me believe that I may have a baby OCD (if there is such a thing). For example, I set all my clocks forward 45 minutes. The logic behind it is that by forwarding them 45 minutes, I will never over-sleep or be late to places. Even if the alarm doesn’t work and I wake up at, say, 8:00 a.m. (which is late), I actually haven’t overslept because it’s still 7:15 a.m. And 45 minutes is not random. My snooze button goes off every nine minutes. Therefore, I can snooze five times and still wake up on time. This logic, however, doesn’t work because I still manage to somehow arrive late to work more often than I’d like to admit.  But the fact that I still refuse to change this behavior confirms that I have some serious issues. 

But, maybe my issue is not OCD but just that I’m not a morning person. In fact, I have trouble getting up every morning. I also don’t eat breakfast because I don’t like to put anything in my mouth before 10:00 a.m. Furthermore, I’m extremely cranky before my first cup of tea. Simply put, I’m pretty much a non-functional zombie in the a.m.  Until I walked into Porto’s.

I stopped by Porto’s Bakery and Café in Burbank (the lesser known branch of the two, in Glendale, although very popular in its own rite) on the way to work this morning to pick up a birthday cake for my special friend/colleague. I was half-asleep and cranky as hell as I parked my car and walked toward the entrance on Magnolia and Hollywood Way. But something magical happened when I sat foot in this popular Cuban eatery. The welcoming scent of the freshly baked baguettes, butter croissants, and the nutty aroma of freshly brewed coffee awakened all my senses and this zombie was suddenly alive. And the sight of Guava and Cheese Strudels, Apricot-Cheese Danishes, Carrot Apple Muffins, and a colorful array of whole cakes fresh out of the oven, even wet my appetite that I absolutely had to pick up a pastry for myself for breakfast.

I selected the whole Chocolate Raspberry Mouse cake, which the birthday gal and I, along with other friends and colleagues, enjoyed at lunch. The combination of silky chocolate and tangy raspberry mouse melted in my mouth like magic. It was so light and smooth that, although most of us were full from decadent lunch, we managed to eat the entire cake and even licked the plates clean. 

Aside from sweets, Porto’s also offers wide selections of savory dishes, from fresh salads to Cuban sandwiches. My favorite (and everyone else’s too) is, hands down, the famous Potato Balls. Once you take a bite out of the warm, croquette made out of mashed potatoes and seasoned ground beef, your culinary world will never be the same. Media Noche Sandwich, a Cuban ham, pork and Swiss cheese sandwich served on a toasted sweet roll, is the close second. 

Everything served at Porto’s is timeless, and it’s never too early or late to dive into the heavenly treasures … even for a nocturnal like myself.

Porto’s Bakery and Cafe:  3614 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, CA 91505

★★★★★

Shabby and Chic: Riverside Cafe October 8, 2007

One of the commercials on television today is Sour Patch Kids candy, where a chewy, sugar coated sour candy figure plays terrible pranks on people, only to get away with it because, “first they’re sour, then they’re sweet.” I don’t know anyone who’s charm is so big that they can actually get away with chopping off someone’s hair, throwing eggs with intent to hurt, and allowing a cheerleader to fall on her butt, but if that happens to be the case for you, good for you, you lucky bastard.

When it comes to a restaurant, however, there is a place that is so lovely and charming that it can get away with pretty much anything – even tables and chairs made out of cheap plastic straight from Home Depot. 

Tucked away in the residential neighborhood of Burbank is Riverside Café, a roadside French bistro so tiny that you can drive by it and never realize that you just passed a little gem of a place. The restaurant serves selections from an authentic French menu, from French Onion Soup to lamb – a little difficult to believe from the extremely humble, bungalow-like exterior.

I ordered a medium rare Maitre’d (top), a 12 oz. steak smothered in rich and flavorful garlic butter mixed with a generous portion of chopped Italian parsley. The meat was a little on a tough side but a full juicy flavor burst in my mouth at every bite. My boyfriend ordered the Shepard Pie (above), a layer of seasoned, slow-cooked ground beef resting nicely between a bed of mashed potatoes from the chef’s daily offerings, with a side of crisp French fries (which I devoured most of, as usual).

A dining experience at Riverside Café is like having an intimate dinner at friend’s — a friend who has absolutely no sense of style with her not-so-chic-but-very-shabby floral table cloth and plastic furniture but can cook up a wonderful and cozy meal that will compensate for all the shortcomings.

Riverside Café: 1221 W. Riverside Drive, Burbank, CA 91506

★★★★☆

Strenghts Discovered: California Cookshack October 4, 2007

Marcus Buckingham, the co-author of Now, Discover Your Strengths and a string of organizational effectiveness books, spoke at my work the other day to ①plug his new career development program (for men) and ②grant the most amazing and fabulous one hour of our lives (for women). He was handsome, charismatic, well spoken, funny and … British.  Need I say more?

Between wiping off the drool and trying to remain somewhat composed (it was, afterall, a company event), I heard him speak about his basic philosophy — that success comes from enhancing one’s strengths and not necessarily from pouring all the effort into improving his/her weaknesses.

I would say that Mr. Dreamboat will surely be proud of California Cookshack, a popular coffee shop located in South Pasadena that only focuses on serving breakfast to locals. Moreover, the restaurant is open only on a weekend.  Talk about finetuning its strength and not messing around.

And strenght it is.  The menu is pretty straightforward – with the basic selections of eggs, bacon, pancakes and all the usual suspects  – but one thing that sets this place apart from other coffee shops is the generous portion of the moist coffee cake that accompanies every meal. It is called a coffee cake but it’s more like an old-fashioned corn bread with a bit of a twist, and it could, I kid you not, be the best freebie you’ll ever get before 9:00 a.m..  It is simply divine. 

I’ve had several breakfasts here and my favorite is the make-your-own omelet. I like mine with spinach, tomatoes and feta cheese – simple but full of flavor (top). The Breakfast Burrito (above) is not bad either although it’s terrifying to see that it is almost the size of your face.

I wish I can sit on my ass all day and eat, eat and eat because I’m quite good at it (Look, mum!  I can make that burrito disappear!). But what Mr. Dreamboat neglected to mention is what you’re suppose to do if your strength happens to also be your bloody weakness. 

California Cookshack: 1929 Huntington Dr., South Pasadena, CA 91030

★★★★☆