South Africa

Chicken curry bunny chow

Bunny chow does not come in a bag labeled “Purina”, nor is what Glenn Close was cooking in “Fatal Attraction”; in fact, despite a variety of preparations, it doesn’t appear to contain any rabbit at all. Bunny chow originated as a quick, handy and sloppy street food in Durban, South Africa and popularized by Indian migrant workers. The closest thing Americans can relate to would be the sourdough chowder bowl, except the bread is a loaf of white bread and the filling of choice is curry (originally vegetable, but gradually adding in meats). Although bunny chow’s popularity has spread throughout South Africa, Durban is still the bunny chow capital and since 2004 has been the host of the annual Bunny Chow Barometer, a contest sponsored by Coca-Cola in search of the best in the city. Bunny Chow is generally ordered by the amount you want and the type of curry (for instance, you could get a quarter chicken or a half mutton). The chunk of bread removed from the loaf and placed on top of the bunny is called the “virgin” (unsoiled by the decadent curry), but it generally doesn’t stay virgin long. Bunny chow is the perfect street food, essentially a self-contained meal that’s hearty and filling.

The World Fare Bustaurant

Bunny chow as street food has come to America and is the main offering of the unique World Fare Bustaurant food truck in Los Angeles County. The term food truck really doesn’t apply here – like Tom Jackson’s Rescue Juice fire truck, World Fare utilizes an unusual vehicle for their rolling kitchen and dining room: a double-decker bus. Owner and South African expatriate Travis Schmidt and his partner Jason Freeman purchased an old tour bus in San Diego and converted it into a two-level dining experience. Don’t expect a candy-apple red bus like you’d see barreling down the streets of London; the brown behemoth is covered with a map of the world made from a collection of photographs, and if you look closely you will recognize people in the pictures. The entire first floor has been converted to a full kitchen where nothing is impossible; creating the South African specialty is the job of Southern Californian Chef Andi Van Willigan, whose resume includes a stint as corporate executive chef for the Michael Mina Group and serving a 2-season sentence as Gordon Ramsay’s sous chef on Hell’s Kitchen. After ordering and picking up your food at the window, you can eat on the street as the South Africans do, or on the converted upper deck; lately World Fare has been experimenting with having live music with the performers serenading diners from the second story.

Bunny chow!

The signature menu features four types of bunny chow: braised short rib, chicken curry, BBQ pork and a vegetarian chili. The bunnies are small, but not bite-sized, with the filling stuffed into a dinner roll-sized bread bowl; the virgin has been replaced by the crusty cap of the bread. You can get them individually, or opt for a combo with a side of fries or the truffle mac and cheese balls. If you’re going through the trouble of trying the bunny chow, do yourself a favor and get the mac and cheese balls. Not particularly South African in nature, these golden globes are breaded and fried and every bite feels like home. For the most part, the bunny fillings are somewhat on the artisan side, but if you want to get close to traditional, opt for the chicken curry. As you sink your teeth into it, the flavors from the coconut milk, garbanzos, cashews and cilantro do a dance in your mouth. It may not be historically accurate, but damn, it’s good. Daily offerings with influences around the world are listed on the blackboard – I’ve tried the wine-braised short ribs and the salmon with strawberry salad, which were both beautiful and delicious. These were served on dishes made from the woody part of the palm frond that connects to the tree and with biodegradable utensils.  You can wash your meal down with a cold strawberry basil lemonade or an orange lavender tea, but I recently tried a new cold, naturally sweet and zesty blueberry mint tea that I hope stays on the menu for awhile.

There’s nothing like trying international street food in its native setting, but if you can’t swing the airfare to South Africa to try the bunny chow, you can let it come to you in style on the World Fare Bustaurant. As long as they’re evolving the bunny chow, maybe they’ll add one chock full of Bugs and Thumper…

World Fare Bustaurant
Los Angeles County, California
http://twitter.com/worldfare
http://www.facebook.com/Worldfare

See images of bunny chow and other dishes from the World Fare Bustaurant

Culver City, California

The Museum of Jurassic Technology

It’s not a museum depicting how CGI was used to bring Michael Crichton’s novel to life; there is no reproduction of tools used by ceratosaurus, allosaurus and other prehistoric life. So what is it, exactly? Well, imagine a committee was formed to open a repository of knowledge in display format, and that this committee featured Rube Goldberg, Albert Einstein, P.T. Barnum, John Waters, L. Ron Hubbard, Robert LeRoy Ripley, Leonardo DiVinci, Baron Victor Frankenstein and Professor Irwin Corey. If you find that concept confusing, then you have head start on what’s to come with a trip to the MJT. Part of their mission statement is to “provide[s] the academic community with a specialized repository of relics and artifacts from the Lower Jurassic”, which technically was between 200 and 175 million years ago. Understanding this as you enter will put you in a better frame of mind to truly appreciate the museum. Suspension of disbelief is not required; disregard for disbelief is. Your visit to the museum will only work if you don’t wonder or even care what is true and what is false, but simply be entertained by what are literally thought-provoking and imaginative displays of curiosities. Like some bizarre closet of secrets, the museum features displays of everything from the importance and significance of cat’s cradles as language to early theater techniques for reproducing weather conditions onstage. Once you’ve rung the bell at the front to gain entrance to the windowless structure, you enter a dark and mysterious labyrinth; the narrow hallways join rooms that make a corn maze seem easy to navigate. The darkness allows the displays to be creatively lit using micro-spotlights, with some exhibits creating their own light. In some places, 3-D and holographic technology is used to have things appear in the display when looking through special lenses. Names and titles sound grand and familiar, but Google searches will leave you scratching your head.

If you could see through lead you would find a deprong mori

At the front of the museum are the permanent collections. These include captive specimens of the stink ant of the Cameroon; a horn projection that grew from the head of Mary Davis; displays regarding the life of neurophysicist Geoffrey Sonnabend, and my favorite – the tale of the search and capture of the elusive Deprong Mori. I won’t give too much away regarding the latter, except to say that the Deprong Mori (or “piercing devil”) is a tiny bat that has evolved a rather unusual talent; I guarantee that you will walk away from this exhibit with either an ear-to-ear grin or the desire to cause mayhem. As the rooms spread out, you will feel like you’ve entered a fourth dimension – it seems like the museum expands while you’re inside it, with one room opening into another until you feel like you’ve left the city limits. Since it is impossible to separate fact from fallacy, your best bet is to give in and let go. One fascinating display featured the micromosaics of British physician Henry Dalton. While the actual existence of Henry Dalton may be in question, the art created in his name is very real. Dalton, it would seem, would meticulously remove the shimmering, colorful scales from the wings of various species of butterflies, and then painstakingly arrange them in glittering mosaic images that under the microscope are absolutely breathtaking. Also of note are the microminiature sculptures of Hagop Sandaldjian, so tiny that they can only be seen in detail through a microscope and could fit in the eye of a needle. Other displays defy explanation; in fact, some have no explanation and are left to the interpretation of the beholder. Temporary collections are equally as unique, mysterious and befuddling – Garden of Eden On Wheels feature various tiny dioramas depicting life in L.A.’s trailer parks throughout the years, along with photographs and artifacts recovered from some of the older parks. Rotten Luck includes a variety of old and decaying dice from the collection of Ricky Jay.

I have no idea what this is

A newer second floor features a gallery with paintings of dogs, not playing poker but who were active participants in the Russian space program and were some of the first living things in space. The gallery looks like a wealthy pet owner’s sitting room, but when you learn the names and read the stories of these space mutts, you begin to have a connection to the subject matter not unlike wondering what the Mona Lisa was really like. The aforementioned cat’s cradle exhibit seems a bit out of place, but moving holograms of hands creating the string figures superimposed over the displays are fun to look at. One room is devoted to a logic notation system created by Shea Zellweger, PhD that combines mathematics, logic and an alphabet into a confusing structure that only a PhD could understand. At the back of the second floor is the newest addition, the Tula Tea Room (modeled after the study of Tsar Nicolas II in St Petersburg). The hostess will graciously pour you a fresh cup of hot, black tea, and a lavishly decorative tray offers self-serve cookies to go with it. Although the cookies were obviously of the type found in garden-variety grocery stores, it was still nice to take a break in the only room in the building with windows while staring at the lounging Russian wolfhound perched on one of the benches.

There is a saying that if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit; The Museum of Jurassic Technology effectively does both in a pseudo-serious yet tongue-in-cheek manner. The museum’s small exterior makes it easy to miss, but just remember that it’s on Venice Boulevard close to the intersection of The Twilight Zone.

Museum of Jurassic Technology
9341 Venice Boulevard
Culver City, CA 90232-2621
GPS coordinates: 34°1’32.72″N 118°23’42.02″W

See images of Val’s visit to the Museum of Jurassic Technology

Costa Mesa, California

Shuji Sakai prepares the Bacon Explosion

Nothing brings back the feeling of summer quicker than the smell of wood smoke and roasting meat. Granted, this is accentuated by the sound of the surf lapping at the shore and the warmth of the overhead sun, but let’s focus on the smoke and meat for the time being. It was impossible to turn down the opportunity to visit the competitors in the annual Orange County BBQ Festival the night before the festival. Each year, corporations, weekend warriors, chefs and grill hobbyists gather at the Orange County Fairgrounds to compete for cash prizes in multiple categories, including chicken, ribs, pork and brisket. The event also raises money for Kristie’s Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by Laurie Kotas in 2003 to help improve the quality of life for terminally ill children. Although a few of the contestants do barbeque for their day jobs, do not for one minute doubt the determination and tenacity of the BBQ hobbyists that participate. Many of the team names sound like they may have been derived using a random barbecue name generator. Big Poppa Smokers was comprised of a group of barbecue aficionados from Ernie Ball, including Sterling Ball (son of the guitar string king). Naturally there was representation from firefighters (Cooks N’ Ladders) and law enforcement officers who, in this case, smiled at the obvious porcine references. As the sun set, the air at the fairgrounds was filled with more smoke than at a Grateful Dead concert; many of the competitors were firing up everything from backyard Weber grills to smokers that looked like engineless Hummers. Propane torches were the accelerant de rigueur; we’re not talking one of those candy-ass Coleman blowtorches, but something more akin to the M1A1 Flamethrower. Most of the closet pyromaniacs were more than happy to demonstrate their literal firepower, drastically cutting down the time to create the ideal cooking heat. A film crew from The Food Network kept popping up filming scenes for a reality show called “Family Style” featuring Joey and Melissa Maggiore from the Maggiore restaurant dynasty; it was difficult to tell exactly what the premise of the show will be based on their presence at the BBQ festival.

Bob Gutierrez and his retro smoker

Although competition in the cook-off is fierce, there was also a great deal of sharing and camaraderie on the eve of the event. Most contestants were happy to describe, sometimes in great detail, what goes into the making of their signature offerings. There was consistent agreement that the ingredients were secondary to things such as temperature, amount of smoke, cooking time, etc. Shuji Sakai (one of the members of Four Q who goes by the name of Professor Salt) offered that in addition to calculating how long it will take to cook the meat, consideration needs to be taken as to how it will taste after it has had time to cool off on the judges’ table. The fun part of visiting the night before was partaking in the community spirit of sharing, and enjoying the food prepared by the contestants that will never be entered into the contest. Several of the contestants, including Professor Salt and Harry Soo (head cook for Slap Yo Daddy BBQ) were preparing the Internet’s viral sensation, the Bacon Explosion (aka “the fattie”). This overindulgent conglomeration of pork products weighs in at a respectful 5,000 calories with 500 grams of fat, yet it is long on taste and simple to prepare. A seasoned bacon-weave mat is wrapped around a roll of ground sausage filled with chopped, crispy bacon; it is then smoked for several hours. Sakai’s version was basic yet attractive; Soo prepared several over the course of the evening shaped like a turtle and a centipede with cocktail wiener limbs and extremities. The intensity of the bacon flavor gives this artery-destroying dish its name, and both Soo and Sakai’s creations were outstanding.  Get Your Rub On cook Bob Gutierrez was preparing Baja-style pork al Pastor tacos in a propane-fueled cooker of his own design; the layers of meat were stacked on a vertical rotisserie (such as those used to prepare gyros) with a giant chunk of pineapple at the top that dripped its juices over the meat. If the competition allowed tacos, Gutierrez’ open-faced pork dish with queso fresco, cilantro, onions and bits of the aforementioned pineapple would have been the hands-down winner.

Harry Soo is all about sharing

Contestants gathered in a huge tent to review the schedule and the contest rules, and to hear an address from Laurie Kotas. There didn’t seem to be a great deal of questions, presumably because the participants were all aware of the rules, including the consumption of non-sponsored alcohol, late night noise ordinances, etc.- there were deck chairs, tents and hammocks in great supply, and it was clear that the participants were in it to win it. The same tent that provided the facilities for the address was also used as the site of the potluck supper. Many of the participants brought or cooked food to share, and teams intermingled at the tables, sharing food and conversation. Harry Soo provided a delicious seared ahi tuna with Maui onion dressing along with his reptilian fattie (which disappeared in minutes); other tasty and notable items included a pork pastry appropriately called “Piggy Pie”, New Zealand lamb chops, Billy Nicola’s rich, barbequed Butt Bustin’ Beans and Cooks N’ Ladders’ BBQ meatballs with bacon and onions. If there is any secrecy between contestants, it was nowhere to be seen at the potluck – just a relaxed gathering of people who shared the joy of cooking and eating barbeque with each other.

You can hear your heart scream out in pain

As for the competition itself, Rib Ticklers BBQ took the $7,000 Grand Champion prize along with top honors for overall and brisket, while Soo’s Slap Yo Daddy grabbed the Reserve Champion honors and the top pork slot. The BBQ Shack and Grill won in the chicken category, and Smokin’ Yankees BBQ snatched up the prize for best ribs. I’m sure the competition itself was fun, as was tasting the various entries in hopes of finding the ultimate in barbecue, but as far as I’m concerned sharing the previous evening’s preparations and breaking of bread was smokin’.

Orange County BBQ Festival
88 Fair Drive
Costa Mesa, CA 92626-6598
GPS Coordinates:  33°40’4.97″N 117°54’14.91″W

Kristie’s Foundation: http://www.kristies.org/

See images from the eve of the Orange County BBQ Festival
See Deep End Dining‘s video of Professor Salt preparing the Bacon Explosion

Los Angeles, California

Miss Chinatown sandwiched between two other celebrants

L.A. boasts a decent sized Chinatown, yet it is often culturally overlooked by the rest of the city. This recently prompted several civic organizations to plan and sponsor a festival spanning four Saturday nights in celebration of Chinatown’s diverse culture. Chinatown Summer Nights features DJs set up in several locations with live cooking demonstrations, street performances and participation of many of the local restaurants and shops who stay open late for the event. The festival also features many of L.A.’s food trucks, although oddly enough at the most recent event, only one food truck (Korean Ahn-Joo) was Asian-themed. Having the trucks at the festival was a double-edged sword; on one hand, some of the local restaurants objected to the trucks pulling away their business, but on the other hand, they attracted event-goers that might not normally come to Chinatown otherwise. The food truck population was well represented by the World Fare double-decker bus, Brazilian Ta-Bom, The Surfer Taco truck, Spring Street Smoke House (a BBQ truck), Tropical Shave Ice, the aforemetnioned Ahn-Joo, the Crepe’n Around crepe truck and the Grilled Cheese Truck, which seems to be everywhere these days. Even through the Grilled Cheese Truck had the largest line (which stretched up the block), the other trucks did a brisk business, some closing early after running out of food.

Food trucks line Lei Min Way

Although I am a big fan of some of the trucks, I wasn’t about to fill up on truck food at a celebration of Asian culture. I visited Hoàn Kiếm earliy in the afternoon with Deep End Dining‘s Eddie Lin, who was interviewing them to discuss the food they were going to feature in their cooking demonstration that evening. Hoàn Kiếm is a three-trick pony; they only serve three dishes, and if you’re looking for Vietnamese sandwiches or a variety of pho, look elsewhere. I would advise, based on my experience, that you stay and enjoy at least one of those three dishes, as they are prepared with simple, fresh ingredients with the finished product being pure, hearty and healthy cuisine. The phở gà Hoàn Kiếm is quite simply chicken noodle soup, made in the traditional style of the Ho family the way it was made in their hometown in the north of Viet Nam. Fresh (alive) chicken is sourced locally as are their noodles – with the side cilantro and jalapenos liberally added, the dish warms you inside and out. The other specialty dish that has been a staple since the restaurant opened 18 years ago is the bánh cuốn thịt, a steamed rice flour crepe filled with ground pork and mushroom. Each roll is made to order with the thin rice batter ladled on to a wooden ring with a cloth stretched over it. The cloth is placed atop a pot of steaming water (often the water the noodles are cooking in) and as it cooks it is lifted off with a thin metal spatula. Delicate and light, they are full of the flavor of the fresh ingredients. The third dish is a recent addition – cơm gà Hải Nam (Hai Nam chicken rice). The rice is made with the broth from the chicken and is served with simple, unadorned chicken slices with the skin still attached. The restaurant was taken over by the 6 Ho siblings from their aunt; they take turns rotating in (since they also have other careers that re easier to juggle with the restaurant’s 11 AM until 4 PM hours). A cup of Vietnamese coffee made with Cafe du Monde was the perfect finish to the simple yet delicious lunch.

Chef Sito of Golden Dragon prepares steamed rock cod

At the event itself, I spent the bulk of my time watching the cooking demonstrations by four local eateries: the Golden Dragon Seafood Restaurant (specializing in Cantonese cuisine and dim sum); Cantonese restaurant Hop Woo (who seemed to be preparing the most daring cuisine of the evening; Vietnamese entry Hoàn Kiếm, and finally the Plum Tree Inn (a Chinatown fixture for over 30 years, catering mostly to people looking for “Americanized” Chinese food. Eddie Lin was emcee’ing the demonstrations, giving a play-by-play of the preparations and a little history of the restaurants and the cuisine. Each particpant cooked in front of the crowd, plated their creations and then sent them off to the side where volunteers put samples into tiny versions of the familiar white take-out boxes for the crowd’s consumption. At one point the volunteers were handing out bottles of soy sauce when the crowd went into a feeding frenzy like sharks in chummed waters. The volunteers switched to walking through the audience and handing them out individually, but there was a tense moment when I thought the event might end like a Cincinnati Who concert. Eddie made a grand entrance realizing his dream of one day pushing a dim sum cart; the demonstrations started immediately with the phoenix talons (chicken feet dim sum) on Golden Dragon’s dim sum cart distributed to the crowd. I have previosuly had chicken feet that required constant gnawing to try to free the meager meat off the bone, but Golden Dragon’s preparation was easily worked off the bones cleanly by tongue and was absolutely delicious. Chef Sito began preparing a steamed red snapper, which he started scaling and gutting while it was still flopping about. At one point he cut into the bottom of the fish, which spilled a green body fluid across the table; I imagined any one in the audience who caught a sight of that may turn down a sample, but it didn’t appear to affect the taste. Chef Sito then prepared a sweet and pungent chicken dish that plated beautifully and had the perfect balance of flavors.

Enjoying the Pancake Breakfast and Black Jack ice cream - together

Between Golden Dragon’s demonstration and second string Hop Woo I decided to hit the Lake Street Creamery truck as I was intrigued by two items – the Pancake Breakfast and Black Jack. I had been thinking about making a Sunday Breakfast ice cream with pancakes, bacon, maple and eggs, but it appears that Lake Street beat me to the punch with the Pancake Breakfast ; where their creation differed was with the exclusion of eggs, but the addition of freshly ground coffee. Being a sucker for black licorice, I was compelled to try the Black Jack as well, but in a momentary lapse of reasoning I opted for the double scoop with one of each nestled side-by-side in a waffle cone bowl. I decided to eat the Pancake Breakfast first, since the chances of tasting anything else aftyer consuming the Black Jack were slim to none. The maple was the prominent flavor, but as the crumbly bits of bacon became present the saltiness offset the sweetness of the ice cream and the maple syrup; the coffee took a back seat with just a hint of coffee flavor throughout. The Black Jack was no holds barred, in-your-face black licorice flavor that hit the palate like a punch to the solar plexus, and boy, did it hurt so good.

Chef Lupe Liang of Hop Woo drops pig intestines in hot oil

I returned for Hop Woo’s demonstration by Chef Lupe Liang (who took on his obviously un-Asian name while cooking in Mexico). Liang’s presentation was by far the most entertaining and daring of the evening; the first selection (fried squid with spicy salt) was tame enough, lightly battered and not overpoweringly salted, but I had to take a couple of steps back when he was preparing the fried pig intestine. These were the lower intestines, and even though they had been thoroughly cleaned, the smell of the south end of the pig frying was one of those things you try to politely ignore, or at least try to get out of your head. The finsihed product was crispy, and thankfully didn’t have the dicey flavor sometimes accompanying chitlins or other assy tidbits. Being a big fan of pig innards I was not put off by Chef Liang’s preparation of the offal for the congee, but I could see audience members wincing as he sliced and scored the liver, kidneys and stomach. Skeptics in the audience reacted with amazement when they sampled the congee; the sweetness of the rice porridge effectively cut the strong taste of the assorted gut pieces suspended within. Liang’s final act was the most spectacular – he cut and seasoned a pre-cooked jellyfish that looked like a sheet of thick, translucent skin, placed it into a mound and surrounded it by quartered 1,000-year-old eggs and a ring of candied walnuts. I had tasted all three of the main ingredients previously, but never combined, and although I had reservations I have to say that the creaminess of the egg yolk, slightly chewy jellyfish, spice from the chili and sweet nuttiness from the walnuts worked well together.

Miss Chinatown makes rice wrappers for Banh Cuon Thit Kiem

Having seen Hoàn Kiếm’s preparation earlier in the afternoon, there weren’t many surprises, but I have to say that they made up for simplicity in the joy of their preparation, inviting audience members (including Miss Chinatown) to make the rice crepes. The family is close, warm and welcoming and shared the same exuberance at the event that they did at the restaurant earlier. Headliners Plum Tree Inn had the least interactive performance; while the smell of the sweet and pungent shrimp, kung pao chicken and crispy beef was intoxicating and the dishes looked beautiful plated, it was hard to get excited about dishes that can be found in Chinese restaurants in most strip malls. Still, the samples were spicy and prefectly cooked, but I was hoping they’d offset the run-of-the mill selections with some culinary pyrotechnics. Chef Manuel Sanchez Lee spoke no English, but carried on a brisk conversation with Claudia in Spanish afterwards (which he picked up, along with his name, during his 10-year stint in Venezuela). The cooking demonstrations ended about 10:30, but the DJs played on and the bars (and some restaurants) kept going until midnight.

DJ Jeremy Sole at the Central Plaza dance floor

This is the first time the event has been held, but hopefully the feedback and attendance records will warrant it being turned into an annual festival. Chinatown Summer Nights brings business to the area but also opens cultural doors to people that may not normally venture into Chinatown to sample a little slice of life in the Far East. Anything that educates people who otherwise think China is expensive dishware and Asia is a British progressive pop band from the 80s is all right in my book.

Chinatown Summer Nights
Chinatown
Los Angeles, CA 90012
GPS Coordinates: 34°3’56.60″N 118°14’16.92″W

Golden Dragon Restaurant
960 North Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90012
GPS Coordinates: 34°3’56.09″N 118°14’11.27″W

Hop Woo
845 N. Broadway Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
GPS Coordinates: 34°3’48.88″N 118°14’16.05″W

Hoàn Kiếm
727 N. Broadway
Suite 130
Los Angeles, CA 90012
GPS Coordinates: 34°3’38.18″N 118°14’21.37″W

Plum Tree Inn
913 N. Broadway Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
GPS Coordinates: 34°3’51.66″N 118°14’14.73″W

See images from the third week of Chinatown Summer Nights
See video from the third week of Chinatown Summer Nights

Chinatown Summer Nights, Los Angeles CA 08/21/2010 from Trippy Food on Vimeo.

Waterloo and City – Culver City, California

Waterloo and City in Culver City

Having missed my annual pilgrimage to the UK for the past couple of years, I eagerly accepted an invitation to partake in Waterloo and City’s family-style British lunch. Just going by name alone, I imagined it to be a pub with an Underground theme (not like an air raid shelter, like a London subway station). I was surprised to find the restaurant resembling a refurbished Denny’s from the outside, but once inside it most definitely took on the air of an older European establishment that had been mostly modernized. Our group of “foodies” sat at a single large table where we were introduced to chef and co-owner Brendan Collins whose British pedigree reflects a career stretching back to his teen years in the UK. Chef Collins and managing partner Carolos Tomazos bring the relatively recent gastropub concept to Culver City with a nod to traditional British and continental European cuisine. Collins is a subscriber of the “nose-to-tail” philosophy, but instead of focusing on using every part of the pig, he stuffs, roasts, terrines, and creates pâtés from a menagerie of furry creatures.

A platter fit for a king

There are small, classic British touches in the look and feel of the restaurant – the kitchen crew wear pin-striped aprons and bowler hats, even though they work mostly behind the scenes; a game room features a pool table, a dart board and a table-top Pac Man video game with warm and friendly couches and a fireplace, and one corner of the restaurant features traditional Wedgwood-looking wallpaper with a hidden, tongue-in-cheek surprise. Disney’s Epcot Center is famous for dressing up facades to look like European bistros and pubs, but the food gives the illusion away – the opposite is the case here. You can forgive the lack of green glass lamps, subway signs, and wood and glass bar panels when you look at the blackboard menu (which on this day featured a full English breakfast, fish and chips, roast dinner and shepherd’s pie). One item that immediately caught my eye was the blood cake, which I imagined to be a pseudonym for black pudding. I ordered the roast dinner, remembering the delicious home-cooked taste of the last one I had in a Liverpool pub, and (like the rest of our group) let Chef Collins surprise us.

Roast dinner with Yorkshire pudding

We started out with a breadboard with baked goods made on the premises including croissants, breads, scones and cookies. I somewhat jokingly asked where the Marmite was, which prompted our waiter to present a small tub of the salty goo at our table. Since it would have been rude to request it and then not eat it, I begrudgingly slathered the tar on a piece of raisin bread (which I think made the Marmite slightly more palatable). Surprise is a mild word for what came next – breathtaking would be more appropriate. A large plank was brought to the table bearing a collection of the finest representation of charcuterie I’ve ever seen. Terrines of bacon-wrapped trotters, rabbit with pistachio, venison and huckleberry, delicately prepared pates using the freshest and most exquisite combinations of offal and meats decorated the tray in what can only be described as food art (although food porn may be a more appropriate term). Chef Collins called the presentation “The King”, although these dishes took lowly peasant cuts and elevated them to royalty status. I was pleased that although we didn’t order it, the blood cake was brought to the table, and I have to admit it bore very little resemblance to black pudding. Where black pudding typically uses oats, barley or some type of grain for texture, the blood cake was mixed with pork fat, apples, onion and spices, making it moist and crumbly. The dark red mound was topped with a fried egg, but I wanted to get a taste of the dish without the distraction – what I experienced is difficult to put into words. The rich forkful melted in my mouth, with no trace of the metallic taste that often accompanies blood-based dishes, giving me a new death row last meal choice.

The roast dinner was delicious in its simplicity – pure, fresh and flavorful ingredients were cooked to perfection, keeping in line with the traditional preparation. Fanciful desserts that were created by Chef Collins were brought to the table, my favorite being a moist and warm chocolate torte topped with a scoop of dulce de leche ice cream and glazed bananas that were like a vertical presentation of bananas Foster. Chef Collins was present off and on during the course of the meal, answering questions and making us want to return for dinner. He explained that while the focus is on traditional and inspired British cuisine, it was by no means limited to it. Chef Collins has brought together the best of centuries of elegant and simple European cuisine with some modern twists in an outstanding presentation that left me stuffed, yet craving more. There are three things I hope the British don’t attempt to reclaim: the melody to “America”, the original 13 colonies and Chef Collins. As historians look back on our lunch, for a thousand years men will still say, “This was their finest hour”.

Waterloo and City
12517 West Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA 90066
GPS coordinates: 33°59’49.04″N 118°25’53.28″W

See images from Val’s lunch at Waterloo and City
Enjoy the multimedia podcast of Val’s lunch at Waterloo and City with Deep End Dining‘s Eddie Lin

Philippe the Original and Cole’s Pacific Electric Buffet, Los Angeles, CA

Philippe the Original vs. Coles Pacific Electric Buffet

No one doubts the French dip sandwich’s city of origin – it was born shortly after the turn of the 20th century, becoming one of Los Angeles’ signature dishes. But before you start feeling sorry for redheaded stepchildren French toast and French fries, understand that that the paternity of the French dip has been fraught with doubt and controversy since farther back than anyone still alive can remember. For those who have not visited L.A. and tried it, it is essentially a sliced roast beef sandwich (with pork, lamb, ham and turkey options added over the years) in a long roll that is dipped in au jus. It is usually served with as much or as little spicy “open-your-sinuses” mustard that you care to apply – this hellish concoction kicks Chinese mustard’s ass six ways from Sunday. The sandwich has evolved over the decades, with the roll originally having been dipped in beef gravy. You would think every restaurant in Los Angeles would be offering the dish, with either a nod to its creator or arguing over patent rights, but there are only two heavyweight contenders vying for the title of “Creator of The French Dip” sandwich – Philippe’s the Original, and Cole’s Pacific Electric Buffet. Both were first opened in 1908, and both claim to be the inventor of the tasty sandwich.

French dip sandwich and 9 cent coffee at Philippe

In this corner, Philippe the Original; the restaurant opened by French immigrant (take notes here) Philippe Mathieu in 1908 was originally on Alameda Avenue (without the sandwich as a menu item). Prior to his death in 1960, Mathieu stated that after moving to a new location in 1918, he was preparing a sandwich for a policeman in a hurry and when the roll fell into the gravy, the officer said he’d take it anyway. As the story goes, on the policeman’s next visit, he asked for the sandwich prepared the same way, and so a star was born. Mathieu sold the restaurant in 1927, and in 1951 the new owner moved Philippe’s to the current location on North Alameda Street in a building that formerly housed a machine shop. The decor is blue-collar factory deli – rows of plain counters line the main area where the food is ordered; the concrete slab floor is sprinkled liberally with sawdust. Patrons queue up in lines between the counters and order at the long deli case that lines the room; the line frequently stretches outside. The full menu is displayed on a blackboard-sized sign to the right of where you order, but specials and hot items are listed on signs behind the counter. Let the staff know what you want (although I recommend just asking for what they’re famous for), and any extras (they have delicious potato salad, pickled eggs, macaroni salad – you get the drill). Your sandwich will be dipped, but you have the option of requesting “double dipped”; dipping entails gently immersing the open face of the roll in the au jus prior to adding the meat. Don’t miss the opportunity to have what is most likely the only 9-cent cup of coffee in town. When the time comes to pay for your selection, the server at the counter will push a little tray towards you with a pen. Don’t be offended – for sanitary purposes, your cash doesn’t “change hands”. You may have to wait for a seat at one of the communal counters, unless you’re lucky enough to snag a booth; try to feel good for the homeless guy who managed to grab the leftovers of the previous patrons of the adjoining counter. There’s plenty of nuclear death mustard on the counter (and no, it is the mustard that is that spicy – no horseradish, wasabi, habanero, etc); I would advise tasting a fork-end of the stuff before dousing your sandwich. Personally, I think it adds a nice kick, but just a fair word of warning – I did not see a medical aid station on the premises.

French dip sandwich and Coles slaw at Coles

In this corner, Cole’s Pacific Electric Buffet; until 2007, Cole’s was renowned for being the oldest restaurant in Los Angeles in continuous operation until being closed for renovation and restoration, reopening in December of 2008. It is on the ground floor of the Pacific Electric Building, the former main terminal for the Pacific Electric Railway (Los Angeles’ famous Red Car line). Opened as a public house by Henry Cole (not a French name for those keeping score) in 1908, Cole’s was guaranteed clientele from the hustle and bustle of riders of the electric cars. Cole’s testimony regarding the origin of the sandwich is that sometime shortly after opening in 1908, a patron with sore gums requested his French bread (please take notes, I’m not repeating this) be dipped in the beef drippings to soften it up. After the recent restoration, the decor can best be described as ice cream parlor meets Victorian bordello; red-flocked wallpaper adorns the walls, and the restaurant is capped with a red tin ceiling. The white octagonal tile floors have some patches missing where counters or cabinets once stood and the seating options are wooden parlor chairs or plush vinyl 50′s style booths that look out of place with the turn-of-the-century decor. The restaurant is v-shaped, with the dining room on one arm and the fully stocked mahogany and glass Red Car Bar on the other. Cole’s is strictly sit-down dining; take any seat you like and the waitress will bring you a printed menu. There are two French dip options: the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper with the differences being the price and amount of meat. On my outing there I couldn’t resist ordering the “Cole’s Slaw” as a side; maybe I’m just not wowed by coleslaw, but theirs tasted like just about every other mayonnaise-based shredded cabbage and carrot salad I’ve ever had. One item (Atomic Pickles) sounded intriguing – I considered ordering them until my waitress informed me that two of them came with the sandwich. These tasted like someone took some dill spears and stuck them in a can of pickled jalapenos for a while, although there was an odd, sweet undertone to them as well. The sandwich was delivered to the table halved down the middle with a small cup of au jus on the side for dipping at the table. The meat seemed moister than Philippe’s (both are thoroughly cooked with no pink), but it may be because I ordered the Big Dipper, reducing the bread-to-meat ratio. Like Philippe’s, Cole’s also uses their own brand of deadly napalm mustard in the never ending French dip sandwich war, so caution is strongly advised.

The battle over exactly who invented the French dip sandwich has been raging for almost a century; it is doubtful the outcome will be decided in our lifetime, if ever. One thing is clear, this is a war where the diner is clearly the winner. Some of you may be looking to me for my opinion on who should emerge victorious, but I’m simply a war correspondent; I prefer to remain fair and balanced.

Philippe The Original
1001 North Alameda Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012-1803
GPS coordinates: 34°3’34.54″N 118°14’13.04″W

Cole’s Pacific Electric Buffet
118 E 6th St
Los Angeles, CA 90014-2006
GPS coordinates: 34° 2’41.23″N 118°14’58.25″W

See images from Val covering the French dip war from Cole’s and Philippe’s in Los Angeles

Oxnard, California

The stage and hopping dance floor at the Oxnard Salsa Festival

Herb likes spicy food, but isn’t much into dancing; his girlfriend Rosemary likes Latin music and goes out cutting the rug every chance she gets. Is there any chance for this relationship? You bet! Send them both to Oxnard, California’s annual Salsa Festival, now in its smash 17th year. It’s a fiery food festival and dance celebration centered on both meanings of the term “salsa”. The quiet coastal city of Oxnard heats up every July as downtown’s Plaza Park and the surrounding area is transformed in to a Latin block party of epic proportions. I was expecting a DJ to be playing Latin music, or one of the local stations blasting its music through a few stacks of speakers, but the event featured live Latin bands, and damned fine ones to boot. A wooden parquet floor was laid out in front of the concert stage, and it was difficult to carve out an area where you could get down without crushing someone’s toes. The dance floor was cordoned off, and just as many people were sitting outside the area enjoying the music. To the left of the stage was a beer garden and to the right a wine tasting tent; despite the free-flowing alcohol, people were well behaved, perhaps because it’s hard to start trouble when you’re having fun. There were several rows of tents selling the typical goods you expect to see at California festivals, but being that this is a salsa festival there was also a variety of vendors selling hot sauce, salsas and even pepper plants. One booth was devoted to the bhut jolokia pepper of India, commonly referred to by Westerners as the ghost chili. Guinness Book of World’s Records recognizes this bad boy as the world’s hottest pepper; for reference, the fiery habanero weighs in at around 300,000 scovile units (denoting the amount of capsaicin, the chemical compound that causes that wonderful burning sensation). The ghost chili boasts a scovile unit rating of over one million, making it a force to be reckoned with on both the input and output phases of consumption. The vendor, Red Hot Foods, offered four levels of hot sauce, with the “milder” versions toned down with that wimpy habanero. Level 4 with the black label is all bhut jolokia, baby, and ready to lay waste to all it comes in contact with. I decided to try some, and when asked which level I wanted, well, I always bet on black. The woman at the booth poured about a quarter of a teaspoon on a tortilla chip, which I subsequently popped into my mouth and let rest on my tongue until the chip started to dissolve. The ensuing chaos was reminiscent of the scene in the movie Alien when the crew of the Nostromo discovers the aliens’ blood to be highly acidic, burning through several decks of the ship. As the chip burned away I could taste the flavor of the pepper, until I swore I could smell the smoke of searing flesh. The sauce burned a hole through my tongue and then started corroding my lower jaw, opening a hole in my neck where the dripping mix of fiery bhut jolokia and liquefied flesh dripped onto the pavement, burning a hole into the asphalt. It felt like that, anyway.

The chicken mole tamale from El Oaxaco

Claudia and I decided to take a break and find some coffee with lots of cream to extinguish the pain, sitting in front of the La Costeña truck. This massive vehicle almost qualifies as a food truck, but they were having people play spin the wheel to win cans and jars of peppery foods available in most area grocery stores; it didn’t seem like any of that real estate was used to cook or prepare any food. Since food seemed like a good idea, we walked over to the crescent that lined the curb on the 5th Street side of the park where the food vendors set up shop. Claudia decided on a couple of carne asada tacos, which looked mighty tasty, but I was in the mood for something a little more exotic. One vendor was selling “authentic English-style fish and chips”; what they were doing at a salsa festival was anybody’s guess. El Oaxaco had a banner advertising that they had chapulines, and since I hadn’t had my USDA daily requirement of grasshoppers, I decided to try theirs. I was informed that they didn’t have them at the booth, but that their restaurant was across the street and I could order them there. Since I was in the mood for eating a fuera (the Spanish equivalent of al fresco) I ordered a chicken mole tamale. The tamale appeared to be wrapped in about ten feet of banana leaf, but every layer pulled back revealed more and more of the rich, spicy tamale. Rather than being smothered in mole, it was mixed inside the tamale, creating a different taste sensation than I am accustomed to, but it was delicious nonetheless.

Purveyors of the evil ghost chili

A circus-sized tent housed the salsa tasting area. The concept was simple; each person to enter the tent was given a bag of tortilla chips and10 tickets that were traded to the salsa chefs in exchange for a sample cup of their best. Each vendor’s tickets would be counted at the end of the event, and the one with the most tickets would be declared the winner. With almost 75 salsas to choose from, trying only 10 was going to be difficult, but some of them were eliminated relatively easily on looks alone. Anything that looked like it came out of a jar of Pace or was served on the side at El Torito was 86ed right off the bat (I soon discovered that El Torito actually had an entry in the contest). Some people may be surprised by my decision to sample the salsa from Vallarta, a large ethnic grocery store chain in the Los Angeles area. As anyone who shops at Vallarta regularly will confirm, their freshly made salsas and pico de gallo are outstanding, and their offerings at the festival were no exception. I particularly liked Chef Gerard and Chuck’s Green Stuff Salsa – their hot variety had a spicy kick without being painful, but it absolutely tasted fresh. It was easy to taste the individual ingredients, and the salsa verde had a nice, healthy green color to it. I’d have to say that my favorite was the Bacon Hot Sauce. On first taste, there’s the familiar burn and flavor from the peppers, but then out of nowhere you’re smacked in the back of the head with a slab of bacon (figuratively, of course). The smoky pork flavor stays through the finish, and I told self-proclaimed Chief Bacon Officer Peter Fishman that although I loved the flavor, I wasn’t sure what it would complement – he answered with a single word: eggs. Eggs. I have no idea why I hadn’t thought of that but once he had mentioned it I wondered how eggs had gone for so long without it. I didn’t detect bits of bacon in the sauce, but Fishman explained that they use bacon flavoring; I’m not sure how they extract that, but I just thank my lucky stars that somebody does. The Oxnard Salsa Festival had their own three official salsas, and I decided to try the mild, mango tango. It was only slightly spicy, with more than typical sweetness (obviously from the mango). It seemed like it might be a good topping for a chicken dish, but didn’t really do much for me straight out of the bowl.

The Salsa Festival is as alive and kicking as the fiery salsas and foods being dished up and the hot Latin music that packs the dance floor; it may even make you forget about the summer heat. You can go alone, or bring your significant other – it’s sure to add some spice to your relationship.

The Annual Oxnard Salsa Festival
Plaza Park
Oxnard, CA 93030 (5th Street between B and C Streets)
GPS Coordinates:  34°11’51.46″N 119°10’49.81″W

See images of Val’s visit to the 2010 Oxnard Salsa Festival

The Rose Bowl, Pasadena, California

The Rose Bowl becomes the Meat and Veggie Bowl

In terms of U.S. cities, L. A. has one of the largest street food cultures, made popular by the ubiquitous taco trucks and expanded by the somewhat recent gourmet food truck phenomenon. Besides the vehicular street vendors, there are also an army of push cart and folding table vendors, as well as fledgling restaurants springing forth from aspiring chef’s homes and spilling out on to the sidewalks and streets of L.A. The problem these days isn’t how to find something to eat, but how to select a single vendor to satisfy the munchies. Shawna Dawson and Sonja Rasula aspired to bring a seemingly random collection of these vendors together in one place, and to raise money for charity to boot. Dawson and Rasula are co-founders of L.A. Street Food Fest, which held its second extravaganza recently in Pasadena’s fabled Rose Bowl. Before you conjure up images of Kogi’s tires ripping up the finely manicured gridiron, the trucks were parked just outside the stadium with tented booths lined up on either side of the field. Food truck vendors cohabitated with restaurants, pushcarts, taco shacks and caterers essentially leveling the playing field to place the focus on the food, not the delivery system. Truck operators ran (literally) through the tunnels to their trucks where the food was being prepared, while other vendors cooked at the back of their booths or at makeshift kitchens in the bowels of the stadium.

Chuy Tovar (Arandas Imports), Alex Chu (Dim Sum Truck) and Javier Cabral (Teenage Glutster)

In the open sun, the food wasn’t the only thing baking, broiling and frying – at the end of the field were two makeshift biergartens where Singha cooled off diners with one of the few cold beverages available (the only water available was from the fountains outside the restrooms). Along the walkway on the second tier, various food vendors set up shop sandwiching in tequila bottlers offering tastings in half-sized shots. A section outside to the right of the stadium featured vendors of non-food items and a small (but very popular) section where ice cream appeared to be the only thing actually served out of trucks. Attendees holding VIP tickets were granted access to the event at 4 PM before the teeming masses yearning to eat, yet the lines continued to grow, even before the 6 PM general admission crowd swarmed in. As if this amazing variety of unique and delicious food wasn’t enough, a DJ spun music to dine by followed by bands Warpaint and The Deadly Syndrome (who provided live music on a concert stage at the end of the field). Throughout the event, the stadium’s Diamond Vision screens were displaying tweets sent to @LAfoodfest, utilizing the system that put many of the food trucks on the map to the instant gratification of the iPhone-laden vendors and patrons.

The Dogzilla - amazing or what?

Although it would be impossible to represent all the great eateries, carts and trucks, this giant tailgate party on the field had so many vendors to choose from that even Takeru Kobayashi wouldn’t be able to keep up. Most vendors provided smaller-sized samples of the two or three items that represented the best of the best, and some changed the menu up during the course of the event. If you attended the LA Street Food Fest or are one of the featured vendors, please forgive any omission here – there just isn’t enough space to cover everybody and all the food provided. We might as well begin with names you’re familiar with from previous Trippy Food articles; the omnipresent Alex Chu manned not one booth but two, providing tidbits from his Dim Sum Truck as well as items from his newly launched Dumplings Deluxe truck, including the wildly popular cheeseburger dumplings (an odd co-mingling of cultures in a little dough wrapper). Chu used the event as the coming-out party for his newest Dim Sum Truck offering, Vegan Sticky Rice, which although tasty made me long for the missing meat. Also manning (in a manner of speaking) two booths, Gueleguetza’s Bricia Lopez presented pork cemita “sliders” topped with onions, Oaxacan cheese, avocado and a spicy chipotle sauce from her Huntington Park restaurant, Pal Cabron, as well as nieves (Mexican ice cream) from the new Naturabar featuring such exotic flavors as cactus pear and leche quemada (burnt milk). A photo opportunity wall with cutouts to allow your face to grace a cartoon hottie outside the Pal Cabron booth got liberal use from patrons waiting in the long line.

Bill "Smokin Willie" Kelley offers a pulled pork slider

Brazilian upstarts Ta Bom dished out slightly smaller versions of their signature coxina that were cooked to perfection and every bit as good as my first. I had the opportunity to try the pastel, which I didn’t sample on my initial visit to the truck; although these flat, crispy treats are usually accompanied by meat or sweet topping, the vinaigrette I topped it with added flavor without overpowering the simple delight. Ta Bom’s booth was lavishly decorated and featured a scantily clad woman decked out for Carnival, but the line was backing up for the food rather than the scenery. The long queue for The Grilled Cheese Truck was obvious, since their booth was perched on the second tier of the stadium – owners Dave Danhi and Michele Grant spent the first part of the day at a similar festival in Long Beach and then hauled ass across town to serve their signature sandwich brimming with pork, macaroni and cheese at the LA Street Food Fest (reminiscent of Phil Collins doing both the Wembley and JFK shows at Live Aid). Bill “Smokin’ Willie” Kelley received a call only a week before the event inviting him to participate, but he delivered with a pulled pork slider that was every bit as mouth-watering as when he first launched. I asked him if hitting the streets had prompted him to alter his menu, but he has only changed a couple of items including adding his hot link slider with grilled onions to the regular menu. He asked if I wanted coleslaw on the sandwich, which made it taste like the Alibi Room’s pork and kimchi slider’s American cousin; a few French fries and I would have had a mini-Primanti Brothers snack, but the sandwich didn’t make it to either the Frysmith or Fresh Fries booth intact.

Nguyen Tran had delicious balls

In addition to the tried-and-true favorites, my street food horizon was broadened tenfold with the wide variety of new selections to the point where I had to decide what I was going to pass up. My first choice was obvious – Nguyen Tran stood outside his Starry Kitchen booth dressed as a banana and wearing a sign reading, “Please enjoy our balls in yo’ mouth.” The balls in question were crispy tofu balls, which admittedly don’t sound very exciting until you see them for the first time. The sphere is surrounded by a crispy neon green coating that makes it look as though it’s encrusted with kryptonite; a bite into them reveals a delicious, creamy tofu center. Tran received a specially created “Best Showmanship” award, a classic case of the presentation taking the attention away from what turned out to be a wonderful little dish, although receiving a tie vote for the People’s Choice Award later vindicated him. Not bad for a couple who started by serving food out of the back of their apartment! I lost my boba virginity to The Mighty Boba truck – their milk tea boba was cool and creamy, but I wasn’t prepared for the texture and the chewiness of the tapioca pearls, dyed a dark color with brown sugar. I chased the boba with one of their curry potato balls (a simple variation of the Cuban potato ball) with just enough curry for flavor. The sleeper had to be Dogzilla’s namesake offering; a high quality all-beef hot dog “slider” topped with avocado, crumbled bacon, onions, Japanese mayo and furikaki and lightly doused with teriyaki sauce. I had to wait briefly while they made up a batch of Yakisoba dogs, which features a hot link topped with noodles, okonami sauce, ginger and nori, and although there was considerable flavor, I wasn’t sure the spicy wiener complemented the toppings well. The server didn’t know if either of these were the equivalent of the elusive Japadog, having never heard about it; although the Yakisoba was decent, I would crawl naked over broken vinegar bottles to have another Dogzilla.

The lovely and sweet strawberry tamale from Tamales Elena

Best Old School winner Chef Robert Danhi offered a very simple, fresh mouthful dubbed the Explosive Thai Bite. The raw snack consisted of onions, ginger, tiny shrimp, chopped limes and several other ingredients wrapped in a single wild pepper leaf, which Chef Danhi instructed to eat all at once. Each bite released a different flavor and the crispiness of the raw, fresh ingredients only enhanced the experience. I’m no stranger to sweet tamales, but Tamales Elena knocked my socks off with their strawberry tamales. Instead of big chunks of strawberries embedded in the masa, the berries were blended in, giving the tamales a bright pink color and a sweet taste without being sugary. The Manila Machine offered up a pork belly and pineapple adobo over rice that was tender and flavorful and a decent lumpiang shanghai (a pork, carrot and ginger fried spring roll). I asked one of the proprietors about offering balut, to which he replied that he is considering an event but wants it to be traditionally respectful (as respectful as you can be while chowing down on a duck fetus). Scoops’ spin-off ice cream parlor, Scoops Westside hasn’t officially opened yet, but they still had a presence at the festival. With flavors such as pistachio cardamom, mango sweet orange basil seed and tamarind pear rum sorbet it was difficult to choose, but I finally opted for the cool and creamy Thai iced tea coconut.

The team from the Mighty Boba Truck

I had volunteered with LA Street Food Fest to work at the event, so after a couple of hours getting my grub on I reported for duty to find out what my assignment was. I was somewhat surprised that I was given the task of taking pictures, but roamed about the stadium photographing everything and everyone. I walked past the long lines to the front so that I could capture images of the food in glorious Technicolor, and as a true journalist would ask about each particular food item. Unfortunately this resulted in me being offered more food, which I felt compelled to decline, not because I had elbowed my way to the front, but because there physically was no additional room in my digestive tract for anything else – I felt like Roberto Duran after a steak dinner. Winners were announced at the end of the night by one of the judges, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa – other judges included Street Gourmet LA writer Bill Esparza; Top Chef Master, Susan Feniger; LA Times Food Editor, Rene Lynch; Grey’s Anatomy actor Jesse Williams and Chef Walter Manzke. After a brief set by L.A.’s Warpaint, there was nothing left to do but disperse the crowd, as the Rose Bowl takes their schedules seriously. Nothing to see here, folks. Go back to your homes, and tell your kids this is what happens when you eat your way into a food coma.

The LA Street Food Festival
The Rose Bowl
1001 Rose Bowl Drive
Pasadena, CA 91103-2898
GPS coordinates: 34°9’36.35″N 118°10’3.02″W
Links to the vendor’s websites available at the LA Street Food Festival’s home page

See images of Val’s visit to the 2010 LA Street Food Festival

See more images from the 2010 LA Street Food Festival

Still more images from the 2020 LA Street Food Festival

Las Vegas, Nevada

The wacky and surrealistic Liberace Museum in Las Vegas

Las Vegas, Nevada is a monument to excess, a flamboyant, gaudy, over-the-top adult Disneyland. It is for this reason that the Liberace Museum is perfectly at home there, a palace in the desert built in honor of the Sultan of Kitsch himself. Unlike stars such as Elvis (Presley, not Costello), the Liberace Museum is not located in any of the homes he owned – his last house in Las Vegas is currently privately owned, and hopefully renovated to no longer resemble a fatal explosion resulting from a battle between Louis XIV and P. T. Barnum. It is about a mile and a half off The Strip, but if you don’t have transportation, you need not worry – a courtesy van lavishly emblazoned with Liberace’s image on it and “Free Shuttle to the Liberace Museum” plastered across the side will cheerfully pick you up at your hotel; dark sunglasses and a hat help to ease the embarrassment. As you pull up to the museum, any urge to ask the driver, “Are we there yet?” will be curtailed by the sight of the entrance in a building that was undoubtedly the joint effort of the famed architectural team of Salvador Dali and Dr. Seuss.

A World War II-era piano Liberaceated

I’m confident that if you’ve boarded the shuttle and arrived at the museum, you will be wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into. Born Wladziu Valentino Liberace in 1919, Liberace developed his grandiose persona over the years into the figure so familiar to those who weren’t even born during his heyday. Because of his ostentatious appearance, stage presence and sideshow antics, Liberace was a frequent object of ridicule, but he was the consummate showman and knew how to play to an audience, garnering a die-hard following. Liberace makes Elton John look like a Wall Street banker, but he was in fact a big influence on Elton John’s stage personality. As you start through the museum, you discover that Liberace showed considerable talent as a child, and although he was often scorned by his contemporaries and panned by classical music critics for having a casual and careless attitude about the classics that he re-interpreted, there was no doubt that he was a talented (if not showy) musician. His accomplishments are impressive, but hard to see from the blinding light reflected off his sequined cars, rhinestone and diamond studded costumes and mirror-tiled pianos, all of which are prominently displayed. One room is devoted to his costumes some that would put a Vegas showgirl to shame. Mink, diamonds, platinum, ostrich and peacock feathers, sequins – you name it, he wore it. In the middle of the room, a glass case holds what is billed as “the world’s largest rhinestone”.

Some sort of crazy bird

Some of the pianos on display look like musical mirror balls, yet he also collected rare and historic instruments that he often played at concerts and on television specials. The cars on display also feature custom, rare and vintage automobiles, most decked out in true Liberace style. As you pass through the museum, you learn that for an extra $15 or so, you can attend an intimate concert in the cabaret by pianist interpreting Liberace’s music or playing “in the style of Liberace”, but since these performances do not incorporate the lavish stage show or recreate Liberace in tribute format, it’s a better bet to pick up one of the many DVDs available in the gift shop. Of course, the cabaret does feature new and original composers and musicians who perform works on one of Liberace’s mirrored grand pianos, but these are not part of the tour. Liberace has gone on to play the great piano in the sky (not the one on top of the museum) for almost 25 years now, but his larger-than-life personality still fascinates and draws people to the museum. It’s hard to keep from smirking at the garish excess of his glittery trappings, but when you dig down to Liberace’s talent as a performer and musician, you can’t help coming out of the museum with a little more respect and admiration than when you walked through doors. The museum isn’t too far removed from Graceland or Neverland Ranch, and showcases the talent and legacy of a flamboyant showman who undoubtedly influenced glam rockers like David Bowie, Gary Glitter and Elton John, and probably even Lady Gaga. It’s certainly worth an hour or two of your free time in Sin City, and don’t worry about the embarrassment of your friends finding out – what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

The Liberace Museum
1775 E. Tropicana Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89119
GPS coordinates: 36°5’57.93″N 115°7’42.58″W

See images from the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada

Korea

The chef at Beverly Living Fish Center prepares our live octopus

Octopus Paul has been eerily accurate in predicting the World Cup winners; his cousins in fish tanks throughout Korea would do well to develop enhanced psychic abilities or they could end up segmented and writhing on a plate. Fortunately for Paul, he is too large to end up as sannakji hoe (a Korean dish involving the quick dismemberment of a small octopus with the severed tentacles delivered in a squirming mass to your table). Opponents of this type of cuisine argue that it is cruel to eat a live animal, but rest assured that Otto is very dead while his limbs are playing angry cobra on the plate. The octopus’ nervous system functions differently than in higher life forms – it is the same kind of reaction as an insect’s lost leg continuing to dance or that frog drowned in formaldehyde in biology class that starts kicking when he’s dissected. The hope is that the chef is talented and lighting fast at dispatching the octopus, but if you decide to try this unusual cuisine, you’re better off not knowing.

Octopus as a moving experience

Friend Rex Kim had told me about a place in Los Angeles’ Koreatown that serves the dish; the restaurant goes by the odd name of the Beverly Living Fish Center (which makes it sound like a place where the wealthy go to stock their koi ponds). Beverly Living Fish Center (we’ll call them BLFC to conserve bandwidth) is in an industrial-looking building, but you know you’re in the right place when you are ushered past the tanks full of the eight-armed mollusks. Once inside the dining area, the decor improves drastically. Joined by Rex and friends Joshua Joseph (Trippy Food’s webmaster) and Hui Wang, we ordered a platter of the sannakji hoe, while I supplemented the dish with a dosirak lunch, the Korean equivalent of the bento box. Hui ordered the eel, and I was intrigued to see how that was going to be presented. Since we were all going to partake of the octopus, we had them bring that out first. It was obvious as to how soon we’d see it at the table since we could hear the familiar repeated whack of the cleaver from the nearby preparation area. When the plate arrived there was a moment of silence, not in memory of the fallen mollusk, but in amazement at what we were seeing. Sitting on the plate was something that can only be described as looking like Medusa’s head. A myriad of free-roaming appendages were scrambling about the plate, apparently trying to figure out why they were no longer a part of the collective. We dug in with our chopsticks, but getting just one of the tentacle segments to our mouths was work, as they did not want to go. The pieces had to be literally pried off the plate, as their very efficient suction cups were working overtime on the graveyard shift.

Eel with dancing bonito flakes

The taste was more of a disappointment than the texture and experience – uncooked, there was an ever-so-slight oceanic taste to them, but otherwise quite bland. A dip into the soy sauce gave it a little flavor, but also added some fight to it. Not being connected to a brain, the limbs are apparently unaware that they are dead. This means that if your are successful in wresting them from the plate, introducing them to your gaping maw does nothing to reduce their survival instinct – be aware that they WILL try to attach themselves to any semi-solid object in your mouth they can find. Since semi-solid objects include your throat, it is imperative that you chew the hell out of them before swallowing (the old “shoot and swallow the oyster whole to get it down” trick doesn’t bode well here). This is probably the part that most people don’t like, since even cooked octopus has a chewy reputation. I would describe the experience as eating live rubber bands. The floorshow was not limited to the octopus, as Hui’s eel selection came to the table on a hot plate with what looked like tiny dancing maggots strewn across the top. The moving part defied explanation – closer inspection showed them to have no real structure (although we couldn’t rule out flatworms) – they literally looked like tiny moving pencil shavings. We later discovered these to be bonito flakes, finely shaved and dried skipjack tuna. The dried flakes react with the steam, causing them to absorb moisture and expand. Besides the entertainment value, the bonito adds flavor since it is generally fermented and smoked during the drying process. As for the eel, the preparation was traditional (with brown eel sauce topping) – since Hui is the sharing sort, we all had a bite, and I can tell you that it was delicious.

Live octopus can fall outside most people’s comfort zone, but what little taste is present is inoffensive, and if you chew it, there is little or no risk to your health. It’s worth a try for the entertainment value if nothing else, and you can sleep soundly knowing that the little bugger was in octo-heaven while you were chomping down on his squirming limbs. One thing is for certain – it will be an experience that really grabs you.

Beverly Living Fish Center
4356 Beverly Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90004
GPS coordinates: 34°4’33.93″N 118°18’13.68″W

See images of Val and friends eating octopus and other unusual aquatic goodies

Watch video of Val and friends eating live octopus and eel with bonito flakes

Italy and the world

The amazing pumpkin and prosciutto pizza at Lucifers

Although we have a tendency to think of pizza as a modern fast food phenomenon, it has been with us for centuries (if not millennia). Although other ancient cultures have had some sort of pizza-like dish, it was the Romans (later Italians) that tossed the disk of dough into our hearts and the annals of culinary history. Perhaps you’re thinking that pizza isn’t particularly trippy, unless you’re driving 90 miles per hour in order to deliver it in under 30 minutes, but consider those who take the food of the commoner to a whole new level. There are far too many variations and novelty concoctions to mention in a single article, but I’ll highlight a few of them here briefly and then defer to the visual podcast that I and friend Eddie Lin of Deep End Dining made on a recent trip to Lucifer’s in Los Angeles. It’s up to you to find Geno’s East, The Original Ray’s, Santarpio’s or your friendly neighborhood House of Pizza on your own (but I’m always available to make suggestions).

A slice of Famous Rays

First, let’s briefly talk about Arcadia, California’s Zelo and their Potato Pancetta. Picture a hearty deep dish pie with a cornmeal crust and stuffed to the brim with Italian pancetta, roasted slices of potatoes and mozzarella cheese drenched in a savory tomato sauce. With every bite there’s the comfort and taste of home fries with a zesty Mediterranean twist. Not everyone is a fan of Chicago-style pizza, but this rich and flavorful pie is like eating an earthy, sweet and smoky Italian ham and potato casserole. Zelo also features a tasty Wild Mushroom pizza featuring three different types of mushroom. We had them do a half-and-half for us, doubling our pleasure and fun. Their cornmeal crust is a special taste treat, along the lines of Geno’s East’s crumbly whole-wheat crust.

Saying my prayers before entering hell

On the novelty side of the house, Pasadena, California’s Luigi Ortega’s has summoned a diabolical, spiteful pie from the fiery depths of Hell with the ominous moniker of “Dr. Death’s Suicide Pie”. This evil bastard only makes you wish you were dead – the first bite quickly numbs the mouth, tongue, lips and any other exposed flesh it comes in contact with. When I ordered it, I asked the manager for some milk; he told me that quenching the fire with milk was an exercise in futility, and offered me a dish of sour cream, which he said he would happily bring to the table – when I was done. The pizza is stocked with chunks of Buffalo chicken, spicy Andouille sausage and sliced jalapenos, all held together with a peppered mozzarella cheese. Chopped and sprinkled liberally on top are the grizzly remains of no fewer than six habaneros, with the pie doused in a fiery habanero tomato sauce that bore a striking similarity to magma. After the first piece, a strange transformation took place. Since I could no longer feel pain, the flavor of the ingredients became more present and I found that the pizza actually tasted good. I was able to eat the entire pizza, mercifully chased by the sour cream. Taste saved the experience, and I would try it again, but I don’t look forward to the three days of going down, down, down in a burning ring of fire.

My latest trippy adventure was at the equally fiery-themed Lucifer’s in Los Angeles. Rather than to prolong the anticipation, I’ll let you listen to the podcast and get a feel for what the adventure at this invitational tasting event was like first hand. Whether it’s a little slice of heaven or hotter than hell, good pizza never fails to please. Take another little pizza my heart, now, baby!

Zelo
328 E. Foothill Blvd.
Arcadia, CA 91006
GPS coordinates: 34°9’3.46″N 118°1’18.05″W

Luigi Ortega’s
1655 E. Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91106-2131
GPS coordinates: 34°8’46.09″N 118° 6’58.27″W

Lucifer’s
1958 Hillhurst Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
GPS coordinates: 34°6’25.41″N 118°17’14.10″W

See images of unusual and delicious pizza

Watch Val eat Luigi Ortega’s Dr. Death’s Suicide Pie

Hear (and watch) the Deep End Dining / Trippy Food podcast from Lucifer’s in Los Angeles, California

Ventura County, CA

Rescue Juice, open for business

In the 1990s, Megan Jackson’s primary concern was not which taco truck had the best tacos al pastor, but how she was going to beat leukemia and stay alive. Chemotherapy just seemed to make her sicker, forcing her to make a truly life-altering decision – she was going to heal by stopping the chemotherapy and through nutrition, with the focus on natural juice. Her doctors warned her against it, and asked her to sign a waiver stating that she was resorting to untested methods against their wishes (presumably to absolve them of any wrong-doing and prevent legal action after what would undoubtedly be Megan’s demise). Not only did her health improve, but also her leukemia went into remission (and has stayed there). Megan’s husband Tom became a man with a mission – to spread the news and pass the juice; he was only lacking a means to do so.

Tom Jackson, owner of Rescue Juice

In 1995 on the return road trip from their honeymoon, Jackson spotted a 1969 GMC fire rescue truck in a vacant lot beside a fire station. The vehicle had been there so long there were weeds growing out from underneath it. He immediately realized that this was going to be his labor of love (with the emphasis on labor), converting the truck into a rolling juice bar. The truck needed extensive work, and he spent almost a year, several thousand miles and $45,000 dollars to get the vehicle in thirst-quenching order, ready to respond in February of 1996. Jackson had made Channel Islands Harbor his new home and base of operations, initially offering fresh, healthy juices, coffee and light snacks out of the aptly named Rescue Juice truck. In addition to bringing the vehicle to fundraising events to raise money to battle leukemia, Tom also does catering and appears at major events in the area (sirens blazing by request). You could say that he was running a cutting-edge food truck when the earliest of the fusion trucks were still in diesel diapers.

The aptly named Fire Extinguisher

Jackson states that as a result of public demand, he no longer blends items such as ginseng and ginger root in the drinks (they were sitting unused), but he still uses fresh, healthy ingredients. I discovered Rescue Juice at the annual Johnny Cash Music Festival at the Ventura County Fairgrounds; I was in dire need of some coffee and spotted the truck (which isn’t too difficult) prior to having to call 9-1-1. Although hot coffee seems an odd choice at an outdoor festival under the blazing sun, I’m relatively sure that Juan Valdez holds a prominent place in my ancestry, and his legacy was not to be denied. Although Jackson can whip up cappuccino and lattes on-board, I was in the market for coffee – hot, strong and black. From a “fast food” standpoint, coffee seems to be something that is difficult to do right – it runs the gamut of tasting like the ashes from a 5-alarm fire or someone having run a fire hose through a coffee filter. I was pleasantly surprised that Rescue Juice’s coffee was flavorful, and neither too strong or too weak. Claudia and I also split what Tom calls the “Fire Extinguisher”, blended from fresh non-sprayed strawberries and lemon. The drink was thick and naturally sweet, with just the right amount of tang from the lemon, a cold, refreshing and healthy treat on a hot summer day.

The Rescue Juice truck has been abating thirst for 15 years now, certainly an accomplishment to be proud of. In the event of a beverage emergency, it’s Tom Jackson to the rescue!

Rescue Juice
567 Channel Islands Blvd. #103
Port Hueneme, CA 93041
805-272-5148
provide@mac.com

See images of Tom Jackson and the Rescue Juice truck

Castroville, California

Grateful that the artichokes are a peaceful race

Castroville, California bills itself as the Artichoke Capital of the World, and as discussed in the article on the Castroville Artichoke Festival, it is well justified. When you have the chutzpah to adopt such a lofty title for yourself, it only stands to reason that you’ll want to erect a monument to establish your dominance and strike fear in the hearts of also-rans and other vegetable king wannabes. In 1963, this monument took the form of a 20-foot tall steel and concrete artichoke, the symbol of Castroville’s fame and prosperity. Of course, giant vegetable advertising didn’t hurt Ray Bei’s vegetable stand, which eventually grew into the sprawling stop for all things artichoke simply known as “The Giant Artichoke”. This includes a continuation of the original vegetable stand featuring fresh and frozen artichokes and even dried artichoke flowers. You can also get local honey (still in the honeycomb), nuts, a variety of vegetables and fresh and dried fruit. A walk through the heart of the artichoke (an empty inverted green globe hallway) takes you into the restaurant.

If there is another artichoke dish, they missed it

The front of the restaurant features a gift shop where you can purchase your standard artichoke souvenirs such as shot glasses, postcards, T-shirts, but ironically no mini tribute knock-offs of the goliath guarding the entrance with its concrete petals and metal thorns. The restaurant is simple, decorated with Artichoke Festival posters from the good old days, and the immediate expectation is you’ll be offered an artichoke as a side dish for everything on the menu. Fortunately there’s a variety of artichoke food options to choose from, or you can simply cut to the chase and get the artichoke platter which features a three-way bonanza: fried, steamed and artichoke bread. Claudia was full from the food from the festival and opted for a bowl of the cream of artichoke soup. I imagine this dish is a no-brainer, as soup is the perfect way to market the previous day’s menu surplus. The food didn’t take too long – I felt that Yoda and Kermit the Frog would have enjoyed the presentation, since it was a veritable testament to the color green. The steamed artichoke was tender without being wilted, but the fried hearts were a dark brown color, usually a sign of being left in the oily bubble bath a little long. They were crispy without being crunchy with pretty green juicy centers. I wasn’t sure what to make of the artichoke bread – it was the consistency of zucchini bread with similar flavor, but with a green hue that hinted at the possibility of food coloring doping. The soup was full of flavor, but depending on the spoonful it was sometimes difficult to differentiate from cream of broccoli until you hit upon the familiar slightly bitter aftertaste (a tell-tale by-product of the cynarine compound produced by the vegetable). The food exuded the essence of the armored vegetable and was both flavorful and relatively inexpensive. The only disappointment was the city’s missed opportunity of concocting an artichoke ice cream – it would have been a fitting desert as well as a nice feature at the festival. Don’t get me wrong here; this is road food, not haute cuisine, but when in Castroville, do as the Castrovillians do.

Not the recommended method of eating an artichoke

Should you drive from Peoria, Illinois non-stop to eat at The Giant Artichoke? No. Should you make this a stop traveling the length of Highway 101 from San Diego up through the redwood coast or on your quest to see all the California Missions? Sure, why not? Should you dine here in the shadow of the vegetable behemoth born in the days of Camelot and the New Frontier while attending the venerable Castroville Artichoke Festival? Most assuredly. It’s a great way to try a variety of artichoke preparations, see the uncontested world’s largest artichoke and attend the famous festival all in one fell swoop, crossing the three items off your California bucket list. Make that a bucket of artichokes, please.

Giant Artichoke Restaurant
11261 Merritt St
Castroville, CA 95012
GPS Coordinates: 36°45’44.81″N 121°45’10.99″W

See images of Val’s visit to The Giant Artichoke Restaurant

Mexico

Dark, rich huitlacoche prior to cooking

It raises a few eyebrows when I announce that I’m headed to Los Angeles’ Koreatown to check out the smut, but in this particular case it’s corn smut (huitlacoche) I’m referring to. Huitlacoche has been a staple of the Central American diet for centuries – it is essentially a fungus that infects the corn kernels, swelling them and turning them black with spores. Where American farmers would historically destroy their infected crop, Mexican growers have intentionally introduced the fungus into theirs. Huitlacoche fetches a higher market price than the healthy corn would; in the past decade, some American corn growers have added it to their crop, but it is still somewhat slow to catch on. There is some debate on the origin and meaning of the word, “huitlacoche” – the word is derived from the Nahuatl language, and there are some who roughly translate this to “raven excrement”, although the actual meaning and source are still up for discussion. Not having encountered raven excrement, I can’t attest to the accuracy of the description, and certainly not the taste. To my eyes, it has the appearance of overcooked spinach in squid ink. Huitlacoche is immensely popular in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, and the definitive source for huitlacoche in Los Angeles is Guelaguetza Restaurante, a local chain specializing in Oaxacan cuisine. Owner Bricia Lopez graciously invited me to share the dish; I had eaten at Guelaguetza previously, which readers of this blog may remember from an article about their tasty preparation of chapulines (grasshoppers).

Huitlacoche empanada (L), huitlacoche with onions and jalapeno (R), chapulines (C)

I eagerly anticipated digging in to the murky, black fungus, but started out with a tall glass of horchata (a Mexican rice drink). The horchata had crushed nuts on top and a pink hue that I had never seen before in other horchatas I’ve tried. Bricia told me that they puree tuña (the Spanish word for the pear, or fruit of the cactus, not Charlie from Sunkist), which gives the drink a fruity sweetness and a little color. She had the huitlacoche prepared two ways – in an empanada (essentially a giant folded-over tortilla filled with the fungus and gooey, melted Oaxacan string cheese), and cooked with onions and jalapeños for building tacos. I couldn’t resist sampling a forkful of the bare-naked fungus first; it had a rich, earthy taste like the ghost of a wood ear mushroom, with the distant remnant flavor of the host ear of corn. The onion and peppers added some spice and flavor, but didn’t diminish that woody, mushroom taste. I had a hard time deciding whether to dig into the empanada or construct a taco, so I followed her lead as she filled a tortilla with some of the huitlacoche and a generous batch of the chapulines that had been roasted with a little garlic, salt and lime. As off-putting as this image of the grasshoppers drowning in the inky black fungus may be to the uninitiated, I could barely contain myself, prepared for the wild combination of flavors and textures. The chapulines added a wonderful crispiness to the soft, moist huitlacoche and the lime they were cooked with added a citrusy zest. Figure in the bite from the jalapeños and the sweet flavor of the onions and you get a pretty good idea of the amazing sensory experience eating this dish was.

That IS a grasshopper butt sticking out of my taco

The empanada is probably a better choice for the entry-level corn smut consumer. Nothing shocking or crazy here – with the visual subdued by the surrounding tortilla, the diner simply encounters the mushroom/corn hybrid flavor of the huitlacoche and the melted mozzarella-like queso Oaxaca, resembling a damned fine quesadilla in appearance and taste. Be forewarned that the empanada is huge, so bring friends to help you eat it. Overall, both dishes were incredibly delicious, healthy and satisfying. This is another of those foods that make you scratch your head in wonder as to who decided this plant disease would be edible, but I’d like to build a flux capacitor so that I might go back in time and personally shake their hand and buy them a drink.

If you’re reading this at work and your boss asks what you’re doing, tell him you’re checking out smut online. After you get fired you can head down to Oaxaca and eat huitlacoche until your unemployment check runs out, or just visit Guelaguetza – I’ll even spring for a horchata.

Guelaguetza Restaurante
3014 W. Olympic Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90006
GPS coordinates:  37°52’11.25″N 122°18’1.83″W
Find Guelaguetza on facebook
Follow Guelaguetza on twitter

See images of Val discovering huitlacoche

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and surrounding states

Jones Dairy Farm scrapple - OK when the butcher is closed

Philadelphia, you can keep your Cheez Whiz-laden shaved steak sandwiches – but you’ll take my scrapple when you pry it from my cold, dead trotters. Scrapple for me is a nostalgia food – it’s one of those dishes that was hard for me to comprehend as a child, but it was a special treat for my eastern Pennsylvanian mom. It is essentially a thrifty breakfast food, made from pork scraps and trimmings so that nothing goes to waste. German-influenced and American-born, it bears some similarity to the U.K.’s white pudding (which is neither) and German panhas. Whatever is too small for the butcher’s case or a pig part that defies identification gets ground up and cooked; a variety of grain (frequently buckwheat or cornmeal) is added to the broth and then poured into a loaf pan to solidify. The resulting gray meat brick is then sliced into thick slabs and fried, usually accompanied by fried eggs. Move over, SPAM, your grandpappy’s breakfast meat is back with a vengeance.

The finest scrapple in Berkeley, California

Scrapple isn’t difficult to find from Pennsylvania to Maine; you can get Jones Dairy Farm, Rapa, and several other brands in the frozen food aisle of most grocery chains, but many East Coast butcher shops carry the real deal. Whether you’re trying to rekindle the experience of that “everything but the oink” flavor or are just curious, the butcher is your friend here. I envy those of you with that choice; as a transplanted Yankee expatriate I am faced with the dilemma of where to get my scrapple fix on the Left Coast. Fortunately there is a ray of porcine hope in the Bay Area and in L.A. In 1982, Bette Kroening and some chef friends opened a 50′s-style diner in Berkeley and dubbed it Bette’s Oceanview Diner. Lest you be disappointed, I’ll tip you off in advance – you can’t see the ocean from anywhere in or around the diner (although it is a few short blocks away). Bette’s is famous for their pancakes with legendary wait times of several hours, but I must have arrived during a coastal evacuation because we were seated after a short wait and served pretty quickly. I’m sure their flapjacks are as light and fluffy white as St. Alphonzo’s, but I wasn’t there for the griddlecakes, mister, no siree. I wasn’t leaving the Bay Area until I had partaken of their hidden secret. Although scrapple is a regular menu item at Bette’s, it appears to be overlooked; it is served up with poached eggs, perfect for mixing the runny hen fruit with the scrapple Massachusetts-style. Their monolithic meat was grilled to a golden brown crust with the perfect meat to grain ratio, making it firm but not too bready. In addition to their scrapple, Bette’s is a great trippy food destination for what appears to be the world’s largest slice of cherry pie dangling precariously above the register like the Sword of Damocles.

The remainder of the scrapple at The Filling Station

Scrapple is pretty scarce in the L.A. area, but a recent conversation with “snout-to-tail” devotee Ben Ford prompted him to whip up a batch using the pork scraps at his Ford’s Filling Station gastropub. Ford blended his with polenta, with his version being heavier on the pork by-product than the grain. The scrapple was seared on the grill resulting in a somewhat crunchy exterior and a warm, moist center. Accompanied by a pair of over-easies, I fought the temptation to do a mash-up and sampled a forkful au natural. I’m not sure if Ben spent any time in Philly, but he got it right on his freshman try. The slab of gray goodness was so tasty I ate half of it before realizing I was missing a Kodak moment. I think the photo of the half-eaten scrapple was a testament to how good it was.

Scrapple is the perfect marriage between SPAM and sausage, with only its grayish color and foreboding sounding name standing between it and mass popularity. You don’t have to be from Philly to enjoy scrapple, but I tell you what – yo, don’t be grittin’, youse guys need to taste this jawn.

Bette’s Oceanview Diner
1807 Fourth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
GPS coordinates:  37°52’11.25″N 122°18’1.83″W

Ford’s Filling Station
9531 Culver Boulevard
Culver City, CA 90232-2618
GPS coordinates: 34° 1’23.25″N 118°23’43.25″W
Find Ford’s Filling Station on facebook
Follow Chef Ben Ford on twitter

Jones Dairy Farm web site
Rapa Scrapple store locator

See images of Val’s encounters with scrapple

Royce Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles CA

If Bourdain needs a stunt double, he has my card

“Hey, Val, if you could do anything you wanted for a career, what would you choose?” Oh, I don’t know, I’d like to visit exotic and unusual places, immerse myself in the local culture, partake of the ethnic cuisine those places are known for, seek out some hidden treasures and then share my stories with everyone using a variety of media. “You mean like Anthony Bourdain?” Yeah, like Anthony Bourdain. That guy has the best job in the world, and he and I both know that. I know that because that’s what I want to do when I grow up; he knows that because he mentions it on a regular basis, including recently at a show at Royce Hall on the campus of U.C.L.A. Knowing that the irreverent and self-described snarky celebrity chef was going to be in town, my wife Claudia (who cheerfully puts up with my sense of adventure) treated me to a VIP pass to Bourdain’s show, “An Evening With Anthony Bourdain”. This set us back almost the price of dinner at The French Laundry, but included a copy of Bourdain’s new book, “Medium Raw”, a limited edition numbered poster, preferred seating and a meet-and-greet following the show with hors d’oeuvres catered by Wilshire Restaurant. I had never been to Royce Hall (let alone the UCLA campus), so I decided to leave early to negotiate the water buffalo stampede that is Los Angeles traffic. Since I arrived early and had some time to kill, I wandered around campus a little. Royce Hall features two grand brick towers, the entrance sheltered by cathedral arched ceilings and iron chandeliers – from the outside it looked more like an old English church than a concert hall. The hall itself is beautiful in its simplicity, with the interior lined with brick (a seemingly poor choice from an acoustic standpoint), capped at the top of the stage by a massive pipe organ. I’m not sure if Anthony Bourdain, his management, the promoter or Royce Hall decided that preferred seating was halfway back in Row O, but obviously I wasn’t asked for my preference or I would have been in spitting distance. Waving my laminated “backstage pass” on a lanyard did nothing to get me a better seat than people who paid regular price.

Anthony Bourdain checks out the bag of hormigas culonas

Knowing Bourdain’s penchant for punk rock, I would have thought he’d have some urban backdrop or some staging that looked like the alley behind CBGBs, but there was only a plain podium with two microphones that went unused for the duration of his show. He wandered around the stage using a wireless lapel mic, no special effects, no fancy lighting, no incidental music, just an animated, sometimes cynical, always funny chef, critic and world traveler. I found myself in complete agreement on some observations; how cutting the fin off a shark and leaving the animal to drown is a waste of life and food. He talked about ammonia-treated meat scraps going into the “gray disk” burgers at Mickey D’s and Burger King, a story that I had shared on Trippy Food’s facebook page back in January from an article in the New York Times. We did differ on a couple of opinions; for starters, he said that one of his virtues is curiosity. I am curious to the point of obsession, and I’m sure you could ask Claudia if she considers it a virtue (it’s more like a curse). Where we see things different is that Bourdain states that he will repeatedly drive past a restaurant that has Lassie on the menu, but if he is dining in someone’s house in another part of the world that is serving up “puppy heads”, he would ask for more and avoid offending his host. I’m of the opinion that is he truly was virtuously curious, like me he would be standing outside the restaurant waiting for them to open to try a nice big steaming plate of Scooby Doo, then head over to the local’s house to try the host’s take on puppy heads. The other area where we differ (although his opinion is probably more for entertainment value) is how he proposes scaring small children to not want to eat food from “The Clown, The King and The Colonel” by telling them things like eating McDonald’s burgers will “make them retarded”, or dipping a severed Barbie head in chocolate and putting it in a colorful McDonald’s wrapper. Personally, I think kids are pretty smart, and simply sharing the NY Times article on how the burgers at McDonald’s and Burger King share the same chemical compounds found in urine or Mr. Clean ought to do the trick.

Mmmm, bruschetta

No evening with the aforementioned Mr. Bourdain would be complete without his irreverent bashing of other food show hosts, including the target of his infamous sniping, Rachel Ray. He spent some time trashing most of the Food Network hosts, including Guy Fieri, but says he’s lightened up a bit since Food Network bought the Travel Channel and they now have the same boss. Although he is not kind to Man vs. Food’s Adam Richman in print, he seemed to show some sympathy for him, joking that the network sends him on his challenges so that the audience can watch him die. He also spoke of his admiration for Andrew Zimmern, who eats sub-Saharan temperature animal entrails without the assistance of palate-numbing alcohol – Bourdain calls himself “a professional drinker”, which helps him eat some of the more unsavory food-like substances he encounters in his travels. After his lecture, the floor was opened to questions from the audience, with microphones strategically placed in the four corners of the hall. One person asked which country he would suggest more people visit, and he responded by saying that it’s a toss-up between Vietnam and Colombia, two countries that had rebounded from years of adversity. Apparently I was the only one who applauded at his choice of Colombia. Another audience member asked what his most memorable experience from the show was (good or bad), and he related that the massage in the dilapidated bath house in Uzbekistan rates at the bottom of the list. He described the massage as lying prone on a cement slab wearing a napkin on his ass, while a sweaty, hairy Russian straddled him like Ron Jeremy (a statement I found particularly funny at the after party when I saw Ron Jeremy standing at a table at the back).

After the Q&A session ended and he bid the audience adieu, I made my way back to the bar area where I picked up my poster and book and then queued up behind the velvet ropes for a photo opportunity. LAist and Here, Eat This! writer Elise Thompson had also gone to the show, and she graciously agreed to capture the Kodak moment for me. I shared the story with Bourdain of how Claudia had found one of her high school classmates from his episode on Colombia (Jorge Escandon, owner of Cartagena’s La Cervicheria) and then presented him with a small bag of hormigas culonas (roasted leaf-cutter ants from Bucamaranga); he signed his book, shook my hand and I was off (as Eddie Lin puts it, “Like a sinner after meeting The Pope”). While I nibbled on some of the hors d’oeuvres, I couldn’t help thinking that Bourdain didn’t look happy – he was gracious enough to the folks in the serpentine line that stretched onto the balcony, but he looked a bit like he had to force a smile and didn’t enjoy schmoozing, but felt it was part of the territory. The snacks were tasty – I enjoyed the ceramic soup spoons filled with a fish ceviche, and the bruschetta with heirloom tomatoes were crunchy, creamy and delicious (although I dropped a big dollop of it on the fine carpet, trying to hide the deed by cleaning it up with a napkin). The servers were dressed in black T-shirts and jeans, with the nod to Bourdain’s casual style lost to many in attendance. I hung around for a little while, but with the python that was the meet-and-greet line still winding through the bar area, I didn’t see Bourdain hanging around to chat afterwards and so decided to leave.

It’s not everyday that you get to meet one of the people who inspire you on an international level to do what you love and share the experience, and I will always be grateful to Claudia for giving me that opportunity, and Anthony Bourdain for entertaining me and for his hospitality. I still have Bill Clinton, Andrew Zimmern and Paul McCartney on my list of people I’d like to meet, but I feel a little bit richer having met Bourdain. I wrote about it, I traveled to the show and I ate hors d’oeuvres, but when I got home I was hungry for more.

Royce Hall
UCLA, 340 Royce Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90095
GPS Coordinates: 34°4’21.20″N 118°26’31.52″W

See images of Val, Anthony Bourdain and Royce Hall

Los Angeles, CA

Chubby Pork Belly and a side of kimchee

It has slowly and insidiously crept its way into our culture; Angelenos had been content to enjoy the hard-fought-for, all-American tradition of chowing down on tacos al carbon and barbacoa burritos from the local taco truck until upstart Roy Choi decided to infiltrate our street food society and peddle his Korean fusion cuisine propaganda throughout L.A. County. I could be wrong about the all-American thing, but not only did Choi introduce the hungry denizens of L.A. to the kimchee taco, he single-handedly turned the food truck industry into a viral sensation. Not content to rely on word of mouth, Choi discovered the power of twitter and before long tweets were barreling through the ether letting the hungry mobs know where the Kogi truck was going next; how long was it going to be there; where the next destination was. Lines were hours long, and oh, how the word spread like chili paste. Choi soon had four trucks ranging all the way into Orange County, and soon BBQ, pancake, grilled cheese , Indian, dim sum, French fry and Brazilian street food trucks were taking to the streets like an epicurean plague. No disrespect to the other wonderful and quirky food trucks that have since warmed the cockles of our hearts and intestines, but Kogi was the flame that lit this Roman candle. Choi was preparing his food out of a small kitchen in Culver City that slowly evolved into a bar where you could enjoy the same cuisine served on the trucks without having to chase them down under the moniker of The Alibi Room. Not content to simply dominate the food truck scene and change the way we look at bar food, Choi opened a third venture – a small, friendly and kitschy Korean fusion restaurant where food is served in cardboard dishes from a pegboard menu called Chego. Over a year and a half after his first Kogi truck, Choi has gained national (if not international) notice for his empire, due in great part to his foresight in using the Internet to build his kingdom.

Pork sliders at the Alibi Room

It would be easy to attribute the meteoric rise of this triad to electronic media, but without cheap food that is high on both quality and taste he’d be waving down tailgaters at the Rose Bowl. Let’s start with Choi’s oldest offspring, the Kogi truck. With four trucks (Roja, Azul, Verde and Naranja) to choose from, the lines aren’t as crazy as they once were; you may only have to wait in line for an hour or so. On a recent visit to Venice, the Kogi truck literally came to me, pulling up and setting up shop where I was standing. Being the food adventurer I stake my reputation on, I had to go for the most unusual offering (this is where you think, “Korean tacos? Yeah that should be easy”). Since I have a weak spot for hot dogs, I decided on the Kogi Dog and their signature kimchi quesadilla. I hung out in line with Anthony Taranto, a local who has dined at the Alibi Room but took advantage of the truck pulling up to try the mobile food (in this case the short rib burrito) and friends Shane and Sita (who opted for the Blackjack Quesadilla, which, draped in salsa verde is more of a nod to the food’s Mexican heritage). I started with the Kogi Dog, and while it kicked like a mule from the kimchee topping, there was so much crunchy vegetation on it that the wiener got lost. The kimchi quesadilla was a curious conflict of tastes and textures, with the melted cheese taming the kimchee and the salsa roja covering it. It was an explosion of taste, but too much food, even for me. Shane raved about the Blackjack Quesadilla, spicy and flavorful, and Anthony finished the massive burrito, which I thought could have taken down a grizzly.

There is a hot dog somewhere in that vegetation

I visited The Alibi Room in order to compare the experience to eating directly off the truck. Although the meat is still prepared there, the woman serving the food (and drinks) informed me that in order to stock all the trucks, the rest of the food is prepared in a larger, more central kitchen. I wasn’t in the mood for the heap of food I sampled at the truck and so I sat at the bar and opted for the short rib sliders. The sweet and tender meat was topped with cheese, mayo, red salsa and shredded cabbage; the cold and crisp topping nicely offset the meat with plenty of spicy moisture from the condiments. I had heard that the lines were crazy at the Alibi Room, but arriving around 6 PM I found there to be plenty of room at the bar. The decor was sparse and modern with lots of light streaming in from outside (a feature not obvious when standing in front of the building). Most of the patrons were drinking from the well-stocked bar, and those who were eating were served in the same “to-go” dishes used on the trucks.

Worth the wait

The recently opened Chego proved to be a planning challenge; again, legendary tales of waiting several hours had me mulling over whether or not to wait until the hoopla subsided, but since the cuisine is different from the fare served at The Alibi Room and on the trucks, I figured I’d bite the bullet and give it a try. On the day I went it was quiet enough to not have to wait for a table. The concept is simple – walk up to the cashier, pick your item from the board on the wall and take a number and a seat. I couldn’t resist the pull of the dish titled “One Chubby Pork Belly”, although I imagined it was a foreshadowing of my physical shape after chowing down on one. I caved in and ordered a side of kimchee and took a seat. There’s plenty to look at while you’re waiting for your food to arrive; eye-level shelves surrounding the small room are stocked with a variety of memorabilia; naturally my eyes were drawn to the foot-tall Pee Wee Herman sitting proudly on Chairry and surveying the food. Apparently he approved. I was pleased that the portions were not gargantuan, but they certainly were filling. The meat was moist, fatty and a little crispy and the freshness of the pickled radishes, water spinach, cilantro, and cross-sections of Chinese broccoli stems created complexity without taking away from the pork; the whole mess was suspended in sticky rice and topped with the omnipresent fried egg. The kimchee was lying facedown in a pool of its own spicy blood, and it had the perfect amount of fermentation while remaining crisp and spicy. Chego is small and very friendly, but I’m not sure I’d want to be packed in like a sardine waiting for a table (I didn’t see a counter or bar area where you could stand and eat your selection).

I have to wonder if the Korean invasion is complete, or if Chef Choi has something else up his sleeve, but either way I am officially admitting defeat. I will submit the articles of my surrender in 140 characters or less.

The Kogi BBQ truck
Los Angeles and Orange Counties, California
Follow Kogi on twitter

The Alibi Room
12236 Washington Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90066
GPS coordinates:  33°59’49.06″N 118°25’36.39″W

Chego
3300 Overland Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90034
GPS coordinates:  34°1’39.23″N 118°24’47.83″W

See images from Val’s visits to the Kogi truck, The Alibi Room and Chego

Your basic head cheese feast

Picture five pounds of Velveeta sculpted into a bust of Louis Pasteur. Can you see it? OK, that’s just wrong. If that’s what you imagine when you hear the term “head cheese” you’re way off base. I don’t blame you, though – the name is somewhat confusing. Let’s get one thing straight, right off the bat: there is no cheese in head cheese. Suffice it to saythat  the “head” part is slightly more accurate, but it’s doubtful that your marketing department would get very far with a product simply called “head”, unless you produce films in the San Fernando Valley. The head component of this dish is most commonly the head of a pig, but don’t expect to see Arnold Ziffel staring at you with his cold, dead eyes when you purchase this culinary oddity at your local butcher shop. I’ve wasted your valuable time with what head cheese isn’t, so out of fairness I’ll bring you up to speed with what it is. Head cheese is a meat product (usually pork) that is generally served cold and sliced as a luncheon meat. In addition to all the edible bits covering the pig’s skull (including ears, snout, and cheeks), it often contains pork tongue, trotters (pigs’ feet) and heart; normally the brain is removed. The pig’s head and accompanying body parts are spiced and cooked down to where all the meat can be easily removed, and then it is finely chopped and placed in a terrine, deep dish or pan along with the broth and chilled. The natural collagen in the bones and hide create a gelatin that solidifies the broth and holds all the tasty bits of skin, flesh and fat together in a translucent suspension that looks like the result of Jackson Pollock experimenting in sculpting. Finally, this block of exploded pork puddingstone is sliced and served with bread. Historically, it has been most popular in the UK (where it is known as “brawn”), gradually spreading in notoriety to the U.S., particularly on the east coast.

The blur in the distance is Chef Ford preparing the head cheese

Head cheese carries a special nostalgia from me; when I was a child my mother would buy the pre-packaged Oscar Mayer variety to make a fine sandwich. To this day she refuses to let me tell her how it’s made lest I spoil her enjoyment of the dish. Personally, I had always thought the Oscar Mayer variety bore a creepy similarity to the plastic fake vomit available from the Johnson Smith catalog or your friendly neighborhood joke shop. Despite its sometimes off-putting appearance, I was determined to find some to rekindle that sense of amazement at this simple peasant food. I was unable to find the pre-packaged variety at most of the area chain groceries; I was suffering a bad case of head cheese withdrawal and I had to find my 40-year fix.

Chef Ford presents the garnished variety

Enter friend Eddie Lin, who informed me that Ben Ford (chef and owner of Ford’s Filling Station) hand-makes what is probably the best head cheese in L.A. County (although I’m wondering if it’s the only head cheese in L.A County). Ford is a follower of the “snout-to-tail” philosophy, using every part of the animal; his restaurant has a rotating menu of uncommon cuts of meat, and since head cheese is not an everyday staple there, I asked him to let me know when he’d be serving it again. When I received an e-mail stating, “We’re serving it now”, I wasted no time in getting down there. Ford prepares the head cheese two ways: traditionally, in cold slices on a plate accompanied by fresh bread; and in lump form on toast garnished with picked onions and spicy peppers. Being the adventurous omnivore of legend, I opted for both. I decided to start with the dressed-up version; the meat required no chewing whatsoever and the texture was contrasted nicely by the crispness of the peppers and onions. There was just enough spice from the vegetation to enhance the flavor, although it made me that much more excited about sampling it in its purest form.

The moment I had waited for had arrived; the disc-shaped slices were overlapped on a wooden dish with an ample supply of fresh bread standing by. I tried lifting one of the slices first with my fingers, then alternately with the fork and knife, but the soft meat disintegrated; I decided I would do a shmear like a fine cabeza pate. I tried a forkful au natural first; it was truly hog heaven. The fleshy bits were ground down to a fine consistency – the tiniest taste held the right mix of melty fat with hints of tender, stringy muscle fiber. None of these big chunks of unidentified bits floating around, just smooth, buttery melt-in-your-mouth goodness. Since the menu featured fried green tomatoes, I decided to try them as a side dish since it’s anybody’s guess when I’ll get back to Texas. Their tomatoes were slightly red, which added some sweetness yet maintained the firmness required to keep them from falling apart into mush. The beer batter was a nice touch as well.

Deli-style coarsely chopped head cheese

I have since found an Italian deli (Mario’s) in Glendale, California that carries San Fransisco’s Molinari and Son’s brand head cheese sitting in a giant loaf looking like a shell for a meat Howitzer. They’ll make you a head cheese sub, or like any other deli will happily slice it for you to go. This is the coarse chopped commercial variety with obvious chunks of snout, ears, etc. and as such is a little chewier. It’s more authentic and tastier than the Oscar Mayer variety, but pales in comparison to the freshly made mélange available at The Filling Station.

I’ve come to the decision that Ben Ford truly is the head honcho; I know I’ll be back to try some of his other menu items, but The Filling Station certainly managed to entice me to return again with the promise of good head (cheese).

Ford’s Filling Station
9531 Culver Boulevard
Culver City, CA 90232-2618
GPS coordinates: 34°1’23.41″N 118°23’43.16″W

Find Ford’s Filling Station on facebook
Follow Chef Ben Ford on twitter
See images of head cheese at Ford’s Filling Station
See video about head cheese from The History Channel

Temecula Valley Balloon and Wine Festival

Claudia and I wave from a tethered balloon

Think of an annual festival where huge numbers of hot air balloons take to the skies and what comes to mind? OK, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, sure, I get that. But what if you add in the celebration of wine to the mix? Well, since 1983, that’s exactly what’s been on the bill at the Temecula Valley Balloon and Wine Festival at Lake Skinner Park in Southern California. The festival has all the trappings you would expect from an outdoor festival – a variety of food, entertainment on multiple stages and rows of vendors selling crafts, wine and food – but the big draws are the balloons and wines representing the finest Temecula Valley wineries. To get the most out of the festival it is highly recommended that you get there early. Since the festival is held annually in June, the balloons take off early in the morning while the sky is still cool (the trick to getting them airborne is getting the air inside the balloon hotter than the air outside). When the air is too warm, the balloons have difficulty getting airborne. Don’t bypass the Temecula event simply because the New Mexico festival gets more press – I easily counted almost a hundred balloons, with most of them airborne at the same time.

Less dangerous than it looks

One of the pilots explained that a balloon ride can be an exciting adventure, since the destination is up to Mother Nature. The only thing the pilot controls is the height of the balloon, and the air temperature can make that difficult as well. Each balloon has a chase vehicle that follows it to where it lands for transport back to the point of takeoff. The balloon rides aren’t cheap – they can run anywhere in the vicinity of $150 and up, but if you’re on a fixed budget, don’t despair, since several tethered balloons give free rides vertically about 50 to a hundred feet up and back. Simply watching how the balloons are filled and launched is amazing, and to see the sky filled with the brightly colored balloons is a sight to behold.

The morning sky filled with balloons

As the sun heats up, the focus shifts from the balloons to the wine and entertainment. While Napa Valley is a more renowned wine growing location, the Temecula Valley also has vineyards producing great wines, and a considerable number of them have a presence at the festival. There are tents where you can buy wine by the glass, by the bottle, purchase supplies and participate in wine tasting. Live music is performed on multiple stages throughout the course of the festival, with headliners such as Kenny Loggins, The Beach Boys and John Waite performing in addition to various artists covering a wide range of genres. Food is decent and relatively inexpensive, although you won’t find the trippy variety available at such food-centric festivals such as the Gilroy Garlic Festival and the Castroville Artichoke Festival. There’s a petting zoo where kids can handle pythons, hedgehogs and other odd critters, but after a couple of glasses of wine you might find yourself asking the curator to fry you up some of that cute little monkey. Be advised well in advance, they won’t do it.

The festival runs about three days, and at around $20 for a general admission ticket (depending on the day), you definitely get your money’s worth. There are also adjacent campgrounds for making a weekend of it. It’s easy to plan your day from the website, or you can just go early and leave it all up in the air.

Temecula Valley Balloon and Wine Festival
Lake Skinner Park
Winchester, California 92596
GPS coordinates: 33°35’21.53″N 117°2’21.00″W

See more images from the Temecula Valley Balloon and Wine Festival

Castroville, California

Everything is bigger in Castroville

The artichoke is a confusing vegetable; Curly Howard once threatened, “I’d like to meet the guy who invented this barbed-wire pineapple”. The Globe artichoke we’re familiar with in the U.S. is a native of northern Africa and southern Europe, and is actually the unopened bud of the Cynara cardunculus (a member of the thistle family). It is a heavily armored flower with thick, broad, scale-like petals ending in thorns; these guard the purple, fuzzy part of the flower that in its immature stage is referred aptly as the “choke” (describing what will result if you try to eat it). One can only imagine the brave soul who first assumed that they were edible, and then figured out how to eat it – it’s highly likely that he collaborated with the first person to eat a lobster. Artichokes have been known in popular culture for millennia; as the story goes, the Greek god Zeus seduced a young mortal maiden named Cynara and brought her back to his swinging pad in Mount Olympus. Living the life of a goddess didn’t appeal to her, so she left Mount Olympus, much to the displeasure of Zeus (who quickly and neatly turned her into the first artichoke, thus the vegetable’s scientific name). Cute story, to be sure, but with all this European folklore surrounding the armadillo of the vegetable world, how does a California town on the Central Coast come to be known as “The Artichoke Center of The World”?

An artichoke in the field

Around the beginning of the last century, Italian immigrants in the San Francisco area were missing their beloved artichoke when they discovered that the climate caused by the meeting of the warm inland air and the cold waters created the perfect growing climate. Root stalks were imported from Italy and farmers on the peninsula began growing artichokes like crazy; however, when land development became a lucrative business in the Bay area, farmers began moving their crops to the south, settling in the undeveloped Castroville area in the early 1920s. The crop was wildly successful and to this day over 98 percent of the artichokes consumed in the U.S. come from the Castroville area. Mediterranean countries grow more artichokes, but Castroville gets to wear the crown because more artichokes are grown in this area than in any other single place in the world. By the 1940s, Castroville became so synonymous with artichokes that the idea of an annual festival became reality. In 1947, a young Norma Jean Baker (yes, THAT Norma Jean Baker) was crowned as the first Miss California Artichoke Queen and the tradition has been upheld ever since. Lately the contest bestows multiple crowns (political correctness has led to the monarchy being shared by a queen and a king); the contestants are local area students who are voted in based on achievement in local academic and community service. It does makes one wonder when a monarchy became an elected position, though.

Everything tastes better outdoors

The festival has everything you would expect from a vegetable shindig (much like neighbor Gilroy’s famous garlic festival) and more: live music, carnie rides, cooking demonstrations and a wide variety of artichoke-based county fair-style food. Along side your typical fare of hot dogs, funnel cakes, cotton candy, et al., artichokes are available in a dizzying variety of preparations that Buford “Bubba” Blue would be proud of: artichoke burritos, grilled artichoke, deep-fried artichoke, carne asada tacos with artichoke, artichoke pasta, artichoke crab cakes, bacon-wrapped artichokes, artichoke-stuffed portabella mushrooms, artichoke enchiladas, sautéed artichoke and artichoke cupcakes… I guess that’s about it. The petals of the grilled variety had a smoky flavor, but wasn’t a drastic departure from the traditional steaming preparation; the sautéed artichoke was mushy and looked like it should be served as a side dish. I opted for the Our Lady of Refuge Carne Asada Tacos with Artichoke; the meat was a little chewy, but the intense flavor of the chopped artichoke hearts brought the dish to life. Crisp, finely shredded lettuce and a nice, biting salsa made the taco forget it even had meat in it, which was fine by me. I returned to the artichoke cupcake tent later in the day for dessert, only to discover in horror that they had sold out. There wasn’t even a consolation of artichoke ice cream to fall back on. We’ll return to the black market procurement of said cupcake in a bit.

2 dollars? What a bargain!

The festival featured an AGROart contest in which the artists worked with artichokes and other vegetables akin to Spamarama’s SPAM sculpture contest. Most sculptors went with an animal theme (fish, pelicans, and a cleverly designed rattlesnake with an onion head and ear of corn for a rattle), although one adventurous participant opted to try to recreate Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland in vegetables. A nearby information booth sold posters, souvenirs and tickets for a tour of the artichoke fields (an opportunity I immediately seized). The tour boarded a white field labor bus (which I’m sure would have been pulled over in Arizona as “suspicious”) and headed out to two fields where annual and perennial varieties are grown. On the way, I received a call from friend David Lee (who I met at President Obama’s inauguration and now resides in the area) and agreed to meet up with him after the tour (the significance of this meeting to the artichoke cupcake espionage will become clear shortly). Pat Hopper of the California Artichoke Advisory Board conducted the tour, which started in a huge tract of land where the annual variety is grown. It was explained that what is marketed as “baby” artichokes are simply the smaller ones, which grow towards the bottom of the plant; the larger ones are at the top and the artichokes are sorted, packed and numbered by the amount that will fit in a single crate. At the second stop (where the perennials are grown), Pat explained how the aquifers are becoming brackish as the seawater replaces the fresh water being removed for the farms; using “reclaimed water” is reducing this. Although the recycled water is safe to drink, Pat stated that you probably wouldn’t want to. She showed the tour group how the artichokes are harvested (which must be done by hand since it is a visual process); the worker skillfully and one-handedly cuts the artichoke about 2 inches from the stem and deftly tosses it in their backpack (called a canasta) in a single move. A “baby” was harvested, and then thinly sliced from the bottom for anyone interested to taste the raw vegetable (which was slightly but not offensively bitter).

The mush called "sauteed artichoke"

In the words of Dennis Moore, “This is a blog article, not a bloody botany lesson”, so let’s take the bus back to the festival and pick up where we left off with the tale of the cupcake. We met up with David and spent some time enjoying the rest of the festivities; the contestants vying for the title of California Artichoke Queen and King touted their resumes at the microphone, groups presented ethnic dances and song, and one street was lined with a corridor of classic cars, tricked-out rides and low riders. When I mentioned to David that I missed the opportunity to try the cupcakes prior to them selling out, he told me that he had eaten one and found it to be similar in taste to carrot cake. After a few hours we parted company, and my wife Claudia and I moved towards the exit. Before we got to the gate, we ran into David again, who had found some of his coworkers and friends and told us to go with him as he had something special for us. We went to the parking area to where his friend Shannon had parked and a door was surreptitiously opened to reveal a gleaming plastic container neatly holding a half dozen of the cupcakes. She told us that she had purchased the last six, and felt all eyes upon her as she made her way to the parking lot. We were presented with a cupcake, which we thought might require the services of an armed escort to get to our car in another lot. In fact, the people at the ticket booth saw us and yelled, “Look! They have a cupcake!”. David’s assessment of the taste was pretty accurate; it also bore some similarity to zucchini bread. It was neither overly sweet nor bitter, and was a welcome finish to a day partaking in all things artichoke.

There are other artichoke-themed things to do and eat in Castroville that can be enjoyed all year round, but that’s a story for another article. Artichokes are delicious, nutritious, fat and sodium-free, and low calorie (although slightly expensive), but if you have an opportunity to try Curly’s “feathered apple”, be sure to treat yourself to one. Just tell yourself (as the 2010 slogan goes), “Thistle be fun”!

The Annual Castroville Artichoke Festival
Downtown Castroville, CA (around Preston and McDougall Streets)
GPS Coordinates: 36°45’59.87″N 121°45’26.81″W

Ocean Mist Farms (artichoke growers and sponsors of the festival)

See images of Val’s visit to the 2010 Castroville Artichoke Festival

Radio City Tower, The Williamson Tunnels

Radio City Tower rising above Williamson Square

While Liverpool’s main draw from a tourist standpoint is that The Beatles lived there, there is a wide variety on non-Fab Four things to see and do there. The best way to truly see and appreciate Liverpool is from above and below. From above, there’s no better vantage point than Radio City Tower. Originally called St. John’s Beacon, it was designed as a ventilation shaft for St. John’s Market and completed in 1969 (presumably John Lennon should have been able to see it from his house). Similar to structures such as Toronto’s CN Tower, The Space Needle in Seattle, Reunion Tower in Dallas and San Antonio’s Tower of the Americas, the tower featured a revolving restaurant and an outdoor observation deck. Eventually these were closed, and the platform at the top was occupied by Radio City 96.7. The tower had closed for renovation but was recently reopened for tours on weekends. It had been the tallest structure in Liverpool until being replaced by West Tower in 2008. West Tower features the Panoramic restaurant on the 34th floor with a commanding view, but be forewarned that dinner will probably run you the equivalent of front row tickets to a Paul McCartney concert, whereas Radio City Tower will only set you back about £6.25.

Claudia and me atop Radio City Tower

Just as fascinating as the liver bird’s view of Liverpool is the mole’s-eye view (if moles had decent eyesight). A trip to the Williamson Tunnels is called for to get a revealing look at what lies beneath Liverpool. The tunnels are historic, having been undertaken as a project by their namesake, tobacco magnate Joseph Williamson. Williamson was not born into wealth, but through hard work was able to amass a small fortune. At the turn of the 19th century he purchased land in an area of Liverpool called Edge Hill and in addition to constructing homes on the site, began the construction of a series of arched brick tunnels stretching for miles beneath the city. This eccentric behavior earned him the dubious title of the Mad Mole, but there was actually a benevolent purpose for the seemingly unnecessary tunnels. There was considerable unemployment in Liverpool at the time, and in order to provide workers with a job where they could earn a day’s wages with some dignity, he contracted them to build the tunnels (similar to Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, a program that would be a decent idea given the current economy).

Claudia and I wear semi-protective headgear

After Williamson’s death in 1840, the tunnels were abandoned and largely forgotten, and many were filled with dirt, trash and debris. Occasionally local construction would break through a tunnel, or the chambers would fill with sewage and become a neighborhood nuisance, much like Clark Griswold’s cousin Eddie. In the 1990s, the area was set aside as a historic preservation site, and excavation of the tunnels began. Tours of the excavated areas are conducted from the restored Old Corporation stables above the tunnels. The stable yard was established in the mid-1800s for breeding horses used by the city for mail transport to hauling goods. Most of the horses had been phased out by 1960 and replaced by motorized vehicles; the Central Stables were finally closed in 1993. The tour starts through a set of barn doors where green hard hats are handed out. Either I have a gigantic head, or the helmets are designed for microcephalics, since mine rested atop my head making me look like my head was the object of a tortoise’s amorous desires. The tour guide stated that Williamson had never created a map of the tunnel system, and all of the vast maze of tunnels may never be uncovered. Scaffolding winds through the tunnels, affording insight as to how the tunnels were built. The tunnels are continuously being excavated, so the tour gets larger as new tunnels are uncovered. The entrance fee is reasonable, especially considering that the money helps go to the upkeep of the historic property and the tunnel excavation.

As with any city, the best way to get to know it is to see the high and mighty as well as the bottom of the rung in the underworld. Between is a myriad of sights, sounds, smells and tastes in the marvelous scouse stew that is the city of Liverpool.

Williamson Tunnels Heritage Centre
The Old Stableyard
Smithdown Lane
Edge Hill, Liverpool, L7 3EE, UK
GPS Coordinates: 53°24’14.20″N 2°57’30.46″W

Radio City Tower
St John’s Beacon
1 Houghton Street
Liverpool, Merseyside L1 1RL UK
GPS Coordinates: 53°24’22.21″N 2°58’55.29″W

Panoramic
West Tower
10 Brook Street
Liverpool, L3 9PJ, United Kingdom
GPS Coordinates: 53°24’35.50″N 2°59’48.07″W

See more pictures from Val’s visit Radio City Tower and the Williamson Tunnels in Liverpool

Los Angeles County, California

Ta Bom - it is Da Bomb

To many of the non-Portuguese speaking Angelenos who see Ta Bom coming, the name emblazoned on the front gets alliterated to “The Bomb”. Ilse Marques and her twin daughters Jackie and Julie aren’t about to go Rosetta Stone on their ass since it brings customers to their chunk of pavement, and because… well, they are the bomb. It would be erroneous on my part to call Ta Bomb a “gourmet food truck”, as there’s nothing uppity about their traditional Brazilian street food. “Ta Bom” (“It’s Good” in Portuguese) is not just a catchy name, it’s truth in advertising – this is real, hearty food of the people. A transplant from São Paulo, Marques found herself unemployed with time to consider a change of occupation. She had always wanted to cook Brazilian food, and so almost exactly a year after her life-changing experience, her truck was launched. Everything is fresh and made from scratch, and they will talk about the preparation with pride – they clearly love what they do. It’s a foregone conclusion that I wanted to try the more unusual items on the truck, and so I asked what someone walking up to a stand on the streets of Brazil would want.

Ilse Marques (center) with daughters Jackie and Julie

The first item on their menu is the grilled top sirloin steak taco. To me it sounded like a tribute offering to the taco truck gods that begat the food truck craze, but hardly indicative of Brazilian cuisine; oddly enough, the steady stream of patrons who came to the window while I discussed traditional food mostly ordered the taco. Not that I’m knocking it – in fact, I watched as one of the cooks was cutting fresh, red sirloin by hand, and the folks that ordered them raved about them. Jackie told me that the most popular item with a Brazilian pedigree is the coxinha, a tear-dropped shaped croquette made with shredded chicken entombed with cream cheese in a breadcrumb crust. When this tear of joy hits the hot oil, the cream cheese melts into the chicken and results in a hot cone of Brazilian heaven; all I knew was that I had to have one. The pastels (crisp pastry folded over a variety of meats, cheese or bananas) are popular, but I was intrigued by the cachorro quente (the Brazilian-style hot dog). While I waited for my food I faked disappointment in not seeing the most popular beverage in Brazil – Guarana Antarctica – but apparently if I had dug into the ice chest I would have found them in plentiful supply.

The delicious creamy-centered coxinha

I had a pretty good idea what to expect with the coxinha, but the hot dog floored me. Anyone who has had to listen to me babble for hours knows that hot dogs are my comfort food of choice, but no one could have predicted my slack-jawed amazement in this work of art. They start with a high quality beef sausage, which is butterflied and slapped on the grill. The bread (which was more roll than bun) was also grilled on both sides. The doggy is then put to bed on the roll and then topped with grilled corn, a condiment trilogy (mustard, mayo and ketchup) and potato sticks (yes, those crispy shoestring potato snacks we used to buy in a can as kids). The combination of the savory sausage, the sweet corn, the crunch of the potatoes and the toasty roll made me want to retire from eating so I would always remember this as the last thing I ate. I came to my senses, realizing that I still had to finish the coxinha, which was like a rich, cheesy knish and was both tasty and filling. Jackie offered me one of the tacos so that I could see what initially brings people to the truck, and although the meat was tender and flavorful with just the right amount of cilantro, onions and salsa verde, it seemed like an obligatory food truck staple teaser, leaving me to feel sorry for those just ordering the tacos and missing the best fare.

My woeful tale of gluttony isn’t over – Jackie told me that no Brazilian meal would be complete without a homemade brigadeiro, a fudgy truffle-like candy made on the stove from condensed milk, butter and cocoa, then rolled in a ball of chocolate sprinkles. I was informed that in order to make a good brigadeiro, it requires stirring for almost half an hour. I’m not much of a chocoholic, but it was sweet without being overbearing (reminiscent of soft, melty fudge); I chased the treat with the Guarana Antarctica (which I found similar to a mild Mountain Dew) and thanked the Marques family for keeping tradition alive and bringing it to the masses. I’ve often thought about visiting Brazil, but for now I’m content with letting it come to me.

Ta Bom (Brazilian Taste Truck)
Los Angeles County, California
http://twitter.com/Ta_Bom

See images of L.A. County’s Ta Bom Brazillian food truck

Time in the pillory caps off a visit to the Dungeon Museum

Salem, Massachusetts is as synonymous with Halloween as Times Square is with New Year’s Eve, and with good reason; Salem has the dubious reputation of having burned witches at the stake in the early years of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Of course, reputation and fact are often muddy bedfellows – most of the “witch” trials took place near Salem, and of the more than 150 men and women accused, nineteen were hung and one was pressed to death in an effort to get him to confess. Since witches fall nicely into the imagery of Halloween, Salem has become the undisputed capital of Halloween celebration. It is the one night each year that local attractions are open late into the evening; the streets fill with revelers in what is undoubtedly the world’s largest annual masquerade party. In recent years it has digressed into more frat night than fright night, but it is still the definitive place to appreciate creativity and the art of the masquerade.

The Salem Witch House

Of the local attractions open on All Hallows’ Eve, one of the most historic is the home of Judge Jonathan Corwin, these days known as The Witch House. None of the accused lived here – since 1675 it was the home of one of the magistrates whom served on the Court of Oyer and Terminer, the judicial body responsible for the death sentences of the nineteen innocents who met their fate at the gallows. On Halloween, the Witch House conducts hourly storytelling by reservation, read by actors in costume. Over at the famous House of the Seven Gables (the inspiration for the Nathaniel Hawthorne novel of the same name) performs plays with such spooky titles  as “The Legacy of the Hanging Judge” and “The Spirits of the Gables” (also a ticketed event).

The Witch Dungeon Museum, home of the big dummies

One delightfully tacky attraction is the Witch Dungeon Museum. Housed in an old church built at the turn of the last century, patrons sit in the old church pews and watch a play in which a woman portrays one of the accused with an occasional additional actor or actress; however, the rest of the cast are mannequins dressed in period clothing. Nothing quite says “B Movie” like a play where most of the cast are dummies. After the play you can tour the “dungeons” – wooden room-sized bins in the church basement with dioramas of events surrounding the witch trials of the 1690s with what appears to be more of the mannequins from the play.

Yes, that is his real head

The 1925 Hawthorne Hotel hosts an annual costume ball, but the real fun is simply walking the streets and partaking in the party atmosphere there. Most of the action takes place along historic Essex Street; bands perform on various stages with even the musicians in costume. It’s obvious that some of the revelers have taken months to create their costumes, or at least spent hundreds of dollars making it look that way. The best time to go is just after dusk – the ratio of masqueraders to drunken college kids widens drastically as the night progresses.

Ignore the spoiled sports that say that the whole thing is a satanic ritual; there are plenty of ultra-Christian protesters on hand with signs and bullhorns – try not to mistake them for costumed party-goers. Everyone should enjoy the spectacle at least once; maybe you can enjoy the Halloween party in Salem and then fly to L.A. the next morning to participate in the Dia de los Muertos festivities. Wear a skeleton costume and you won’t even have to change clothes.

The Salem Witch House
310 1/2 Essex Street
Salem, MA 01970
GPS Coordinates: 42°31’17.37″N 70°53’56.10″W

House of the Seven Gables
115 Derby Street
Salem, MA 01970
GPS Coordinates: 42°31’18.35″N 70°53’0.46″W

Witch Dungeon Museum
16 Lynde Street
Salem, MA 01970-3404
GPS Coordinates: 42°31’20.90″N 70°53’49.88″W

Hawthorne Hotel
18 Washington Square West
Salem, MA 01970
GPS Coordinates: 42°31’21.93″N 70°53’24.66″W

See images of Val’s trip to Salem, Massachuestts on Halloween

The Grilled Cheese Truck, The Foundry on Melrose

Los Angeles, California

The Brie Melt and Cheesy Mac and Rib Melt

Ask partners Dave Danhi (“The Big Cheese”) and Michele Grant (“Cheese Executive Officer”) of The Grilled Cheese Truck, “Why grilled cheese?” and the answer you will undoubtedly get is, “Why not grilled cheese?” In a sea of trucks serving up unusual fusion food requiring assistance from a Berlitz guide for identification, The Grilled Cheese Truck is one of the few that doesn’t require a vivid imagination and an open mind to figure out what’s on the menu. A staple, comfort food and favorite of all ages who eat, grilled cheese has immediate, recognizable appeal. But what drives someone to focus a mobile restaurant on the American classic? Well, according to Danhi, he attended a few of Los Angeles’ now legendary annual Grilled Cheese Invitationals and thought it would make a good street item after seeing the popular reaction to the contest honoring the culturally iconic sandwich. It appears his assumption was correct; The Grilled Cheese Truck was honored in the 2010 Grilled Cheese Invitational with the People’s Choice Award (not bad for only having been in operation since October of 2009). Numerous foodies and friends recommended the GCT as a “must try”, but scheduling had made it difficult – until the truck appeared prominently in the 2010 Pasadena Doo Dah Parade. Dave and Michelle sat atop the truck, tossing out foil-wrapped sandwiches as it was seemingly pulled along by rope down the middle of Colorado Boulevard. A quick trot beside the truck was enough to find out that they were going to be at Vrooman’s after the parade, and my lunch plans were set.

Val digs into the sweet and tasty Brie Melt

By the time I arrived, the line was already an hour long in the hot sun, resulting in me being grilled as well, but by the look of satisfaction on the faces of those already digging in to the golden, melted slices of heaven, it would be worth it. I could have ordered the tried-and-true Plain and Simple Melt (with four choices of cheeses and price ranges), but that’s not how Val from Trippy Food rolls (although he does apparently speak of himself in the third person). I chose that phrase in homage to their motto, emblazoned across the back of the truck: “Chef driven grilled cheese, ’cause that’s how we roll”. And roll they do, like the big stone ball in Raiders of The Lost Ark, and so my sights were set on the golden treasure – the Cheesy Mac and Rib Melt. This cleverly concocted and constructed cavalcade of cheese starts with macaroni and sharp Cheddar, and then blends in barbequed pork and caramelized onions. These ingredients had no business playing together, and yet they worked perfectly – the tangy and sweet pork held its own against the sharp and creamy Cheddar, and the macaroni added an odd yet comfortable texture and chewiness to the sandwich. The beauty of having a dining partner is that you can order multiple items and share, which allowed me to also order the Brie Melt. This artisan sandwich was made with double cream Brie embedded with thinly sliced pears and a drizzle of honey on cranberry walnut bread. With those ingredients, this sandwich had the potential of being overpoweringly sweet, and yet the slight pungency of the Brie kept the sugarplum fairies at bay. The contrast in the warm, gooey cheese and the crisp, cool pears made this a meal worth savoring. Just for good measure, we also ordered a sack of tots (get the image of a burlap bag full of children out of your head) which were golden brown and yet moist (without being soggy).

The line forms for The Grilled Cheese Truck

If you prefer eating your grilled cheese sandwich late at night while sitting at a  table, then I recommend giving multi-Grilled Cheese Invitational award winner Eric Greenspan’s restaurant (The Foundry on Melrose) a try. Greenspan’s grilled cheese is a thing of sweet beauty, and oh, so rich. The artisan raisin bread is grilled sans ingredients, sizzling away in a shallow pool of butter. Once grilled, the bread is topped with soft cheese melted under flame, and then fresh, crisp greens and braised short ribs, which practically pour onto the sandwich. The result is richer than Bill Gates; a sinfully decadent, gooey sweet conglomeration that you’ll be tasting long after you finish licking your fingers. No side dishes necessary here – a little goes a long way.

Eric Greenspan finishes his signature sandwich

The Foundry has elevated the grilled cheese sandwich to gourmet status, and The Grilled Cheese Truck has taken it on the road. Of course if you want to stick with melting a couple slices of Kraft singles between two pieces of Wonder Bread, be my guest; it just seems a little cheesy to me.

The Grilled Cheese Truck
Los Angeles County, California
twitter: http://twitter.com/grlldcheesetruk
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/grilledcheesetruck?ref=ts

The Foundry on Melrose
7465 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90046
GPS Coordinates: 34° 5’1.45″N 118°21’9.79″W

See images of Val at The Grilled Cheese Truck and Eric Greenspan’s signature grilled cheese sandwich

Lebanon, Kansas

One of many signs indicating the center of the country

Use your favorite adhesive and mount a Rand McNally map of the contiguous 48 United States on the wall (if it has all 50, we’ll just ignore Alaska and Hawaii for now). I’ll wait. Done? Good. Now take a dart and take your best shot to hit the center of the map. If you’re a decent darts player, you should land in the vicinity of Lebanon, Kansas, and with close to the same accuracy as L. T. Hagadorn and L. A. Beardslee achieved in 1898. As part of the U. S Coast and Geodetic Survey that year, engineers Hagadorn and Beardsly cut a detailed cardboard form of the U. S. at the time (Hawaii, Alaska, Arizona and New Mexico were not yet states, but the latter two did not affect the shape). This was rested on a point until it balanced, placing the location in the middle of Johnny Grieb’s hog farm in Lebanon, Kansas (about a half mile from the current location of the marker). Since Farmer Grieb didn’t want a bunch of city folk traipsing through his fields, the current site was selected. A slightly more scientific method of centering the intersection of even-length lines between the northernmost and southernmost and the easternmost and westernmost points of the contiguous U.S. would place the center some 215 miles away as the crow flies near the appropriately named Center, Kansas in Chautauqua county, but since no one really agrees on the most accurate means of calculating the point, Lebanon is as good a location as any.

Me at the approximated Center of the Contiguous 48 States

The State of Kansas pitched in to build a road (Kansas 191) out to the spot from what is now US Highway 281 to the T-bone intersection of AA Road. In 1940, the Lebanon Hub Club sponsored a stone monument erected at the site; shortly thereafter came a motel on the crest above the small park, and a tiny chapel. After the site failed to become an international tourist attraction as thought, the motel closed. In June of 2008, the chapel was destroyed by a driver barreling down Highway 191 and failing to make the turn at the T-bone (fortunately for all us thrill-seekers and historians, it has since been rebuilt). The chapel features a tiny lectern and pews that hold 6 guests for anyone wishing to renew their vows. The miniscule church appears to be open 24-7; the area doesn’t appear to be threatened by the criminal element out to steal the US-shaped flag and cross on the wall, the guest book or the furniture. While I was there, a single car passed, neither stopping nor slowing down for a look (obviously a local). In fact, the only sign of life besides me was a chicken that would occasionally dart out of the bushes beside the chapel; if I died there, my body probably wouldn’t be discovered for days.

The rebuilt chapel at the Center of the Contiguous 48 States

As you drive north into the heart of the teeming metropolis that is Lebanon (with a population of 364 as of the last survey) you see stone, wood and metallic highway signs informing you that you have reached “Lebanon, Kansas, Center of the 48 States”. A sign telling you where to turn left onto Highway 191 would probably be helpful, although once on the road you won’t miss the spot since if you drive straight through the end they’ll be forced to build another chapel. A sign across the road states that “Lebanon Has Souvenirs”, but I drove up and down Elm Street (US 281) several times and neglected to find as much as postcard. I decided to see what life was like in the center of town. Main Street (yes, it’s actually called Main Street) was largely deserted; a considerable amount of the former storefronts appeared to be abandoned, with some of the buildings missing doors and windows (apparently for years).  The only activity appeared to be an event sponsored by the Lebanon United Methodist Church where horse-drawn carts were giving hayrides; I would have stayed for the shindig, but I had another four hours to go to get back to Omaha, Nebraska.

The front of a former bank in Lebanon, Kansas

Sadly, this little chunk of heartland Americana is slowly evaporating, suffering the effects of “rural flight” (the townsfolk are leaving in droves for the big city). In our urban cities and towns, the abandoned buildings would be covered in graffiti, strewn with garbage and become hangouts for the criminal element, but in this shrinking town they simply become ghostly shells of their former glory. I imagine the local business that are left appreciate the patronage of people like me that are attracted to the center of the Old 48 like iron to a magnet, so if you happen to be in Kansas passing through (maybe to see the world’s largest ball of twine in Cawker City), make the side trip to see where the dart landed. Maybe you could call a friend and let them know that our country really is centered on you.

“Official” Geographic Center of the 48 Contiguous States
Junction of AA Road and Kansas 191
Lebanon, Kansas 66952
Marker GPS Coordinates: 39°49’41.81″N 98°34’45.96″W
Location GPS Coordinates: 39°50′ N 98°35′ W

Geographic center of center of the 48 States using the intersection of extremes:
GPS Coordinates: 37°15’2″ N 96°21’30″ W

See more images from Val’s visit to Lebanon, Kansas