Fresh & Easy I

I first visited Fresh & Easy about a year ago when they opened in Arcadia. My friend Mick, who is English (Fresh & Easy is owned by Tesco, the "UK Wal Mart") had told me about the stores and they sounded interesting. But I wasn't terribly impressed on my first visit. I had read about it as being comparable to Trader Joe's, but, other than a few prepared foods (much fewer than I expected,) it did not have any unique items. It was more like a small Costco. So I decided I would just continue shopping at Trader Joe's. But the other day I got a coupon in the mail for $6 off any purchase of $30 or more. That seemed like a pretty good deal, so I figured I would give it another shot.

I was amazed at how many more prepared items they had than on my first visit. My friend and I bought food for almost an entire week, at a fraction of the price it would have cost at Bristol Farms or Whole Foods, and probably even cheaper than Trader Joe's.

We tried a bag of their Caesar salad. I generally like bagged salads, but not Caesar. The dressings all taste too much like ranch to me. This one was different: the dressing had a distinct peppery taste. It is the best Caesar I have had out of a bag.

We also bought a package of Lemon Pepper Tilapia. The instructions call for leaving it in the container and cooking it in the microwave, where it is supposed to steam. Anyone who has ever cooked fish in the microwave will understand when I say there is no way in hell we were going to do that. I cooked it on a piece of aluminum foil in the oven.

I was very impressed. Aside from being a little overcooked on the ends, the fish was delicious. The lemon pepper sauce tasted more like lime to me, but that's not a bad thing. I will definitely try more of their fish, and probably cook the next piece on the Foreman grill to see how that works.

As long as I keep getting those $6 coupons I will keep trying new things at Fresh & Easy.

Porta Via Pizza

Porta Via in Pasadena is one of my favorite places around. When they opened last year I went there frequently for a cup of coffee. One day I was going over to my parents' house to watch a football game with my dad, and I stopped for coffee on the way. I decided to give some of their food items a try during the game. (This is the last picture, which I figured I might as well include.) I got penne with artichoke, bowtie pasta with sausage, beef meatballs with a homemade marinara, and a piece of red wine-marinated tri tip. Everything was great. The tri tip was the best I have ever had that was already prepared. Even my dad loved the food, and his tastes run exclusively towards meat. (Sometimes pepper is an exotic condiment to him.)

A couple months ago, I noticed for the first time that they had pre-made pizzas in their refrigerator. I opted to get the pizza in the first picture: sausage and caramelized onions. It was very good, although a little on the dry side (there was no sauce, only olive oil, and very little cheese.) I wished I'd had some fresh parmesan or perhaps even a little blue cheese in the fridge, but I did not. I decided that next time I would try the other pizza they had, a Margherita.

The next few times I visited Porta Via, however, there were no pizzas. Finally this past weekend they were back. The Margherita was also good, although it certainly could have used more basil. Between the two, I would say the sausage and caramelized onion was much better. One of these days I will buy it again and also get some cheese from PV to add to the pizza.

Cindy's Restaurant

My friend Elizabeth loves diners. She spent the first 28 years of her life in New York and she views diners in the same dependable, comfortable way that I view King Taco or El Pollo Loco: nothing spectacular but inexpensive and reliable. A couple months ago Elizabeth and her friend, also from the East Coast, went to Cindy's restaurant in Eagle Rock. She really liked it and I promised I would go with her one day.

I had looked up Cindy's online to see if there was a menu somewhere. I even looked on Yelp. I am not a fan of Yelp at all. For every well-written review (and admittedly there are many,) there are at least twenty from people who had one bad meal at a place and are ready to proclaim it the worst restaurant of all time. And, in keeping with the growing fascism of our time, contrarian opinions are often ridiculed. (I'm not sure why people are so insecure that they cannot accept that someone might have a different opinion than they do. The world would be a boring place if we all agreed on everything. Well, except that Charlie Weiss is no football genius.) But the Yelp reviews were almost universally bad for Cindy's; too bad to ignore. I still was willing to try it, though.

This weekend, while running errands, we decided to stop there for lunch. The place definitely looks like a classic diner: orange booths, a long counter, photos and calendars decorating the walls. I ordered the turkey burger, Elizabeth ordered the cheeseburger, which she had the last time she was there.

The picture does not lie: my meal was not good. The burger had been in the freezer for quite a long time before it was cooked. The fries were limp and not warm. I took a bite of Elizabeth's cheeseburger. It was definitely better than my turkey burger, but it was not good by any means, and certainly not better than Tommy's or Oinkster just down the street.

Still, I ate the whole thing. It wasn't inedible. But I will never eat there again. The total for our burgers, fries, cole slaw and coffee was about 20 bucks, so it's not like the food is expensive. But just a few nights earlier we had eaten two Philly cheesesteaks with fries at Phlly's Best, and it was cheaper than this meal. And about 100 times better.

Danger Dogs

In the late 90s I was down in Mexico for the Baja 500. I was not quite certain what I was doing there - it was a strange combination of working for Offroad.com (with a couple photojournalists from Germany who spoke no English,) selling stuff at a table for a race radio company, and providing support for a Protruck racing team - but it was a great time.

The team I was helping out won their class, and we all went out for dinner to celebrate. The dinner last several hours and I was starving (I had not eaten since that morning, when a competing team took pity on me at one of the pit stops and gave me some tater tots and mini sausages) and I kept eating the chips and salsa. It was great salsa, full of cilantro and hot peppers, and it made me very thirsty. And I wasn't going to order water, so I was drinking Tecates left and right. I do not know how many I had, but it was a lot.

The next day I had one of the three worst hangovers of my life. One guy on the team told me I should eat a specialty of a stand near our hotel: a hot dog wrapped in bacon and fried. I was very suspicious, but willing to try anything. (It did help a little, although I'm not sure if it actually made me feel better or it just diverted my attention from the pain in my head to what felt like a brick in my stomach.)

The other night I was making a couple hot dogs for dinner, and I looked in the fridge to decide what condiments I felt like using. I was going to go with sauerkraut and mustard... until I saw that there were two pieces of bacon left, just sitting on the shelf staring at me. My mind flashed back to Ensenada when I was 18, and I figured why not.

I wrapped the bacon around the dog and fried it for a few minutes. I sauteed some onions in olive oil and Tapatio hot sauce. I added blue cheese to it as well. It was... well, interesting. It was kind of good, although I don't see myself ever making one again. I guess it's just one of those things you do in Mexico when you're young that you don't need to ever do again (insert prostitute joke here.)

Marseille (New York City)

I have never been a fan of French food. I know that's blasphemous. I understand it is regarded as probably the best in the world. But I have never had a meal at a French restaurant that I loved. I will always choose an Asian or South American restaurant over a French if given the choice, and, when it comes to Europe, I much prefer Spanish or Italian. I have eaten food cooked by a Belgian friend of mine who used to live here, and it was much better than any French food I have ever had, particularly her waterzooi, a thick seafood stew that, when paired with a Corsendonk Christmas Ale, has to crack any top ten list of meals I have had.

So on a recent trip to New York, when my friend suggested a French restaurant after we had spent a few hours at MOMA, I cringed but agreed. I'm old enough now to appreciate trying things on vacation that I would never seek out at home. (I once spent more than a week in Italy when I was young and stupid, and the number of meals I ate at McDonald's is truly embarrassing.)

Marseille is a beautiful restaurant, no question: full of light and mirrors and elegant chandeliers. It was nowhere near as unfriendly as most French restaurants I have been in. I certainly was in the mood to try something new, until I saw a man a couple tables away eating a burger. The burger itself looked great, but my eyes were drawn to the pommes frites. I love fries but there are precious few restaurants that I think cook them well. So I put my sense of adventure aside and ordered the burger.

It was indeed fantastic. It was cooked as close to the ideal medium-rare as any burger I have ever had. It was served with caramelized onions, comte cheese (I had never heard of this; it's a cow's milk cheese from eastern France) and aioli. The pommes frites were perfect. Even the few greens on the side of the plate, tossed with oil and I think lemon juice, were fantastic.

My friend had the "Mediterranean lamb salad." The lamb was cooked just as perfectly as my burger, and topped with feta cheese, yogurt sauce & a lemon vinaigrette. It was great as well. Part of me wished I'd order it, too, as well as a side of frites.

Marseille may not be the best French restaurant I have ever been to, but it is certainly my favorite.