Lines half a mile down the street? Fastest-growing chicken restaurant of 2016?
I was ready to find out what all the rage was about at Louisiana-based Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers. Hungry in Costa Mesa, CA, I saw it on the map. First off, lines weren’t long. Second, food was not such a sensation as I expected and hoped for.
The chicken fingers Basically, they’re the only thing on the menu in different combos. They are NOT the processed, grinded down into paste and reformed into a finger shape with the right amounts of meat and fat, like a sausage patty from the frozen food section at the supermarket. They are hearty chunks of chicken breast. They are battered in house and super crunchy. They’re served hot and juicy. They come with their own secret sauce, a blend of mayo, ketchup, worcestershire, black pepper and garlic. At best, the sauce is a curiosity, but it’s not something I developed an immediate craving for.
The chicken fingers are above-grade but not an epiphany (like the first time I tried wambutan). There’s no spices in the batter, so they come out a bit flat.
The sweet tea This Southern delight is a treat, and you can mix in unsweetened tea if it’s too sugary for you. But you may not need to because Raising Cane’s serves crushed ice instead of ice cubes and it melts faster into your drink watering it down. I’m not a fan of the crushed ice.
The Texas toast More than anything, the toast was a sensation. First off, I was surprised to find it in my menu. Here in Los Angeles, nobody else includes a slice of toast in a fast food meal. Secondly, it was delicious. Thick spongey white bread friend with butter on one side, the Texas toast melted in my mouth.
The coleslaw Standard and unimpressive, the slaw was cut into tiny squares, drenched with too much dressing, like everybody does, and served in a plastic cup with a top.
The crinkle fries Below grade, the fries tasted like Ora-Ida frozen fries. Mine came lukewarm at best and were a bit disappointing.
The interior decorating Strangely, I feel compelled to write about the decor. Raising Cane’s is the most attractive, modern-looking restaurant inside. Apparently, they put a decent effort into the visual impact their restaurant makes on customers. The lighting was by spotlight, which was cool but didn’t help my photos.
The bottom line I won’t mind going back, but I won’t see out Raising Cane’s. The hype had me prepared for something akin to a perfect chocolate chip cookie fresh from the oven. Would I choose Raising Cane’s over other fast food joints? Yes, but not all. I’d much father a Freddy’s, a Culver’s, a Chick-Fil-A or a Wahoo’s Fish Tacos.
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For some reason, one would expect more options for Mexican food in East Los Angeles (a neighborhood dominated by Mexican-Americans), but we always only seem to find Tamales Liliana’s, which gets the job done but doesn’t seem to register the highest marks.
We went for my daughter-in-law’s pining as a nurse, a whole group of us. Only my daughter wanted to try the house namesake, the tamale, which graded as somewhat dry. Maybe this is because we got there very late, at the end of the day, when the tamales are on their last living breath. Or maybe she’s just used to Guatemalan tamales, which are wet. She grew up on Guatemala.
I broke with my same-old same-old of enchiladas and tried the pozole, and it was appropriately spicy. The hominy was outstanding, and the cabbage fresh and crispy. I definitely recommend it.
I like how the enchiladas come with drizzled cream like they do in Mexico.
It turns out, the Aztecs weren’t the only ones capable of building pyramids, as I found out at Habanero Mexican Grill in Thousand Oaks. I ordered the sopes, and the piles of beans, chicken, rice, lettuce, cheese and salsa.
Big portions is what Habanero specializes in. The vegetables are fresh.
When I first saw the restaurant, I thought it was Cuban food because unconsciously I associated “Habanero” with the people who live in Havana, Cuba. Obviously, it is associated with the habanero chili, which is pretty darn hot. I used to indulge chilis but can’t anymore. It doesn’t seem like Habanero is trying to be so authentic that they risk “burning” their customers.
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Famous for movies and music, Hollywood is great too for munchies. It turns out all those stars — and would-be celebrities — like foreign fare, evocative entrees, daring dainties.
The Thai food eatery is aptly decorated with Thai Buddhas — thinner than the Chinese versions — and golden furbelow. The interior decorating is tasteful, the food even more so.
My friend Andrew ordered and we shared yellow curry chicken and pad Thai noodles with ground peanuts. This is the sort of stuff you look for in a Thai restaurant — a clean break from meat and potatoes.
There are entrees that beckon: Crying Tiger Angus ribeye with spicy dipping sauce, Siamese Fish crispy fried in tamarind-chili sauce, Lamb Curry stewed in Mussamum curry, Tom Yum spicy hot and sour lemongrass soup, Rot Paratha for dessert.
It’s an intimate eatery on the west edge of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
After climbing Mount Watermen, we three men were hungry. “Monster” burgers were the order of the day.
My serendipitous discovery came as it usually does, by way of a local. Wanna find good grub without Yelp? Ask a local.
Crispy asparagus fries. Deviled eggs with bacon. Truffle fries. Fish and chips with jalapeño tartar. Chilled gazpacho. Burrato-tomato caprese. Sesame-almond crusted salmon. Short rib street tacos. Popcorn curry chicken.
(Whimper. I’m growing hungry as I write.)
I’m normally a fries guy, but Nathan Williams was from Salt Lake City where soup is the thing, and he had a picture from the last time. He showed me. That was that. It looked more mouth-watering than the fries.
Mercifully, the menu is one large page. Just one. If it were more, I would probably need to go this restaurant for the rest of my life to sample all the goodies.
Central Grille has one-upped the competition. They’ve shown that you need to do more than just an “e” to the end of “Grill” if you want first-timers to become faithful.
Waterman Mountain in the Angeles National Forest, about an hour north of Glendale, was an exhilarating hike with snow and ice. I won’t need to be a famished mountainman to seek the eatery again.
Seventeen-year-olds are merciless, so when I took my son with me to help review Dinah’s Family Restaurant, I knew he would cut through all the nonsense and deliver either a brutal or bomb grade.
It even boasts that its bucket sign was the first of its type in Los Angeles. (Such was the trademark of Pioneer Chicken, which didn’t keep up with Kentucky Fried, which is struggling against an infinity of healthier options.)
There’s not too much on the menu that borders on “ethnic” or “exotic.” The retro interior speaks throwback.
The fries were impressively thick but otherwise nothing special.
Since the restaurant has been opened, it has served a lot of food. Its website provides the accounting:
More than 5 million apples to make apple pancakes.
2 million pounds of bacon and sausage.
8 millions pounds of potatoes.
If I were a frozen yogurt sommelier, I could tell you why Go Greek is superior. But since I can’t place my finger on it, I’ll just say Go Greek tastes healthier. Supposedly the ingredients are all imported from Greece. There’s no corner cutting. And yes, it tastes a bit more tart, a bit more yogurty, a bit healthier.
Actually, I’m a bit of a cuisine curmudgeon. Just because something is more expensive does not mean it tastes better in my book. Hence, I frown upon her notion that Menchie’s (more expensive) is better than Yogurtland. They taste exactly the same to me.
They have nontraditional flavors: peanut butter and jelly, passionfruit, rose, hazelnut, carrot. Greek honey is a perennial. They have rotating flavors.
They don’t offer chocolate syrup, which apparently is too sugary for their healthy pretensions. Instead, they have sour cherry syrup, which is spectacular; Greek honey and rose petal sauce (which I haven’t tried).
There are three Go Greeks in Los Angeles and one in Las Vegas. No doubt they will expand across that nation, at least to places where sophisticated tastes prevail. They need more in L.A.
If we are in Santa Monica, we usually stop in there.
Nihari House is pure fire — and it’s not a rap flow.
In my quest to try all the most exotic ethnic food in Los Angeles, I wound up in Nihari House in Arleta (in the Central Northern San Fernando Valley.)
Because of her no-non sense recommendation, I tried the nihari, the house specialty. It is beef shank slow-simmered in chili oil for seven hours or so. The gravy is hot, hot, hot. There was no need to throw in the chopped jalapeño on the side. To squeeze in lemon juice would have pushed the acidic levels into radioactive. (Excuse the hyperbole, but I’m 52 and can’t take too much spicy anymore. Fortunately, there was a remedy.) It was delicious.
My wife got the lamb Lamb Karahi, which came in its own Pakastani wok (I didn’t know they had their own woks!). And that was just as hot. It wasn’t until the chef, an affable slightly overweight guy, came out to check if everything was up to our satisfaction. He explained that we could have ordered a less spicy version. It certainly gives me confidence in a restaurant if the chef himself comes out to check on our enjoyment.
Fortunately, there was an answer to the chili power. It was the mango yogurt drink to neutralize acids in the stomach. Even if you don’t need to chill the heat, this drink is absolutely worth the experiment. It’s delicious and different.
I thought that Mexicans were the hot chili pepper-eating champions of the world. (I remember in Mexico City seeing a 4-year-old eating a jalapeño all by itself as if it were a banana. He didn’t cry until he accidentally wiped his eyes with his fingers.) Now I know that the Pakistanis are right up there competing.
The secret to Urban Plates, a new concept chain exploding in Los Angeles, is not the taste, the natural ingredients, the decor or the super friendly staff. The secret is the food’s preparation.
Like pioneer of the concept, Tendergreens, Urban Plates has all the food out in front of the customers. There is no need for menus hardly, no need for pretty pictures or enticing words. The enticements are right there in front of your eyes.
You get in line with your train and pick the most succulent, the most inviting items you see. It’s not prepared in the back. Right there, in front of your eyes, the foods are put together in what you order.
Your hunger grows as you wait AND WATCH.
I ordered the “Grilled, grass-fed steak sandwich with slow-roasted tomatoes and chimichurri aioli.” I had loved chimichurri in Latin America as part of the parrilladas, but wondered how it might be added into a sandwich.
I was quite taken aback that the steak was cut into thick slices for my sandwich. It was steak, like it could have been served on a platter with asparagus and mashed potatoes for $19.95, and here generous slices were being cut before my eyes to go into the sandwich.
No ordinary bread was used, but baked in their own oven.
Once you get your sandwich, salad, soup or entre, you pass by — and are inevitably tempted by — a display case of pastries and cookies. Nothing is ordinary or regular. Everything could have come from an expensive hotel or pricey restaurant for the well-heeled.
There are exotic teas and wines. Forget about going to the local juicery. You will get natural juice mixtures here with no added sugar to pique your palette and keep you slim. I got the acai apple beet & carrot while my buddy got passion fruit coconut lime. His was too tart for me.
Urban Plate Thousand Oaks took pains for their interior decorating. No corner cutting, everything is done by a pro, impressive and attractive.
By the team we received our sandwiches, “Chef Rosendo” showed up at our table and chatted friendly about the decoration (he noticed I took pictures). “I will do anything to make sure your experience here is enjoyable,” he said.
Our eyebrows rose.
Of course we knew about Chik-Fil-A’s custom — and Wahoo’s Tacos’ — of sending personnel around to proactively make sure customers enjoyed their meal. But this was “the chef” — and he took the welcoming to a higher level.
Which is Urban Plates does. It takes others’ successes to a higher level.
On another date, I will have to try to the dinner platter, the soup, the salad and the tempting desserts.
Especially since the sugar and lard cinnamon buns from across town are such an overload, Eclair Bakery in Arroyo Grande is a positive relief for treat-seekers who don’t want an immediate cardiac arrest over a simple muffin.
My wife and I discovered Eclair Bakery by chance taking a stroll down Arroyo Grande (right next to Pismo Beach). It turns out there are some quaint spots for tourists off the main drag of Pismo that are worth poking around.
In this case, it is worth the very short drive OUT of Pismo to Arroyo Grande — or AG, as locals call it. Eclair doesn’t dump sugar and lard on their pastries. But they don’t hold back the butter.
The result is that treats are not so sweet but still mouth-wateringly delicious.
I had the blueberry scone. I can never resist a scone. These were HUGE. I couldn’t believe how big they were. With a decent cup of Joe, I was in Heaven.
My wife ordered the coconut macaroons, which must be the biggest on the planet. There are two varieties, simple and covered in chocolate (not a thin layer).
I have never been fuller with a hamburger than at Joey’s Cafe in West Hollywood.
Joey’s offers omelettes, burgers, salads, Mexican food. It’s continental casual cuisine. The setting is slightly upscale. The servers are friendly.
My coffee was decent, and my buddy enjoyed his peppermint tea. The eggwhite omelette was great.
What are the signs of an authentic Mexican restaurant? For years, I graded them exclusively on their chips and salsa. If the chips were stale or mass-produced and thus bleh, the eatery got a low grade. Similarly, if it didn’t have a decent hot sauce (and I mean “hot” not “mild hot sauce,” which is an oxymoron), then it failed the test.
But now that I can’t eat hot hot sauce (because I got old and my stomach turns with the fire), I have to look at other factors. Socorro’s Restaurant has the other factors. They make their tortillas by hand. The cheese on the enchiladas stretches three feet. They have frescos (or refrescos) of fruit in the clear plastic buckets. The menu above the cash register is ONLY in Spanish. Yeah, that’s real.
Oh man, this is authentic. The green one is spinach and pineapple juice. Mixed with lots of sugar, it’s very delicious — and somewhat healthy. It’s actually the eatery’s most popular drink.
I was pretty pumped too. I had to get my favorite, cheesy cheese enchiladas. Forgive me for the redundancy, but they were redundant with cheese. If you are a cheese addict, I suggest you go no further. There was more cheese in those enchiladas than in a lasagna.
One of my sons ordered the carne asada, which he rated highly. My other son got flautas. Our friends got tacos, quesadillas. The rice and beans are very good. The vegetables and lettuce were fresh and crisp.
Man, those are big tortillas, patted out by hand by a lady in the back and cooked over a comal. It doesn’t get more authentic.
I just love the hole in the wall restaurants that serve good food under the radar from the snooty foodies.
And of course, the kids loved it.
Socorro’s Restaurant
Need a treat on a budget? Try Hansen’s Bakery in Little Ethiopia in Los Angeles.
I was surprised at the price — a buck each. The frosting was laid on thick.
I’m thinking this spot makes a great place for anyone short of cash and wanting to have a little something to eat out. It’s good for people on a budget.
Frozen custard, I learned, was slow-churned for a smoother, creamier-than-ice cream delight with no ice crystals because of the painstaking preparation. Custard, a virtually unknown quantity in L.A., was what brought me into 
Freddy’s, as I discovered in Salt Lake, doesn’t specialize in dietary or healthy. While other burger joints have made strides to cut calories or limit trans fats, Freddy’s wallows in the goodness of the way things were cooked in the 50s. (Quantities of salt and sugar, I think, register on the Richter Scale.) So don’t make this splurge a regimen regular.
[The author sells 
Fry Sauce is mostly mayonnaise with a touch of ketchup, vinegar, pepper and seasoned salt. Freddy’s has a variety with jalapeño. The wheel has been reinvented. Break out of boredom and give it a try.
To complete the exotic experience, sprinkle on some Steakburger & Fry Seasoning, which is made of salt, sugar, pepper, paprika, turmeric, onion salt, and garlic salt.
Initially, I thought that Freddy, a World War 2 veteran, was the founder of his throwback restaurant. It certainly adds mystique to the experience. But, as it turns out, it was his son, who named the restaurant after his dad. Pictures of dad and his farming and war hero life are featured on the walls of Freddy’s.
A delight for trying new restaurants is finding something new. In the case of a Persian restaurant in “Tehrangeles” called Flame, my wife and I discovered sumac salt, which zipped up an already delicious boneless chicken kabob with saffron basmati rice.
Flame International Steak & Kabob House beckoned me for years on Santa Monica, its flames dancing on the sign. But it either appeared too expensive or traffic was too strong (it’s right next to the Santa Monica Blvd. on-ramp to the 405 freeway — as in “four or five hours to get anywhere on it”). Friday was the day. Here’s what we discovered:
The place has a lush and garish look that the Persians love, but the price wasn’t too bad. They have the absolute best humus, which I thought I wouldn’t be able to finish but demolished with the nan bread. Not sour, like Yankou’s. Slightly accented with some kind of spice. Just perfect.
I was delighted by the pink mayonnaise given as dressing for my salad. The colorfulness of the presentation was inviting, and I accordingly dove in. The pink color came from beet juice. The salad had beets, which I like and don’t often find.
On the walls the restaurant has a four panels showing nature images, presumably from Iran, alternatively waterfalls or thermal waters bubbling up in rivers. This, which the New Agey music, has quite the calming effect.
Special memories for my wife and me. The Cheesecake Factory is where I asked her to marry me — 29 years ago. Dianna and I went for our anniversary.
Go to the Cheesecake Factory for cheesecake. Nobody does it better.
Hankering for some quick Indian food but can’t afford the plane ticket to India? Try Urban India Grill on Sherman Way in North Hollywood.
We also delighted on the Mixed Tandoori, a smattering of lamb, chicken chunks of the tikka and tandoori style served on a sizzling iron skillet over a thin bed of sauced, grilled bell pepper and onion slivers. They served us two dipping sauces: one a sweet tamarind and the other mint with lemon.
The bread really is something. Baked in house, you have choose either nan or prati, which is a little thinner. The flatbreads have the best of all worlds, crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. You could go to this restaurant just for the bread.
Shireen, the proprietor, works the restaurant with her whole family. An immigrant from Bangladesh, she met and married her husband from Indian in America. Their adult children were both working the night my wife and I visited. They are both working on master’s degrees, he in marketing, she in biology, but they’re making money to pay for their studies. The son has helped establish restaurants in Dubai and Oman for an uncle. With a husky voice, Shireen made us feel like we were in family.
When I got to Messob restaurant in Little Ethiopia, I had no idea what to order, so I got the sampler plate, which I shared with my wife. It was the size of Captain America’s shield.
The platter had a dollop of this and a serving of that, all of it spread over a a thin round flatbread called injera the size of the plate. Except for the airholes in the bread, it tasted like a crepe. I wasn’t used to it with salty items.
There are steamed peas, collard greens, split lentil and yatakilt alicha, steamed vegetables with onions and seasoning. The menu is mostly in English, but there is Ethiopian for immigrants (or to just assure you the food is authentic).
Since then, the coffee shop merged with its parent restaurant Weiler’s, which lost its lease. The menu has diversified to include sandwiches, deli lunch and avocado toast with sunny-side-up eggs and ground Spanish olives in a paste. Weiler’s is not doing the Monte Cristo sandwich anymore. They made me a similar one. It had 58 layers of ham and 49 layers of chicken deli meat and with some provolone cheese. They covered in egg and fried it. I guess the authentic Monte Cristo is deep fried, and in their new, smaller space, they’ve done away the deep fryer. 
Papillon International Bakery –
Somebody needs to explain the rudiments of publicity to these guys. They recently had billboards up saying “Best Ponchiks in Town.” No picture of a ponchik. No explanation. The picture was of some Armenian dude, I think. No idea.
Fortunately for me, somebody — bless his soul — tipped me off to this Armenian pastry. It is a dough ball stuffed with filling and deep fried. Think of a jelly donut that is deep fried like a churro, and your imagination still won’t scratch the exponential blast of sweet goodness.
It’s all good House of Kebab –
6800 Reseda Blvd.
Holiday Burgers
Chio’s Peruvian Grill –
To live in LA is to enjoy exotic food. Now that Mexican food has spread across the U.S., Angelinos are now in a quest for new tastes from the remotest parts of the globe. Apparently over a 1,000 Peruvians call Van Nuys their home, so you can find a cache of Andes-styled eateries. Among them, Chio’s stands out. The restaurant started on Sepulveda Blvd, the grubbery is opening restaurants elsewhere in the Valley.
Crave Cafe –
Does your husband want a burger and you want sushi? No worries. There’s a place that caters to both.
Corner Grille –
Pita’s Pockets –
Nowadays, sabre tooth tigers, Black Plague or invading mongols are not a threat. No, your problems are worse- bills, deadlines, domestic friction, rejection, loneliness, competition, low self esteem, weight gain, sickness. Plus, the world is coming to an end (again)
So the food industry only provides what people want. Right? And people want, time after time, what they crave. So sugar is sinking America’s health.
For decades, Bible-believing Christians have been told and retold that one of God’s promises is they can live to a ripe old age, 80 years to be exact. This “promise” is based on Psalm 90:10 NIV: ” “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures…:” It was a mantra for decades.
Mustard Seed Budget 