tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78820892026-04-02T02:13:20.740-07:00Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.comBlogger1626125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-42047095670010539382023-11-28T19:03:00.000-08:002023-11-28T19:05:21.970-08:00

This article ran in the Los Feliz Ledger in 2019, but the demise of Café Tropical seemed like a good time to republish it. BY PAT SAPERSTEIN ON MARCH 28, 2019What’s the oldest restaurant in Silver Lake? With rising rents and upscale options fast replacing old favorites, a handful of longtime spots remain.Though it’s been through many owners and several names, Millie’s has operated as a diner

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-75008114384741677592018-10-14T11:07:00.003-07:002018-10-14T11:16:10.136-07:00

Imperial Western's cavernous main hall Though I wasn't fortunate enough to get married there like some people I know, I've always loved the Fred Harvey restaurant at Union Station and hoped that someday it would re-open in its former glory. Designed by Mary Colter, the restaurant opened in 1939 and was the last of the Harvey Houses that operated across the U.S. at train stations and tourist

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-22755105538267967612018-08-03T13:34:00.000-07:002018-08-04T09:28:04.116-07:00

Courtesy Jazz Singsanong Many have eulogized Jonathan Gold far more eloquently than I could, but when the Los Feliz Ledger asked me to look back at the restaurants he loved around the Silver Lake area, I was happy to comb through his reviews. One of the many admirable things about Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer Jonathan Gold, who died July 21 of pancreatic cancer at 57, was

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-33672104421788372432018-06-22T17:55:00.000-07:002018-06-23T13:42:15.612-07:00

Maria da Mouraria, Lisbon Our recent trip to Portugal only lasted six days, barely enough to scratch the surface of all there is to see, eat and drink in the compact country. We quickly learned not to speak Spanish -- Lisbon residents speak excellent English and though many words are similar in writing, the languages are by no means interchangeable. Here are a few other things to know if you

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-53734427364598461652017-10-01T11:05:00.000-07:002017-10-01T11:05:41.168-07:00

Taix in 1956 (Courtesy LAPL) It's not quite L.A.'s oldest restaurant, but Taix French Restaurant is certainly one of the city's most beloved. The venerable old-school French dinner house, which moved to Sunset Blvd. from downtown in 1962, celebrates its 90th birthday this month with a traditional roast chicken dinner for 90 cents. On Sunday, Oct. 8 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., Taix will serve soup

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-87700663135349747282017-08-08T10:06:00.001-07:002017-08-08T11:07:44.386-07:00

Hidden Sunset Blvd. entrance Tintorera's main dining patio New restaurants are opening in Silver Lake, Atwater and the surrounding area faster than I can keep up with them. Last week Sweetfin Poke in Silver Lake and Journeymen and Good Measure in Atwater, this week Tintorera in on Sunset Blvd. in Silver Lake. I was invited to try Tintorera with some other writers.

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-79044336753204718642017-07-03T09:52:00.000-07:002017-07-03T09:52:00.155-07:00

A communal table sparks conversation at Fat Dragon Residents of the Silver Lake and Los Feliz area have spent decades waiting for good Chinese food to hit the area. Tired of hearing “Just go to Chinatown,” or “Monterey Park is only 15 minutes away,” we were thrilled when Pine & Crane opened a few years ago and significantly upped the Chinese food game. Now along the same stretch of

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-81633910112969553212017-07-02T09:32:00.001-07:002017-07-02T09:32:51.396-07:00

Citrus radicchio salad at Wolfdown Here's EatingLA's review of Wolfdown from the Los Feliz Ledger. Click through to see how many forks it received. In the four years since Nicky D’s stopped serving pizza on Rowena Ave., Silver Lake has changed a good bit. Restaurants in the area have upped their game; real estate prices have climbed. Maybe because of its understated Rowena location, the

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-61129421947204797702017-03-05T17:04:00.000-08:002017-03-05T17:06:16.037-08:00

The Beverly Hills location of the Brown Derby I once sent a long letter to the L.A. Times about where I remember eating growing up, long before blogs and Vintage Los Angeles and Old L.A. Restaurants. Here's an expanded version of my L.A. eating memories of the 1960s and '70s. My parents loved nice restaurants. They both grew up eating boring Illinois food -- in my father's case, his mother

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-29912914578933831432017-03-05T14:22:00.000-08:002017-03-05T14:22:00.450-08:00

Kettle Black's housemade pappardelle with maitake mushrooms A few months ago, we took a look at Sawyer, one of the newer additions to Sunset Junction. Now we visit its sister restaurant, Kettle Black. The side-by-side restaurants share the same kitchen, though the menu and decor are completely different. At Kettle Black, the chef is Sydney Hunter III, formerly of French standouts like

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-82987427883870595912017-02-20T14:31:00.000-08:002017-03-05T14:54:38.813-08:00

Winsome, on the ground floor of the William Pereira-designed former Metropolitan Water Building that now houses apartments, is a terrific-looking restaurant. Imagine that your favorite Googie-style coffee shop grew up and sprouted a spacious patio and sleek pale wood details, with artisanal jams in place of the mint patties at the counter. Designed by Wendy Haworth, the interior gets a pop of

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-43252641904119027972016-10-10T08:22:00.001-07:002016-10-10T08:22:09.608-07:00

This review originally appeared in the Los Feliz Ledger. When French chef Ludo Lefebvre first started doing innovative pop-ups around town and then opened the tasting menu-focused Trois Mec and its little sister Petit Trois, he probably wasn’t thinking Mexican-French fusion. But the perpetually forward-thinking Frenchman and longtime Los Angeles resident doesn’t slow down for long, and so

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-6336567980061655902016-06-28T12:15:00.000-07:002016-06-28T12:37:30.289-07:00

Belly up to the covered bar if it ever rains...as if! Many of us have been imagining a restaurant like Salazar practically forever. A place where kids are welcome, that takes advantages of L.A.'s temperate climate, where you can sip a good margarita while eating some equally good Mexican food. A place kind of like Birba in Palm Springs. We didn't imagine it would spring up in the shell of a

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-17099763247359871852016-05-23T21:11:00.002-07:002016-05-24T08:08:40.438-07:00

The old Ralph's parking lot has been slightly reconfigured and cleaned up Will you shop at a Whole Foods without a butcher or fish counter? Will you miss the giant wheels of cheese and the organic yoga clothes? That's what you'll need to weigh when deciding how much you'll embrace the first-ever 365 by Whole Foods, which opens on Glendale Blvd. Wednesday at 9 a.m. The focus is on grab and go

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-42426359392623591132016-05-06T08:06:00.000-07:002016-05-06T08:06:20.533-07:00

crispy rice cakes Almost overnight, Atwater has become the kind of neighborhood where restaurant patrons have a pretty good chance of recognizing the name of the great Japanese director Ozu. But you don't have to be a foreign film connoisseur to appreciate the minimalist style and modernized fusion menu at Ozu. Owner Paul Yi has worked as a film producer and executive, and shows his

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-60337620356185216082016-03-09T18:30:00.002-08:002018-07-22T12:17:51.432-07:00

I was a little worried about seeing the Jonathan Gold documentary "City of Gold." There's something about making a whole movie about a writer that seems suspect to me, unless it's "Capote" or something equally lofty. And surely we've seen enough about the L.A. food scene by now -- us local writers are pretty jaded. We've been all over the Southland, to the taco stands in South Gate, the Thai

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-68007119473496796692016-02-21T18:30:00.000-08:002016-02-24T11:07:58.096-08:00

Mezcal cured wild salmon with horseradish espuma Chef Laurent Quenioux can be hard to pin down, but once you find him and buckle in for his Ma Maison tasting menu, you will not be sorry. After his elegant and imaginative Bistro LQ closed on Beverly, he cooked at Vertical Wine Bistro off and on for several years while doing a series of over-the-top dinners involving marijuana, massive

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-38735448866984476682016-01-31T10:18:00.000-08:002016-01-31T11:16:57.821-08:00

The signature Shackburger: cheese, tomato, lettuce and Shacksauce Angelenos are highly faithful to their In 'n Out Burgers, but they're also accepting of burger innovation like Umami Burger. So hopefully we won't feel too competitive when New York's Shake Shack opens in West Hollywood in a couple of months, because they make a darn good burger. We had a preview last weekend, including a

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-1831130426873254702015-12-20T17:54:00.001-08:002015-12-20T17:56:42.457-08:00

(Casbah Cafe photo courtesy of Harriet's Tomato) There was a time when the Casbah Cafe seemed like the kind of place I might stop in every day on the way to work and find a crowd of regulars. Local artist Jon Huck was usually hanging out there with a few friends, and at the time it was about the best Silver Lake had to offer, especially if you weren't a fan of the Coffee Table or Backdoor

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-25628981717023828052015-12-16T17:39:00.000-08:002015-12-16T17:39:40.403-08:00

Tamarind whiskey sour From the start, Pok Pok has been in a tough place in L.A. Owner Andy Ricker kind of confused everyone first with a ticketed reservation policy via Tock that seemed appropriate only for a wildly popular place like Trois Mec. Customers were also confused by the 5% service charge that was one of the first of its kind in Los Angeles, leaving people not sure whether to tip 10

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-29732843792318514782015-11-26T14:47:00.002-08:002015-11-27T10:42:26.497-08:00

Shark (cazon) tacos at La Morenita in Mercado Medellin There's so much to see and taste in Mexico City that a few days is barely enough to scratch the surface. One thing I realized on my first visit there last week is that you can do sightseeing, walking and museums or you can track down the restaurant and taco stand treasures you may have researched beforehand, but it's pretty hard to do

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-73829523173013875022015-11-21T18:03:00.001-08:002015-11-22T09:51:19.358-08:00

Upstairs at El Pendulo bookstore Despite my love of Mexican food and several great trips to Tijuana and Ensenada, I have to admit I hadn't really been dying to visit Mexico City. I assumed it was impossibly congested with crazy traffic like Bangkok, horribly smoggy like Beijing, and far more dangerous, dirty and chaotic than other big cities. But since I needed to spend a few days in Baja

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-78171379169780244292015-11-05T09:47:00.001-08:002015-11-05T09:47:22.957-08:00

Here's a story I did for EaterLA timed to the recent re-opening of Clifton's about some of Los Angeles' craziest early theme restaurants, from pirates to jails to questionable African fried chicken huts. Read the full story at LA.Eater.com. The Jail Cafe on Sunset where El Cid stands now. (Courtesy LAPL) Even before the woodsy Brookdale Cafeteria opened in 1932, theme restaurants were an

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-37960054203598356632015-10-24T10:07:00.000-07:002015-10-24T10:52:22.247-07:00

Soylent 2.0 comes in a plain white bottle. I'm probably the last person in the world to be a good customer for Soylent, the meal replacement drink beloved by coders who refuse to leave their computers long enough to even greet the pizza delivery guy. I think about food a LOT, and I basically NEED every single meal to be at least delicious and/or healthy, even if it's simple or consumed while

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882089.post-60387095997030883502015-09-24T09:15:00.003-07:002015-09-24T09:15:21.617-07:00

The re-opening of Clifton's in downtown L.A. is one of the biggest events of the year, for everyone from tiki cocktail aficionados to historic preservationists to downtown revitalization advocates (ok, there's a lot of overlaps in those groups.) Photos of Clifton's Cafeteria's wonderful restoration and re-opening after four years of rebuilding are everywhere. The stuffed bears! The rock walls!

Pat Sapersteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11301459337765753609noreply@blogger.com1