Le Plus Petit Philippe

A couple of weeks ago, on the afternoon Miguelito returned to Los Angeles from Minneapolis, the first thing he did was grab lunch at Philippe with Maximus. Located a block or two away from Union Station, this 101-year-old restaurant is legendary for its French dipped sandwiches. I'm one of the few Angelenos who don't like French dipped sandwiches. It's not because I'm on an anti-carb, low-fat bridal diet. (One of the first things I want to do after I get married is to eat an overflowing plate of ribs.) I just want my meat to be already juicy. I don't want to dunk it in extra jus. But Miguelito loves Philippe. The tender feelings were reciprocated on his last visit, when he saw a tiny nub of bread that was baked attached to a bigger loaf. A waitress thought the offshoot would make one of the world's tiniest sandwiches, as seen here.

LAT's Review of Reservoir

Axel Koester/The Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times' restaurant critic, S. Irene Virbila, didn't like the food at Reservoir as much as Miguelito and I did. She also chided Reservoir for relying on a local crowd. Truth is, the menu is too expensive for several of us in this Eastside neighborhood to eat there more than once a month. So we're OK with the menu staying the same as we try a different dish on each visit. And the service, given only two months to get its bearings right, runs much more smoothly and quickly than what you get at Canelé in its third year of operation across the Los Angeles River in Atwater Village. Now that Miguelito and I have been photographed on Reservoir's patio by The Los Angeles Times, we should claim that table as our regular roost.

Racing to Reservoir

On Friday night, Miguelito and I rode our bikes around Silver Lake Reservoir for an early dinner at Reservoir, the two-month-old eatery that opened in the spot previously occupied by Netty's. I had never joined the artists, politicos and other Eastside denizens who had filled Netty's tables while it was in business for more than 20 years. Because it took so long for Reservoir to be renovated, it was able to secure a liquor license by the time it opened its doors on March 5. (It took an additional few weeks to receive a separate permit for using heat lamps on the patio.) For tonight's dinner, Miguelito and I clinked glasses of d'Albarino and Pinot Noir to celebrate his snaring a Web-based flash game in the Batman franchise for his Australian animation clients. Our festive night, not to mention our bike helmet hair, was captured by a photographer who was snapping pictures for an upcoming restaurant review to run in The Los Angeles Times.

We passed on the evening's special salad of heirloom tomatoes with Burrata cheese. Instead, we wanted to warm ourselves up on the chilly patio with the sauteed wild mushrooms tossed over greens with shavings of Parmesan.

Our advantageous location on the patio let us people-watch. This hipster was slouching his way across the street, perhaps to Domenico Ristorante, which transplanted Michelangelo's (now on Rowena Avenue) as the neighborhood Italian joint.

Reservoir's schtick is that its menu lists featured dishes (a.k.a. entrees) along with setups (appetizers in regular food argot). If you order one of the featured dishes, then you can pick any one of the five setups to be paired with your meal. Our waitress told us that the setups were devised to complement any entree, whether it be the black cod or the pan-seared marinated tofu or the $32 14-ounce rib eye. After determining that the scallops were seared in olive oil, I opted for the accompaniment of roasted baby carrots, brown-butter-cauliflower puree, braised leeks and black garlic.

Miguelito went with the black cod plated with the braised Tuscan kale, fingerling potatoes, baby yams and roasted heirloom tomatoes.

The two little black dots on my plate were the black garlic cloves. I had never seen those before. Soft, mushy and perfectly spreadable, the garlic tasted as if it had been steeped for days in Balsamic vinegar.

The dessert menu enticed us with its chocolate lava cake and Guinness ice cream, and warm tarte tatin and horchata ice cream, among other sweets. Even though Miguelito and I could have easily burned off the calories from dessert on our bike ride home, we remembered that we had a red velvet cupcake from Auntie Em's waiting for us in our refrigerator. To celebrate a new cartoon job, you need a cartoon dessert.

Minnesota Day

Miguelito declared May 19 as Minnesota Day. That's the day following his return from this year's fishing trip to the state with 10,000 lakes. I told him that if I'm going to be a fishing widow every May from now on, and if we're going to celebrate Minnesota Day on the nineteenth of the fifth month every year from now on, then he needs to bring home walleye every year from now on.

This year, he and a baker's dozen of fishermen caught their limit on Leech Lake: four fish, or 8 fillets, each. We saved four of the fillets for a future dinner with Miguelito's grandma. The remainder constituted my first walleye meal ever.

The secret ingredient for our fish fry was Ritz crackers.

Our ghetto-gourmet way of cooking entailed Miguelito pounding two mini packs of crackers in a Ziploc bag. For the first batch, we used plain crackers to coat the 4-inch fillets seasoned with sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, later dredged in an egg batter. For the subsequent batch, I spiked the cracker dust with some yellow curry powder to give the white fish a bit of kick. I suppose this culinary experimentation could represent a metaphor for the coupling of a Norwegian-Mexican Minnesotan and a Vietnamese-American who grew up in South Carolina and Virginia.

The second key ingredient was lots of butter. It would have been much healthier to cook the walleye in olive oil, or even to poach it. But the butter enhanced the comforting flavor of the Ritz cracker coating. I did add some olive oil to reduce the burn threshold of the butter.

The key was not to crowd the pan with the fish.

We fried the suckers up to a golden brown.

We served the fried walleye atop couscous mixed with currants and chili flakes, a spinach salad and roasted sweet peppers. After one bite of the light, flaky, sweet fish, I decided that I can deal with being a fishing widow. I mean, I could taste the cold lake's freshness on my tongue. It was that good. We could have amplified the homey vibe by playing some Captain & Tennille on vinyl. Instead, we watched Kobe Bryant have a temper tantrum in the L.A. Lakers' victory over the Denver Nuggets. What a diva! The pro baller's definitely not down-to-earth enough to be from Minnesota.

Miguelito threatened to quiz me on the names of Minnesota's sports teams. At least I already know what the state bird is. It isn't the loon, which he has in plushy and wooden forms. No, it's the mosquito.

A Common Saturday Night

Two Saturdays ago, I started my second tour as a fishing widow. For a week every May, for the rest of our lives, Miguelito will leave L.A. to go fishing on one of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes. Rather than feeling abandoned, I remembered that axiom: While the cat's away, the mouse will play. I called my friend Carol to be my plus-one for Diesel's party celebrating the launch of its new fragrance, Only The Brave. The featured performer of the evening was Common, who also doubles as the face for the fragrance ads.

The Brooklyn, N.Y.-based DJ provided the beats and samples pulled from Biz Markie and other hip-hop impresarios for Common to rhyme over.

I thought Common's shoes were Vans, but the slip-ons are actually by Surface to Air.

This voluptuous vixen let Common tap her "where the sun don't shine." As her reward, she was serenaded by him on the stage built in the middle of the store.

Common is a buff guy. I couldn't figure out why he was so fit but then I realized that he also has an emerging career starring in action flicks. He's got a part in "Terminator Salvation," due out May 21. In "Date Night," which he's currently filming with Tina Fey and Steve Carell, he plays a dirty cop.

Like Common, the two keyboard players from Philadelphia also have a penchant for cool kicks: black high-tops by Y-3 and Jack Purcell.

Carol and I moved to the second row after we saw Common flirting with the ladies in the front.

Common was on a roll with a freestyle rap, touching eclectic topics ranging from Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant and the Black Panthers to Pres. Barack Obama and shopping on Melrose Place, where Diesel's store is located. He was doing so well that he took his performance to the sidewalk in front of the shop and also in the middle of the energized crowd, which included actresses Samaire Armstrong and Vanessa Hudgens.

It was fun to be treated to a free concert by an intelligent and socially conscious rapper like Common. His support for a peaceful, loving world was obvious on his T-shirt, which is part of his recently launched collaboration with tech giant Microsoft.

Rowdy with the Russians

Hellin is a friend, former co-worker and grown-up punk rocker who was born in Russia. Having moved on to a busy career as a freelance photographer and stylist, she is longer a regular presence in the office. So she masterminded a reunion with her former colleagues at a Russian restaurant called Traktir. Perched on the corner of Crescent Heights and Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, Traktir offers a pleasant patio where you can sip tea sweetened with homemade compote while watching a stream of bright car lights and waxed muscle boys make their way to the nearby bars. Inside, the stuffed boar's head, porcelain pitchers and wooden instruments make you feel as if you're eating in a cozy cottage in the Russian woods.

Traktir isn't as opulent as Maxim, the amber bubble of a banquet hall that is hidden from many non-Russians on Fairfax Avenue. Traktir's functional kitchen is located just behind the rows of liquor and stained glass tableaux depicting the greatness of the Russian Orthodox Church.

What good Russian restaurant wouldn't have a samovar on the shelf?

Truth be told, the samovar looked as if a layer of dust had settled on it. That's because most of the guests dipped into the vodka infused with horseradish and jalapeno peppers. On the other side, out of view, were big jars of raspberries, pineapples and cranberries steeping in the alcohol.

We were lucky to have Hellin guide us in the ritual of drinking horseradish vodka.

The vodka must be cool. You take a sip, followed by a bite of the pickle. Unlike the pickles offered at most delis, these pickles didn't impart much of a dill flavor. (The fresh dill was saved to garnish the food.) Instead, the firm chunks of cucumbers had a slightly sweet, very vinegary taste. It cleansed the palate after the horseradish vodka, which didn't burn the throat as much as the jalapeno vodka. Both the horseradish and jalapeno liqueur would be key ingredients in a killer Bloody Mary. As for the other fruit-flavored vodka, the cranberry was my least favorite; it tasted like the last dregs of a cranberry juice-vodka cocktail. The raspberry and pineapple vodka would be nice to drink at the end of a meal in lieu of dessert.

The trio of appetizers looked pretty bland and unappetizing at first. There was the marinated herring with pickled onions, boiled potatoes and chopped chicken salad. As dill is one of my favorite herbs (an omelet of eggs with tomatoes, onions and dill is such a simple and enjoyable meal) I tried to catch as many of the thin green strands in each scoop. The herring was barely cooked. I coined it ceviche from the Caucasus Mountains. It turned out to be another nice chaser for the vodka. While the potatoes were bland fillers to offset the strong flavors of the other dishes, the chopped chicken salad was a comforting mix of mashed eggs, cubed chicken and mayonnaise.

We couldn't get enough of the pickled cucumbers, so we ordered the pickled combination that included shredded cabbage and tomato quarters submerged in vinegar for days. They provided crunchy relief to the alcohol and heavy, creamy food.

The beet salad was also an unsightly mess. Traktir should really consider hiring Hellin to style its food before it leaves the kitchen. But all you had to do was close your eyes and appreciate the sweetness of the beets, potatoes and onions.

I'm not sure how many gallons of cream the restaurant goes through each week. The creamy white sauce hid the trio of dumplings. We couldn't tell which was the chicken, the cheese or the meat filling. We just had to spoon a bunch onto our plates and dig in.

The chicken blintz was a very long crepe stuffed with ground chicken and drenched in a porcini mushroom sauce. It was the epitome of comfort food; you had cream, cheese, soft veggies and a subtle mix of ground meat. It was also my favorite dish of the evening. The blintz was a bit thicker than a conventional crepe, which meant that, if it was left uneaten for a while, it'd start to harden.

I was so overwhelmed by the chicken blintz, that my taste buds basically ignored the stuffed cabbage. I was intrigued by the cup of sour cream that accompanied it, but not enough to go back for seconds.

Russia, or at least the former Soviet Union, spanned such a vast area that you marvel at its diversity. Our waiter resembled a Mongolian/Chinese mix who spoke perfect Russian. Never mind that he was a little slow, constantly leaving before we finished telling him all the dishes we wanted because he hadn't brought a pen and pad and couldn't remember everything. The country's diversity was represented in our last entree, the chicken shish kebabs, which wouldn't have seemed likely to come from the same kitchen that boiled the bland potatoes. The meat was grilled perfectly. Still, I thought the hodgepodge of spices that marinated the chicken leaned a little more toward the salty side than my preference would allow. But now I understand why a boiled potato has a purpose on the table.

Jaydiohead

If you dug "The Grey Album," Danger Mouse's remix of The Beatles' "White Album" with Jay-Z's "Black Album," then you'd get into Jaydiohead, which lays the rapper's rhymes over Radiohead's musical compositions. It's so un-PC of me to say this, but I love "99 Problems" and its Jaydiohead spin-off, "99 Anthems." I should revise the offensive line to say I got 99 problems but a bitchy attitude ain't one (unless you don’t get me the information I need before my story’s deadline).

Founding Farmers

It's hard to turn a corner these days without stumbling across a restaurant that touts its menu of sustainable sustenance. Especially on the West Coast. But Miguelito and I found one in Washington we liked so much that we went there twice within five months. Our first trip to Founding Farmers, a restaurant owned by a collective of family farms, was in December with my brother. Our blood thinned by the SoCal sunshine, Miguelito and I trudged down 20th Street, wrapping our thin coats around us against the winter wind, toward the glass-encased restaurant. My brother was sitting at the bar, sipping a bourbon cocktail with a bacon lollipop (that is, bacon candied with cinnamon and brown sugar glaze on a stick). Sustainability can be decadent, after all.

Founding Farmers occupies a corner of the International Monetary Fund Building, about three blocks west of the White House. We didn't identify any politicos at the eatery, but we saw plenty of jars of preserved produce as we ascended the stairs to the second floor.

We thought the bread might have been communal for all to share, but we were too timid of carb-phobic Californians to walk up to tear off a chunk for ourselves.

Though the ceramic doves and glowing clouds were cute, I thought the decor was overkill. Do you need to remind people that you are striving to receive the gold certification in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system and that every day is Earth Day by bringing nature indoors? I don't think so.

Maybe it's because I grew up in South Carolina, but I think more restaurants should serve deviled eggs. The Hall at Palihouse in West Hollywood, Calif., used to until the new chef removed it from the menu. I forgave him for this transgression after I finished one of his plates of braised pig trotter stuffed with roasted sweetbreads and porcini mushrooms. These deviled eggs were one sign of how Founding Farmers tried to stay true to its roots planted south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Miguelito warmed his tummy with Founding Farmers' Southern interpretation of osso bucco.

I ordered fried chicken with waffles, macaroni and cheese, Southern greens and white gravy. Laden with food, our plates were so heavy that the waitress had a bit of trouble carrying everything to our table. That's why all my food shifted toward one side of the platter.

For dessert, the three of us shared a slice of red velvet cake with vanilla ice cream. Southern goodness! The sweet matched the Viktor & Rolf for H&M sweater that I gave my brother for Christmas a couple of years ago. My family digs food so much that we like to color-coordinate our clothes with our meals.

In April, Miguelito and I made our second visit to Founding Farmers with my parents. My dad decided to wear his sunglasses during the lunch. He said it was because he forgot his regular glasses in the car. I thought he wanted to be an Asian Rick Ross for a day.

My mom had a bowl of the beef barley soup.

Miguelito got the chicken pot pie. I need to find these shovel-like spoons to add to our wedding registry.

My dad ordered the meat loaf with chunky mashed potatoes and roasted cauliflower and broccoli. Stuffed with bread chunks, the meat loaf was moist and flavorful.

My mom also ordered a cheeseburger with French fries. Because the soup was so filling, she didn't even touch the burger, taking it home in a brown paper box. We all picked on the fries.

Founding Farmers serves the fish of the day with the customer's pick of sauces: sea salt, cracked pepper and fresh lemon; Meunière style; roasted hazelnut butter; or, Napa Provencàl. Our waitress recommended that I pair the pan-fried trout with the Meunière sauce. I did, and proceeded to clean my plate.

After lunch, I said good-bye to the bacon lollipops and little toy piggy until my next trip back to the East Coast.