For a true bobadouche, it has been a tale as old as time that there was no decent boba outside of the SGV. This makes sense, as boba, or bubble tea or pearl milk tea, is a somewhat recent invention from Taiwan and the SGV is the hub of Taiwanese immigration. But a couple new places are challenging the old wisdom, bringing quality boba to the other loci of Taiwanese and Chinese immigration, UCLA and USC.
Bird n Hand is a new chicken-centric place on Fairfax. There’s a lot of interesting ideas here: free range birds, harissa wings, tater tots, waffles. Add a great location, and you think, what could go wrong?
Top Round opened to fanfare last year as a cool “better version of Arby’s.” Even people who grew up on the east coast, where roast beef sandwiches like those at Top Round are common, said as much. But c’mon — talk about damning with faint praise.
These are really much more like the roast beef sandwiches at Phillippe’s, except better. Simple. Quality ingredients. Tasty.
But I’m not from the east coast, so this doesn’t really dredge up nostalgia. On its own merits, the sandwich is good, but not life-changing. This place is mostly notable for its retro style. So enjoy the pictures after the jump and take a quick nostalgia trip.
This update is mostly pictures from my latest visit to Sycamore Kitchen, the brunch place from Karen Hatfield. Spoiler: it is still incredible. In fact, the cooked dishes might actually be better than the baked goods, and *gasp* maybe even better than Huckleberry.
I’ve been wanting to try Son of a Gun since it opened, when glowing reports of the fried chicken sandwich emerged. Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo have been open about ripping off Bakesale Betty. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it an exact copy.
Maybe this title is getting ahead of me. One visit is not enough to take the crown from Huckleberry (I’ve been meaning to write up Zoe Nathan’s place for a long time). But I was kind of blown away by how great Sycamore Kitchen was.
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I guess I’m becoming a kouign amann douche.
When Bouchon Bakery opened below Bouchon a couple years ago, we were excited to try the pastry chef’s specialty, the kouign amann. We were always one step behind, with people buying a dozen of the things at a time. Finally, a recent trip finally yielded my first taste of Bouchon’s KA. Worth the wait?
Like every fooddouche in the area, I made it out to Campanile when I heard it was closing soon.. I had been meaning to go for a while (like probably everybody in LA), but had never made it until now. You don’t even need to wait for the break for me to tell you that it kind of sucked.
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