Diary: Eating Around Los Angeles With Little Kids.

Friday, 24 November 2017. Where will we go for breakfast or lunch ? The oven in the kitchen is full of leftovers, but it's too soon to dig into that. It is decided that we will go to the Forman Tavern in Toluca Lake, a charming part of Los Angeles with many restaurants. Here's how many: we have been to all three on that corner during the last two visits. They include a sushi bar, a steakhouse, and now this tavern. Forman's is charming in a masculine way, with wood paneling throughout and a hundred or two beer steins hanging from the ceiling. But what makes it clearly a Los Angeles restaurant is that the menu begins with burgers, then moves on to various soups and sandwiches, most of them ethnic. The most unusual example was a mezzes platter that included several Middle Eastern breads, dip, and vegetables. The beet hummus is especially offbeat and I thought pretty good. Back at Jude and Suzanne's house, preparations were readied for the big party of the schedule. Even more little kids as were there yesterday are here again today. The food was a grill for tacos, although the way it was cooked and served made it more closely resemble the likes of gyros, but grilled on a hot grill. For the third day in a row, none of the adults are drinking the couple of bottles of wine here and there. But the happy mood and play of the kids is enough to make the evening delightful. Being a grandfather is all the delightfulness I've always heard about it. Later in the day, we find ourselves we attend the sushi bar next to Forman's. Jude and friends have Kaboosa on their short list. It does have its points. It uses real wasabi (it's more expensive than what you find typically. One member of the family disdains the place as too expensive. Two others don't even touch sushi, but they come anyway. I find the nicest touch here is that many of the special rolls are drizzled with lime juice, which adds a whole new dimension I will have to ask my next sushi chef to add that touch. On the way home, we stop at the mammoth new Century City mall with all the big-name retail stores and many of the little operators too. But what grabbed our attention was that Eataly has an outlet store. Get a load of this: an enormous seller of all the Italian food you can imagine. You can eat or drink it there, or you can bring it home. Eataly opened in New York a few years ago, and has been expanding ever since. Most of the rest of the place were clothing stores. The sales clerk at one of them offered ML a glass of water. She said no, but the saleslady then brought forth a glass of champagne. That got them. And ML wound up buying a handsome coat for about $300.