Saturday, July 16, 2011.
Mission Redux. Stout And Burgers.
Too early in the morning, we began Mary Ann's favorite kind of vacation: one in which engages our entire family. That was the rule until Katrina. Since then, the four of us travel together only rarely. The last time was just over two years ago.
We landed just after nine Los Angeles time. Jude--too busy to pick us up--sent over one of his people with a rental car. With some trepidation, we prepared to deal with what has become known in the national media as Carmageddon.
Los Angeles is worked up about this weekend's plan to demolish an overpass crossing a major freeway, requiring the closing of the very busy corridor all weekend. This would tie up traffic to a degree never before seen, everyone said. People were leaving town and checking into hotels to avoid the expected disaster. It was all over the national media, and a major topic on late-night talk shows. Radio stations had continuous live reports from all over the effected area. T-shirts saying "I Survived the I-405 Closing!" were on sale in shops.
Now that it's over, those shirts are all but being given away. Carmageddon turned out to be as overstated as the Y2K phenomenon of a decade ago. Any unusual traffic clogs didn't last long and didn't amount to much. The radio stations reported that for once everybody had heeded their warnings. But then they predicted that everyone would get complacent, and the catastrophe would be even worse than predicted. But it never did materialize.
We got to the Sheraton Universal Hotel without problems. It's adjacent to the Universal theme park, but MA chose it because it's about fifteen blocks from Jude's house. But after a couple of days the Marys decided not enough was going on at this hotel. The biggest excitement was a false fire alarm at around midnight on the second night. The breakfast buffet was pretty good, and the bar made good drinks and barpetizers. (Hey! Did I just invent a new word? If so, would a bad barpetizer be called a barfetizer? Remember where you read it first!)
As soon as we got settled in, Jude came by to take us to lunch. Today is his twenty-second birthday, after all. Everybody seemed to be fixated on burgers. There are hundreds of upscale burger joins around Los Angeles. Jude's current favorite is called "Umami Burger," named for the meaty fifth flavor your taste buds are allegedly able to distinguish. Mary Leigh was subjected to that one a few weeks ago and wouldn't go again.
We wound up at a beer-and burger place in Hollywood called Stout. It was a little dirty, but the food was just what we were after. Good onion rings, fries, and burgers, with offbeat dressings and sauces and crusty, juicy meat patties. I pulled away from the burger-eaters and had a chicken sandwich. It turned out to be a chicken burger--not so good a thing. The salad with feta cheese underneath it was the better part.
Bread pudding was one of the desserts. One of my life projects is checking out bread pudding all over the world. It is almost never in a league with New Orleans-style pudding, and this was wasn't, either. It was noteworthy, though, in having been baked to order. It came out with a weird texture, but better than I expected.
However, what I remember best about Stout was a Canadian beer called Trois Pistoles. A dark, high-alcohol (nine percent), Belgian-style ale, its first and lingering flavor was that of fruit--overripe raspberries was what registered with me. Very malty, too. I'd never had the like of it before. So good I had a second glass.
Jude took us to the house he shares with two other guys. A fourth fellow--one he knows from Georgetown Prep--is in the house for the summer. All of them work in movies. One current project was in the editing stage, and we got a look at it. Plane crash in the middle of nowhere, with flesh-eating dinosaurs. It seemed to me that the biggest part of the budget was for ketchup, because every character seemed to be covered with blood.
The plane wreck looked convincing. "That's a real airplane," Jude said. "We know a guy who has a collection of crashed planes," Jude said. "He had just the kind we needed!"
Jude's pad has a fantastic view of the San Fernando Valley, from a hillside perch. The kitchen is equipped with a Vulcan stove. Otherwise, it reminded me a lot of the pads my buddies and I lived in during our college years and just beyond. Almost no furniture at all. I remember my mattress-on-the-floor days fondly. It would seem wrong if one didn't go through that stage.
We were all still full from the big burgers, so dinner was pre-empted. It was the last time that would happen on this trip. Unfortunately.
It has been over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
