Saturday at the Hungry Cat

The Hungry Cat
1535 N. Vine
Hollywood, CA
323-462-2155
http://www.thehungrycat.com/

Saturday afternoon after a 90 minute tennis session in the heat and smog, we cleaned up and headed toward to Arclight to watch Rocknrolla, and stopped by Hungry Cat to feed our hungry selves. Hungry Cat is located in the Sunset and Vine complex, convenient to doing some shopping at Bed, Bath and Beyond, watching films at the Arclight, or a Hollywood bar crawl. And the food is top notch.


The sandwich board on the sidewalk lures customers in with the promise of oysters on the half shell and the much hallowed Santa Barbara sea urchin.

As you turn into the alley that leads to The Hungry Cat, you will be stepping over Angela Lanbury's star. Hiya Angela! Your long running show Murder, She Wrote was part of the inspiration for the title of this blog. Thank you, Angela!

Inside, the blackboard at the front bar suggests drink specials and reiterates the shellfish of the day.


I love the simple, clean and fresh decor in The Hungry Cat. The citrus fruit is inviting a cold drink, and the bartender uses the industrial juice presses often to make truly fresh juice beverages, one of them being the grapefruit michelada from the blackboard.

The new raw bar. I don't know when the expanded into the next door space, that I think used to be a small sushi bar. But I am very pleased by this addition due to my passion for oysters.

Just gorgeous. Someone is talented at presentation.

The drinks! To the left is the grapefruit michelada, fresh squeezed (about a minute before it was served) and Tecate with salt on the rim. Slightly bitter and acidic, but lovely. To the right is an extremely generous pour of a Spanish Alvarino.

We also sampled the Australian Bundaberg ginger beer. I haven't has ginger beer since I lived in London, and it is always a treat for the taste buds.


First munchy item out were the oyster crackers. We went through a few bags of these waiting on our food because the raw bar & pantry kitchen were spectacularly slow at 3 pm on a Saturday with a half full restaurant.

Les huitres! Malpeque, Fanny Bar and Sol Azul. I have been pondering recently why people praise a restaurant for its oysters. The restaurant didn't create the oysters. There is no special recipe. Each place does the presentation in terms of accessories slightly differently. So, what up? As long as they are fresh, and eating oysters in a busy restaurant more or less guarantees this, then why are we congratulatory? Does someone have an answer to this?

I love taking pics of oysters.

Why are they so photogenic?

I even love looking at the shells. The textures, shapes and colors.

D ate a this giant Cobb Salad. He said it is the best Cobb Salad he has ever had. Fresh (not canned) tuna, avocado, some kind of ham/bacon (we weren't sure how this was prepared, but it was somehow more special than bacon), eggs, butterflied prawns, pecorino, guava, and crab all very lightly dressed.

My salad was also phenomenal. Market lettuces with pecorino cheese, avocado and hard boiled egg. How do they prep the hard boiled egg so it is fluffy like this? Do they grate it with a cheese grater? I want to know. I devoured this. It was delicious and large enough to be filling.

All about the restaurant are pics of Lentz's and Goin's cats are hung. Loves.

On the menu, The Hungry Cat offers a "Pug Burger". Since the photographic theme is the owners' pets, I assume this adorable hound is who the Pug Burger refers to. WooF!

Here, kitty kitty!

Celebrity Night at Memphis

Walk down a long alleyway between a Mexican restaurant and a cyber cafe on Hollywood Blvd and you will find Memphis restaurant. Memphis is housed in the last remaining Victorian in Hollywood, Jane's House, and experiencing the structure and the decor is certainly worth the visit even if the food was nothing to write home about. It has been a residence and a school educating the children of Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks. It was refurbished by Guy Miller, a friend of the original owners and in 2006 opened as Memphis.



http://www.seeing-stars.com/landmarks/JanesHouse.shtml


The inside is decorated bordello-like in lots of red velvet, red flocked wallpaper, mirrors and crystal chandeliers. The many small rooms typical of Victorian homes make for interesting architecture for a restaurant. Lots of places to tuck away for a private cocktail, and separate rooms for celebratory dining.




Although the restaurant was far from crowded for a Friday evening, minor celebrities abounded. I typically do not pay attention to celebrity and rarely do I recognize one when I see one. However, being that the restaurant was quiet and the food was not outstanding, I thought it was notable. In the bar were several members of the Seinfeld cast. Upstairs in a semi-private dining room, Gabrielle Union was with a large group of friends and outside the restaurant we saw William Hung standing online to get in to a Halloween party with his mum! How cute!




I will just do a quick run down of the eatable but not memorable food we ordered and ate. I started with the tuna tartar. What used to be a delicacy on a menu has now become a standby. One can usually order this dish anywhere and get something fairly healthy and lite. Memphis' version was covered in a creamy sauce. Why? Just, why?



D started with the gumbo, which was tasty enough, but just ordinary.




As a main course I had the fried chicken. Now for me it is hard to go wrong with fried chicken. While I am not a fried food advocate by any means, fry me up some chicken and I am usually happy. I was surprised that, this being a Southern restaurant, the chicken pieces were limited to breasts. I expected a thigh, a wing or at the very least a drumstick. I always admire a chef who doesn't assume his patrons are afraid of the body parts of their meat.




The one sound endoresment they will get was for the martini. Due to the patio/nightclub/veranda setting outside the lounge area, it came oxymoronically in a plastic glass. However, it was the largest martini I have ever had in my life. Small multi-cellular organisms could do the back stroke in one of those suckers.