Edendale: There is Food There Too.

Edendale Grill
2838 Rowena Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90039 (323) 666-2000

www.edendalegrill.com

So incensed was I at the hipster take over of the Edendale that I forgot all about what we ate! And perhaps not to bad effect. One never goes to the Edendale for the food.

With some of our favorite people in town from Lake Havasu, ex-Silverlakers, we wanted to stick close to the neighborhood and eat somewhere relaxed, so we headed for the patio at Edendale Grill. Hands down, best outside eating area on the east side, maybe in all of LA.


I have done 5 hour Sunday brunches, closed down the bar more nights than I can count, Mothers' Day, birthdays, and so on into infinity. A balmy fall evening is one of my favorite times here. The atmosphere is somehow magical. No one is hurrying you to leave the table, the service is decent even if the food is suspect.


I love the lights, the trees, the fact that you will drive past the restaurant 5 times and still miss it if you do not know exactly where it is.

There is so much history in this grill. The owner, Melanie Tusquellas (who also now owns the slightly refurbished El Chavo on Sunset) has imbued the decor with pics and artifacts that belie very early Hollywood's strong presence in the neighborhood. Edendale itself is housed in an old firehouse, the bar is where there main engine was kept, as is evident by the huge swinging double doors.

This used to be the front entrance to a firehouse, circa 1925. And onto the food:

First out were the infamous meatballs. These are maybe the best tasting thing on the menu. The sauce is slightly spicy, and the herbed ground beef and sauce are covered in melty mozzarella, baked in the dish.

Next stop were the salads. The above Caesar was decent, but not even a trace of anchovies. I don't remember ever having eaten a Caesar here before, so I am unclear whether this is their recipe or the kitchen just ran out. But a Caesar needs that fishy kick, IMO. This cannot even come close to touching Pat's recipe.

I loved the flavors in my arugula and fig salad. Fresh arugula, lots of figs, thick rich balsamic vinegar, chunks of bacon and ricotta cheese sprinkled throughout. However, the pantry chef must have been asleep on the job. The arugula was served, literally, in little branches. I tried to put some of this on D's plate, but when I dug in the entire salad moved because the branches were interconnected like layers of plant life in a rain forest.

In order to eat the arugula, I had to lift an entire branch and chew the leaves off with my teeth. I suppose I could have cut each leaf off with my fork and nibbled at it in a more civilized manner. I have two issues with that approach: 1) separating the leaves from the branches is not MY job, and 2) it would have been far less interesting to watch.

C orders mac n' cheese almost wherever he goes, T says. Mainly I think he likes to know if there is another one anywhere that measures up. I know C's cooking, and I am guessing there is not. This one failed the test. T wonders why he does this, subjecting himself to inferior mac n' cheese. I will posit he does so because even bad mac n' cheese is still mac n' cheese.

This one was extremely reminiscent of Kraft Shells and Cheese from the box with the pre-made cheese sauce in the foil package. You know the one.

There is one word for my roast chicken: weird. Roast chicken is a favorite of mine. This one was dry and weirdly crispy on the outside, reminiscent of deep fried turkey. C touched it, tasted it and decided all the other entrees were ready and this one was still pink in the center. So the cook did what cooks all over the world in lesser restaurants do and dropped it in the fryer real quick to finish it off. Not good but not horrifying. Just ok. The kale it sat on was delicious.

Blue nose bass, by all accounts was ok. D says this am, "It was ok. The food there is ok. The atmosphere is awesome."

C's pulled pork sandwich was dry, without a lot of zing.

And I have the same problem with the bleu cheese fries I always have. The bleu cheese is not melty. I like my cheese fries to have a melty cheese, so the fry itself gets slightly sticky. It's a prerequisite for a cheesy fry.


It was a beautiful night, in good company with lovely and accommodating service and an entertaining floor show people watching. There is nothing I enjoy more than a beautiful southern California night with my friends who know me the best. I could eat cheese and crackers sitting on the front porch stoop and have a smile on my face.

Walking Echo Park

When my mother Mary was in town this month, we filled up the hours between drinking wine, eating food and sleeping with a walking tour of Echo Park. In true Los Angeleno style, the walking tour started at a location you had to drive to, and were strongly advised to drive between the 4-5 different sub-neighborhoods as opposed to walking between them. I laughed. Then I got in my car.

This particular walking tour was a tour looking at houses built on the intricate stairway system in Echo Park that gave early Angelenos access back and forth from houses on the hill to the streetcars running down below. Houses were built on these hills prior to the time when automobiles became the prevalent form of transportation in Los Angeles. The irony of the "walking tour" does not escape me.



The steps were built originally in wood, and slowly since late in the 19th century the wood has been replaced by concrete. Most stairs were built in partnership between the city and private interests including the street car providers. The thing that endlessly fascinates is the constant nagging thought of not just traveling up and down these steps every time one wants to come and go from their house, but also the fact that the materials and machines that built the structures had to be carted up and down the stairs as well. Even house #1 on the tour. It was just built in 2005, and despite all the mod cons we enjoy, all the materials had to be carted by hand up the hillside. There is just no other way to do it. There is literally no access to these homes by car. Some of the hills have small parking areas down at the bottom of the stairs. People who live here must do their shopping in small bits daily as opposed to the suburbanite custom of one massive haul per week. This is the view from the porch that hangs off the back of that brand new house.



We walked four main sets of stairs, the tallest being the Baxter stairs with close to 250 steps. Off most of the stairways were two or more houses open to the walking tour to come in, view the architecture and marvel at someone's housekeeping and decorating skills. I was told off early on during the tour for taking pics, so I don't have many of the interiors. And due to the small size of the real estate lots it was hard in some cases to get a great pic of outdoor spaces. House #2 (taken before the tell off) did afford me some good photo opportunities. I love their decorating style. 1960's yuppy bohemian meets African safari. Beautiful!






Another stairway....i love bougainvillea anywhere, but especially in surprising little places where it pops out its beautiful head and says hello.



One of the things all the houses we saw had in common was their remarkable use of outdoor space. Every single house had used the outdoors to create an extra living room for the inhabitants. This example is especially lovely because the corner of the concrete banquette looks out over an amazing view off the hillside. I can envision people enjoying that view throughout all two seasons one experiences during the trajectory of a year in Los Angeles.



Our last stop of the afternoon was a visit to the bar at Edendale, one of our favorite watering holes. Mixville Bar in Edendale Restaurant is housed in a historic firehouse sandwiched in between Echo Park and Silverlake. It was built in 1924, and it still retains beautiful pressed tin ceilings, hardwood floors and glass and wood truck bay doors at the front and back. Edendale, named after the original name of the neighborhood it stands in, was home to the first movie studio in Los Angeles, built in 1909. The bar at Edendale is named after cinematic cowboy Tom Mix's studio western "town" that stood just a few blocks away in the 1920's. Tom Mix was a big enough star at the time to warrant his own studio lot. That lot was called Mixville, and so is the bar at Edendale.




I love my neighborhood, and I love even more that it is steeped in the history and origins of the modern cultural production of this country. What a great experience to see and learn so much about the hills that surround us in Echo Park.