Hoity Toity Burgers at Short Order

There is no shortage of good food or good chefs today in L.A. This point was emphasized even more for me on a recent trip to Santa Barbara where we were hard pressed to find a place where we wanted to eat. So I should be careful when writing reviews like the one I am about to write because I now realize that my bar is so much higher than many others after being utterly spoiled for a full year now (ever since moving from the Palm Springs area to Venice Beach) on the culinary offerings of the City of Angels.

This particular piece is about the regular old burger. For almost eight months, Short Order has been on my “to try” list. The burger place at the Grove was debuted last year to much fanfare as collaboration between friends and superstar chefs Nancy Silverton (Mozza) and Amy Pressman (Old Town Bakery). Pressman passed away from cancer shortly before the place opened and Silverton went on anyway providing what she and Pressman would cook in their own kitchens. This included a meaty burger with a lamb version calling my name.

The Cute Gardener, who is much more discerning than me and not easily seduced immediately by hype, suggested we wait until the kinks got worked out before trying the place. What we found when we did was a very highly priced version of an American diner.

My lamb burger was the best I have ever had. The meat was cooked perfectly rare and the portion of arugula and the smattering of feta were in perfect ratio to the meat. Every bite was soft and full of tanginess surrounded by pillow-y tufts of bun. But for $15 on the second deck of a restaurant directly beneath the weekend sun, I would be hard-pressed to want to go back rather than trying to emulate the recipe at home.

I was also excited to see fried pickles on the menu and although the seasoning on them was great, it overpowered the actual pickles. Nancy’s Backyard Burger, for $14, was the CG’s choice of meal and although he said it tasted fine and the meat was cooked well, it wasn’t worthy of that price for him, especially with a high grade meat and sausage store serving up worldly varieties just steps away underneath us at the historical Farmers Market.

One neat touch is the presence of “adult” milkshakes on the menu. This one tasted exactly like an apple pie ala mode only spiked with alcohol.

It’s definitely worth a taste once but there are too many other burgers to try at more diplomatic prices on my list to return any time too soon. 

Sunday Morning Bagel Sandwich Redemption at The Oaks

I had a really horrible meal Saturday night in Pomona at 2nd on 2nd. I was really disappointed because I have not had a meal in as long as I can remember that actually almost compelled me to send the plate back or ask for a refund on my check. True it was the cheapest dinner I have had in a long time but does that excuse the fact that there was a hard, white slice of tomato with a gnarly, scarred center on my burger or that it tasted like set-in-the-sun cardboard with a coating of black ash? I left most of the dish but picked out the soggy fried jalapenos from the slab because I was hungry. The waitress didn’t even charge me for my glass of wine, but it wasn’t because she was making up for her bad service and the meal, it’s because she wasn’t present enough to recall that I ordered it.

All this being said, it made me realize that I should take more time to note the everyday and simple eating experiences I come across that may not be worthy of a Michelin five star rating but are reliable sources of simply, yummy food time and again.

The next morning my palate was redeemed by such an experience at The Oaks Gourmet Fine Foods andSpirits market in Hollywood, where we stopped for a quick breakfast/lunch on our way to see The Artist. One fourth gourmet foods and condiments market, one fourth wine store shoved into an upscale, strip mall, one fourth bustling coffee shop and smoothie shack, and one fourth café serving fare like pizza, burgers, sandwiches and salads to order. As small as the space is and as much is crammed in there to choose your experience from, I still fell in love with its charm due to the good food and the variety of people who were there obviously in on the secret of the place’s merits as well; even if you had to sit at a communal table in the middle of the store to enjoy the fare without a plate or utensils. That kind of DIY smorgasbord of people on laptops, in couples, or in for a rushed bite, added to the allure.

The menus boasts one of the Top Five Burgers in LA according to the LA List and my boyfriend, being a burger whore, had that. I thought the meat was very flavorful and the ingredients were above par but he said they weren’t distributed evenly. 

I am a bagel sandwich aficionado. Chances are, if it’s the early half of the day and I am hungry I will opt for this standard combination of egg, cheese and bagel with additional stuff thrown in. So far, my favorite had been the red pepper and Swiss version at Koffi in Palm Springs but now The Oaks has stolen my heart with its perfectly combined fried egg, grated cheddar cheese, black forest bacon that melted on the tongue with bits of pepper spice, and shaved onion and roasted red peppers. It was the kind of sandwich served warm where textures and temperatures all perfectly blend and the “everything” bagel was soft and not too hard to squeeze the life out of the more tender things like egg and cheese.  

If I lived close by I would come often to eat the bagel sandwich or buy things like the tiny Ding-Dong reminiscent monkey cakes in a non-guilt-ridden two-bite portion, the fig olive oil or one of the varieties of artisan tampenades.