Anger Burger

I’m ashamed at how little I am exploring Los Angeles.  Part of it is being without a car, yes, but… really that’s no excuse.  Which is how I found myself on a subway full of people wearing no pants, realizing that I am actually less than an hour away from Chinatown by public transportation – which, I might add, is also the same amount of time it would take me to get there were I driving myself.  This is where I demurely slap myself in the forehead.

We wanted to go to Empress Pavilion, a well-known Los Angeles dim sum joint both loved and hated in equal measure.  Online reviews expound of the bitchiness of the cart servers (um, have you ever had dim sum before?) and the quality of the food, while others insist they had the best dim sum of their lives.  It doesn’t matter: I wanted to try it.  And of course they stopped serving just before we would have arrived.

Instead, we walked over to CBS Seafood (there’s also an ABC Seafood and one must assume an NBC Seafood and a FOX Seafood as well), where we got the full on Whitey Treatment.  This is to be expected.  We are whiteys.  But our friend Justin was, how shall we say, very dehydrated?  And was literally begging the waiters for a cup of water.  We had to ask 5 different people and waited 10 minutes before water came (there were only three other tables of customers).  Then we waited another 10 minutes to order three small dim sum plates.  Then we waited another 10 minutes to get it.  And I think the point at which you can’t get food quickly enough to keep from getting hungry between servings, it is time to leave.  I don’t often get whiteyed-out of a joint, but it does happen occasionally.

Luckily, Justin also has an iPhone, which means that we were made abruptly aware of our proximity to Philippe’s, a Los Angeles institution.  Philippe’s is pretty inarguably the inventor of the French dip sandwich, as well as beloved for their housemade superhot mustard.  And none of us had been there.

The rumors of the tremendous lines were well-founded.  The girl in line in front of us informed her friend that it was “usually much worse than this,” which, I don’t know about you, but there’s not a lot of this shit I’ll endure for any ol’ sandwich.

Which, sadly, Philippe’s was.  I must amend that to say: it was a pretty good sandwich.  The above is lamb (we got one with cheese and one without, to split) and while the meat was good and the bread was great, you don’t dip your own sandwich in au jus, it is done for you as you order, meaning that even if you eat right away — which we did — the result is a soggy, slimy bun.  The meat is also not quite warm enough to melt the cheese, something I didn’t anticipate being so disappointed by.  If I had waited five minutes in line I might feel differently, but after 40 minutes and being elbowed by a group of oversized, drunken sportsfans¹, I’ll probably turn it down in the future.

On our walk back to Central Station, I noticed a cart selling churros.  Not just any churros.  The ones they fill with dulce de leche (or custard or strawberry) when you order.

Oh my god, that was good.  That might have been the best three dollars I’ve spent in recent memory.  It seems baffling that I could fit them in after dim sum and a lamb sandwich, but I have a special extra stomach just for deep fried sweets.  I’m a miracle of science.

¹ At one point the guy behind me tapped me hard on the shoulder and said in an unfocused daze “Are you gonna order?” I stared at him and his friends, unsure what the fuck was going on. You see, we weren’t at the front of the line. “I… will?” I said. He seemed satisfied and we waited for 15 more minutes.