Vicious Dogs (NoHo)

So North Hollywood wants to be North Houston - Noho.

I like it - let's do it.

God damn these dogs are good. The owner is super sweet. Sweet like molasses. He is extremely appreciative you're there ordering his dogs and would gladly shoot the breeze with you and offer a quick surmise of any of his 159 different hot dog combinations.

I went with the Chicago style. You can infer a lot from a Chicag... right!

Great! Better than the ones that are actually -in- Chicago.

Bite my shiny metal ass Windy City.

Weinerschnitzel

[John] Galardi started his career in the fast-food business at age 12 as a soda jerk in Missouri. With his family he came to California at age 19 and, as fate would have it, got his first job from Glen Bell Jr., owner of Taco Bell. 'I went over and enrolled in Pasadena Junior College. I walked across the street and a guy was hosing the lot,' Galardi recalled. 'I said, 'Do you need any help?' Bell said he did and offered him a part-time job at 50 cents an hour. From this association, Galardi moved on to manage Bell's commissary at $150 a week and then into a partnership agreement with Bell to run a poor producing taco store. Working two shifts, with his ex-wife working three part-time jobs, Galardi managed to save $6,000. Meanwhile, Bell was having financial problems and asked Galardi to loan him the $6,000. Bell was unable to pay back the loan in three months and instead offered to sell Galardi the store for $12,000 cash. 'So my folks borrowed $2,000 from Household Finance on their furniture, I let everybody go and I worked 30 days to get the other thousands and I paid $12,000 for a little taco store in Long Beach. That's how I got into the ownership position,' he said. The next breakthrough came a couple years later when Galardi was approached by a man who wanted to build the hard-working Galardi a store on Pacific Coast Highway in Wilmington. It was next to one of Bell's taco stores. Bell told Galardi to take the deal and sell something other than tacos. 'So I came up with hot dogs,' Galardi said. 'Nobody else was in hot dogs and Glen's wife named the company. I was at dinner one night at their house and Bell's wife was looking at a cookbook and said you ought to call it wienerschnitzel. I told my wife going home nobody in their right mind would call a company wienerschnitzel. Three days later, I said, 'Hell, it's better than John's Hot Dogs

Cafe Bolivar

Hijos de tu pinche rebomba madre.

Estos cabrones saben hacer un mendigo papusa - perdon, un arepe - saber como un angel se cago en tu voca. Una delicia!

Translation: It's good.

Mixto

I like Mixto.

I like the design of their modern taco bell. Lime green walls, with aluminum glazing and repurposed wood. The place reaks of soon-to-be-franchise.

But the food is superb. The white beans are the kicker- leaving a milder texture and smoother taste in your mouth. A better mouth-feel if you please. The ingredients are above average.

We go here often. I need to write a bunch more on this place. Because it's that good.

Lucy's Drive-thru

It's also a walk-up.

It's next to one of the busiest intersections in Los Angeles. Pico and La Brea. 8 lanes of stopped and gone exhaust pipes spewing out their cocktail of carcinogens. The walls of Lucy's Drive-Thru have absorbed nee taken on the patina of months of drive-by exhaustings.

So I order a chille relleno burrito. A lot can be inferred by ordering a chile relleno burrito. I tack on a carnitas taco. A lot can be inferr... you get the idea. Oh, and an horchata, or rice drink. A lot can be infer... right.

A patron leaves the dine-in area. She staggers to a nearby pay phone. She half-squats and depants herself. Without even fully squatting, she pulls her panties to one side and begins to relieve herself not 15 feet from the order window. No one looks, no one says anything. She leaves a puddle as proof of ownership. She staggers away.

The chile relleno burrito, now that I've visually assaulted you, tastes different now. The tortilla is flaky store-bought. And the chile is a bit greasy.

The food tastes directly proportional to your BAC %.

Tito's Tacos

If you wanted bland beans, American cheese, well-crisped tortilla chips this is your place.

If you grew up on your mom's beans, queso cotija, and fried corn tortillas this is not your place.

Langer's Deli

Wow.

Publish that, asshat.

Go spend a fortune on a fanfuckingtastic sandwich.

Pancho

Escrow [or the place next to Escrow]

You're walking...

No no.

You're driving up Silverla... No.

Sunset Boulevard has a strange pace about it when you're driving down (it's always down, never up). It is scenic near the 405; nostalgic near Fairfax, Depressing near Hollywood, languid near Silverlake, weird as you cross over the 110, and finally urbane at Hope, and finally finally like the middle of Arizona as you enter the flatlands of East Los Angeles. It's like someone compressed everything west of the Mississippi into a 15 mile stretch of path/boulevard/parkway/street/highway/dump.

So rewind back to Silverlake Blvd and you'll be seeing to your a left a curious little corner development that has a sign that says Escrow. There should be a little note below it that says, "See below."

See below.

It's below and to the right. There.

No Name. No sign. Just glass. Fantastic modernist design. I don't think it was intentional, and if it was- genius. A hipster haven, where many fine folk dine and order the House Pho. When delivered, they ask, "Extra onions, silantro, and greens."

Everyone dresses like they fell out of an issue of Adbusters. Without the articles.

The best vegetarian pho. Great house pho. The meatballs are okay, but I love them. Expect squishy responses to your bites as you chew on each little ping pong sized bouncing bubble of baubastic surprise.

But what is really good is the broth. Take some home. Mix it with something you found on the food network website.

Pancho