1. Someday, I would have a kick-ass girlfriend.
2. Someday, I would eat the hamburgers that Wesley Willis sang about in “I’m Sorry That I Got Fat.”

Ten years later, these disparate teenage dreams found each other at the bottom of reality’s saver sack at the north Brooklyn branch of White Castle.

Decked in red as part of the fast food chain’s now traditional Valentine’s Day celebration, East Williamsburg’s White Castle was positively radiant with decorations of the heart, their glow undeniably enhanced by their reflection in bulletproof glass. While a representative of the restaurant’s New York District Office states that various White Castles around the nation have been celebrating Valentine’s Day for well over a decade, this particular slider house (as well as its sister joints in New York City) has been a participating location for five years.

My valentine and I are happy to report that they’ve got things down to a fuzzy science. One table and three booths were cordoned off for 45-minute, reservation-only meals and draped with just the right amount of kitsch to set the mood. A live rose in water was complemented by an electric candle, our table was set with a handful of Hershey kisses and glasses of candy-sweet, third-tier apple cider, and our waitress took orders and customer photos with the playful sense of dignity that a $13.50 dinner date deserves.

Encouraging guests to “Celebrate your love… of the crave,” White Castle’s stylish Valentine’s menus emphasized fun over stuffiness without stumbling into the territory of irony, and the diners around us followed suit. As plastic trays bearing sliders and root beer hit our table, we couldn’t help but enjoy how god damned nice this all was; even as a mischievous snub to the world of wining and dining, our dinner at White Castle was uncompromisingly pleasant.

All the apple cider in the world can’t make up for unpleasant food, so I was especially thankful that my fair lady and I share an appreciation for the White Castle slider. And yes, there is something to appreciate in these pillowy, proportionally reduced burgers – the inventive cooking that defines a slider is well documented, giving at least the form of White Castle’s product a backbone in edible Americana.

The White Castle itself, rendered somewhat indistinct by cheap meat and relatively flavorless dried onions, is not the regional delicacy that it ostensibly once was. Still, there’s a distinct comfort in these 69-cent morsels, and it’s a feeling that somehow out-classes the crude indulgence piled into a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, the mass-market commercialism wrapped in a Happy Meal, and the nothing-is-sacred reconstruction that is the Jack-in-the-Box taco.

Maybe it’s the fact that every slider is ordered and boxed individually, but the components of each slider instantly melt into the fluffy equivalent of hamburger-flavored Wonder bread. Maybe it’s the branding genius behind America’s first burger chain, which still maintains the allure of purity despite its firm entrenchment in the questionable practices of American fast food.

Maybe it’s White Castle’s sweet potato fries. A seasonal menu item that’s well worth $3 for a large order, they’re as crispy as fast food fries come, with the heft and understated sweetness of a sweet potato (even a frozen one).

Maybe it’s the simplicity of taking my girl out for burgers that makes this food more memorable than it deserves to be. Some would think of this night a quaint marketing gimmick. Others might call it out as an affront to romanticism. As someone who grew up believing that sipping on milkshakes at the local burger joint makes for a classic date, while white tablecloths and champagne are what show up on the movie screen after dinner, all I can say is:

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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My first hour in California runs like clockwork: Get off the plane. Find a restroom. Pick up my baggage. Drive to In-N-Out.

Plenty have followed this routine for years, and plenty others have scoffed at how we Californians cling to nostalgia-infused fantasies about America’s most overrated burger. Nick Solares has best headed off that discussion, so I don’t have to justify my ritual in too much detail here.

I’ve said before that comparing In-N-Out to places like Shake Shack is an irrelevant exercise. Point-by-point comparisons of two clearly different products easily reduce to the maxim “you get what you pay for,” and on that line, In-N-Out kills the competition pound for pound in terms of pure value. Yet, if I were offered a choice of my favorite burgers for free, I would certainly leave In-N-Out’s at the bottom of the list. These are considerations of context – as long as my stomach empties at the end of the day, the entire idea of a head-to-head burger showdown (I’m looking at you, overzealous Five Guys fans) is something of an insult to the ridiculous variety of great burgers available in this country.

I like to test my dining loyalties in more extreme colors. Whenever I see the words “In-N-Out is overrated” or hear some New Yorker gushing about the latest monumental restaurant burger as the best he’s ever had, I ask myself if I would rather live day in and day out in a society that decided to eliminate In-N-Out from the face of the earth or in a world without Minetta Tavern. Which one could I eat every day if I needed to? Which one could I always come back to without having to think about things like wait time, monthly budget, and palate fatigue? Which one would save me in moments of supreme hunger, penny pinching and unreliable travel food? Which one is the clearest and most direct experience of the American hamburger? I’d vote high end burgers out of existence without a second thought.

I guess what I learn every time I touch down in California is that when it comes to burgers, I’m a fast food idealist. I want the comfort of a consistent and universal burger that surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together. I want a plain toasted bun, an unremarkable hunk of iceberg lettuce, two slices of nondescript, conventional California tomato, and a thin, well-done patty that gets the job done in the simplest way possible. I want cardboard cups with freshly cut fries, I want clean-tasting milkshakes, and I want to know that the people making my food are treated right.

And I want it all for under $5.00. An In-N-Out burger is real food, real fast, real cheap, and real proof that fast food can do right by everyone – what other establishment so uncannily gets everything right at prices to move? There is no comparison, and there is no way to overrate such a perfectly realized icon of American cuisine.

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Stephen

My favorite meal of the past year was, without a doubt, the meal I shared with my cousin, her husband and her daughter when I was visiting them in Oregon last Spring. My cousin and I made Eggplant Parmesan with pasta. The meal was simple, but delicious. What made it so memorable to me was getting to cook it with my cousin, who is one of my favorite people to cook with. It helps that Eggplant Parmesan is also one of my absolute favorite things to eat. I hope I get to share a meal with her again in 2011!

Tyler

Drowned in French wine, the French language, and French food is how I experienced my best meal of 2010. Let’s be clear: I’m not stating that French food automatically translates to a best meal (nor that I speak French), but the fact that I got to participate in a seven-course meal at a wedding in a small village in France contributed to my most memorable meal in 2010. Aside from being introduced to the potential diversity of a single meal, including prosciutto-wrapped foie gras, stuffed beef cutlet, baked salmon and various forms salads and side dishes, I learned that portion size plays a central role in being able to enjoy such an extended meal. Each course was perfectly sized, allowing a tasty preview into each dish, but also permitted enjoyment of the course to follow. After eating what I thought was the dessert, consisting of sherbert-like ice cream, I was shocked when later came a plate of beef and other courses, and that I still had room and the appetite to enjoy them.

Also contributing to that experience was the fact that the meal wasn’t one successive gorging event – it was broken up by singing from the various attendees of the wedding, dancing, speeches involving lewd jokes (translated by my friend), and plenty of local French wine. This was the true art of enjoying a meal and enjoying the company around you, even if it was completely foreign to me in all respects. And what was the wedding party’s choice of late-night eats, served at 3am? French onion soup. Talk about a delicious cap to a wonderful meal.

Zach

After a few months as a vegetarian, my biggest craving is hamburger. That’s been a constant over the years and I always look forward to that first burger back after my omnivorism resumes. 2010 was no different.

After a turkey-filled Thanksgiving delay and a disappointing Double-Double with cheese in Kettleman City, my hero came in the form of a breakfast counter on Clement Street in San Francisco. The burger came as a surprise, because even though the joint is called Hamburger Haven, previous meager attempts at breakfast there had since reduced expectations.

Then I ordered the hamburger and noticed, to my delight, the patty was placed not on a griddle, where burgers go to die, but onto a grill over open flame. It was perfect. Between a very forgettable bun, topped with sub-par lettuce, tomatoes and pickles, was a beautifully fire-touched burger patty that was smokey on the outside and pink from edge to edge on the inside. Welcome back, beef.

James

I chewed my way through many more corners of New York than I did in 2009, so I think it fitting to recall my favorite meals of 2010 by borough. I also did a much better job of writing up my New York eats in 2010, so this year-in-review is going to be a bit of a clip show. FORGIVENESS PLEASE!

Manhattan
My first taste of West African food at BOA/Treichville was without a doubt my best Manhattan dining experience of the year. The thrill of tasting something completely new, the warm welcome from the staff and fellow diners, the comforting qualities of the house’s thiebou djienne, the snap of complimentary cafe touba, and the victory lap of a post-meal slice at Patsy’s just around the corner all translated to an unforgettable introduction to this East Harlem gem.

Brooklyn
I discovered many more flavors of Brooklyn after moving away form Williamsburg; still, a summer’s night of rooftop grilled chicken and home brewed craft beer by Conner and Fields, followed by superb neo-classical pizza at Paulie Gee’s, was one of those extended nights of food and drink that I would be ashamed to interrupt with a camera.

Bronx
The tip that led me to Tamales Ebenezer (a.k.a. “Neo,” the tamale master of Mott Haven) was the most exciting food recommendation I received in 2010 – and the most difficult to take up. Making it to the South Bronx before Neo runs out of his dimension-shifting tamales oaxaqeuños is a challenge worth its weight in lard-livened masa, and it’s a trip that should be mandatory for every hungry New Yorker.

Queens
My footsteps in Queens were originally guided by my friendship with Jeff, but after the dissolution of his Jackson Heights Food Group I was left to tread this path largely on my own. My favorite meal was a quick bite that would do the borough justice: En route to LaGuardia for the first time, I opted to take the Q47 bus, which took 15 minutes to reach the airport and departed just a few yards away from one of Roosevelt Ave’s many antojitos trucks. Polishing off a fresh pastor cemita as I stepped off the bus and into the terminal, I decided that LaGuardia via comida pueblana is the only way the fly in this city.

Staten Island
I have never written a story on Staten Island, and I’ve only been to the fabled bronze island once – when a few friends and I boarded the Whitehall ferry on a late summer morning with one Hell of a lust for pizza. The slices of Shaolin did not disappoint. Our first stop, Pier 76, won me over immediately with its beautiful New York slice – thin and crunchy, with a nice punch of flavor and just enough grease to cry out for a beer. The joint’s fried calamari slice was equally impressive, surprising the palate by blending a bit of hot sauce into the tomato. Our second stop, Salvatore of Soho, also lived up to the hype it had received from the Slice gang and the 5-Boro Pizza Tour. Sal’s coal-fired crust was a smoky, savory stand for the New York Neopolitan pie, while the quality and craft of everything that topped it gave visits to Staten Island – if for nothing else than the love of pizza – a standing reservation on the next year’s calendar.

Best Meal on the Road
None of my travel food this year was as singularly stirring as my 1/2 chicken medium order at Prince’s Hot Chicken in Nashville, TN. Tearing into that greasy, spicy mess of a Southern legend right off the plane, rushing through an hour of remote office work, sauntering downtown for lonely pints at the Broadway Brewhouse, then devouring the remaining dark meat in a corner of my hotel room before handing myself over to the demons of spicy-food-instigated nightmares must be one of the best nights of eating I’ve ever had.

Best Meal Cooked at Home
I’d be a fool to let this one go without a replay:

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Many of those meals have taken place on the south side of Williamsburg, my neighborhood of 18 months and the landing pad from which I’ll launch into my new Brooklyn residence in the next two months. I’m looking forward to buying new kitchen appliances, living in a nicer neighborhood, and being closer to Prospect Park, Sunset Park, and Calvin’s Royal Ribs. I’m not looking forward to leaving some of New York’s best fried chicken, a fantastic bierhall, neighboring Greenpoint and all of its Polish treasure, the presence of music venues and some great riverside parks, and my short walk to the city’s most decadent babka.

The strangest transition will be learning to think of Williamsburg as the dining destination it is becoming, not as the post-gentrification fallout shelter-cum-playground it has been. Pies and Thighs will no longer be that #1 lunch spot with no menu item unturned. Lomzynianka will no longer be my standby dinner table for entertaining out-of-towners. Lucky Dog will no longer be my haven for shuffleboard and one too many late night beers. The newly christened Blue Bottle coffee shop on North 4th will retain its mystique.

If the fanfare swarming around Fatty Cue and other up-and-coming restaurants is any indicator, dining in Williamsburg will only become more and more difficult once I’ve left. I shudder to think of the day I’m forced by circumstance to walk into Pies and Thighs for Sunday brunch. Knowing, however, that this reckoning is inevitable, I’d like to close out my days on S. 3rd with my last great taste of favorite places, especially those that I won’t necessarily want to make the trip from downtown Brooklyn to enjoy.

I’ve started with burgers. I’m not quite sure how I ended up consuming a burger a day for almost an entire week, but if you’ve ever wanted to compare the high flying hamburgers of the south side, I’ve done some heavy eating on your behalf and offer some notes on the most prominent options of these here corners.

The Laurels: Dumont Burger – $12.50 with fries/rings/salad

Brioche, bibb lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion, and one underwhelming hunk of ground beef. The cooks at Dumont Burger make no mistakes, but if I were to name a restaurant after a burger, I would make that burger of more memorable stuff. I’ve come back to this burger several times over the course of the past year and still can’t figure out what people can possibly like about it that merits $12.50 plus tax and tip.

Yes, it’s a lot of meat. Yes, it’s juicy and fairly seasoned. Yes, there is value in simplicity – I of all people respect that idea. Yet, every time I think back to my last Dumont Burger, all I can remember is how much I liked the house made pickle spear, and there’s something downright bothersome about that fact.

The Stalwart: Peter Luger – $8.95

Sesame seed bun, ground beef made from some of the most lusted-after aged beef in the country, and a round of raw onion on the side. The title “Best burger in New York City” has been thrown at the feet of this lunchtime-only steakhouse burger more often than the reports of inconsistency that serve to temper lofty expectations; however, for $9.00 plus tax and tip, I’d call this one a steal.

Whereas Dumont’s beef patty is pleasant but unmemorable, Luger’s broiled blend of porterhouse and prime chuck is almost overbearingly distinct. The meat is intensely rich, its strong flavors of beef and butter calmed down just a bit by the patty’s full and tender texture. I feel uncomfortable doling out accolades at this point in my relationship with the Luger burger, but this meal is a rite of passage I feel comfortable passing on to the next hungry soul.

The Challenger: Pies and Thighs – $8.00 with fries

Hamburger bun, iceberg, tomato, pickle, onion, mayo and a beefy-yet-reasonable patty that weeps quality all over the plate. The one menu item I couldn’t try during Pies and Thighs’ first week in business was their burger, so I went back as soon as it was available and found myself facing the juiciest burger I’ve had since my last visit to the Apple Pan.

Made from portions of the Meat Hook‘s signature beef blend that are set aside to be ground more finely and in smaller batches than the rest of the butcher shop’s product, the patty in Pies and Thighs’ burger is fat-toned and sop-your-plate-with-your-bun juicy. Repeat visits have yielded varying results on the grill job, but if the lovely ladies of Pies and Thighs manage to exert some quality control over the temperature of their burger, it will even out into one of the most enjoyable burgers in the city.

The Higher Floor: Diner – $12 with fries

A bun supplied by Amy’s Bread, lettuce, pickled red onion, and a stout, highly touted disc of grass-fed beef (brought to fruition by butcher Tom Mylan, who now owns the Meat Hook). My initial expectations for Diner’s gourmet-grade burger were stoked by Robyn’s glowing reviews, and this burger did not in any way disappoint – in fact, it’s my favorite New York burger outside of Madison Square Park by quite a wide margin.

The bun is buttery and crisp. The dressing is minimal without being afterthought. The mustard available on the side is fresh, coarse and flavorful without packing too much of a punch to deter from the grass-fed beef, which sings with a mature, very-well-salted, beefier-than-beef flavor that has changed the way I perceive hamburgers. One year ago, I would rather have spent $12 on light beer than on a high-falutin’ burger in a New American diner throwback. Now, I’m hurting at the prospect of no longer being five minutes away from this gem of a hand-held meal; its marriage of complex flavor to beautifully simple texture ups the ante on every other burger in its price range.

Gripes about Dumont notwithstanding, I’ve found that the burgers of Williamsburg constitute just one set of this neighborhood’s great range of quality eats. If the creativity and investment money continue to flow, I’ll look forward rather than backward when I decide to make these soon-to-be-old stomping grounds my own dining destination. Insert beef pun here!

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Maybe Mill Valley is an actual place, but after hanging around the town a few times, I can’t shake the feeling that everything there is a little bit storybook. The streets are clean of litter and loiterers, the sidewalks are full of mommies pushing strollers, the public education system is well-funded, and a cheerful woman hands you a free tote bag when you walk into the supermarket. Everything is just right in Mill Valley and that’s a little off-putting, because it doesn’t seem real. It’s like some kind of 21st-century Pleasantville, as if Mill Valley took American culture, re-engineered it for its own purposes, and then bottled it for families with household incomes of at least six digits.

Mill Valley’s food culture is no different. Everything looks the same, but the recipes change, like a B.L.T. made of applewood-smoked bacon, arugula and roma tomato. It’s delicious, and it’s classically American, but its authenticity is part pageantry. At least, this is how I felt when I walked into Pearl’s Phat Burgers, Mill Valley’s version of the American fast food diner. The small restaurant is sparse white, with minimal red trim and a couple cafeteria tables. It gives the impression of a generic greasy spoon due to a classic menu board on the wall and the lack of a wait staff, but a closer look at the options obscures the place’s definition. Pearl’s may be dressed up as a generic American grease peddler, but the burgers aren’t plain old American burgers. They’re just pretending to be.

I guess – for an upscale, forward-thinking population like Mill Valley – cheap, greasy diner food is a matter of nostalgia. For me, taking a gourmet burger and trying to pass it off as being ungourmet sounds like some kind of prank that Hawkeye Pierce and B.J. Hunnicutt might come up with. I have to give Pearl’s credit, though. There’s a psychology to the experience, and for someone like me, who can’t help but despise the idea of “gourmet” burgers, the disguise works in everyone’s favor. If Pearl’s served burgers on ceramic plates and wood tables, I would have liked it less, because, you know, I’m prejudiced.

Gourmet or not, Pearl’s burger has found fans. Bobby Flay and friends awarded Pearl’s Phat Burgers as the Best Burger in the Bay Area at the Great American Food and Music Fest. The prize winner was the Kobe Bula Burger, Pearl’s reinvention of the Hawaiian burger using bacon, swiss, mayo and spicy pineapple teriyaki sauce. As a fan of Hawaiian teri-burgers in general, it wasn’t hard for me to like the Bula, whose tangy, sweet sauce gives the impression of eating a messy, teriyaki-glazed pineapple slice without the accompanying physical difficulty. The bacon is thick cut and chewy, the way bacon should be, and the patty itself is pink on the inside, the way patties should be. Still, I remain skeptical of the burger’s “Best” title, because the combination of fatty Niman Ranch beef and a generous portion of swiss cheese left pools of grease in my digestive system. Maybe I should have forked over the extra four dollars for the Kobe.

Definitely not the generic burger joint, Pearl’s offers buffalo and turkey patties, too. I liked the lean texture of the buffalo more than the fat and grease of the beef; however, as per usual, the buffalo burger was not quite as flavorful. That said, I’ll gladly order the Bula Burger with beef again, maybe without the cheese, but I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the buffalo to anyone who doesn’t want to feel like crap after her meal. This is Mill Valley after all, where eating at a classic greasy spoon doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your health and where food culture doesn’t have to end in a food coma. That’s the Mill Valley brand, bottled and ready to go, coming to a city near you. There’s already a Pearl’s in San Francisco. Next time you order a burger at a generic diner near you, beware – it just might be gourmet.

Pearl’s Phat Burgers
8 E Blithedale Ave
Mill Valley, CA 94941
(415) 381-6010

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If so, you’ve had the privilege of tasting one of America’s finest burgers. If not, you’ll get your answer below the fold.

This is the last of the point-and-eat posts from my holiday in California. I’ve saved what are probably my three favorite meals of the two weeks I spent on the west coast for the end of this series, and – to no one’s surprise, I hope – the ranking of all three has as much to do with people, place and memory as with the food I ate.

Mitsuru Cafe – Little Tokyo, Downtown L.A.

While I was in the boundaries of Los Angeles, I was recruited to review downtown LA’s Nickel Diner for a magazine pitch. While that meal was mostly boring, it did give Boykji and me a chance to stroll through the downtown area on a sunny day. We walked through the neon sign wonderland known as Grand Central Market, peeked inside the Blade Runner set known as the Bradbury Building, and navigated our way through the plazas of Little Tokyo, where we stumbled a cross a long line of eaters awaiting their chance to enter a small Japanese cafe.

Mitsuru, as it turns out, is known for its imagawayaki, a kind of red bean hotcake that customers can watch the pastry chef make as they queue up for a turn at the counter. Agreeing that the mention of red bean is reason enough to form up single file, we fell in and fixed our eyes on the windowpane. Working with the deliberation of a grand jury, the unadorned chef filled a hot casting griddle with batter, spooned homemade red bean filling over the cakes as they rose, then, using his fingers as a barometer, flipped one half atop the other to form a seal as the baking process completed.

One long line and $1.25 per piece later, we were handed our imagawayaki in thin paper bags. While these pastries don’t reach the textural highs of the glutinous, black sesame-dotted yakimochi at Cafe Zaiya in New York, they’re still well worth the wait. The crust of each cake, hot and steaming off the griddle, was nicely crisped, while the insides were fluffy. The homemade filling was thankfully not too sweet, and nothing about the pastry tasted artificial or augmented in the slightest. We sat down on a nearby bench and ate with our hands, breaking simple sweet bread amongst our fellow Angelenos.

The Apple Pan – West L.A.
Later that day, we returned to Boykji’s hometown of west Los Angeles, where mother Boyk took us out for dinner at The Apple Pan. I may have eaten at In-N-Out four times during the two weeks I spent in California, but none of those burgers beat out what I still think is the best burger in Los Angeles and possibly my favorite burger in the country.

Part of The Apple Pan’s unique quality (which, as emblazoned on the neon sign posted outside its unassuming building, will last forever) is its presence. Whenever I gripe about diners not really being diners and joints not really being joints, the first image to back up my curmudgeonly mind is the counter at The Apple Pan. There is no form of restaurant seating more elegant: When you walk through the double doors of this institution of eating, you must decide whether to step to the left or to the right. Once you’ve chosen your side of the room, you wait for an open spot at the counter. You receive no ticket and you wait for no waiters; just mind your manners and you’ll get a chance to sit down.

Once you’ve taken your seat – slightly uncomfortable since 1947 – a stately, white-haired buck, clad in white and crowned with folded paper, asks for your order. He’s flanked by years of brick, wood and stainless steel. Line cooks bustle about behind him, freshly grilled patties shifting between their hands and mile-high stacks of iceberg lettuce and pre-sliced cheese towering on one side of the assembly table. He’s one of the friendliest guys you’ll ever meet, but if you try to order before your lady, he will, without hesitation, put you in your place.

A pile of fries, well done if you ask, show up first. Wedged into cardboard, they’re stark, simple and absolutely perfect. As you take your first crunchy bite, the man throws down a cardboard plate, flips over his bottle of Heinz and – in a manner that can only be defined as “not fucking around” – heaps a serving of catsup beside it. He then sets out a wire frame with a tiny, conical paper cup, into which he drops a scoop of ice before handing you a soft drink. The flawless motion of it all makes me wish that Ray Croc had never sucked all the soul out of routine.

Once you’ve had your chance to munch on a few fries and take a sip of your soda, your choice of two burgers hits the counter. The only difference between them is in condiment – the hickory burger is dressed with a tangy barbecue sauce, while the steak burger is dressed with a sweet, red pickle relish. I prefer the taste and texture of relish on my patty, but both burgers are created equal.

Aside from the distinction of sauce, a hamburger at the Apple Pan is as simple as simple may be: loosely packed ground beef grilled medium well, a sizeable wad of iceberg, pickles and mayo on a deeply browned-edge bun. Beef here knows nothing of the heavily stuffed, thickly crusted, medium rare patties that dominate palates of the future. Instead, they offer an endlessly juicy hamburger experience. I have never had a juicier burger (that’s juicy, not bloody or greasy) than I have at the Apple Pan. It’s the template of taste for all hamburgers in fast food (White Castles exempt from all things definitional, of course), and it still holds the title after over half a century of business.

Making your way through a burger and fries here would be enough to land this place on your list of best burger joints in the world. What cements its spot is the next question asked: “Are you going to have pie tonight?”

The only acceptable answer is yes. The only right answer is banana cream. The Apple Pan’s banana cream pulls rank with Lois’ lemon icebox as the best pie of my lifetime. It’s the kind of pie that shows you things you thought pie could never accomplish. Yes, banana can be refreshing. Yes, pastry crust can stay flaky under multiple layers of banana, pudding and whipped cream. Yes, you will dream for months about your next chance to part with six bucks for a slice of pie – banana pie, of all things. Yes, you can have another slice.

Once you’ve polished off the last bits of whipped cream and crust crumb, you pay your tab and let someone else have his turn at the counter. The moment you step out through those swinging doors, you’re back in the twenty-first century, walking along Pico in the shadow of one of L.A.’s biggest shopping malls. This is the kind of dining experience that makes it extremely easy to see through the plastered-on rustics of pretty much every old-timey-themed restaurant I come across. Just as flash is no substitute for flavor, atmosphere is no substitute for history; the Apple Pan operates on both of these principles with a wink in its eye, not a tongue in its cheek.

Shanghai Restaurant – Chinatown, Downtown Oakland
When Oakland’s Shanghai opened a luxurious second branch in the crotch of student territory in Berkeley, it was doomed to the worst kind of failure: failure by ignorance. The restaurant had one or two years of glory, attracting diners from all around the Bay Area but remaining anathema to the undergraduate body, who would sooner gush over its mediocre-with-brunch neighbor, Cafe Durant, than sit down for a meal of xiaolongbao and sticky rice. Then, it closed up shop, content with the bounds of its original hole in the wall on Webster.

When I returned to Shanghai, it was business as usual – cramped space, dingy walls, ramshackle tables and an attitude ranging somewhere between indifferent and confused. Perfect for my last night in the East Bay.

Every meal at Shanghai starts off with xiaolongbao. These soup dumplings are the perfect mirror to the rest of Shanghai’s food – not something I would refer to as “refined” and too thick-skinned for me to stand up and call them the best XLB I’ll ever have, but very tasty all the same.

Another standby, Shanghai’s double fried noodles – chow mein style noodles, half tender, half crispy – rides the crest of comfort food. The meat gravy ladled atop is unobtrusive enough to ward off the aura of junk, and the varied textures of meat, pepper, leek and two kinds of noodles is ceaseless fun.

While not nearly as varied, Shanghai’s savory rice cakes (I think it’s niangao) – dressed in green, mixed with pork and doused in a similar gravy – also make for a comforting bite. Sauteed green beans are nicely charred.

This fellow was tasty, but I don’t remember anything in particular about him. Strange that I feel somewhat squeamish around cooked embodied shellfish but can’t resist taking close-up photos of a whole fried fish.

Salted pork with bean sheets is one of Shanghai’s hidden aces and definitely the surprise standout of the evening. The pork on this dish is extremely tender, juicy and savory in the simplest sense. The bean sheets in question are actually flat, wide noodles cut from tofu sheets; the imprinted surface and clean, dense texture are really nice upgrades from a comparably shaped egg or rice noodle.

Easily superior to Shanghai’s xialongbao are Shanghai’s shengjianbao, bite-sized buns filled with the same savory pork filling, then browned from beneath and sprinkled with sesame seeds and green onion. No visit to Webster St. is complete without a handful of these.

I could say the same thing about the restaurant’s red bean pancake, a Christmas card-shaped slap to the cheeks of red bean buns all over town. Made with rice flour and fried until it attains the union of chewy, crisp and greasy, this is the perfect end to a meal composed almost entirely of items off the dim sum menu. And while it might have tasted even better on a warm bench in downtown L.A., it wouldn’t have been as satisfying outside the dank confines of Shanghai.

I’ll see you again next year, California!

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On August 10, 2009, I called the best Thai Restaurant in North America to ask if it would be open on December 23, 2009. Then I booked a cross-country flight with a four hour layover in Las Vegas, with full intent of making good on this phone call. On December 23, 2009, I experienced what can only be described as

EPIC LOTUS OF SIAM FAIL

Once I had finally made it to Southern California, I did my best to make up for the disappointment by revisiting several consumption based memories in my old stomping grounds.

In-n-Out Burger

You saw this coming. It was all things to all taste buds. Especially the second time around.
But especially the first time.

Carnitas Los Reyes

Still the best pastor in Orange County, hands down.

When it comes to post-torta dessert, nothing beats a spicy chorizo taco.

Jack in the Box

When it comes to post-taco rebound meal, nothing beats two tacos from Jack in the Box.

Philippe the Original

I headed downtown on assignment to review a new diner, but it was closed.
All glory to French Dip salvation.

As you can see, I did quite well for myself in extracting the shards of hunger, betrayal and bad luck that Lotus of Siam shoved into my heart.

Still, I didn’t feel once again whole until I managed to achieve…

EPIC MALLOMAR WIN

Dear Lotus of Siam,

You don’t get a box.

-james

PS: Can’t wait to see the renovations!

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Los Angeles and San Diego aren’t known for their arrays of good Greek restaurants; Southern California is not Chicago or Queens. Still, it’s an international landscape, and there are many cafes that offer menus with pita sandwiches, tahini sauce and spanakopita. That their debatable Greekness hides behind such terms as “Mediterranean” or “European” on their storefronts is the product of geopolitics, and, well, so was my ignorance.

It reminds me of visiting Chicago, where my cousins took me to a Korean restaurant, and I opened the menu to find sushi, chow mein and the gamut of Pan-asianness. Mediterranean cafes in Los Angeles might be Greek restaurants in essence, but some throw in other European and Middle Eastern items, too, which always reminds me of when Jerry told Babu Bhatt that he’d do better to turn The Dream Café into a strictly Pakistani restaurant.

I realize that, like Babu, most immigrant families care more about running a successful business than the ideal of cultural purity. Let the American-dreaming restaurateurs put whatever they want on the menu; maybe people would rather choose from a larger sampling of geographic tastes at The Dream Café than only Pakistani fare. Maybe the restaurant is surrounded by a stubborn white American population that collectively fears everything that doesn’t resemble a Stouffer’s TV dinner. Nick Papadakis knew what he was doing when he opened that diner outside of Los Angeles; after all, he was killed for it in The Postman Always Rings Twice. And if you’re a Greek immigrant family in Detroit able to make a fortune selling hot dogs named after a part of New York, all power to you.

Immigrants opening up American-style eateries is old news. Diners have low start-up costs and democratic appeal. Besides, there’s nothing strange about Greek-Americans serving American food, just as there’s nothing strange about Greek-Americans serving Greek food. When Lewis and Clark found the East-to-Northwest passage, it was only a matter of time until the Pacific Coast had a few Greek-run American diners. Or Mediterranean cafes. Or European delis.

Here’s my problem. Let’s say you’re a Greek immigrant family and you open a fast food diner called Canada Steak Burger in Normal Heights, San Diego. Your menu is half American diner food and half Greek food. Sometimes, there is overlap. For instance, you serve hot dogs in pita bread and hamburgers with a choice of gyro meat or bacon. You have no decor in your restaurant that calls up memories of Canadian culture. There is no giant Canadian population in Southern California that you’re trying to entice with your eatery’s name. You don’t even offer Canadian bacon for your burgers… Why are you called Canada Steak Burger!?

Speaking of bacon, Mele and I recently welcomed beef and pork back into our diet after nine months. When you go vegetarian as often as I do, you become very familiar with the cravings that arise from so much selective fasting. For instance, when I’m not eating eggs or fish, there’s nothing I crave more in the world than egg salad. When I’m not eating chicken or turkey, I cannot wait to have a bucket full of fried drumsticks and thighs. When I’m still red-meat-free, there is a crescendo of need for rare steak, and above all else, a charbroiled hamburger.

I’ve had a few burgers since, but Canada’s steakburger is the champion thus far. The patty itself is a healthy eight ounces, pink on the inside, and charbroiled to the perfection that is the taste of fire, smoke and cow. In my stubborn hamburger philosophy, this is the only way a burger should taste, like a fourth of July barbecue offered 365 days a year. Add some suspiciously processed lamb and the usual vegetables and condiments, and you’ve got some darn good Greek-American luncheonette fare. Add the name Canada Steak Burger, which I admittedly love, and you’ve got a great burger joint.

A couple miles down University Ave is Western Steakburger. Like Canada Burger, Western Steakburger is Greek-run, features a menu that juxtaposes patty melts with spanakopita, and takes its name from something that is wholeheartedly not Greek. At Western Steakburger, the word “Western” is more than just nomenclature. Inside the cafe, a cardboard cut out of John Wayne greets you with a shotgun and images of The Duke surround the walls in cheap picture frames. On the wall across from the counter, a portrait of the owner’s family hangs right next to a painted medley of Clint Eastwood’s western roles. Plus, there’s BBQ on the menu.

Like Canada’s steakburger, Western’s steakburger is covered in gyro meat, but unlike Canada Burger, Western’s patty is cooked to death. The blackened edges still give it that wonderful charbroiled flavor at first bite, but an overcooked burger patty is a sad and futile endeavor. Some fast food places cover up dryness with extra grease, but Western Steakburger’s only savior is the gyro meat, and that just isn’t enough. Considering that the pork ribs are also a study in tastelessness, I have to conclude, in the parameters offered by this analogy, Canada is most definitely better than the Wild West – though I’m really not sure if I can give Canada any credit for this.

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This was freshman year, the final week of March and the first week of my triumphant return to omnivorism. I’d been playing vegetarian for two years, and everything was unfamiliar.

“Can you try this? Tell me what it is,” I said to my friend Bihn. As a childhood fan of Hawaiian pizzas, I had known all about the mysticism of Canadian bacon. This time, I was fooled. After two years, I’d forgotten how some things tasted.

Bihn took a quick bite, looked at me cross-eyed and said, “It’s bacon, you idiot.”

“Oh.” I squinted my eyes toward the ham-shaped morsels. Bacon. In two years, nothing had come close to that particular flavor.

The twist here is that, between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, I couldn’t have cared less – before I turned vegetarian, I didn’t really care for bacon. Actually, I didn’t care for the meat-inclusive culinary arts in general, and at the tail end of two meatless years, I hadn’t missed anything. People who know me now might be shocked to learn: Before I turned vegetarian, I was a picky eater.

That’s why the final week of March, 2003 turned out to be so interesting. Spending two years unable to try so many new foods inflamed my curiosity. For the first time, I wanted to try everything and for the first time in two years, I was able. My first meal was Thai duck curry, because I’d never had duck before. My second meal was pho, because I’d never had flank, tendon or tripe before. Each consecutive meal became another excuse to experience something new, and despite my inexperienced digestive system, I learned to love it all.

Of course, months passed, and by 2004, my carnivorous dining experiences lost their novelty. My meals would have sputtered into normality if I hadn’t come across the book Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo at around the same time. Confessions of Zeno is a fictional psychoanalysis by the lesser talented Italian friend of James Joyce. The first chapter of the novel (the only chapter I liked) is dedicated to Zeno’s unusual addiction to cigarettes. Zeno’s addiction was more specific than the usual smoker’s habit. After numerous attempts at quitting, Zeno learned to love, specifically, the final drag of his last cigarette each time he tried to quit. Soon Zeno realized that he craved that final drag more than the cigarettes themselves; he was addicted to quitting.

The confessions of Zach are equally melodramatic. Spurred by Italo Svevo and the memory of that last week of March 2003, I annually inconvenience friends and family to go vegetarian for three or so months. I forcefully abstain from some of my favorite foods, because, like Zeno, I crave the ritual of quitting. Going on and off a diet grants otherwise normal meals the status of such special occasions as “Last Smothered Chicken Supper” and “Carne Asada Homecoming.”

I go veggie for three to five months – as opposed to two years – because, well, I don’t want to abstain too long. Three to five months is about how long it takes for me to starting missing certain meals. For the first three months of vegetarianism, dining is just different. I make some new menu choices and write different grocery lists. After three months, I start to miss some basic American foods. Hamburgers. BBQ pork. Pollo mole negro. Once that feeling hits, I return to humanity’s meat-eating state before the next stage of vegetarianism can take its toll.

Given enough time, I can appreciate Chez Frankenstein’s attempts at recreating meat. Even if you haven’t lived the veggie life, you’ve probably come across a fair share of diners carrying Garden Burgers, Thai restaurants offering imitation chicken, taquerias with Soyrizo breakfast burritos, Vietnamese cafes featuring mock duck or supermarkets stocking Smart Bacon (pictured above). Call them creative ways to deliver protein to the herbivore, but don’t deny that they’re also catering to the ex-omnivore’s nostalgia.

I’ve ordered a BBQ pulled-wheat gluten sandwich before. I’ve had that long look in the mirror.

I don’t have trouble, then, sympathizing with Veg-N-Out’s creepy reconstruction of Carl’s Jr’s classic Bacon Western Cheeseburger. An eight dollar burger without the ironic title, it gives vegetarians exactly what they’re looking for… if they’re looking for a monstrously unhealthy meal that is reminiscent of southwestern-styled fast food. Veg-N-Out makes its own meatless patties, includes a decent array of ingredients and has a burger menu as large as that of any Island’s restaurant. The patty is good, but not beefy, and the fake bacon is… well, you know, even dogs know it ain’t bacon. A professional omnivore would be unimpressed and a part-timer like myself would be happy eating for half the price at Denny’s with a Boca Burger substitution.

I won’t begrudge full-time vegetarians for satisfying their faux-carnivorism at a place like Veg-N-Out, because I admire the commitment required to avoid a real hamburger for so long – on my best try, I only lasted two years. Once that nostalgic desire meal kicks in, I break my diet and go for the real thing, because sinking my teeth into a choice burger after missing the memory for some time is a wonderful reminder at how delicious an everyday meal can be.

I’m currently on my second month of this year’s veggie stint, and this time my girlfriend is joining me on my crackpot diet. I would never recommend my silly dining habits to someone else, but I can’t forget how much going vegetarian changed my life. Sometimes I have to stand idly by while people order the same thing over and over again – the dietary equivalent of a nine-to-five job – and I remember that I used to be that person. When I find myself standing in that line, I’m quick to recall that last week of March, 2003.

Then, like anyone else who approaches food Homerically, I take up Zeno’s Sisyphean pursuit of satisfaction and leap back onto the produce wagon. You know, for three to five months. Until fake bacon starts to taste good.

Veg-N-Out
3442 30th St
San Diego, CA 92104
619.546.8411

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When I reached the heart of the Meridian’s lobby, an unmistakable scent fluttered across my path. A quick glance showed me the bar I had just walked through, the check-in lines and bellhops in the next room over and Norma’s restaurant across the floor. Just as I was telling myself that the fragrance of freshly grilled ground beef couldn’t possibly be coming from a restaurant that glowing and spotless, I noticed a mysteriously large velvet curtain draped around the corner behind the registration counter. If not for the smattering of New Yorkers lined up against its burgundy folds, stumbling upon this scene might have felt like coming across the cutting room of Twin Peaks. At the edge of the curtain, tucked into a darkened crook above the head of the line, was a small neon sign in the shape of a hamburger.

Trespassing across this threshold landed me in New York City’s cherished Burger Joint. At first, the moderately packed, minimally furnished space seemed a relief from the elegant overdose of Le Meridian. Diners occupied simple wooden booths and tables, all centered around a classically shaped fast-food counter and grill. The aromas of smoke and grease filled this cozy dining room, infusing the atmosphere with a sense of homegrown authenticity and memories of decidedly non-New York dining. Posters and hand-made signs dotted the walls, instructing customers on how to order and when to come back for seconds. Upon placing my order I was asked once for my name and left to prowl for an open seat.

Minutes later, my name was called out, and my lunch, bundled in white butcher paper, was handed to me over the counter. I unwrapped the simple parcel to reveal a simple burger, cooked medium rare. Burger Joint had clearly done their homework: The hefty-but-not-monstrous beef patty was very well packed, grilled slightly in favor of rare, and saturated with a smoky flavor that lingered on the palate after each bite. The pale leaf of iceberg and nondescript slice of beefsteak tomato complemented the matter-of-fact beef and fluffy, store-bought bun as everything you would expect at a bona fide burger joint or a family cookout. This was a truly juicy icon of the burgin’ faith.

As I made my way through the burger, however, the illusion began to slip from my senses. I took another look around and noticed the details of the decor: a “Heroes” promotional poster was followed by “Indiana Jones and the Legend of the Crystal Skull,” posted alongside a stock second-era blowup of the Ramones. These tossed off splashes of popular culture continued their dance all the way around the dining room, ironically revealing in their placement just how carefully this “joint” had been planned. New York has a way of packaging “home” as a commodity and pricing it as a special occasion, and this meal, planted in the heart of Midtown Manhattan and shrouded by perfectly articulated mystique on the grounds of one of the neighborhood’s prominent luxury hotels, was, in fact, an illusion. It was a tasty illusion but an illusion all the same- after all, I don’t remember having ever paid $7 for a burger grilled in my backyard.

I took another bite of my burger, but the juices ran bland. Its lack of seasoning became apparent, and the traces of smoke struggled to buoy the patty’s heavy-handed plainness. The trimmings that moments ago seemed so rustic wilted slightly as the hamburger’s own homemade virtues were undone by its own meta-cultural dressing. The joy of that first taste vanished into the realization that Burger Joint was at heart no different from Norma’s, despite its brilliantly orchestrated attempt to represent the restaurant’s ideal opposite. I took my lesson in New York dining with my final bite and walked out the sliding doors of Le Meridian with thoughts of Lucky Boy and Dale Cooper on my mind.

Burger Joint
118 W. 57th St
New York, NY 10019
212.708.7414

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