The Mighty Cream Puff -- Beard Papa

Beard Papa
Hollywood & Highland Shopping Center
6801 Hollywood Blvd.No.1.5.-153
Hollywood, CA 90028
(323) 462-6100

Again, I'm not really a dessert guy. But the overwhelming response to my post about Mashti Malone's tells me that I should really let you know about Beard Papa.

The shopping center at Hollywood and Highland is surely one of the most curious destinations in Los Angeles. Aside from the rat's-maze escalator system (after six years of going there a couple times a week I STILL go the wrong way at every counterintuitive turn) and the utterly-without-irony giant white elephants that loom over the not-quite-failed enterprise, there are some truly odd food outlets. There's the taqueria that isn't quite a La Salsa or a Rubio's; the pizza place that isn't a Sbarro (althought their NY style pizza is not bad); and the bizarre, well-hidden mini-food court with just three establishments serving steak and potatoes, Mongolian BBQ and falafels.

All this is sure to confuse the tourists, but nothing leads to quite so much scratching of Midwestern heads as Beard Papa. Located in the middle of the staircase leading to the main courtyard off of Hollywood Blvd., a few steps away from the Red Line Station entrance, I stood and watched for several minutes as tourists waddled up to the menu, saw "cream puffs," glanced cockeyed at the Santa Claus-like Beard Papa logo and walked away as if their logic circuits were fried.

Locals know better. The cream puffs being squeezed out behind counter of the small, spartan shop are transcendent. You watch as the puffmaker squeezes a dollop of freshly-made filling into your freshly-baked puff. There are three varieties of puff on most days: one filled with simple, buttery vanilla cream, with just a hint of citrus; a chocolate-covered "eclair;" and a special puff-of-the-day that might filled with be caramel cream today, strawberry tomorrow, pumpkin in the fall. The pastry dough is unbelievably light and airy, the filling decadent and sweet without being cloying or overly rich. These babies make you ralize why the phrase "light as a cream puff" need not be an oxymoron. Add a generous dusting of powdered sugar (handle with extreme caution if you're wearing black!) and you've got the best reason I can think of to hop on the Red Line -- next to saving the planet, that is.

Perfect Lunch Special — Sushi Go 55

Sushi Go 55
333 S Alameda Street, Suite 313

Los Angeles, CA

(213) 687-0777
www.sushigo55.com
Google Local Info

Sorry for the absurdly long delay in posts; Thanks for keeping me in your RSS feed and your thoughts. Aside from surviving the holidays, sticking to New Year's resolutions, and finishing revisions to a novel and a play, I also spent a lot of time working on a longer foodie piece about all the streets in Los Angeles named after U.S. Presidents. It includes notes on Tito's Tacos, Mel's Fish Market, and a few other choice spots; you will also find out just what culinary delights Bush Way (yes, it exists) has to offer. Please check it out, and comment on it, lest NFT think I have no readers!

I also lost a couple of weeks to the Performance of my Civic Duty, serving on a criminal trial jury downtown. I got the dubiously warm holiday fuzzies by sending a kid -- who I'm quite sure was a gang-banger, but was clearly NOT proven guilty by the overworked and under-resourced DA -- back home to his momma for Christmas. I also had the perfect opportunity to sample the delights of nearby Little Tokyo.

It's a four-block walk from the courthouse to the heart of downtown's Japanese enclave; just far enough to work up a bit of an appetite. Since I was stuck on a two-week trial, I determined to try a different place for lunch every day. On Day Two, (after yet another mediocre experience at Suehiro -- some people like it, I think it's pretty skanky, and not in a good way) I was going to splurge and take myself to food crazy favorite Sushi Gen. Think a-gen! The line out the door was absurd. So I kept walking. There is, after all, a lot of raw fish in Little Tokyo. I found myself in the odd, sleepy quintessentially Japanese indoor mall on Alameda between 3rd and 4th. The third floor is a veritable Pacific Rim of restaurants, including a couple of excellent ramen houses. But it was too hot for soup that day (one of those 85 degree days in December. Curiously, I blame Al Gore). So I took myself to Sushi Go 55.

Never more I will never darken the door of Sushi Gen. At least, not for lunch. Sushi Go 55 -- aside from its oil saving, global-warming stopping name -- serves possibly the best value sushi meal in town. I know, I say "sushi lunch special" and you think, yeah, all the cuts of sushi I really don't like -- lox, a rubbery shrimp, a bite of an omelette, some flavorless tuna, a soggy California roll -- for $14.00. Not here. At Go 55, ten bucks -- that's right, $10 U.S currency -- gets you one piece each of tuna, albacore, yellowtail, salmon (okay, there's salmon), and snapper (the last three with a brush of light and delicious ponzu sauce, the yellowtail with a bit of wafer-thin shaved onion), a blue crab handroll, miso soup, a wee cucumber salad, and a couple of even wee-er side dishes. And the quality of the fish isn't "value" at all. It's fresh, perfectly chilled, and tender... a delightful antidote to a blazing hot winter day in L.A.

I went back to a couple of times for the very same meal. Each time, it simply, reliably, and cheaply kicked ass. Between Go 55 and my discovery of T.O.T. the following day (more about that in my next post!), I never actually made it to any other lunch spots.

Seriously, Little Tokyo is almost enough to make me want to serve on a jury again.

Not.

I Almost Forgot Dessert! - Mashti Malone's

Mashti Malone's
1525 N La Brea Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90028
(323) 874-6168

143 N Maryland Ave
Glendale, CA 91206
(818) 662-0400

www.mashtimalone.com
Google Local Map



You folks with sweet teeth must think I hate you. I've been raving on here for over a year, post after post about appetizers and main courses: steak, tacos, sushi, noodles, tofu, you name it... and not once have I mentioned dessert. Fact is, I just don't have a sugar jones. I don't object to desserts, mind you. I dig a cheesecake or creme brulee as much the next foodie. But as a true metrosexual, I like to maintain my girlish figure while keeping a good buzz on, so I' usually pass on that flan at El Coyote (excellent, btw) or the what-the-hell-is that-du-jour at that Korean joint, and head home to spend my calories on a nightcap instead.

Unfortunately for my figure, Mashti Malone's Ice Cream Parlour is on my way home from just about everywhere.

We're zipping up LaBrea, and I see that quirky sign. (The legend is that when two Persian brothers bought the place to sell their exotic ice cream, they could only afford to change the first name on the sign left by the Irish former tenants.) "Mashti!" I scream, and we screech into the skanky parking lot the parlor shares with a skanky liquor store, a skanky laundromat, and The Lava Lounge.

Mashti's has a couple dozen flavors, all made fresh on the premises. There are favorites like chocolate and vanilla, butter pecan, blueberry. And they are really, really good. Award-winning, in fact, as the festoonery on the wall will inform you. But you go here for the Persian ice cream at the far right of the counter.

Made with a base of rosewater, the flavors read like the aromas of a bivouac on the ancient spice road: Creamy Rosewater Saffron, Orange Blossom, Ginger Rosewater. You could get 'em on a cone or cup, but why? You want the full experience, so order a "Mashti." It's a scoop of ice cream squished between two light, sugar-cone style wafers. It's a unique dessert in every way, from flavor to presentation. My wife loves the Ginger Rosewater, though it's a flavor I find odd in a sweet. Give me the Rosewater Saffron with pistachios: yellow like Indian pullao rice, creamy like a good French vanilla, and punctuated with big, juicy nuts.



And the best part is, you can take the experience home with you. Check the freezer in the corner, and you'll find their signature flavors by the pint, as well as plastic-wrapped Creamy Rosewater Mashtis-to-go. Though the sugar wafer is nowhere near as good frozen as it is fresh, they're still a staple in our freezer.

Face it, as long as you're food crazy-ing around L.A., tasting all those diverse ethnic cuisines , you might as well cap it off with a little detour to Persia on the way home. And I see there's a new Mashti outlet in Glendale, too!