As Los Angeles eating institutions go, Father’s Office has the hamburger market cornered. What can be so special about a hamburger you say? Well then you have never had one at Father’s Office.

There is a reason why there are no substitutions or modifications to their menu items. Simply put, the items are perfectly crafted to maximize flavor. Now you may read some reviews that the burger is sub-par. People who complain about the burger quote In ‘n’ Out as having a superior burger. Well if you want all beef patties with special sauce served with lettuce and tomato on a sesame seed bun, I’ll direct you to the nearest fast food establishment. This place is not for you. If your palate is sophisticated enough to handle caramelized onions, arugula, sirloin, and bleu cheese, step up to the bar.

One of the down sides of the Santa Monica location is that it is tiny and gets very crowded. Chances are you will wait in a line to get in, stand around to wait for a table (first come first serve), then after figuring out there are no waiters, order at the bar. The new location in Culver City (on Helms Ave.) has a patio that has more seating than the entire Santa Monica location alone. All ordering still takes place at the bar and tables are on a first come first serve basis.  Overall the Culver City location maintains all the unique charms of the Santa Monica location but alleviates the crammed nature.

The sweet potato french fries are still served in a miniature shopping cart with a side of their special sauce. Don’t even think of asking for ketchup. Remember no substitutions.

Having around 36 beers on tap Father’s Office has one of the better selections in LA. What is also great about the bartenders is that they actually know something about what they are serving. Tell them what you are in the mood for or what you are eating and they’ll have a couple of recommendations for you in a snap. Don’t be afraid to ask for a sample tasting either. They are more than happy to oblige your request.

The burger is anything but average. Served on a baguette style bread (flaky and chewing but still soft) topped with caramelized onions, bleu cheese, and arugula. I like my meat on the medium rare side (as pictured) but they will take orders up to ‘well’. If you want something more juicy take it on the rarer side. Nothing is worse than dry meat.

If you are looking for ordinary this place won’t be for you. If you are interested in a great selection of beers, friendly bartenders, and original cuisine, head over to Father’s Office. Just keep your head on a swivel to grab a prime table.

]]> http://chewbrew.com/2008/07/01/fathers-office-culver-city/feed/ http://chewbrew.com/2008/06/29/thievery-corporation-hollywood-bowl/ http://chewbrew.com/2008/06/29/thievery-corporation-hollywood-bowl/#comments Mon, 30 Jun 2008 05:55:24 +0000 bobby g http://chewbrew.com/?p=69 Hollywood Nights. Hollywood Hills.

With the official start of Summer kicking off last weekend one could not think of a more appropriate place to spend it than the Hollywood Bowl. KCRW began their annual World Music Festival on a rather warm evening with a selection of artists from South America.

Thievery Corporation was supported by Federico Aubele, Los Amigos Invisibles, and Bebel Gilberto. Seu Jorge also came on for a couple of songs during Thievery’s set. It was a Latin flavored night at the bowl and with the temperature in the mid 90s at the start of the show it was certainly caliente.

One of the fun parts of the World Music festival is that the Bowl allows you to bring in your own food and drinks.  This is good for two reasons. One; you save money ($8 for one beer versus a 6-pack at the store) and two; you can eat/drink exactly what you want.  The Shih and I decided on Sushi and Guinness but our other friends were dining on mini panini and wine. To each their own. One negative side effect is people often over drink leading to beverage spillage on cherished items or being accidentally smacked firmly in the head by an overzealous liquor enthusiast. All in all though the pros beat the cons.

One of the aims of the World Music Festival is to introduce the masses to a more diverse music scene than MTV can provide. Bebel Gilberto and Los Amigos Invisibles were artists that I was not familiar with but afterward left me wanting more. While Bebel could have benefited from a smaller venue she still played a memorable set as dusk arrived.

Thievery Corporation took the stage immediately following Bebel Gilberto. One interesting feature the Bowl used this year was a revolving stage. Almost like a trap door. This way there were no gaps in the performances and each artist cold build on the momentum of the previous performance.

What seemed like an endless stream of guest performers (nearly a dozen in all), Thievery Corp got the Bowl grooving and moving for the better part of 90 minutes. Below is a snippet from one their more well known songs “Lebanese Blonde”.

With some sweet parking luck we were able to escape the madness of the Hollywood Bowl easily and head back to the Westside. The first night of the Summer came to a close, however; I am looking forward to many more evenings at the Bowl over the next few months.

Jack Johnson will be making four stops in the Southern California Area coming up in late August.

• Wednesday, August 27th - Harder Stadium @ UCSB - Santa Barbara, CA
• Friday, August 29th - Verizon Wireless Amphitheater - Irvine, CA (KROQ Sponsored)
• Saturday, August 30th - Cricket Wireless Amphitheater - Chula Vista, CA
• Sunday, August 31st - UCLA Intramural Field - Los Angeles, CA (KROQ Sponsored)

Tickets go on sale to the general public for these shows on Saturday, June 21st at 10AM. For the KROQ sponsored events you can get your tickets now using the presale password: KROQALLATONCE

I’ll keep my ear to the ground for the other shows to find the presale password. I’ll update this post if anything should surface. Click the image to go to ticketmaster’s listing for Jack Johnson.

As Ferris Bueller once said “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and take a look around once in a while you might miss it”, I intend to kick it into a lower gear for the next few weeks and get back to being Bobby G. Since the last time I posted I’ve been enjoying Los Angeles very much. So much in fact I haven’t had much time to write or do pretty much anything else. I have gathered some good stories and been to some wonderful places in the past few weeks so we’ll start with The Stone Brewery.  

Located in sleepy Escondido, California, the Stone Brewery is home to some of the best Pale Ale’s available in the good old USA. Premium Shih and I decided to head down there a couple of weeks ago to check out the operation, sample some beers, and learn a little more about brewing. Above you can see the wonderful beer cooler located in their company store (I apologize if the pictures are a little blurry….we had been drinking after all).

Not only is Stone Brewery home to their brewing operation but they also have a bistro on site with a great selection of food and beverages. After signing up at the company store for our tour we headed into the bistro to grab a couple of pints and grab a snack. One of the great things about the bistro is that they have a wide selection of beers from around the world. It was very nice surprise to see that they embraced beer outside of their own. Each beer on the menu was accompanied by the location it was brewed at as well as the percent alcohol by volume. We sampled the Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale and a barley wine to get a little bit of bang for our buck.

After enjoying our pints and grubbing on some beer battered mashed potatoes we headed into our tour.

Going in, I did not expect this to be a ‘mom and pop’ type of brewery, however; I was surprised at the magnitude of their facility. If my memory serves me correct (which it probably does not) at full capacity they can produce around 500,000 barrels of beer each year although they currently run at about half of that. 

Our excellent tour guide gave us the quick and dirty lesson of brewing. Basically boil some water, add some barley and hops, and you got yourself some beer. I’ll spare you the whole story but it was very informative and a lot of fun.

Bourbon Casks Holding Delicious Anniversary Ale

Keg Maker

At the end of our tour we were taken back into the company store for our free tasting. We received 4 samples of beer (Pale Ale, Smoked Porter, IPA, and Arrogant Bastard Ale) as well as a 5th of our choice as a special treat. Premium Shih was not feeling the bitter beers so I got to do A LOT of tasting. Afterwards we each picked up a growler and headed back to Los Angeles. 

I had been wanting to take the tour for a long time and it was well worth the wait. The tour is free and so is the tasting. You basically get a free pint of beer just for walking in the door. I recommend getting there a couple of hours before your tour, sign up right away, and head into the bistro to have lunch and a couple of beers before your tour. They have a fun and laid back atmosphere in the bistro so killing a couple of hours was no problem.

In the next week or two I’ll give you a review of the new Father’s Office, located in Culver City, and bring you a review of my first night of the Summer at the Hollywood Bowl with Thievery Corporation. Until then I’ll be enjoying the start of the Summer!

Winnie and I headed to Las Vegas to get out of Los Angeles for the weekend for a little R&R. I wasn’t planning on writing anything about the weekend since our plan was to basically do nothing but, with a meal like this I feel a certain responsibility to post a little something something.

We had a confirmed 8:30PM reservation at Koi - Las Vegas which is located in the newly renovated Planet Hollywood Hotel & Casino (formerly the Aladdin). We had also requested to be seated in the Fountain Room which I am told has a great view of the Belliago fountain (if you have never seen it, you must). We never got to see it from that angle as when we arrived we were told the room was full. They were very kind about it and offered us the option to wait a few minutes at the bar for a table to open up. We chose to wait although after a few minutes the hostess came by and said it would be longer than expected. Fine. Take us to our table.

A calm washed over me as the hostess escorted us to a nice side booth in the main dining room. For the record, Koi has very nice decor, friendly wait-staff, and generally plays good music (more on that later though). Winnie described it as something out of the swinging 60s but with a darker color scheme. We were generally pleased so far and were really looking forward to the sushi.

When we sat down we were told the sushi menu was located on the back of the main menu. This should have been our first tip they had something to hide. While I won’t go into great detail on every single item I’ll throw you the lowlights:

1. The waiter did not ask to take our drink orders and we had to flag him down to get sake.
2. The edamame was overcooked and appeared to not be fresh (almost mushy and brownish).
3. The rice was undercooked (not sticky enough).
4. All the fish tasted like it was at least two days old.

The moment we knew we were in real trouble came by the way of the most disgusting sea urchin I have ever had. You know when you have something that is so bad it feels like something is crawling up your back? Yeah. The sea urchin gave me that feeling. This gave way to the most awful morning mouth and breath combo.

Right about when the gag reflex kicked in the restaurant turned into more of a lounge type scene. The music changed from classic rock hits to more or less club music. The bass was so loud that it rattled our dinner glasses and now made it almost impossible to talk to each other.

At this moment, still very hungry, we decided that ordering more sushi would possibly lead to vomit so we opted instead to order off the ‘hot’ menu (I use quotation marks here for a reason). We requested Roasted Duck Breast which I assumed would be tender, juicy, and full of flavor. Well basically it was like eating warm rubber. I can only assume they cooked it in a microwave and then threw it under a broiler to darken the skin.

I chose this place because it had gotten good reviews online, had a good reputation in Los Angeles, and was frequented by celebrities (they know what they are doing right?). Winnie was kind enough to remind me that just because people are famous does not mean they have good taste. She was so right.

For the price we would have been better off eating at Sushi Roku or rather, skipping it altogether. Save yourself the time and effort and head over to Sushi Roku if you really want sushi in the City of Sin.

If you are interested in attending either Feist or Thievery Corporation at the Hollywood Bowl the presale password is BOWL. Same as Beck.

Both artists are partaking in KCRW’s World Music Festival.  If you are not familiar, six Sunday evenings each Summer KCRW brings great music to the bowl from around the globe. You can also bring in your own food and wine/beer and enjoy it at your seats while enjoying the show.

Thievery Corporation will be headlining June 22, 2008 and Feist on July 20, 2008. Just click the images above and it will take you to Ticketmaster.com to purchase tickets.

****UPDATE 6/21/08****

If you are trying to score the $20 KCRW Member seats use the password ‘kcrw’.

Hold onto your butts! Beck has announced a brief summer tour and he’ll be stopping to entertain at the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday, September 20th, 2008. He will be supported by Spoon and MGMT. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Saturday, May 10th at 10AM at Ticketmaster.

You can imagine with a lineup such as this that tickets may be hard to come by. Behold! The presale starts at 12PM tomorrow and the password is BOWL. Also, if you are a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic you can buy tickets even before the presale (like myself). 

Come on out and enjoy a late summer evening at the Hollywood Bowl. You will not be disappointed!

“I’m a full grown man but I’m not afraid to cry.” - Beck

I like to think of myself as a man of leisure with a penchant for finding great ways to drink beer. Typically you’ll find that most additions to beer come in the form of fruit (Corona and lime or Blue Moon and orange) although you do run across your Irish Car Bombs and other beer cocktails. 

The last weekend of my vacation presented many opportunities for said research. My friend Jeff was in town and with unusually warm weather we headed straight for Hermosa Beach. After building of up quite a thirst we headed on over to Hennessey’s Tavern for lunch on the patio.

After a couple of beers we were joined by two characters named Alex and Christina drinking one of the more interesting concoctions I have come across. Their order came to be what we dubbed the Nachorona.

The Nachorona is composed of 3 ingredients: an ice cold Corona, a wedge of lime, and most importantly Tabasco sauce.

To begin prepare your Corona in the normal fashion by squeezing the lime into the beer. Next, instead of inverting your beer to mix, add a few drops of Tabasco sauce and swish around to mix it together. To maximize your enjoyment drink from the side of the bottle where the Tabasco was poured in (you’ll see the trail). The result is nothing short of fantastic. It takes the light and refreshing taste of Corona and adds one heck of a kick.

After a few of these any sinus problems you may have had will be long gone and you will be all smiles enjoying the sunshine.

A good story is not without adversity. Last week I began my journey to build a ladder bookshelf into something that closely resembled this. I was hoping to pull off a seamless look using wood pegs and glue but that proved to be slightly more difficult than I realized. IKEA I am not.  After a few shouting matches with myself and some wonderful cuts on my hands, I decided that maybe I should aim lower as I am not a master carpenter just yet. 

Fast forward to yesterday, after an awesome visit to the Santa Monica Pier, I was energized and ready to get back to work. I stopped by the local lumber yard and picked up some materials:

• 2 - 1″x4″x6′ pieces of pine for the ladder arms
  

• 1 - 1″x6″x6′ piece of pine for the bookshelves
  

• 1 box of 1-5/8″ woodworking screws
  

• 1 bag of 3/8″ wood caps
  

• 1 3/8″ drill bit

The new plan of attack was to simply screw my shelf together and cover the holes with wood caps. No glue. No pegs. No anger. 

The first thing I did was measure out my shelves. As I bought 6′ pieces of lumber the idea was to have shelves that were 18″ wide and 6″ deep. I began measuring and drawing my lines to saw, however; when I reached the end I realized the fantastic people at the lumber yard gave me 71 1/2″ instead of 72″. Not to worry! Since I am super smart, and great with math, I settled on shelves that were 17 3/4″ instead. After some sleek cuts from my borrowed table saw (Thanks Eric!) I had 4 shelves measuring 17 3/4″.

Since the bookshelf is supposed to lean like a ladder the next part was to cut an angled edge on the shelves. This way when the shelves were set in place they would be flush with the ladder arms.

After some more math I decided that a 10 degree angle would work best. I did not want the bookshelf to stick out too far from the wall but, at the same time, I needed it to accommodate at 6″ shelf fairly near the top. A quick adjustment to the saw blade and I had my angle cuts.

Since I was done sawing I did a little victory dance since all 10 fingers were still intact. The next step in the process was to set the highest shelf in place on one ladder arm.

I set the ladder arm at an approximate 10 degree lean against the wall, slid the shelf up until it was close to the wall, and drew some lines for approximate drill marks. I am actually drawing inside-out lines. The face of the ladder arm above is actually the outside. I simply needed an approximation. 

Now with my approximate lines I drilled two holes with the 3/8″ drill bit about halfway through and then went all the way through the wood with a 1/16″ bit. For the remaining shelves, I separated them by 12″ (most hardcover books are about 10″ tall) and drilled similar holes. Continuing on, to get the same drill holes on the other ladder arm, I simply clamped the two arms together and used my 1/16″ bit to drill small guide holes.  

The next part involved screwing the shelves into place and ensuring that they were level. I had also noticed I had ample room at the bottom of the shelf and added a 5th with a leftover piece of pine I had from my mistakes earlier in the week. The shelves were now in place and I hammered in the wood plugs.

Skip to sanding and we have ourselves a ladder! While the shelf needs some more sanding (and probably a layer of black paint to match the bedroom) the results are precisely what I was looking for.

In all this was a fairly simple project to do at home. I had minimal tools and a small space to work with but the final product was exactly what I wanted. Now I will try to repeat the process using higher quality wood and hopefully create something suitable for my TV room as well.  

My favorite thing to do in Los Angeles is to attend live shows. Because of our location we get great music almost all year round. Now that the weather is getting warmer, outdoor concerts are starting to pop up. Los Angeles has 4 or 5 great outdoor theaters so last night was really a surprise since it was not at one of the usual venues.  On Saturday night my friend and I headed downtown to check out one of our favorite artists Groove Armada at Los Angeles City Hall. The ‘Los Angeles City Hall’? The one and only.

The stage was setup on the South staircase and was sponsored by KCRW. Since this was a very unique setting for a concert my friend and I were a bit skeptical on how it would be pulled off.

After a quick dinner in Little Tokyo we headed over to City Hall (1st and Main).  The show kicked off promptly at 6PM and started with a DJ set by KCRW’s very own Jason Bentley.  Jason had the slot from 6-8PM and the task of warming up the crowd on an unusually brisk Spring night in LA.

While it was billed as a DJ set, Jason did more ‘Macbooking’ than spinning on the 1’s and 2’s. While this lead to a lame joke by me, Jason Bentley got the crowd moving and warmed up. One of the highlights of the set was Jason mixing ‘Nasty Girl’ by Vanity 6. My friend decided that if she was a stripper that would be her goto song. If you don’t remember ‘Nasty Girl’ listen below. 

At about 8:30, after the crowd was sufficiently warmed by Jason Bentley and an ample supply of booze, Groove Armada took the stage and did not disappoint.

The tour was billed as a DJ Set for their latest album ‘Soundboy Rock’ so we were not expecting the full lineup of Groove Armada characters as when we saw them at the Hollywood Bowl over the Summer. True to our expectations they transitioned without a break in the action and put on a great show.

The acoustics were a nice surprise and the setup provided great clarity. Although we couldn’t hear each other talk during the car ride home (note to self: get earplugs), Groove Armada provided a great night downtown. The first 2/3 of their set was mostly a DJ set however they began mixing in their greatest hits for the last third of the show. When they mixed in ‘Super Stylin’ the crowd reached their feverish peak.

The crowd was filled with your KCRW subscriber types (thirty-something hipsters, yuppies, eco-friendly moms and dads) and a few of the just turned 21 crowd. Everyone meshed well together and the party was in full swing for close to 3 hours. During one of the last songs the stairs in front of the stage were opened up and everyone rushed the stage to groove as close as possible to the action. They wrapped up their set around 11PM at which point we retreated back to the Westside to rest from a long night of dancing. 

In all, Los Angeles City Hall provided a unique venue and Groove Armada provided the perfect soundtrack for an evening in an urban environment. While it was a bit chilly the dancing kept us warm all night long. These kinds of nights make me wonder why I don’t do more things downtown.