Wilde's Profile
Sri Lanka Day, 8/25, Santa Monica Promenade
This was so great! There was so much food. It really was kind of like the Wat Thai on the Westside. They should absolutely do it more than once a year.
First of all, Moomin was dead on in his description of the food. My friend, who I had to drag over there, thought it was a little like a cross of best elements of Indian, Thai, and Indonesian. It was all really really good.
There were hoppers, which were a little like mini dosas cooked in special cupped pans, and string hoppers which were like soft vermicelli nests... both were served with hot coconut curries and perfectly runny fried eggs (chicken and eggs were the most frequently curried items). Then there was a booth that had this really smokey rich eggplant curry that they served with a side of paste made from crushed anchovies and chili peppers. There were deep fried eggrolls stuffed with tuna curry and potatoes, and buns stuffed with curry, and cold lentil cakes that were a little like scorchingly spiced felafel. At another booth there were tumeric stained fried potato balls, and savory caraway scented doughnuts made from chickpea flower. There were bowls of chopped pork ball curry with potatoes and pieces of roti all mashed into one coconut and curry scented mass. And there were fish popovers (with potato, and some sort of large anchovy inside) served with a dense chickpea cake that was sweet, savory, and spicy all at the same time. There was sambal that could have easily been just as home in Woodlands or Annapurna, and there was a rich savory chicken leg curry that was a perfect finger food for anybody willing to stain their hands a near permenant yellow color.
Then there was the booth with the sign that said Short Eats, which had about fifty varieties of... wait for it... wait for it... Pot Pies. Nearly all of them had that quintesentially British white gravy in them, but instead of bland and starchy it was spiced with cloves and black pepper. I got a shrimp pie, and a steak and kidney one... they were totally unlike anything that they had around the block at the Tudor house.
At some point I ended up with a baked crab pinwheel, and some sort of rainbow colored cake that looked and tasted exactly like one of the deserts at the Wat Thai temple. We ate and ate until we were right at the cusp of getting sick. It was amazing.
Out of all the booths (there were about ten), only one has a restaurant (the Curry Bowl in the valley)... I wish some of the people who were cooking today would use some of the money they made as seed money to start places up. Los Angeles definitely needs more Sri Lankan food. It's incredible.
Oh, and the sheer number of Sri Lankan families in traditional dress, on the Promenade on one of the busiest days of the year, was really cool to see. There were a lot of westside kids with really wide eyes watching the parade of humanity go by. So very cool.
Ultimate Restaurants 2006
1) Langer's
2) Monte Alban
3) Wat Thai Temple
4) Meals By Genet
5) Tacos Baja Ensenda
Mozza's Pizza is NOT Pizza!
I'm not a regular poster, but I lurk like crazy.... I've watched the flame wars over New York and Chicago style places, so I know how vested many chowhounds are in this debate. Which is why I feel like I've got to post...
Mozza doesn't serve pizza as I understand pizza.
I've had pizza all over the US. For reference my favorite pie is at the original Regina's in Boston (I know, it paints me in a odd light that I love that more than thin crust Chicago, New Haven, or New York, but I'm being honest here). I've also had pizza with the appropriate Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée all over Naples (Los Angeles already has a good rendering of Neopolitain pizza at Antica, named after the Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba in Naples).
Mozza is NOTHING like any of these.
Hence, in my book, Mozza doesn't serve pizza.
Mozza serves bread.
In fact, Mozza serves something that looks and tastes much more like the focaccia al formaggio that I had in Genoa... Nice, but not pizza.
I went expecting pizza and was MASSIVELY ANNOYED. Especially at their prices.
The "Why can't Californians have real pizza?" argument is going to have to continue, in spite of Mozza. Mozza is closer to Spago and CPK than it is to East Cost joints, or even to classic Neopolitain pizza.
Love it or loathe it, Mozza is yet another chimeric Californian pizzastein with a particularly bready focus due to the Silverton influence.
Another COUNTER FIASCO!!!
Here's a recent thread in which it is explained that the fries always come early and the crowding is always crazy after six:
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/313473
I've been to the Counter a few times. Genreally around five o'clock on a Tuesday. Never had a problem. It's a good place to get a great burger unless you try to fight the crowds then it sucks. Any other cute little restaurant in Ocean Park it would be JUST AS CROWDED!!! Thats's what happens when you live on the rich side of one of the largest and walthiest population centers on EARTH!
