Road Tips

Left Coast Brewing Company - Irvine, CA

It was time for a lunch break from the trade show I was attending in Orange County in Southern California this past fall and I had my eye on a brewpub that wasn't too far away from the hotel where the show was going on.  I was somewhat familiar with the brewery - Left Coast Brewing Company - from some of their beers I'd had in the past.  It turned out that their brewpub was a combination distillery, brewing facility and smokehouse specializing in Kansas City-style barbecue.  With all that going on, I had to go to Left Coast Brewing Company for lunch.  

George Hadjis grew up an east coast kid - born and raised in Astoria, NY, he got his undergraduate degree at New York City's Pace University followed up with his Masters degree in Guidance and Counseling from St. John's University.  After graduating from St. John's, Hadjis' first job was at St. Demetrios Preparatory in Jamaica, NY, the same Greek-American school he attended as a youngster.  It was while he was at St. Demetrios that he met his future wife, Dora.  George and Dora were married in 1973 and decided to start their new life together on the west coast moving to Southern California not long after getting married.  George and Dora's two children - Estella and Tommy - were both born in California.

George Hadjis' brother John moved out to California for a change of scenery and the brothers tried a few different business ideas, but nothing really stuck.  George ended up getting his MBA from Pepperdine University in the late 80's and it was soon after that the Hadjis brothers came up with an idea for a sports bar/pizza place.  Oggi's Pizza opened in Del Mar, CA in 1991 right about the time that craft breweries started to pop up in the San Diego area like weeds in a pasture.  Of course, pizza goes good with beer and the Hadjis brothers wanted to get into the craft brewery craze by brewing their own beers on site.  

Oggi's Pizza (oggi means "today" in Italian) became very popular with their sports bar/pizza joint/brewpub concept.  As more Oggi's restaurants opened up, it became apparent that each location had logistical problems with brewing beer on the premises.  The Hadjis family looked for an off-site facility where they could brew and centrally distribute their beer.  They found a 5000 square foot building in San Clemente and determined that with a 30-barrel brewing capacity, that not only could they brew beer for the Oggi's Pizza locations, but they had the capacity to brew beers for distribution to other restaurants and to grocery/liquor stores.  

Being that the Hadjis were originally from the East Coast, they would jokingly refer to the West Coast as the "Left Coast".  The name for their brewery came from that family joke and Left Coast Brewing Company began in 2004.  Initially, they had just three different types of beers.  But all three turned out to be very popular and in the first year Left Coast produced about 110,000 gallons of beer - the equivalent of just over 7000 kegs.  The following year, the brewery came up with three more types of beer along with four more seasonal beers.  

Initially, even as popular that the Left Coast beers turned out to be, the Hadjis needed someone to go out and "pound the pavement" taking beers around to restaurants and stores to make it even better known.  They turned to John Hadjis' son Shawn who was installed as the company's Director of Sales and Marketing.  Shawn went out to a number of restaurants in the San Clemente area and was able to place Left Coast beers in a number of restaurants in addition to retail stores.  

George Hadjis' son Tommy was brought in to be the general manager for the brewing operation making it a true family venture.  (Dora Hadjis was the chief financial officer of the brewery, as well)  And under head brewer Jim Clarke, Left Coast Brewing Company has won over two dozen awards including gold and bronze medals at the Great American Beer Festival held annually in Denver.  

(Pictured right - George Hadjis, Dora Hadjis, Tommy Hadjis, Estella Hadjis Ferrera, John Hadjis and Shawn Hadjis.  Photo courtesy Pizza Marketplace.)

Tommy Hadjis had an eye on expansion with Left Coast and in 2017 the Irvine Company, a commercial/residential real estate development company, came to Left Coast Brewing and told them of a opportunity to go into a small shopping/entertainment complex not far from the company's flagship property, the Irvine Spectrum Center.  Tommy Hadjis wanted to not only have a brewing facility, but head brewer Jim Clarke was also getting into distilling spirits.  The brewing facility was going to be much smaller at the Irvine location than the one in San Clemente giving Clarke the spaces to put in a distillery.  

Food was also going to be served at the Irvine location (the San Clemente Left Coast location is just a tasting room), and Hadjis wanted to showcase barbecue at the new location.  It turned out that he had someone who worked at one of the Oggi's restaurants who was a Kansas City-area native and knew a little bit about Kansas City-style barbecue.  Jason Tsiames - who had worked at Oggi's for a little over 3 years - was installed as the head chef for the Irvine location.  In the summer of 2018, the Left Coast Brewery/Distillery/Smokehouse opened their doors.  

(On a sad note, George Hadjis passed away in January of 2023 after a bout of esophageal cancer.)  

It was a short drive from the hotel where the trade show was taking place to Left Coast Brewing Company in Irvine.  It's located on Irvine Center Drive just off Sand Canyon Road.  (see map)   I was able to find easy parking near the brewpub in the large parking lot that served the number of retail shops and restaurants near Left Coast Brewing Company.  

The interior of the tap room was sort of industrial in design.  It featured a concrete floor and an exposed ceiling.  There was a small glass-enclosed room off to the side by the bar that could be used for distillery tastings or private events.  

The bar was tucked back into a corner at Left Coast Brewing.  It had a corrugated tin facade and seated about 12 people.  The beer menu was on the wall behind the bar.  Interesting indie rock music from artists such as Ra Ra Riot, Coast Modern and Griff Washburn's Goth Babe persona played on the tap room's sound system.  

Off to the side of the tap room was a nice patio area.   It featured a short awning coming off the side of the building.  Other tables had umbrellas for shade.  It was a beautiful Southern California afternoon and the patio was packed with people.

I chose to sit at the bar and it was manned by two bartenders - a young man and a young woman.  The young lady gave me a food menu and I took a look at the beer selections they had on the beer menu.  I ordered an Offshore Haze hazy IPA that I've had before on recent trips to SoCal.  

The menu featured appetizers such as panko-crusted onion rings and fried pickles, chicken poppers, and brisket burnt end pieces.  Salads and three different types of mac & cheese offerings of which you could choose to add smoked meats such as pulled pork, brisket or chicken.  Left Coast had a ground brisket burger with gouda and provolone on the menu, as well as a smoked pastrami reuben that I seriously considered.  They had a smoked brisket sandwich, a pulled pork sandwich, a smoked chicken club sandwich, and a beer bratwurst to choose from.  I also fancied the South County tri-tip sandwich made with 24-hour marinated beef tri-tip and topped with onion straws.   There were a lot of interesting items on the menu to choose from.

In the end, I decided to get the slider combo - you had a choice of two of the following meats - tri-tip, smoked brisket, pulled port, ground brisket, or smoked chicken.  The lady bartender said that for a $5.00 upcharge I could get three sliders.  I sort of had my eye on the tri-tip sandwich, so I got one of those for a slider, then I got a pulled pork and a brisket slider.  Fries came on the side with the sliders.  It was all served on wax paper in a small sheet pan.  

 The sliders turned out to be perfect.  I really wanted to try different types of their smoked meats and the sliders were the perfect size - big enough with enough smoked meat on them to satiate my hunger.  I really couldn't tell you which one of the three I liked better because they were all very good.  The buns were toasted and had a bit of a crunch to the top.  

The fries were also very good.  I'm not certain what they cooked them in, but they had a wonderful flavor with a crispy outer shell.  They were a great complement to the smoked meat sliders I had.  

It would be tough to point out anything that was wrong with my visit to Left Coast Brewing Company's smokehouse, brewery and distillery.  The smoked meat sliders along with the fries on the side were very good, and I liked their hazy IPA very much.  The service was friendly and they did a good job of making sure I had what I needed.  If you're looking for a light lunch with a good selection of craft beers in the Irvine area, I'd definitely recommend a visit to Left Coast Brewing Company.  

Acapulco Restaurant y Cantina - Costa Mesa, CA

Whenever I'm out in Southern California, I have to find a good Mexican restaurant.  And the good thing about it -  there are a number of them!  And because of that, Mexican restaurants in SoCal generally have to be good or they'll be going out of business sooner than later.  I was looking at Mexican restaurants near my hotel and there was one that I had passed numerous times over the past couple of years getting on and off the freeway to and from my hotel.  I decided to go have dinner at Acapulco Restaurant y Cantina in Costa Mesa.   

Ray Marshall grew up in Denver, Colorado and as a teenager he developed an affinity for Mexican food.  After high school, Marshall made his way out to Los Angeles to work as a cook.  He eventually ended up as the night chef at the prestigious Biltmore Hotel in the mid-50's.  It was during his time at the Biltmore than he developed friendships with many Mexican immigrants who were working at the hotel, many of whom assisted Marshall in the kitchen.  

One of the perks of the job was to make meals for the kitchen staff and because many of them were Mexicans, Marshall ended up honing his skills in Mexican cuisine.  He would go to the homes of some of his assistants to watch them prepare Mexican food made from long-time family recipes, then Marshall would accompany others to Mexican restaurants in East Los Angeles to learn from some of the cooks there.  

Mexican restaurants catering to Anglos weren't the rage in 1960 when Marshall opened his first Acapulco y Los Arcos restaurant in Pasadena.  But by the mid-60's, some of his Mexican specialties began to catch the eye of every day families.  His original menu consisted of 8 pages of authentic Mexican food and twists on Mexican food including a crab meat enchilada which won a gold medal in a seafood competition held at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf in 1970.  

Over the years, Marshall's recipes won numerous awards in North American and Europe, and he was cited by Restaurant Business magazine as establishing the very first chain of Mexican dinner-style restaurants with his Acapulco restaurants.  At one point, Marshall changed the name to Acapulco Restaurant y Cantina and had 31 locations in California and Oregon doing about $39 million dollars in total sales.  

In 1985, Marshall sold his shares of Acapulco to Restaurant Association, an East Coast-based holding company that had previously bought 39% of the total shares of Acapulco.  Restaurant Association paid Marshall about $7.7 million dollars (about $20.5 million in today's money).  

From there, Acapulco changed hands a few times over the next few years.  In 1998, a private equity group that had a stake in Restaurant Association bought the remaining assets of the company.  The private equity group used Acapulco Restaurant y Cantina as a starting point for their new venture - RealMex Restaurants.  In the coming years, RealMex purchased the assets for El Torito, Chevys Fresh Mex, and a handful of other restaurants mainly in Southern California.  

In 2006, Sun Capital Partners bought the RealMex Restaurant group from the private equity company.  But by 2011, RealMex was in financial trouble and was forced into bankruptcy.  Locations were closed and the remaining assets were sold at a bankruptcy auction in 2012 to a group of note holders.  However, in 2018, another group came in and bought the assets of the remaining restaurants.  That company - which became the Xperience Restaurant Group - today owns not only the Chevy's, El Torito and Acapulco restaurants, but they also own the upscale SOL Mexican Cocina (click here to see the Road Tips review on SOL), Cal Mex Cantina, Solita Tacos, and the venerable Los Brisas restaurant located on a cliff high above Laguna Beach.   

Today, there are four Acapulco Restaurant y Cantina locations and the one I went to in Costa Mesa is on Bristol Street just south of where the California 55 and 73 freeways meet up.  (See map)  The hotel I stay at in Orange County is a good starting place to go in either direction thanks to the freeways next to Acapulco.  The low-slung adobe-style building with a brick base looked nice in the daylight and I figured that it had to be pretty good place to eat.

It wasn't very busy at Acapulco when I got there around 7:30 in the evening.  The front foyer opened into a large dining room with exposed wood joists along the ceiling and wooden floors.  There were a few booths along the wall, but there were large tables in the middle with no chairs around them.  I don't know if they were getting ready for a large party in the room, but it certainly seemed a bit stark without any chairs around the tables.  Just behind the large room was the bar area.  I thought I about sitting at the bar, but decided to sit in the dining room.  

There was a smaller dining area off to the side where they were primarily seating people that night.  The booths had colorful seat backs and the tables had chairs with aqua-colored seats and decorative seat backs.  Decorative sea turtles and fish adorned a light blue wall that hid the kitchen area behind it.   Music from Latin American artists such as Leonardo Aguilar & Mario Bautista, Venesti, Los Bunkers, and Mau y Ricky played in the background while I was at Acapulco.  

Just beyond the big room was a covered patio with heaters hanging from the ceiling and a brick-tiled floor.  The metal chairs around the tables had colorful red, yellow or blue seat pads.  There were canvas roll-downs along the opening to the outside that allowed the room to be used on colder days and evenings.   

And just past the covered patio area, there was an open air patio for dining al fresco.  A brick gas fire pit was the centerpiece of the outdoor patio.  It was a bit of a cooler evening that night and no one was out on the patio.  Then again, they weren't very busy, either.

I took a seat in a booth of the corner of the smaller dining area.  After I was given a menu, my server for the evening - a wonderful guy by the name of Luis - came over to greet me.  Let me say that Luis was a great guy - outgoing, gregarious, and he made me feel welcome as a single diner.  I ordered up a Grand Compadre margarita - Maestro Dobel Silver tequila mixed with triple sec, a sweet & sour mix, and finished with a mini bottle of Grand Marnier that was held in place by a little plastic holder that attached to the side of the glass.  Chips and salsa were provided and I asked Luis if he could bring out some of their salsa verde to go along with the house-made red salsa.  The margarita was outstanding and a great way to start off the meal.  

The menu was pretty deep with a number of appetizers including guacamole, a queso dip with shrimp and spinach, and grilled chicken taquitos.  They also had a ceviche appetizer consisting of marinated shrimp and mahi mahi on a bed of guacamole mixed with a mango and pineapple relish.  I thought about getting that to start out, but there were a lot of other things on the menu that I was interested in.  They had fajita platters, seafood entrees, enchiladas, tacos and burritos on the menu.  And a lot of it sounded very good.  I was in a bit of a quandary as to which direction I wanted to go.  

Thankfully, Acapulco has a section of the menu where you can make your own combinations.  The combos allow you to pick either 2 or 3 items between enchiladas, tacos, a chicken tamale, a chile relleno, and chicken taquitos.  Enchiladas and tacos come with a choice of shredded chicken or beef, carnitas, or picadillo - seasoned ground beef with potatoes.  Rice and refried bean come on the side.  I ordered a shredded beef soft taco - I had a choice of either a soft shell or a hard shell - along with a shredded beef enchilada and a carnitas enchilada.  The shredded beef wasn't all that much shredded as it was more chunky in texture.  I asked Luis to have the chef put salsa verde on the enchiladas and he heartily complied.  I also got a pint of Dos Equis Ambar to go along with the meal.  

My food, in general, was fabulous.  The carnitas were tender and full of flavor, as were the beef chunks in both my other enchilada and soft-shell taco.  My taco was topped with shredded chihuahua cheese, chopped fresh tomatoes and shredded lettuce.  I added more of the salsa verde I still had from the chips to the taco to give it even more of a tasty punch.  There was nothing to dislike about the food I had at Acapulco.   

I had hoped that the food at Acapulco Restaurant y Cantina would be good, but it surpassed my expectations.  The meal I had was simply excellent - the carnitas and chunky beef enchiladas topped with salsa verde were scrumptious, and the chunky beef taco was equally tasty.  I can't say enough about Luis' service during my visit.  He was friendly, accommodating, and made me feel more than comfortable during my time at Acapulco.  Like my food, there was nothing to dislike about my experience at Acapulco Restaurant y Cantina.  

The Cut Handcrafted Burgers - Irvine, CA

When I was out in Southern California earlier this year, I had finished up with a morning meeting and was heading back to the hotel to do some office work before heading over to help set up for a trade show I was attending.  I didn't have breakfast and was feeling a bit hungry, so I decided to find someplace for lunch.  I was looking for a good burger/beer place and one came up that I wasn't too far away from.  I ended up heading to The Cut Handcrafted Burgers for lunch.  

Orange County, California has long been a destination for Korean immigrants dating back to the early 70's.  Irvine has the third largest U.S. population of Korean nationals living within its limits and because of that there are a number of Korean food restaurants in the area.  But it turned out that Koreans also tried to blend into American culture and that's something Steve Kim did when he opened up his burger-centric food truck in 2014.  The Cut Handcrafted Burgers became a popular food truck parked in parking lots and at events around Orange County based on Kim's philosophy - Quality, Freshness and Tradition.  He used only the finest beef for his burgers, freshly ground in his food truck.  The freshness of the beef was key as it was never frozen and always made available to him before each day.  And the tradition of a good burger - hearty cheese, fresh toppings and unique condiments - were probably the most important aspect of his burgers.  

Kim's concepts paid off and in 2015 his food truck was named as the Best Food Truck by the food critics of the Orange County Register.  And in 2016, The Cut was a finalist for the Best Burger in Orange County.

Pictured right - Steve Kim.  Photo courtesy The Cut Handcrafted Burgers web site.

As it happens with many food trucks, The Cut became so popular that Kim's customers clamored for a brick and mortar restaurant.  He found a space in a strip mall in Irvine and opened The Cut Handcrafted Burgers full service restaurant in 2017.  The Cut first focused on burgers, craft beers, wine, and specialty cocktails, but in 2018 they added a weekend brunch as the little restaurant started to transform into something more than a burger and beer place.

In 2020 just before the COVID pandemic hit, Kim opened Cluck Kitchen, a chicken-centric restaurant located near John Wayne International Airport in Santa Ana.  Saddled with two restaurant locations during the height of a pandemic, Kim decided to shut down his food truck in 2021.  However in 2022, Kim brought in a chef partner - Ryan Yi - to oversee the menus at both The Cut Handcrafted Burgers and Cluck Kitchen.  In July of 2022, Kim and Yi opened a second Cluck Kitchen in Redlands about halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs.  And in October of 2023, the partners opened The Cut Modern American Eatery & Bar in Rancho Cucamonga at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains just west of San Bernardino.  The Rancho Cucamonga location featured a more diverse menu with shareable plates and entrée selections in addition to burgers, sandwiches and salads, as well as having a full bar.  

It was just after 1 p.m. when I pulled into the Westpark Plaza strip mall along Alton Blvd. in the heart of Irvine.  (see map)  There's a community patio in front of The Cut which it shares with a Chinese restaurant on one side and a Mexican restaurant on the other.  The small dining room at The Cut opens in the front to the patio when the weather is nice.  And it was certainly nice out that day.  The inside dining area at The Cut has a row of tables with banquette seating along the wall, a community table in the middle, and assorted tables throughout the space.  Music by Pears, Tofer Dolan, and Lady Gaga (who sang a soulful version of The Carpenters' hit Close to You that got my attention) played in the background while I was there.

I took a seat at the small bar that is part of the dining area.  Franco - he introduced himself as Frank - was the bartender that day.  They had a dozen beers on tap that included 3 hazy IPA selections - a Boat Shoes hazy IPA from the Karl Strauss Brewing Company; a hazy IPA from the Harland Brewing Company both of which are out of San Diego; and the hazy IPA from the Unsung Brewing Company out of nearby Anaheim.  Frank gave me a taste of the Karl Strauss hazy IPA and the Unsung hazy IPA (I'd had the Harland hazy IPA before, but wasn't familiar with the Unsung or Karl Strauss variety).  I chose the Unsung hazy IPA.  

Frank gave me a food menu to look over while he poured my beer.  The menu was definitely more than just burgers as they had a number of interesting appetizers including poutine with braised beef, smoked shishito peppers, and cheesy tots with spicy nduja sausage.  Sandwiches included a fried buttermilk chicken breast sandwich, a reuben sandwich, a Nashville-hot chicken sandwich, and a sliced-ribeye truffle cheesesteak sandwich.  For people looking for non-burgers or non-sandwiches, they had a grilled skirt steak with chimichurri, as well as salads.

The burger part of the menu was pretty interesting.  They had a $40 signature burger - The Cut - which was made from in-house ground 60-day dry aged ribeye steak, topped with 2-year aged white cheddar, and served on a black and white sesame seed potato bun.  More modestly priced burgers included the Savory burger with Swiss cheese and a bacon relish; the Blue Cut with blue cheese and bacon; the Sweet & Spicy with bacon, pepper jack cheese and a honey Sriracha; and the Truffle & Brie which was what was on the burger - brie cheese with a truffle aioli.  

But I went basic for my first visit to The Cut Handcrafted Burgers.  I got the OG burger - a single patty burger with American cheese, with pickles, lettuce, tomato and a choice of grilled or raw onions.  I asked Frank to have the chef put raw onions on the burger, but it came out with caramelized onions on it.  It wasn't a deal breaker for me, but I think I would have liked it better with raw chopped onions.  For my side, I had a choice of fries, sweet potato fries, onion rings, a black truffle mac & cheese side, or tots.  Well, of course, I got tots!  I asked Frank if he had Cholula, but all he had was Tabasco.  Once again, not a deal breaker, but I prefer Cholula over Tabasco with tots.  

The burger was cooked perfectly - just a shade under medium with a nice light pink color.  And the burger dripped with cheese with every bite.  It was a messy burger, to say the least, and they had linen napkins at The Cut.  I had to ask Frank if I could get another napkin about halfway through the meal because it was such a wonderfully messy burger.  And the tots were a great complement to the burger.  

For a gourmet burger joint, The Cut Handcrafted Burgers did not disappoint.  They had a pretty good selection of craft beers, the menu was more than just burgers, but the burgers they had on the menu all sounded delicious.  And my OG burger was fantastic - cooked perfectly, gushing with American cheese, and having a bun that stayed together very well for such a messy burger.  And Frank's wonderful and friendly service was just the icing on the cake during my visit.  The Cut more than exceeded my expectations going in.  

Oliver's Trattoria - Irvine, CA

Out in Southern California for a trade show this past fall, I had been sitting with a former colleague and his wife catching up on things at the bar at the hotel where the trade show was being held.  I offered to take them out to dinner, but they said they needed to head back to their home just north and east of Los Angeles.  I got back to my hotel and I was looking up some of the restaurants in the immediate area.  I was sort of in the mood for Italian (when aren't I?) and I found a place that looked sort of interesting - Oliver's Trattoria.  Getting the address plugged into my GPS, I took off to go have dinner at Oliver's Trattoria.  

Erik De Marchi was born and raised in Imola, Italy, about halfway in between Bologna and the coastal town of Ravenna on the Adriatic Sea situated in the Emilia-Romagna region of the country.  Emilia-Romagna consists of nine provinces and is very well known for their culinary and wine-making traditions.  Bologna's signature dish is pasta, while Ravenna is known for their seafood and rice meals.  De Marchi was exposed to the region's diverse gastronomy selections at a young age, especially loving his grandmother's lasagna.    

De Marchi eventually enrolled in the culinary sciences program that was part of IAL Emilia-Romagna, a service training academy located in Bologna.  After graduating from IAL in 2002, De Marchi made his way to Los Angeles to work under chef Gino Angeleini at his prestigious Italian eatery Angelini Osteria.  

From there, De Marchi made the rounds of some the better Italian restaurants in the greater Los Angeles area.  After 15 years working in various Italian restaurants in Southern California, De Marchi decided he wanted to do his own restaurant.

Pictured right - Erik De Marchi.  Photo courtesy Orange Coast Magazine.  

Making his way down to the Orange County coast, De Marchi found a spot in Laguna Beach.  He modeled his new restaurant after the osterias - simple cafes - that served locally-sourced foods and wine that were found near his home in Italy.  And while he was getting ready to open his restaurant, his wife was expecting a child - a baby boy that they had already picked out a name for.  In September of 2018 - the same day that his son Oliver was born - De Marchi opened Oliver's Osteria, named after his son.  

De Marchi's little Italian restaurant became an instant hit with residents in and near Laguna Beach.  Food critics praised the restaurant for its authentic Emilia-Romanga-style cuisine, along with its eclectic list of Italian wines.  In 2021, Michelin gave Oliver's Osteria a Bib Gourmand rating - sort of an honorable mention short of getting a star - in its Michelin Guide of Los Angeles restaurants that year.  

Before he got his Michelin mention, Erik De Marchi noticed that a lot of his customers were coming from the Irvine/Newport Beach area making the drive down to Laguna Beach.  In the back of his mind, De Marchi wanted to have a more modern restaurant that offered patio dining, wood-fired pizza, private event space, and sleek furnishings.  Already living in Irvine, De Marchi found an open spot in the Quail Hill shopping and entertainment center and in the fall of 2023, he opened Oliver's Trattoria.  He immediately found that the opening of the new restaurant in Irvine didn't fully take business away from his original restaurant in Laguna Beach.  So it was definitely a win-win situation for De Marchi by opening a second location!

It was about 8 p.m. when I pulled into the Quail Hill complex at the corner of Sand Canyon Ave. and Quail Hill Parkway near the 405 Freeway.  (see map)   The restaurant opened to a bar area and a well-lit dining area off to the left side.  This dining area was a mishmash of square booths, as well as 2-seat, 4-seat, 6-seat and 8-seat tables.  An outdoor patio was located just beyond this dining room.  But it was a cool evening and no one was seated on the patio.

There was a second and somewhat more cozy and subdued dining area past the bar.  It seemed to be a bit "Christmas-y" in the room with dangling white lights around the perimeter and a frosted white tree illuminated by spot lights in the middle, even though it was in the early fall.  A third dining area was in the back and it could be closed off for private dining or receptions.  

I ended up asking the hostess if I could sit at the bar.  There was one seat open on the curved corner of the two-sided bar.  The bar was sort of unique in that two or three of the seats were table-top height, while 7 or 8 chairs were high-top height.  I took one of the high-top chairs with a faux lighted candle in front of me.  The marble-topped bar had lighting underneath to illuminate the brick facade below.  Along the wall next to the bar and behind the hostess stand were a series of high-top tables where people were standing enjoying drinks.  

Once I sat down and was given a menu, one of the bartenders - Lorenzo - came over to greet me.  I had just finished up having a couple three beers at the hotel and I was looking to get a glass of wine to start.  After looking through the by-the-glass wine list Lorenzo gave me, I ordered a house Malbec wine they had.   

The dinner menu started out with a handful of salads and antipasti choices including beef carpaccio, roasted octopus, and fried calamari.  There was wood-fired pizzas on the menu, as well as a Mediterranean sea bass entree, lamb chops in a mint salmoriglio sauce (think Indian mint chutney), and an 8 ounce beef tenderloin served on a bed of arugula and baby artichoke hearts.  Pasta dishes included Oliver's Trattoria's house-made thick pasta noodles with roasted red cherry peppers, linguine and clams in a garlic-white wine sauce, and Tonnarelli ai Crostacei - house-made thick spaghetti noodles, with lobster meat and prawns, mixed in a slightly spicy cherry tomato sauce.  

One of the nice touches Oliver's Trattoria provides after you place your order is a plate of fresh house-made bread cubes with an olive and caper tapenade on the side.  The bread was a spongy focaccia with herbed toppings.  The tapenade was tangy and had great flavor.   

I was torn between a couple items on the menu.  The house lasagna - from the recipe Erik De Marchi's grandmother had made for him as a little boy - was tempting; as was the house-made pappardelle pasta with the wild boar ragu.  But in the end, I went with the tagliatelle pasta with the bolognese sauce.  I've been on such a bolognese kick - both at home and one the road - lately that it just sounded good to me. 

And it was great.  The robust flavor of the meaty bolognese sauce was complemented by the wonderful house-made pasta they served at Oliver's Trattoria.  Parsley flakes and parmesan cheese were sprinkled on the pasta and bolognese to give the dish a rustic appeal.   This was - in simple terms - a killer meal.   

And I've also been on a dessert kick at Italian restaurants on my last few visits and I've been especially keen on the affogato - vanilla gelato with espresso.  And I asked Lorenzo if I could get a shot of amaretto to go along with the affogato.  The affogato had chunks of chocolate on the top of the vanilla gelato and I needed to eat some of the dessert down before I could add the amaretto Lorenzo supplied to me in a small metal pitcher.  The affogato was rich, decadent and very delicious.  It was a great ending to what was a very memorable meal at a very memorable Italian restaurant.  

 

I can't say enough about the experience I had at Oliver's Trattoria.  First of all, Lorenzo was a great bartender - friendly and efficient.  He did a great job taking care of me on my visit.  The focaccia bread cubes with the tapenade spread was a nice touch the restaurant provided as a pre-meal appetizer.  And the tagliatelle pasta with the rich and hearty bolognese sauce was simply outstanding.   I like to find good Italian restaurants if I'm staying in an area for more than a couple days and Oliver's Trattoria surpassed my expectations of what I thought the restaurant would be before I entered the building.  This was a great Italian meal.  

Scenes from the Road

Fall has always been a busy travel time for me.  Since I'm now the North American sales manager for a company out of Germany, I've been doing a lot more flying than driving since Labor Day.  (And that will continue into December.)  My travel has taken me to far flung places such as Southern California, Toronto, Dallas-Fort Worth, and - just recently - Washington D.C.  Over the years, people ask me, "Man, it's great that you get to go to all these places."  But people who travel for a living know that it's not all that great - eating alone in a restaurant, waking up in a hotel room not knowing where you are, not being able to take in sights like a tourist, etc., etc.  But there are times when I'm able to catch moments with my camera that will make the business trip more memorable.  I've got a few photos that I've taken on my recent trips that I thought I'd share with you today.  

Business travel does have its perks - hotel and airline points, eating in good restaurants, meeting with clients and making new friends.  But most of the time, it's airport, rental car, hotel room, restaurant, meetings, restaurant, hotel room, meetings, restaurant, hotel room, airport and home.  I don't get to really go and do and see like I would want.  But every once in a while, I do take the time to take a step back and enjoy my surroundings.  

When I'm close to the ocean, I like to go near the water and clear my head.  In this case, on a trip earlier this fall to Southern California, it was actually going OVER the water and heading out to the Newport Beach Pier after I had lunch.  There was parking nearby and I was able to get out to the end of the pier to hang out for a while.  

While it was a sunny day and warm inland, there was a cool breeze coming off the water.  When I got out to the end of the pier, I noticed a number of fishermen who were dressed more for late fall in the Midwest than a sunny day in Southern California.  I was in a polo shirt and jeans, and it was a bit nippy.  But being able to smell the sea air and take in the sights of the beach up to Huntington Beach and down to just north of Laguna Beach gave me a moment of zen that I need from time to time.  And water always seems to be involved when I have moments of zen.  

For September, the weather was a little strange.  In the months of May and June, the California coast line is usually inundated with low clouds and misty precipitation.  "May gray and June gloom" are the terms residents use when they have to put up with dreary weather in the mornings in late Spring.  But by 11 a.m., the clouds burn off and it turns into a glorious day.  That's what happened every day I was out in Southern California.  Locals said it was highly irregular for that time of the year.  Each morning, it was fog, low clouds and misty rain.  You certainly couldn't see the Santa Ana mountains east of Orange County.

But in the afternoon when I would get back to the room, the day had turned sunny, warm and beautiful.  The Santa Ana mountains were majestic off in the distance.  Days like this in Southern California always remind me of the deadpan weatherman (played by George Plimpton) giving the forecast in the movie L.A. Story - "Sunny, 72."  

Whereas, the equally expressionless anchor in the movie (played by Sam McMurray) says, "The next forecast will be in three weeks."  I said, "Sunny, 72" many times while I was out in Southern California a few weeks ago.  

Of course, when you're in Southern California, you have to go to In-n-Out Burger.  I snuck away from the trade show one day and tried to get into one near the show venue.  But the line was literally out the door and the drive-thru had something like 25 cars in line.  (And I don't think I'm exaggerating.)  So, I got up the next morning and went to one near my hotel in nearby Irvine right when they opened at 10:30 a.m.  And I have to say that I was NOT the first customer in that location that morning.  By the way, when I was in Dallas recently, there was an In-n-Out Burger near my hotel, but I never went.  Quite honestly, I would probably go to a Whataburger if the two were side-by-side.  (And they were close together, but I didn't go to either one when I was in Texas.)    

And as a longtime Iowa sports fan, it's always good to see like-minded people when you're over 1000 miles away.  I saw this license plate in the parking lot of a brewpub I had lunch in one day.  Hawkeye fans are truly everywhere.  

I had to go back up to Toronto for a trade show in October and when I got off the plane, I was on the interminable walk from the gate at Toronto Pearson Airport to Canadian customs.  I was discombobulated with my directions last year and always thought that downtown Toronto was northeast of the airport.  Actually, it's southeast of the airport and as I looked to my left walking to customs, I saw the skyline of Toronto complete with the CN Tower, the tallest free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere.  The tower was the world's tallest free-standing structure from 1975 to 2007, and the world's largest tower until 2009.  Since 2007, 9 other free-standing buildings or towers have been built that have all surpassed the CN Tower in height.

Last year when I was in Toronto, my hotel room faced the west.  So this year, I asked for a room at the same hotel with a room that faced the east.  When I got settled into my room and when I opened the shades in the living room part of my hotel space, I saw this spectacular view of the near-full moon rising over Toronto.  Pictures from the camera phone doesn't do justice of the remarkable vista, but it's still not that bad of a pic.   

Speaking of remarkable pics, nearly every morning had a glorious and colorful view of the pre-rising sun coming up over downtown Toronto.  (You can click on the pictures to make them larger.)  The clouds over Lake Erie to the south and east of downtown Toronto gave the sunrise a spectacular color scheme.  It was mornings like these that helped make the time away from home a bit more bearable.    

When I stayed in the same hotel near the airport last year, I had a view of a large transport plane that was sitting on the tarmac.  When my colleague from Europe and I were walking from our hotel to the hotel near the airport where the trade show was being held, I remarked that the plane was still there.  "It's Russian," I said.  "I can tell by the flag.  I wonder if it's been seized by the Canadian government after Russia invaded Ukraine." 

We were out to dinner that evening and I looked it up on my phone.  The plane - an Antonov an-124 super freighter aircraft - landed on February 27, 2022 loaded with COVID 19 supplies from Europe.  The next day, the Canadian Transportation Agency closed all air space to Russian aircraft due to Russia's incursion into Ukraine.  Two months later, the Canadian government started proceedings to seize the plane and convert the assets into proceeds for the Ukrainian government. 

However, that hasn't happened.  The plane has been parked for just over 1000 days - 1007 days, to be exact.  And the airport has been charging the plane's Russian owners - Volga-Dnepr Airlines - about $1100 Canadian dollars ($770 USD) a day since.  The total is now over $1.1 million Canadian dollars and about $775,000 in U.S. dollars.  Nothing has happened in terms of selling the seized plane or handing it over to the Ukrainian government, and it's been sitting so long on the tarmac that it's easily seen in satellite photos that are shown on Google Earth.  The Antonov an-124 entered service in 1986 and there were just 55 built.  25 remain in operation around the world - not counting the one still sitting in Canada.  The an-124 is the largest heavy-lift airplane in the world.  The previous largest - the Antonov an-225 - was destroyed in the opening days of the Russian/Ukraine war as it was being outfitted with new engines at an airport just outside of Kyiv.  Only one of the Antonov an-225's were built and it could carry a payload twice the amount a Boeing 747 cargo plane can carry.   

One funny picture picture that I got while staying at my hotel in Toronto was the one below right.  Marijuana is legal across Canada, but can't be smoked in public buildings including hotels, restaurants and other places that outlaw smoking tobacco.  And these signs were just outside the front door of hotel.  

And being a Hilton Lifetime Diamond member, the hotel had a goody bag for me when I checked in.  Two of the treats were these Nestle Aero bars that are only available in Canada.  Now, if I had smoked pot when I was there (I didn't) those candy bars would have been gone in 30 seconds.  But even without the help of marijuana, I devoured the first of the two candy bars upon arrival into my room since I hadn't had anything to eat all day long.  I've found over the years that there are many types of snacks (like ketchup potato chips) that are available in Canada, but not in the U.S.  These Aero bars were fantastic and it's probably a good thing they aren't sold in the U.S.  For me, anyway...

Renting cars on my travels has been an adventure since I gave up on Hertz earlier this year over a billing dispute that started in March of 2023.  (I lost a wheel cover on a Tesla 3 in Montreal and they wanted to charge me $331 Canadian dollars - $235 US dollars - for a wheel cover that costs $25 dollars US.  We negotiated down and I paid an amount in August of this year, but I told Hertz that I would never rent from them again because they ripped me off.  And I was a Hertz Gold Plus member for nearly 25 years.  They didn't care.)  

So, I've been using National and Avis - I still get a deal on renting cars through National on my old company's account; and I got a deal through Hilton hotels to be an Avis Preferred Plus member.  I have to tell you - I love National.  Their cars are nicer, lower miles and generally cleaner.  Avis - I don't care much for their selection process, whereas National you go to the Emerald lot and pic out any car.  And if they don't have the kind of car that you want - like a sedan - they'll make sure they get you one from the pool right away.  

I rented Avis in Dallas and I had my choice of five different vehicles on their app through an upgrade for being Preferred Plus.  The less pimp-ish of all five was this 2022 Chrysler 300S.  (I could have had the red two-door car next to it, as well.)  Actually, it was a nice ride, but it had 56,000 miles on it and it needed a deep wax job.  I had rented a 300S in Southern California a number of years ago and they're OK.  I just don't like driving black cars.  

Near my hotel in the north Dallas suburbs, I kept passing this store in a strip mall along Belt Line Road.  I was sort of amused by the store's name - Condom Sense - and I had to pull into the parking lot to get a closer look at the place.  From the outside it appeared to be a vape store, but when I looked it up on the internet after I got home, it turned out to be an adult shop - one of ten Condom Sense locations in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.  Founded in 1990 at the height of the AIDS crisis, Condom Sense started out selling safe sex products before morphing into a full-fledged adult pleasure store that their web site says welcomes couples of all persuasions in large, well-lit, clean store fronts.  Now, I don't know about if they sell vaping products like their signs said in the front window, but I didn't see anything on the web site that alluded to the fact that they sold vaping products.  

That was the extent of my sight-seeing during my trip to the Dallas area, but my next trip was going to be to Washington D.C. a week after I was in Dallas.  Plane travel these days is usually a hassle with full planes and people stuck in middle seats who aren't happy.  I usually take the window seat so I can rest my head up against the plane's wall.  A plus for me during plane flights is having the middle seat empty.  A double plus is having the whole row to myself, but that is few and far between.  (That happened to me on a flight back from Paris about 8 years ago.  It was great!)  But when you have your own row AND the row across the aisle empty, well, it's like having your own personal jet.  And that happened on my recent flight between Chicago O'Hare and Reagan Washington National.  It makes air travel more tolerable.  

As we were coming in for a landing at Reagan Washington National, we were coming in from the north on the final approach.  It was a beautiful clear day and I was on the left side of the plane facing Washington D.C.  It was my first ever visit to Washington and I was able to see Georgetown University, then the Capitol Building, the National Mall up to the Washington Monument.  Just before we landed, the Jefferson Memorial along the Tidal Basin was plainly visible.  I was like, "Shit!  Why didn't I have my camera phone ready to take pictures on the final approach!?"

Then divine intervention took over.  The pilot suddenly hit the throttle and we rose and turned away from the final approach.  I thought, "Wow, I haven't been part of a go-around for a long while."  

About 30 seconds later, the pilot came on the flight intercom - "Well, folks, as you've probably noticed, we're not on the ground.  We were coming in a little high and a little fast and we decided to go around and give it another shot."  

That gave me the opportunity to get my phone out and set up my camera with a bit of a zoom on it.  The picture below left is the campus of Georgetown University.  I didn't really know where Georgetown was, but it was further out to the northwest side of Washington D.C. than I realized.  If I were seated on the right side of the plane, I would have had a great view of Arlington National Cemetery and the Pentagon on final approach.  (I drove past the exit ramp for the C.I.A. on my way from the airport to my hotel in Rockville, MD.  I thought about getting off and going to see the entrance to the facility, but I thought better after a few seconds.)  

I completely missed the White House which is located north - or to the left in this picture - of the Washington Monument, and we flew almost right over the Lincoln Memorial so I didn't see that.  But I was able to get a shot of the Capitol Building, the National Mall and the Washington Monument.  The now-closed RFK Stadium is in the background of the Capitol Building.  

I particularly liked this photo (below left) where the Washington monument's reflection is shown in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and it is lined up perfectly with the Capitol Building.  (And with the Lincoln Memorial which would be out of the picture at the bottom.)  This picture was just dumb luck.  

Just past there, the Jefferson Monument loomed in the distance.  Jutting out into the Tidal Basin, the Jefferson Memorial was easy to spot.  I knew most of the memorials were close, but I didn't know how close.  From the air, they all looked within easy walking distance of one another.  But I'm sure that if I went on a walking tour, I'd be walking a long way in between the sites.  

During this trip, I was able to knock off two more states that I have visited or set foot in.  Reagan Washington National is in Virginia and I had never been there before.  And I visited an account up in Wilmington, DE - the first time I'd ever been in Delaware.  I'm now up to 47 states that I've been in - I'm only missing Idaho, Oregon and Alaska.  I was able to knock off a number of states - New Jersey, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maine - on a visit to New England earlier this year.  And I've now been to Washington D.C.  

I bagged the trade show early on Sunday and drove Connecticut Ave. down into the heart of Washington D.C.  I did see the White House off in the distance through some trees and barricades, and I did see the Lincoln Memorial off in the distance.  But they were having a parade that day and a lot of streets in the downtown area near the White House were closed off.  Or, maybe they're closed off at all times due to security issues.  It would be nice to spend some time in Washington D.C. at some point.  I know if I went to the museums, that would be four or five days, minimum.  

So, that's my photo dump for my most recent trips across America and into Canada.  Thanks for indulging me with my descriptions and explanations.  Sometimes you do get to spend some time looking at stuff when you're traveling for business, but it's not the same as if you're there to be able to go and do and see the sights in a given area.  Still, even a ten to fifteen minute stop to see something neat is worth it to me.  

Selma's Chicago Pizzeria and Tap Room - Ladera Ranch, CA

The trade show I was attending in Southern California got over on a Sunday afternoon and I was hungry for a pizza.  Most of the pizza places in the immediate area around Irvine I had found on-line were gourmet-style or to-go only places.  I wanted a place where I could get a good pizza and unwind with a couple beers.  I remembered that I had found a place last year that served tavern-style thin-crust pizza like I get in Chicago.  (That place - Rance's Chicago Pizza - was excellent.  Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Rance's.)  But in searching "Chicago Tavern Pizza" another place came up - Selma's Chicago Pizzeria and Tap Room.  It was in the town of Ladera Ranch about a 15 to 20 minute drive from where I was.  Since I'd already had Rance's tavern-style pizza, I thought I'd drive down to Selma's to see how good their pizza was.  

Michael Phillips grew up in Ohio and loved his mother Selma's cooking prowess.  When he moved to Southern California in the 60's to become a Los Angeles cop, he missed his mother's cooking and looked forward to his trips back home to have some of his mother's home cooked meals.  

By 1978 Phillips was tired of being a cop.  Phillips partnered with another fellow Ohio native Bill Cunningham to open a pizza joint that served Chicago-style deep-dish or tavern-thin crust pizza along with pasta dishes made from recipes from Phillips' mother Selma.  They initially named the business BJ Grunts, but were quickly hit with a federal trademark cease-and-desist letter by Rich Melman, the longtime restauranteur who owned the R.J. Grunts restaurants in Chicago.   Phillips and Cunningham quickly pivoted and renamed the restaurant BJ's Chicago Pizzeria.  

Over the next nine years, Phillips and Cunningham opened a number of locations from Los Angeles south to San Diego.  But when the stock market crashed in the fall of 1987, much of their regular clientele quit going out for dinner.  Contemplating bankruptcy, Phillips got a pep talk from his dad who told him that while bankruptcy would be the easy way out, he made commitments to the banks and his employees and he needed to stick it out.  While it was tough for Phillips and Cunningham - they still had to close one of their locations - the recession began to wane in 1988 and more people started to come back to their restaurants.   

By 1991, Phillips and Cunningham were wanting to do something else with their lives, the two partners ended up selling the local restaurant chain to their accountants.  The new owners eventually changed the name to BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse.  After the corporation went public in 1996, BJ's grew to a national chain.  

Michael Phillips, Jr. grew up watching his father become a successful restauranteur and learned the art of cooking great food and customer service while working under his father's wing.  When Michael Phillips, Sr. retired to Maui in 2003, Michael Jr. and a longtime buddy, Eric Miller, came up with a new Chicago-style pizza concept served with craft beers.  They named it after Phillips' grandmother and Selma's Chicago Pizzeria & Tap Room in the fall of 2003 in Rancho Santa Margarita, CA.  

Pictured right - Michael Phillips, Jr. and Eric Miller.  Photo courtesy Orange County Register.

Catering to families and craft beer enthusiasts, in 2007 Selma's opened a second location in San Clemente, then the Ladera Ranch location opened in 2011.  A fourth Selma's location opened in San Juan Capistrano in 2016.  However, just about a month or so ago, Phillips and Miller closed the San Clemente location of Selma's which had been open for 17 years.  

(By the way, Michael Phillips, Sr. "unretired" in 2009 and opened a fast casual seafood cafe by the name of Coconuts Fish Cafe.  Today, there are two locations on Maui, with other locations in Scottsdale, AZ, a couple locations in the greater Dallas area, and one that is slated to open in the Sacramento, CA area in the coming months.)  

The Ladera Ranch location for Selma's is located in the Bridgemark Plaza retail complex along Crown Valley Parkway, about a mile east of Interstate 5.  (see map)  There was parking available in the spacious lot that served the complex.  

The main dining room was a mixture of brick walls, reclaimed barn boards and large windows looking out to the front of the restaurant.  There were a number of large booths, banquette seating along one wall, and sturdy tables in the center of the room.

The beer list was posted on the reclaimed barn board wall.  They had 30 beers on tap including the cult favorite Pliny the Elder from the Russian River Brewery in Santa Rosa, CA.  Well, let me back up - they had it on the wall, but I was informed they were out of it when I ordered it.  Most of the beers were local, but they also had some nationally distributed craft beers, as well as Guinness.  

The bar area was jam packed when I got into the place as many people were watching the end of the Los Angeles Rams game on the three televisions in the bar.  There was no way that I was going to be able to get a place to sit, let alone get served properly in the bar area.

Off to the side of the bar was the large patio area.  There were a number of people on the patio which was fenced in and topped with sail tarps.  Topping it off, there were a number of loud kids out there and I didn't want to listen to that as I just wanted to get some food, get some beer and just chill out after the trade show.  I continued to wander around the restaurant to find a comfortable area to sit. 

One of the rooms off to the side of the dining room was the "Chicago" room - a room that paid homage to the city of Chicago in pictures that were hung on the wall.  It featured banquette seating along one of the long walls and was probably used for small parties or group gatherings.  A painting of Selma Phillips with what I was told her great-grandchildren hung at the back end of the room.

Even thought it was loud in the dining room with families having pizza, I ended up seated at one of the four-seater tables in the room.  After a short bit I was greeted by a young woman by the name of Aliyah.  She was balancing about five tables at once and apologized for not coming over sooner.  She dropped off a menu for me and said that she'd be back.  When she did come back she took a deep breath and said, "OK, what can I get you to drink?"  When I asked for a Pliny the Elder, she gave this anguished look on her face and said, "Oh, I'm sorry.  We ran out yesterday and won't get more until tomorrow at the earliest."  I sort of grimaced and looked up at the beer menu.  There was a Mortal Bloom hazy IPA from the Founders Brewery back in Michigan that I got.  Even though it was good and I hadn't had it before, I was really looking for a Southern California hazy IPA as an alternative to not having a Pliny the Elder.  Oh well.  

Even though I was there for the pizza, I took a deep look through the menu to see what else they had.  They had a number of appetizers that appealed to families or large groups including chicken tenders, fried cheese sticks, and garlic-parmesan fries.  They had a number of salad choices on the menu - as in something like 12 or 14.  Sandwiches included a classic meatball with marinara and mozzarella cheese; oven-roasted turkey with avocado; and three or four different types of wraps.  Finally, they had a number of pasta selections including short rib-stuffed ravioli that came with a mushroom cream sauce.  Now, THAT gave me pause and made me reconsider my mindset of having a pizza.  

But in the end, I ordered a small pizza with my standard Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  When Aliyah brought out the pizza I was stunned to see the size.  It said in the menu that small pizza's were 10" and this looked like it may have been an inch or two shy of 10".  I just sort of shrugged my shoulders and dug in.

I'll have to say that it was a good pizza.  I think I liked Rance's tavern-style pizza better, but this was still good.  It had a nice crispy crunch, the Italian sausage was flavorful, and the pepperoni was salty and slight spicy.  The mushrooms were fresh and plentiful.  This pizza could have easily been served in a pizza place in Chicago.  And it definitely passed my "Does it taste good with a beer" test that I gauge when I want to compare pizzas.  

Earlier before I got to Selma's, I had a somewhat distressing call from a former neighbor of mine and with some somewhat upsetting news.  My mind was sort of elsewhere for the whole meal and I knew I had a couple phone calls I had to make after I finished.  I was a bit discombobulated when I left the restaurant.  (Everything turned out fine...)  

Later that evening, I was at the gas station near my hotel filling up my rental car to get ready to take back the next morning.  As I pulled up to the pump and got my wallet out to put into the pump, I realized that I didn't have my American Express card.  In a bit of a panic, I had to mentally retrace my movements earlier in the day.  I thought, "Geez, did I leave it at Selma's?"  I got back in the car and made a phone call to Selma's.  I explained to the young lady that I think I left my card at the restaurant.  She asked me who my server was and I did remember Aliyah's name.  

She put me on hold and moments later Aliyah got on the phone.  "I have your credit card here," she said.  "I saw you get up and walk to the restroom and I checked the folder to see if you had signed the receipt.  And you hadn't.  I just figured that you would come back to sign it after you went to the restroom."

"So, I didn't even sign the receipt," I asked as I started out back toward Selma's.  She said that I hadn't.  "Geez, I'm an idiot.  OK, I'm on my way."  

20 minutes later, I got to Selma's.  It was just before 9 p.m. and the place had cleared out substantially.  I walked in and the young lady at the front hostess stand greeted me.  "I think Aliyah has my credit card," I said.  Seconds later, Aliyah came out from the back holding the folder which held my Amex card and the receipts I hadn't signed.  I told her that I was a bit out of sorts when I was there, but everything was fine now.  Except that I had to drive all the way back to get my card.  

"I just thought it was sort of strange that you left your card and didn't sign the tab," she said.  

"I know," I said in an exasperated tone as I signed the receipt.  "I'm an idiot."

I then reached in my pocket and pulled out a $20 bill.  Her tip would have about $8 or $9 bucks if I put it on the receipt, but I handed the folder back to her along with the $20 bill.  "Here, this is yours, too.  Thanks for holding on to this."  

Her face lit up and said, "Thank you!  It wasn't that big of deal.  I was just more concerned that you might not come back and get your card before closing tonight."  I told her that if I hadn't stopped to get gas before going back to my hotel about 30 minutes earlier, I would have probably gone back to Iowa without my credit card.  

I probably should have given her double the tip for being trustworthy and holding on to my card for me.  Aliyah's service the whole time I was there was efficient and she was such as sweetheart.  I thought the Chicago tavern-style pizza was good - not great like some places I like in Chicago - but good.  Good for Southern California, let's put it that way.  The place was a little loud for me, but I got past all that.  And even though they were out of Pliny the Elder, I was impressed with the beers they had on tap.  I would have to say that if you're in the southern part of Orange County and have a hankering for Chicago pizza, Selma's Chicago Pizzeria and Tap Room is a good place to go.  

Tustin Brewing Company - Tustin, CA

I was on my way back to my hotel after checking out a couple potential dealers in the Orange County area near Anaheim and decided to find a place for lunch.  A quick look for brewpubs in the area came up with one that wasn't that far away from where I was and it had a number of very positive reviews.  Moments later I pulled up in front the Tustin Brewing Company in Tustin, CA.  

Jason Jeralds was on the ground floor of the craft beer scene in Southern California when he was working at the Huntington Beach Beer Company in the early 1990's.  Jeralds did a little bit of everything at the brewery from running the front of the house to being a brewer's assistant.  Wearing multiple hats he learned that the key to running a brewpub was good beer, affordable food in a nice place people were comfortable coming to, and a place that people would want to come back to.   

Jeralds worked on getting investors for his dream.  Not that people were lining up to throw money at a start-up business, but it was at that point in the mid-90's into the 2000's when banks and capital investment companies were more receptive to putting money in brewpubs given the larger margins on the making and selling beer.  Once Jeralds got his capital in place, he found a corner spot in a strip mall in Tustin that was big enough to make 750 barrels of beer annually.  After procuring a brewmaster and assistants, along with front of house help, Tustin Brewing Company opened in the summer of 1996.  

Brewmasters came and went, but in 2009 brewmaster Jonathan Porter won a Gold medal at the renown Great American Beer Festival in Denver for Tustin Brewing Company's Golden Spike Light Ale.  A year later, Porter got a Bronze medal for Tustin Brewing Company's Blimp Hangar Porter (named after the nearby Tustin blimp hangar).  In all, Tustin Brewing Company's brewmasters have won over two dozen awards in various beer judging contests.  

It was just before 2 p.m. when I pulled into the parking lot of Tustin Brewing Company located in a strip mall near the corner of Newport Ave. and Irvine Ave., not far from the California Highway 55 Freeway and Interstate 5.  (see map)  The tall turret in the corner attached to the building was prominent in the parking lot.  Even though it was well past the lunch rush, the parking lot serving the brewpub and other businesses was nearly full.  Thankfully, a car pulled out of a spot near Tustin Brewing Company's entrance.  

Upon entering Tustin Brewing Company, a number of their awards hung on the curved wall of the vestibule.  In addition to awards won at the Great American Beer Festival, Tustin Brewing has also won awards at the World Beer Cup that is held annually in Indianapolis, and the local, yet prestigious L.A. I.P.A. Fest.    

The vestibule opened into the large dining area.  Exposed brick walls were on one side of the room with an open kitchen area in the back.  The beer menu hung on the brick wall and they had a number of flat screen televisions on the walls throughout the dining space.

The bar was off to the side of the dining area with a small half-shelf made with reclaimed barn boards bordered the bar area.  The bar, itself, was also made out of barn boards with a somewhat narrow wood top.  It was a full bar with not only the beers on tap made by Tustin Brewing, but a line-up of liquor for mixed drinks.  

Behind the bar were the large vessel tanks Tustin Brewing uses during their brewing process.  The brewery expanded a few years ago to a capacity of about 1250 barrels of beer annually. Half-kegs were stacked next to the tanks and there was the faint smell of hops in the air.  The brewery had a very rustic atmosphere.  And on top of all that, classic rock music from the 70's played in the background while I was there.  

There is also an outdoor beer garden at Tustin Brewing Company.  Part of the outdoor patio was cover while the rest was covered with fabric sheets that allowed some sunlight to come into the area.  Faux veneer table tops with metal chairs were interspersed throughout the patio area.  

I ended up taking a seat at a table along the brick wall opposite the bar.  A replay of a Dodgers game was on one of the four televisions in a quadrangle in the corner.  I understand that Tustin Brewing Company is a hopping place on Sunday's in the fall as they have the NFL Sunday Ticket package that has access to all the league's games.

I was seated for over five minutes when I started to get a little twitch that maybe this was a bad idea.  But it turned out that they had just one server - a guy named José - who was taking care of the smattering of people in the dining area as well as out on the patio.  When José finally did acknowledge me, he turned out to be a great guy.  "Sorry for the wait, boss," he said as he sat down a food menu in front of me.  "Can I get you something to drink?"  

I turned toward the bar and tried to look at the beer menu they had behind the bar.  Then José pointed up behind me and said, "Here's the beer list, boss."  It was a huge beer list that I didn't see originally.  (My wife says I'm not very observant.)  They had a couple hazy IPA's on the menu, so I took the one with less alcoholic content - the Riwaka Wacka Wacka that they had on tap.  

The food menu turned out to be pretty interesting.  Appetizers included a shredded short rib quesadilla; chicken kebabs; Korean-smoked St. Louis ribs; and ahi poke served with a miso dressing with sliced avocado, onions, cucumbers.  There were seven different salads on the menu along with clam chowder and their "People's Choice" award-winning chili that was topped with chopped tomatoes and onions, along with cilantro and shredded cheese.  

Entrees included battered fish tacos (a hard no for me - grilled only, please); baked salmon with steamed broccoli and mashed potatoes; pesto shrimp pasta; grilled chicken with penne pasta tossed in a spicy cream sauce; and a sausage platter with a tri-pepper sausage link, kielbasa and Bratwurst.  They had a couple burgers to choose from along with a rib-eye steak sandwich; a pulled pork sandwich with barbecue sauce; a pork carnitas sandwich (that got my attention); and a Cajun-grilled ahi tuna sandwich.

I contemplated getting a burger, but I had one the day before.  I ended up getting the short rib grilled cheese sandwich - shredded beef short rib topped with a combination of Monterey jack, cheddar and mixed cheeses, finished with caramelized onions and Sriracha sauce served on toasted sourdough bread.  For my side, I got tots, naturally.  And they had Cholula that I could put directly on my tots!  That was a plus in my book!  

The sandwich was simply delectable.  The toasted sourdough bread held together very well with the juicy short rib beef and all the cheesy goodness that was on top of it.  The tots had a crunchy outer shell with that wonderful flaky potato inner core.  Combined with the tasty hazy IPA, this was a spot-hitter of a lunch.  

About the only set back to the meal was that José was a little slow on his watch.  But I chalked that up to the fact that he was the only server for both the inside dining room and the outside patio.  However, the lunch I had was outstanding - the grilled shredded beef short rib with a mixture of cheeses was wonderful.  And the tots were a great side dish - especially since they had Cholula to go with them.  Tustin Brewing Company was a great place to have lunch, and their menu items showed a flair with pasta and seafood dishes.  This was a good find during my trip to Southern California.  

Royal Khyber - Santa Ana, CA

While out in Southern California earlier this fall, I was in the need for some comfort food one night and my go-to for the past few years for comfort food is Indian.  I did a quick look on the internet for an Indian restaurant in the immediate area.  It turned out there weren't a lot near my hotel, but I found one that was about a 10 minute drive away called Royal Khyber that had been in business a long time and seemed to have a lot good reviews on the place.  

Arun Puri first learned how to cook hanging onto the apron strings of his mother in India.  He later went to Dubai and learned more techniques from a handful of chefs there.  But when he and his wife Urmil migrated to Orange County, California in the late 1970's, they found that there were no Indian restaurants in the immediate area.  In fact, the closest one to their house was up in Los Angeles near the campus of UCLA.  Tired of commuting to get Indian food, Arun and Urmil decided to open up their own restaurant.

The couple found a small space in Newport Beach and opened Royal Khyber in 1981 - the first Indian restaurant in Orange County.  They had great success and eventually outgrew their space in Newport Beach.  Local philanthropist and developer Henry Segerstrom - a fan of Puri's style of Indian cooking - suggested that they move to a new mall area that Segerstrom was developing near the Costa Mesa/Santa Ana city limits.  In 1999, the Puri's moved Royal Khyber to its present day location.  

As I said, it was about a 10 minute drive to get to Royal Khyber which is located along Sunflower Road across the street from South Coast Plaza shopping and entertainment district.  (see map)  I recognized a Maggiano's Little Italy restaurant across the way from a previous visit I had there with a large group on a factory tour some 25 years ago.  

Even though it was a Saturday night, there were a number of tables that were open when I went inside.  I was shown to a table in the back corner of the restaurant.  The South Asian decor was accented by LED lights in the ceiling that would change colors.  The fabric chairs they had at the tables looked like they were straight out of the 1970's.  The good sign to me was that there were a number of Asian and South Asian patrons in the place.  

My server that evening was a young man by the name of Ali.  He was a great kid, sort of soft-spoken and very polite.  He asked me if I wanted some sparkling or regular water and I told him that I just needed the regular water.  Little did I know that he brought out an $8 bottle of European spring water to the table.  I wasn't going to bitch about it, but thought that was a bit deceptive on the restaurant's part.  

I ordered up a large bottle (22 ounces) of Taj Mahal beer to start out.  Ali brought the beer along with a lentil papadum wafer with some plum sauce and a somewhat spicy chutney sauce.  It wasn't overpowering, but it did get my attention after biting into the papadum with the chutney sauce the first time.  

The menu at Royal Khyber was not unlike many other Indian restaurants I've been to in the past.  Tandoori chicken, grilled lamb chops, kebobs, and biryani dishes dotted the menu.  There were a number of vegetarian offerings on the menu, as well as small plates such as curried mussels.  

I had my eye on a couple three things - but I boiled it down to either the butter chicken (I would have rather had butter lamb), and the lamb rogan josh.  I decided to go with the lamb rogan josh - medium in spice level.  I ordered some of the garlic naan to go along with the lamb rogan josh.  

Ali brought the lamb rogan josh out about 10 minutes after I ordered.  It looked promising with a hearty bowl of curried lamb and spices with a rich curried tomato sauce.  Basmati rice came on the side topped with shaved carrots and cilantro.  

Now, I would like to say that the lamb rogan josh was outstanding, but it wasn't.  I mean, it was all right, but it didn't seem to have that distinctive curry and spices flavor that I've had in similar dishes at other Indian restaurants in the past.   And the garlic naan wasn't that great, either.  It really lacked the forward taste of garlic that I've had elsewhere, as well.  I don't want to say the meal was disappointing, but I guess I expected something a bit more exciting in flavors given the longevity of the restaurant.  

And that is probably my synopsis of my meal at Royal Khyber.  For as nice a place and for as long as they've been in business, I thought my meal was underwhelming.  I'm far from an Indian food expert, but I know what I like in certain flavors with Indian cuisine.  And the lamb rogan josh didn't have that pizazz in flavor that I've experienced at other Indian restaurants in the past.  And the garlic naan was sort of bland in its flavor, as well.  The saving grace is that my young server, Ali, did a wonderful job that evening.  Royal Khyber must be doing something right if they've been in business for over 40 years.  But they didn't do it for me.  

Helmsman Ale House - Newport Beach, CA

When we were out in Southern Calfornia earlier this year for the NAMM Show, some friends of ours took my German boss and me out to dinner at a seafood place in Newport Beach.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on The Crab Cooker.)  Just up the road from The Crab Cooker was a building that one of the guys pointed out to me.  "Hey, if you get a chance, you need to try that brew pub.  They have good beer."  I made a mental note of that.  I had to go back out to Southern California a few weeks ago and I got in around 12:45 in the afternoon.  After futzing with the rental car procedure at Avis (that's a story on its own), I finally got out of there just before 2:00 p.m.  I did a quick look up of the address for the brewpub and put it in the GPS before I left the airport.  About 15 minutes later I pulled up to Helmsman Ale House in Newport Beach.  

The Newport Beach Brewing Company - or known as "BrewCo" by the locals - opened in 1995 as the first brewpub in Newport Beach.  The original owners, Orazio "Roz" Salamone and Mike Madlock gained a reputation with the locals for a number of their brews which garnished awards at the Great American Beer Festival held annually in Denver.  

By 2018, Roz Salamone had retired and Madlock was looking to sell the business to move south of the border to Baja California to run a charter sailboat company and to teach sailboating.  In stepped long-time Newport Beach Brewing Co. customer Mario Marovic whose Lounge Group Consulting either owned or co-owned a number of bars and restaurants in the area including Blackie's by the Sea, The Country Club, and Stag Bar + Kitchen.  Along with Andrew Gabriel who co-owned Dory Deli with Marovic, and Brent Ranek who co-owned Malarky's Irish Pub with Marovic, the trio bought Newport Beach Brewing Company in November of 2018.  

Pictured right - Andrew Gabriel and Mario Marovic.  Photo courtesy Orange County Business Journal.  

The group shut down the brewpub for a facelift and renovations for the first 7 months of 2019.  They reconfigured the restaurant into a nautical theme establishment and updated the brewery facilities.  Looking for a seasoned brewmaster Marovic, Gabriel and Ranek had a bit of luck when Dylan Mobley sort of fell out of the sky and into their laps.  Mobley had qualified for the Masters Brewer Program first at the Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago and then at the Doemens Academy just outside of Munich, Germany.  After graduating, Mobley cut his teeth at Stone Brewing in Escondido, CA, then at Angel City Brewery in Los Angeles, and finally became a head brewer at Bottle Logic Brewing in Anaheim, CA.  Mobley had been looking for an opportunity to own his own brewery and had left Bottle Logic working on a deal.  When that deal fell through at the last minute, Mobley was more than happy to join Marovic, Gabriel and Ranek in their new project.  With everyone and everything in place, Helmsman Ale House opened in August of 2019.  

The opportunity for Mobley to own his own brewery came up again in early 2021 when he and some partners bought a small brewery in Anaheim and named it Rad Beer Company.  To take Mobley's place, the group brought in Dylan Macsata to head their brewing operation.   Macsata came over from Stereo Brewing in Placentia, CA where he held the title of assistant brewer.  

After getting my car from Avis (my first - and possibly my last time - I rent from Avis.  I was with Hertz for over 25 years, but that's another story for another time.), it was about a 20 minute drive between John Wayne Airport and Newport Beach and the Balboa Peninsula where Helmsman Ale House is located along Newport Blvd.  (see map)  There's parking in a lot directly behind the brewpub in a parking lot, or parking is available (for a fee) along the street next to Helmsman Ale House. 

Inside, I found a space that had a heavy emphasis on wood - wooden floors, walls, crossbeams and cabinetry in the main dining area.  The main bar area had two sides with a series of flat screen televisions high on the wall.  The dining area had a combination of tables and booths.  There was a stiff breeze coming in off the ocean a couple blocks from Helmsman Ale House giving the nautical-themed restaurant a true seaside touch.  In fact, the breeze was such that it was a bit cold in the restaurant as I had a polo shirt on and probably could have gotten away with a long-sleeved shirt.   

There was a secondary bar area across from the bar which included a pizza oven that was used when the place was the Newport Beach Brewing Company.  I didn't see that pizza offered at Helmsman Ale House, so it was a guess the oven was dormant.  

There was a patio area in the front of the brewpub with part of Helmsman's 15-barrel system off to one side.  Even with plastic coverings over the front of the patio, it was a little too breezy to sit out there.  

In the back near the parking lot entrance was another patio area that featured picnic tables on artificial turf.  There was a 32 foot by 12 foot tent that covered some of the tables on the patio.  Since it was sheltered from the wind coming off the ocean, it would have been a great day to soak up some sun out there. 

Since it was well past the noon rush hour, it wasn't busy in the place, so I ended up seated at the bar.  There was a couple bartenders working, but one was also waiting on tables.  And the other bartender was too busy shooting the breeze with a patron on the other side of the bar.  I sat there for nearly five minutes before I almost bailed.  But the young lady who was also working tables - Katie - came over to greet me.  She handed me a menu and asked what I wanted to drink.  I asked if they had a hazy IPA and she said, "Sure!  The Helmsman Hazy IPA!"  I took a pint of that and enjoyed it thoroughly while I looked through the menu while music from SoCal/West Coast artists such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Weezer, and Presidents of the United States played in the background.   

The food menu at Helmsman Ale House isn't all that extensive, but has brewpub appetizer staples such as chicken wings, beer-battered onion rings, nachos, and crispy Brussels sprouts.  They had a couple sandwiches - a spicy chicken sandwich and a patty melt, along with a chicken & avocado wrap.  The tacos piqued my interest as they had tri-tip, brisket, and grilled shrimp tacos.  They also had chicken & waffles, fish & chips, and a burrito bowl with rice, black beans and veggies with a choice of protein items including tri-tip, brisket, short rib, and ahi tuna.  On weekends, Helmsman Ale House hosts a brunch with items such as a breakfast quesadilla, chicken & waffles, eggs Benedict, and a beef short rib breakfast burrito.  

They had a couple burgers on the menu and I ended up getting the Helmsman Burger - an American Kobe beef patty topped with lettuce, tomato slices, a sliced sweet onion, and bacon.  I had a choice of cheese and I went with the pepper jack cheese on the burger.  It all came on a brioche bun.  The burger came with a side of fries with a tub of ketchup and a tub of a chipotle aioli.  

The burger was - in a word - excellent.  The Kobe beef burger was juicy and flavorful, cooked to a perfect medium with a hint of pink in the middle.  The brioche bun held together very well with the juiciness of the burger and the toppings.  The fries were very good, as well, with a crispy outer shell and a warm flaky center.  The Helmsman Hazy IPA was a great complement to the meal.  

I made it a point to e-mail my friend who turned me onto Helmsman Ale House to thank him for the recommendation.  He'd only had the beer, he told me, but I told him the food I had was very good.  The Kobe burger was excellent as was the Helmsman Hazy IPA.  While the service was a bit choppy at first, Katie did a fine job in taking care of me once she realized I was seated at the bar.  The atmosphere was laid-back and comfortable.  Helmsman Ale House was a great start to a few days in Southern California for a trade show and meetings.  

Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que - Tustin, CA

Out in Southern California for a couple meetings and a trade show, I decided to find some barbecue near my hotel in Irvine.  Southern California barbecue isn't like barbecue in the South or Midwest - there's a lot of Korean barbecue joints and not as many traditional barbecue places available.  And the barbecue joints around the Irvine area are usually "to-go" only places or don't have beer to go along with the barbecue.  I did a search for a barbecue place that offered sit-down service and - most importantly - beer, and I came up with a place in nearby Tustin by the name of Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que.  

Lucille Buchanan's grandmother ran a little barbecue shack outside of Greenville, South Carolina where patrons felt her food was not only the best in the county, but it may have been the best in the state, and just could have been the best in the South!  And growing up, Lucille didn't know any better as she didn't travel any more than 30 miles away from Greenville.  

Since she was tall enough to look over a table top, Lucille was working in her grandma's restaurant clearing and washing dishes during the summer months and on weekends.  Lucille and her grandmother were very close and many of the secrets to her barbecue cooking were passed along to Lucille with the promise never to divulge any of the recipes with anyone.  The spices, the sauces, the mop concoction, and the low-and-slow cooking techniques over hickory wood that Lucille's grandmother used were all learned by Lucille in hopes of possibly running her own barbecue place someday.  

Lucille met Joe Buchanan in the late 30's and were married in South Carolina.  When World War II broke out, Joe signed up for the Navy and was sent out to the shipyards in Long Beach, CA.  Lucille followed him out there and soon found out that there wasn't any barbecue to be had like her grandma's back in South Carolina.  Lucille opened a little lunch counter in Long Beach in the early 40's that featured barbecue, along with her grandma's recipes for buttermilk biscuits, cheese grits and cole slaw. 

It wasn't long before people discovered Lucille's barbecue and said it was the best in all the Southland.  From there, Lucille opened a larger barbecue joint followed by more locations in the later years.

That's a good story, right?  The hell of it is - none of it is true.  

This was the backstory that the Hofman Hospitality Group - which owns Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que - used to promote the brand when they opened the first Lucille's in Long Beach in 1999.  Company owner Craig Hofman is the son of Harold Hofman who opened the first Hofburger stand in Long Beach in the late-40's.  Harold Hofman turned Hofburger into a coffee shop restaurant called Hof's Hut that grew into a small chain of locations in Southern California.  At one point, there were 18 Hof's Hut locations across the region.  

In the late 90's, faced with pressures of smaller coffee chains such as Starbucks, Craig Hofman decided he had to refocus some of the Hof's Hut locations into a new concept.  Hofman realized that there weren't a lot of good barbecue joints in Southern California, so he went off on a barbecue odyssey that took him to restaurants in Texas, North Carolina, Kansas City and Memphis to learn about barbecue.  When he accrued all the information he needed, he turned a Hof's Hut location in Long Beach into the first Lucille's Smokehouse and Bar-B-Que in 1999.  

Hofman's hunch was correct - Lucille's became pretty popular and more locations followed.  Today there are 15 locations across Southern California with one location in Rocklin, CA, a suburb of Sacramento; two locations in Las Vegas; and a single location in the greater Phoenix area.  

For years, corporations that had been selling the public on fake stories that depicted black people and the stereotypes they portrayed as part of the back story of products (read: Aunt Jemima) had decided that it was time to quit using black charactactures.  Even though Hofman Hospitality came clean with the fact there was no Lucille in 2013, they continued to use the back story as part of their restaurant's lore. 

During the Black Lives Matter movement during the pandemic of 2020, Las Vegas-based Culinary Union published a web site that questioned and denounced Hofman Hospitality's back story about Lucille Buchanan that was so prominently featured on menus and on Lucille's web site - down to a grainy black-and-white photo that was supposedly Lucille.  Once the web site went on line, Hofman Hospitality immediately took down the back story about Lucille Buchanan and promptly changed their menus in their restaurants.  Hofman Hospitality has never acknowledged or commented on the Culinary Union web site that is still up to this day.

Now, had I known all that, it would have given me pause to go to a Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que location.  But I went and I pulled up at the Lucille's in Tustin which is located in the District at Tustin Legacy shopping complex around 7:30 one evening.  (see map)  

In front of the restaurant was an outdoor patio area with a covered overhang.  Sturdy wood-topped tables with metal chairs were on the decking.  It was a beautiful Southern California evening, but no one was out there eating on the patio.

The main dining room is just as you come in the main doors to the restaurant.  It was sort of art deco-ish in nature with mahogany-hued high booths and matching table tops.  1930's era light fixtures hung about the tables.  

I waited at the host stand for a moment until someone came to greet me.  He told me that it was open seating that evening and that I could sit anywhere.  I decided to sit at the bar as it was clearing out from three or four people getting up ready to leave.  No sports were on that evening and there was a news program on one TV and some syndicated show on the other TV.  There was a large group in a room off the bar area that was used for parties, private dining or overflow from the main restaurant.  Metal signage that was obviously made for Lucille's covered the walls to the left of the bar.  

Off to the side of the bar was a sitting area that kind of reminded me of a Northwoods cabin's living room.  Wooden chairs and sofas with pleather cushions were situated in a small space for people to sit and enjoy a drink rather than be in the bar area.  I really couldn't figure out if Lucille's was trying to portray themselves as an urban barbecue restaurant with a hint of sophistication, or if they were trying to be an upscale Southern barbecue joint a few steps above a rural shanty barbecue place.  All I know is that they were playing some great music while I was in there.  I heard an old time Boz Scaggs tune, and I was surprised to hear a tune from one of my all-time Southern blues favorites Tinsley Ellis, and they had music from diverse artists such as Muddy Waters, Dustin Lynch and JJ Cale.  

There were a couple bartenders working that night, but the one that took care of me was a young lady by the name of Emily.  She gave me a menu and the beer list was on the wall and they had a number of beer spigots on the wall of the back bar.  I saw that they had Kona Big Wave, but I drink that at home.  I'm trying to drink some of the local beers when I travel and I saw that they had a Hazy Scuplin from one of my favorite California brewers Ballast Point Brewing in San Diego.  I've had their Sculpin IPA many times in the past, but I had never had their hazy IPA.  And it was very good.  

It was a pretty full menu at Lucille's Smokehouse with appetizers, sandwiches, barbecue specialties, and Southern specialties such as fried chicken, jambalaya, New Orleans-style gumbo and a chimichurri-topped sirloin steak.  Barbecue items included baby back and St. Louis-style ribs, pulled pork, smoked chicken, beef brisket, and tri-tip - a California barbecue specialty.  

As I like to do at barbecue restaurants that I've not been to before, I wanted to get a combo plate to try two or three different items.  They had a "Pick Two" combo plate that allows patrons to pick two of their smoked meats including 1/3 rack of pork ribs, 3 bones of beef ribs, 1/2 smoked or barbecued chicken, pulled pork, pulled chicken and some of their other smoked meats.  I went with the smoked tri-tip and the smoked beef brisket that was served on wax paper on a small cookie sheet.  For sides, I got the baked beans and the cole slaw.  A small container of some sort of sauce came on the side in a small metal container.  But it seemed to take a lot of time from when I placed my order with Emily before someone from the kitchen brought the platter out to me.  

I'm a sauce guy and they had 3 different types of sauces available that evening.  (Sauces and a bunch of other stuff are available at Lucille's General Store just as you walk in the door to the right.)  The original was sort of sweet, but lacked originality.  The hot and spicy was basically the original Lucille's sauce with a few spices mixed in.  It was not hot, but it did wake up my tongue.  And they had a tomato/vinegar Memphis sauce that was pretty drab.  The hot and spicy was about the best, but I still wasn't all that impressed by it.  

The brisket, I will say, was very good.  It had a nice smoke ring around the outer edge of the meat and the bark had a bit of a sweet taste to it.  The beef was tender and cut very easily.  I really liked the brisket.

The tri-tip, however, was sort of tough and seemed to be over-cooked.  Different accounts of where tri-tip originated from includes a butcher in the L.A. area in the early 20th century, a restaurant in Long Beach in the mid-50's, and on the cattle ranches of the Central Coast of California in the mid 19th century where ranchers allowed their ranch hands - usually of Mexican descent - to have the triangular bottom section of the sirloin part of a cow.  It's usually a tough cut of meat, but the ranch hands - or vaqueros - were able to cook it over high heat very quickly which sealed in the juices and made it tender - or better known as Santa Maria-style Barbecue.  In the 1950's, a butcher in Santa Maria, CA along the central coast came up with a concoction of seasonings including garlic powder, oregano, onion powder, black pepper and salt along with either some chili powder or cayenne powder as a rub to put on the tri-tip to zip up the taste a bit.  

This tri-tip at Lucille's, however, was dull and lifeless.  I tried dipping it in the watery sauce they had in the small metal cup to see if it would help the taste, but it really didn't.  I make tri-tip at home every once in a while with my own Santa Maria-style rub.  And while my tri-tip usually comes out a nice medium rare-to-medium, this was medium well-to-well.  I usually don't put barbecue sauce on tri-tip, but I had to put some on this tri-tip to make it go down better.

And while the baked beans were pretty good - and even better when I mixed in some of Lucille's hot & spicy barbecue sauce - the cole slaw was horrid.  I asked Emily what kind of cole slaw they had and she said it was a creamy-style.  Well, this cole slaw was decidedly not creamy.  In fact, I'm not sure there was any cream IN the cole slaw.  I seriously think it was just chopped cabbage and shaved carrots with nothing else added.  It was some of the worst cole slaw I've ever had, if not the worst.  

Finding out that Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que was a corporate chain after the fact sort of soured me even more on my experience.  While the beef brisket and the baked beans were good, the tri-tip was woefully overcooked and the cole slaw was a head-scratcher, it was so bad.  Emily's service was fine, but it did seem to take an inordinate amount of time to get my food out to me after I placed my order.  But the music they played was surprisingly very good.  Maybe for Southern California, Lucille's is OK for barbecue.  But I can think of numerous other barbecue places I've eaten at in Missouri, Tennessee and North Carolina that stomps all over Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que.  

Puesto - Anaheim, CA

Out in Southern California for the NAMM Show earlier this year, my vegetarian colleague from Montreal was raving about a Mexican restaurant not far from the Anaheim Convention Center.  "Oh, man," he said effusively.  "I can't remember the name of the place, but I've eaten there 3 or 4 times.  Great food and great margaritas."  We had passed the place walking from our rental home to the convention center earlier in the day, and after we finished setting up our booth, we walked back to Puesto to get a late lunch.  

Eric Adler grew up a 2nd-generation Mexican whose father was originally from Monterrey, Mexico and his mother hailed from Guadalajara.  After the Adlers were married, they moved to the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista where Eric and his brothers Alexander and Alan grew up eating traditional Mexican food.  The family eventually moved to La Jolla before Eric headed out east to go to college at Babson College in suburban Boston.  Babson is noted for their entrepreneurial programs and Adler was hoping their business school would give his post-college career a kick start.  

After graduating in 2006, Adler first thought he'd get into real estate and he studied for his Masters in Real Estate back at San Diego State University.  But then he thought sports management might be a good thing to get into, so he headed back east to study at Georgetown University.  As Adler pursued his Masters in Sports Industry Management, he also interned as an event coordinator for D.C. United in the North American Soccer League.  He later interned for the Washington Wizards of the NBA as a hospitality suite coordinator.  

Pictured right - Eric Adler.  Photo courtesy San Diego Magazine.  

By 2010, Adler eventually got into real estate back in San Diego and was settling in on a career selling commercial properties when his entrepreneurial juices got to boiling.  Invited to a function with his brothers, they were munching on tacos made by caterer/chef Luisteen Gonzales.  The tacos that Gonzales made were definitely more upscale than what you would get from a neighborhood taqueria.  He was making his own corn tortillas and was topping them with marinated steak, wild mushrooms and huitlacoche - also known as corn smut which is a delicacy in Mexican culinary circles.  Gonzales would also make costras – griddled cheese that is wrapped around meat or vegetables, then topped with his own unique style of salsa.  

Over a short period of time, Adler attended a number of events where Gonzales catered the food.  He was struck how his tacos reminded him of the food he and his brothers ate while growing up.  While he wasn't initially thinking about opening a restaurant, he began to talk with Gonzales about teaming up to do sort of an upscale taqueria.  Gonzales had absolutely no interest in running a restaurant - he just wanted to cook and do catering.  Adler figured that he probably had enough business acumen to be able to run the day-to-day operations while allowing Gonzales to work his magic in the kitchen.  

With his brother Alan helping out, Eric Adler wanted to have a restaurant where patrons would think they were in Mexico City.  Adler commissioned a well-known muralist from the San Francisco Bay area to create a mural similar to ones he had seen in taquerias in Mexico City.  In February of 2012, the first Puesto - which means "stand" (as in taco stand) - opened in the Mission Valley neighborhood of San Diego.

As the original Puesto was humming along, Adler brought in his brother Alex and two cousins to be partners in the endeavor.  Adler had always thought about expansion - his business model was built on expanding Puesto's locations - and in 2013 he found a great location on West Harbor Drive in downtown San Diego.  From there, locations opened in La Jolla, two in Irvine, up in Northern California in Concord and Santa Clara, and the location in Anaheim we went to which is right across the street from Disneyland and next to the Anaheim Convention Center in the Westin Anaheim Resort.  (see map)

It was around 2:30 when we walked into Puesto.  Although the restaurant was well past the noon rush hour, it took us a few minutes to be seated.  We hung out in the bar area which featured a rectangular bar with a hanging island full of tequilas, mezcals and agave distilled spirits on shelves.  Drop down metal ladders were spaced about six feet apart which allowed the bartenders to climb up to the upper shelves to retrieve the bottles.  

Off to the side of the bar was a small lounge area.  The little corner of the bar featured an ornate leaded glass wall with hanging panels with LED lighting.  

The restaurant seating areas was just past the bar area.  It was comfortably upscale with plants that gave the dining area a bit of character.  

There was another back corner to Puesto that featured elegant LED light fixtures, alcove booths, and a floor-to-ceiling glass wall.  I thought they'd put us in that area, but they seated us at a table toward the back of the restaurant with banquette seating on one side of the table.  

Even though my co-worker from Montreal raved about the margaritas, I was afraid that one margarita would lead to two which would lead to a nap.  However, we found that Puesto also has their own brewery.  The brewery is located in their Mission Valley location under the lead of head brewer Doug Hasker.  They had six different beers on tap including their award winning Puesto Negra beer, a dark Mexican-style beer which won a silver medal at the Great American Beef Festival.  They also had a light Mexican-style lager, a Mexican amber beer, an IPA, a Mexican pilsner, and a seasonal winter bock beer.  I got the amber beer, my boss from Germany got the pilsner, and my colleague from Montreal got the Puesto Clara, the light Mexican-style beer.  My colleague from France no longer drinks, but he has no problem when people around him do.  

As we looked over the menu, we decided to get some guacamole to go along with the chips and fire-roasted molcajete salsa that was brought to our table.  The guacamole was freshly made and featured chunks of avocado, chopped onions and cilantro with fresh squeezed lime and orange juice mixed in.  The guacamole was excellent and I really liked the smokey taste to the salsa.   

The menu was mainly taco-centric, but they did have entrees such as a short rib birria platter and a shrimp platter.  The short rib enchiladas caught my attention and they also had a chicken chile verde enchilada on the menu.  Appetizers included three different types of ceviche including one served with a chile verde sauce (I almost ordered that), one with a citrus pepper salsa, and a shrimp ceviche with passionfruit, mango and avocado chunks.  Actually, I wouldn't have minded to try all three different ceviches.  

I ended up getting 3 tacos - the pork carnitas taco, the ribeye steak taco and the shredded short rib beef birria taco.  They had a Baja fish taco that featured a beer-battered filet that was deep fried, as well as a chicken al pastor taco.  They also had a pork pozole taco and a shrimp taco on the menu.  The most interesting taco was the Maine lobster taco that was mixed with a jalapeño pico de gallo and a black bean sauce.  

But the tacos I had were very good and had some interesting taste sensations.  All the tacos at Puesto come on a blue corn non-GMO tortilla.  From left to right in the photo - the short rib birria taco topped with a Jalisco salsa and guacamole; the ribeye taco topped with avocado chunks, an asada pico with a tomatillo-árbol salsa, and finished with queso fresco - fresh goat cheese; and the braised pork carnitas topped with a tomatillo sauce and an avocado slice.  All three were very delicious.  

My Montreal co-worker is a vegetarian and he was able to find a couple different tacos on the menu - a mushroom taco and the verduras which featured crispy melted cheese, vegetables, sliced nopales (cactus), and avocado.  The mushroom tacos featured garlic-braised mushrooms along with pickled onions and a stone-fruit serrano salsa.  

While my boss from Germany got a couple tacos - the filet mignon taco and the chicken al pastor taco - my colleague from France got the carnitas bowl.  It featured braised pork along with rice, black beans, pickled onions and a vegetable slaw.  A bit of guacamole came on the side and the black beans were drizzled with a tomatillo sauce.  "This is exactly what I needed," he said between bites.  Everyone was more than happy with their meals.  

Between the guacamole, chips, salsa, along with the 3 tacos, I was more than full.  In fact, I was full the rest of the evening and didn't even think about having dinner.   The food at Puesto was outstanding.

We walked past Puesto a number of times during our stay in Anaheim for the NAMM Show.  I thought about stopping in for some of their ceviche and a margarita a couple times, but I could see the place was packed with the after-show crowd.  Nevertheless, the one visit we made to Puesto was enough for me to figure out that the food was excellent.  The tacos I had - the carnitas, the short rib, and the ribeye - were all delicious and each had a distinctive flavor and zest to each bite.   There are tons of taquerias in Southern California, but the tacos at Puesto were remarkable in their ingredients and taste quality.  

The Crab Cooker - Newport Beach, CA

While we were out at the NAMM Show earlier this year, the father-and-two-sons team from Maag Audio were right behind us with their booth.  My boss from Germany had known the owner who started the business for a number of years and I had the pleasure of meeting the guys the day before the show started.  They even had one of their guys - more of a friend of the two sons - there who worked part-time in their factory.  Of course, we got to talking about food and the guys were effusive of their praise of a seafood restaurant over in Newport Beach.  On Thursday, they invited the four guys from my company out to dinner the following evening.  One of our guys is vegetarian and seafood isn't on his menu, and the one of the other guys from France has dietary restrictions which discourages rich food like seafood.   A quick look at the menu on-line pretty much told him that there wouldn't be anything that he would be able to eat.  So, after the day was done on Friday, my boss from Germany and I piled into their rental van for the 30 minute drive from Anaheim out to Newport Beach for dinner at The Crab Cooker.   

In 1926, Bob Roubian was born to an Italian immigrant mother and an Armenian immigrant father in Pasadena, just north of Los Angeles.  After graduating from high school in 1944, Roubian joined the Navy Seabees seeing action in the Pacific while building bases ramping up to the end of the Pacific Theater of World War II.  After coming back home, Bob helped his father in his construction business.  On the weekends, they'd go deep sea fishing.  They'd cook their catch over an open flame using leftover wood pieces that Bob's father would bring home from construction sites.  Bob learned from his father that frying fish cooked out all the flavor.  

In the late 40's, Bob Roubian was working on a building that used to be a Bank of America branch whose new owners were turning it into a fish market.  Three years later when the opportunity to buy the place came up, Bob jumped at the chance to own his own business.  

Pictured right - Bob Roubian.  Photo courtesy Orange County Register.

Even though there were more than a dozen competitors in the area serving fresh caught seafood.  With the ordinary name "Seafood Varieties" Bob not only cooked the fresh caught seafood, he sold it from counters in his store.  Bob started out frying fish since that's what his competitors did.  But when he returned to his roots by steaming or grilling his seafood, people began to notice.  He set up a steamer in front of the store and cooked crab or locally caught lobster.  It got to a point that people would say, "Let's go to that place with the crab cooker."  The name stuck and Roubian changed the name to The Crab Cooker in 1954.  

To say that Bob Roubian was an interesting guy is an understatement.  Bob was called a "renaissance man" by his family after he passed away in December of 2017 at the age of 91.  Bob was a craftsman who hand-carved the restaurant's front door.  He was a sculptor who made some of the figurines and decorations for his restaurant.  He became a photographer who took a number of photos that hung on the walls in the restaurant.  And he also took up painting with many of his works of art were on display at the restaurant.  He also became a collector of art with much of his collection decorating the walls of The Crab Cooker over the years.  It was said that he sold some of his collected artwork right off the wall to Hollywood stars such as Ray Milland and James Cagney.  

But Bob was also well-known in the 1950's as a songwriter/performer who wrote songs and recorded 45's for Capitol Records.  In 1955, Roubian teamed with country musician Cliffie Stone to co-write and sing a novelty hit "The Popcorn Song" which turned out to be a national hit eventually reaching No. 14 on the Billboard charts.  The royalty income from the song allowed Bob to pay off all debts - including a mounting back-tax bill -  on The Crab Cooker.  

Bob continued to write, record and perform music and even went out on tour to promote his songs with his wife Helen and their two children Robbie and Rhonda (Ronnie) running the restaurant.  However, by the end of the 50's, he'd had enough of the travel and gave up the music business to fully concentrate on The Crab Cooker.

The Crab Cooker was a very popular place to eat.  It was common to see lines form out the door and around the building.  In addition to James Cagney and Ray Milland, celebrities and politicians such as John Wayne and Richard Nixon frequented the restaurant.  There was a time when Nixon was president in the early 70's that his advance team came to The Crab Cooker during the height of the evening rush asking Roubian to find space for the president to eat.  Bob reportedly said, "He can wait in line with the other people waiting to eat, as would any president who wanted to get in."  

Jim Wasko was a 1984 graduate of the Naval Academy and he eventually married Ronnie Roubian.  As a reconnaissance pilot for the Navy, the Wasko family moved from base to base for his assignments.  When the Waskos moved from Guam to a new assignment at the Naval Air Station at Point Mugo near Oxnard, the family finally got to spend more time at The Crab Cooker.  In 1990, Jim Wasko left the Navy and entered into a partnership with his father-in-law to run The Crab Cooker.  

Wasko adopted many of Bob Roubian's tried and true methods of cooking fish and running the restaurant.  Cooking the seafood over mesquite and lightly - or never - seasoning the fish was a key to the success of the restaurant.  In 1993, Wasko opened a second Crab Cooker location in Tustin, about 12 miles northeast of Newport Beach.  It, too, became an instant hit with people who didn't have to make the drive out to Newport Beach to enjoy The Crab Cooker.

Pictured left - Jim Wasko.  Photo courtesy Medium.com

In 2014, a new condominium building was being built next to The Crab Cooker in Newport Beach.  Construction workers accidentally damaged the foundation of the 76-year-old building.  City of Newport Beach engineers said that the building was safe for occupancy, but it turned out that they couldn't restore the building's foundation.  The restaurant stayed open for four more years even as the building began to list to one side.  It was determined that it would be better to evacuate the building and rebuild a new Crab Cooker.  Wasko closed the doors to the restaurant at the end of September 2018.   

Wasko estimated that it would be a year - 18 months tops - to have the old building razed, then rebuilt on the same spot.  But plumbing issues caused by foundation problems effectively pushed back the new opening by 8 months.  After an intensive re-engineering of the foundation (it was found the foundation was in unstable sand rather than bedrock), it was late 2019 when the foundation was poured.  Then, of course, the pandemic hit in March of 2020 causing logistical problems with workers in the space.  No more than 10 workers could be on the property at any time and all had to be spaced apart appropriately.  But by the summer of 2021, everything was back in place - including the hand-crafted door and the 12-foot long mounted great white shark that had been caught off the Newport Beach pier in 1960 - and the Newport Beach location of The Crab Cooker reopened for business.  

We finished the day at the NAMM show and one of the guys from Magg Audio had left early to go get their rental van and to meet us at a lot near the Anaheim Convention Center.  It was about a 20 minute drive from where we were picked up and the front of The Crab Cooker located at the corner of Newport Boulevard and 22nd St.  (see map)  We were let off at the front door while our driver took off to find a space to park in just around the corner on 22nd St.  

There was a line that stretched back to the door when we walked in.  But it seemed to be moving fast.  As we stood in line I noticed all the fresh seafood they had on sale in a case by the front door.  And the seafood wasn't cheap.  Large salmon and mahi mahi filets were $19.95 a pound.  Whole Dungeness crabs were $25.95, and King crab claws were $74.95!  

When one of the guys checked in at the hostess counter, he asked if we could have Caroline as our server.  They had been there a couple days before and Caroline waited on them.  Turns out Caroline was a perky blonde with a great sense of humor.  She was more than accommodating and very patient with six guys who were constantly changing their minds or asking for something after they forgot to ask for it before.  

We were seated at a long table in the front dining room.  It was an interesting mix of artwork, photographs and kitsch with the great white shark hanging from the tin-plate ceiling.  The shark was facing my boss who looked up at one point and said, "Jesus, he looks like he's coming after me!"  

Behind windows in the front dining was the kitchen area where a large kettle grill that was used to cook the seafood.  I couldn't tell if it was one of the Weber industrial kettles that I've seen at one of their Weber Grill restaurants, but it was definitely at least 42" across.  A flattop grill next to the kettle grill was in use making their famous Romano cheese mashed potatoes.  The potatoes are put on the grill to give them a crispy edge maintaining the fluffy inner core of a combination of potatoes and cheese.

The back dining area was bigger than the front and not quite as gaudy.  More historic photographs, artwork and stained-glass windows were on display in the room.  It also seemed a little more quiet in that room, probably because it had a vaulted ceiling with wooden beams over the dining room.  

Caroline had given us menus to look over and a couple of the guys already knew what they were going to get - the lobster skewer.  But they also had other seafood varieties on skewers - shrimp, scallops, and oysters all cooked over mesquite.  They had a salmon filet that tempted me, but I knew I couldn't eat cooked salmon.  They did have a smoked salmon appetizer that I damned near ordered, but we were guests and I didn't want to appear to be taking advantage of our host's hospitality.  Crab cakes, King crab legs, and soft-shell crabs were also part of the dinner menu.  

Appetizers on the menu included the aforementioned smoked salmon, but they also had smoked albacore tuna, as well.  Shrimp cocktails, oysters and clams on the half-shell (I'd never had clams on the half-shell), and calamari were also part of the appetizer portion of the menu.  But our host insisted that we try The Crab Cooker's clam chowder.  It was a Manhattan-style clam chowder in a rich and somewhat spicy tomato broth.  I spiced it up even more with a few shakes of Tabasco into the chowder.  It tasted wonderful and went very well with the Hazy IPA from the Harland Brewing Co. out of San Diego.  Some of The Crab Cooker's famous Fisherman's bread had been ordered and I dipped some into the broth after spooning out the meaty clams that proliferated the chowder.  Crispy bread sticks, crackers and these little bread bites also came with the chowder.

After we all had ordered, Caroline had come out with paper plates and plastic utensils for us to use.  Now, this thoroughly confused my boss from Germany who had probably never eaten on paper plates and used a plastic fork or knife at a sit down restaurant before.  I had to assure him that a lot of the seafood "shacks" I've eaten at in the past were like this.  It wasn't like I had to talk him down from a ledge, but I told him to just go with the flow.  Once he understood what was going on, he was good with it.  

When our food came out, I don't think anyone cared what they were served on.  I went with the wholesale recommendation of the lobster skewer.  Two sides were also included in the meal and I went with the Romano cheese potatoes and the cole slaw.  The cheese potatoes were excellent, but cole slaw was sort of "meh!"  I also had the choice of rice pilaf or sliced tomatoes.  I should have gone with the tomatoes.  

And the lobster skewer was everything the guys raved about beforehand.  The grilled lobster meat had a bit of a char on the outside, but it was tender and juicy on the inside.  It was about 8 to 10 ounces of lobster meat and it was great, but it was - oh! - so rich.  I was definitely full after I finished the skewer and the potatoes.  (And I continued to load up on the Fisherman's bread.  It was killer.  They make about 600 loaves of it a day.)  

One of the other guys got the shrimp and scallops skewer.  I looked long and hard at that on the menu before I made my final choice of the lobster skewer.  It featured pieces of shrimp and scallops that were spaced apart by little slices of bacon.  "I've had the lobster skewers before," he said.  "But this is out of the world.  The bacon just adds some kick to the overall flavor of the shrimp and scallops."  A small tub of melted butter came on the side with the skewers.  We had Caroline running back to the kitchen to get us all more butter about halfway through our meals.  

Of course, Caroline tried to tempt us with dessert, but by the time we were done we'd all thrown in the towel.  The richness of the seafood skewers just put us all back in our chairs patting our stomachs.  It was an outstanding meal.  We were all pretty quiet as we drove back toward our rental house where they graciously dropped us off and continued on to their hotel for the night.

The next day, we profusely thanked our hosts who took us to The Crab Cooker the night before.  They were ecstatic that we liked it so well.  How could we not?  The Crab Cooker is one of the more popular seafood places in Orange County, the food was outstanding and the service we received from Caroline was A+.  It was no wonder those guys asked if she could wait on our table after she had taken care of them a few nights before.  The Crab Cooker turned out to be one of more memorable visits to a restaurant I've ever experienced.

 

The NAMM Show - Anaheim, CA

For years, one of the most famous shows for professional sound has been the annual National Association of Music Merchants, or the NAMM Show in Anaheim, CA.  My company had shown at NAMM in the past in conjunction with their former North American distributor - the former company I worked with for nearly 20 years.  We decided last year that we needed to make our presence known at the show this year to let everyone know that we were now on our own in North America.  I had never been to a winter NAMM Show, so I was sort of excited.  (I'd been to a couple of the summer NAMM shows in Nashville.  The summer show is much smaller than the winter NAMM.)   

The NAMM show is one of the oldest trade shows of its type in the world.  The origins of the show date back to 1902 when the National Association of Piano Dealers of American - NAPDA - had their first convention in Baltimore.  10 years later the association changed their name to the National Association of Piano Merchants of America and the show changed its name to the NAPMA Convention.  

By 1919, the rise of early jazz and marching band music forced the organization to change their name to the present day National Association of Music Merchants. The NAMM Show was held the next 50 years alternating between Chicago and New York City.  In 1937, the show required people to register in advance for the first time.  237 attendees and 86 manufacturers ranging from piano manufacturers and distributors, to music publishers, to radio and phonograph manufacturers were at the show in New York.  

In 1970, NAMM added a west coast show that was alternately held in either San Francisco or Los Angeles.  It moved permanently to Anaheim in 1979 under the name Winter Music & Sound Market while continuing to have a summer show in Chicago.

By 1990, the summer NAMM Show at McCormick Place in Chicago had lost its luster - it was so poorly attended that people referred to that year's show as "The Wake by the Lake".  In 1993, the summer show moved to Nashville and was more of a guitar and recording studio show.  20 years later, the Anaheim convention was renamed the NAMM Show and in 2018 the show expanded into the new north hall at the Anaheim Convention Center.   

The pandemic meant some changes in the NAMM Show which saw a record attendance of 115,000 attendees in January of 2020.  The show was cancelled in 2021 and it was moved to the summer in 2022 with just over 46,000 in attendance.  The 2023 show was held in April last year and moved back to its regular date in late January this year.   However, attendance was still about 40% lighter than their record year in 2020 and about 15% lower than anticipated attendance by show organizers.  

Our company debated back and forth about the merits of going to NAMM this year.  Talking with many of our accounts in North America in the previous months, they all thought it would be a good thing if we had a presence at the show.  But showing at NAMM is expensive.  We decided to do a small booth - a 10' x 10' foot print in the north hall.  I have to say that my colleague Stef from Montreal did a stellar job spearheading the plans for our appearance at the show.  

One of the other things we had to deal with was housing.  I suggested that we stay at a hotel and rent a car to get us back and forth.  But being the rookie in our group at NAMM, that was roundly shut down.  We decided to rent a house in the area through VRBO.  

The house was a 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath house about a mile walk from the Anaheim Convention Center and about 3/4's of a mile from Disneyland.  In fact, the house was set up more for families than for 4 conventioneers as it had a game room, multiple strollers, tricycles and kiddie bikes, bunk beds, extra smaller beds in the bedrooms, and a large common area for families to gather for dinner or whatever.  The funny thing is that we only found 2 of the 3 baths that had showers in them - 3 of us shared that one while our boss from Germany took the big room with the private bathroom.  

It was after we had all gotten home that I realized the 3rd shower was in the pool house next to the garage that had been converted to a game room.  Our international sales manager from France had the bedroom that had doors that allowed him to walk out to swim in the pool - which he did numerous times during our stay - and he noticed the small building at the far end of the pool next to a covered patio.  "I never even thought to look in there," he said later on.  "But who would want to walk out to another building just to take a shower in the morning!"  

The back patio area was very nice and relaxing with a covered patio with a gas grill, a hot tub, a seating area with a table-top gas heater, and there was an orange tree from the neighbors next door that my Montreal-colleague - who is about 6'4" - could reach up and grab oranges to eat off the tree.  We were close enough to Disneyland to be able to watch the fireworks they would shoot off at night.  

It was about a 30-minute walk one-way between the house and the convention center and the weather was absolutely gorgeous the whole time we were there.  We were lucky - our stay was sandwiched between two large storms that wreaked havoc on Southern California the week before and the week after we were there.  It rained lightly one morning while we were there, but by the time we left the house to walk over to the convention center, it had cleared off and was just a bit muggy.  My colleague from Montreal said, "I've come to NAMM for 12 years and that was the first time I ever saw it rain here."  

We made dinner on our own a couple times - two of our guys Ubered over to a grocery store nearby, while a liquor store near us actually delivered a bunch of beer, wine and liquor to our house.  The other nights, we did Uber Eats - two nights sushi and two nights Thai.  And it was way too slick.  I passed around my computer for the guys to order what they wanted, I clicked on the "order" button and each time it was less than 30 minutes and the Uber driver was pulling up to the house with the deliveries.  And the sushi and Thai food were excellent - the Thai was still warm when delivered, and the sushi was fresh and very good.  I overate the whole time we were there as there was also a great burrito place in the food court at the Anaheim Convention Center.  I think I gained 10 pounds while I was there.  

After we all got home, we were talking during a Zoom meeting about how well we all got along during our time together.  "No drama, no problems, no hard feelings," our guy from France said.  "I don't get along with my boys as well as we all got along in Anaheim."

And it was a good show for us.  We were situated in an area where a number of friends in the industry were also showing.  Good friends of mine from my previous job were showing their gear just across the aisle from us, a company from Utah that makes similar gear as we do - but we're friendly with - was directly behind us.  A Southern California headphone manufacturer that uses our headphone amplifiers and digital-to-analog converters to display their wares was just down the aisle.  We made new friends with some of the other small booths surrounding us.  

It wasn't the epicenter of celebrity-sightings - the musicians and performers were hanging out in another hall with manufacturers such as Gibson, Fender, Marshall and other companies.  But we did have the "who's-who" of recording engineers and producers such as Bob Clearmountain (Bruce Springsteen, Huey Lewis and the News, Bon Jovi); Gentry Studer (Bush, Ryan Adams, Metallica), Darrell Thorp (Foo Fighters, Beck, Paul McCartney), and Michael Romanowski (Alicia Keys, Peter Frampton, George Strait) who stopped by to say, "Hi!" as all of them use our gear in their studios.  

Each year, the NAMM TEC Awards are given out in 24 categories ranging from studio monitors to microphones to signal processing to wireless technology.  Our company had 4 products in the finals this year - the most we had ever had in nearly 15 years of showing at NAMM.  But our boss was convinced that we would not win.  ("We don't spend enough money to win like the big companies do," he said with a shred of sarcasm.)  So, we didn't go to the awards on Saturday night and hung out at the rental home eating sushi, drinking beer and wine, and watching basketball - all the while wondering if we really WOULD win an award.    

The next day, a mastering engineer from Brazil who we were friendly with came by and told us that he had gone to the awards banquet the night before and said that we had won for our stereo image enhancer that is one of - no, it is - the best selling product we have.  We couldn't verify it and we were skeptical, but later in the day I was able to bring the TEC Awards site up on my phone and - sure enough - we did win!   We were absolutely floored!  We thought that maybe the same people who came around with our table placards touting our products that had made the finals would come by with our award.  Nope - never happened.  And trying to get the award from the TEC Award people in the days and weeks after the show was over turned out to be quite the ordeal.   

For our first big trade show after going direct in North America, I'd have to say that it was a rousing success all the way around.  Four 50-year-old-plus men in a house didn't have any problems being around each other for hours on end.  We ate some good food and probably drank more than we should.  We reconnected with people and made our presence known in the professional audio industry once again.  But it was expensive to show at NAMM - booth costs, transportation costs and housing costs were well over $25,000 - a chunk of change for our little company from Germany.  The jury is still out if we're going to go back to the NAMM Show in 2025, but if we do we've already said that we'll probably have to send one guy to the awards ceremony because - who knows?  We may win another award!

North Italia - Irvine, CA

While I was out in Southern California last fall, I was jonesin' big time for some Italian food - especially something with either a marinara or a bolognese sauce.  I did a quick look on line to see if there were any good Italian places in the immediate area around my hotel.  I did find one place that sounded like it fit the bill - North Italia.  I headed over to North Italia to get my Italian food fix.  

Of course, I had no idea that North Italia was a chain restaurant of casual Italian restaurants with nearly 3 dozen locations in 13 states and the District of Columbia.  The reason I didn't know about North Italia is because the restaurants are located in states and cities that I either haven't traveled to or haven't been to on a regular basis.  (Although there is a North Italia in the Kansas City suburb of Leawood, KS.)  

The man behind North Italia has quite the story behind him.  It turns out that Sam Fox is a serial restaurateur who has been a 10-time James Beard Award semi-finalist for Restaurateur of the Year and has a New York Times best-selling cookbook author, and has been named numerous times as one off the Top 50 annual restaurant influencers by Nation's Restaurant News.  But Fox almost went into real estate and if it wasn't for a flat tire, he'd probably be selling real estate in Arizona.  

Fox came from a family of restaurant owners.  His grandparents ran restaurants and his parents owned restaurants in Tucson, AZ, most notably the popular Hungry Fox, a local institution that has been in business for 60 years.  Upon the advice from his parents and grandparents to stay away from the restaurant business, Sam Fox went to the University of Arizona to study real estate finance.  One summer while working for a local realtor, his boss asked him to go to his home and fix a flat tire for his wife.  Fox dutifully went to his boss' home and changed the tire, then he went back to the real estate office and quit on the spot.  Fox was determined that he was not going to work for anyone again.

Pictured right - Sam Fox.  Photo courtesy Arizona Republic

Fox dropped out of college, then set about to open his first restaurant.  At the age of 20, Fox opened Gilligan's Bar and Grill (now Gilligan's Pub) in Tucson.  Fox ran it for three years taking little to no income for himself and ended up selling the restaurant for $500,000.  That was his seed money that he needed to start his next venture which became Wildflower, a contemporary American cuisine restaurant that Fox founded in 1998.  

Eventually moving to Phoenix, Fox established Fox Restaurant Concepts and the company oversaw the development of restaurants such as Blanco Cocina + Cantina; Flower Child, a healthy farm-to-fork fast casual concept; The Arrogant Butcher, which focuses on upscale American comfort food; and Culinary Dropout, a casual American-style bistro.  

In 2002, Fox opened the very first North Italia in Scottsdale.  More North Italia's opened in the Phoenix area before migrating to California and Texas.  By 2019, Fox's holding company was overseeing 12 different restaurant concepts employing nearly 4,000 people.  

In 2016, Fox realized that he was spreading himself thin in terms of money for his plans of expansion, especially for the North Italia and Flower Child brands.  It was then that Cheesecake Factory, Inc. - the parent company of The Cheesecake Factory - came in with a cash infusion.  Cheesecake Factory, Inc. invested in Fox Restaurants Concepts with money earmarked for North Italia and Flower Child expansion in 2016.  The expansion plans went so well that Cheesecake Factory, Inc. invested more money in the two restaurants in 2017.  Once again, the investment proved to be good for both Fox and Cheesecake Factory, Inc. and more money was infused into the two restaurant brands in 2018.  In total, Cheesecake Factory, Inc. invested about $88 million into North Italia and Flower Child.  

Obviously, Cheesecake Factory, Inc. saw a great thing happening with their investments in the two Fox Restaurants group restaurants and in 2019 they came to Fox with an offer - $308 million for the Fox Restaurants Concepts group of restaurants.  Fox agreed - only if he could stay on and continue to oversee the 12 different restaurants under the Fox Restaurants umbrella.  Usually, the CEO of a restaurant group that is getting acquired usually takes his cash and runs, so Cheesecake Factory, Inc. execs were more than pleased to allow Fox to stay on board.

Under Cheesecake Factory, Inc.'s ownership, North Italia has flourished.  Sales were up 21% in 2021 and they expanded the North Italia brand into markets such as San Diego, Atlanta and Miami.  30 years after opening his first restaurant on a shoestring, Sam Fox has become a multimillionaire and has been one of the top influencers in the restaurant business over the past 15 years culminating in having his company purchased for 9 figures.  Not bad for a guy whose parents and grandparents told him to stay out of the restaurant business!  

It was a drizzly day in Southern California when I went to North Italia.  The Irvine location for the restaurant is located in a complex of restaurants, stores and markets at the corner of Carlson Ave. and Michaelson Dr.  (see map)  Because there were a number of popular eating establishments in the area, the parking lot was packed.  I could have valet parked the car at North Italia (it shares a valet area with a Ruth's Chris steakhouse across the way), but I went the cheap route and found a parking spot after a couple minute drive around the parking lot.  

The main dining room was a large room with a high ceiling made with wood slats and large windows on three sides letting in a lot of natural light.  The recessed lighting was still noticeable on the diners thanks to the cloudy skies that day.   In the back of the restaurant was a large window that looked in on the kitchen.                                          

There was an outdoor patio behind the bar in the front of the restaurant.  An awning over part of the patio shielded patrons from the on-and-off drizzle that was going on that day.  There were some people who were under large umbrellas away from the awning.  

As I normally do when I have the chance at a restaurant like this, I ended up at the bar area.  An open window that allowed people to eat at the bar from the patio was facing me as I sat at the inside bar.  It was a trio of bartenders that day who were working behind the bar and the first one who came up to me was named Brian.  He was soft-spoken and sort of laid-back.  I ordered a Peroni beer from Brian to get started.

The lunch menu at North Italia was still on when I was there.  (You can click here to see the dinner menu, but I didn't see much difference between the two.)  I was definitely going for some sort of pasta dish, but they also had sandwiches, wood-fired pizza, a braised short rib entree, and a chicken parm entree.  Starters included calamari, bruschetta with prosciutto, and a shrimp scampi appetizer.  They also had a number of salads on the menu where you could add either chicken or salmon for protein.  

For pasta dishes, North Italia had a crushed meatball ragu with bucatini pasta, a spicy vodka rigatoni, and tiger shrimp and calamari with squid ink tonnarelli pasta in a spicy tomato sauce.  But I ended up getting what appeared to be their signature pasta dish, the tagliatelle pasta with a traditional house-made bolognese sauce topped with a grated Grana Padano cheese and sprinkled with wild oregano.

The only problem was that I seemed to be sitting there for quite sometime before I realized people at the bar who had come after me were getting their food.  I noticed at some other restaurants during my trip to Southern California that it took an inordinate amount of time between the time I ordered and when I finally got my food.  Most of the places were busy and North Italia was no different.  Still, I wasn't in that big of a hurry.  

While ordering my third beer while I was sitting there, I asked Brian what the hold-up was on my food.  He looked sort of perplexed and said, "Man, I don't know.  You don't have your food yet?"  And off he went.  

Moments later a manager came up and apologized for not getting my food out to me.   He said that they had misplaced the order in the kitchen and promised it would be out shortly - and it was.  But I certainly didn't get a discount or a free beer out of the deal.  

But it was worth the wait.  The tagliatelle pasta with the bolognese sauce was the perfect spot-hitter for my pasta craving.  The fresh wild oregano gave the pasta a bold and pungent kick to the overall flavor.  But it was light and not so filling.  It was just enough food to satisfy my appetite.  

If I were to come across another North Italia restaurant in my travels, I'd probably consider it - especially if I couldn't find something local and in the immediate area.  But each North Italia location is a bit different from the others in terms of their menus, so what I had at the one in Irvine might be different from one that I may run into in Arizona or Washington D.C.  The tagliatelle bolognese pasta was very good and the perfect dish to quell my pasta hankering.  Other than the kitchen forgot to get my meal out to me, the service was fine and it was a nice place to get a meal.   For a serviceable Italian restaurant, I'd give a "thumbs up" for North Italia.   

Bear Flag Fish Co. - Newport Beach, CA

Out in Southern California last fall, I was hungry for some good fish tacos.  I knew there had to be a number of places near the Pacific Ocean that had great fish tacos that were made with fresh-caught seafood.  I found this one place on line that looked promising over in Newport Beach that was located on the Lido Peninsula in that city's downtown area.  Later that night I headed over to Bear Flag Fish Co.  

It turned out that I hit the jackpot on a place that has fresh caught seafood for their tacos as Bear Flag Fish Co. has their own fleet of fishing boats that go out daily into the Pacific Ocean to bring back only the freshest caught seafood.  And the captain of the fleet - and the owner of Bear Flag Fish Company - is Thomas Carson.   

Thomas "Thos" Carson grew up in Newport Beach and learned to love the ocean at an early age.  His father was a steel fabricator by day and built his own fishing boat when Thomas was a baby.  Thomas' father started to fish commercially his boat - Bear Flag (the California state flag as a grizzly bear on it) - when Thomas and his brother were younger, both boys heading out to sea with their dad for the daily catch.  The Carson family would go as far south as just off the Mexican coast or up to the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara to catch fish.  

Eventually, Carson worked on other people's commercial boats in various roles - scrubber, deck hand, chef, first mate, captain.  But the land eventually called and Carson put his chef training to work by working in restaurants, primarily in sushi restaurants.  

Pictured right - Thomas "Thos" Carson.  Photo courtesy Orange County Register. 

It was at sushi places where Carson put his knowledge of fresh fish to the forefront.  Carson could tell the quality of the fish - whether it had been stressed when it was caught - from first glance and a couple touches along the side.  

It wasn't long before Carson wanted to get into the restaurant business.  He found a spot in Newport Beach in what was an old garage.  With the help of his father - who did a lot of line work and welding for the renovation - Thos Carson transformed the garage into a 1200 square foot restaurant.  Along with his wife Erika, the Carsons opened Bear Flag Fish Company in 2007.  

The word about Bear Flag's awesome fish tacos - caught fresh in the morning and thrown on ice in their own fishing boat - spread like wildfire in Orange County.  Lines out the door and down the street in front of the restaurant were the norm.  But people stood in line for the tacos and it was definitely worth the wait.  

Within a year, Thos Carson realized that he needed a bigger place and found a spot just down the street from his original location.  This space was about 1500 square feet and he was able to put in a fish counter to sell fresh fish caught from his boat in addition to selling the freshest fish tacos in Newport Beach.  The Newport Peninsula location located in downtown Newport Beach opened in 2008.  

In March of 2012, Carson opened a second location in the Crystal Cove Promenade shopping mall along the Pacific Coast Highway on the south end of Newport Beach.  A third Bear Flag Fish Company location opened in 2016 up the road in Huntington Beach in the brand new Pacific City beachfront shopping and entertainment complex.   All three Bear Flag Fish Company locations offer fresh catch seafood caught from not only the two fishing boats Thos Carson continues to operate, but from other local fishermen Carson is friendly with.  

I set off heading west on the 55 Freeway from Irvine toward Newport Beach.  The freeway literally drains into downtown Newport Beach and my GPS took me right by Bear Flag Fish Company.  The only problem was that I didn't see it.  The building is small and there's no distinct sign in front of the place to let the first-timers like myself that this is the place.  I ended up heading out onto Lido Isle before turning around and heading back up Via Lido.  As I got up to where the GPS said Bear Flag was supposed to be and I saw a mast with an American flag on top with small burgee pennants hanging on cables on the side of the mast.  A small sign on the side of the white brick New England-style building announced that I had found it.  After some maneuvering with my rental car, I was able to park just across the street from Bear Flag.  (see map)

Upon entering Bear Fish I found a small space with counter-service.  Bright white tiles were on the facade of the counter and further down was a sushi bar and seating.  A large mounted swordfish was prominent on the wall above the menu hanging below.  There was a small seating area inside with more seating on a patio outside a back door and another small patio off to the side.  

Off to the left side from the service counter/sushi bar was the fish counter filled with filet cuts of fresh seafood.  And everything looked fresh - there was no discoloration between the slabs of tuna cuts that I usually see at seafood markets back in the midwest.  The sword fish and tuna filets had my mouth watering.  

Even though I was set in getting fish tacos that evening, Bear Flag Fish Company also had tuna, salmon or octopus poké, sushi, ceviche, and seafood platters with a choice of fish and two sides.  They had poké available by the pound and I had a refrigerator back in my room.  I seriously thought about getting a pound of the tuna poké to take back to my room to snack on while I was in Southern California.  

I placed my order at the front counter and the young lady gave me a small flag with the order number on it to place on top of the table wherever I sat in the place.  I took a small table on the side patio and sipped on a Stone Hazy IPA that they had on tap while I waited for my fish tacos.  

It had been about 20 minutes and I still hadn't gotten my fish tacos.  I was starting to worry that possibly the order didn't get in - the girl at the front counter where I placed my order was getting trained that evening - and I began to think that possibly something got wrong.  I thought 20 minutes for 3 fish tacos was sort of long, considering the place wasn't all that busy that evening. I was just getting ready to go back to the counter to check on my order when a guy brought out the basket of tacos.  

I got three different tacos, a seared bluefin tuna taco, a Scottish salmon taco, and a shrimp taco.  I thought that possibly the Scottish salmon would be smoked, but it was cooked.  I generally can't eat cooked salmon since I got sick on salmon in France about 15 years ago.  But it wasn't too pungent and the combination of the cabbage and pico de gallo laid across the salmon helped mask some of the smell and taste of the cooked salmon.  (Salmon sushi - I have absolutely no problem with.  Smoked salmon sushi is probably my favorite kind of sushi.)  

The shrimp taco was fine - it was chunks of shrimp that were flat-grilled in butter.  But the seared bluefin tuna taco - OH MY GAWWWD!  The taste of the tuna was so fresh I could easily tell it was probably caught earlier in the day.  I'm still kicking myself to this day for not getting all three tacos with the seared bluefin tuna.  It was just fabulous.  

I needed fish tacos while I was in Southern California and I believe I may have gone to the best place in Orange County for my fix.  Bear Flag Fish Company had the freshest catch available for their tacos.  The seared bluefin tuna tacos were absolutely amazing, the flavor of that taco stomped all over the taste of the Scottish salmon and grilled shrimp taco in the triumvirate of tacos I got.  The place isn't big and I was lucky there weren't a lot of people in there that evening.  But it did seem to take an inordinate amount of time to get my fish tacos once I did place the order.  But the wait was well worth it.  You want some of the best fish tacos you've ever had?  Don't hesitate if you're in Orange County to go to one of the three Bear Flag Fish Company locations.       

Rance's Chicago Pizza - Costa Mesa, CA

Spending a few days in Southern California last fall, I was sort of hankering for a pizza.  Most of the pizza places I found on line seemed to be Neapolitan, wood-fired, artisan pizzas with vegetarian toppings and blistered crust.  No, I wanted a PIZZA - Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms with a tangy sauce and a thin, crisp crust.  Lo and behold, a pizza place jumped out at me when I saw a place on-line that featured the 3 different styles of Chicago pizza - deep-dish, stuffed and thin-crust/ tavern-style.  And it wasn't far away from my hotel.  I ended up heading over to Rance's Chicago Pizza in Costa Mesa.

In 1991, Rance Ruiz and Aaron Tofani met for the first time at a Little League practice in Long Beach and became fast friends.  As they grew up, Tofani took the pragmatic route in life studying business and finance at Cal State Fullerton.  He continued his post-graduate education in real estate and construction finance and analysis at University of California-Irvine, then got his Master's in real estate development from the University of Southern California.  

While Tofani toiled away at school, Ruiz was trying to figure out what he wanted to do in life.  He visited his sister who was going to college up in Berkeley at California and one evening they visited Zachary's, a Chicago-style pizza joint that was a favorite of people living in the East Bay.  It was at Zachary's that Ruiz had his epiphany in life - he needed to find the best of the best Chicago-style deep dish/stuffed pizza and figure out how to do it on his own.  The only problem - there weren't any true Chicago-style deep dish pizza places in Orange County. 

For the next few years, Ruiz traveled the country to find different styles of pizza.  He got to the point where he would get a pizza and try to dissect the ingredients, even going back to the pizza parlor to ask the owner or head cook exactly what was in the sauce or the dough.  It was basically trail and error for Ruiz at that point trying to come up with the perfect pan-stuffed pizza.

By 2011, Ruiz figured that he had it down and opened up his first pizza joint in Yorba Linda, CA - P.H.A.T., an acronym for "Pretty Hot and Tasty."  The problem was that Ruiz knew how to make pizza, but he didn't know the business side of things.  P.H.A.T. was open for about a year before Ruiz closed the business.

That's when his childhood friend Aaron Tofani came to Ruiz to offer his assistance.  Tofani knew everything that had to come together to get a business of the ground, a good location, the correct procedures, the right name for the business, and having a cash flow to keep the doors open.  With Tofani on board as a partner, Ruiz didn't have to worry about the day-to-day operations of the business allowing him to make his Chicago-style pizzas in the kitchen.  

Pictured right - Aaron Tofani and Rance Ruiz accepting their Golden Foodie award for the best pizza in Orange County in 2016.  Picture courtesy Rance's Chicago Pizza - Costa Mesa Facebook page.  

The business partners settled upon finding a place in Costa Mesa based upon demographic studies of age groups in the area.  They found a small space in the Costa Mesa Square shopping center and in early December of 2012 Rance's Pizza had a soft-opening before opening full bore in January of 2013.  

Rance's Chicago Pizza was an instant hit.  They offered the holy trinity of Chicago-style pizzas - pan, stuffed and thin crust tavern-style pizza.  There was nothing like Rance's pizza in Southern California.  Chicago ex-pats, patrons who had visited pizza places in Chicago, and those who were wanting to see what the hubbub was all about streamed into Rance's small 67-seat restaurant from the first day.  

By 2016, the business partners were looking to expand.  They set their sight on their old neighborhood of Long Beach, the Belmont Shore area.  In February of 2017, the Long Beach location for Rance's opened their doors.  

In 2018, Tofani had a chance to put in a Rance's in the USC Village dining hall at Southern Cal.  A third Rance's opened there and things weren't right from the start.  School administrators had promised that Rance's would be part of the network of USC student credit cards that could be used to pay for food on campus.  However, that turned out not to be true and Rance's (along with one other restaurant) closed their doors and filed suit against USC for fraud and deception.  It was probably a good thing as it allowed Ruiz and Tofani to focus on the two successful locations for Rances.  

Rance's Pizza in Costa Mesa was about a 15 minute drive from my hotel.  It was somewhat difficult to find as it was tucked in the back of one of the buildings between a sushi place and a ramen noodle joint in the complex at Baker St. and Harbor Blvd.  (see map)  The small narrow space had bench seating along the long wall with tables and chairs.  It was well lit and sort of busy with both people dining in and people picking up pizzas to go.  They closed at 8 p.m. and I was there after 8 p.m. when a large group of people including small children came into the place and appeared to be having a party.  (I understand that the Rance's Chicago Pizza in Long Beach has a bit more character than the bland interior of the Costa Mesa location.)  

I took a table along the wall toward the back of the restaurant.  It was a Thursday night and I was sort of surprised to see that they had Amazon Prime's Thursday night football game up on all the flat-screen televisions hung on the wall throughout the restaurant.  Having a friend who owns a sports bar and knowing how expensive it is for small bars and restaurants to show Amazon Prime NFL games games in an establishment, I was sort of surprised to see the game on the TV's.  

My server for the evening was a nice guy by the name of Derek.  He brought over a menu for me to look over and asked me what I would like to drink.  They had a number of craft beers on tap and they rotate the selection on a regular basis.  That evening they an Offshoot Relax hazy IPA on tap from The Bruery, a microbrewery from Placentia, CA.  

Before Derek left to get my beer, he asked if I had ever been to Rance's before.  "Nope!  First time here," I said to him.  Then he started to tell me about the different styles of Chicago pizza.  As he started to describe the different pizzas, I waved him off.  "I live about two-and-a-half hours from Chicago," I told him.  "I'm there all the time and I know the difference between the pizzas."  

"Oh!  Perfect," he exclaimed.  "So, you already know that it takes about 45 minutes for our deep pan pizzas."  I told him that I certainly did.  "That saves me time, then!"  He went off to grab my beer.  

I'm partial to a good thin-crust pizza and most people from Chicago will tell you that the thin-crust pizza cut into tavern-style squares is the REAL Chicago-style pizza and that deep-dish or stuffed pizza is for tourists only.  But I have friends in Chicago who turned me onto Burt's, Lou Malnati's and Pequod's for the deep-dish style.  It's just that I can't usually finish even a small deep-dish pizza on my own and usually only get a deep-dish when I'm hosting people who don't get into Chicago all that often.  

A couple who were seated a couple tables down from me got the deep-dish pizza.  I have to say that it looked great - big chunks of tomatoes in the sauce, large chunks of sausage and loads of stringy mozzarella that oozed off the slices Derek was putting on the plate for the couple - similar to how servers serve a deep-dish pizza in Chicago.  The pizza looked very good and very Chicago-like.  

They had a number of specialty pizzas on the menu.  The "House Special" pizza had sausage, green peppers, onions and mushrooms; the "Best Seller" featured spinach and mushrooms (I thought of my wife who loves spinach and my vegetarian colleague when I saw that pizza); and "Rance's Favorite" - Rance Ruiz's signature pizza with meatballs, diced bacon and jalapeños.  All the specialty pizzas were available in either deep-dish, stuffed or tavern-style.  

Well, if you're a regular reader of Road Tips, you know what I'm always going to order - the sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  That's my gold standard and a lot of people like that combination if I'm with a group of people in a pizza joint.  When Derek set the small (10") pizza in front of me, it looked promising.  Big chunks of sausage, fresh mushrooms, pepperoni slices with a tinge of burnt edges and loads of mozzarella.  

And from the first bite it was like I was transported back to Chicago.  The sausage had a spicy taste balanced out by the great flavor of fennel mixed in the meat.  The pepperoni was salty and spicy, and the fresh mushrooms had that earthy tang.  The pizza sauce was a perfect mix of sweet and savory.  And the crust was buttery in taste and definitely thin, but the sag factor was minimal even with all the toppings on each slice.  This pizza rivaled some of the better tavern-style pizzas I've had in Chicago over the years. 

For me, Rance's Chicago Pizza was a spot-hitter.  For anyone in Southern California who is craving a Chicago-style pizza - whether it be a deep-dish, stuffed, or tavern-style pizza - Rance's would be the holy grail.  While the decor and atmosphere at the Costa Mesa location is a little sterile, I understand that the Long Beach location has a bit more warmth and pizazz.  Derek's service was very good - he came over to tell me that he would be indisposed for 10 to 15 minutes working on another project for the restaurant and brought me another beer because he saw that they were going down pretty easily.  For a midwesterner looking for a familiar taste and style of pizza, Rance's Chicago Pizza checked all the boxes.    

The Original Tommy's World Famous Hamburgers - Fountain Valley, CA

I was flying out to Southern California last year and I had a short layover (with a long walk between gates) at Denver International Airport.  As I was flying between the Quad Cities and Denver a buddy of mine from the Denver area had left me a voice mail because a company who had been interested in hiring me contacted him after I told them to give my friend a call as I was happy with my current position. (Where were these calls when I was looking for work a couple years ago?)   He just wanted to know if this was a legitimate deal and I apologized and said that I probably should have let him know they were going to call him.  He asked me where I was and I told him that, quite actually, I was out at DIA heading to Orange County.  "Oh, man," he said in almost a jealous tone.  "You've got to go to Tommy's when you're out there."  I wasn't familiar with Tommy's and he said, "Oh, man.  Their chili cheese dogs, their chili cheeseburger, they're the best, man."  It turned out that after calling on a potential account in Orange County I passed a Tommy's.  I ended up going around the block and headed back to the Original Tommy's World Famous Hamburgers in Fountain Valley, CA.  (see map) 

Tom Koufax was the son of Greek immigrants who ended up in Southern California before the outbreak of World War II.  Koufax dabbled in a number of businesses before he saw a number of hot dog places were popping up around Southern California after the war.  Hoping the cash in the post-war prosperity, he opened Tommy's Hamburgers at the corner of W. Beverly and N. Rampart Blvds. just west of downtown Los Angeles.  Business was slow at first for the little walk-up stand relying mainly on "word-of-mouth" advertising.  By the mid-50's, Tommy's had garnered enough of a buzz that long lines began to form before they would open for their chili dogs, chili cheese fries and chili-topped burgers.  

Pictured right - the "original" Original Tommy's Hamburgers stand in Los Angeles.   Photo courtesy Historic Places L.A. 

By the 60's, Tommy's had outgrown its original location and Tom Koufax bought the entire northeast corner of Beverly and Rampart to put in a food storage facility as well as a second serving window.  But it became evident to Koufax that he needed to expand his business as Los Angeles was quickly becoming a megapolis with thousands of people moving into the San Fernando Valley on an annual basis.

In 1971 while celebrating 25 years in business, Tom Koufax opened his second location in the North Hills neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley.  A year later, a third Tommy's Hamburgers opened in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of north Los Angeles between Pasadena and Glendale.  Expansion continued the next year as the fourth Tommy's opened in Burbank, and in 1974, the fifth Tommy's opened in Tujunga, CA on the far northeast side of the San Fernando Valley.  Today, there are 32 Tommy's locations with 29 spread across Southern California and 3 more in Las Vegas.  

Pictured left - Tom Koufax, Sr. (left) and an employee at the original Tommy's location. Photo courtesy Original Tommy's web site. 

Tommy's success spawned a number of imitators and it became evident that the company needed to trademark and copyright their name and product.  In the 80's, Tommy's Hamburgers became known as the Original Tommy's Hamburgers with the tag "World Famous" as they were getting press and visitors from publications around the world as being the quintessential Southern California fast food restaurant.  Tour groups from Asia and Europe would go to an Original Tommy's World Famous Hamburgers just to experience the food and atmosphere.

In the 1960's, Tom Koufax, Jr. joined his father at the original location working the grills and learning the business.  Tom Koufax, Jr. eventually walked away from the business and had no affiliation with Tommy's Hamburgers later on.  Upon Tom Koufax, Sr.'s death in 1992, the business was split among family members with Tom Koufax, Jr. retaining 10% of the restaurant.  Dawna Bernal, the daughter of Tom Jr's sister Dianne, was installed as C.E.O. of the Original Tommy's.  Tom Koufax's son-in-law is the chief financial officer and Koufax family members are on the board of directors for the Original Tommy's Hamburgers.  

However, Tom Koufax, Jr. decided to market his own chili that was a similar - yet different - chili recipe as the Original Tommy's chili.  He used a logo similar to the Original Tommy's for his chili - Tommy Jr.'s Original Chili - and started selling the product on-line in 2008.  He was sent a "cease-and-desist" letter at the end of 2008, and when he continued to sell his chili on-line he was hit with a trademark infringement lawsuit in 2009.  Tom, Jr. eventually moved his operation to Las Vegas where he, his wife and a business partner continued to sell his chili on-line and fought the lawsuit - all while Tom, Jr. was undergoing cancer treatment.  The suit was soon settled after Tom Koufax, Jr. agreed to stop using the name Tommy Jr.'s Original Chili.

Over the years, more Tommy's knock-offs have appeared across Southern California.  The Koufax family began legal proceedings against many of those Tommy's wanna-be's that had similar concepts and similar names to Tommy's - Tomy's Hamburgers, Tommy's No. 5 Chiliburgers, Tommy's Famous Drive-thru, Tomboy's Famous Chili Hamburgers and Tom's Original Super Burger.  By 2019, there were nearly 70 different Tommy's knock-offs around Southern California - 3 times the number of Original Tommy's World Famous Hamburgers locations.  But the Koufax family was through with trying to litigate against the imposters taking the stance that the most sincere form of flattery is imitation.  They've focused on strengthening the Original Tommy's image, logo and message to differentiate themselves from the others who have popped up on the coattails of the Original Tommy's success.  

It turns out that the Fountain Valley location was the sixth Original Tommy's restaurant to open.  This location opened in 1980 and was a counter-service only with a drive-thru lane.  However, they've since added seating in form of 9 booths in a small dining area.  Old photos of Tommy's original restaurant hung on the walls of the dining area.  

It was around 1:30 when I got into the Original Tommy's and I parked in the lot outside the building just off Magnolia Street just north of the corner it shares with Warner Ave.  I went inside and went to the counter.  Since no one else was in line, I was able to take my time looking at the menu on a wall board behind the counter.  But compared to a number of other fast food/fast casual places, Tommy's didn't have much to offer other than chili cheese burgers, chili cheese dogs, chili cheese tamales, chili cheese fries and a breakfast burrito.   

I figured I'd get a chili dog because I love good chili dogs.  But I was sort of up in the air as to what else I was going to get.  I'm sure that it would be way too much food, but I figured that I could get a couple things and not eat everything in front of me.  

I normally don't like chili cheese burgers and I almost got the chili cheese tamale along with a chili cheese dog.  But against my better judgment I went with the chili cheese burger - just one patty.  (They also have double and triple chili cheese burgers at the Original Tommy's.)  Besides, Tommy's chili cheese burgers are "world famous".  I had to at least give one a try while I was there. 

The chili cheese dog was topped with onions, dill pickles, and a sliced tomato.  I had to get back up and grab multiple napkins and a plastic fork and knife to dig into the chili cheese dog as it was a complete mess.  The chili cheese burger has similar toppings on it.  Why it did, I don't quite know as dill pickles and chili aren't in my book of combinations.  

The chili was the overriding feature of both the chili cheese dog and the chili cheese burger.  In fact, I couldn't taste any of the hot dog or the burger patty when I bit into each.  The chili was, well, interesting.  It was a Greek-style chili - similar to Cincinnati-style chili - but more thick and somewhat pasty in consistency.   It was definitely an acquired taste and I'm not certain I really liked it.  I ate all of the chili cheese dog and maybe about half of the burger.  

And, of course, the chili laid in my stomach like a gut bomb.  I was planning on going out that evening for some Italian food at a restaurant not far from my hotel, but it turned out that I just stayed in that night and didn't have dinner.  Tommy's chili was just too much for me.  

I talked to my buddy who turned me on to Tommy's about a month after I had been there.  I told him, "Man, I don't know about Tommy's.  That was a gut bomb, big time."  

He was sort of crestfallen to hear my critique of the place.  "Oh, man," he said dejectedly over the phone.  "I figured a guy like you would like Tommy's.  Man, I have to go to Tommy's every time I go to Southern California."  

Well, all I can say is that I gave it a shot.  And I didn't care for it.  But there are thousands of people in Southern California who love Tommy's chili cheese dogs and chili cheese burgers and the Original Tommy's longevity and growth attest to that.  The chili laid heavy in my stomach, I didn't care for the consistency of the chili, and I found the taste to be somewhat dull.  I found Tommy's.  I tried Tommy's.  And the Original Tommy's is definitely an acquired taste.  

Hanger 24 - Irvine, CA

I had been driving around calling on potential accounts in Southern California one day and I was pretty much done by around 3:30 and heading back toward my hotel.  I decided to have a late lunch/early dinner and remembered a brew pub that I had found when I was looking at area brew pubs upon my arrival to my hotel a couple days before.  I punched in the address for Hangar 24 in Irvine and headed over that way.  

Ben Cook was going to school at Cal State-San Bernardino studying biology just around the turn of the millennium.  It was in college where Cook found that he had a passion for brewing beer.  Using his biology know-how and equipment from the biology lab at the college, Cook built his first home brewing apparatus in 2001.  

It turned out that Cook was pretty good at brewing beers and he found that he could trade some of his beers for services rendered.  One of those services was to trade his beers for flight lessons at the Redlands Municipal Airport.  Flying out of Hangar 24 at the airport, Cook made friends with other pilots and instructors at the facility.  After flying planes, the friends would meet up at Hangar 24 at the end of the day to talk about their flying experiences and to drink some of Cook's delicious beers.  Cook eventually got his pilot's license, possibly the only guy in the history of flying who got his license directly because of beer.  

Cook loved brewing beer so much that he eventually enrolled in the masters brewers program at the University of California-Davis.  After graduating from the program in 2005, Cook went back to Redlands to start the next chapter in his life.

Pictured right - Ben Cook.  Photo courtesy Hangar 24.

There was land available literally across the road from the Redlands airport.  With the help of family, friends and fellow pilots, Cook was able to purchase a plot of land and he broke ground for his brewery in late 2006.  It took time to build a structure, as well as procuring brewing vessels and equipment.  On March 15, 2008, Cook sold his first beer under the Hangar 24 name.  

Within months, Cook was distributing Hangar 24 beers to local restaurants and stores.  In addition to brewing beers, Cook continued his love of flying often taking his single engine place to Lake Havasu, Arizona.  In 2017, Cook established a tap room at the Lake Havasu City Airport.  

And in March of 2020, Cook opened a 3rd location in Intersect Irvine, a complex of campus-style office buildings, retail space and entertainment areas.  While not exactly at or across from an airport, the Irvine location was close to the John Wayne Airport that services Orange County.  Cook contracted with culinary consultant James Bailey to come up with selection of food for the Irvine location that personified "California-Casual" dining. 

However, 17 days after opening in Irvine, Hangar 24 - along with virtually every non-essential business across California - was forced to shut down for a period of several weeks.  They were able to open for take-out only in the summer and finally opened for physical distance dining later in 2020.  In the meantime to keep the brewing facility busy, Cook had his crew make hand sanitizer that they were able to give out at pop-up stands where they were selling sandwiches during the deep throes of the pandemic.  

It was around 3:30 when I pulled into the parking lot at the Intersect.  (see map)  Hanger 24 isn't visible from the street and it was difficult to find until I figured out that I had to park in the lot and walk around the building. It's a pay lot, but businesses and restaurants - such as Hangar 24 - will validate for free parking.  Hanger 24 was near a large open court area north of the parking area I parked the car in.  Walking in, I found a large group of people seated at a communal table in the middle of the brewpub.  

It's counter service at Hanger 24 for both food and beer.  The food menu was on a card near the counter and the beer menu was on the wall behind the beer spigots at the back of the bar.  They had 15 beers available on tap that day including a Mexican lager, a citrus lager, a couple West Coast IPA's, a wheat beer, and a seasonal Oktoberfest beer.  My tastes veer more toward the hazy IPA's and I got a pint of the Pacific Coast Hazy IPA.   

Compared to other brewpubs I found in the area, Hanger 24 had a more food offerings on their menu.  Appetizers included carne asada cheese fries, wings, pretzel bites, and a crispy caramelized pork belly that can be had with either BBQ sauce or teriyaki.  Salads, protein bowls and flatbread pizzas were part of the menu, as were sandwiches, burgers and tacos including a grilled marinated mahi taco that they called "al-pastor".  I always thought al-pastor tacos were made with pork.  

After I ordered my food, I took my beer out to the patio area off to the side of the brewpub.  It was a nice area and I thought I'd end up having my late lunch out there.  But then the large group inside broke up and came out to the grassy area just beyond the patio at Hanger 24.  It appeared that they were going back into a meeting and I didn't feel like listening to a guy drone on about something I wasn't interested in, even though it was a nice day on the patio.

I almost got the fish tacos, and the blackened chicken sandwich caught my eye, but in the end I went with the basic burger - a 1/3 pound black angus burger topped with American cheese along with lettuce, tomato, onions and pickles.  The bun was a somewhat oversized bun that was made with a cream ale infused into the flour.  I got fries on the side - tots were available for a buck more, but for some reason I didn't get the tots this time.  

The burger and fries were served on wax paper on a small cooking sheet, similar to the way the burger and fries were served at Green Cheek Beer Company located a couple miles from Hanger 24.  And the burger was good - the American cheese was oozing off the burger all around the patty.  The burger, itself, was flavorful with the taste of the black angus beef popping out with all the cheese, veggies and condiments around it.  The bun, as I said, was pretty good sized and I tore about half of the crown of the bun off the burger as I was eating it.  But it held together pretty well for as messy as the burger was. 

The fries were crispy on the outside and had a nice feathery potato texture inside.  They were a nice accompaniment to the burger.  

By the time I finished up, the bar area at Hanger 24 was filling up with workers from the surrounding office buildings coming in for an after-work beer.  I needed to head back to the hotel to get caught up on some e-mails and I realized well after the fact that I could have easily brought my computer in with me to do some office work while I was enjoying a burger and a beer.  And I did enjoy my food and the beer I had at Hanger 24.  It was really a nice, laid-back brewpub and I would have no problem hitting the place up again at some point in my travels to Southern California.  

SOL Mexican Cocina - Irvine, CA

In Southern California last fall, I had a hankering for some Mexican food.  But I wanted something more than just basic Mexican food and I wanted a place that had good margaritas - not the syrup/soda pop-infused margaritas that are prevalent at many Mexican restaurants.  I did a quick look on line to see if there were any upscale Mexican restaurants that were close to my hotel and found a place in Irvine by the name of SOL Mexican Cocina.   

Deb Schneider liked to cook growing up in Canada and she bought Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" as a teenager in the early 70's.  She took some culinary classes while living in Canada, but it took her some time to actually turn that into her life's vocation.

Schneider went to work at a Toronto publishing firm that specialized in focused magazines and souvenir booklets.  She started out as a writer and copy editor while also designing covers for the magazines and booklets.  Schneider worked her way up to the title of Executive Editor before she determined she wanted to do something else in her life.

Like most people in their 20's, Schneider really didn't have a plan or direction in life.  She decided to go to Europe for an extended vacation around 1980.  She hopped on a BMW motorcycle and toured France, Spain and Italy while also visiting the Canary Islands and Northern Africa.  After 8 months of that, she found herself in Greece and while living in Athens she was hired as a chef by a company who owned a fleet of luxury cruise ships.  

Pictured right - Deborah Schneider.  Photo courtesy MexGrocer.com

After doing working for the Greek shipping company for a year, Schneider moved to Florida where she continued working as a yacht chef for a company out of Florida who ran private cruises in the Caribbean.  After a few months of doing that, she decided to switch coasts and ended up in San Diego.  

It was in San Diego where she met her future husband Barry.  Barry loved to surf along the Baja California coast and he took his future wife to the beaches near Ensenada where Deb's life was forever changed the first time she had a grilled fish taco from a roadside stand.  She had never had anything so fresh tasting and immediately fell in love with Baja California cuisine.  

At her first professional job cooking in a kitchen, all the people working with her at the restaurant were of Mexican descent.  She learned from her co-workers about different Mexican regional cuisines and picked up a lot of knowledge about the intricacies of different flavors and how they enhanced the foods that her co-workers enjoyed growing up.  

And that continued on to restaurants in the San Diego area including La Gran Tapa - a Spanish tapas restaurant started by a retired Spanish toreador; Dobson's Bar & Restaurant - a fine dining restaurant founded 40 years ago by a retired American bullfighter (I'm seeing a pattern here); and the Grant Grill - an establishment that is celebrating its 73rd year in business this year.  Schneider was the first female chef when she worked at the venerable restaurant in the early-to-mid 1990's.  She quickly garnered a reputation as the best female chef in San Diego. 

In 1998, Schneider was named the executive chef for the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines, a 4-star resort where Schneider was the first female executive chef within the Hilton hotel chain.  It was during her time at Torrey Pines that she received her Certified Executive Chef ranking from the American Culinary Federation marking her trail-blazing accomplishments in San Diego kitchens.  

After six years in La Jolla, Schneider was called upon to open Jsix, and upscale bar/restaurant in the new Hotel Solamar, a boutique hotel in San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter.  She was there helping get the restaurant established for a few months before moving onto become the Executive Chef at the Turf Club, a high-end members-only club at the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club north of San Diego.  

While at the Turf Club, Schneider wrote her first cookbook - "¡Baja! Cooking On the Edge" - a cookbook on Baja California cuisine with recipes she picked up during her travels to Baja California and from working with Baja California natives in kitchens around the greater San Diego area.  Food & Wine Magazine called it one of the best cookbooks of 2006.  

Schneider went on to write 7 more cookbooks focusing on Mexican cuisine.  She has been nominated twice as a James Beard Award finalist for cookbook author of the year.    

A couple years after "¡Baja! Cooking On the Edge" came out, Matt Baumayr was thumbing through the cookbook one day and was mesmerized by the recipes Deb Schneider had published.  Baumayr and his buddy Rich Howland worked at restaurants together and - like Schneider's husband Barry - loved to go to Baja California to surf, eat at the roadside stands and to shop in the Mexican markets.  Baumayr was taken by Schneider's book so much that he reached out to her to discuss something that Howland and he were working on for a restaurant concept.  

Schneider was taken aback by Baumayr's enthusiasm as he told her of Howland and his idea of opening a Baja taco stand in Newport Beach, CA.  But Schneider's recipes of Baja California cuisine were far and away past where Howland and Baumayr's knowledge and scope on the subject.  

Apprehensive about working with a start-up restaurant as she saw many that quickly came and went during her career as a chef, Schneider met with Budmayr and Howland to discuss their ideas.  The duo were more into the operations part of the restaurants they worked at, so getting Schneider to come on board was essential to their updated concept of a full service restaurant specializing in Baja California cuisine.  The more the trio talked, but more Schneider could see this working out.    

Pictured left - Rich Howland, Deb Schneider and Matt Budmayr.  Photo courtesy El Restaurante.com  

The problem was money.  Howland and Budmayr had budgeted for a taco stand, but with Schneider suddenly on board they knew they were going to need a bigger and better place.  The group turned to Mike Mastro whose family ran the Mastro's steakhouses to see if he would be interested in helping to fund the startup.  Mastro was impressed with the business plan so much that he put up the capital needed to start SOL Cocina.  In 2009, the trio opened SOL Mexican Cocina in the former Mama Gina's Italian restaurant on East Coast Highway in Newport Beach.  

By 2019, SOL Mexican Cocina had a second location in Southern California in Playa Vista just north of Los Angeles International Airport, a location in Scottsdale, AZ, and a location in Denver.  In the meantime, Schneider had opened a new Mexican taqueria/margarita bar concept called Solita with locations in Huntington Beach and Valencia.  In late 2019, it was announced that Xperience Restaurant Group, the company behind Mexican restaurants such as El Torito and Chevys Fresh Mex, had purchased the SOL Concina and Solita's restaurants from Budmayr, Howland and Schneider.  

Xperience Restaurant Group has expanded SOL Mexican Cocina to New York City, Las Vegas and a new one is slated to open in Boston this year.  The Irvine location - the largest of the SOL Mexican Cocina restaurants - opened in March of 2022 in what was a former El Torito location.  

It was about a five minute drive from my hotel to SOL Mexican Cocina at the corner of Main and Mercantile in Irvine (see map).  It's part of a complex of commercial office space, a sports club and eateries.   There was a pay garage next door to the restaurant and the restaurant will validate the ticket for free parking.  

The restaurant was different from a lot of Mexican restaurants I've been to.  It was what I would call elegant without any of the pretension.  The contemporary decor gave the space a classy feel.  The dining area had booths along the wall and tables with wooden half-back chairs were in the middle of the room.  The lounge area was large and well-lit with a beautiful black-and-white tiled front to the bar and similar tiled floors.  I sort of wanted to sit at the bar, but there wasn't a seat to be had.  I decided to take my chances 

Walking to my table with a hostess showing the way, I passed the kitchen area that was behind a glass partition. The grill was up front with meat and poultry cooking on top.  There was a tortilla making machine along with ovens and more grills in the back.  And it was a spotless kitchen.  I thought to myself that if they were going to have the kitchen out in the open for all the world to see, it had better shine in there at all times.  

After being seated and looking through the menu, my server - Eli (Elias) - came over to greet me.  He was a burly, but handsome guy who had a laid back attitude.  Eli called me "boss" or "big guy" all through the meal.  He made me feel comfortable with his laid back demeanor.   I ordered up a Cadillac margarita - Cazadores reposado tequila, Grand Marnier, lime juice & agave nectar, just like how I make them at home.  But it wasn't cheap - a jumbo was $18 bucks.  (The regular was $16, so I figured for two bucks more I'd go for the jumbo.)  I made short work of the margarita and ended up getting a Dos Equis Ambar after that.  

It wasn't long before someone else came out and dropped off a basket of chips and three different types of salsa.  They were basically round tortilla chips with a seasoning on them.  The three sauces - a salsa, a black bean molé, and a roasted tomatillo salsa verde - were all very good.  In fact, I went through the salsa verde pretty quickly and asked Eli to bring me some more the next time he stopped by.  

The menu was very interesting starting with the appetizers.  They had a chorizo and mushroom queso dip with serrano peppers and scallions mixed in.  There was a house-smoked salmon with chiles and lemons served with a chopped mango, onion, and cilantro salsa along with shredded lettuce on blue corn tortilla chips.  Another appetizer that I almost got as a main entree was the grilled Spanish octopus in a white wine and olive oil drizzle with smoked paprika fingerling potatoes.  You don't know how tough it was to not pull the trigger on that.  

Some of the entrees included barbecued short ribs, shrimp-filled chile rellenos (my wife would have jumped on that), and chipotle-beef fajitas.  They had a number of street tacos on the menu, as well as quesadillas and burritos.  They also had a handful of specialty tacos served a la carte with black borracho beans and red Spanish rice.  A number of the specialty tacos caught my eye - the short ribs with blue corn tortillas, the garlic ribeye tacos, and the fish taco.  They served the fish taco with lettuce and cheese instead of cilantro, cabbage and onions, so I eliminated that.

I couldn't make up my mind between an entree item and something from the specialty taco page - so I got both!  I ended up ordering the Chef's Special Chile Verde - pork chunks simmered in salsa verde, topped with cheese, onions, cilantro, and avocado slices.  Black borracho beans and red Spanish rice came on the side.  Rolled up corn tacos came with the meal.  

The specialty taco I ordered was the CDMX Quesotaco.  CDMX is the insignia for Mexico City and this was a Mexico City-style taco with carne asada, fried Oaxaca cheese, roasted poblano peppers in a cream sauce, with onions on a couple corn tortillas.  A tequila-pickled jalapeño came on the side along with a chipotle chile salsa.  

I couldn't even tell you which one was better.  The pork chile verde was incredible in taste and I made a couple tacos out of the pork, beans and rice, topped with a chunk of avocado.  They were messy, but outstanding in taste and freshness.  

The CDMX specialty taco was equally outstanding in flavor.  I chopped up some of the pickled jalapeño to put on the taco.  The fried Oaxaca cheese was gooey on the inside and gave the taco another notch in taste that I'd never experienced.  Fried cheese on a taco - who would've thunk it?!

But, man, it was a lot of food!  And it was so good that I couldn't quit eating.  Although I didn't finish everything that was brought out to me, I certainly made an impressive showing.  Eli came back to my table and asked, "Everything good, boss?"  I told him that everything was TOO good.  

My first experience with a SOL Mexican Cocina was nothing less than top tier.  For as elegant as the decor and atmosphere was in the restaurant, it was actually comfortable and relaxed.  And that probably had a lot to do with my server Eli who was laid back, yet very efficient and friendly in his work that evening.  And the food was exceptional.  It was an interesting take on traditional Mexican foods that I've enjoyed over the years.  Even though Sol Mexican Cocina is a chain, it's a specialty restaurant that allows each chef in charge of their individual locations to add a little signature to the food they prepare.   (Photo courtesy Orange County Register.)

Green Cheek Beer Company - Costa Mesa, CA

I flew out to Orange County last fall to attend a trade show and to call on accounts in the area.  I got in a little early, got my rental car, and went to my hotel near the airport.  Upon check in, I was told that my room wasn't ready just yet.  It was about 2 p.m. and with my stomach still on Central time, I was feeling sort of hungry.  I decided to head back out to the car and look up to see if there were any brewpubs in the area that served food.  It turned out there were two or three in the immediate vicinity.  I picked one - Green Cheek Brewing Company - and put in the address into my GPS.  Less than 10 minutes later, I was pulling up to the brewpub.  

The Green Cheek Beer Company story is one that is very familiar within the craft brewing community.  It all started with a guy who loved to brew his own beers at home, but was horrible in doing so.  

Evan Price loved to brew his own beer.  But batch after batch was tossed when he determined it just wasn't very good.  You'd think a guy with so many failures would just throw in the towel and find some other hobby, but the more batches of home brew that were tossed, the more determined Price became to make a good beer.  

In 2006, Price was working as a server at the House of Blues in Anaheim when a dust up with a difficult and unreasonable customer caused Price to lose his job.  He eventually got a job at a BJ's Brewhouse location, a burgeoning chain of brewpubs that started in Southern California in the late 70's as a pizza place and had established their first brewpub in Brea, CA in 1996.  

While Price started out at BJ's Brewhouse as a server, he got to know the guys working back in the brewery.  He was picking their brains about the brewing process and was eventually hired by one of the brewmasters to work in the brewery cleaning kegs.  While Price worked in the brewery for two years, BJ's Brewhouse went through a series of corporate restructuring and Price worked under five different brewmasters during that time.  While he wasn't fully involved in the brewing process, he learned different brewing techniques and beer style concepts.    

In 2008, Price was hired to be a brewmaster at the brand new Hangar 24 brewery in Redlands, CA.  (Look for an upcoming Road Tips entry on Hanger 24.)  Working with owner/head brewmaster Ben Cook, Price helped develop beers for Hanger 24's first 18 months in business.  The initial success and quick growth at Hangar 24 stressed Price out to the point that he had to quit and find something else to do.  

Looking for something a little more low key, Price was hired on at TAPS Fish House & Brewery in Brea, CA.  While at TAPS, Price worked next to brewmaster Victor Novak who was instrumental in Price's continuing on-the-job education.  Novak was more of a beer "chef" than a brewer who used only top-notch ingredients, then would sometimes tweak the content of his beers during the brewing process.  During his time at TAPS, Novak won 16 medals at the Great American Brewing Festival for his European-style beers.  Price worked with Novak for two-and-a-half years at TAPS and the brewpub was named Southern California Brewpub of the Year two years running.  

One day in 2012, the owners of the fledgling Noble Ale Works called Novak looking for recommendations of a brewmaster to take over as their original brewmaster had left unexpectedly.  Novak immediately told them they should hire Price.  Price jumped at the chance to take over the full operations of his own brewery, but when he got there, he found that Noble Ale Works was nearly broke.  The company's Chief Financial Officer Brian Rauso agreed to allow Price to basically change everything the brewery was doing and started the process from scratch.  

Pictured right - Evan Price and Brian Rauso.  Photo courtesy The Full Pint - Craft Beer News.  

Within 4 years, Rauso was the CEO of Noble Ale Works and Price was winning medals at the Great American Beer Festival.  In 2016, Noble Ale Works was named the Craft Brewery of the Year at the G.A.B.F.  The little brewery in Anaheim suddenly became a destination for beer aficionados across Southern California.    

But differences with the investors in Noble Ale Works caused Rauso to bail on the place in late 2016.  In 2017, Price saw the handwriting on the wall and decided to leave, as well.  It couldn't have come at a more critical time in Price's life as his wife Aubrey had just given birth to twin baby boys.  Rauso determined that starting their own brewery was a good career path and it turned out that a small brewery by the name of Valiant Brewing Company in Orange, CA was going out of business.  Rauso and Price bid on the brewery and its equipment and their proposal was accepted.  

In Southern California, there is a bird called the Green Cheek parrot.  They're loud, but very social birds.  Rauso and Evans thought the name would be apropos to the concept of their brewpub.  After getting a small business loan from a local bank, Rauso and Price took over the brewery in April of 2017 and opened the doors in June of that year.

Less than a year later Green Cheek Beer Co. took home a silver medal at the 2018 World Beer Cup for a West Coast IPA, and later that year they took home two bronze medals at the Great American Beer Festival.  They followed up their two medals from 2018 at the 2019 G.A.B.F. with a gold medal for a pale ale and a silver for the West Coast IPA.  

In 2019, Green Cheek had an opportunity to bid at auction on a brewpub in Costa Mesa that had fallen on hard times.  Rauso and Price bid on the brewery that came complete with its own kitchen and their winning bid was accepted in December of that year.  A week later they took over the former Barley Forge brewpub and opened their second Green Cheek location in January of 2020 just before the pandemic.  And in September of 2022, Green Cheek opened their 3rd location in Sunset Beach - a small town between Seal Beach and Huntington Beach - along the Pacific Coast Highway.  

It was about a 10 minute drive from the hotel to Green Cheek Brewing Company which is situated in an industrial park just northwest of John Wayne Airport in an triangular area bordered by the 405, 73 and 55 freeways in Costa Mesa.  (see map)  It's actually situated off the street toward the back of the building at 2957 Randolph Ave. and I was a little confused as the entrance to the brewery is pretty nondescript with a small sign over the front door.  

It is definitely an active brewery with the brewing operations in the back of the building.  There were a number of workers in the brewery when I took a look in through the window just off to the side of the bar area.  At Green Cheek's Costa Mesa location they have seven 30-barrel fermentation tanks and a single 30-barrel wooden foudre vessel for aging.    

The main area when you walk in features the main bar with counter service for ordering both beer and food.  It was a bright area with exposed rafters and ductwork.  There was a sound system that featured music playing in the background by artists such as Black Keys, Blind Pilot, The Strokes, Fleet Foxes and Spoon.  The food and beer menus were on the wall or available to download via a QR code.  A cooler off to the side offered four and six packs of some of Green Cheek's featured beers for people to take home.     

Out back was the beer garden featuring some nice picnic tables place on artificial turf with gold triangular sail canopies covering the beer garden.  The fencing was made out of old pallets banded together that were painted a deep royal blue.  I thought it was a pretty ingenious way of dealing with old pallets.  

I brought my computer in with me to do some catching up on e-mails and orders that I had received while I was traveling to Southern California.  I ended up sitting in a room between the main room and the outdoor patio that probably could be used for meetings, reception, parties, etc.  The room had windows that looked into the main room was painted in the same light blue pastel color as the main pub room.  

Before I sat down, I decided to grab a beer and I tried a couple - the 'Member IPA which was more of a West Coast IPA with Canadian hops, and the Spinning My Wheels New England Hazy IPA that I liked very much.  I ended up getting a pint of that.

The food menu is pretty limited at Green Cheek - they have a chicken club sandwich, a double smashed flat-grilled burger, and a Buffalo chicken sandwich.  Wings, fries, tots, and fresh-baked pretzels were available, as well.  Vegan options such as plant-based burgers and a nacho plate featuring plant-based chorizo were also on the menu.  

I ended up getting the double smash burger with a couple of slices of American cheese along with grilled onions on a potato bun.  It was nestled in a paper wrapper on a small cookie sheet as a serving plate.  Once I found out they had tots available, I signed up for a side order with tots.  The condiment counter was near the bar and I loaded up on napkins as this was definitely going to be a multi-napkin burger.  

And the burger was excellent.  Juicy with great flavor and it had that slight smashed char around the perimeter of the burger patties.  The cheese oozed off the burger with nearly every bite and the potato bun held up very well with the messy nature of the burger.  The tots were a great compliment to the burger, even though they didn't offer Cholula hot sauce that I like to put on them.  But there were way too many of them and I was only able to eat a few after finished up the burger.

For taking a chance on this place, Green Cheek Brewing Company turned out to be a great find.  I was able to catch up on my work and enjoy a couple beers with my meal while I was waiting for my room to open back at the hotel.  The double smash burger was simply outstanding and the tots that went with the burger were crispy on the outside with a nice feathery texture inside.  And I can't say enough about the hazy IPA beer that I had.  Even though it's sort of industrial and minimalist in decor, the beer garden was very nice.  Green Cheek Brewing Company may be hard to find, but it was well worth the visit.