Cafe Lafayette - Main St. (Seal Beach)

November 29th, 2015 - (Phil's Choice)

My friend Brian doesn't brunch. Which is silly to me, because with how late he sleeps in, it would be the closest thing he would ever get to breakfast.

I roomed with Brian for the better part of a year, and worked with him for three years on a touring production of Disney on Ice. He's still doing the tour. ...more accurately, the tour is doing him. But for a week, he flew back home for Thanksgiving to see his family. Naturally, I took the opportunity to swoop in and take as much of his time as possible. I made him listen to me ramble, and then I had him order me a cheeseburger, animal style, with no meat at the In & Out Burger.

After a surprisingly restful eight hours of sleep on his parent's recliner, I opened up my Yelp app, and scoped out the brunch scene in Seal beach. I came to this:

Cafe Lafayette - One of thirty thousand restaurants on Main St. in Seal Beach. If you do not know where Seal Beach is, you're not alone. The entire population of Seal Beach is a little fuzzy as to where Seal Beach is.

The menu here is quite extensive for brunch, which they stop serving at 12:00pm. The coffee was good. It had a nutty flavor to it that I couldn't pinpoint. I ordered the artichoke, sun dried tomato and feta omelet. This picture does not do it justice. There was WAY more artichoke heart than egg in this omelet. Sourdough toast and fruit bowl substitution make it seem healthy, right?

Speaking of healthy, Brian has been working out out all the time, watching what he eats, and being careful about spending. He's dropped 40 pounds, or something. No lie. So, as a reward, he got the baked french toast. Sliced french bread, french toasted, and then baked along with a fruit and nut compote for 20 minutes. According to Yelp (and the woman who was sitting behind us) that dish is Cafe Lafayette's specialty. Brian can attest to it's worth, even though the bread looks like pieces that have been hacked off a gazebo, then torched.

It's nice if you're in the area. $15 for coffee and a full plate of food is always pretty good for brunch. It wasn't too busy, but that also could be because the street is filled with places to eat. If you're in Seal Beach for any reason, I would check this place out before leaving.

With Brian "I must poo-poo" Gowen, and Phillip "Phart" Meyer.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/cafe-lafayette-seal-beach

Vivian's Millenium Cafe - Ventura Blvd. (Studio City)

November 22nd, 2015 - (Phil's Choice)

I played tennis with Greg again today. It was a MASSIVE improvement. Instead of losing the one set we played 6-0, I lost it 6-3. Baby steps, right? Soon we'll get to the point where we don't have to warm up for 30 minutes to play, and I can lose a full match to him! I'm so excited!

Regular defeat at the hands of Greg Heaton can be a humbling experience. And in these truly humbling tennis times it is very nice to have supportive friends to talk to. Enter Christy Stowell and Codie Beck.

This brunch, my worlds collided in a wonderful way. Christy is an old friend from my touring days - and member of Generation Y, who went through the tech revolution with my generation. Codie is a millennial who I met when I first moved here - she loves professional wrestling and is engaged to Bill, a man who is built like a praying mantis. Both are amazing people. And neither of them commented on the fact that I had not showered for two days. (Thank you)

What better place to meet up than Vivian's Millenium Cafe?

Vivian's Millennium Cafe - Inside the building, there are six tables in a space the size of a closet. Out on the patio there are five hundred tables spanning a distance of two square kilometers.

Seating outside is mostly under a closed-top canopy, and the gathering of ferns and bushes around the area gives the patio an outdoorsy jungle feeling. Service is quick, and the coffee NEVER STOPS COMING. You can tell how good, prompt and non-intrusive the service is if you don't notice that you've had too much coffee until your hands are shaking and you are talking like the Micro Machines guy.

Christy had the veggie omelet (added cheese). There is something about eggs and vegetables that, in my opinion, is just never wrong. After the meal she commented that she "could have eaten half and been fine, but she ate the whole thing and now must be rolled out to her car." Look at that omelet! It's MASSIVE!

Codie had Vivian's 2x2x2, and her pancakes had bananas cooked into them! Hash browns or home fries come with just about everything here. You know you're getting good bang for your buck when your order takes three plates. To be fair, they could have put the hash browns on the plate with the eggs and the bacon - but three plates looks badass.
She ate about half of the pancakes, but made a good showing on the rest of it. Must have been that chocolate milk she ordered weighing the rest of it down.

I had the Crew's Scramble, but instead of turkey, I had them put spinach in it. I must confess that I am a sucker for an english muffin. Something about always having them in the morning when I was a kid, I think. But even more than the english muffin, I am a TRUE sucker for avocado. Fifteen seconds after this picture was taken, that avocado disappeared. I had NO PROBLEM finishing my plates, and could have had more. However, the portioning was quite right. And the veggies in my scramble did felt just right - not overdone, and not crunchy.

We spent three hours there talking and drinking coffee or water. At no point were we rushed, and the waitress had already split the check into our separate orders. Genius! My order, with tip, ended up being $19.00, which I would say was a real steal for the amount of food and then quality.

As my worlds melded wonderfully before my eyes - and we traded stories from the road and shows we've been in - I could not help but feel a sense of intimacy and isolation at our table. Sometimes I felt as though we were the only people on the patio, which speaks to the wonderful environment and the arrangement of space. It was also sometimes embarrassing when I blurted out something crass, then realize that two tables down the three old women having ladies' brunch had just stopped mid-bite to raise their eyebrows at me.

Studio City has some real gems in it. And those gems are very much worth the price of admission. Parking is always a nightmare, but that comes with the territory of the L.A. area. This particular gem is certainly worth a look or two. And is very much worth the 15 minute search for parking that you will need to make to be here. I know that I'll likely be going back.

From left to right: Christy "No Yoga, No Shower" Stowell,  Phillip "Two Days of Sweaty Hair" Meyer, and Codie "I Showered and You Didn't" Beck

www.eatatvivianscafe.com/

Salt's Cure - Santa Monica Blvd. (West Hollywood)

November 15th, 2015 - (Greg's Choice)

I have been reticent in my duties as weekly blogger. To solve that problem, I needed the help of a man who can both intellectually stimulate me and cut me down at the same time. A man who is fun-loving and critical all at once. A man who can laugh with both lightness AND rancor.

Meet Greg Heaton. This is a man I've known for a long time, now, from our days in Oregon so long ago. We had a brunch then tennis that day. He said he was too full after brunch, but then promptly had me for breakfast in a set of tennis to the tune of 6-0. Ouch. However, before he laid a shellacking on me the likes of which no Roman before me has felt, he was gracious enough to introduce me to this place:

Salt's Cure - The corner store of hip breakfast diners. The menu is also your table place mat. It is also about ten items long. Most of which come with some form of ham or bacon.

French press coffee always wins. It was frothy and delicious. At least, the amount that was left in it after Greg accidentally poured a quarter of it onto the table. (You can almost see the remnants of the puddle around the coffee press) The coffee here was very nice, and certainly made me feel like I was back home in Portland.

You are currently staring at the "2x2x2" - which is two eggs, two sausage patties and two strips of bacon. On yeah, they threw a biscuit on there for good measure. (The jam is amazing, by the by) Greg told me he pitied me that I could not eat the bacon, as it was thick, but crispy on the outside and lovely and fatty on the inside. Sounds like me when I was 19.

I, uncharacteristically, went for the oatcakes. Which may have contributed to my downfall in tennis afterward. (Or was it that I hadn't played for seven years prior) But the oatcakes were phenominal. That is a not a piece of cat poop on top of the oatcakes. It is a pat of brown sugar butter. Which was light and added JUST enough to the cakes to compliment them, without going way overboard. Because I need some protein I ordered a side of eggs, as well. Most everything comes ala carte on this menu, unless otherwise specified.

The total for this meal, which was well proportioned, ended up being around $20. Which, to me, was a little on the high-end. But the atmosphere is good, the food is very well done, for the amount that you get, and the service is quick and efficient. If you're going to spend a morning getting your ass handed to you in a set of tennis, this is a pretty good silver-lining to it.

With Phillip "Unforced Error" Meyer, and Gregory "Soft Serve, Dominating Stroke" Heaton

saltscure.com/

Another Broken Egg Cafe - Olive Ave. (Burbank)

November 1st, 2015 - (Phil's Pick)

This was a lazy morning. The kind of morning that doesn't start until 9:30am, and the only reason it started that early was because you said you'd be somewhere at ten. The kind of morning where you can turn to someone and say, "why yes, I AM wearing the same clothes that I wore yesterday," and then lean in and whisper, "even the undies." It was not a morning to be adventurous or creative. So, as such, I went back to a place that I have been a few times before:

Another Broken Egg Cafe - On the corner of Third and Olive. It is my old stand-by, merely because it was the first place in Burbank that I had brunch. It did not disappoint then, and it certainly didn't this morning, either.

It was a hectic morning at Another Broken Egg, as half the city of Burbank seemed to have the same idea as I did. Their wait-time was estimated at 45 minutes. They send you a text when your table is ready, though, which I thought was pretty cool. While I waited, I sat at the bar with a cup of coffee and a Cappuccino Chocolate Chip Muffin.

At the bar, people were standing and cheering at some football game on the bar television - which caused the impending end of baseball season to hang thickly over my head. As I dreaded hearing people talk about football for three more months, I sulked and read Jean Anouilh's "Ring Round the Moon", while trying to find momentary comfort in the warm, gooey muffin. The muffin tasted like a pancake in all the best ways, but could not wash away the sour taste of football season.

On a brighter note, their coffee is Stumptown coffee. It is one of my favorite coffees, and is certainly a taste of home out here in this city of fallen angels.

Today, it was just Codie and me. Ann got a gig on a television show, (YAY!) so she wasn't able to be here. (BOO!) But it's a good gig, (YAY!) and she's very happy (YAY AGAIN!) about it. In celebration of Ann's success, I had my first eggs benedict in a long time.

That is a black-bean patty benedict. The eggs were well-poached, (if there is such a thing) and the potatoes were lightly browned. The only downside to this dish was that they managed to sneak a slice of tomato under each patty. I didn't notice until after the first bite. I ended up eating the whole thing as presented - putting away my moral objections to the demonfruit.

Then Codie, true to form, went after the french toast. My pre-adolenscent self would have approved.

We had already dove in for a bite or two before I remembered to take pictures. She had made it a combo, and that means it comes with two eggs and two strips of bacon. Codie was not able to make it through all of her french toast. A classic case of eyes-larger-than-stomach. Again, my 10 year old self would have approved... and then finished the plate for her.

Another Broken Egg is four-star comfort food, in a comfortable place with comfortable people. Even the coffee mugs are comfy little clay mugs. The outside dining area is as large as the inside, and on a morning/afternoon like this one, it would have also been comfy to sit outside and bask in the cool 75 degree sun. And the sum total of the meal was a comfortable $16 per person.

They don't do any one thing AMAZINGLY. They just do everything very well. If you are in the mood to just chill with some people for an unspecific period of time, and eat well while doing so, look no further than Another Broken Egg. I certainly wasn't prepared to look too far beyond it. But after six cups of coffee in my system, I was ready to do all of my chores for the day at Warp 9.

With Phillip "The Depths of Pretension" Meyer, and Codie "Obscure Reference" Beck.

www.anotherbrokenegg.com