The Avocado House - Central Ave. (Chino, CA)

December 19th, 2015 - (Christy's Choice)

I double-dipped this weekend. I went out for brunch with Kat Covell on Sunday. We went to "Another Broken Egg Cafe", which I have already reviewed. We sat at the bar eating and drinking coffee for about two hours. The smoked salmon benedict is always good. As is the black-bean benedict. And a shout out to flying lips.

I went to a place on Saturday, however, that is not open on Sundays. Which is odd to me, because most everyone I know who has ever made BRUNCH a thing, has done it on a Sunday. If you go out in Boy's Town in Chicago, Sunday brunch is a marathon event that begins at 9:00am with food and mimosas, and ends around 7:30pm with you taking a taxi back home and wondering what happened to your shirt. But, no, this place does not do ANYTHING on Sundays. So I sucked it up again and did a Saturday brunch. Because it's worth it.

Have I mentioned my awesome friend Christy Stowell? Well, if I haven't, or if you missed it, let me tell you exactly how awesome I think she is: She is one of very few people in this world that I will drive almost an hour out of my way to simply have brunch with.

Also, the fact that we were going to The Avocado House didn't hurt matters.

The Avocado House - All the feeling of a small-town country house inn and diner, but all the quality of a farm-fresh, locally sourced restaurant. And none of the composting smells that come with something so hippie-dippy.

Christy and I discovered this place quite by accident when I visited back in May. We later found out that it is a featured brunch spot in many tourism booklets about southern California. It's even a place they highlight on Trip Adviser. It certainly lives up to its billing even before you get your food, as the breads that they sell at the front counter are top-notch.

That is not bread. That is a christmas mitten table marker. The bread is out of the frame next to it. Why? I couldn't tell you. But I assure you that the veggie bread is delicious.

The intimate dining area inside gives the sense of a mom-and-pop diner from the 1910's. The wood stoves may be for show, but they add to the ambiance of the room. There are two larger dining areas outside - one out front on the porch, and one out back on the... well, the back porch. Is that called something? I think that's called something. Is that the Veranda? No... I'm sure I'll get it.

Anyway, they come by to refill your coffee every twenty six seconds, which gives them just enough time to fill your cups twice before your food comes out. Seriously. Three minutes after we ordered, our food was in front of us. Made me wonder if they profile customers when they walk in, and just start making something even before they order.

That is a veggie omelet with country potatoes on the side. (Which Christy could only get halfway through.) Notice the SMOTHERING of avocado on the omelet. Their signature, I suppose. Christy commented that often the sides of an omelet are lackluster, as they do not contain a majority of the fillings. But the avocado house omelets are evenly filled, with enough cheese to hold it all together. Ah, cheese. The glue of foods. And my ribs.

I embraced my inner chubby kid and went for the spinach and artichoke omelet. (No bacon) I say inner fat kid because of the MASSIVE amount of cream cheese inside the omelet. Again, chalked full of the good stuff from center to corner.

We sat at this place inside and talked for hours. And as we talked, we noticed that the line outside just kept growing. Little kids made faces at us through the window next to our table, and I attempted to feed one of them a bottle of ketchup through the glass. In the time that it took that child to figure out that he couldn't actually touch the ketchup bottle through the window, five more families arrived and began waiting patiently in line for their turn at the deliciousness that this place has to offer. It was like the line outside the movie theater for Star Wars. It just kept growing.

And it is no surprise that this place is crammed full most every moment it is open. The cost is always low here, and I am never left with a square millimeter of open space in my stomach. Satisfaction is guaranteed, or you have no soul.

With Phillip "I Would Drive 500 Miles" Meyer, and Christy "I Would Fly 500 More" Stowell.

theavocadohouse.blogspot.com

Cafe de Olla - Victory Blvd. (Burbank)

December 12th, 2015 - (Phil's Choice)

Cafe de Olla - Cozy, calm and spicy food served by cozy, calm and mild people.

I brunched on Saturday. This coming Sunday is a work day for me. I've been thrust into the driver's seat of managing orders for an online retail company during the holidays, and we are getting slammed at work. I don't mind the overtime.

I brunched alone. Sometimes we need to brunch alone. I don't mind the brunch alone. A funny thing happens when you go to a restaurant alone: People act surprised, and have to hide mild shock. When I walked up to the hostess, for example, she looked around for the rest of my party.

Hostess: "First of your party? How many?"
Me: "Just me."
Hostess: (Puts on a fake smile) "Oh! ...just you?"
Me: (Real smile) "Yep. Just me."
Hostess: (Looks around for a moment, and spots a table for two) "You can... sit here, I suppose?" (Yes, this was said like a question)
Me: "Perfect."
Hostess: "Is that okay?"
Me: "Of course. Thank you."
Hostess: (Stops everything she's doing for a second and puts her hand on my shoulder) "If you need anything, just flag me down, okay?"
Me: (Confused smile) "Okay."

Perhaps she sensed that I was sad. I WAS reading a Sarah Kane play, so that may have trended my mood toward general desolation and despair. Perhaps she thought I was stood up. Or that I was lonely. Sure, a great many things are happening in my life, but at that moment in time, I was merely interested in having some of their coffee and an omelet. But most people would never think to go out and eat alone, or see a movie alone, or walk through an art gallery alone. Their need to contextualize my solitariness, it would seem, made it difficult for them to simply accept the fact that I made the choice to eat by myself.

However, once I ordered all pretenses of my inner turmoil evaporated from the wait-staff, and they went into serving mode. Very friendly and quick, and unobtrusive. Ready to pour a cup of their signature coffee. In Mexico, "Cafe de Olla" is a traditional way to serve coffee - slowly boiled with sugar, cinnamon and an orange peel. It was a little too sweet for me, which the wait-staff could actually see in the way that I drank it, and offered to cut the sweetness with a little regular coffee. I found that, for myself, a 50/50 mix was perfect. Especially for the holidays.

This was on the wall directly across from me. As I sipped on their signature coffee, and read one of the most emotionally destructive plays I've ever read, I was reminded of something an old girlfriend once wrote about doing things alone. She said, "when we discover that we can have fun by ourselves, then we open up the world to who we truly are." This is a fairly radical way of thinking to me, who has felt the burning need for a life-partner since the age of 16.

To change my perspective on that point would be to fundamentally change who I am. I have already changed much of myself in the last four years - much of it for the better. But I've always needed another person's approval, or adoration. And whenever I was not in direct contact with that feeling, I felt lost; even a little robotic.

And as my food was placed in front of me by a waiter who wore the most genuine smile I've seen from a stranger, I felt part of that need inside of me lift away.

That is a veggie omelet (what a shock) with added jalapenos, home fries, and sourdough toast. I ate it methodically, like a robot, going from the home fries to the omelet, stopping halfway through the omelet to eat each piece of toast in three bites, before coming back and finishing the omelet in nice, neat little squares of bites.

Almost 10 years ago, a person entered my life in a frenzy and helped me shape the way I thought about the world. She told me that to name something is to invoke it, or attempt to control it. (I do not use her name out of respect for this) She taught me how not to make other people's experiences about yourself, and how to hold space. She taught me that it is okay to give yourself a few days a year of "oh woe is me"; but the rest of the time, you must move forward.

All of these lessons wax and wane with the movements of one's life and experience, and are highlighted by the changes we must endure. Right now, in the middle of a hard part of my life, in a strange place where I have no comfort zone and a thin base of support around me (which is growing, as it always does) those lessons echo in my head. And I am reminded that I do not need to have my worth attributed to me by another human being. Being lonely is okay. And being around people is okay. And, much like my Cafe de Olla, I prefer a 50/50 mix of each in my life.

I know this isn't as lively as I usually strive to be. Today, I am just trying to be real. And that, I believe, is the first ACTUAL step in any journey that one must take.

The price tag was a welcome surprise for this meal. $12 for the coffee and omelet. Which is good, because the journeys that I will be taking out here will be expensive. But if I can learn to truly BE myself, by myself, for myself, then I will have succeeded. Anything else after that is gravy.

...well, it's veggie gravy. I still can't digest meat.

With Phillip "Me, Myself and I" Meyer

http://www.cafedeollarestaurant.com/

Eat This Cafe - Santa Monica Blvd. (Los Angeles)

December 6th, 2015 - (Braden's Choice)

Braden had been wanting to take us to this place for a while, now. And I was thrilled when he contacted me midway through the week to suggest going to this place. You see, Braden often is not available to brunch with me on Sundays due to work. So my little heart got all excited when he mentioned that he would be there this week for brunch.

And then he backed out.

Now, I know that work often oppresses him in ways that can be described as familial. And I do not pretend to know the extent of what he has to deal with. But he got my hopes up, and then broke my brunch-heart. So, as revenge, I went to the very place that he suggested!

Eat This Cafe - The corner store of hipster brunching. You've probably never heard of it.

This week, I introduced a long-time friend from WAAAAAAAAAY back in 2008 to my brunches: Tamara Burgess. She was 17 back then. (I was 26) I can feel the hairs on my head graying as I type those words. As her and Codie chatted about things like Sponge Bob episodes, I began to realize that most all of my friends are younger than me. (That includes you, Andrew. 26 hours is 26 hours)

I appreciated the menu, as there were not a whole lot of choices to confuse me with, and the large block-lettering made it so I didn't have to use my magnifying glass to read it. I made my choice in minutes, and could then focus on more important tasks, like yelling at kids to get off my lawn, and grumbling about how hard we all had it "back in my day."

The coffee was very nice, and mellow. Four cups of it didn't make me grind my dentures, like it would normally. Tamara could probably have used a bit stronger brew, as she was into her 23rd straight hour awake, due to a Disney over-nighter. She seemed to hold up well enough, though. And when this came out, all thoughts of sleep seemed to evaporate:

Grand Mariner french toast. Couldn't really taste the Grand Mariner in it, but it did have a little kick of something else to it. Those orange slices pulled the whole experience together. Light on the syrup did the trick. It was fairly thick, but soft enough to gum a few bites without my dentures.

Codie ended up going for something different than her normal sugar-stuffed sugar blintz. She went after an omelet.

That omelet is crammed to the nines with bacon, sausage and other delicious things that I cannot have. That magnatude-8 omelet certainly gave her a run for her money - she wasn't able to finish it. Those are light butter-cream cinnamon rolls toward the bottom of the picture. her and I both had one and agreed that they were fairly disappointing. The omelet, however, was hearty. It smelled strongly of herbs. ...or was that my cologne? I don't remember.

I decided to go fancy this time. One person got french toast, and one person got an omelet. And I so rarely go after a Benedict.

That is a crab-cake Benedict on a bed of baby kale with sriracha sauce underneath, and a spicy hollandaise on top. Each bite of this iridescent dish was a five-layered flavor explosion in my mouth. I appreciated the colors in this dish, as it made it very easy to see what I was eating, and exactly where on my tie I spilled it. It's one of the most expensive things on the menu (not prohibitively so) which makes the fact that it's ala carte a little annoying at first. I quickly got over that fact, though, and by the end of the dish was wholly satisfied.

The price tag for this meal was about $18 per person. That included coffees for Tamara and I, and a cranberry juice for Codie. It was well worth it, especially in an atmosphere that is comfy and cozy. The small nature of the place made for frequent visits from wait-staff, which only is sometimes annoying. Better to have too much help than none at all, though. All in all, it was very good, Braden. Good choice. Now give me back my cane and come visit me again next week!

With Phillip "Depends" Meyer, Tamara "Sleep Dep" Burgess, and Codie "No" Beck

eatthiscafe.com