3219 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles (Atwater Village)
Maybe it's from reading too many Madeline books and watching too much Julia Child on television when I was little, but I've grown up to be a total Francophile. While I studied French literature in college, fantasized about living in mid-19th century Montmartre, had many a sob session to the soundtrack of Édith Piaf and worshiped at the altar of Dior, YSL and Chanel, what I love most about the culture is the food. It's no wonder that my favorite restaurant is named for a French dessert.
Although Canelé's menu is Mediterranean in influence, it certainly feels like a French bistro. The space is extremely small, and they serve simple, robust, earthy dishes comprised of local ingredients fresh from the farmers' market. Canelé is so small that they don't take reservations, but I've only had to wait more than 15 minutes when I've come with a party larger than four. Usually you can grab a seat at their communal table or at the end of the bar (the perfect perch to view all of the action in the open kitchen) to avoid a wait. There is nothing pretentious about the straight-forward, delicious dishes created by chef Corina Weibel. Chef Weibel honed her skills as a sous chef at Campanile and chef de cuisine at Lucques before joining forces with General Manager Jane Choi (from New York's Balthazar and Pastis) to open Canelé in 2006.
Since then, the restaurant has consistently received critical accolades, especially for its brunch. If you're an egg person, Canelé's got you covered with Eggs in a Hole, en cocotte, Quiche Lorraine, build your own omelet or fried with pastrami hash and sauerkraut. You can satisfy your sweet tooth with incredibly thick pieces of French Toast or a Baked Pancake with tart Meyer lemon custard. I usually get a mushroom and gruyere omelet or the Fried Chicken Sandwich. Crispy pieces of chicken sit on a dollop of mayo and slices of pickled green tomatoes, which give the sandwich an unexpected acidity.
Their brunch is definitely the more affordable option, but dinner is my ideal time to go to Canelé because of two words: Pommes Anna. Paper thin slices of potato are layered into a pan with melted butter then cooked into a buttery, crisp-on-the-outside tart of deliciousness. I usually get the Bistro Steak, which is served with a side of Pommes Anna and creamed spinach. You also can't go wrong with the Boeuf Bourgignon, Salt-Roasted Branzino or Lamb Osso Buco.
Jamon Serrano
I love to start the meal with the Jamon Serrano plate. The Spanish ham is sliced to order and served with Garrotxa (goat's milk) cheese, a preserved fruit (usually dates or apricots), toast and almonds. My boyfriend lives for their Chicken Liver Pâté generously smeared on a piece of toasted bread with a Dijon and parsley garnish.The Dandelion Salad with capers, parsley, garlic, croutons and sherry vinaigrette or a cup of the Seafood Soup (usually on special) are other great ways to whet the appetite. On the opposite end of the evening is a slice of the decadent Buena Chica Cheesecake or fluffy Profiteroles with chocolate sauce.
Occasionally on a Tuesday night, Choi and Weibel host a Friends Cook at Canelé dinner when professional chefs, home cooks or pals who just love to eat and share their passion for food take over the kitchen to prepare a three-course, prix-fixe meal. Past guests have ranged from Lesley Balla, Amy Seidenwurm and David Thorne to Nancy Silverton and the late Amy Pressman. The next event is Oct. 9, an Oktoberfest-themed menu from Amy Neiman and Lynn Dougherty that begins with a Ploughman's Plate (pretzel, pickles and mustard), followed by a house-made sausage with sauerkraut and buttered carrots and an orchard crisp and cookie for dessert.
No matter which night you dine at Canelé, you are always offered a free taste of the small Bourdeaux dessert that the restaurant is named for as you head out the door. Molded into a shape resembling a tall bundt cake – but without a hole in the middle – the pastry is a cross between a cake and a baked custard, with a light as air center, chewy caramelized goodness on the outside interspersed with bits of sugary crunch. One canelé is only two or three bites, and mine is usually gone before I reach the car. The canelé is a sweet ending to an evening at its namesake gem of a restaurant, a place that I will always look forward to dining at.
For more information, visit canele-la.com or call (323) 666-7133.
Access at Sunnynook Drive and West Legion Lane (Atwater Village/Los Feliz)
"See, there's a heron there!"
Mike Andrews' enthusiasm is infectious as he spots one of the large grey birds during our walk along the Los Angeles River. From the moment we met at our predetermined starting point of Proof Bakery on Glendale Boulevard and over the course of our 10-minute trek to the riverbed, the musician/film score composer's lust for life – his love for where he's from, where he is now and where he's going – is evident. He bursts with stories about the city. He doesn't just tell me the name of one of his son's favorite dishes at a local restaurant (the potato balls at Porto's). He tells me about the establishment's owner, her life and how the restaurant came to be. Maybe it's because he's a California boy through and through, but I think he's also just innately inquisitive about his surroundings.
"I've been jumping all around California since I was a teenager. I grew up in San Diego, then went to college at Berkeley. I started making records after school, so I was in L.A. and in San Diego for a little bit, then back to San Francisco," he says. "I came back to San Diego, lived down by the beach and toured a lot. Then I started working with movies, moved to Los Angeles and started Donnie Darko."
Mike (under the name Elgin Park) played guitar with a funk and jazz band in San Diego, the Greyboy Allstars, who were asked to score director Jake Kasdan's feature debut, Zero Effect, in 1998. The next year, Mike began another professional relationship that would prove to be as long-standing as his with Kasdan, when he worked on the music for "Freaks and Geeks" for executive producer Judd Apatow. But the project that really brought Mike to international prominence was his score for Donnie Darko, especially his cover of Tears for Fears' "Mad World" with his childhood friend Gary Jules on vocals. By this time Mike was settling into life as an Angeleno.
"I lived in Downtown, at the Molino Street Lofts in the '90s, but I just felt locked in concrete. I grew up on the beach, so I couldn't take it. Then I moved to Glendale, and I felt like I was in some city that wasn't in California," he laughs. "I like that Glendale is away from the scene. I've always had an aversion to living around people that were just like me. I lived in Hollywood for a while, and I felt like I was 'in the biz.' You find yourself in any city finding those three or four things to do and just circle around them. Occasionally I branch out, but it's just nice to make a bigger place feel small. Finding that little triangle of where to eat lunch, get coffee, take a walk – all those places were inhabited by writer/director/actors [in Hollywood], and to me, it just felt weird."
In seeking those neighborhood spots around him, Mike discovered his haven of the L.A. River walk.
"This trail is so mellow. It's so peaceful, but the highway is right there. I guess it just sort of tunes out because it's like white noise," he says. "I come here once a week at least, sometimes more."
Most of the restaurants Mike likes to eat at are on the east side as well.
"We just found a great restaurant in Pasadena called Ración. It's a tapas place and is really good. La Cabanita is awesome, an old-school Mexican family restaurant. It's delicious and family oriented. We have our little guy, and he likes to make noise and spill stuff," he says with a laugh. "We go get pho a lot at Glendale Pho Co. and Viet. We like to go Downtown, too. We just went to the Flying Pig Cafe, another tapas-y joint. It seems like everybody's doing that: the little plate where you both have a bite, and it's over [laughs]. It just seems like those are the people who are caring about what they're making. Anywhere it feels like 'I'm going to make some real food out of some real stuff and be particular about it' is good."
After the success of Donnie Darko, Mike continued to put the same focus he does on finding quality food on picking projects like Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know, the Duplass brothers' Cyrus and Jeff Who Lives at Home, Bridesmaids and the theme for "New Girl." He worked again with both Kasdan (Orange County, The TV Set, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Bad Teacher) and Apatow (Funny People, The Five-Year Engagement). When signing on to a film, Mike looks for a certain something in those he collaborates with.
"It's just a type of person: People who have a strong sense of self, who like to look at their work relatively independent of other people and aren't afraid to be non-referential," he says. "I love working with new filmmakers, first-time directors, too, because they don't have a rule book. As you develop your art, people tend to be like, 'oh, this is the way we do it; we don't do this or that.' When you start working in that world, then it's limiting. I'm just working from intuition, if the intuition is already boxed in by someone's preconception of what it's not supposed to be, it limits me in my ability to be inspired."
Even after all these years of scoring for film and television, each job comes with its own set of hurdles to overcome. Mike admits that his latest project, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (set for release in 2013), with acclaimed director Mira Nair was one of his most challenging.
"She's a very strong woman and very much like I am, in that, she is wildly both distracted and focused in her art. She's a perfectionist, constantly trying to make things better even if it's outside the realm of possibility – which I think is great because you have to do that in order to get better," he says. "Of course collaborating with someone who's in India editing is very difficult. They're twelve-and-a-half hours ahead. I would call her at the end of the day when I was fried, and it was the beginning of her day so she was either in yoga or starting her day with a flood of ideas. Or it was my morning and I was trying to get a real dialogue with her after she worked 14-16 hours editing and dealing with all these issues. And it was an independent movie, so there wasn't a ton of money. Everybody takes a hit on an independent movie. You just deal with it for the sake of having more freedom."
Having the freedom to not only pick his film scoring projects but work on his own personal music is something that Mike relishes. Aside from producing albums for other artists like Brendan Benson, Metric and Inara George, Mike released his solo debut, Hand on String, in 2006. He releases his sophomore solo effort, Spilling a Rainbow, next week (Aug. 14).
"My personal records are mostly for me and people I care about. They're so personal to me; maybe someone else would relate to them in a personal way. They're cathartic, and it's fun to do just whatever I want because I don't spend a lot of time doing whatever I want," he laughs. "I really love my work. I love making movie stuff. I'm very fortunate to be able to do that, it's just a different kind of work. It's like being an architect. You create something that represents you, but it's in the context of someone else's needs and designs – trying to fit my sensibility in a collaborative form within the context of someone else's art/entertainment."
Spilling a Rainbow documents Mike's transformation as he became a parent. From finding out his wife was pregnant while at the dentist ("Dentist") and scoring one of their prenatal ultrasounds ("Music For Cell Division") to those first days of being a dad ("Waiting for You to Wake), he shares it all on the album.
"I waited a long time to have kids. Being an artist is very me-oriented, and finally having someone come into your life – besides, obviously a relationship – that doesn't even allow you to think of yourself is just such a relief," he says with a laugh.
One song that illustrates the joy he's found in fatherhood is about blowing bubbles, "Bubbles in Space." The video for the track, directed by his longtime friend Josh Hassin, is animated by a collection of drawings from art students.
"My friend Jeremy [Farson] teaches at the High Tech High International, which is a school in San Diego that focuses on science and art. I told Josh that I didn't really want to be in the video, so he came up with the idea to do an animated video, and it ended up that Jeremy's class would do the drawing," Mike shares. "Josh shot me for three hours one morning, along with all of our children at the beach. He edited that together, gave it to Jeremy's class and they drew everything. I was really pleased with it, that kids got to make something and it was a labor of love like my record. It was good times amongst friends making something cool."
Mike brings the same philosophy to organizing his August residency at Bootleg Bar.
"I'm going to have a couple collaborations with a few people, it's always different. I just have people come to my house, and we work on some songs. Either we interpret some of their songs or we do a cover that we're both interested in." He adds, "I'm going to try and do some kind of screening because they have a screen in the other room. Maybe score some stuff live or show some images and put some of my music that no one's ever head before in it. Just have fun with the night, make it a place where all the people I used to hang out with can get together because I don't get to go out very often. It's an opportunity to go out and be social and play music."
As for the future, Mike is forever open to whatever comes his way.
"I try not to tell myself, 'this is what's going to happen' or 'I'm really going to go after this thing' because I always feel like anything you really go after, it just sets you up for disappointment. I have always said, 'I'll keep playing, writing songs and just see where it leads me. And if worse comes to worse and I need to make a living, I'll just get a job,' and that was pretty much the extent of it," he says. "It seems like anytime you try to focus on a target, it's like you're missing all the other things that could happen. Stuff just comes at me and I deal with it whether it be a song, a movie, a person. It makes it easier I think, doesn't it? [laughs] Maybe it's the course of least resistance, but it's proved to be pretty good. The only thing is dealing with the psychology of not knowing ever what's in the future, which I've gotten used to over the last twenty-five years that I've been making records and music."
Spilling a Rainbow is currently available. For more information, visit elginpark.com.
3149 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles (Atwater Village)
There are so many record stores in my neighborhood, even just within walking distance. Jacknife Records & Tapes stands out among the others because they truly go out of their way to make each person who walks through their door feel welcome. It doesn't matter how your hair's cut or what you're wearing – if you've crossed the threshold it most likely means you love music, and that's the only criteria here.
Goodies purchased at Jacknife
Originally opened by David Gunderson last year, Jacknife is now under the ownership of Trevor Baade, who is usually at the counter giving recommendations, engaging in musical discourse or just saying hi to everyone who comes by. Sometimes I might not look forward to vinyl shopping excursions because they take time (There are so many sections of records to go through!) and wind up costing a lot. But I really do look forward to going to Jacknife, and I think Trevor's great attitude has a lot to do with it.
Let's face it, if you're looking for rare, collectible records then
you're going to be spending a lot of money. That being said, I feel like
everything is fairly priced at Jacknife. Vinyl can run from $3 used to
around $20 new. The most extravagant purchase we've made there was $40
for Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, and Trevor even threw in the Billie Holiday Story Volume I that we were also going to buy for free.
Jacknife
has everything placed into clearly marked sections by genre. They have a
cool collection of tapes and 8-tracks for sale too. I've seen
everything from Stevie B, Danzig and Nirvana. Also to be perused are
racks of vintage clothes (T-shirts, jackets and hoodies), toys and other
collectibles.
Almost a year ago, our family decided to try and only eat meat once a week. When we do eat meat, it should be humanely raised (free-range chicken, grass-fed beef). Like most Angelenos, we're addicted to Mexican food, but our dietary restrictions meant saying goodbye to our beloved taco stands like Tacos Arizas. We definitely wouldn't have lasted this long without Hugo's Tacos.
Not only does Hugo's Tacos offer vegetarian and vegan choices, all of their meats are humane. We eat at the stand in Atwater Village at least once a week, and I've tried pretty much every item on the menu at least once. I like the food at Hugo's Tacos so much that even when I've gone to its parent restaurant in West Hollywood (Hugo's) – where there are plenty of scrumptious options to choose from – I've ordered dishes that I normally order at the taco stand.
My favorite thing to order is a soy chorizo burrito. The chorizo has just the right blend of spices, and it really tastes similar to the traditional pork sausage. I've tried soy chorizo at other vegan places, but Hugo's Tacos is by far the best. They grill the chorizo with diced potatoes and zucchini, then fold that into a tortilla with organic Spanish rice and white beans.
A soy chorizo burrito from Hugo's Tacos
Hugo's Tacos' other vegan-friendly filling is the mixed veggies with herbs: grilled cauliflower, potatoes, zucchini and yellow squash. I don't like this option as much because the herbs they use are just too overpowering, and the natural taste of the veggies gets lost.
Even when it's a "meat day," I usually stick to my soy chorizo burrito, but their carnitas are also amazing. They take marinated pork, shred and brown it on the grill just enough so that it's still moist and succulent. Often times, you'll find bits of the marinade (whole black peppercorns or pieces of orange peel) in your taco.
Both the chicken and steak are marinated in a citrus and chili mixture that gives the meats a slightly red tint before they're grilled. Other meat fillings are the al pastor (diced pork marinated in Middle Eastern spices) and grilled fish.
Their salsas range from mild Pico de Gallo to the quite spicy Salsa Arbol. I'm such a spice wimp that I usually stick with the Jalapeno & Tomatillo that is just one step higher than the Pico de Gallo. But even the Salsa Habanero isn't too crazy hot.
Besides burritos and tacos, you can order any of the fillings on top of nachos, a tostada, green tamales (which are really heavy), a salad, bowl or inside a quesadilla. Oh and there's no rubbery, orange cheese at Hugo's Tacos. They only use Oaxaca, Cotija or vegan (if requested) cheeses.
One of the more unique items they offer is the Torta Ahogada. The standard Mexican sandwich is kicked up a notch by dipping it in their sweet Honey Chipotle salsa then cooked on a griddle. They also do the same dip-in-Honey Chipotle-then-griddle treatment on a beef or veggie patty for their Salsa Burger.
Hugo's Tacos' French fries are delicious and can be added to any menu item with a soda for $2.48 extra, or you can add chips/salsa or rice and beans instead of fries. They also have delicious watermelon Agua Fresca (Their Horchata is a bit too sweet for me.).
If you like them on Facebook or join their newsletter, you'll be alerted to their special offers. Every Wednesday night, you can get burritos for half-off with their secret password, and from 10 a.m.-11 a.m. on weekdays, breakfast burritos are just a fraction of their regular price.
Although Canelé's menu is Mediterranean in influence, it certainly feels like a French bistro. The space is extremely small, and they serve simple, robust, earthy dishes comprised of local ingredients fresh from the farmers' market. Canelé is so small that they don't take reservations, but I've only had to wait more than 15 minutes when I've come with a party larger than four. Usually you can grab a seat at their communal table or at the end of the bar (the perfect perch to view all of the action in the open kitchen) to avoid a wait. There is nothing pretentious about the straight-forward, delicious dishes created by chef Corina Weibel. Chef Weibel honed her skills as a sous chef at Campanile and chef de cuisine at Lucques before joining forces with General Manager Jane Choi (from New York's Balthazar and Pastis) to open Canelé in 2006. 
