philippe's beef french dip

philippe's, alameda & main, los angeles

Philippe's, supposedly the first restaurant to serve french dip sandwiches, has been on my "to eat at" list for almost as long as I've been in LA. The vibe inside is something akin to a medieval beer hall, filled with long benched tables, and sawdust all over the floor. Sandwiches can be ordered at any one of many available lines, although all of the lines were fairly long when my brother and I arrived on a Saturday afternoon. In addition to the famous french dip sandwiches, Philippe's has a pretty wide selection of wine and beer, as well as a deep side-order menu. We got pickles, potato salad, macaroni salad, a pickled egg, and two lemonades to go with our sandwiches. Even in spite of all of the extras we ordered, I believe our bill was still under $20. Not bad. And then (I swear to god this really happened), after we sat down at one of the the tables with our grub, a medieval maiden sat down next to us at the other end of the table. She was with a friend wearing more contemporary clothing. I don't know where on earth the maiden came from, but between her, the local crowd, ball games on the TVs, and the "Train Museum" (!!) in the back room, I was digging the scene. The food was no disappointment, either. The beef french dip was delicious, although Philippe's concept of a french dip is somewhat different from my own- rather than being served with a cup of au jus, the drippings were poured directly onto the sandwich. The meat was otherwise unadorned, although there was a squeeze-bottle of Philippe's house mustard at each table. The primary characteristic of the mustard was a painfully intense horseradish flavor- I was sweating from the heat (and then I bought a bottle to take home). The side dishes were pretty good- I liked the potato salad, thought the macaroni salad had too much mayonnaise (when is this ever not true of macaroni salad?), liked the sour pickles, and liked the pickled egg- the first pickled egg I've ever eaten! It tasted like what you would expect a pickled egg to taste like, although the texture is a little bit more rubbery than a hard-boiled egg.

canter's rueben

canter's delicatessen, north fairfax avenue, los angeles

In my last post, I described Canter's pastrami as A+. This is true- it's one of the finest pastrami sandwiches I've ever had. That being said, when the reuben arrived, I forgot the pastrami had ever existed. Canter's reuben is maybe one of the best sandwiches I have ever eaten in my life (true this time, true the last time). I took one bite of this and almost melted in my seat, it was so good. I'm pretty sure I would have fainted if I had been standing. "Dearie me, I do believe I have the vapours!" I would have exclaimed, then bang-o, laid out on the ground. If you aren't speaking like a bourgeois Victorian-era woman while eating this, you are probably speaking in tongues. LA is full of wacky cults and New Age methods of attending universal knowledge and spiritual fulfillment, but this right here is the only true path.

canter's pastrami

canter's delicatessen, north fairfax avenue, los angeles

My little bro came to town to visit (from Santa Barbara, where he is embarking on the college experience) and the pressure was on to prove that I'd learned at least SOMETHING about LA in the six months I've been here. I couldn't take him to some bammer restaurant. No, I had to show him the real deal. It was an easy decision to make - with the exception of the bologna incident, Canter's is a no-fail situation. We decided to go half-and-half on our orders (I think we decided- I might have unknowingly pressured him into it so I'd get to eat two different types of sandwiches), and the pastrami arrived first. What's there to say about this sandwich? The rye bread ruled, and the pastrami was spicy, salty and delicious. A little mustard and you're set. A+ as usual. You know what it is!

late night chiliburgers

original tommy's, laurel canyon blvd & burbank blvd, los angeles

Ah, Tommy's chiliburgers and Cactus Cooler, two great tastes that taste great together. After getting home from a party on a Saturday night, what could be better than enjoying some sloppy fast food and a good old VHS tape? Unfortunately, shortly after these photos were taken, the VHS was consumed by the tape player and we never learned if they found Spock or not. Dang.

katsu sandwich

rhea's deli, 19th & valencia, san francisco

I'm intrigued by this recent trend of recent trend of moderately-expensive gourmet deli counters setting up in otherwise unassuming corner stores (see also: Pal's Takeaway, Mission Burger). In fact, next time I'm in SF I think I'll try to do a comparison and determine who has the best liquor store sandwich. The thing that intrigues me about this is that these places aren't cheap- I don't know about you, but I don't normally spend almost 10 dollars on a to-go sandwich. That's restaurant prices, dammit! So, in some way I see these new shops as indicative of the further gentrification of the Mission, co-opting local foodstuff providers in order to pander to the nouveau-riche who can actually afford to eat these sandwiches. On the other hand, I love sandwiches. With that in mind, I couldn't resist checking out the new deli counter at Rhea's Deli, at 19th and Valencia. In addition to their $7 dollar gourmet sandwiches, Rhea's offers a cheaper grilled cheese sandwich that I'm told is quite good- but I was there to check out the good stuff. The Katsu Sandwich consists of breaded pork loin, coleslaw, roasted red pepper, garlic aoli and katsu sauce- and man, was it good. The varying textures in this sandwich- chewy pork, crunchy coleslaw, creamy sauce, soft bread- made eating it an engaging experience. I'm eager to try out their other sandwiches soon.

woooow i've been slacking off

I haven't posted anything here in over a month! Certain dietary and financial restrictions have severely limited my sandwich-purchasing abilities in recent times. Thankfully I've got good friends like Harmony and Jon fighting the good fight against... uh... not-eating-sandwiches. And thankfully sandwiches are beloved far and wide, as exemplified by websites such as this one:

How Much Is Inside a Sandwich?

In this feature on cockeyed.com, author Rob Cockerham tackles the question that apparently America's top scientists are too lazy (or too scared- cowards!) to address: how much money is going into that homemade sandwich, anyway? I really dig his casual approach to science, and the overall easy-going tone of the writing. Read all the way to the end and try out his sandwich-cost calculator!