Bouchees Bistro

I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. Bouchees Bistro is a lunch counter next door to a Panda Express sharing a building with WalMart, situated across from the Blue line station on Long Beach Blvd. this is not where I'd expect to find good eats. I don't even remember how I first ended up in Bouchees Bistro. I remember laughing at the name - not so much because it was a bad name for a restaurant, it just looked so out of place on that particular stretch of the Boulevard. And yet, somehow, that's exactly where it belongs.

Bouchees belongs on Long Beach Blvd. because, as I mentioned, it is a lunch counter. There are a few tables available for groups of two or four, but not much more than that. Every table I've ever sat at wobbled. The floors are cement and the walls are covered in local folk art, that changes out every couple months. the waitresses wear all black with silver studded belts. In these regards Bouchees Bistro looks pretty much at home in the neighborhood.

the menu is burgers and fries, ice cream, macaroni and cheese; oh, and butternut squash ravioli, belgian endive and roquefort cheese salad, crab minestrone soup... if you've been following along you may have noticed I turned a corner there. But the fact is the burgers and fries (sweet potato fries, or parmesan and herb fries - you can get both in one order) have more in common with the gourmet menu than they do with any other burger joint in the LBC or most of LA County. the burgers here are really good.

Having tried all their specialty burgers, I can tell you you can't go wrong with any of the four, but start out with the #2 - applewood bacon, chipotle cheeseburger. It's like eating a burger for the first time. Oh, but, if you can't decide on one, they sell all their burgers as sliders, (they call them minis... which makes more sense than sliders, doesn't it) Anyway order as many as you want for 3 or 4 bucks apiece. The fries are served with ketchup. I don't know what that ketchup is made of, but I've never had ketchup like that. Get the fries combo.

I tried the macaroni and cheese once - it was pretty good, but if it comes down to a side of mac and cheese or dessert - don't waste a moment weighing your options. The desserts are unbelievable. tis past weekend I ordered the ice cream sandwich of the day. Simple enough. It was lavender gelato topped with hazelnut sauce and sandwiched between two macademia nut white chocolate cookies. WHAT?! That's just crazy enough to work.

Well, to top it all off, the bill was about what you'd expect to pay at Denny's. The burgers run between 8 and 10 bucks, the fry combo a bit pricy at 4, and the ice cream sandwich another 4 bucks. The fancy entrees are a bit more, but you're at a lunch counter - get a burger and fries already,

I'm still not sure about the name, and I'm a little worried about the location, but bouchees bistro must be to our generation what the Apple Pan must've been like for our .... uh for our great grandparents.

Anyway here's the ink
Bouchees Bistro
515 Long Beach Blvd, Long Beach, CA 90803

More Comfort Food - "Cravings"

Angela's review of Cici's Cafe got me thinking about good comfort food. It seems out of character for me to recommend a trendy joint on The Sunset Strip - especially when on the subject of comfort food - but for some reason I'm going to. The set up goes like this: Somehow Hitomi and I found ourselves walking down the Sunset Strip on a Friday night at about 9pm looking for food (Don't try this yourself). All the usual restaurants were full (who knows why) but "Cravings" looked like they had a seat in the back. so we took it.

Cravings is a pretty appropriate name for a shishi comfort food joint, and the atmosphere is pretty unique and relatively comfortable. the concept: put a bunch of tables outside, then decorate the outside as if it were the inside and put a tent roof over it all so it kind of is inside - but not quite. It's a lot like camping with rich people... on Sunset Boulevard.

Anyway, they have a lot of warm food: Like chicken noodle soup and chicken pot pie. Crab ravioli, chicken curry, chicken Parmigiana, trout, seafood stew, lamb chops... they even have hamburgers and a ham and cheese omelet. (I didn't just remember all this, I checked their website) I ate the curry, because I can't pass up curry. It was really good. The pine nuts and raisins gave the otherwise warm, rich, curry flavor a little additional sharpness and texture. the chicken was cooked perfectly, juicy and tender. Hitomi had the Chicken pot pie, which was also very nice. The gravy was rich and well spiced and the pastry on top was flakey. I kept stealing bites of her pot pie, as she looked at me with that "why didn't you just order it yourself" look.

And that's it. that's all we had. Next time we're on the strip we'll definitely go back. (As if we'll ever be on the strip again... maybe we'd even consider making a special trip... no, I doubt it.)Anyway for good comfort food - Cravings, 8653 West Sunset Blvd. (Price was about 20 -30 bucks a head before drinks)

I was gonna put pictures, but they don't have any on their website.

CiCi's Cafe

18912 Ventura Blvd Tarzana, CA 91356 (818) 881-6704

No offense, but the 818 sucks. I only go there because I get paid to. But this place officially subtracted one de-merit from the stinky steaming stew of porn shops and smog that is otherwise known as the valley. The servers here are grunge-chic (but in an attentive-to-personal-hygiene way), and way cooler than the pit crew themed Hollywood skank staff at Swingers - bunch of snooty wanna-be actor/model rejects...CiCi's is to pancakes what the Factory is to Cheesecake. I can't rave over them (yet) because I had the chicken breast spinach salad. This was the first time I didn't get stuck with an entire field of spinach after running out of succulent grilled chicken and tastey sweet walnuts. Busy place. Sit at the counter. Period. No, exclamation point...