Croque Madame pour Monsieur

Ham. Cheese. Bread. Egg.

There a lot of ways to combine those four elements, but nothing compares to the French, Croque Madame.  Dating back to the early 1900's, this Lady Crunch is simply a Croque Monsieur with an egg on top.  No confusion about why the egg makes the crunch feminine.

Last year I showed you Los Angeles' best turkey burger. And best banana cream pie. This week, I accidentally came across the city's best croque madame.

At the corner of Bundy & Wilshire, a few blocks from our home, this has been waiting for me.

A thing of beauty.

At the Literati Restaurant, not the cafe, but restaurant.  Important distinction.

(This post was created as a draft over a year ago, but never posted.  Not sure why.  - The Management)

Young, White, Homeless and Clever

On the way to pick up my wife from the airport yesterday, I passed these two.

Her sign reads, "Astronauts. Left our wallets on Uranus." There is a lot to say about this sighting. Almost too much. One, you have to wonder what their story is. Escape from abuse? Drug addicts burning bridges at home? Spoiled kids out for adventure? I will never know.

Also, I have friends who do not have girlfriends and this homeless White guy with the massive Aboriginal hoops in his earlobes does. Interesting fact.

Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles

Two weeks ago, Mia flew out from NYC to visit Nate.  She had done research on restaurants she wanted to visit here.  And she said an amazing thing.  "I want to go to Roscoe's."  Why was that amazing?

Around 25 years ago, when I was still in High School, a friend of mine who was going to UCLA rented a crummy apartment in Hollywood because, well, it was a very cool thing for a suburban kid to do.  One truly great thing came out of this; his apartment was two blocks from Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles on Gower.  At the time, nobody outside of the Black community knew about or ate at Roscoe's, but we were young and did not know better, and we walked over and waited outside for almost an hour to get in.  Amusingly, the maitre d' kept coming over to us to let us know he would get us a table, literally laughing at the sight of five young white kids.  I still remember as we sat at our table and he handed out the menus, he said, "Man, you guys are making my night."

A lot has changed in 25 years.  Roscoe's is still one of the best meals in Los Angeles, but the place is as multi-cultural as you can get now, with every race and ethnicity eating there and working there.  (And Roscoe's has even more locations around the city, all spawning from the original Inglewood location.)

Finally we have reached the point that people who visit from New York have heard of Roscoe's and want to be taken there.  And when your out of town guest mentions one of your all-time favorite restaurants, you go.

I failed to take pictures of Nate, Mia and myself at the restaurant.  Or out front.  Or in the car on the way.  All I did was take two pictures.

Before.

After.

After I took the after picture, I remembered that I have a time lapse photo app that could have shot a video of those seven plates of food being devoured by three savage people.  Maybe next time?

And the epilogue is this;  after taking Nate to maybe fifteen restaurants during the eleven weeks he stayed with us, he said during his final week, "Jeff, of all the places we've eaten, my two favorites were Roscoe's and Mr. Cecil's."  I nearly fainted.  This young man's taste is impeccable.  Those are literally my two favorite restaurants in Los Angeles.

Now... you loyal Wasters should probably be cross with me.  I have never shared pictures of Mr. Cecil's BBQ.  I promise to correct that someday.  For now, you will have to be content with this.

For me, these are the best ribs in Los Angles.  The beef ribs especially, but I always make sure to order both beef and pork.

A little comic-book-izing never hurts.

Until next time.