Hitting Bricks Before Heading Home

Bricks

23820 Lyons Ave. 

Santa Clarita, CA 91321

We had it all set up that we would wake up early, leave the hotel we were staying at, and head to a brunch spot we had heard good things about in Los Feliz. Of course, those plans did not materialize. After a late night of drinking and catching up with family, we slept in until right about checkout time. There was a hurried rush to gather our things, as housekeeping waited patiently to clean our room. Still a little groggy, and in need of some sustenance before our hour and a half drive back to OC, we did a quick Yelp search of brunch spots around us, and arrived at Bricks.

Bricks was a short five-minute drive from our hotel, and the perfect spot to get Katie some coffee, and me some much-needed food to help counteract the rum from the night before. Located in an old-style Taco Bell, Bricks has gotten a lot of love for their burgers, fries, and shakes, and in four short years has become known as a burger destination. They have a solid four-star rating on Yelp, with over 700 reviews. Pretty impressive.

We arrived here at just before noon on a recent Sunday. There's a register with an order window, but we were directed to a table, and our order was taken by a waiter. There's plenty of patio seating out front, but on this rather warm day, we chose to sit in the more climate controlled inside portion of the restaurant. A steady stream of customers followed us, but I'd never say the restaurant was packed.

Bricks have their specials neatly displayed on a huge blackboard above their register, flanked by two flat screens that were turned to sports. The two-paged brunch menu has plenty of egg options for you, and for people that enjoy sweeter brunch items, they got you covered as well. We made our selections and waited for the food that we hoped would be able to keep us content for our long car ride home.

Man, I had a tough time making a decision here, but finally went with their Pulled Pork and Chorizo Hash ($12). This brightly colored plate came with a hash made up of tender pulled pork, chorizo, onions, red pepper, and potato, and was then topped with two poached eggs and served with toast points. I really enjoyed this. The meats were prominent, the eggs were done perfectly so that when punctured, the yolk would spill out over the rest of the plate, and the toast was a great vessel for adding texture. Yes, I would have liked a little more spice included here, but a good first meal of the day.

Katie ordered the Breakfast Sliders ($11) as her selection on this morning. These came three to an order and were supposed to come with two eggs, but they were not included here. After being alerted to that fact, they brought them out separately, so Katie did a little assembly and ended up liking these sausage patties and egg sliders. This was a good quality sausage, which was spiced well, and the buns were not only visually appealing, but they were baked well also. If they use the same bakery for their hamburger buns as these sliders, I'd be pretty excited to try the burgers at Brick. The menu made no mention of fries being included with this dish, but we really enjoyed these skinny fries, which were made even better when dipped in the provided ranch.

At brunch I'm always one to mix sweet and savory, so we needed something to satisfy our sweet requirement, so we got this Brioche French Toast ($11). Beautifully plated and very tasty, this was a good plate of french toast, which was topped with mascarpone, mixed berries, and a dusting of powdered sugar. I'm not a big fruit guy, so I favored the maple syrup to sweeten these up, which definitely did the trick. The french toast had a good crunch to it but could have been a little more flavorful on its own. I'm trying their breakfast Monte Cristo which come with peanut butter, marshmallow, banana, Nutella, and a Nutella ice cream on my next trip here. Sounds awesome.

For not being on our original itinerary on this trip, Bricks was a solid option for brunch. Would it have been better than our original destination? Not sure about that until we go, but having something in our stomachs on the way back down to OC was exactly what we needed. There's more I'd like to try at Bricks, including one of their 19 varieties of burgers, which all sound so good. Brunch was good, even if the service was a little on the spotty side. We were not the only table that had issues with food missing from items, but they rectified things quickly. All in all, a very good unscheduled visit, and we'll look forward to coming back when we are up this way.

Out of five lassos, (because every spring, the Cowboy Festival invades Santa Clarita, and you can be sure that where there are cowboys, there will also be lassos), five being best to zero being worst, Bricks gets 3 lassos.

For more information about Bricks, head over to their website here: https://www.bricksnewhall.com/

Feeling the History at Saugus Cafe

The Original Saugus Cafe

25861 Railroad Ave.

Santa Clarita, CA 91355

I can admit that I have become pretty obsessed lately. Someone posted this list of the oldest restaurants in Southern California on Facebook, and I find myself staring at it, and making plans to visit a lot of the restaurants on it. This list of restaurants was compiled by Nikki Kreuzer of The LA Beat. You can see her very well-researched list by clicking here.

According to the list, the oldest restaurant within an hour's drive of Los Angeles is the Original Saugus Cafe, which happens to be in Santa Clarita. A place where we would be spending the night after attending Katie's cousin, Steve's 50th birthday party. After a wild night of listening to the world-famous Steagles, a great Eagles cover band, enjoying a taco guy, and having a few cocktails, we made plans to meet up the next morning and have breakfast at Saugus Cafe with some of Katie's relatives.

Not really some, but it seemed like all. We had a party of 17 for this tiny diner. Katie called at 10 to see if this was going to be a problem, and they said they would put her name on the list, and the tables would be ready in about an hour, which gave us plenty of time to check out of our hotel, and head over. When we arrived they said they had remembered the call, but they still did not have our table ready, and it would be another hour before we could be seated. Luckily, another guy, possibly a manager intervened and got us seated within a half hour. Crisis averted, and we got to cross this 1905 landmark off of our list

Saugus Cafe has been pretty much in this same location for over 110 years. It has a very colorful past, had a number of owners, and hosted many famous people during its century-plus run. John Wayne, Clark Gable, Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich, Whoopi Goldberg, and Drew Barrymore have all occupied these premises at one time or another. In 1952 the original building was torn down and moved a few feet south. Since 1994, Saugus Cafe has had new owners who have worked to modernize the restaurant, while maintaining the history of the place.

The cafe definitely has an older feel to it. We were seated way in the back, near the attached bar area. Our long, narrow table was not really conducive to chatting, but Katie and I had a good enough time with Katie's cousins, goofing on other family members, and talking about the last evening's hijinks. This 24-hour spot has a menu that is very breakfast focused. Breakfast is offered all hours of the day, and features lots of specials, egg dishes, and griddle items. We ordered in a pretty orderly fashion for a large group and waited for the food that we hoped would soak up some of the alcohol from last night's festivities. Let's see how it all turned out for us.

Listed first on the breakfast menu, Katie selected this Saugus Special ($10.05) as her first meal of the day. This three-egg omelet came with sausage, avocado, mushrooms, and Swiss cheese, and was topped with sour cream. Katie really enjoyed the size of this breakfast but did remark that it was an average diner breakfast, nothing special. She'd probably get this without sour cream if she came back here again. Omelets come with your choice of hash browns, home fries, tomatoes, or cottage cheese. Katie went with the hash browns, which she said were good.

Katie's cousin Steve was pretty indecisive when it came time for him to order. He was torn between the chili cheese omelet but eventually went with the Corned Beef Omelette ($9.45) after much debate in his head. Even though Steve appears to be a picky eater, he had no qualms about this breakfast. He loved the girth of the omelet and had no complaints with his food.

For my breakfast, I had to give their Chicken Fried Steak and Eggs ($9.85) a try. As drab as these pictures look, the food on this plate was about the same. The chicken fried steak was very average, with a very bland gravy, whose only saving grace was that it added moisture to the meat. The eggs were cooked fine, and the home-style fries were a little better than the hash browns I tried off of Katie's plate, with the addition of onions to the spuds making the difference.

From my awkward position where I was sitting at the table, I could not get any other pictures of anyone else's food, but no one really raved about their breakfast here. Saugus Cafe did its job of helping us get over a late night of partying with some classic diner food. It definitely served its purpose and sent us on our way back to OC with a full stomach. The history of this restaurant is enough for at least one visit, but I'm not sure the food will keep people coming back. Not awful, but not worth the drive from OC, and even our cousins from Santa Clarita were not wowed by this visit to Saugus Cafe. On the plus side, even with such a large party, the service we experienced by the staff after being seated was right on the spot, even with a few challenging members of our group. I'm glad I had the opportunity to eat here, as it's not every day you can dine in a restaurant that was around when Theodore Roosevelt was president.

Out of five airplanes, (because the year this restaurant started, the Wright brothers third plane stayed in the air for 39 minutes, which was the first time a plane stayed aloft for more than a half hour), five being best to zero being worst, The Original Saugus Cafe gets 2.5 airplanes.

Saugus Cafe does not have a website, but you can find a very interesting article on its history by clicking here: http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/sauguscafe.htm