Swinging By Northridge for a Great Sandwich

Brent's Delicatessen and Restaurant

19565 Parthenia St.

Northridge, CA 91324

I know I have written it before on these pages, but Katie has a big extended family. Most of her family lives in Burbank, and as is the case with most big families, there is always some event going on where they all get together. We almost could make weekly trips up the 5 Freeway if we were going to attend every recital, birthday, anniversary, wedding, engagement, or shower. So we have to pick and choose when we want to head up. Katie always bribes me by telling me we can eat at a restaurant on the way up north. Don't tell her, but I actually enjoy seeing her family. They are all really cool, and they seems to like me enough, so going to a restaurant in LA is just an added bonus.

This time we were going to a family party in Valencia, which is almost to San Francisco, or at least it felt like it as we traveled up the 405 on a recent Saturday afternoon. Luckily, there was no traffic going north, so we made it to Northridge in just over and hour and a half. What were we doing in Northridge you ask? Well, after checking out one of my favorite websites, TV Food Maps, I found a restaurant that has been featured on TV, that was in our general area we were heading. I was very excited to finally try Brent's Delicatessen and Restaurant.

Brent's has been seen on, "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" on the Food Network. In this particular episode they were talking about the best things they have ever eaten in a deli. Brent's was Marc Summers pick, for their corned beef sandwich. I remember watching that episode, and knowing that I would one day make it to Brent's to try their traditional deli sandwiches. Lucky for me, that day was today.

Brent's was taken over by Ron Peskin, and his wife, Patricia, in 1969. At that time the deli was floundering, but with the help of their family, they turned this restaurant around, and have even opened another location in Westlake Village. Brent's reminded me of OC's own Katella Deli in Los Alamitos. We got here between lunch and dinner, and still had a ten minute wait to get a table. We were told the wait can be up to two hours long sometimes, so we hit Brent's at the right time. The wait can give you a chance to peruse their 16 page menu. Yes, unlike Cheesecake Factory's massive menu, this one features no ads, and covers everything you would expect from a deli and more. Our table was finally ready, so we sat down, ordered, and waited for the food to hit the table. This is what came out for us.

In a lot of restaurants they give you a bread basket, at Mexican joints they give you chips and salsa, and at Italian restaurants you sometimes get bread sticks. So it makes sense that at a delicatessen that you get a couple slices of rye bread before your meal. Quite simply, this was some of the best slices of rye I have ever had. Pillowy soft, with that great rye flavor. I knew I had a lot of food coming out for me, but I could not stop eating this bread. I even took the leftovers home, and made a sandwich with it the next day. Make sure to save room for this bread.

Just like ordering chicken fajitas in a Mexican restaurant, you can always count on Katie to order Matzo Ball Soup ($7.75) in a deli. This was a big bowl of soup that definitely epitomizes comfort food. Lots of shredded chicken, a good amount of carrots, and a matzo ball the size of a tennis ball. The matzo ball was made well, the chicken was tender, and this soup was filling. Eating all this soup made Katie so relaxed, she felt like she just had an hour massage.

I did not want to be left out while Katie was eating her soup, so I got myself a Meat Knish (($5.25) to start. This was my first ever knish, so I did not really know what to expect. It's basically a large meatball encased in pastry crust, and served with brown gravy. Even after cutting this in half it kept its shape well. On its own, I felt the ground beef inside kind of tasted like an unseasoned meatloaf. The knish was much better with the gravy that was provided. For my first experience with a knish, I have to say this piqued my interest in this Easter European dumpling. This won't be my last knish.

Katie made the wise decision to have the Brent's Special ($12.95), which is a half a sandwich, her matzo ball soup, (which ended up adding a mere $2 to this special), and her choice of either potato salad or coleslaw. For her sandwich she ordered the Turkey Pastrami that made me wince when she ordered it. I'm not big on having turkey resemble other meats, but Brent's nailed this version. The turkey did have the pastrami vibe going on here. The turkey pastrami was freshly sliced, on the same great rye bread that we had before our meal. More than enough meat for two sandwiches was piled between the bread, which Katie added some deli mustard to for some extra flavor. She was also pretty ecstatic about the potato salad at Brent's as well. Nice mellow flavor, with an excellent crunch to this salad. Katie was completely satisfied with this meal.

When Marc Summers had eaten here, he had the corned beef, but I'm much more of a pastrami guy, so it was a natural that I would go with the Black Pastrami Reuben ($14.95). This traditional Reuben came with everything you would expect on it, melted Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing, on grilled rye. Quite simply, one of the best Reuben's I have had. The pastrami was great. sliced perfectly, where it was not too thin or thick, with no fatty pieces, and just a great melt in your mouth style meat. The bread did a great job of keeping everything together, and the cheese and sauerkraut worked well with the pastrami. If I had one critique about this sandwich, it would be that it needed just a little more Russian dressing on it, but that was remedied by asking for a side of it. To be honest, this was served with Coleslaw, but I was in such bliss over this sandwich, that I did not write anything in my notes about it. The coleslaw was good, but could not hold a candle to this sandwich. Weeks after, and I still think fondly back on this sandwich.

No, we did not eat this Four Layer Carrot Cake ($7.25) at Brent's, we got it to go since we still had to go to the family party in Valencia. I am a sucker for carrot cake, and this one was pretty good. For the most part the cake was moist, some of the end pieces were a little dry. I like the cream cheese frosting here. It was a light cream cheese, with just the right amount of sweetness. I just wish there was a little more of it. The cake part had a definite cinnamon/nutmeg feel to it. I liked this cake, but there are so many good choices at Brent's, I think I might have to try something else on future visits, like the Chocolate Eclair or the Cheesecake.

So after reading this review, you can probably sense my excitement with Brent's. People always lament that we do not have good delis in LA, and those people are wrong. We have great delis, but they are just so spread out, you need to look for them. Brent's is one of the great delis. Katie and I left Brent's completely satisfied. Everything we ate was very good, and the service we experienced on this visit was very personable. It's easy to see why they sometimes have hour waits for tables here. Some might think that the prices are a little on the high side, but you are paying for quality at Brent's, and I would gladly pay a little extra to eat a better quality Reuben sandwich. Plus, the portion sizes are really good sized here. Brent's Deli has really got me looking forward to the next time that we can visit Katie's family up in LA.

Out of five matadors, (because the mascot for Cal State Northridge is the matador), five being best to zero being worst, Brent's Delicatessen and Restaurant gets 4 matadors.

To find out more information about Brent's Delicatessen and Restaurant, go to their web site here: http://brentsdeli.com/

Leaving on a Jet Plane By Way of Hawthorne

Zacatecas Mexican Restaurant

13737 Inglewood Ave. 

Hawthorne, CA 90250

Well, it's been like three weeks, so it must be time to take Chuck and Stephanie to LAX, for their almost monthly trip to South Carolina. Okay, they really don't go that often, but I think they went five times last year. Our reward for taking them to the airport is of course Stephanie's great company, and Chuck buys us dinner at the restaurant of my choosing. One of my favorite things to do when we are headed up this way is to do research on where we should eat. I have gotten us to some pretty good spots, and some pretty mediocre places. I had high hopes for this trip to Zacatecas.

We left OC at 7PM to make it up to Hawthorne by 8PM. Chuck usually makes this a white knuckle ride with his driving, but on this particular night, he was particularly safe and speedy. He must have been hungry. They had a red-eye flight, so we had plenty of time to eat, relax, and catch up. Zacatecas is located a few blocks away from the freeway, on busy Inglewood Avenue. It's easy to miss this place, so if you've gone past 137th Street, you'll need to turn around and keep a better lookout.

Zacatecas is actually a lot bigger than it looks from the outside. Long and narrow in size, this is a local place that features a bustling to-go business, with a walk-up counter, just to the right of the front door. Even at 8PM, they were doing a brisk business at both the take-out counter and in the dining room. We were directed to a table and given menus. The menu here is pretty good-sized, with a lot of the usual suspects that you see on Mexican restaurant menus. Nothing on the menu was over $12, so we really let Chuck off easy on this trip up the 405 Freeway. This might be why he was in a better mood after looking at the menu. Let's see if we will be sending Chuck off to South Carolina with a great meal or not.

As is customary when we eat in a Mexican restaurant, we always start off by checking out their Chips and Salsa. I was pretty happy with the salsa at Zacatecas. It had a decent amount of chunk to it, and it had a rich flavor. A very good salsa, that I ate more than my fair share of. The chips were pretty good as well. Fresh, with a nice crunch to them, they did a great job of holding up to the salsa. Stephanie likes things a little more spicy, (except when it comes to men, sorry Chuck), so she asked for a hotter salsa. They brought out this Green Salsa, which was hotter, but lacked the depth of flavor of the red one. We joked that we should have mixed the two, which probably would have been a pretty good idea.

While we were ordering, I asked the waiter what the most popular items were, and he mentioned this one first. Chuck swooped in and got the Costa Azul ($11.25) before I could snag it. Bacon-wrapped shrimp stuffed with cheese. How can this ever be bad? Chuck was in such a generous mood that he even allowed me to have one of his five shrimp that came with this. The bacon was cooked crisp, the cheese inside did not overpower, and the shrimp was pretty good-sized. I liked the contrasting flavors here, with the smokiness of the bacon, the brininess of the shrimp, and the smooth cheese. This came with rice, beans, and a generous dollop of guacamole.

When we walked into Zacatecas, I had a pretty good idea that Katie would be getting her usual dish when eating in a Mexican restaurant, Chicken Fajitas ($10.25). This heaping plate of chicken, red and green bell peppers and grilled onions did not come with the usual sizzle and steam that most fajita plates leave the kitchen with. This more subdued version was definitely to Katie's liking. She felt the chicken was very tender, but what pushed this to the forefront of one of her top fajitas was the seasoning used on the chicken. It elevated this above others she has had in the past. The corn tortillas were good, and with the amount of chicken here, she had enough for five tacos. Well worth the ten-dollar price tag.

The other item that the waiter mentioned as being one of the best sellers is this Tom's Burrito ($7.25). This big burrito was sure to send Stephanie off on her vacation the right way. Filled with carne asada, beans, sour cream, and onions, and then topped with mild green salsa and cheese. Lucky for me Stephanie could not take leftovers on the plane, so I had the other half of this for breakfast the next morning, and it still held up. Very good carne asada inside. I liked this green salsa better than the hotter version we had with the chips. It's easy to see why this burrito is mentioned so often in their Yelp reviews. This is the thing to get at Zacatecas.

The menu did not have my usual order of carnitas on the menu, so I ventured out with this Carne Asada ($10.25). When I ordered this I thought it was going to be shredded, but it came in one big piece. It was cooked to a nice medium rare and was pretty tender in spots. I used flour tortillas to make a few tacos, and then just ate the steak alone the rest of the way. This came with beans and rice, which were actually pretty good. The rice stood out more to me than the beans, which is a rare thing because I usually like beans more than rice. A solid plate of food, but I'd get the burrito the next time.

Zacatecas did have carnitas on their menu, but only in taco form. Since Chuck was paying, I made sure I got to try a Carnitas Taco ($2.25) before I left. The carnitas was pretty good, even though they lacked the natural greasiness that usually accompanies the pork. They still turned out to be pretty tender, while providing enough flavor. I would have liked a little more pork on these. There were like two big hunks, and then some secondary shreds threw in.

When we were waiting for our check, we were given this Flan. I had read in the Yelp reviews that they have a habit of giving this to their guests at the end of their meals. None of the four of us are really into flan, but we all kind of liked this version. Not as sweet as others we have had. The caramel might have been crystallized, to form the hardened top of the flan. The bottom layer was moist, with just enough sweetness. A very nice send-off for our friends Chuck and Stephanie.

Zacatecas was one of the better finds we have had on our numerous LAX trips. If you want fine dining, this might not be the place for you, but if you want good, honest Mexican food, at an affordable price, in a relaxed, friendly atmosphere, give Zacatecas a try. I was not wowed by my plate, but both Chuck and Stephanie's choices were very good. Even with a full restaurant, the service we received was great. We did not wait very long for drinks, and our every request was met. I'm sure that Chuck and Stephanie will be making many more trips to South Carolina this year, and it'll be hard for us to bypass this little gem in Hawthorne.

Out of five bars of silver, (because the Mexican state of Zacatecas is home to two of the largest silver mines in the world, lending to Mexico being the largest producer of silver in the world), five being best to zero being worst, Zacatecas Mexican Restaurant gets 3 bars of silver.

For more information about Zacatecas Restaurant, head to their website by clicking here: http://www.zacatecasmenu.com/

Double Date Night at Yama Sushi

Yama Sushi and Grill

27782 Vista Del Lago

Mission Viejo, CA 92692

It seems to be happening with a lot more frequency all of a sudden. Katie is starting to crave sushi with a lot more regularity. To be honest, when she requests sushi, I always try to steer her towards something else. Not that I am anti sushi, but there are lots of other things that I'd rather be eating. The only time I am usually okay with eating sushi is when it is an all-you-can-eat restaurant. I feel that it takes way too much for me to fill up on sushi, and it also empties out my wallet quickly. A night at a non-all-you-can-eat sushi bar can easily go into the triple digits, and still, leave me feeling like I need to stop at Del Taco on the way home.

When we made plans to meet up with our good friends, and fellow food bloggers, Tom and Danielle, Katie got all excited because they wanted to take us to one of their favorite restaurants, Yama Sushi. If you happen to read Toms Foodie Blog or Dani's Decadent Deals you have probably heard of this Mission Viejo restaurant. I follow both Tom and Danielle on Facebook, and it seems from their numerous check in's that they are quite fond of this sushi place overlooking the lake. After giving them a very quick tour of our new apartment, we were off to Yama, with me looking for places to stop on the way home to get more food.

We arrived at Yama Sushi on a recent Friday night. Yama is located in the Plaza Del Lago shopping center, which used to be home to the infamous Tortilla Flats. Tortilla Flats is no more, now it's called Hacienda on the Lake. Other than Yama and Hacienda, this was a very quiet shopping center on this Friday night. It does seem that Danielle and Tom are regulars here. Almost everyone knew them. We were greeted warmly by the owner of the place, Don. We made our way out to the heated patio, which I hear has great views of the lake during daylight hours. On this night we were just excited to be warm though.

Don came out and greeted us armed with a bottle of Hana White Peach Flavored Sake. I must confess that I had never had flavored sake before. I'm not really even a peach fan, but this went down nice and easy. Much better than the sub-par sake I have consumed before. Don is very proud of his sake list here at Yama, and he has recently become an official sake sommelier by the International Sake Service Institute. There are very few of these in the US, so this is a pretty big honor. So if you have any questions about sake, I'm pretty confident that Don will be able to answer them. After sipping some sake, I was ready to tackle some sushi here. We put in our order, and this is how it turned out for us.

I'll apologize in advance for our sushi selection this evening. If you are a reader of this blog, you know I like the baked and cooked rolls more than the traditional sushi. I do occasionally eat sashimi, but I like the big pops of flavor that you get with the specialty rolls. This Mexican Roll ($12.95) really packed a punch when it came to spiciness. Spicy crab meat and avocado rolls are topped with albacore, onion, cilantro, Karachi (Japanese mustard), and a jalapeno sauce. Katie could only handle a few pieces of this, due to the spiciness, but I was happy to take the rest. Really well put together, I liked the sauces used here, the crab was still present even with the sauces, and the avocado had a slight cooling effect. I would definitely get this sushi roll again.

A roll that came recommended by Don, was this Shichimi Maki Roll ($13.95). This spicy crunch roll comes topped with albacore yellowtail and seven flavors, which include; onion, cilantro, eel, spicy mayonnaise, shichimi (seven flavor pepper), sriracha, and jalapeno. With so many flavors in one bite, you would expect this to be too much, but the predominant spiciness shoved its way to the forefront. I liked this roll, even though the albacore and yellowtail got lost in the shuffle here.

We must have been in a Mexican food kind of mood on this night because almost everything we had could be considered a fusion food of Japanese meets Mexican. This Hero Nacho ($7.95) pretty much is the antithesis of fusion food. A crispy won ton chip is topped with spicy tuna, masago (processed roe of the capelin fish), a jalapeno, and their secret sauce. These were just okay for me. I liked the spiciness, but they were a little boring. The tuna did not stand out too much, and they could have used a little more sauce on these.

When Katie saw Crispy Rice Guacamole ($9.95) on the menu, she immediately ordered it. Spicy tuna, guacamole, and a special sauce are piled on fried sushi rice. This was a big hit for Katie and me. The fried rice was not greasy at all, the guacamole and tuna were very fresh, and I liked the contrasting textures with this.

Whenever we are nearing the end of our meal at a sushi place, Katie always insists on us getting another round, just as I am starting to near my capacity of sushi. This time she wanted to get the Philly Roll ($7.95) and the Spicy Tuna Roll ($7.50) for our grand finale here. I'm not really into cream cheese, so I let her consume those. The spicy tuna roll was good, with just enough spice. Nothing really too earth-shattering with these though.

I did not really catch what Tom and Danielle got to eat, but I wanted to show you since I took the time to take the pictures. Danielle usually gets the same thing whenever she comes here, and Tom seems to veer towards the specials. I believe the last item is a Squid, which was a special they were running on this night. They both seemed pretty pleased with the food they got.

Yama Sushi impressed Katie and me. I'm sure a lot of you sushi purists winced reading this review because we got some pretty nontraditional sushi, but that's what we mainly like to order when going out for sushi. The items we had that said spicy on the menu really was spicy, which is a good thing in my book. Yama is of course not as good a value as those all-you-can-eat places, but the quality does seem to appear better here. Not sure this would be a destination dining spot, where you would drive from say north OC, but if you're in the area, this could be a reasonable sushi option for you. We had great service on this night, as we were with local celebrities Danielle and Tom, but the staff seemed to be on their game with the rest of the customers as well. We left Yama for $75 plus a tip, but I did leave the restaurant full. No need for us to stop at Del Taco on the way home.

Out of five snow shovels, (because Yama means mountain in Japan, and if you live in the mountains, you should probably have a snow shovel handy), five being best to zero being worst, Yama Sushi and Grill gets 3 snow shovels.

For more information about Yama Sushi and Grill, go to their website here: http://yamasushionthelake.com/sushi/

Cruising Down to Pacific Coast Hot Dogs

Pacific Coast Hot Dogs

3438 E. Chapman Ave. 

Orange, CA 92869

For the most part, my days at my day job are pretty much the same. I work five days a week, go in at seven and leave at four. With my five weeks of vacation, I am there about 47 weeks out of the year. Yes, I get five weeks vacation because I have been at the same job for going on 26 years now. Very rarely does my routine change, but recently I had to go to a training class. It broke up my typical week, so instead of dreading about sitting in a class for seven hours, I actually looked forward to it. It also helped that one of the places I have wanted to eat was right across the street from where I would be training. So, once we were released from the classroom, we headed out the door, walked across the street, and arrived at Pacific Coast Hot Dogs.

Not exactly an ocean view, but Pacific Coast has garnered lots of positive reviews for their hot dogs. They have been given some very glowing press on some of the blogs I have read, they were named one of the ten best hot dogs by OC Weekly in 2012, and I have had numerous readers recommend that I try these hot dogs.

PCH is really just a stand in the parking lot of a strip mall that features a Chipotle and a Jersey Mike's Sandwich Shop. No fancy dining room here, these are hot dogs after all. Five tables with umbrellas and a yellow awning keeping the elements away from you, which in Southern California means that these just provide shade for you to enjoy your meal. We got here at 11, and had to wait for the guy to open up, even though they had posted their opening time as 10:30.

We took a look at the menu while he was finishing his opening. PCH offers 9 different hot dogs on their menu, but of course you can customize your hot dog anyway you want. PCH does not have crazy, over the top toppings to choose from. They keep it pretty basic, with the usual condiments and toppers like chili, sauerkraut, and jalapenos. Other than hot dogs, they only serve fries, shakes, and ice cream. No burgers anywhere to be found, so if you're not a fan of hot dogs, this place will not be for you. The guy behind the counter finally opened up the window, and we got to ordering. This is what we came up with.

My good friend David accompanied me on this day of training, and he also considers himself to be a pretty good judge of hot dogs. He used to own a sausage focused restaurant, so I value his opinion here, (and not anywhere else, just kidding big guy). He ordered two hot dogs, the first of which was the Chicago Dog ($3.75). As with all Chicago dogs, I always think of these hot dogs as a salad bar on a bun. Chicago dogs are always topped with lots of veggies, and that was the case here at PCH. Mustard, relish, onions, tomatoes, pickle, chili pepper, and celery salt came piled on top of the hot dog. David called this hot dog very average in taste, and the toppings were just okay as well. I missed seeing the neon green relish of a true Chicago dog. The bun was soft, but still held the contents together.

Both David and I tried a Chili Cheese Dog ($4.00) at PCH. This is the item that gets the most attention in on-line reviews here. Joining the chili and cheese in the bun is mustard and onions, which got lost here, or maybe the guy left them off, not so sure. The chili had a good consistency, but the flavor was rather bland. The cheese was plentiful, but it would have been nice to have had it melted, or placed underneath the chili, to allow for melting. The bun did a great job of staying together, but the major problem with this was the hot dog itself. It had a decent snap to it which is good, but it lacked a meatiness to it. Pretty disappointing after all the hype we have heard about these chili dogs.

The second of my three hot dogs, yes I was really excited to try a little bit of everything here, was this Tijuana Dog ($4.00). This came with bacon, mustard, onions, tomatoes, and jalapenos. It's hard for bacon not to leave an impression, but that was the case with this hot dog. The jalapenos were especially spicy on this day, so maybe they overwhelmed the bacon on this one. I was kind of let down by this hot dog. Much like the chili dog, this needed more flavor from the hot dog itself, which was kind of bland. So far we were 0 for 2 on this trip.

I have been craving a great corn dog for awhile, and was hoping to get one from PCH. This Corn Dog ($2.00) was encased in a sweeter than normal corn batter, which would have gone well with a meatier hot dog. Again the hot dog failed to deliver, as this one was pretty boring as well. The outer portion of the corn dog was fried nicely, with a decent crunch to it, but it could not make up for the lackluster hot dog here.

David and I were in agreement that we were not really big fans of Pacific Coast Hot Dogs. With all of the build up that I had for this hot dog stand, I was really let down. The main problem for me was that the hot dogs really did not taste like anything, and even with good toppings, you can not hide a hot dog that is devoid of flavor. Maybe we hit them way too early in the day, but neither one of us is in any hurry to rush back. Some might scoff at the prices here, and yes I did think they were a little on the high side, but if they were better, I would not have minded paying four dollars for a hot dog. I was really glad to get out of my normal routine at work, but would have had a better day if these hot dogs were as good as advertised.

Out of five convertibles, (because you can not think about PCH, and not dream about riding down that highway in a convertible), five being best to zero being worst, Pacific Coast Hot Dog gets 2 convertibles.

Pacific Coast Hot Dogs does not have a website, but you can find out more information about them on their Yelp page, http://www.yelp.com/biz/pacific-coast-hot-dogs-orange