An online ad recently popped up on my email that pretty well defies the conundrum of Mother’s Day for me. It read, “Show mom some love: Spoil mom this Mother’s Day with a delightful brunch … enjoy a delicious spread, a stunning view and celebrate the amazing woman in your life.”
The Mother’s Day menu goes on to detail the joys of steak and eggs, a burger with caramelized onion, fish tacos and huevos rancheros — dishes that would very likely satisfy none of the mothers in my family.
If my mother were still with us, she’d prefer a corned beef sandwich on rye, heavy on the coleslaw. My mother-in-law would probably lean toward a nice brunch of branzino, preceded by a Lemon Drop cocktail, and followed by a Lemon Drop cocktail. My wife would find happiness with a nice big plate of mixed sushi rolls and sashimi.
The standard Father’s Day feed of a steak dropped in the Weber, and a 12 pack of beer, would win no points. (We men are such simple creatures.)
Mother’s Day may be the most difficult holiday of the year — even more difficult than Valentine’s Day, which is generally accepted as a scam for selling cards and boxes of candy. Mother’s Day is taken seriously by mothers. It’s a day to tread lightly.
Mother’s Day didn’t exist until 1914. Not because nobody had thought of it, but because the U.S. Congress was opposed to it. In 1908, Congress rejected a proposal to make Mother’s Day an official holiday. … You read that right; Congress voted against motherhood. They thought the notion was a joke, and argued more than a little absurdly that it would lead to more holidays, like Mother-in-Law’s Day. (You think we’ve got an obstructionist Congress now? Given the opportunity, they probably would have voted against the flag and apple pie as well!)
But thanks to the creator of Mother’s Day — peace activist Anna Jarvis — in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson got around Congress with a proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as a national holiday to honor motherhood.
And who was Anna Jarvis? As an activist, she had cared for wounded soldiers on both sides during the American Civil War, during which she created Mother’s Day Work Clubs to deal with public health issues. And when her own mother died in 1905, she began a campaign to create a special day to honor motherhood. She had the support of the growing women’s rights movement, including suffragette Julia Ward Howe, who made a Mother’s Day proclamation in 1870.
It took 44 years for that notion to finally be adopted. But only a decade for it to be turned into one of the biggest sales days of the year for greeting cards, and boxes of candy.
Which, for the record, upset Anna Jarvis so much she organized boycotts of companies selling cards, and showed up to protest at a candy-maker’s convention in Philadelphia in 1923. She wanted the day kept pure and non-commercial, with mothers being thanked with hand-written letters. She even objected to the selling of flowers. How she would feel about the notion of taking mothers out for nice meals can only be imagined.
And ironically, the founder of Mother’s Day never married, and had no children of her own.
But, back to the notion of Mother’s Day meals. I suspect Anna Jarvis would have insisted you have to do the cooking yourself, giving mom a day off. But a massive culinary industry has grown over the years, with restaurants gifting moms with flowers, and family groups gathering around large tables to offer more boxes of See’s Candy than seems rational.
Growing up back east, fancier folks than I would take their moms to somewhat fussy, upscale restaurants with names like Patricia Murphy’s Candlelight, and the fabled Tavern on the Green in New York’s Central Park. By contrast, nothing made my working-class mother happier than a mixed plate of brisket and corned beef at a local deli. My wife often opts for dim sum as often as sushi. My mother-in-law loves both branzino and IHOP.
So, my selection of restaurants is a bit random. But they lean toward the nicer side. I still think that the notion of handing mom a rose when she enters is a fine gesture. But then, I miss wearing ties too. Times change. And as my mother used to say: “Every day should be Mother’s Day.” Right she was.
Bar Chelou
Playhouse Village, 37 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena; 626-808-4976; www.barchelou.com
Bar Chelou, opened by former Trois Mec chef Douglas Rankin, feels like the restaurant that’s going to stick around. Or at least, I sure hope it does — this place isn’t so much “weird, odd, strange, bizarre” as it is terrific grownup fun. It’s noisy, it’s lively … and the bar is packed.
It’s not so much “Neo” as it is old school pleasure. It’s a restaurant I couldn’t wait to share.
The hours of operation are finite — just 6-9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, with reservations tricky but not impossible. This is not a reservation nightmare like Pijja Palace in Silver Lake. And anyway, the bar and adjacent tables are for walk-ins. Even nearby parking isn’t that tough. Small gestures create much joy.
Part of that joy is the old school pre-Neo bistro pleasure of sitting at a busy bar, watching the mixers bang out an assortment of drinks that smack of the days before cocktails were made with chocolates and Gummi Bears.
The aperitif list begins with a Vermouth + Tonic (with the tonic flavored ever so subtly with cucumber), and meanders through a Negroni of Campari and sweet vermouth, a Jimmie Roosevelt of cognac and green chartreuse, and a Death in the Afternoon of absinthe and champagne. The New Orleans Sazerac is made with rye, cognac and Peychaud’s bitters, words little seen since F. Scott gave up the ghost. This is a bar where elbows are welcome to bend.
Oh … and the wine list is seriously French. Italy and the U.S. make cameo appearances. But nothing more than that.
The menu in the bar is limited to “Snacks” — aka, the top of the regular menu. Which is more than sufficient, if you’re there for a casual evening of sipping and supping and considering the state of the world in between marinated olives and crunchy morcilla “cigars.”
There’s much substance to be found in the plate of crazy tiny bay scallops, in a sauce of green garlic and serrano peppers, with (of all things) potato chips. There’s almost a comedic interplay between the sophistication of the scallops, and the kiddy time goofiness of the chips. The dish made me feel like a grownup and a teenager at the same time. So strange.
There’s a fondness for toast here, in the grilled cheese-ish burrata toast with Iberico ham slices and pickled peppers; and the clam toasts with leeks and pickled escabeche. The crispy potatoes crunch with every bite. And the tossed sprouting cauliflower is flavored with a Szechuan pepper. Which brings us to the multi-national, border-breaking essence of the Neo Bistro.
There are carrots in South Pacific coconut dressing. Cheeses are served with deeply American apple butter. The Iberico pork chop is flavored with a fennel pollen furikake seasoning powder that exudes Japan. There’s Japanese curry and bok choy with the boudin blanc sausage. And the pil-pil seasoning on the rainbow trout is Basque.
And, for dessert, there’s a chocolate tart with hazelnut ice cream, a cheesecake brûlée … and rice pudding. Rice pudding! The dishes are prepared in a kitchen that appears to be framed by a proscenium arch. Get there early enough, and I expect the lights to go down, and a curtain to rise. The Pasadena Playhouse is next door. But Bar Chelou is the tastiest show in town.
Bistro 45
145 S. Mentor Ave., Pasadena; 626-795-2478, bistro45.com
Owner Robert Simon and his staff have long been committed to keeping our culinary life interesting. And at Bistro 45, they do it with a style of flavor. As in the Bistro’s Hawaiian yellowfin tuna with pea tendril and broccolini sautéed and fresh soba noodles, and crispy skin New Zealand king Salmon — all of which is still available from week to week, for those who can’t tear themselves away from the latest season of “Peaky Blinders”!
There are tempting starters; seafood on one side of the menu, with soups, salads and more on the other, along with five pizzas, a couple of pastas, 10 large plates, and nine desserts — which emerge from the kitchen with impressive regularity.
The food, though recognizable to anyone who eats around, is blessed with a creative streak that guarantees no edible boredom on the Bistro’s plates. Consider the appetizer of braised Spanish octopus. Now, I like octopus as much as the next guy, though usually hidden in a ceviche. But in this case, the lobster is there with no sense of shyness — this is octopus qua octopus — cured and marinated till it tastes not quite like anything I’ve ever had before, flavored with lemon and olive oil, topped with pickled onions and fennel, with a tasty arugula salad on the side. (The restaurant is masterful with its greens!) Can octopus make you happy? This one sure did.
There are clever twists and turns throughout the menu; often, I find myself wanting to order a dish, just to taste one of the unexpected ingredients. Like the smoked chickpea sauté in the cast-iron Monterey calamari. The brown Turkish figs on the prosciutto & mozzarella fresca pizza. The Quail Farms yam “hummus” served with the roasted “colorful harvest” cauliflower.
And how about the crispy artichokes in the “composed” heirloom beet salad? Or the toasted pearl pasta and charred tomatoes with the New Zealand king salmon, along with the sorrel crème? Ingredients I want to know about, to taste, to dwell on, before getting to the centerpiece of the dish.
There’s a compulsive need to push the edge of the envelope, though without tearing through. Bistro 45 is an eminently serious restaurant. But it’s also a Southern California serious restaurant. Which means a certain amount of fun and games, of happy culinary nuttiness.
There’s a reason the Bistro has been around for so long. It never disappoints. And it never bores. Not then, and not now.
Clearman’s North Woods Inn
540 N. Azusa Ave., Covina, 626-331-5477; 7247 Rosemead Blvd., San Gabriel, 626-286-3579; www.clearmansrestaurants.com
Clearman’s North Woods Inn, which has a history that dates back to 1958, has attracted legions of loyal meat eaters, hungry for a taste of the fine (and well-priced) steaks that are the Clearman’s hallmark. The motto, after all, is “Huge portions & great memories await.” For the many seated on the patio that surrounds the restaurant, those desires are well satisfied — in the open air.
As you may know, the look of Clearman’s is pure Sergeant Preston meets Robert Service in the Yukon. Even outside, it’s a great rambling place, perhaps without the signature sawdust and peanut shells on the floor, beamed walls and ceilings, and snappy piano playing (as Robert Service wrote in “The Shooting of Dan McGrew”: “A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute Saloon/The kid that handles the music box was hitting a jag-time tune…”).
But still, service is crisp — the food comes flying out of the kitchen. And it comes flying out in quantity; this is a restaurant where small portions are unknown. This is a place you go to when you want to do some serious feeding.
The bar sells big schooners of draft beer, a fine way to ease into a feed that begins with baskets of cheese bread, thickly slathered with the signature Clearman’s cheese butter spread (several recipes for which can be found online; they all seem to boil down to butter mixed with several cheeses, tricked up with a number of other ingredients, none of which are especially notable beyond the unctuous intensity of the butter and the cheese).
Dinners include just about everything — they come with not one, but two salads (including a red cabbage salad that’s impossible to stop eating), along with two starches (both rice pilaf and a baked potato the size of a well-fed gopher, packed with more of the — what else? — cheese butter), your protein of choice, and a topping of either (more) butter or mushroom gravy.
There are things on the menu that are not steaks. Chicken comes both broiled and fried. There’s seafood — cod, scallops, halibut, shrimp, king crab legs and Australian rock lobster tail. There are several hamburgers and a hot dog. There’s a ham sandwich and a corned beef sandwich. There’s a French dip, a Cobb salad and a soup of the day.
They may be good. I wouldn’t know; I go to Clearman’s for the steak. Most folks seem to go for the Lumberjack Steak, which appears to be a sirloin, cut both large and medium, quite flavorful and no more chewy than it usually is.
If you want to sacrifice some flavor for tenderness, go with the filet mignon. You want to split the difference, there’s the New York and the porterhouse, which weighs in at an outlandish 25 ounces.
Contrary to the cowboy tradition of incinerating the meat, the menu makes this point: “We do not recommend cooking steaks past medium as they tend to lose their flavor.” Not surprisingly, this is a hotbed of surf and turf — the medium-sized Lumberjack Steak comes with a choice of jumbo shrimp, king crab legs and lobster tail. Clearman’s is an homage to the joys of supersizing that long predates Mickey D’s.
The postcard that’s been given away at the cash register for as long as I can remember speaks of “the huge logging wheels holding our sign … mounted on a slab cut from a thousand year old mammoth redwood. Inside, you will find steaks, seafood and sandwiches, also of giant size and quality…”
Diets are fine in their place. But this is not a place in which to diet. It’s time for meat and more.
Porto’s Bakery & Café
584 S. Sunset Ave., West Covina; 626-214-3490, www.portosbakery.com
Porto’s Bakery & Café is a culinary theme park — Pastry World — packed with gleaming, glistening cases crammed with every manner of temptation. There should be a sign over the front door, that reads: “Abandon diets all ye who enter here.” We go to Porto’s to feast, to indulge — and to carry home bulging bags of tasty things for later. This really is The Happiest Place on Earth.
In many ways, this Cuban bakery and café is the defining pastry shop in Southern California. What Zabar’s bagels are to New York, the pastries of Porto’s are to us. It’s where we go for a taste of pure joy. It’s impossible to spend a morning at Porto’s, without feeling unabashedly cheery. The place works better than Ativan to calm a nervous soul.
In its nearly 60 years of growth, Porto’s has grown from a small business founder Rosa Porto ran out of her house to a pastry powerhouse, with branches not just in West Covina and Buena Park, but also in Glendale, Burbank and Downey. It arrived in West Covina with enough buzz to get the lines going — and to keep them going.
During peak times, there are several lines, the longest for pastry, followed by sandwiches and prepared dishes, with the line for coffee and beverages not especially daunting, probably because not as many decisions are required. There’s a line as well for pre-ordered items, mostly large boxes of many things, wrapped in the trademark butternut colored plastic bags. There’s an army of folks leaving Porto’s with those bags. This is Pastries R Us — a toy store for grownups.
There are menus, in the same butternut hue. But really, you have to see the pastries lined up like toy soldiers, row after row, each perfect and perfectly tempting. You can watch the pastries being created behind a wall of glass, much like the dumplings at Din Tai Fung.
Since the pastry line moves slowly, there’s lots of time to study the temptations. And there are so many! Look at those meringue tarts, each meringue peak just perfect, and perfectly browned! (How do they do that?) How about the phalanx of chocolate domes filled with … what? Some sort of sweet cream I’ll bet, the sort of thing that leaves you licking your fingers clean, and scraping off the wrapping papers.
When in a Porto’s pastry frenzy, even the fussiest of folks goes a bit rogue, a tad primordial. Manners be damned, this stuff tastes so good!
And how about those cakes? The Cuban Cake is a sponge cake soaked in a French brandy syrup, filled with custard or pineapple or both! The triple chocolate mousse features layers of dark, milk and white chocolate! The mango cheesecake; it’s as heavy as a brick, but so much tastier! There’s so much, it’s crazy making.
But not the whole menu is dedicated to the serious pleasure of sugar. There are Cuban dishes as well — another line of perhaps more subtle temptations. There’s much to be said for the chorizo and cheese omelet on Cuban bread, and the guacamole and cheese omelet.
I lean toward the classic Cuban savory dishes: The papa rellena, a ball of mashed potatoes packed with spiced ground beef, then deep-fried. The chorizo pie — pastel de chorizo — which is an empanada from heaven. Of course, the two Cuban sandwiches — both with pork and ham and Swiss, differing in their rolls, but not their roles.
If you want to get more serious, there’s ropa vieja, pork lechon and more, with rice, beans and plantains.
In the midst of all this, the baby kale salad seems … silly. I go to Porto’s, and happily, for pastries and Cuban cuisine and amazing coffee drinks. Kale? It seems like the punchline to a joke. I guess it’s required by law or something. But it takes up room better occupied by a slice of tiramisu cake. I mean … really!
The Benediction by Toast
Puente Hills Mall, 17501 Colima Road, City of Industry; 626-225-3642, www.instagram.com/thebenediction.la
The Benediction by Toast, which refers to itself as a “social eatery,” sits in the sprawling Puente Hills Mall, adjacent to branches of Chipotle and Panera Bread on one side, and Asian concepts like TeaTop and Lobster Now on the other — a mix that speaks volumes about the eclectic ethnic melting pot of the east SG Valley, into which The Benediction fits unexpectedly well.
This is an American breakfast restaurant on steroids, a re-creation of our many breakfast-only old-timers with a very 21st century spin. It’s a crazy concept — and crazy good, too.
If you show up on a Sunday, expect a wait for a table inside or outside on the patio, for The Benediction has found an audience of locals hungry for breakfasts of Brobdingnagian proportions. This is not a restaurant where you go for a small bite, just something to cut your morning hunger. The food here overflows the plate, filling every inch of space with eggs, spuds and, mostly, Hollandaise sauce over English muffins.
There’s more on the menu than 13 eggs Benedict variations, but that’s the dominant dish. They must make their Hollandaise by the truckload here. And they make it very well — not too unctuous or heart-stopping in its texture and taste. Hollandaise can be a sadly abused sauce, hard to make by amateurs. But these are Hollandaise pros … with a serious Benedict obsession.
Eggs Benedict has been a big part of our breakfast life for a long time. And it clearly still is. Especially on a Sunday morning, when it still may be consumed (unintentionally) as a hangover cure. Does it work? Darned if I know; I haven’t had a hangover in a long time. But it sure does make me happy for the whole day.
And the Benedicts at The Benediction are both perfectly made — and crazy creative. There’s a Classic, made with hickory smoked shoulder bacon. There’s one made with corned beef hash, and another with lobster. The Santa Barbara has Norwegian smoked salmon, capers and red onions. There are two surf and turf models, both with lobster and steak. There’s one where the Hollandaise is replaced with Béarnaise.
There’s a trio of sort of vegetarian ones — one with grilled crimini mushrooms, one with tomato and spinach, one with broccoli and asparagus. (Vegetarian, that is, as long as eggs are still part of the diet. And butter, too.)
From there, the menu meanders into big piles of more or less standard breakfast joint chow. Though the kitchen can’t seem to resist putting a twist on whatever it can. Thus, there’s a three egg Spanish omelet, made with peppers, tomatoes, onions, Monterey Jack and Tillamook Cheddar. And a Super Spanish that’s the same — except it’s also built with six eggs (half a dozen, for the luvva Mike!), bacon, and portobello mushrooms. Extra jalapeños, too.
There are also Spanish omelets with filet mignon, and with chicken breast. But what appealed to me even more, were the four twists on avocado toast — which is kind of the healthy living version of the Benedict, for those who just don’t want the egg yolk and butter of Hollandaise running around in their bloodstream. It’s a California standard these days, usually done just one way. But at The Benediction (of course), it’s served with heirloom tomatoes and garlic salt, with three eggs and bacon crumbles, with Alaskan sockeye salmon, and with a cucumber salad and red onions. As long as there’s avocado and toast, it’s avocado toast. Though I do like the notion of bacon. Crunchy!
And should you not want breakfast, The Benediction is open for lunch, though the choices are finite — a couple of salads, and a trio of steaks. But then, I’ve always believed there’s really no reason to eat breakfast — only for breakfast. Eggs Benedict for lunch? Why not? Sounds good for dinner too, though sadly that’s not when they’re open.
Merrill Shindler is a Los Angeles-based freelance dining critic. Email mreats@aol.com.
