June 2009 Archives

A local character of the 1950s and early 1960s, Ethyl Fernbach was a housedress-wearing matron who played piano and sang the standards at Shanty Devlin's and later at Elegant Ethyl's, a bar behind the Red Griffin Inn, both in Cucamonga. She was the subject of one of my columns, which you can read as an extended entry below.

Anyway, she's been memorialized on the Find a Grave website. A woman named Kym Winkler read my column and set up the page using excerpts of my column. You can view the page here.

This stop sign in Upland near Foothill and Mountain has its message painted over. Officially? Unofficially? Unsure what to do, I stopped anyway.

Click here for the 6-minute video the Pomona Public Library made of my interview concerning the 2007 Pomona Christmas Parade. Modesty forbids my reminding you who was grand marshal that year.

My column today explains the video interviews the library has been conducting. Here's the link to see all the completed videos so far. You can also watch them all on a bigger screen at an event at the library, 625 S. Garey Ave., at 1 p.m. Saturday.

If you have a Pomona story, I highly recommend your participation. Phone the library at (909) 620-3709 or e-mail them at library (at) ci.pomona.ca.us to make an appointment or ask questions.

"We'd like lots of people from the community to come in and do this," says Bruce Guter of the library staff.

This week's restaurant: Garden Square, 1401 Foothill Blvd., La Verne (at Wheeler); and 710 S. Indian Hill Blvd. (at San Jose), Claremont.

Garden Square, a local operation, took over the former Bakers Square in La Verne in January, reopening less than a month after the location closed. Seizing an opportunity, the same owner nabbed the vacant Claremont Bakers Square and, although not as speedily, opened it as a second Garden Square earlier this month.

I ate at the La Verne location recently for lunch. The interior still resembles a Bakers Square with the green-upholstered booths, oak trimming and pie case in front. I had a pretty good tuna melt ($7.99), but my so-so side salad was brought to the table at the same time as the entree.

For dessert there are 20 pies on the menu. I had a slice of apple ($2.99). It was a sad thing, filled with that heavily glazed "apple filling" that comes from a can, not fresh apples, and consequently flat and mushy.

The owner was working the register and he seemed like a nice fella. He told me he does all the baking and much of the cooking. I decided to give the Claremont location a try when it opened.

So in I went for lunch on Monday. I got the chicken stir-fry pita ($8.49), which wasn't what I expected, having (apparently) mixed up the photos on the menu and liking the looks of a wrap. Oh well. This was chicken, broccoli, mushrooms and pea pods, in way too much teriyaki sauce, spilling out of a pita. No way to pick it up, so it was eaten knife-and-fork style. I've never seen this odd dish before and would suggest it be quickly retired.

Deciding to give the pie another shot, I tried banana cream ($4.29). Better than the apple (whew), but nothing special. If I want pie, I'm going to Flo's or Corky's or Marie Callender's, where the extra calories won't be wasted.

Certainly I wish Garden Square every success and am pleased to see these two chain restaurants in local hands. It's possible the places are better than when they were Bakers Squares. (Some on Yelp say so and the people in the booth behind mine on Monday thought so too.) They do breakfast, lunch and dinner and they have a seniors menu. But based on my uneven meals there, life is too short for me to go back.

I'm gonna be there starting today for a conference by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists featuring panel discussions and workshops on the craft of column writing, branding, achieving longevity or, if that fails, post-newspaper careers (sigh), etc.

Last year the group met in New Orleans, which proved to be one of the best trips of my life. Ventura? Nothing against Ventura -- for one thing, it has some great used bookstores, and obviously it will be cheaper for me to get there -- but since it's in my backyard, it's less exotic. Maybe the Louisiana folks tired of New Orleans will be excited.

Anyway, the usual vacation rules apply here: When I have access to a computer at the hotel, I will log on and post your comments. So be prepared to wait a while before you see them here.

And yes, there will be posts here Thursday and Friday, and columns will continue appearing.

A probably emblematic Inland Empire Craigslist posting, headlined "Broken Concrete Pieces (Pomona 909)." Caption: "Pile of broken concrete. Not much to say about it." It's free if you want it. Thanks to reader Mason Stockstill for the link.

For anyone interested, and tying into Wednesday's column, here's the full list of songs played by Wilco at the Fox Theater on Saturday (list via the LA Times):

"Wilco (The Song)"
"I Am Trying to Break Your Heart"
"Bull Black Nova"
"You Are My Face"
"One Wing"
"A Shot in the Arm"
"Radio Cure"
"Impossible Germany"
"Deeper Down"
"Pick Up the Change"
"Can't Stand It"
"Jesus, Etc."
"Hate it Here"
"You'll Never Know"
"Theologians"
"Walken"
"I'm the Man Who Loves You"
"Hummingbird"

Encore
"Passenger Side"
"California Stars"
"Misunderstood"
"Spiders (Kidsmoke)"

Encore 2
"Happy Birthday to You"
"Kingpin"
"Monday"
"Hoodoo Voodoo"

Cavalier Motor Inn, Whittier, 1964 (courtesy Charles Phoenix)

One day before its mention in my column, here's a tip: Phoenix will be hosting one of his ultra-entertaining slide shows -- title: "Charles Phoenix's Retro Slide Show Tour of Southern California" -- at 8 p.m. Saturday at Pomona's NHRA Motorsports Museum.

Expect '50s and '60s slides celebrating car culture, space age suburbia, fast food stands, shopping centers, drive-ins, Hollywood landmarks, Knott's Berry Farm, Marineland and Disneyland, among other places.

The museum is at 1101 W. McKinley Ave. Enter at Fairplex Gate 1. Cost is $25 at www.charlesphoenix.com or, presumably, at the door.

I haven't been to Disneyland in 20 years, and I've never been to California Adventure, but friends tell me there's a restaurant at California Adventure named Cocina Cucamonga. And here's a photo to prove it.

Next door is a tortilla-making tour sponsored by Mission Foods, which is based in Rancho Cucamonga and which hosts the restaurant, thus explaining the choice of name.

On the Mission Foods website in the "At a Glance" section, note that among the 19 plant locations is one in "Rancho CA." I guess you have to go to Anaheim for the "Cucamonga" part.

Photo by Marc Campos

My May 13 column on Jim Bowman's memories of growing up in Ontario in the 1950s and '60s prompted a loooong e-mail from reader Linda (Shaffer) Frost amplifying on some of Bowman's points and dropping new names of old-time Ontario businesses.

And if you're into that sort of thing -- which we here at The David Allen Blog most assuredly are -- then the nostalgia makes for good reading.

Here's an edited version:

"Since I am waxing nostalgic, I have a few things to add to Jim Bowman's recollections about Ontario back in the day. I grew up there, too. I would have been born here had it not been that my father was stationed in Massachusetts during the war. I was 18 months old when I arrived in January of 1947.

"The first thing my parents did after purchasing a home was to subscribe to the Daily Report and to begin Shady Grove Dairy delivery. The bottles were glass and had tiny cardboard caps with a pull-tab. Cottage cheese came in colorful, anodized aluminum tumblers, and oleo came in a plastic bag with the dot of color. Owl Lucky Star Market was the first supermarket, followed by King Cole Market, and shopping was a family affair.

"Laddie's hamburgers, the first fast food hamburger stand, charged 15 cents for a hamburger. Yes, the Hot Dog Show held constant performances in a hot dog-shaped shop with a few stools in front. Taco Lita held court at the corner of San Antonio and Holt (previously A Street), and tacos were five for a dollar. Yes, and Mi Taco had its first store on East Fourth Street across from John Galvin Park. Unfortunately, Ford Lunch had a reputation for racial discrimination, so my parents never took us there to eat.

"My mother didn't believe anyone should be mistreated, especially for race, and when it happened, she never forgot. FYI, another incident occurred back in the early 1950s at a place called Ed's Café on "A" street, when Ed refused to serve a black boy whose team had played my brother's team in Pony League baseball game. His team didn't eat there, and we never went to Ed's either. My mother had nothing good to say about Ed or his café.

"The California Theater gave competition to the Granada. On Saturday mornings, our mothers would pile us into the family sedan and haul us downtown where we would pick up tickets to the free kids movies on Saturday mornings. Popcorn was a dime, and big candy bars were 25 cents. We would go to Newberry's and spend our pennies on Evening in Paris cologne in tiny blue vials. I can still smell it and am happy to say that my fragrance choices have improved with age.

"A highlight of every summer afternoon was walk to the plunge at Chaffey High School with a quarter tucked inside our bathing caps for the price of admission. That lasted until the polio scare sent us home to inflatable pools in our yards.

Go here to see a color photo of the Millard Sheets mural discussed here and in my column last week.

* Not only that, but Tad Decker has left a long comment on that entry about the importance of that bank building and his family's history there that's worth reading.

This week's restaurant: Haandi, 7890 Haven Ave. (at Town Center), Rancho Cucamonga.

India is a mild curiosity of mine, and Indian food likewise, but I'm barely conversant with its basics. Most of my dining is done at lunchtime, and most of our Indian places do nothing but buffet at lunchtime. I don't like buffets much.

Recently, however, I thought to try dinner at Haandi, which is in the Deer Creek Center on Haven north of Foothill. The interior is plush, with lacquered tables and booths divided by etched glass. Indian art is on the walls and Indian music videos play on a flat screen TV.

The restaurant's backstory is intriguing; owner Sartaj Singh is from India but studied cooking in Italy, and so he owns an Italian restaurant (Antonino's) and an Indian restaurant (Haandi), both in Rancho Cucamonga. You can read about him on the RC Now blog here. The Haandi location began as a second Singh-owned Italian restaurant (Primavera) and still looks vaguely Italian.

But what of the food?

Chicken tikka masala ($12.99), chunks of tandoori chicken in curry sauce, and shahi paneer ($10.99), cheese in tomato sauce with ginger, were both delicious. And colorful: one dish yellow, the other red. The papadum (free), a crispy flatbread, came with green and red condiments. So most of the color wheel was represented at the table.

The papadum is an acquired taste, but the naan ($2.25), a pita-like bread served hot, was more to my liking. Many other menu items sound enticing, including lamb and seafood dishes, and there's plenty here for vegetarians.

I returned Wednesday for lunch and to take a photo of the sign. Of course the buffet is a given; it's what everyone does, so you don't even get a menu.

Well, the buffet ($9.99) isn't bad: salad, saag, bhindi masala, chicken tikka masala, vegetable samosas and tandoori chicken, among other items, plus kheer, a rice pudding, for dessert.

But I'm looking forward to my next dinner at Haandi.

From Pomona College Magazine (via LA Observed) comes a lengthy tale of El Espectador del Valle (The Valley Observer), a daily newspaper for the Mexican American community published out of Pomona from 1931 to 1960. All the issues are apparently archived on microfilm at the Ontario City Library.

Read the story here. Publisher Ignacio Lutero Lopez, a 1931 Pomona College graduate, worked from his son's bedroom on Chester Place and, at one point, hired a young columnist named Candelario J. Mendoza.

In 2007, Mendoza, then a member of the Pomona Unified School District board, got a new school named Ignacio Lutero Lopez Elementary, a lasting honor to a pioneering Pomonan.

The Big Apple's last Virgin Megastore closed Sunday, leaving only the Hollywood store, which is closing soon. Here's an article from the New York Times on the last day at the NY store kindly sent by reader Bob House.

The Times Square store apparently closed just days before my visit, but I did find (accidentally) the Union Square store, the one that closed Sunday. I picked up four or five jazz discs at 40 percent off. And a couple of weeks back I bought four discs at the Hollywood store at half-off. That was probably my last hurrah.

I was never a big shopper at the chain until its closeout sales, finding it overpriced (no longer an issue). But I used to like wandering through the Sunset and Crescent Heights store with its in-store disc jockey, enormous genre sections for pop standards, blues, world music, etc., a room devoted to classical and an upstairs solely for VHS and, later, DVDs.

Sigh. On the upside, Claremont's Rhino Records is having a 10 percent off sale Saturday.

We occasionally come across mysteries on Yahoo or Google maps showing vanished Inland Valley communities like Grapeland and Rochester and Narod. But here's a new mystery: Google Maps is showing a second Pomona probably 20 miles west of the real thing, out in Rosemead near the San Gabriel border.

Life in this second, phantom Pomona, it must be admitted, would have its advantages. Our version doesn't have a decent Chinese restaurant, and this new one has dozens.

Foothill Transit is taking part in a national "Dump the Pump" promotion. Just present a coupon to a bus driver this Thursday and you can ride free all day. Here's the link to the form to fill out.

Presumably this coupon would be good for anyone -- commuters, joyriders, whoever -- wanting to try out the Silver Streak bus that goes from the Montclair TransCenter and downtown Pomona to L.A. in a straight shot. When the service was introduced with free rides, I took a half-day off work and ate lunch at Philippe's.

Omnitrans, the main San Bernardino County bus service, is offering free rides too; here's a link to its coupon.

Both coupons will be handy for anyone trying to get around the Inland Valley that day without wheels.

Reality TV -- the show "New York Goes to Work" -- is due at the Archibald's burger restaurant in Chino Hills on Wednesday. Here's the Wikipedia page for the series.

My former colleague Joe Florkowski said he went to Archibald's on Sunday with his grandfather (what a good grandson Joe is) and saw the accompanying sign on the door. I was confused by the sign until Joe explained that "New York" is the star's nickname.

It's unclear if Tiffany "New York" Pollard will be there or has already been there; the Wikipedia page indicates she's already passed her fast food test. Well, drop in Wednesday and try to act natural.

Joe adds: "What do you think if I changed my name to 'Chino Hills' and visited New York? I think that would blow everyone's minds!"

I told him he should change his name to Chino Hills even if he doesn't visit NYC.

Books bought this month: "The Pleasure of My Company," Steve Martin; "Maps and Legends," Michael Chabon; "City Lights," Dan Barry; "The World of Jimmy Breslin," Jimmy Breslin; "Metropolitan Diary," Ron Alexander; "Have Space Suit, Will Travel," Robert Heinlein; "The Rolling Stones," Robert Heinlein; "In Defense of Food," Michael Pollan.

Books read this month: "Here Is New York," E.B. White; "Between You and I," James Cochrane; "Concrete Island," J.G. Ballard; "The Soloist," Steve Lopez; "Driving Blind," Ray Bradbury; "The Subway Chronicles," ed. Jacquelin Cangro; "Dandelion Wine," Ray Bradbury.

Seven books read in May? Not bad. Although the first two were quite slim.

"Here is New York" (received as a birthday gift in March): A slim essay on the Manhattan of 1948, masterfully written, closing on a powerful premonition of a 9/11-type event but mostly looking back wistfully on a swiftly fading era of city life. A favorite line, from the 1949, one-year-later foreword: "The Lafayette Hotel, mentioned in passing, has passed despite the mention."

"Between You and I" (bought in April off the sale table at a B&N in Chino Hills): I considered adding a spoiler alert for those who don't want advance word on the difference between discreet and discrete ("tactful" and "individual," respectively). Cochrane is as mystified as me as to why people write "could of" for "could have." Not all the Brit's choices travel across the pond, but for a grammar book, it's fun

"Concrete Island" (purchased at Powell's Books in Portland in 2007): A mention somewhere of the hilarious premise prompted me to hunt this down. It's a Crusoe-like tale of an architect in 1970s London whose car goes off an overpass, marooning him on an "island" below the freeways. A gem.

"The Soloist" (received as a birthday gift in March): Even if, like me, you read all the LA Times columns this is based on, the book fleshes out the story. More nuanced than the movie. Gasp, Lopez isn't an emotional cripple with his ex-wife as his editor!

"Driving Blind" (bought several years ago): Late-period Bradbury has its ups and downs. And I'm never sure if it's him or me. This collection of 21 stories, if not classic, was at least consistent, varied and surprising (although the first two stories were clunkers). Standouts: "House Divided," "Fee Fie Foe Fum," "Nothing Changes," "Someone in the Rain," "Madame et Monsieur Shill," "Virgin Resusitas" and "Mr. Pale."

"Subway Chronicles" (loaned by a friend): The shortage of "name" writers may put some off, but this is a neat little collection of essays, best experienced in short bursts, of NYC subway encounters and transit ruminations. A favorite: Leigh Stolle's "Transfer," in which a subway mishap involving her Kansas parents opens a window into their lives.

"Dandelion Wine" (owned since the '70s): I read this Bantam paperback as a teenager but dug it out in preparation for reading the sequel. A warm, sun-dappled evocation of a small-town Illinois summer, 1928. The occasional fantastic elements (the Happiness Machine?) seem out of place. Mostly, though, this is about porch swings, trolleys, grandma's cooking and new sneakers. In the top rank of Bradbury books. A minor thrill: Bradbury signed it for me in Pasadena in 2000.

You'll have to wait until next month to hear about the sequel. Best I can do for a cliffhanger, folks.

A photo of the old Kapu-Kai sign for the Polynesian restaurant at Foothill and Vineyard in Cucamonga (wiped out by the '69 flood) was kindly e-mailed to me a year ago by reader Derek Christiansen. At the time I wasn't able to post photos, but I found the photo today while culling through my in-box and have posted it for posterity. See it here. A postcard image of the building was previously posted here.

Ditto with a photo of Jon "Lassie" Provost's home in Pomona photographed in its current state by REN.

Hey, better late than never to share these, right?

This week's restaurant: Kwon's Restaurant, 1625 W. Holt Ave. (at Dudley), Pomona.

I'd never taken notice of Kwon's until finding ecstatic reviews on Yelp and actively searching for the place one recent lunchtime. It's out on West Holt near St. Joseph's Church and housed in a skeevy-looking strip mall, although a CHP car parked outside offered some comfort.

Inside, Kwon's was bustling, with multiple people ordering at the counter, waiting for takeout or packed into the half-dozen tables or booths. The clientele was made up of laborers, families and a couple of employees from Lanterman, not to mention a hungry columnist.

The menu consists mostly of fried rice in numerous permutations of beef, pork, chicken and shrimp, with or without vegetables. They also have chop suey, lo mein (or as a poster spells it, "low mein") and the dreaded orange chicken. I ordered shrimp fried rice with vegetables ($6.45) and hoped for the best.

What I got was a heaping plate -- Yelp reviewers estimate it at a pound -- of rice with cabbage, carrots, bean sprouts, scallions, onions and broccoli, and a generous amount of shrimp. Slightly bland, perhaps, but you get soy sauce and hot sauce. For a cheap meal of reasonable quality and unreasonable quantity, you can't beat it with a chopstick.

I took home half my order and got a second meal out of it.

Apparently Kwon's was upgraded a year or two ago. Yelpers say the storefront sign used to read only "Restaurant"; now it gives the full name and says "since 1983." Long may they fry.

Photo by Barbara Smith

Friday's column talks about the mural in the PFF branch at 399 N. Garey Ave. in Pomona that will close June 19. It's a hard mural to photograph because it's so long, but the above photo, sent in by reader Barbara Smith, gives you an idea. You can see an equally panoramic view (in B&W) of the mural at the Pomona Public Library's website, or a series of color images on Photobucket's website that lets you look at the whole thing in pieces.

Reader Bob Butcher left a comment on our ever-popular Things That Aren't Here Anymore thread recently -- part of our Reminiscin' category -- which prompted a response from his old friend and former Taco Jiffy employee Sally (Switzer) Lasby.

Taco Jiffy? Turns out that's the forerunner of today's Taco King, the place on Foothill in Upland with the charming sign with a cactus and the motto "Home of the Bean Special."

I reconnected the two of them and Bob us sent the following e-mail. I'm presenting a portion of it here, lightly edited, because it may bring back memories for some of you. For the rest of us, it's an entertaining read. Take it away, Bob:

"Do I remember Taco Jiffy? I spent five years of my life there pumping out Mexican delicacies to the public.

"I fondly remember some of the 'special customers,' like the group that came weekly from Otis Elevator in RC (not here anymore). The Hells Angels roared in weekly. They had just recently formed and were headquartered in an old stone house in north Rancho Cucamonga.

"And then there were the 'frantic' 10 Cent Taco Monday Nights! A prominent coupon in the Daily Report TV section produced really long lines of hungry bodies. Then there were the frequent visits of Vince Vella, better known as "Little Oscar" (the world's smallest chef) and the famed Oscar Mayer Weiner Mobile. They parked it in front of the place and Vince gave the kids OM whistles and then came inside where my Mom would fix him a vegetable tostada.

"Across the street from Taco Jiffy was Weitzel's Yum Yum Burgers and Frostees (not here anymore), home of the fantastic Atomic Burger -- gigantic and delicious. And east of that, the original Noble Inn (not here anymore). All of this was just east of Bill's Ranch Market (not here anymore), the Chevron gas station (not here anymore) -- and across Foothill Blvd was/is Upland Memorial Park.

"Do I remember Taco Jiffy? You better believe I do!!!"

Wasn't that fun? Thanks, Bob.

Yes, I'm now one of the cool kids with a Facebook page. (This probably means Facebook has peaked.)

If you're one of the Facebook masses, check out my Facebook fan page. I post links to each column and blog post. If you're already reading everything, then don't worry about it -- unless you want to declare yourself a fan, and I'd be happy to have you.

My hope is that having these links show up on Facebookers' home page will remind people, or tempt people, to check out the blog or the column. We'll see how it goes.

As of Tuesday, without any publicity, 82 people had signed up, including an Upland councilman, Cal Poly Pomona's police chief and a wine expert. Oooh, I'm such a status-seeker.

I've let the page spread virally (like swine flu?) and promoting it here on my blog is the next step. At some point it will get a mention in my column.

Join now and you can still say you're a charter member (not that it carries any added benefit)!

You can also beta-test the Daily Bulletin fan page.

Saturday I climbed aboard a Metrolink train for an afternoon in the big city (no, not Upland). On the way I decided a good plan, since I was interested in hitting Virgin Megastore's sale at Hollywood and Highland, would be to try Skooby's for lunch. Skooby's is a well-regarded hot dog stand at Hollywood Boulevard at Cherokee.

I had a dog, fries and Coke for $7.59. The dog (natural casing, all beef) was grilled to perfection, the fries (Idaho potatoes, with zero trans-fat peanut oil, and seasoned), with a few potato chips mixed in, were even better, with the side of aioli dipping sauce proving addictive.

Virgin's closeout sale is now 50 percent off CDs and DVDs. I picked up two Van Morrison retrospectives, the deluxe edition of Love's "Forever Changes" and Los Campesinos' second album. They're playing the Glass House on Aug. 22, btw. I went to the Virgin in NYC's Union Square during my vacation, making me a bicoastal closeout shopper.

The Disney Soda Fountain by the Egyptian Theater was packed with (ugh) families, so I rode the Red Line back to Union Station and had a slice of apple pie and an iced tea at Philippe's before heading home.

One reason I do these outings is to give myself some distraction-free reading time. I took along Ray Bradbury's "Farewell Summer," his slim 2006 sequel to 1957's "Dandelion Wine." I recently reread "DW" for the first time in three decades. "FS" got mixed notices from fans, but if "DW" was a home run, I'd say "FS" was a triple. With two train rides, two subway rides and two restaurant stops, I read the book from start to finish.

Next!

One of my favorite local blogs, www.goddessof pomona.com, since last Wednesday has been displaying a generic Blogger.com template with the message "This blog is open to invited readers only."

Is the Goddess of Pomona pulling up the drawbridge?

I e-mailed the Goddess to inquire and she said she'd shut the blog down of her own volition due to "anonymous attacks in the comments section of late. Especially after learning the source of the latest comments." She didn't elaborate, but said the attacks have made blogging "not so fun."

"So until I decide what to do, I've put a lock on the blog," she said.

I suppose I should point out the irony of an anonymous blogger complaining about anonymous commenters, but that's the blogosphere. I do hope she returns.

I was unfamiliar with the story of Norman Ollestad until an e-mail from tireless reader Don J. about Ollestad's new memoir, "Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival." The pertinent details:

A Cessna 172 crashed into Ontario Peak in the San Gabriel Mountains on Feb. 19, 1979. There were four passengers: a pilot, a young woman, an attorney and his 11-year-old son. The pilot and the father were killed and the young woman died hours later, leaving the boy, Ollestad, to make his way down the mountain alone.

In the freezing cold, he slid down the hill on his pants, holding a stick in his fractured hands to brake his descent. Ten hours after the crash, he made it to Mt. Baldy Village and was taken to a hospital, bloody and bruised but alive. Whoa.

The book has already been optioned by Warner Bros. for a movie. Here's the Amazon link for the book.

From a press release from The Shoppes:

"The Shoppes at Chino Hills will once again team up with K-FROG 95.1 to host a country music concert series every Saturday night in June from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m."

We appreciate the warning.

Sunset magazine's blog featured a writeup on Dee Marcellus Cole, a papier mache artist whose work (and whose self) is often seen in Pomona galleries. Check the photos of her garden here. Congrats, Dee!

This week's restaurant: Taste of Asia, 2007 Foothill Blvd. (at D), La Verne.

Taste of Asia opened last year in the former Caribbean Gardens space in the small, '70s vintage Oak Tree Center on the north side of Foothill and near the movie theaters. (It's easy to overlook the center, but in a plus, the small parking lot is shaded by actual oak trees.)

Inside, Taste of Asia is modern and slightly upscale, although the paper rather than cloth napkins stuffed in the glasses will throw you off. The menu is mostly Thai but with some Vietnamese and Chinese dishes.

I've been there three times so far and expect to keep going. Everything I've had so far has been good: Steamed fish with lime ($9.95), with minced garlic and carrot, and lime sliced thin as communion wafers; yellow curry chicken ($8.95), yum seafood salad ($10.95), Vietnamese hand rolls ($5.95) and, most notably, off the "chef's recommendations" list, tropical salmon ($14.95), which comes grilled on a bed of spinach and topped with mango, tomatoes and onions.

Yes, I love Mix Bowl in Pomona, but Taste of Asia is on a different order of magnitude, slow food rather than fast food.

It's a family operation, and Chef Virada comes into the dining room every time to go table to table to chat with customers and make sure everyone is satisfied. Framed diplomas in the hallway to the restrooms show that she trained at a culinary school in Bangkok. But she was working at Bausch and Lomb before opening Taste of Asia.

"This is my dream, to have a restaurant," she told me. We can all pinch ourselves and be happy her dream is our reality.

Reader Frank Scimia e-mailed recently after reading about one of my L.A. excursions via Metrolink:

"I enjoy reading your blog and have a question regarding your day in L.A. It sounds like fun and something that I would like to do with my family. The only problem is that I have never ridden the Metrolink...gasp! Can you give a first-timer some tips? I live in Rancho and don't have a clue on what train to take and what station to get off at. Also, how far is the walk to Hollywood Blvd?"

I responded to his e-mail but figured I'd share my response here since others may have the same question. Taking the train isn't difficult, but I can see how it might be intimidating for a first-timer, especially since you kinda have to know the schedule in advance (it's not like trains are pulling in every 15 minutes) and there are no employees, just ticket machines.

Here's what I told him:

"Always happy to encourage riders on Metrolink. You can find the schedule at www.metrolinktrains.com. You'll want the schedule for the San Bernardino Line. You buy tickets at the station. The machines can be confusing at first but other riders can help.

"From Union Station, which is the end of the line, you would take the Red Line subway to either Hollywood and Vine or to Hollywood and Highland. No big walk -- you're right there!

"Transferring from Metrolink to the Red Line is free with your ticket (for now -- Metrolink officials are rethinking the free transfer policy)."

From Union Station, one can also take the Gold Line to Chinatown, Highland Park and Pasadena, or walk across the street to Olvera Street or walk about four blocks to Philippe's, not to mention walking or taking the Red Line to other downtown sites, etc.

I find a lot of people confuse Metrolink and the subway. It all makes sense (I think) if you actually go there, and then look at the maps at Union Station. After a trip or two, you start feeling like an urban expert, and for me it beats driving, paying for parking, etc. Just be cognizant of the times the trains depart for home and factor in the time you need to get back to Union Station.

Here's a link to Metrolink's official "How to Ride Guide."

Any other questions or comments?

Last September I ran a photo here of two dueling signs on Indian Hill Boulevard on Claremont: a business named Colonics, and an adjacent business named A Fire Within.

An update: A Fire Within, which was a pottery studio, has closed. In this case of fire vs. water, water seems to have triumphed.

While in Manhattan, seeing the sights, I had to find the exterior of Monk's, the coffee shop where Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer spent endless hours eating, drinking coffee and yakking (and which I have spent endless hours watching, debating and obsessing over).

The Monk's interior, obviously, was a set, not a working restaurant, but the Monk's exterior exists. It's an Upper West Side diner known as Tom's Restaurant at Broadway and 112th Street.

And there it was, not far from Columbia University and the Guggenheim Museum.

I took a photo from across 112th to get the view of the restaurant most often seen on "Seinfeld." (A bonus was that a half-block to the east was an excellent bookstore, Book Culture.)

This second photo was printed with my column the other day as a mock version of our "Daily Bulletin on Vacation" feature. Ehh, who wants to stand in front of the Statue of Liberty holding a Daily Bulletin.

I didn't dare cross the street to look in the Tom's window. That would spoil the illusion. But I did cross Broadway to get a shot of the storefront, including the part of the sign usually cropped out except for a few moments during the first season.

Later, at Two Boots Pizzeria, I saw a pizza named after the "Seinfeld" mailman. But I admit I opted for the Cleopatra Jones slice instead.

I knew Tasty Bagel was in trouble from a recent Claremont Courier article (not online), and now a friend who works nearby reports that the bagel shop has closed. She liked the $1 coffee.

Tasty Bagel was in the Sprouts center (formerly Ralphs) on Foothill Boulevard and had been in business since the late 1970s or early 1980s.

Today would have been Marilyn Monroe's 83rd birthday. Did you know a small image of the young Monroe is on public display in Ontario?

The accompanying portrait hangs in the Ontario Museum of History and Art. It was done for the label of Dolly Madison brand wine (!) and certainly appears to depict a young Monroe (nee Norma Jean Baker).

I heard the story in 2006 from Terry Provonsha, a Washington State resident, who was contacting local winery officials to learn the whereabouts of the painting. He said his grandfather, Gordon Provonsha, painted it. As he told it, the elder Provonsha was a commercial artist in L.A. and his wife, Rae, was responsible for getting Monroe her first modeling job at age 9.

Circa 1945, when Monroe was about 19, Provonsha used her as the model for the Dolly Madison painting, the younger Provonsha told me.

As proof, he e-mailed me photos of Provonsha and a blonde Monroe standing by an easel that held a portrait of Monroe holding a glass of wine. I believe it, although the painting is not the one in Ontario.

The California Wine Association owned the Dolly Madison wine label. A member of the Biane family who worked for that association acquired the Monroe painting and it was hung in the museum of the Brookside Winery at Guasti for many years. When that winery closed in 1982, the painting was transferred to the Ontario museum.

The painting is displayed alongside a Dolly Madison wine bottle and a display card explaining the history.

Terry Provonsha was interested in seeing his grandfather's story told and gave me names and numbers of several family contacts in various states who could tell me more about Gordon Provonsha and Monroe.

My initial enthusiasm cooled after concluding, rightly or wrongly, that telling the story of a Culver City artist and his connection to Monroe was roaming a bit far afield. Becoming part of the Marilyn cult on this rather flimsy Inland Valley pretext made me uncomfortable, too. (I guess I wasn't cut out for sensationalism.)

But, to clear the books, so to speak, I'm happy to share the photo and this capsule history today. The museum is well worth your visit anyway, and if seeing the Monroe painting is an inducement, go for it.