August 2009 Archives

It's a furlough this week for yours truly, but, making lemonade from lemons, it's also a vacation. If "furloughcation" isn't a word, it ought to be.

The usual vacation rules apply: Continue to leave comments, but recognize that since I'm the moderator, and I'll be out of town, I'll approve your comments when I can find a computer.

No posts are planned here until my return to duty Sept. 9. Hey, that's still better than the Goddess of Pomona blog and the Foothill Cities Blog, which as of Thursday hadn't had new posts since July 29 and July 30, respectively. Even the usually reliable Claremont Insider seems to be on an August hiatus, without a new post since Aug. 6.

Blog readers, use your free moments each morning wisely.

Didn't care for Marilyn Manson? Pomona's Fox Theater swings to the other extreme Sunday with opera.

Donizetti's "Elixir of Love" will be featured in one performance only at 2 p.m. Sunday. The production is by the Repertory Opera Company, which is based in Pomona and performed "Don Pasquale" at a Pomona church last year.

"There is a possibility that we will do a full season at the Pomona Fox Theater, but it is contingent upon how well this show does," artistic director LizBeth Lucca says.

Put on your fur coat, screw your monocle into place and journey to downtown Pomona. If nothing else, the parking is cheaper than at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

This week's restaurant: Chile Red, 9608 Base Line Road (at Archibald), Rancho Cucamonga.

Chile Red has been a reliable fixture in the shopping plaza at the northwest corner of Base Line and Archibald since at least the mid-1990s. It's a comfortable sit-down Mexican restaurant that does a lot of takeout. It was a newsroom hangout in '97 when I started at the Bulletin but I hadn't eaten there for a few years.

Well, I had dinner there last week. The dining room has been redone with yellow walls and dark brown tables and chairs; the last I remembered, the tables had red-checked tablecloths. It looks good. Chile Red still specializes in burritos, touting their foot-long "killer burritos," but they have normal-sized burritos, tacos, enchiladas and dinner platters ($8 to $13) too.

I got the Chile Green burrito ($6), stuffed with chile verde pork and a smattering of rice and beans. It was a knife and fork burrito, good stuff, probably 7 inches long and 4 inches wide, and a mild lip tingler. I took home half and got a second meal out of it.

My take is that while Chile Red isn't the best Mexican food in town -- contenders would be Taco Hut, El Ranchero and Los Jalapeno's -- it's pretty good, and the atmosphere is sedate and pleasant. And by Alta Loma standards it's practically historic.

Online chatter says Chile Red has changed hands, apparently for the second time, and now is closer to the original style. Anyone else been there recently, or have memories of the place?

Maybe I've seen Jim Erwin's photo in our news pages once too often, but the San Bernardino County political figure suddenly reminded me of the "Dick Tracy" comic strip villain Littleface Finny from 1941.

Some Crust Bakery in the Claremont Village has its own style, not only with the muffins and coffee but with the counter help and the customers.

I was there Tuesday morning and asked what muffins they had.

The matter-of-fact reply: "We have cranberry harvest, a mystery muffin no one can identify, and pumpkin."

I went with cranberry harvest.

Seated at the counter, with a view onto Yale Avenue, I overheard a conversation a couple of stools away between two strangers. A man with a pile of paperwork in front of him asked the man next to him with the laptop what he does.

The laptop man, wearing a friendly expression and a broad-brimmed hat, explained that he's a retired English professor who writes short stories.

"What are you in?" the writer asked.

"I'm in plastics," the man said.

"Plastics?" the writer said, smiling. "That was the big joke in the '60s after 'The Graduate.'"

Nodding, the plastics man said sagely: "I know a lot of people who got into plastics because of it."

At Some Crust, it's always one only-in-Claremont moment after another.

Allan Lagumbay of the Pomona Public Library's Special Collections department found the above image of East Second Street, undated but from the turn of the century, depicting what seems to be a parade. Check the closeup version at left for a particularly relevant piece of boosterism.

As a followup to my recent post about Grand Central Market and the movie "(500) Days of Summer," here's information about a one-shot walking tour (via LA Observed):

"Author Harry Medved will lead a free walking tour of Downtown locations from the movie as a benefit (via donations and book sales) for the Los Angeles Conservancy on Sunday, August 30. Included is a screening of the film's music video, shot at the Farmers & Merchants Bank building, and location manager Marty Cummins will come along. Meet at Old Bank DVD at 400 S. Main Street at 3 p.m."

You can get there via Metrolink and the Pershing Square stop of the Red Line subway, plus a walk of about five blocks to 4th and Main.

This week's restaurant: Esther Tacos, 1466 Foothill Blvd. (at Grove), Upland.

A lot of taquerias are lovable dumps, while many attractive Mexican restaurants serve crummy food. Here's a storefront operation -- in the Foothill and Grove center, across Grove from Rancho Cucamonga's Red Hill BBQ -- that hits the sweet spot. The service is cheerful, the interior clean, the walls decorated in bright murals and the food inexpensive and tasty.

I've eaten there a half-dozen times. (I once mentioned them favorably in a restaurant roundup column and they posted two copies, which are still displayed, even though they only got a paragraph or two. Awwww.)

They sell breakfast plates, tacos, burritos, sopes, tortas, soups, and beer and wine. You order at the counter. The al pastor (marinated pork) is dense and smoky, in tacos (99 cents each) or in a torta ($5.99), although the torta bun was crumbly. The fish tacos ($2.49 each) are Ensenada-style, grilled rather than battered.

Seating is in oak chairs at oak tables. Brass railings top the dividers. Two walls have murals. It's a pleasant place.

And for better or worse, you're in the same center as various automotive service shops; I once killed time with lunch at Esther while getting new tires. I told the tire guy I'd be at Esther and he actually walked over to give me a report. Even at the very edge of Upland, it remains the city of gracious living.

A new record store? In 2009? Second Spin is taking over the former Vans Skate Park slot at Ontario Mills, where the store will sell used -- not new -- CDs, DVDs and video games. I'll report more when I know more. Grand opening is scheduled for Aug. 27.

In the meantime, here are links to the store's website and to the Second Spin site. There are Second Spin stores in Costa Mesa, Sherman Oaks, Santa Monica and Denver. The owner is NY-based Transworld Entertainment, which owns Sam Goody, Suncoast, Wherehouse, Musicland and other chains.

If you're looking for my Ontario Plaza post as a result of today's column, you can find it by clicking here. Please leave any comments there to keep them all together. And welcome!

Betty Peters bought this postcard at a collectors' show earlier in August and wonders when the photo might have been taken, and where. Euclid's a long avenue, after all, traveling from Chino through Ontario and Upland and into San Antonio Heights.

I know, it says it's a Daily Report photo, but we don't have any archives other than microfilm from those days.

My colleague Joe Blackstock can't immediately recall, in his joking words, "the great snowstorm of '45" or some other such meteorological event. But he says snow isn't uncommon in Upland's northern reaches, which is where I'd guess the photo was taken.

Tranquil scene, isn't it?

This weather report has been brought to you by the Jones Galoshes Co.

* UPDATE: See Gavin's response in the comments section for the apparent answer to this minor mystery. He's the Sherlock Holmes of local precipitation.

Jim Gallivan and his wife, Mickey, are integral to documenting and saving Pomona history, and Jim has an interest in the 19th century pseudo-science of phrenology. Thus I was delighted, but not entirely surprised, when Jim sent me the above mock-Victorian photo in response to my column last week about my little flea problem at home.

His note began:

"The timing of your article on the 'flea invasion' was interesting. At the summer Phillips Mansion event of the Historical Society of Pomona Valley, my daughter Britney and I presented a lively Victorian flea circus. I believe that was about three weeks ago. (And one of our fleas is missing.)"

Hmm, maybe I have it. Jim goes on to slyly reference my role as grand marshal of the 2007 Pomona Christmas Parade:

"However, one trait of the Pulex irritans is that they take on the owner's traits. Seeing how one of the features of our circus is a parade and we even have have a car, single-flea powered, I was wondering if you might be able to spare one of your talented fleas to lead the parade and wave.

"If it could be supplied with an appropriate hat it would be all the better. It will take a while to train but having good stock is important. As Mark Twain said a flea can be taught most anything a congressman can."

Jim, you're welcome to one of my fleas. In fact, purely to make things simpler for you, feel free to take several so that you can do auditions and pick the best for your purposes. No, I insist.

Some people think Claremont only sells expensive frou-frou items. But according to City Manager Jeff Parker's weekly report (kindly forwarded by reader Phil Carty), City Hall is now pushing a consumer product at a rock-bottom price.

"The City has FREE rocks that have been collected from the Padua Avenue Park project site during the grading process," Parker writes, "and Claremont residents are invited to pick up the reclaimed rock."

Claremont residents only, eh? Ha ha, you Uplanders will have to look elsewhere for your free rock.

As if the benefits of free rocks weren't obvious, Parker puts an environmental spin on the deal:

"These materials will not only make an attractive addition to your garden or landscape, but also reduce waste while promoting increased sustainability and utilization of local resources."

Now how much would you pay? Unless you're anti-sustainability, visit the lot in the 4100 block of Padua Avenue.

At left is the clipping referenced in today's column about the June 16, 1939 preview of "The Wizard of Oz" at Pomona's Fox Theater, two months before its premiere.

The writer, "O.H.K.," seems to be kind of a fuddy-duddy as far as children are concerned. If even the tornado is too scary, we can imagine what he/she must have thought of the flying monkeys!

With the review's criticism of how the movie, unlike the book, "leaves nothing to the imagination," I can't help but wonder, in all seriousness, if the writer was a teacher or children's librarian who wasn't keen on movies to begin with.

Note that "songstress" Judy Garland attended the preview screening. Another celebrity sighting for the Fox record books!

Here's a link to the Wonderful Wizard of Oz website also cited in my column. It's a lot of fun to poke around on -- the FAQ section contains lots of fascinating tidbits, and in a very readable way. This link is to the portion of the FAQs about its premiere, outtakes, flubs and initial reception.

The Internet Movie Database has a good trivia section on the movie too.

A tip of the Tin Man's metal cap to Fox co-owner Ed Tessier for providing a copy of the clipping. The library's microfilm collection is missing that portion of 1939 and so are the Daily Bulletin's archives.

* Curious about the "jitterbug" scene cut from the movie prior to Pomona? Reader Derek Deason found a short video clip giving an idea of what was cut.

This week's restaurant: L.Y.L. Garden, 921 W. Foothill (between Mountain and Towne), Claremont.

L.Y.L. opened in April, replacing Captain KJ's in the former China Star location at the west end of the Sprouts center. To my knowledge, this is the only sit-down Chinese restaurant in Claremont. I'm afraid my city is awfully light on one of the world's most popular cuisines.

A reader whose name I've misplaced (sorry) said I should give L.Y.L. a try, saying he gets takeout from there frequently. And so I invited a couple of foodie friends to lunch there the other day.

Before leaving the newsroom, I mentioned my destination to my colleague Wendy Leung. She joked: "I can tell you what they're going to have. Sweet and sour pork, kung pao chicken, beef with broccoli..."

Sadly, she was right. All the popular non-Chinese Chinese items filled the lunch menu, which has a page of $5.95 combos and a page of $6.95 combos. Yes, orange chicken is among them. So much for my hopes, based on the restaurant's unusual name, that this would be a more authentic Chinese experience.

That said, the food was competent and plentiful. The combos come with soup (in our case, a decent hot and sour), an egg roll (mediocre) and either rice or lo mein. I got the lo mein, which made me the envy of my friends, who'd ordered rice. They ordered string beans and chicken with cashews (each $5.95) and the big spender (me) got scallops with garlic sauce ($6.95).

They liked their combos okay but thought the rice portion was undersized. My entree was all right but nothing special. Two of us had leftovers, so the price-per-meal was right.

The L.Y.L. interior is very different from the China Star days, and arguably better: Rather than pleasant but dull cushioned booths, the seating is small wooden tables and a few wooden booths separated by paper screens. The false ceiling is gone, exposing steel beams from which hang paper lanterns and fashion lighting.

L.Y.L. may prosper because I don't think there's another Chinese restaurant for some distance -- maybe La Verne's Chinese Pavilion.

I was in the MT 60 Plaza in Chino on Tuesday, picking up a comic book at Comic Madness on my way back from lunch at Flo's Airport Cafe, when I was startled to see a giant banner above the Tamale King sign saying the space is "Ideal for Restaurant."

Uh-oh. A closer look shows the storefront is cleared out. A clerk at the comic shop said Tamale King left earlier this month.

There's no farewell sign or message to customers, but the extensive legend painted on the window says the business was founded in 1969 -- 40 years ago -- and asserts: "We are the original and only Tamale King in the Chino Valley. Come in and taste the history of our family."

A December 2008 feature on the restaurant can be read if you click below.

Is the "original and only" Tamale King really gone, and why?

Wednesday's column was a change of pace, a whimsical essay about the invasion of my home by fleas. It was posted Tuesday afternoon on our website and very quickly garnered one online comment, to wit:

"usually i look forward to reading david allen's columsn (evidenced by the fact i'm reading the wednesday column on tuesday!) but this one is just a waste of time. it's on par with 'got up this morning and took a shower'. not even slightly entertaining."

Ouch. Was it really that bad?

Oh well. So much for Friday's planned column on how I got up and took a shower.

I'd been wanting to see the indie romance movie "(500) Days of Summer," which was largely filmed in downtown L.A. and in which its classic architecture plays an important role, and had also been wanting to take the train to downtown L.A. again.

When I saw that the movie was playing at the obscure Laemmle Grande 4-Plex at 3rd and Figueroa, the idea of seeing the movie downtown proved irresistible, even though it's also playing in Claremont. So on Saturday I took the train to Union Station and the Red Line subway to the 4th and Hill stop.

I had lunch at the Grand Central Market, the 1917-founded mecca of food vendors and produce stands. I got a smoothie at La Adelita and two tacos at Maria's Fresh Seafood. Across the street is Angels Flight, the short railway dating to 1901 that hauls people up and down Bunker Hill. Alas, Angels Flight is still out of commission, as it's been since a fatality in 2001, although its return seems poised to happen.

I hoofed it up the stairs by the railway and took a break on a bench at Angelus Plaza. Not the right bench, as it turned out. A couple of crucial scenes in the movie, which I saw afterward, are set in the park, but the bench the characters sit on is a different one with a better view. Oh well.

Making your way through Bunker Hill as a pedestrian isn't simple, what with the varied elevations and fortress-like architecture, but the utopian-styled plazas seemed more lovable as I traversed them on foot. Eventually I located the subterranean theater next to a Marriott. The theater itself seems like a '70s relic with a musty smell and floor-to-ceiling curtains separating the thin-walled auditoriums.

Afterward, I walked up Figueroa past the Music Center and the weird new high school by the 101 to Chinatown, and then east to Union Station for the ride home.

How was the movie? Like Grand Central Market, Metrolink and downtown, highly recommended.

They work fast at Channel 7: Hours after my Friday column on the liquor license application at the Ontario City Library's Page One Cafe, a report aired at 4 p.m. You can watch it here. As reporter Rob McMillan puts it, if the license is approved, "after you're done reading Shakespeare, you'll be able to have a cold beer."

Reader Bob Terry writes: "Have you noticed the similarity in Union Bank's new 'U' logo and the one for Upland? Very similar and quite annoying. Didn't you originally state that Upland's 'U' looked a lot like United Airlines' logo?"

I did indeed, something like six years ago. Gad, what a memory some of you have.

Terry concludes philosophically: "I guess the poor letter 'U' can be 'U'sed only so many ways."

As I say in Sunday's column, my Facebook fan page is up to 168 fans. (What I didn't say is that it's down from its peak of 170.) Are you one of them? If so, thank you! If not, here's the link to the page. Let's try to get it back up to 170, at least. Remember, it's free.

The benefit is that you get links to each column and blog post, which show up on your FB home page for ease of clicking. That may not sound like much, and it isn't. The main benefit of declaring yourself a fan is, of course, the boost to your status among your peers by your display of good taste. You can't put a price on that.

Still, I don't blame anyone for not signing up, especially if you're not already on Facebook. I wouldn't be on there myself if I didn't think it might be a useful way to get more people reading me.

One friend who's also a fan said he's reading my columns more frequently because he doesn't have to remember to look for them on the Bulletin's website. (Incidentally, the Bulletin has a Facebook page too, with 140 fans.)

If you are an official fan, do you use the links? Is there something else you would suggest I do with the page?

This week's restaurant: Page One Cafe, 215 E. C St. (at Lemon), Ontario.

Page One is the cafe at rear of the Ontario City Library and was added in 2006, after the library renovation. There are two entrances from the outside and one from the library itself. It's operated by SMG, which runs the Ontario Convention Center and has a large food and beverage department to support its events.

There was grand talk in the beginning of a seasonal menu, fresh soups and sandwiches, plus live music out on the enclosed patio. I dropped in a few times before council meetings for a quick bite and the cafe seemed underfunded. I had a chicken pesto pocket that was rubbery and inedible. From that point, I stuck to a fruit cup or yogurt -- items impossible to mess up -- before gradually forgetting the cafe was there.

Well, it turns out the cafe and its menu are now close to what was originally envisioned. The place was busy Monday at the noon hour and the menu is considerably larger and more ambitious than before. There are a few basic breakfasts, but sandwiches, salads and soups are the main items. They don't have a grill, but they can do almost anything else.

There's a Healthy Ontario menu to go along with the local health campaign and even sugar-free cookies, as well as sugary treats, from Sweet Nick's bakery in Corona. Not to mention Starbucks coffee, the only Starbucks outlet downtown.

You order at the counter and they bring the food to your table, on real plates and with real silverware.

I had a Cuban panini with fries ($6.95) and an iced tea and it wasn't bad. The crinkle-cut fries are made fresh to order and arrived hot and crispy. The sandwich came on a roll rather than pressed bread, which was unusual, but with ham, cheese and a pickle sliced lengthwise, it was tasty.

A couple of days later, I went back for another meal so I could take photos. (My camera batteries were dead the first time, darn the luck.) This time I got the daily special, a curry chicken wrap with a tomato salad ($6.50). Tucked inside the sundried-tomato wrap were curried chicken, romaine lettuce and, adding a nice crunch, sliced apples. I also got a sugar-free sugar cookie just for the novelty ($1). (Since most of the name cancels itself out, wouldn't it be simpler to call it simply a "cookie"? But I digress.)

My only quibble would be that the oil and vinegar from the tomato salad spread over the entire plate, including the wrap. But it was close to a restaurant-quality meal. I wouldn't drive here from Upland or anything, but if you're near downtown, or visiting the library, Page One is a clean, comfortable spot for lunch or a snack.

The ambience is Starbucks-like, with a two-story ceiling, high tables, free Wi-Fi, a bookcase of cheap books for sale and an enclosed patio with more seating. And, of course, you've got a library just steps away. How many restaurants can make that claim?

Page One hours are 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday.

This pavement marker would be a good spot for a DUI checkpoint. The view is to the south on College Avenue at Arrow Highway in Claremont. The crosswalk lines aren't much straighter.

Books bought this month: "A Deadly Shade of Gold," John D. MacDonald; "Just When You Thought It Was Safe: A Jaws Companion," Patrick Jankiewicz.

Books read this month: "Now and Forever," Ray Bradbury; "In Defense of Food," Michael Pollan; "3 Times Infinity," ed. Leo Margulies; "Dave Barry Does Japan," Dave Barry.

Four books read in July brings me up to 35, although it was a tough month. I've been reading "Robinson Crusoe" off and on since June and I'm still not quite halfway in. I like it, but it was written in 1719, and it's not an easy read.

I read the Bradbury book (bought in 2008) in one gulp on a day-trip by train to L.A. Published in 2007, it's comprised of two novellas. First one is set in a creepily perfect small town without children. Promising, but to my mind the plot takes a couple of wrong turns. Second one is an SF version of "Moby Dick" in which a spaceship chases a comet. Better than it sounds.

Pollan's book (bought in May, published in 2008) is subtitled "An Eater's Manifesto." Said manifesto is seven words long: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." This respected journalist's slender book, about the perils of the Western diet, argues quietly but persuasively that whole foods are best, nutrition science has made us less healthy, and supermarkets and fast food should be avoided. Easier said than done, but it's food for thought. Pollan was in the documentary "Food Inc.," a compressed version of the pro-organic, anti-industrial food argument.

...that is the question. Says reader Dennis Sampson of Ontario, who lives in one of the lofts downtown southwest of Holt and Euclid: "I had often wondered why this parking lot on Emporia was always so empty. Then, I took a close look at the sign and it all made sense. Or did it?"

Ever wonder what music we Daily Bulletin journalists like? Well, maybe not. But here's a list anyway on our Music Now blog.

A reader wonders why a company is trying to sell him solar panels if it thinks his home already has them.