November 2010 Archives

As an admirer of the band They Might Be Giants, whose fans shorten its name to TMBG, I was amazed to see this vanity plate. Quite a coup to get the perfect plate to express the sentiment that its owner likes They Might Be Giants. The frame, which notes the title of one of the band's best-known songs, is icing on the cake. Seen recently near a sushi bar in Rancho Cucamonga.

Commendably reversing the trend of communication that looks like texting, a "For" has been placed atop the "4" in this Rancho Cucamonga sign.

True, Cash for Checks rather than Checks for Cash would seem to make even better sense, but first things first.

I'll have columns my usual three days this week, but I probably won't be posting anything here until next week.* Enjoy the holiday, and if you're tempted to wait in line outside a store in the cold and dark Friday morning to save a few bucks, don't do it (unless this interferes with Directive No. 1 to enjoy the holiday, in which case, do what makes you happy).

* OK, here's something: the first new "Only in L.A." blog post in months. Funny stuff.

The 11:30 p.m. train waits to leave for the 909 from Union Station

On a day trip to L.A. on Saturday I picked up the latest timetable, the second new timetable this year. Heck, I'd only picked up the June 28 timetable in late October, on my last trip.

Anyway, for them that cares, the San Bernardino Line (the one most of us riders use) is unchanged on weekdays but has some interesting tweaks in the times on weekends. No trains were canceled, which is a relief.

Even better, the times for the Saturday and Sunday trains are generally spaced better now. For instance, rather than the later trains home from L.A. departing at 3:25, 4:45, 6:15, 9 and 11:30 p.m., they now leave at 4, 5:35, 7:10, 9 and 11:30 p.m. I've missed the 6:15 once or twice and had to find things to do for almost three hours, so a 7:10 train makes that less of a calamity.

Sundays, rather than the later trains leaving L.A. at 3:25, 5:25 and 7:45 p.m., the new departure times are 4, 5:35 and 9 p.m. Yes, Metrolink is giving us an extra hour and 15 minutes on Sunday night. (Final weeknight trains leave at 9:05 p.m. as before.)

I appreciate the later train and the retention of the 11:30 p.m. Saturday train. The Metrolink fare increase earlier this year, which raised the round-trip price from $11 to $17 from the Claremont station, was less appreciated, but if that's what it takes, that's what it takes.

Foothill Transit's round-the-clock Silver Streak bus remains a sensible alternative, and sensibly priced at only $2.75 each way.

Here's a photo of the Nairobi Trio-themed art installation in a window on West Third Street at Main Street in downtown Pomona, discussed in an item in my Friday column. The photo comes from artist A.S. Ashley's Facebook page devoted to this piece of his, which he says will remain through Dec. 4 "due to popular demand."

(To quote the old Stan Lee quip, maybe a guy named Joe Popular demanded it.)

What's the Nairobi Trio? It was an occasional sketch on Ernie Kovacs' shows and specials of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Naturally, it has its own Wikipedia page. Just as naturally, there are examples on YouTube.

zPizza, 1943 N. Campus Ave. (at 19th), Upland

zPizza is a chain founded in Laguna Beach with 49 locations in California, but the one in Upland's Colonies Crossroads Center is the only Inland Empire spot. There's also one in Glendora, at 1365 E. Gladstone St. (*Turns out there's also one in Chino Hills at 3090 Chino Ave., although it's not listed on zPizza's website.)

zPizza is in a small storefront on the north end near Starbucks and is cramped, with only a half-dozen tables inside and a few more outside. You order at the counter.

But zPizza is different and pretty good. Their pizzas are on the healthy side, with organic flour and tomato sauce, gourmet toppings and the options of wheat crust or vegan. They even have gluten-free beer, if that's how you roll.

I go there now and then for their slice, salad and soda special ($7). Recently a friend and I tried it out for dinner.

We split a pear and gorgonzola salad ($8.50) and the Tuscan pizza ($17.50 for a large) on whole wheat crust. It's a white pizza, no tomato sauce, with roasted garlic, mozzarella and feta cheese, shiitake and button mushrooms, caramelized onions, truffle oil and thyme. We liked the pizza and the salad both. The only downsides were the shoebox location and the 9 p.m. closing; it's not a great dinner spot. The service was cheerful.

You can view the menu here. The rustica pizzas, on what they call a "free-form crust," look delicious, as does the curry chicken sandwich.

This isn't the sort of place you'd get a pizza to share with your buddies on football night (although you can get pepperoni), but as essentially a quick-service version of California Pizza Kitchen, it's pretty good. This is my second-favorite Upland pizza joint, after San Biagio's.

I'm often impressed by the punny names of hair salons, but as a bald man, I especially like this one. Seen on 4th Street in Rancho Cucamonga.

"The most expensive American-made mattress set on the market" is made by a Rancho Cucamonga company, according to a Wall Street Journal story. That would be the E.S. Kluft & Co.'s "hand-tufted, king-size Palais Royale mattress and box spring," which retails for (gulp) $33,000.

"I'm so glad the City of Upland told me what this street-like thing is called," reports a relieved Lois Robbins, who documented the sign for posterity and sent the photo along. She must've known it would be right up my alley.

The L.A. Times' Food section Thursday has a feature on Shauna James Ahern, a Washington state resident diagnosed in 2005 with celiac disease who now has a popular blog, Gluten-Free Girl, with recipes to eliminate gluten (found in foods with wheat, barley and rye) as well as what the Times called "gloriously decadent food photos."

Ahern is described as having grown up "in Claremont and Pomona."

This reminded me that Claremont is home to StellaLucy, a market at 101 N. Indian Hill Blvd. specializing in gluten-free foods.

Yes, it all ties together somehow (at least in my mind).

The head of the city of L.A.'s public housing agency is in hot water after evicting nine tenants in retaliation for their participation in a protest on his front lawn -- in Rancho Cucamonga.

The L.A. Times story on the dispute includes a photo taken by housing chief Rudolf Montiel through his RC window of the mob on his lawn. Nice to see the Times publish a photo from Rancho Cucamonga, even if it was shot by a city bureaucrat.

Oh, and you have to love the quote by L.A. Councilwoman Janice Hahn, reacting to the assertion by Montiel (who is paid $400,000 a year) that his family was virtually imprisoned in their home while the protest went on.

Hahn said: "The fact that Rudy and his family were imprisoned in their million-dollar home.... I don't know why that is so terrible, to be imprisoned in your own home. It's not like they had him held captive somewhere else."

I guess that qualifies as a compliment to the RC lifestyle.

Ali Baba Mediterranean Cuisine, 956 W. Foothill Blvd. (at Regis), Claremont

Claremont is home to four Middle Eastern restaurants, with Casablanca, Saca's, Darvish and its next-door neighbor, Ali Baba. Ali Baba took over the former KFC on Foothill near Towne about a year ago. A Korean place and I think another eatery were in the KFC in the interim, but Ali Baba looks to be making a go of it.

I'd meant to visit for a long time and finally did so on a recent staycation. Ali Baba's dining room is small but well appointed with cherry-finished tables and chairs. They've done a nice job with the place. You order at your table.

I had the kafta sandwich ($7.25), which is a ground beef mixture with onions, parsley and spices on pita bread with hummus, tomatoes and romaine. A dish of pickled peppers was also brought to the table. (No, it wasn't a peck, nor did I pick it.) It was a tasty sandwich.

If you're pinching pennies, you could get basically the same sandwich at Aladdin Jr. for a couple of quarters less, but I was happy with the experience.

The broad windows offer an excellent view of the street, as well as an X-ray vision type of look into the restaurant as you drive by. From the street, nothing is left to the imagination. Ali Baba is all about transparency.

Ontario native Charles Phoenix made the front page of the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 6 with a fun story about a holiday dessert he created that's catching on: the "cherpumple."

The story describes it as "a three-layer cake with an entire pie baked into each layer -- a cherry pie baked inside a white cake, a pumpkin pie baked inside a yellow cake and an apple pie baked inside a spice cake. He stacked the layers and sealed them with a coat of cream-cheese frosting."

"I was inspired," he says, "to combine all my family's traditional holiday desserts into one."

Watch a 5-minute video of the L.A. author and humorist in the kitchen, and see the recipe, here.

Phoenix, by the way, will offer his "Retro Holiday Slide Show" in Pomona on Dec. 11 at the NHRA Museum. Details here.

Photos by Kelly Swift/CBB Arena

Did you attend Friday's concert at Citizens Business Bank Arena by Elton John and Leon Russell? If so, what did you think? I was there and thought it was great -- and at 3 hours, 15 minutes, it was value for the dollar, too.

My column Wednesday has an account of the show. For the set list, click on the "continue reading" line below.

Photo by Will Plunkett

A Rancho Cucamonga City Council candidate lost at least one vote due to dubious punctuation in her campaign signs, which made her seem to be questioning her own trustworthiness (perhaps getting the jump on cynical voters disinclined to trust any politician).

"I was wary of someone who'd want me to 'trust' them in government. Just what does quote-unquote 'trust' mean?" reader Will Plunkett wonders.

Unnecessary quotation marks, incidentally, are the subject of a blog and a spinoff book. Pretty "cool."

The "Other Sites of Interest" section over on the right side of this page has been updated. Even its name has changed; it used to be "Other Blogs of Interest." Let me run down the differences.

Two inactive blogs have been dropped: IE Food and Restaurant Reviews and the Goddess of Pomona. The former has posted only once this year. Gong! And the Goddess appears to have retired her page. If someone wants "www.goddessofpomona.com," the domain name would seem to be available.

While I was tinkering under the hood of my blog, I added three sites to the list, one of which isn't a blog (which is why the label changed).

They are the online version of the Chino Champion newspaper, the La Verne Online website and the Claremont Courier's City Beat blog. I'd have added the Courier itself but its content is only available to subscribers, so its blog is the next-best thing.

We have what I think is a nice lineup of 11 non-Bulletin sites for your reading pleasure: the cream of the crop of local blogs, two dining blogs that often feature Inland Valley restaurants and LA Observed, which offers a daily roundup of Southland news and opinion. I visit these sites daily. Steve Harvey's Only in LA blog isn't updated often but I'm keeping it here anyway, out of loyalty.

Lee's Sandwiches, 3938 Grand Ave. (at Spectrum East), Chino

Lee's is a San Jose-based chain specializing in banh mi, which are Vietnamese sandwiches. A Lee's opened a few months ago in Chino, of all places, its first Inland Valley incursion. The shop is in the food court of the sprawling Chino Spectrum Marketplace shopping center on the north side of Grand.

I only knew Lee's by its excellent reputation. I checked it out for a recent lunch. They have Asian and American sandwiches on 10-inch baguettes and European sandwiches on croissants. (Remember the French influence in Vietnam.) A neon sign in the window announces "Hot Baguettes Now," akin to Krispy Kreme's donuts sign.

I had the grilled pork banh mi, which comes on fresh-baked bread with pickled daikon and carrot, onion, jalapenos, cilantro and mayo. The price was an absurd $2.79. The mango smoothie I got to wash it down was $2.95, also a good deal.

There's only a four-seat counter inside for dining in, but a large patio sufficed on a comfortable day. The sandwich was excellent, especially notable for the bread, and was filling, and the drink was good too.

Banh mi can be found at some Vietnamese restaurants locally, and I know of one banh mi shop, Super Sandwiches in Montclair. If there were a Lee's closer to our Ontario office, I would eat there all the time.

Pomona is Everywhere, a continuing series: Reading a piece on Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's website (via LA Observed) about the pending rehab of L.A. County's long-abandoned 1925 Hall of Justice at Temple and Spring in downtown L.A., I learned that the project manager, architect Alicia Ramos, is a Cal Poly Pomona grad.

I've always wondered why, traditionally, wig shops are concentrated on Hollywood Boulevard, always with bewigged rows of foam heads in the window, such as in the photo above.

Then, disconcertingly, a wig shop opened a few weeks ago on Bonita and Yale avenues in Claremont, seen below. It's just east of the ice cream shop.

A question I never thought I'd ask: Is Claremont the new Hollywood?

Well, it's all over except for the sobbing (or cheering). San Bernardino County results can be seen here.

Some highlights: In Rancho Cucamonga, Dennis Michael is the new mayor, while incumbent Diane Williams was elected and former mayor Bill Alexander made a successful comeback as a councilman. Chino, Chino Hills, Ontario and Montclair's councils were re-elected, while in Upland, Tom Thomas was ousted in favor of Gino Filippi, while Ray Musser and Brendan Brandt were re-elected. And Janice Rutherford unseated Paul Biane from the Board of Supervisors.

L.A. County results can be viewed for city races here and for school races here.

In Pomona, Cristina Carrizosa and Freddie Rodriguez cruised to re-election, while Tim Saunders lost narrowly to Ginna Escobar. The utility tax increase failed spectacularly while the school bond failed unspectacularly, unlike Claremont's school bond, which went down in flames.

Anyone want to react?

I like voting, and doing so in Claremont is almost fun; my polling place is two blocks from my house, which means I can walk there. Not bad, especially on a sunny day like today.

This ballot, however, sure seemed like work. Besides the high-profile races, including the useless or redundant lieutenant governor and superintendent of public instruction jobs, there was more than a page of judges to affirm.

And then there were all the propositions, some of which almost cancel each other out. Pass the state budget by majority vote, or require a two-thirds vote for fees? Expand redistricting reform to congressional races, or drop redistricting reform entirely?

Also on the state budget front, we could earmark money specifically for state parks, roll back a tax break for corporations, allow a new product to be taxed and protect local government from state government. All in a day's work, I guess.

Sonja and Bob, a married couple who are among the poll workers, predicted a busy day.

"I think we're going to have a good turnout," Sonja told me. "This good weather should help. There was a line when we opened the doors."

"And they've been real enthusiastic," Bob chimed in. "Some have been back three or four times."

"Just kidding," he added.

Books acquired: "Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews," Sam Weller; "Motherless Brooklyn," Jonathan Lethem; "Dress Her in Indigo," John D. MacDonald; "The Invisible Man," H.G. Wells.

Books read: "Fahrenheit 451," Ray Bradbury; "From the Land of Fear," Harlan Ellison; "The Fortress of Solitude," Jonathan Lethem.

Our theme, such as it is, this month is the letter F, with one to three of 'em in each title (including implied F's in Four-Fifty-One). Would've been better had I finished four or five, but I could only get through three. Hey, at 500 pages "Fortress" is one of the longer books I've tackled this year.

"Fahrenheit," which I've read twice before, was a must because it's Pomona's choice for its Big Read citywide reading program. "Fortress" was chosen because not only have I meant to read it for a few years, but its author is a big deal who'll be teaching at Pomona College starting in January, and if I'm going to interview him (as I hope to), it'd be nice if I'd read his most famous novel. I rounded out the month with "From...Fear," an Ellison collection that's been sitting on my shelf a while.

"Fahrenheit 451" only improves with age. In the 1970s, when I first read this 1953 novel, it simply seemed like a science fiction story. I read it again circa 2004 when the book's wall-consuming televisions began to seem less fanciful. That's even more true in 2010; ditto with the "seashell radios" everyone sticks in their ear. Bradbury even posits a future in which women routinely give birth via Caesarean section to avoid trauma, which I believe has also largely come to pass. I still prefer "The Martian Chronicles" and have to say that in its hard edge and action "Fahrenheit" is unlike almost anything Bradbury ever wrote. But it's for the ages.

"The Fortress of Solitude," published in 2003, is a semi-autobiographical novel about a bohemian white kid growing up in a mixed-race Brooklyn neighborhood in the 1970s amid Marvel comics, gentrification, funk music, stoop ball, graffiti and drugs; the story then propels forward into 1999 to deal with the aftermath. Densely written, obsessively detailed and literary, it's probably too weird for the average reader, but I liked it and expect to read more by Lethem (such as "Motherless Brooklyn," which I've already bought).

"From the Land of Fear," from 1967, is an SF-oriented collection of stories by Ellison, including "Soldier" in two versions, as a short story and as a teleplay Ellison wrote for "The Outer Limits." Some good stuff, but it's one of his weaker books.

These three constitute books 43, 44 and 45 for me in 2010. My goal of 50 is within striking distance.

For those who want to know where these books came from, this copy of "451" was bought at Brand Books in Glendale around Labor Day, "Fortress" came from the Book Rack in Ventura in 2008 and "Fear" has been in my possession long enough that I can't remember where it came from!

Anyone read any of the above? Surely some of you have read "451." Or share what you've been reading. It can have any letter in the title you like.