February 2011 Archives

Your columnist/blogger is on furlough/vacation from today through March 4. (These are tough times -- but you knew that already.)

I'll have columns this Sunday, next Wednesday and next Sunday, skipping the next two Fridays. Seemed better to space 'em out. I'll be back in the office Monday, March 7 and blog posts will resume that day.

Until then, enjoy the break (I will -- I'm taking a trip) and feel free to explore the blog, or catch up on past columns here.

Mike Tanner, who produces the excellent L.A.-based blog Dinerwood with reviews of coffee shops (especially ones serving pie), and I met up for breakfast in Whittier. The site was Jack's. Is this Jack's connected with the one that used to be at 19th and Carnelian in Rancho Cucamonga? I suspect so, although I don't know.

Mike and I had met up a couple of times before, once at Roady's in San Dimas, the other time at LeRoy's in Monrovia. He tossed out a couple of options for a third get-together and I picked Jack's based primarily on its amazing out-of-the-past sign. Love the Erector-set pole too.

There's a great, long counter inside with swivel seats in the classic style. We got a booth and hunkered down for what turned out to be an only average meal. The corned beef hash with my eggs was the best part and it was probably out of a can. The country potatoes were mushy, not crisp. Mike wasn't blown away by his waffle. Service was inattentive. We skipped the pie.

Conversation was the highlight. Well, that and the sign.

Here's Mike's take, with lots of photos. He was no more inspired by Jack's than I was.

* Postcard image found on eBay by reader Elwood

Reader Glenn White has a question:

"I wondered if you could help me with some information on an old restaurant that I believed was located in West Covina. I believe there was a restaurant in the late 1970s or possibly early 1980s that was located off of Grand Ave. or possibly Barranca Ave. It was on a street that went down into like a ravine and it had a Hawaiian/Polynesian or tropical/island/beach theme.

"I was hoping that you could help me out. Maybe I'm crazy, but I thought there was restaurant like this in that area. Someone told me about Bahooka that was on Francisquito, but I don't believe that is the restaurant that I was thinking of. Maybe it has been demolished and something else is there now. Any help that you could provide would be greatly appreciated."

Anyone able to help Glenn?

* Update: A reader named Elwood has suggested, and White has confirmed, that the restaurant was the Warehouse. Read the comments for more details. Success!

As related in Sunday's column, yours truly finally got a cell phone.

Anyone care to react to this momentous decision?

I'm going to assume that very few people reading this don't have one, but if you don't, why not? And if you do, can you imagine waiting until 2011 to get one? And, one and all, what's your biggest pet peeve about cell phones and the people who use them?

King Kong Sushi, 300 N. Indian Hill Blvd. (at Bonita), Claremont

King Kong Sushi opened last fall in the Village, in the expansive corner slot with the tower-like roof that formerly housed Kinya, another Japanese restaurant. (When it was built in the 1990s, the original tenant was Koo Koo Roo; later came a Chinese restaurant.)

The name King Kong Sushi was not promising, making me think of low-end party sushi. And in truth, the food was merely okay. We had the Super Albacore Roll ($9), which was too spicy, overwhelming the taste of the fish, and acceptable fatty yellowtail ($5) and salmon sushi ($3.50).

The menu does have some creative-sounding items, such as rolls with rice paper or without rice. But it also has Korean food.

Service was friendly and the interior has been freshened up with white paint and tile. The food is less expensive than Kazama Sushi two blocks away and King Kong may become a favorite of the college crowd. (Although a Claremont McKenna review only recommends the alcohol.)

I may go back, but personally, for sushi in Claremont I prefer Kazama and Hayato.

I had dinner in Highland Park last weekend with the Bulletin's RC Now blogger, Wendy Leung. Not only is RC Now your top source for Rancho Cucamonga news and views, it's often darn funny even if you don't care about Rancho Cucamonga. Well, I can only imagine it would be -- who doesn't care about Rancho Cucamonga?

Wendy had a coupon from the Good Girl Dinette, a restaurant that is said to meld Vietnamese dishes with American comfort food. I'd been there a couple of times for lunch and liked it. Even better, it's only a couple of blocks from a Gold Line station.

We had Vietnamese spring rolls, spicy fries with garlic and a soy-based dipping sauce, and two pot pies, one chicken, one vegetarian. The pot pies are one of the restaurant's signature dishes. They were curry-like, came in a dish and had a biscuit-like top. We liked all our dishes.

Good Girl is on LA Weekly's LA99 list of great restaurants. We met there early and by the time we left, near 8 p.m., the place was nearly full.

I'll have a third and final (?) blogging-related meal in L.A. to post about as soon as the other blogger finishes his writeup and I can link to it.

Borders Books is closing dozens of stores throughout the U.S. due to bankruptcy, including two of its three Inland Valley locations: Montclair and Chino. Sob! They'll likely close in April.

The Rancho Cucamonga store at Victoria Gardens will remain open. Here's the full list of closures.

Speaking as a Borders Rewards cardholder, it's a darn shame. I visit the Montclair store all the time (it's on my way home) and have been to the Chino store a few times. The VG store is inconvenient for me so I'm sure I'll be spending less at Borders.

Any customers want to comment?

Rancho Cucamonga has some nifty new-ish directional signs around town (see below). But the other day I was startled to notice one that's missing all its arrows. Ironically, it's near Arrow on Archibald. Just drive aimlessly, citizens; you'll find the Police eventually.

A group of us single types from the Bulletin newsroom headed for Hollywood on Monday night for dinner at Village Pizzeria and a free (!) weekly show at the Bardot club sponsored by KCRW, dubbed "It's a School Night" and this time featuring the great Lucinda Williams.

Williams, one of my favorite singer-songwriters, performed for an hour in the small club, which held about 200 people, standing. Nobody was far from the stage but our group was a mere 12 feet from her. She sang a bunch of songs from her new album, "Blessed," which won't go on sale until March 1, and a few past songs, including "Out of Touch."

"This is cool," she exclaimed at one point. Nobody disagreed.

This Valentine's message was seen on Monday evening on a block wall on North Garey Avenue at Grove Street in Pomona behind a bus stop. Does Karla get off the bus there? To the relief of graffiti removal crews, she must have responded orally rather than by spray-painting "yes."

Cassie's Soul Food Kitchen is coming soon to Locust Street in downtown Pomona, I noticed recently. This is off a few steps north of East Second Street's Antique Row, in the space previously occupied by the late, lamented Pomona Bakery. (Despite the sign, I'm not sure Cafe Amerisian, its first replacement, ever opened.)

There's a new black-owned barber shop next door with a family connection to Cassie's, I was told.

Babylon, 205 E. 2nd St. (at Locust), Pomona

Pomona is where you go for Mexican food, obviously, but the city also has a minor specialty of Mediterranean food. North Garey has two competing Lebanese restaurants in the same shopping center, while downtown has two such restaurants three blocks apart, thanks to the mid-January opening of Babylon, which joins Aladdin 2, its Second Street competition.

Babylon is on a corner in Pomona's Antique Row in a space that's seen a number of short-lived uses in recent years; it was most recently the Hardy Cafe.

Babylon, however, is an ambitious venture. The owner, who used to run Aladdin in Glendora (the inspiration for Pomona's Aladdin Jr.), sunk a boatload of money into making the restaurant a showpiece. The interior is elegant, with white tablecloths and custom oak carving in the ceiling and columns. Outside, there's wraparound sidewalk dining.

They do a $10 lunch buffet on weekdays with a long table of items, laid out on open platters and in steam containers, like a hotel banquet or Kiwanis luncheon. In other words, no sneeze guard. But I won't complain, because the items were uniformly good on a recent visit. A seat outside on a warm afternoon made for a relaxing meal.

There's a fountain a few steps away and a second fountain across the street. Do those count as the rivers of Babylon?

Babylon is open late, until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights and midnight the other days. On weekends they've been offering entertainment -- bellydancers or singers -- with a meal for an all-inclusive fee of $35 or more.

Too rich for my blood, but you ought to try a weeknight dinner (pictured is the chicken kebab, $13 and very good) or the lunch buffet. It beats the one at the more casual Aladdin 2 down the street.

Last week I had dinner with Meg and K., the couple from the M-M-M-My Pomona blog. We've had such blogging summits before, but not often enough.

This time we went to L.A.'s Koreatown and tried out Park's BBQ, one of the LA99 restaurants as chosen by critic Jonathan Gold. We had bulgogi, short ribs and a kimchi pancake, as well as panchan, the side dishes most Korean restaurants give you for free (as did Park's). Pictured are the short ribs on the grill and some of the panchan. A delicious meal for about $30 each.

To bring in the almost inevitable public-transit angle, Meg and I took Metrolink and K. picked us up at Union Station. She and I talked blogging on the way in and I notice that after a long period of near-silence on her own blog, she's posted several times of late. Always interesting to read.

I'll have a second blogging-related meal to recount soon.

* Meg's more detailed take is here.

Spotted in the office of the Downtown Pomona Owners Association, a framed reproduction of a vintage ad for an unusual Christmas gift idea. Click on the thumbnail for a larger view.

On Saturday afternoon I attended "Romeo et Juliette," the Repertory Opera Company production in Pomona. (In my column item last week I referred to it by its more familiar English title so as not to scare off the Francophobes.) My count showed about 120 people in the audience.

The troupe did a nice job of it. Some of the actor-singers are better than others; Romeo was vocally underwhelming, especially compared to the powerful Juliet. Mercutio, Stephano and the Duke also impressed me.

There were technical issues: The Shakespearean dialogue projected on a screen was difficult to read (perversely, the top line was fainter than the others; I felt like I was reading an eye chart in reverse) and at the end of the first act, one of the backdrops toppled forward. Oopsie.

But those are small objections. They let me in for free, and I like them anyway, so whether the show is worth your $30 is for you to decide. Personally, I think they should charge $20 and try to fill the place instead of charging $30 and having the room half to two-thirds full, but economics and marketing aren't my specialties. (Prompting the reasonable query: What is my specialty? I have no good answer.)

The show repeats Saturday and concludes Feb. 19, both times at 2 p.m. It runs about 2 1/2 hours. The venue is First Christian Church, 1751 N. Park Ave.

If you saw it, what did you think?

Here's a video from a dress rehearsal:

This statue at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona -- "Second Hand News," by J. Seward Johnson -- was a heartening sight on a recent visit to the campus, even though the second guy should really buy his own newspaper.

All of us in the biz could use the help. At the Daily Bulletin and its sister newspapers, we learned last week our salaries will be cut 5.5 percent, permanently, on top of furloughs, a wage freeze and a vacation freeze. Read more here.

Economic recovery? Not in our industry, or among our advertisers.

Still, things are tough all over. If you're unemployed or underemployed, we feel for you. We also print a lot of news, bad and good, about the economy. And don't forget, we publish help wanted ads too.

New York Times columnist and author David Brooks will speak at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Scripps College's Garrison Theater, 231 E. 10th St. Brooks is described as "a prominent voice of conservative politics in the United States and keen observer of the American way of life" by Scripps.

He's the author of "Bobos in Paradise" and "On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense." His next book, "The Social Animal: the Inner Roots of Character and Achievement," will be released in March.

The event is free and a book-signing will follow.

My Super Bowl Sunday included a late breakfast at Jack's Coffee Shop in Whittier with a friend, a visit to Whittier's Little Old Bookshop (which, in a news flash, just changed hands and is now called Half Off Books), a mid-afternoon lunch at an uncharacteristically empty Mix Bowl Cafe in Pomona (at game time) and a book break at an uncharacteristically quiet Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Claremont.

Two senior men were in front of me in line. They concluded the Super Bowl was to blame for the calm.

"Who's playing?" one asked.

"The Steelers and..." the other said, forehead crinkled in thought. He couldn't come up with the other team.

"You can tell the baseball guys from the football guys," his friend replied with a chuckle.

I had a good day but wish I'd planned something better, like a visit to a place that's always packed -- The Grove, say, or Philippe's -- just to revel in the elbow room.

How was your Super Bowl Sunday -- especially if it didn't include the Super Bowl?

Did you know the Claremont farmers market is 15 years old this year? It dates to 1996, as I learned from the market's new website. View the site here.

The Farmers and Artisans Market, the official name, takes place each Sunday, rain or shine, in the Claremont Village, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Vehicle traffic is barred from one block of Second Street, between Indian Hill Boulevard and Yale Avenue, for the market, in which more than 100 vendors, either growers or artisans, take part.

It's a lively street scene each week.

The market sponsor is the nonprofit Claremont Forum, a community organization that runs the Prison Library Project and various health and wellness classes.

As for the website, "There is new market information, vendor updates, photos and a new market blog," volunteer Rachel McDonnell tells me. "The website will be updated frequently and I hope it becomes a resource for local residents."

Photo: Thomas R. Cordova/Daily Bulletin

Magic Lamp Inn, 8189 Foothill Blvd. (at Red Hill Country Club Drive), Rancho Cucamonga

The Magic Lamp is the venerable restaurant on Route 66 in far western Rancho Cucamonga with the rococo roof, stained glass windows and neon lamp sign that burns a gas flame at night. The look is Old World European despite the Arabian Nights name and theme.

The restaurant opened in 1955, taking over from Lucy and John's, a spaghetti parlor, and was the brainchild of the man behind Clearman's North Woods Inn, who clearly loved high-concept eating places.

The Lamp's interior hasn't much changed in recent years. There's still a round fireplace in the center of one dining room, a lot of wood in the decor and a specially made lamp-patterned carpet. The Lamp is a little fancy for a casual meal so my visits have been rare over the years, but some friends and I had lunch there not long ago.

One had the Chinese chicken salad, which did not skimp on the chicken; the other had the Cobb salad, which was tossed tableside and declared to taste "just the way I like it"; and I had the peppercorn top sirloin (pictured), which comes with rosemary potatoes and vegetables. Good steak and sides, and just the right size for a lunch. (I forgot to note the prices but the steak was about $15 and the salads about $10.)

Service was friendly and our waters and iced teas were refilled regularly, although the server's response when asked for recommendations, that "everything is good," didn't provide any guidance. Then again, since we liked all three of our entrees, she might be right.

It's quiet and sedate in the Lamp, making it a good place for conversation and an unhurried meal. As we relaxed post-lunch in our leather chairs, one of my friends said: "They don't make restaurants like this anymore." True dat.

Check the Route 66 Landmark sign below; the fine print reads "Recognized by Hampton Hotels Save-a-Landmark program as a site worth seeing." Who would argue?

I was catching up on John Bredehoft's quirky IE blog and found a funny post from October (read it here) about what happened when he Googled the Ontario appliance store Cagle's: Besides the address and phone number, he got information on how to get there via Amtrak. Heh heh.

(There are only two days per week that one could take the Sunset Limited from Tucson, Ariz., to shop at Cagle's, Bredehoft discovered. Good to know.)

Are any of you using an e-reader? I bought the model they sell at Borders, the Kobo. It's cool: simple to use (most of the functions are in one multi-directional button at lower right) and easy on the eyes with its e-ink screen, similar to the Kindle and Nook. And very thin and light; it's the dimensions of a mass-market paperback but much slimmer.

The Kobo came loaded with 100 public domain (past their copyright) classics. I was already reading "The Return of Sherlock Holmes," which is on the Kobo, so I've switched from my paperback to the electronic version. The e-reader should be especially useful when I'm traveling and don't want to pack books.

If you have one, what do you think of its pluses and minuses?

Books acquired: "The Drawn Blank Series," Bob Dylan; "We'll Always Have Paris," Ray Bradbury.

Books read: "Tarzan of the Apes," Edgar Rice Burroughs; "The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu," Sax Rohmer; "A Tapestry of Life: The World of Millard Sheets," Janet Blake and Tony Sheets; "The Polysyllabic Spree," Nick Hornby; "Bright Orange for the Shroud," John D. MacDonald; "Exploring Form: John Edward Svenson, An American Sculptor," David Svenson.

How's your New Year's so far? Mine's been busy, if burying your nose in books while sitting immobile qualifies. I read six, not a bad start for 2011, in which I'll again attempt to read 50 books or more, mostly long-ago acquisitions that have gone unread.

It'll be the usual hodge-podge approach involving idiosyncratic choices, and of no practical use to anyone, really, but despite occasional thoughts of giving up this monthly chronicle I decided to keep it going at least another year. Sharing these bulletins of my progress spurs me to continue reading and allows you hardcore bookfolk to comment about your own bookishness, voyeuristically peep at mine and perhaps feel superior from time to time at my lame choices. (Next month I'll be a ripe target.)

Still, it's a new year, and I've already shaken things up by stacking my books for the photo. Shocking. For continuity I also arranged them in the usual on-their-backs posture.

I started the year off with the first in the "Tarzan" series. Parts of this book will seem familiar even if you've never read it: the English boy raised by an ape, fighting for supremacy among his tribe, teaching himself to read. But the part where he learns French, or the climax in the wilds of Wisconsin (!), are undreamt-of in Johnny Weissmuller's world. The plot is steeped in coincidences, but as pulp literature, full of action, emotion and a whiff of grandeur, this is hard to beat.

I've been curious about the Fu Manchu series since reading Marvel's Master of Kung Fu comic (in which the son of Fu Manchu teams with an aged Sir Denis Nayland Smith to thwart his pop's schemes) back in the '70s. In "Insidious," the first book, the climaxes every 20 pages make for an unsatisfying read, as do the yellow peril stereotypes. On the other hand, Fu is a great pre-Bond villain and the intensity is almost feverish. A flawed pulp classic.

"Polysyllabic" collects Hornby's book columns from The Believer magazine. A Believer-reading friend thinks Hornby's pieces are self-indulgent, and I can't say the analyses added many books to my must-buy list (although he did make me want to read "David Copperfield"). But gathered together, these columns chart the highs and lows of a reading life. Also, they're laugh-out-loud funny. Hornby takes books seriously, but not reading, and not himself. His pieces, by the way, are a model for these blog posts but are much longer, not to mention much better.

Next we come to two books about classic Inland Valley artists. "Tapestry," produced for a retrospective at the L.A. County Fair in 2007, is a career-spanning collection of Sheets' watercolors and oils with his most famous work, including the iconic "Angels Flight," and many lesser-known paintings. The two essays, one by Sheets' son, offer a helpful analysis and biography.

"Exploring Form" is a very readable biography of an iconoclastic sculptor from Montclair whose work includes maternal and animal subjects. A nice tribute to father from son with loads of photos.

"Bright Orange" is the sixth in the Travis McGee mystery series. A lot of series this month, eh? There are always a few gems of insight in any McGee book. Here's one about communication: "A friend is someone to whom you can say any jackass thing that enters your mind. With acquaintances, you are forever aware of their slightly unreal image of you, and to keep them content, you edit yourself to fit. Many marriages are between acquaintances." Settling into its Florida locale, the sixth McGee is the best so far.

By my standards, none of the above are ancient purchases. "Tarzan" may date to the '90s, "Fu Manchu" and "Polysyllabic" to around '05, "Bright Orange" to '09 and the two artist books to last year.

What are you reading, and do you have any reading goals for 2011?