April 2011 Archives

Eureka Burger, 580 W. 1st St. (at Cornell), Claremont

When it was announced that Eureka Burger would take over the Claremont Packing House space formerly occupied by the high-end steakhouse Three Forks, I was skeptical. Sure, the economy had crashed, but going from steaks to hamburgers seemed like quite a comedown, even if Eureka has only two other locations, in Redlands and Fresno.

A peek at the online menu near the restaurant's opening, however, showed off some mouth-watering burgers. And a recent visit with a group of friends proved Eureka to be a winner.

The wood-intensive interior still seems high end, there's a bar with craft beer and there's service at the tables, about half of which are outside on the deck.

Burgers range from $8.75 to $10.50. I had the Pearl Street Blues ($10), which is premium Angus ground chuck topped with melted bleu cheese, wild mushrooms, grilled onions and chipotle ketchup. It's served on a sesame bun and was large enough to use a knife to cut it in half. The burger was, in a word, outstanding, among the best I can remember.

Everyone else liked their burgers as well. One got hers rare and remarked, "There's not many places you can get a rare burger." We also enjoyed a couple of orders of the enormous onion rings ($4.25), which use panko bread crumbs for a light batter. The menu also has salads and other sandwiches.

Eureka would seem to be in direct competition with the Back Abbey, another fancy burger and craft beer place two blocks away. Back Abbey is usually jam-packed, which I hope means both places can thrive because they both deserve to do so.

Eureka's service was friendly. Servers all wore black T-shirts with varied slogans. One: "Respect Beer."

Thursday brings the final movie in my "College Daze" series of campus comedies at the Ovitt Family Adjective Community Adjective Library (215 E. C St., Ontario): "A Chump at Oxford."

This 1940 Laurel and Hardy movie features the usual dimwitted behavior and slapstick antics as you'd expect as the fat-and-thin duo head off to England for a real education.

The movie starts at 6:30 p.m. on the dot. Entry is free. Hope to see some of you there.

Here's a link to the movie's Wikipedia page (the synopsis gives away the entire plot of the movie, so be careful). And below is the trailer.

Yangtze Chinese Restaurant in downtown Ontario marked its 50th anniversary on April 22. Reader Jane Vath O'Connell shares a copy of an old menu. Click on the thumbnail below for a readable view. One highlight: "Lobster Cantonese $2.35 (Shelled $2.45)." I say, live it up and pay the extra dime.

Seen outside a downtown Upland antiques store Monday. I guess Snoopy is allowed on the furniture.

Here's the silly University of La Verne video mentioned in Sunday's column, the one in which the incoming prez asks ULV types to be her peep on Facebook -- after a few other ideas go nowhere.

Spotted recently in Arcadia, a sign for a store that appears to be advertising its close-by location.

Five Guys Burgers and Fries, 7945 Haven Ave. (at Town Center Drive), Rancho Cucamonga

The Inland Empire's first Five Guys outpost of the East Coast chain opened in March in the Terra Vista center north of Foothill Boulevard. Lines are usually out the door, showing either strong curiosity or repeat customers, probably both.

I visited with three pals on a recent Saturday at high noon, in retrospect perhaps the worst time to have picked. The place was jam-packed and noisy and tables were scarce.

It's a simple menu of burgers, fries, hot dogs and a couple of veggie sandwiches, and no milkshakes. They have free peanuts while you wait. Bags of potatoes are stacked around the otherwise utilitarian red and white interior. (A familiar color scheme...) A chalkboard sign notes where the day's potatoes are from. OK, so they're a little fanatical about their potatoes.

Burgers ($3.59 to $5.79) come with your choice of toppings, all the standard stuff plus rarer ones such as jalapenos, grilled onions or mushrooms and hot sauce, all free. A burger, fries and soda will run you about $10.

Your order comes in a paper bag. Even the regular fries ($2.59; $3.89 for a large) filled a cup with twice as much more in the bottom of the bag. They're good, very potato-like. In the hubbub we overlooked the option of Cajun fries, darnit; others rave about them.

The standard burger turns out to be two patties; the menu's "little hamburger" is one. It was fresh and filling. But the presentation looked sloppy and the burger is messy if you get a lot of toppings, which I did. I will go back, but my initial take is that I prefer the tidier offerings (and less hectic atmosphere) of Fatburger and the Habit, not to mention In N Out.

My friends were less ambivalent. (We'll ignore the one who got the veggie sandwich, which was a bun with a bunch of vegetables on it.) One praised the peanuts as a welcome touch and the fries as excellent. The other said: "I would give this a thumbs-up over In N Out. I thought this burger was tastier. But In N Out sure has a shorter wait."

* Update: I returned later in April for a single burger with ketchup, mustard, pickles and onions and found this simpler burger neatly presented and quite good. The Cajun fries were a nice change. However, the music remained far too loud and I couldn't concentrate on the book I'd brought. Five Guys has its uses, but it's just too pumped up for me.

Thursday's film in my "College Daze" series at the Ontario library (a.k.a. the Ovitt Family Community Whatchamacallit) sums up the series in its one-word title: "College."

This 1927 silent comedy stars Buster Keaton. The screening begins at 6:30 p.m. sharp in the community room of the library, 215 E. C St. And yes, it's free.

Keaton plays a scholarly freshman who decides to pursue sports to impress a female student. (Here's the Wikipedia entry on the movie.) A sequence in which he tries and fails at various track and field sports in succession is especially funny. Here's one example via YouTube:

Uh, where exactly? In the bushes? Seen at the Claremont Packing House. They shouldn't tease me like this.

(The sign was probably meant to point inside to the Claremont Forum, which among other things sells used books.)

These signs went up a few days ago at the former So Fresh Salads and More location at 101 N. Indian Hill Blvd., Claremont. Here's the store's website, still under construction.

After a photo appeared with my column of the platter of fried worms I had in Mexico City...

...I took my car to my mechanic in Montclair for an oil change. He and his wife welcomed me back from Mexico with a surprise: a bowl of worms. Of the Gummi variety, on a bed of crushed Oreos. I have the weirdest -- but nicest -- readers.

My Sunday column is about the two movies that Elizabeth Taylor is known to have filmed in part in the Inland Valley: "The Sandpiper" in San Dimas in 1964 and "Sweet Bird of Youth" in Upland in 1989.

The photo at left of Taylor and Charles Bronson is taken from the Poly Post's coverage of "The Sandpiper" filming, which took place at the Pomona college's San Dimas campus.

For posterity's sake, below you can find thumbnail views of 1964 articles from the Pomona Progress-Bulletin (Oct. 1) and the Poly Post (Oct. 2) about "The Sandpiper" and two 1989 articles (April 30 and May 12) from the Ontario Daily Report about "Sweet Bird of Youth." Click on the thumbnails for a large, readable view.

And a shout-out to Bruce Guter and Allan Lagumbay of the Pomona Public Library and Gena Sizoo of the Upland Public Library for finding and scanning the articles for me.

Corner Deli, 980 N. Ontario Mills Drive (at Rochester), Ontario

I hadn't heard of the Corner Deli until reader David Paniagua Jr. tipped me off. It's in the strip center with Tokyo Tokyo and Rubio's on the outskirts of Ontario Mills. Reviewers on Yelp gave the place high marks too. I had lunch there recently with a colleague.

Corner Deli opened in fall 2010 and was a bustling place on a weekday lunch. It has deli basics (pastrami, salami, ham, turkey) and many hot sandwiches, as well as soup and salads. It's Korean-owned and offers a few unusual items.

I had the Korean BBQ sandwich ($6.59), featuring sliced, marinated ribeye grilled with cabbage and onions with Asian slaw on a roll. Excellent. My friend had the Seoul Bird ($5.99), with turkey, Asian slaw, tomato, provolone cheese on a wheat roll. He liked it.

Corner Deli may be one of the better sandwich shops in the valley. From now on, I'm eating where David Paniagua Jr. eats.

Thursday night's movie in my "College Daze" series at the Ontario library is Harold Lloyd's 1925 gem, "The Freshman." Lloyd plays a naive freshman, Harold Lamb, who is pranked by his entire college into thinking he's popular. The part where he does a little dance when greeting people is a gas.

Join us for the 6:30 p.m. screening at the library, 215 E. C St. And yes, it's free.

Here's the Wikipedia page. Be careful not to read much of the plot description! Most of the YouTube clips are 10 minutes, but here's a short, charming scene.

On a weekend jaunt that took me to Canoga Park's Topanga Canyon Boulevard recently, I was startled by this billboard for one of my favorite series. The racy tagline refers to Episode 107, "The Fusilli Jerry," as reader Bob Terry could probably have told us. Blame or credit goes to KDOC, "Seinfeld's" new home. Here's the relevant clip:

At a wedding on Saturday, five minutes past the time for it to start, the minister went to the microphone and began, "I don't wish to alarm anyone, but..." -- instantaneously alarming everyone.

The rest of the sentence: "...the shuttle from the hotel has been delayed and we're waiting for a few more people." Uh, okay.

Two friends and I rolled our eyes and whispered back and forth with more exciting endings for that sentence.

Want to give it a try? Minister at wedding: "I don't wish to alarm anyone, but..."

Under the subject line "The age of specialization," reader Tony Abbott emailed this photo and remarked: "This appears to be a special doorbell button for print journalists!"

Lesley Tellez, right, pauses by a sidewalk taco stand in Mexico City with Connie Walker of Minneapolis during one of Tellez's Eat Mexico tours.

Today's post ties in with my Friday column about Mexico City food blogger and tour guide Lesley Tellez, a former Rancho Cucamonga resident. (There's a local angle no matter where you go.)

If you'd like to know more about her, you can find her blog The Mija Chronicles here and her Eat Mexico tour site here. TripAdvisor reviews are here.

Her tips about eating on the street are here and were summarized here by the LA Times. And you can read here about the Global Street Food event in Santa Monica in which she will participate.

OK, I"m all linked out. Let's go to the photos.

The first photo of my entire trip, this is a woman at a tianguis who makes tlacoyos as you watch.

A stop on Tellez's street-food tour, this is a woman on a streetcorner who makes atole (a warm, corn-based beverage, perfect for breakfast) and tamales. We had the chicken.

From a second stand we got a strawberry tamale. "You won't find pink tamales in the States," Tellez said.

Burritos aren't a common Mexico City item, but here's a stand that specializes in them. The cook puts on a show for customers in line. Ours had squash blossoms, onions and tomatoes.

This 1932 Marx Brothers classic is the first of my four-movie "College Daze" series at the Ontario library, 215 E. C St. We're screening it at 6:30 p.m. tonight. Learn more about the movie on its Wikipedia page.

More fun, though, is the clip below of Groucho, as Huxley College's new president, singing his anthem of negativity, "I'm Against It." (Don't mind the Spanish Portuguese subtitles; this version has better sound than the clip without them.)

This sign has been stopping people in their tracks at Yale and Second in the Claremont Village in recent weeks. I saw a chuckling passerby take a photo of it on a recent afternoon and decided to take one myself. It's outside the Diamond Center and the fine print refers to the store's policy of a free evaluation of the head of any diamond ring.

* Owner Ray Lantz emailed to say: "It's amazing how many people comment on, photograph or walk in because of the sign. We never thought bringing attention to jewelry maintenance would be so fun."

Books acquired: "The Red and the Black," Stendhal; "Swann's Way," Marcel Proust; "Tales From the Cthulhu Mythos, Vol. 1" and "The Shuttered Room," H.P. Lovecraft; "John Carter, Warlord of Mars vols. 1-3, 5-7, 9," Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Books read: "The Turn of the Screw," Henry James; "They Live," Jonathan Lethem; "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," Philip K. Dick; "Blade Runner, A Story of the Future," Les Martin; "Web of the City," Harlan Ellison.

March came in like a lion and went out like a lamb, in the sense that all five books last month were read in the first 15 days.

"Turn of the Screw" was chosen because I was seeing the LA Opera production later in March. "They Live" is the analysis by the Pomona College prof of an obscure John Carpenter movie, the subject of a column a few weeks ago. "Do Androids Dream" was the basis for the movie "Blade Runner," the four-disc DVD version of which I'd been watching (the Pomona College prof, a Philip K. Dick expert, was interviewed in the bonus features). "Blade Runner" is a sort of photo-novel of the movie. And "Web" is another of the early social-realist books by Ellison, who is better known for his fantasy work.

I enjoyed them all in different ways, "Androids" and "Screw" being the masterpieces of the bunch. You'll notice from the photos that "Screw" was read on my e-reader, a first for the ol' Reading Log; the short novel was one of the 100 free classics that came loaded on it. (Most of the Sherlock Holmes book from February was read on the e-reader too but as I owned a paperback I used that in the photo.)

As for where the other books came from, "They Live" and "Blade" were bought in February, "Web" was found used (and collectable) five or 10 years ago and "Androids" has been on my shelves unread for probably 30 years. Gulp.

What did I do the rest of March? Started in on books for April, which for no special reason will all have not one but two C's in their title. By April 2 I'd finished two long books. Guess I'm coming in like a lion again.

One more note: I read a lot of graphic novels, comic strip reprints and the like but never include those on these lists, which are about prose. But I'd like to mention an exceptional graphic novel that I read in March, Guy Delisle's "Burma Chronicles."

It's a memoir by the French illustrator of several months he and his family spent in Burma, where his wife was stationed as part of Doctors Without Borders. Delisle has also done a similar book about North Korea titled "Pyongyang," which I've read, and "Shenzhen," which I haven't. "Burma" and "Pyongyang" are highly recommended for the window they provide on closed cultures and their gentle sense of humor. Here's the Amazon page for "Burma Chronicles," which allows you to look inside the book.

On the plaza outside Panera Bread at Haven and Foothill, what appear to be 2,000-year-old Roman columns are going down without a fuss. Well, people are always complaining that Rancho Cucamonga has no respect for its history...

Tying in with Sunday's column about some of the food eaten in my Mexico City vacation, here are a few representative photos.

Below is my first meal in Mexico City: a tlacoyo, cooked on a grill at an open-air bazaar, or tianguis.

Below are al pastor (marinated pork) tacos with thin slices of pineapple. Mmmm.

This is the quesadilla, very different from the flat, cheesy American ones, that I got from a streetcorner stand.

Elote (or corn on the cob) with mayo, chili powder and grated cheese, eaten in Parque Mexico, a lovely park that dates to the 1920s.

Maguey worms, a quarter-inch long and cooked in onions and cilantro, were surprisingly tasty. A little guacamole smeared on a tortilla, some worms and you've got yourself a taco you probably won't find at Taco Bell.

Here's the root beer float I got at a '50s-style diner. Mmmm, foamy.

At bottom, an order of empanadas, an Argentinian dish, hit the spot one afternoon at an open-air cafe as I read from Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" on my e-reader.

Fu-Lin, 9645 Central Ave. (at San Bernardino Road), Montclair

The sign near the sidewalk for Fu-Lin always makes me chuckle, but I'd never gone in until this week. In honor of April Fool's Day, it was time. (The sign reads "Fulin," but all the references online are to "Fu-Lin," the spelling I'll go with here.)

From the outside Fu-Lin looks like a big box. In back there's a large parking lot and an entrance. The interior, while dated, is nicer than I'd expected with Chinese prints, a relief mural and windows letting in a lot of natural light.

Fu-Lin, which opened in 1990, has the usual Mandarin and Szechuan dishes, as well as Chinese American standbys like chop suey and egg foo young. But according to a Korean American friend whose family loves the place, there's a subtle Korean tinge to the menu. You can get a cold combination, ja jiang myun or ya kki mandoo. It was only after leaving that I noticed at least some of the lettering on the exterior is in Korean.

The lunch specials, available every day but Sunday, are all priced between $4.25 and $5.50. I had garlic chicken ($4.65), which turned out to be steaming hot and fairly spicy. This came with a dollop of rice, two wontons, an eggroll and a cup of hot and sour soup. For $6 with tax and tip, this was a filling lunch, and better than expected.

Yelp reviewers seem of two minds about the place, unable to agree on whether it's great or terrible. Quality-wise I'd compare Fu-Lin to Rancho Cucamonga's China Point or Upland's China Gate, two other old-school Chinese American restaurants.

Fu-Lin was busy; even at 1:30 on a weekday, 12 tables or booths were occupied with some 30 diners, many Latino and some Asian. Fu-Lin must be doing something right. No foolin'.