June 2011 Archives

Photo by Peter Rogers

This shot was taken May 27 in London, England of James Elias in the kitchen of his restaurant, Mes Amis, by Peter Rogers, a Chino Hills councilman and professional photographer who was on vacation. (Thanks, Peter.)

The connection is that Mes Amis is also the name of a restaurant in Chino Hills owned and run by Sammy Elias, James' brother. Rogers is among the few who have dined at both. More about that in my Friday column.

I saw this silent classic Wednesday night at the Orpheum Theater on Broadway in downtown L.A., the last film in this year's "Last Remaining Seats" series sponsored by the L.A. Conservancy. Harold Lloyd's 1923 film in the lovely 1926 theater made for a great combo.

Notes Wikipedia: "It includes one of the most famous images from the silent film era: Lloyd clutching the hands of a large clock as he dangles from the outside of a skyscraper above moving traffic."

The movie is highly recommended, and the clock scene -- filmed not far from the theater itself -- got an ovation.

A Google search for Looney Tunes references to Cucamonga (how many people can consider something like this part of their job duties?) turned up a "Did You Know?" page about Rancho Cucamonga from a tree service directory, of all places. Here's the link.

I suspect all the "facts" aren't 100 percent accurate. The trivia note that Frank Zappa made Cucamonga "his part-time residence for much of the '60s and '70s" makes it sound like he had a summer home there, when in reality he lived there about a year circa '64. So caveat emptor -- but much of the other info sounds right.

Ontario's Volunteer Walk of Fame is modeled on the one in Hollywood, except that after replacement of the sidewalk, the bronze stars have been mounted vertically on a concrete retaining wall. Now you can only walk past them, not on them.

The plaques honoring volunteers with city departments can be found on a pathway between City Hall and the Senior Center. Today's column is in part about the walk.

This is La Loma "pure California brandy, 100 proof," manufactured in December 1930, according to the label, at "U.S. Fruit Distillery No. 400, Guasti, Cal."

Although the bottle says it's a full pint, there's only a smidge left after eight decades of evaporation and leakage.

I was gifted with the brandy, as were my colleagues Liset Marquez and Thomas Cordova, on a visit last week to the stately Latimer house in Ontario. The home at 945 N. Euclid Ave. had just received official recognition for its restoration and we wanted to see it.

The family, which made its money in citrus, has roots going back to the Chaffey family and has an appointed mayor, an elected mayor and a city treasurer in its family tree.

To cap our visit, Maggie and Frank Latimer gave us the brandy from the basement. Maggie's packrat ancestors had kept seven cases of the stuff and she and her husband hand them out to selected visitors.

I think my colleagues took theirs home, whether for libation or display purposes I know not. I'm keeping mine at my desk. As I don't drink it's not of much practical use, but I like the idea of playing old-time newspaperman by keeping some hootch close at hand.

This repair shop in Pomona at Monterey and White avenues evidently specializes in troubled vehicles.

Back in February I wrote a few lines in my column about the debut of the Ovitt Meatloaf Sandwich, served at the Page One Cafe adjoining Ontario's Ovitt Family Community Library (215 E. C St). But I didn't present a photo.

Let me rectify that oversight with this loving photo of the sandwich ($7.50), which consists of sliced meatloaf on a sourdough roll dressed with garlic butter, sliced provolone, shredded parmesan and horseradish mayo. It's named for Gary Ovitt, the current county supervisor and former mayor for whom meatloaf was a childhood favorite.

Supporting your local library is rarely this delicious -- or is this fattening.

Oporto, 8220 Haven Ave. (at Foothill), Rancho Cucamonga

Oporto is an Australia-based restaurant chain that opened its first U.S. location in (why not?) Rancho Cucamonga. A quirky way to launch, I suppose, but we would expect no less from the Aussies. The website promises coming locations in Ontario and Glendora. We appreciate their laser-like focus.

The Rancho Cucamonga restaurant is in the former Pei Wei location, much missed by some of us, in the Chaffey Town Square center at the southwest corner of Haven and Foothill. Oporto opened in February. I went in with a friend recently for dinner.

They specialize in Portuguese-style chicken, unbreaded and unfried, served either as whole chickens or in a variety of sandwiches, in which the chicken is pressed and served as one, two or three stacked "patties." It's a casual, order-at-the-counter place, with an overhead menu of similar-looking sandwiches whose variations can only be read when standing directly underneath it.

We had a single Bondi meal (one-patty sandwich, fries, drink, $5), which has "chilli" sauce, and a double Otropo meal (ditto, but with two patties, $7), which has pineapple, bacon and "creamy mayo" sauce.

Well, it was no Pei Wei, but the sandwiches were tasty, and served on above-average buns. The crusty fries were different, enjoyable, but salty. I would go back and so would my friend. (*Correction: She says she wouldn't.) The food is very different from Chick-fil-A but of comparable quality. There's plenty of seating indoors and a large patio.

Throw another chicken on the...oh, never mind.

Reader Darlene (Duffy) Melton writes:

"Just wondering if anyone remembers the 'Stork Station' maternity hospital located at the south end of Hamilton Street in Pomona. I was the first baby born there, March 4,1932.

"I've taken a lot of ribbing over that name over the years."

When you tell people you were born at Stork Station? I can imagine. Anyone know of the place?

Racy but harmless double-entendres on contractors' trucks are a small fascination of mine. In my Sonoma County days, an electrician memorably vowed, "We look into your shorts," with the two O's in "look" having pupils that seemed to peer downward. Meanwhile, a tiler's fleet promised: "We lay anything."

I haven't seen anything quite that funny since, but the slogan of Smitty's Plumbing, on a truck spotted recently in Upland, is either No. 1 or No. 2 with me.

The once-popular Cafe Calato Italian restaurant in Rancho Cucamonga evidently has closed for good, at least for now. In a business park on Center Street just above Fourth Street, a stone's throw from Ontario, and just down the street from our newsroom, Cafe Calato served inexpensive pastas and pizzas.

There was no note on the door Saturday and no activity. Based on Yelp comments, the restaurant closed around the beginning of June.

I don't know much about Cafe Calato's history, but it was in business in 1997 when I started at the Bulletin. A friend tells me the restaurant changed hands about three years ago and that the owner is having health problems. He offered his staff the chance to stay employed by running the place themselves, as long as they kept the place up to his standards. He visited a few days later, found the place a mess and, since that reflected on him, fired everyone and shut the doors instead.

Some people say what they mean and mean what they say, it seems.

* Meanwhile, I've also been told the new owner ran the place into the ground and cut a lot of corners, resulting in the C grade mentioned in the comments and a loss of business.

** Cafe Calato reopened under a new owner/chef in October.

Boy, did the crowds turn out for Saturday's first Inland Empire Food Truck Festival. They were expecting 12,000 by the end of the day and looked on track to do it.

More than 50 food trucks from L.A. and Orange counties were parked in a lot at Ontario's Citizens Business Bank Arena, serving up trendy foodstuffs. Tacos, perhaps the IE's comestible of choice, might have Chinese or Korean fillings. A hot dog might be topped with Japanese yakisoba noodles. Other items might simply be chefly takes on chicken or fries or ice cream.

I had an Asian chicken taco from Komodo, chicken balls and a biscuit from LudoTruck, a chicken pastel from Ta Bom, tamarind chicken sweet potato fries from Frysmith and a blood orange sorbet from Coolhaus.

(I meant to try Mandoline Tacos, which a reader had recommended, but forgot. The Grilled Cheese Truck, recommended by another, had a two-hour wait for most of the day.)

Did I enjoy myself? Mildly. Waits were often half an hour, and while a long wait somewhere for a single truck can build anticipation, multiple long waits when you're trying to take a smorgasbord approach can be a drag, especially under the hot sun, or when you get to the front of a line to find the item you wanted was sold out (as happened at Coolhaus, where by mid-afternoon they were out of ice cream sandwiches).

The best strategy might have been to hit any place with a short line. I did a little of that. Another strategy would have been to go mid-afternoon. When I left at 3, the lines were a bit shorter, although the tradeoff would be that some items were sold out. Yet another strategy might have been to bring a book to help kill time in line.

Will there be a second festival? Based on the response, I'd imagine so, and I'm pretty sure I would attend.

If you went, what did you eat, and what did you think?

Zaky Mediterranean Grill, 1013 W. Foothill Blvd. (at Mulberry), Upland; also 6622 Carnelian St. (at 19th), Rancho Cucamonga

Zaky Grill, which has a mostly-takeout location in Rancho Cucamonga off the 210, expanded to a larger second location in Upland a few weeks ago along Foothill Boulevard.

As an occasional customer at the Carnelian spot, which has just a couple of molded-plastic tables, I stopped in for dinner recently in Upland, where Zaky's shares a new-ish minimall with a Starbucks, a cell phone store and a pizza parlor.

This Zaky's has plenty of dining space. You still order at the counter, and the menu of sandwiches, plates, salads and rotisserie chicken turns out to be exactly the same in both locations. (View it here.)

I had the chicken kabob sandwich ($5), which is prepared to order on pita bread with garlic sauce, onions, pickles and tomatoes. Delicious.

The owner recognized me from previous visits and gave me a dessert, knafeh ($4), a pastry with cream cheese and honey, very nice.

I'd been to the minimall location before when it was B-Man's Teriyaki and later when it was a Philly's Best. The interior hasn't changed much, being a bit stark, with track lighting near the ceiling that is mildly unpleasant. But Zaky's food is pretty good stuff and the dine-in option is welcome. I hope they beat the location's curse.

Four of us from the newsroom left work Tuesday at a decent hour for a change and sped to Hollywood's Amoeba Music for an in-store performance by the Civil Wars, whose debut CD, "Barton Hollow," is recommended to fans of Robert Plant/Alison Kraus' "Raising Sand," Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris or even the Everly Brothers. The close-harmony duo was playing at Largo that night and are also performing Thursday night at the El Rey.

Joy Williams and John Paul White, whose romantic ballads tend toward the serious, turned out to be playful and utterly charming in live performance. They performed for a half-hour as the audience stood in the record stacks.

Aside from a half-dozen of their own songs, they did a slow cover of "Billie Jean" (versions from other venues are posted to YouTube). They also challenged the audience to guess who was responsible for their final song and to find the CD. Here's an excerpt of that:

Are you going? The first Inland Empire Food Truck Festival takes place Saturday at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario. More than 50 food trucks will take over the arena's parking lot all day, providing a sort of smorgasbord on wheels. Some from this truck, some from that truck...

Customers pay a fee of $10 to enter the festival and then can purchase items at whichever trucks they like.

I have my ticket (bought at the box office at the earlybird rate of $8). Will I see you there?

Food trucks, as you may know, are a hot trend around the streets of L.A. We don't see many of them in our end of L.A. County and they're currently banned (other than for special occasions like this) in San Bernardino County, making this a welcome event.

I'm no expert on food truck culture, so I can't say with any certainty if the list is heavy or light on the good trucks, but the list certainly has some evocative names. Kogi isn't among them, but Coolhaus, Bacon Mania, the Grilled Cheese Truck, Nom Nom and Frysmith are names I've heard, and the fact that they're coming bodes well.

Anyone more versed in food trucks want to rate the lineup or recommend trucks/items?

Let us now praise a bowl of lettuce, namely, the strawberry poppyseed and chicken salad at Panera (local locations in RC, La Verne, Chino Hills and Fontana). This is a seasonal item that popped up again in April and will be shelved again shortly. Strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, mandarin oranges and pecans, plus romaine, chicken and fat-free dressing. Not only is it healthy, it's delicious, and amazingly it's a mere 340 calories (or 220 without the chicken). I've been eating one every week. Don't go, strawberry poppyseed and chicken salad!

Books acquired: "Chronic City," Jonathan Lethem; "Red," Sammy Hagar; "A Pleasure to Burn" and "Switch on the Night," Ray Bradbury; "Pale Gray for Guilt," John D. MacDonald; "Slow Learner," Thomas Pynchon; "Men and Cartoons," Jonathan Lethem; "Tales of Mystery and Imagination," Edgar Allan Poe; "An Education," Nick Hornby.

Books read: "The Book of Philip K. Dick," Philip K. Dick; "The Hand of Fu Manchu," Sax Rohmer; "The Beasts of Tarzan," Edgar Rick Burroughs; "All Yesterdays' Parties: The Velvet Underground in Print 1966-1971," Clinton Heylin, ed.; "The Drawn Blank Series," Bob Dylan.

May was a five-book month for yours truly. (Alas, it was a nine-book month on the acquisitions front.)

I read the Philip Dick story collection because it contains "The Adjustment Team," on which the recent, enjoyable movie "The Adjustment Bureau" was based. The Fu Manchu and Tarzan books are each the third in their respective series and were pleasantly pulpy. The Velvet Underground book compiles news and reviews of the band (one of my favorites) from the period when they were still functioning. The Dylan book is made up of color sketches by the musician and several very dull essays by others.

On the whole, an uninspiring month, with the Dick volume probably the best of the lot.

As for when and where the books were acquired, the first three came from various used bookstores the last decade (the details escape me), the VU was a remainder purchased at Moe's in Berkeley four years ago and the Dylan was bought at Pomona's Magic Door Books a few months ago.

June is shaping up as a light month. As I write this it's the 9th and I haven't finished anything since late May; I'm still in the early stages of two books after abandoning a third. Hope you're doing better.

Anyone want to share what they've read or are currently reading?

Wednesday night I attended the L.A. Conservancy's Last Remaining Seats program at downtown LA's Million Dollar Theater. The 1918 movie palace is unrestored and not in the best of condition, but it's still pretty neat, and the exterior is spectacular. We saw "Captain Blood," a 1935 pirate movie with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Great fun.

There are still three more movies in the series, each on Wednesday nights, at different theaters on Broadway. (Two of the three are already sold out.) Click here for a schedule. I've got a ticket for "Safety Last" on the 29th.

Ontario City Hall underwent a $22 million renovation, as noted in Friday's column and in a story earlier this week. Here are two views of the building, one pre-renovation, the other after, both courtesy of City Hall.

Every now and then I'll torture myself when returning from a visit to the Chino Valley by taking the 71 Freeway north through Pomona, where the 71 is merely a divided highway with traffic signals and very slow traffic, particularly at Mission Boulevard. It's a change of pace for me and always interesting to see that part of town -- which the congestion allows me to do at discouraging length.

Until the 71 is one day turned into a real freeway, Pomona is doing what it can by building a bridge over the 71 to handle Mission Boulevard traffic and thus eliminate the main bottleneck. As you can see, the work seems to be coming along -- although not soon enough to have sped up traffic on Saturday, when I shot this.

When she was in the fourth grade, Alice Ozma and her father made a commitment to read together every night for 100 nights. After 100 nights, they didn't want to stop, so they didn't, reading together for 3,218 nights straight, until she went off to college.

Isn't that sweet? Now Ozma has published a memoir about the experience, titled "The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared." She'll appear in La Verne on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at Mrs. Nelson's Toy and Book Shop, 1030 Bonita Ave., to sign her book and talk about it. A natural question: Ask if she considered delaying college.

The event is also a kickoff to the store's summer reading program. Says the store's press release: "To encourage families to make their own 'Reading Promise,' Mrs. Nelson's will be offering a 25 percent discount on all of the titles Ozma and her father read together (titles are listed in the book). Also, to help kids finish their summer reading assignments, Mrs. Nelson's is offering 25 percent off of titles required by schools."

Info: (909) 599-4558, www.mrsnelsons.com.

My first post-furlough task Monday morning was to go to the dedication of the remodeled Ontario City Hall, which I hope to write about here or in my column later this week. Anyway, it was nice to be back, and even nicer to be back on the payroll. (This economy is a killer.)

It wasn't a bad week off. I bought a laptop, cleaned out closets, took bags of clothes and other items to Goodwill, took electronic waste to a dropoff center, went to L.A. via Metrolink a couple of times, visited some used bookstores, tidied up at home and paid to have my car washed by hand -- first time I've ever done that (I'm more of a spray-it-myself guy).

But enough about me. What did I miss last week?

This postcard image shows the northeast corner of Foothill Boulevard and Archibald Avenue in Cucamonga with the old Bank of America, with Vath's drugstore and soda fountain next door. Jane Vath O'Connell sent me the postcard after reading this blog post about that intersection, which served as downtown Cucamonga in the old days.

B of A later moved across the street to the southeast corner.