October 2011 Archives

The above seems like a short, simple message on a holiday, but I thought the same thing on Columbus Day.

Taco d'Oro, 16157 San Bernardino Ave. (at Citrus), Fontana

I was on my way to a Fontana school board meeting, in unknown territory, when I stopped for dinner at Taco d'Oro, which is cater-corner from the school HQ, and down the street from Fontana High. Other neighbors: a vacant lot, a hair salon and a church.

A banner on the Taco d'Oro roof proclaims "World's Best Pastrami," a claim not often made at Mexican restaurants. What the heck, I went in.

Taco d'Oro ("Gold Taco") is a rarity: a theme fast-food restaurant. It's decorated in Gold Rush style. A prospector statue is out front, and inside there's a water feature that resembles a mining sluice, a pick and a pan on the wall, swinging doors to the restrooms, wanted posters and other touches of character. In other words, a working-class Claim Jumper.

They have burgers, sandwiches (BLT, cheese steak, etc.), tacos, burritos and quesadillas. I went for the hot pastrami ($6), which came piled nearly two inches high on a roll with mustard and pickles. I would pronounce it an above-average gut bomb.

World's best pastrami? Please. Fontana's best pastrami? Possibly.

I wonder how the tacos are...

The pickup seems to be attempting to blend into the African veldt. But it's in downtown La Verne, where it stands out even with a leafy tree as a backdrop.

On vacation in St. Louis, I noticed a butcher's window with these unrelated -- or are they? -- signs. Seen at Soulard Farmers Market, where the slogan is "Since 1779."

Like any metropolis, St. Louis has locally revered eateries and foodstuffs, as I was reminded during my recent visit. (My parents live near there, so I know the city reasonably well.)

Toasted ravioli, frozen custard and St. Louis-style pizza were among the items we had this time, and we ate at the popular Midwestern chains Steak 'n Shake and White Castle.

But I did insist that we eat at one place that's common in the Inland Valley: Panera. Did you know it's based in St. Louis? There, most locations are called Saint Louis Bread Co. They must have decided the name wouldn't work elsewhere. ("Is there something special about bread from St. Louis? I've got bread right here.")

Anyway, the menu was the same, as far as I could tell, but I enjoyed handing over my Panera rewards card for the employee to swipe.

Somewhere in the organization, a computer is puzzling over my card's sole points of use: Rancho Cucamonga, La Verne...and St. Louis.

Saratoga Lanes, St. Louis, Mo.

As mentioned in my Sunday column, I've been bowling frequently this year, usually during off-peak hours to save money. All of our local bowling alleys have deals that can save you dough, as long as you don't mind bowling at, say, the middle of the day, nights after 9 p.m. or before noon on a weekend.

Currently you can bowl at Montclair's Bowlium for $1 if you get there between 9 and 9:30 a.m. weekend mornings, or for $1.50 if you're there after 9:30 but before 11.

They have a lot of regulars, including seniors. One man brings three bowling balls and polishes them after each roll. Another carefully points his feet just so before beginning his approach.

A few times I drove to Covina Bowl for 98-cent games. I like its midcentury modern bowling alley, but Covina proved a long way to go to save two cents.

Here are links to the website of each Inland Valley bowling alley, where you can search for deals or find out more. Look under "prices" or "specials," and remember that the specials may change from time to time.

* The Bowlium, 4666 Holt Blvd., Montclair.

* Brunswick Zone Upland, 451 W. Foothill Blvd., Upland.

* Brunswick Deer Creek Lanes, 7930 Haven Ave., Rancho Cucamonga.

* Chaparral Lanes, 400 W. Bonita Ave., San Dimas.

* Brunswick Foothill Lanes, 17238 Foothill Blvd., Fontana.

* Brunswick Classic Lanes, 1800 Hamner Ave., Norco.

* Brunswick Covina Bowl, 1060 W. San Bernardino Road, Covina.

* Oak Tree Lanes, 990 N. Diamond Bar Blvd., Diamond Bar.

Happy bowling.

Tango Baires Cafe, 870 E. Foothill (at Campus), Upland

The only full-service Argentinian restaurant in the Inland Valley (a takeout place, Empanadas to Go, is in Chino), Tango Baires has been in business since about 2000 in a small shopping center on Foothill Boulevard in Upland. It's next door to a Baskin Robbins and a couple of doors from Brandon's.

I ate there once or twice not long after it opened and had vaguely desired to return. A chance came recently with two friends, one a first-timer and the other a frequent customer who discovered the place last year.

Tango Baires is small, with only a half-dozen small tables, but is colorfully decorated and cozy. Although it's a cafe, they take your order at your table. Our server was relaxed and cheerful.

The menu has salads, hot and cold sandwiches, barbecue, steaks, pastas, pizzas and desserts. Argentina has a large Italian population and the country has put its own spin on traditional Italian dishes. The menu is online with helpful descriptions.

The restaurant is also open for breakfast, with a few items, but they don't open until 10 a.m. on weekends and 10:30 on weekdays, so the cafe may be on a different schedule than you.

I had the milanesa cordobesa sandwich ($8), a breaded steak with ham and a fried egg on top, and lightly toasted. Tasty, and also enormous; half would have been a decent meal.

The first-timer got the pesto Tango Baires pasta ($11.90) with chicken ($2.50) and liked it, although he preferred the bit of the sandwich I shared. "I'd come back," he said.

The regular, who is vegetarian, got the fugazzetta pizza ($7 for a half), which is mozzarella, black olives, onions and oregano on an airy, pastry-like crust. The half was five slices.

"This tastes just like the food I had in Buenos Aires," she said with a contented sigh about her recent vacation. I wouldn't know. For me, it was just a pleasant meal in Upland.

I love the caricature of the guy dropping the ball on his foot. Seen at Brunswick Zone in Upland.

A takeout meal? No, leftovers from a single meal at Norms in Claremont. Arriving at 4:50 p.m. one recent Saturday, I ordered off the before-5 menu: soup, salad, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, vegetables and a mini hot fudge sundae, all for $7.99. The food was pretty good. The leftovers, seen here, made for two modest but satisfying meals.

Fox Theaters aren't only in Southern California. St. Louis' Fox, part of the same original chain of movie theaters, sat three times more than Pomona's (5,060 compared to 1,731). I admired the building from the outside while on vacation last week.

A full-length view of the theater without any distracting newspaper-brandishing columnists is below.

By the way, what did I miss while I was away last week?

This house at Archibald and Feron in Rancho Cucamonga is often decorated. For Halloween, it's adorned with ghost-riding pumpkins, a panther-sized black cat and giant spiders.

Korean BBQ, 4232 Holt Blvd. (at Amherst), Montclair

In the Inland Valley, where Korean restaurants are rare, Korean BBQ is the venerable granddaddy of them all. It's located in a strip mall next to a laundromat along Holt Boulevard. Yes, it's an unpromising location, but Korean BBQ has been there since sometime around 1990, so it must work for them. It used to have a giant yellow pole sign out front until a makeover to the center required a more modest sign.

My friends Meg and K. (of the M-M-M-My Pomona blog) highly recommend the place, and since they used to live in L.A.'s Koreatown neighborhood, their advice was heeded. The three of us met for dinner there on a recent Sunday.

The interior is dated, especially the paneling, but it's clean and pleasant enough, and Korean restaurants generally are utilitarian. The staff brought out the usual array appetizers in small dishes: kimchi, fish cake, bean sprouts, etc.

We ordered short ribs ($25) and beef ($18) off the barbecue menu, plus a bowl of bibimbap (forgot the price, sorry) to share. The barbecue items are cooked on a grill in the middle of your table. The staff fires up the grill, puts the meat on and returns to turn it or serve pieces that are done.

Korean barbecue is even rarer than Korean restaurants out here; I've tried two Korean places in Rancho Cucamonga and one in Chino Hills, and none of them had tabletop barbecue. The food in Montclair didn't impress me as much as my one previous experience with Korean barbecue, at the highly regarded Park's in L.A. -- the meat wasn't of as high a quality -- but I liked the meal, the staff was nice and Montclair is a lot closer than Wilshire Boulevard.

The restaurant gets 4 stars on Yelp, where they have the name as Arirang. The menu and sign say Korean BBQ (as did the old sign), but the strip mall's name is Arirang Plaza, and for all I know that's the restaurant's secret name.

Can't sleep and need an art fix? Through Nov. 6, the Pomona College Museum of Art is open 24/7. As the L.A. Times' Christopher Knight put it: "Like 7-Eleven and the drive-through at Del Taco, the Pomona College Museum of Art never closes."

It's part of a pretty cool exhibit titled "It Happened at Pomona," one of the many Pacific Standard Time exhibits celebrating the Los Angeles art scene from 1945 to 1980. (I hope to write more about the initiative in the near future.)

More about the Claremont exhibit is here, with a calendar of events.

Below is alumni Chris Burden's cube sculpture, which is installed outside the museum.

Being an early-to-bed type, I visited the museum at 6:45 p.m. on a Wednesday with friends. If you visit the museum in the middle of the night, you can always mull over the show afterward at Norms, Claremont's 24-hour diner.

It took only seven months, but Rancho Cucamonga recently replaced the directional sign that had no directional arrows at Archibald and Arrow. The previous version can be seen here. The sign was taken down within days of my February blog post and went back up again in late September. I hope no motorists have been driving aimlessly all this time.

Driving in northwest Ontario recently, I was surprised to spot these two Tyrannosaurus rex sculptures in a backyard amid jungle-like foliage at the street corner. After shooting this photo while at a stop sign (at 8th, if memory serves), I drove on, nervously.

Note the barbed wire. Presumably the homeowner put it there to keep the dinosaurs in.

Columbus isn't the revered figure he was in my childhood, or probably yours, but he gave us a holiday, whether we get the day off or not, and that's something, isn't it? Thanks, Chris.

Remember the old Winchell's Donuts at 887 W. Foothill Blvd. in Upland? What a great sign, and the building was great too. I'm not a big doughnut guy, but I went there a couple of times just for the ambience (and a chocolate raised).

It closed in 2004 (the building is now Cherry on Top Frozen Yogurt), but the sign was saved. It's now owned by the Museum of Neon Art and is on public display through January on Santa Monica Boulevard at Martel Avenue in West Hollywood. How about that! See my Friday column for more.

Below is the scene from across Santa Monica Boulevard, and below that is a portion of the interpretive panel alongside the sign so we know why we're supposed to be impressed.

A student practices guitar by a fountain at Pomona College last week. He must be all right because the statuary seems to be dancing.

A reader phoned to tell me to check out the Pop Sugar celebrity website, and lo and behold, there's a 40-photo slideshow of actress and Pomona native Jessica Alba with her family at the L.A. County Fair on Saturday.

Says the website: "Honor (their 3-year-old daughter) took a spin on the merry-go-round with Jess, made friends with a boa constrictor at the petting zoo, and finally capped off her afternoon of fun with a princess costume party. Jessica snapped photos throughout the day and relaxed later in the evening by sharing an ice-cold beer with her husband."

This time, 54 trucks are confirmed, as well as seven breweries, a new feature. The list of trucks is here. The festival, at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, lasts from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The first one, in June, drew a reported 11,800 people.

Who says newspapermen never print any good news? This candy bar was purchased at Galco's Soda Pop Stop in Highland Park, which specializes not only in bottled sodas but in obscure candies. (It's where I bought a Clark Bar for Ray Bradbury for his Pomona appearance, for instance.)

With the name Good News, how could I resist buying one?

Good News wasn't nutritious, by the way, but it was delicious.

Books acquired: too many to list.

Books read: "Into the Beautiful North," Luis Alberto Urrea; "Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Across the Borderlands," Michael Chabon; "The Innocents Abroad," Mark Twain.

Where did the summer go? So many activities left undone, so many books left unread (unless you're Will Plunkett).

On the other hand, my 2011 tally of books read this month encompassed numbers 48, 49 and 50, including a fat volume I'd meant to get up the nerve to read for a year or more. All had travel as part of the title, balm after a travel-less summer.

Urrea's "Into the Beautiful North": A charming, sometimes slapstick tale of a Mexican girl inspired by "The Magnificent Seven" to bring home seven men from America to repopulate her village. Urrea gets in some jabs at American attitudes about Mexicans, terrorism and immigration and captures the wonder and strangeness of America to the visitors.

Chabon's "Maps and Legends": Recommended for entertainment-universalists who will dote on lines like "we may have forgotten how fundamental such stories-within-stories have always been to popular art from Homer to 'Green Acres.' " Essays on Sherlock Holmes, His Dark Materials, American Flagg, etc., are coupled with more personal pieces. The longest of those, about Yiddishness and golems, were the least interesting to me.

Twain's "The Innocents Abroad": The clear winner this month was Twain's chronicle of an 1867 "pleasure excursion" by boat to Europe and the Holy Land in which he took part. Did you know Twain penned five travel narratives? He offers observations and descriptions of France, Greece, Italy, Syria, Palestine and Egypt on a trip that covered 20,000 miles. It's often laugh out loud funny as he pokes fun at himself, fellow passengers, natives and customs, including the prevalence of dubious religious relics. Five hundred pages and well worth the armchair journey. (Cutting it close, I finished the book on Sept. 30.)

Urrea's book was purchased new this spring because it was the choice for Claremont: On the Same Page, a community reading effort. The Chabon and Twain books were bought new at various Borders a couple of years ago. (Sigh.)

Oh, and I read most of the Twain book on my e-reader, using the paperback for its explanatory notes in the back. I downloaded a Project Gutenberg copy that had the original illustrations, a nice bonus. The fact that the edges were wearing away of my paperback (the curse of the otherwise appealing Modern Library editions) after a week of gentle reading was encouragement to set it aside.

With 50 books under my belt for 2011, meeting that goal for the third straight year, my intention is to continue on the same track as in September, with fewer, longer books, many of which have been on my shelves for a lot longer than the above.

How was your September, and your summer, of reading? Any reading plans for fall?