Sunday’s column (read it here) is led by word that Ontario’s Grinder Haven sandwich shop, a fixture on Holt Boulevard since 1958, is still in operation despite the loss of its tenant. We also round up a series of (literally) striking incidents in Upland, some of the wishes hanging on ULV’s Wish Tree and news about Pomona’s Christmas Parade next Saturday.
Today’s column (read it here) is in part about how Rancho Cucamonga’s Bass Pro Shops is body-doubling for the fictional Outdoor Man store in the Tim Allen sitcom “Last Man Standing.”
Nara Japanese Restaurant, 3277 Grand Ave. (at Peyton), Chino Hills
Chino Hills has a fair number of sushi bars. Nara is the oldest, opening in 1996, which in Chino Hills terms is practically the dawn of time (cityhood was in 1991). Like everything else in Chino Hills, Nara is in a shopping center, this one across Peyton from the Shoppes. The sign reads, generically, Japanese Restaurant, a hint that the sign was a way to introduce the pioneering restaurant to a skittish city.
Inside, the feel is much more promising: small, intimate, quiet on a Tuesday evening despite the presence of several diners. It’s arranged such that you could have a semi-private meal here even though the space is about the size of your living room.
I sat at the sushi bar and had a nice meal with sushi off the regular menu and off the specials board. Live scallops ($7.50) came from a shell pried open in front of me; black cod ($8.50, pictured top right) and Oregon albacore tuna ($7.50) were both tasty; and the salmon skin cut roll ($4.95, pictured below right), one of my standard orders, arrived in larger rolls than I’ve usually seen it. It was intricately prepared, the skin crisped in an oven.
Ojiya and Rokuan are other above-average Japanese restaurants in Chino Hills that I’ve tried. It would take a more expert diner than me to rank them, but Nara wouldn’t seem out of place in their company.
Books acquired: “The House That Sam Built,” the Huntington Library; “Common Ground: Ceramics in Southern California 1945-1975,” AMOCA; “Aldo Casanova: A Retrospective,” Scripps College; “This Shape We’re In,” Jonathan Lethem; “The Tomb,” “Tales From the Cthulhu Mythos Vol. 2,” H.P. Lovecraft; “Take My Picture Gary Leonard”; “Louise de la Valliere,” “The Man in the Iron Mask,” Alexandre Dumas.
Books read: “The Sheltering Sky,” Paul Bowles; “In a Sunburned Country,” Bill Bryson; “Golden Apples of the Sun,” Ray Bradbury.
November was a sunny month around the ol’ reading log. Glancing at the titles, we had sky, sun and sunburns. Luckily we were wearing sunscreen as we read.
“The Sheltering Sky” is the month’s literary effort, a 20th century classic about a trio of expatriate, bohemian New Yorkers who circa WWII travel to the Sahara and gradually lose themselves in its immensity and foreignness. I admire the 1990 movie version and finally got around to reading the novel, which is better, although kind of existential and depressing.
“In a Sunburned Country,” by contrast, was cheerful throughout. A travel narrative by Bill Bryson, who’s made a career of such books, this concerns Australia, which he argues persuasively, and often hilariously, is a wonderland that deserves to be better known. He layers in recent and ancient history, chats up the locals, visits lots of museums and an equal number of pubs and details many of the creatures that can kill you (there are loads). One of my favorite books of the year.
“Golden Apples of the Sun” is a 1953 story collection by my boy Ray Bradbury, one of his first, and the first to incorporate some of his mainstream fiction alongside the fantastic stuff. “A Sound of Thunder,” “The Flying Machine” and “The Fog Horn” are three of his best and most famous stories. Most of the rest are awfully good too. I’ve read “Golden Apples” before, but I was a wee lad at the time, so it was nice to return to this, especially after all the time I spent a couple of years ago reading all his recent, often subpar stuff.
“Sky” was bought at Borders Montclair circa 2009, “Sunburned” was pressed into my hands by Darlene Scalf (hi Darlene!) and “Apples” is my beat-up, secondhand copy bought in Illinois circa the mid-’70s.
This brings me to 57 books for the year. This morning I finished No. 58, I’m one-third of the way through a difficult novel that will be No. 59 and I expect to squeeze in something else as No. 60 before year’s end.
What are the rest of you (Hugh, Doug, Will, John, the absent Paula, etc.) reading?
