The agreement by Los Angeles to return ONT to local hands was the subject of a press conference at the airport Thursday, and of my Friday column. Above, a view of the event, with a closer view below of L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti at the lectern and Ontario Councilman Alan Wapner at right.
Luna Modern Mexican Kitchen, 7881 Monet Ave. in Victoria Gardens, Rancho Cucamonga
Luna opened in April in a long-vacant spot previously occupied by Candelas and Wapango. There’s only one other Luna, in Corona. Some friends and I checked out the VG version recently for lunch.
It’s very stylish, with high ceilings, long corded fixtures and a light display in the bar area. We were seated in a half-oval banquette.
I have to do this from memory because I can’t find my notes (!), but off the lunch menu, we ordered (pictured in descending order below) a chopped salad, a Cabo roll (prawns, cheese, avocado in a tortilla), mole poblano chicken enchiladas and, for me, the pipian de puerco (pork loin in chimichuri sauce). (None of the prices are online, but the plates were around $12 to $18.) One got a drink, Luna’s signature, named El Pepino (about $8), from the extensive tequila list, and two of us ordered dessert: warm butter cake and deep-fried ice cream.
We all liked our items, and the friend who got the salad couldn’t help but be impressed by the presentation, a hat-like oval. All the dishes were plated well. Service was attentive and helpful and felt genuine.
You can get tacos or burritos here, but Luna is more of a modern, upscale take on Mexican cooking that presents new or altered dishes. It’s worth a try.
Wednesday’s column starts with five items from Upland, followed by three Culture Corner notes and three Valley Vignettes. Other than knowing I like the sign, I don’t know anything about Classy Mart other than that it’s been here quite a while. How about you?
Upland’s bowling alley is relatively modern and located on the busy commercial corridor of Foothill Boulevard, just west of Euclid and cater-corner from Upland High, a recipe for success. At 40 lanes, it’s about as large as they get.
I’ve bowled there a bunch of times, and while it doesn’t have the flair of Montclair’s Bowlium, it’s a little easier to get to for me. It’s my go-to bowling alley, and the place where I hit my high score, 200.
One user-friendly touch is that all balls of the same weight are the same color, making them easy to sort for the staff and to return after you’re done. Anyone who’s spent time poking around the shelves for a ball of their favored weight will appreciate the ease of finding a ball: Here are all the 7-pounds, next are all the 8-pounds, organized in order up to 16. My favored weight, 10 pounds, are all green.
The lane furniture is a little uncomfortable, with swing-out swivel chairs, and as with most electronic scoring systems, entering your name or making changes is tricky, maybe more so here with colored pyramid keys that correspond to elements on the overhead screen, once you figure it out.
The graphics on the monitors are funny. For instance, anthropomorphic pins walk out of jail when you roll a gutter ball. The “turkey” graphic below memorializes my getting three strikes in a row, a rare feat for me. On my most recent visits, the monitors were measuring your rolls’ speed (10 to 13 mph for me) and only showing the last five frames instead of the whole game at once.
Upland is probably due for an update; in 20 more years we might think it’s retro, but at this point it just seems a little behind the times, and the exterior is awfully bland too. But while the Dude, Walter and Donny from “The Big Lebowski” would probably find the place too anonymous, Brunswick Zone is a good place to bowl.
Address: 451 W. Foothill Blvd. (at Euclid), Upland
Number of lanes: 40
Owner: Brunswick
Year opened: 1985
Architect: somebody who thought a faux awning against a brown box really dressed the place up
Neighbors: Upland High, Kishi, Vons center
Air hockey: Yes
Bar: Yes
Coffee shop: No, but Nathan’s hot dogs. And salads.
Pro shop: Yes
Ambience: Families, teens (the future of bowling)
Deal: $2 Tuesdays, with games and shoe rental $2 each after 8 p.m.
Website: http://www.bowlbrunswick.com/about-us/121/1
Books acquired: “Why LA? Pourquois Paris?” Diane Ratican; “The Fourth Galaxy Reader,” H.L. Gold, ed.; “Still Room for Hope,” Alisa Kaplan.
Books read: “Again, Dangerous Visions, Vols. 1 and 2,” Harlan Ellison, ed.; “Still Room for Hope,” Alisa Kaplan.
July has as odd a pairing of books as I can remember: two split volumes of a 1972 science fiction anthology, and a 2015 memoir about sexual abuse from a Christian publisher. If I’d had more time, I might have read, say, a physics textbook, a Shakespeare play and a history of the Peloponnesian War, just to round things out.
Well, there’s a reason for reading “Still Room for Hope,” in that I expect it to result in a column in the near future, so I won’t say any more about it here, other than that it is very sad, while becoming lighter as Kaplan recovers her sense of herself.
The Ellison-edited anthology of cutting-edge SF, 900 pages split between two paperbacks, follows his 1967 “Dangerous Visions,” read here last September, and which I loved. The sequel is twice as long and with half the impact, I’m afraid, although it still had a lot of strong material by Bova, Le Guin, Vonnegut, Wilhelm, Gerrold and more. There were simply more so-so stories by newcomers, many of whom didn’t go on to make a mark but seemed to have been included just in case. A third anthology, “The Last Dangerous Visions,” was promised within six months, ha ha, and many of us know how that turned out: The author list expanded alarmingly and more than 40 years later it’s still unpublished, and maybe unpublishable. Ah well.
All three books acquired this month were free; the Gold book was a gift from reader Rich P., who got it from reader Doug Evans, Kaplan’s came from the author and Ratican’s simply was left on my desk, presumably having been mailed in.
The two Ellisons that I read this month were acquired back in the early 1980s and unread until now. One was bought new somewhere in the Midwest and the other was bought used from the Book Nook in Decatur, Georgia, a store that appears to still be in business three decades later. Good for them.
How was your July? Not to be uncaring, but all I want to know about are the books you read. Save your family worries, work problems and health issues for someone else’s blog.
Next month: I journey to the center of the Earth, among other places.
Dee Marcellus Cole is the subject of Sunday’s column, as I profile the visual artist who is very connected to downtown Pomona despite being a longtime Uplander. Above is Cole in her backyard; below, she’s with the mannequins on the roof mentioned in the column.
