Viva Madrid, 225 Yale Ave. (at 2nd), Claremont.

One of the 909′s most unique restaurants, Viva Madrid is the only Spanish tapas bar in this corner of the Empire. It’s been operating since the late 1990s in a small arcade of shops near a bagel shop and Rhino Records.

A bunch of us went there to celebrate a birthday last week. The restaurant is cozy, seating under 50, all squeezed in, plus another dozen at the bar. Even on a Thursday night the place is full, with a half-hour to 45-minute wait, a testament to its popularity. It’s a prime place for dates and celebrations. The close quarters add to the room’s energy level.

The single room is heavy on ambiance with rustic wooden tables and chairs, Spanish tchothkes on the walls, a large chandelier and dim lighting. A flamenco guitarist played on a small platform near the ceiling. Three friends toasted a 60th birthday at the bar. The restaurant attracts a wide age range, from college students to seniors.

The heart of the menu is the tapas, 40 small plates from $1 to $9. Each has a few bites, good for sharing, but not with many people. While they could be considered appetizers, most diners make a meal of them.

The six of us shared 11 tapas: yellowfin tuna on toast, an empanada, salmon-wrapped asparagus, chicken croquettes, chorizo-stuffed mushrooms, bacon-wrapped dates, barbacoa chicken, cheese and olives, beef with garlic and white wine, mussels and a basket of bread. We also had a seafood paella, which is a rice dish (double portion $32), and a creme brulee for dessert. Some had sangria ($15 per liter). The bill worked out to $27 per person, with the birthday honoree’s money not accepted.

There were some mild complaints: The size of the tapas varies too much (why are some two pieces and others five?), the bread didn’t taste fresh, the asparagus tasted canned, none of the dishes were especially complex or inventive.

Those cavils out of the way, most of the food was delicious. We all enjoyed our meal quite a bit, for the food, atmosphere and conviviality. Most of us are irregular but repeat customers, hitting the place for special occasions. There’s no place in the region quite like Viva Madrid.

I say, viva Viva Madrid!

This week’s restaurant: L.Y.L. Garden, 921 W. Foothill (between Mountain and Towne), Claremont.

L.Y.L. opened in April, replacing Captain KJ’s in the former China Star location at the west end of the Sprouts center. To my knowledge, this is the only sit-down Chinese restaurant in Claremont. I’m afraid my city is awfully light on one of the world’s most popular cuisines.

A reader whose name I’ve misplaced (sorry) said I should give L.Y.L. a try, saying he gets takeout from there frequently. And so I invited a couple of foodie friends to lunch there the other day.

Before leaving the newsroom, I mentioned my destination to my colleague Wendy Leung. She joked: “I can tell you what they’re going to have. Sweet and sour pork, kung pao chicken, beef with broccoli…”

Sadly, she was right. All the popular non-Chinese Chinese items filled the lunch menu, which has a page of $5.95 combos and a page of $6.95 combos. Yes, orange chicken is among them. So much for my hopes, based on the restaurant’s unusual name, that this would be a more authentic Chinese experience.

That said, the food was competent and plentiful. The combos come with soup (in our case, a decent hot and sour), an egg roll (mediocre) and either rice or lo mein. I got the lo mein, which made me the envy of my friends, who’d ordered rice. They ordered string beans and chicken with cashews (each $5.95) and the big spender (me) got scallops with garlic sauce ($6.95).

They liked their combos okay but thought the rice portion was undersized. My entree was all right but nothing special. Two of us had leftovers, so the price-per-meal was right.

The L.Y.L. interior is very different from the China Star days, and arguably better: Rather than pleasant but dull cushioned booths, the seating is small wooden tables and a few wooden booths separated by paper screens. The false ceiling is gone, exposing steel beams from which hang paper lanterns and fashion lighting.

L.Y.L. may prosper because I don’t think there’s another Chinese restaurant for some distance — maybe La Verne’s Chinese Pavilion.

This week’s restaurant: Burger Bar, 425 W. Foothill Blvd. (at Indian Hill), Claremont.

Burger Bar opened recently in the same Old School House building that houses Trader Joe’s and Robeks Juice and the reviews have been mixed. Yelpers give it two stars and the Claremont Insider was even less kind (so what else is new?). The Claremont Courier was more upbeat, as was my colleague Elaine Lehman.

I gave Burger Bar a shot myself recently despite misgivings. Well, I was going to Trader Joe’s anyway.

A single-location place (which explains the slightly cheesy sign), Burger Bar is clean and cheerfully yellow. Your initial reaction may depend on your tolerance for the concept: You pick up an order form and choose the size of your burger, the bun, the spread, the cheese and two condiments, among them grilled peppers, sauteed forest mushroom blend and tossed house spring mix. This may be more “have it your way” than you really want.

A champion waffler who was suddenly confronted with multiple decisions, I eventually got the quarter-pound patty on wheat with pesto mayo, bleu cheese, sauteed onions and the mushroom blend, with sweet potato fries rather than french and a soda ($7.90 as a combo). The tray was delivered to my table.

The toppings proved a good choice, and I can’t say the sandwich was bad. But midway through, sensing the weak link in it all, I lifted the bun to take a squint at the burger. It was a wan, puck-like thing.

It seems as though management focused on the gourmet-ish toppings and forgot the basics. Imagine a grand mansion constructed on a foundation of straw.

The sweet potato fries were a delicious novelty, by the way. But when I’m at home in Claremont, I’m afraid I’m going to continue heading west to La Verne’s The Habit when I want a decent burger. Unless I’m going to Trader Joe’s.

This week’s restaurant: La Piccoletta, 114 N. Indian Hill Blvd. (at 2nd, sort of), Claremont.

Hidden away in a Claremont Village alley, La Piccoletta is in a standalone building between 1st and 2nd streets and between Indian Hill and Yale. These directions will be handy in case I ever want to find it again, because for years at a time I’ve forgotten precisely where it was until stumbling across it on foot.

The building, once a shop that made smudge pots for local orchards, has a trompe l’oeil mural of vines, a stone doorway and a window, but no actual windows. This deterred me for years, that and the no-lunch hours and set menu, which led me to believe (correctly) that as a solo diner I wouldn’t be comfortable. I’ve also heard the restaurant’s glory days were behind it after a couple of ownership changes.

Still, I was curious, and at last, I scared up a friend to accompany me. Reservations made — it’s a small place, and you’ll need them — we arrived and were seated immediately. A party filled the communal table and the half-dozen other tables were occupied too. The cottage-like interior reminded me of a mission or a monastery: rustic, dark wood, a stained glass window, thick wooden tables. A smudge pot perches on a shelf near the ceiling.

The menu is more complicated than under previous owners, I’m told. Instead of two pastas and two sauces for the evening, there were four sauces, plus several other entrees.

I got the penne pasta ($17) with a half and half of two sauces: aromi (cream, Romano cheese and tomatoes) and pesto. My friend got a filet mignon with balsamic reduction ($26), which also came with a small side of pasta. The entrees both came with a simple salad and a beverage.

My meal wasn’t worth $17. As other friends have said, you could make the same meal at home. The sauces, while fresh, were bland. The pasta didn’t taste homemade. The restaurant doesn’t seem to be hurting for business, but $10 would be a fairer price for what they’re serving.

That said, the steak was tender and flavorful, and worth every penny. It was that good. A berry tart ($6.50) was fine but unexceptional.

A basket of warm, crunchy bread contained only two small pieces. We soon asked for more and got two more pieces. Modesty forbid requesting a third serving, but two more pieces would have been nice. Service was friendly.

There are three other Italian restaurants in the Village, and you could probably get better Italian food at any of them. La Piccoletta’s atmosphere, however, is unique and makes up for a lot of the flaws. But they really need to pep up the sauces.

This week’s restaurant: La Parolaccia, 201 N. Indian Hill Blvd. (at 2nd), Claremont.

This is the newest restaurant in the Village Expansion, an “osteria Italiana” (with a second location in Long Beach) whose name is said to translate, amusingly, as “bad language.” The restaurant, which opened a couple of months ago, took off immediately — the place always seems to be jumping — and I finally visited with a friend Thursday evening. We made reservations for 7 p.m. and reservations turned out to be a good idea, as even on a Thursday the restaurant was almost full.

They have a selection of pizzas cooked in a wood-burning oven, some with unusual ingredients such as eggplant, smoked salmon, yellow squash and goat cheese. Pastas include ravioli, linguine and fettucine, often with pesto, olive oil or other non-marinara treatments.

We had the Napoletana pizza ($12.50) with tomato sauce, mozzarella, capers, black olives and anchovies, and the linguine con i frutti di mare ($18.50), with fresh seafood. The latter was essentially a bowl of seafood (scallops, shrimp, clams, etc.) with a dollop of linguine and was quite good. The pizza, after I got past my unrealistic expectations that it would be as creative as Pizzeria Mozza’s in L.A., proved quite good as well, thin and crisp.

For dessert, the waitress recommended bread pudding ($9), which came with a scoop of gelato. She was on the money.

The meal didn’t proceed without hiccups: Perhaps the waitress hadn’t understood your soft-spoken blogger’s order, because we got a different linguine; it was returned and out came the right one, except, kitchen’s fault, they forgot to add the pasta. But this was quickly remedied and we were charged for the initial, mistaken dish, which was $4.75 cheaper, leaving nothing to object to.

I’d rank La Parolaccia among the valley’s better Italian restaurants, given the creative menu, but would like to reserve special praise for the location and atmosphere. Tables are close together, but not too close, so you get a friendly buzz from a roomful of people unseparated by booths or partitions. Service was friendly and prompt.

And from the exterior, the enormous windows show off people having a good time, in close proximity to a sidewalk, busy street and movie theater. It’s both urban and urbane. As a pedestrian I’ve seen other passersby cast an envious glance inside or closely examine the menu posted outside. La Parolaccia seems like a restaurant in Pasadena, not Claremont. I’m glad it’s here instead.

This week’s restaurant: KiKiRyKi, 344 S. Indian Hill Blvd. (at Arrow Highway), Claremont.

That dull, gray shopping plaza at Indian Hill and Arrow doesn’t look very interesting but it has some gustatory gems: Casa Blanca Mexican, Ce Fiore frozen yogurt and KiKiRyKi, which I tried on Wednesday at the urging of a friend who’s a fiend for the place.

It’s Claremont’s other Peruvian restaurant, the finer one being Inka Trails on Foothill near Towne. That place has atmosphere and is a bit pricey. KiKiRyKi is cheaper and you order at the counter, but the food seems every bit as good.

Before you ask, I don’t know what the deal is with the upper-lower name, which reminds me of Sarah Jessica Parker’s character in “L.A. Story” — you remember, SanDeE* (“capital S, small A, small N, capital D, small E, capital E, star”). Just as confusing, you walk up to the entrance under the sign and a small sign tells you to use the entrance to the left, which is under a sign reading Pollos.

Well, they specialize in rotisserie chicken, but we skipped it. I had the Lomo Saltado ($9.99) and an Inka Kola in a can ($1.75). My friend got the Tallarin Saltado (also $9.99) and, to split, a fish ceviche ($11.99).

The ceviche was dressed in lime, cilantro and slivered onion, with a hunk of sweet potato on the side. Simple and tasty. Our lomo dishes were beef with chunks of tomato and onion, mine served on papas fritas (french fries), with rice on the side, the other with spaghetti. Mine was quite good. The sole disappointment was the dry rice, but as it was on the side I just left it. The Inka Kola was pleasantly unnatural, tasting like a Fanta soda crossed with bubble gum.

People on Yelp like the place too but, alas, none explain its name. In fact, Yelp calls it Pollos Kikiryki.

Photo by John Valenzuela

The Back Abbey, 128 N. Oberlin Ave. (at 2nd), Claremont

The Back Abbey opened in June 2008 behind the Laemmle theater in Claremont’s Village Expansion. The building, which dates to at least the 1920s, was an ice house that chilled citrus bound by rail for other states. The small, distinctive structure was saved when the Expansion was being planned and sat, window-less but full of promise, until early this year when renovations began.

Well, it’s a neat little building and the Belgian pub that occupies it is a great addition. A friend and I went in for dinner a few days ago. It has a lived-in look, dark and rustic. The metal rafters are exposed and the hanging lights look industrial. There are tables inside, and one long high table with bar-style chairs, good for individuals, plus seating outside.

The beer menu apparently doesn’t exist. The food menu is on a chalkboard posted high above the bar. It consists of salads, burgers and bratwursts. It’s upscale bar food.

I had the Back Abbey Burger (at $13, possibly the most expensive burger in the Inland Valley) and my friend had the Grilled Vegetable Burger ($11), a portabello mushroom with eggplant, feta cheese, zucchini, red bell peppers and another item or two I got tired of craning my neck to read off the menu. It proved far more interesting than a Gardenburger.

My burger came on a brioche bun and had mustard aioli, microgreens, caramelized onions and a type of bacon whose proper name I couldn’t read. Well, it was a heckuva burger and worth the $13, if you’re the type of person who doesn’t blanch at a double-digit burger.

The presentation and price, not to mention the setting, invite comparisons to Father’s Office in Santa Monica and Culver City.

The half-order of fries I can recommend unreservedly. They come in a paper cone with three dipping sauces. The sauces are OK; the fries are amazing.

As for the beers, the Abbey has some 30 Belgian beers on tap. This is apparently A Big Deal in the beer community, Belgian beer being considered among the best and having it on tap being a rarity. There’s no beer list, annoyingly, so you may be hard-pressed to know what to get. My friend tried a couple and liked them. Beer doesn’t appeal to me and a sip of one didn’t change my mind.

But if you’re into it, Back Abbey is almost like a wine bar for beer. It’s very non-909 and Claremont’s lucky to have it. The clientele ranged from the 20s into the 60s that night, and it will be interesting to see this fall if Claremont Colleges students adopt the place and its $7 to $9 beers or whether it remains more of a beer snob/foodie hotspot.

About my only criticism is that it’s very LOUD. It’s not TVs, it’s not music, it’s just conversation that makes the interior almost as noisy as a nightclub. I don’t know if there’s anything to be done about it, other than timing your visit to off-hours.

You can read reviews on Yelp and on the M-M-M-My Pomona blog.

This week’s restaurant: Malott Commons, the Scripps College dining hall, 10th Street (at Columbia), Claremont.

I was invited to lunch Thursday at Scripps by Judy Harvey Sahak of the college’s Denison Library. Claremont Colleges’ food won a deserved rave from a visitor and blogger from Occidental College. I ate last year at Pomona College’s Frary dining hall and was impressed.

Harvey Sahak bragged that the Scripps food service is the best of any of the colleges and told me I had to try it.

Well! It’s all you can eat, and I can’t even tell you all the stuff they had, they had so much. Let’s see: a good salad bar; four kinds of soup, including sourdough bread bowls; an array of gourmet-style hamburgers, deli sandwiches and paninis; four varieties of wood-fired pizza by the slice; a pasta dish called eggplant roll-a-tini; barbecued beef brisket and cornbread; meatball stromboli; and vegetarian dishes cooked to order.

I had cream of asparagus soup, pizza with tomato, salad, meatball stromboli (a sandwich in a pita-like bread) and a slice of beef brisket. For dessert, frozen yogurt. Plus an iced tea. Harvey Sahak insisted on treating. Price is $5 for colleges folk and $7.50 for anyone else, not that anyone checks ID. Anyone can eat at the college dining halls, and while they don’t exactly publicize that fact, they don’t discourage the public.

Best dining deal in town. And the food is a long way from mac and cheese and mystery meat.

In a satisfying boost for my ego, I was even recognized by a couple of readers, a college employee and her mom. All in all, a pleasant outing.

CLOSED, but may reopen.

Three Forks Chop House, 580 W. 1st St. (at Cornell), Claremont.

To celebrate my 11th anniversary at the Bulletin, a friend treated me to dinner at Three Forks, a Montana-themed steakhouse in the Packing House and perhaps the valley’s most expensive restaurant. Hey, anything to avoid having to fork out (three fork out?) that much dough myself.

Three Forks was the first 909 restaurant to be reviewed in the L.A. Times in recent memory. Ol’ S. Irene Virbila gave it 2.5 stars out of 4 and for her, that’s a positive review. There was amusement over the photo, which included a man in very casual attire at the bar, on a local blog; someone said dismissively that they wouldn’t pay those kind of prices to sit near a man in a tank top. The review, which is posted outside the restaurant, has other problems: S. Irene manages to use the word “rustic” four times, including twice in the same sentence, to describe the tart, the sausage, the food in general and the atmosphere.

The restaurant has a website but no prices are listed on the online menu.

We sat outside near a heat lamp. We shared the charcuterie platter ($18), a plate of cured meats, olives, brie and something called ramp. I had the filet mignon, 10 oz. ($46), and she had the lamb chops ($39).

What arrived first was an amuse bouche — they don’t typically serve these things at the burrito stands I frequent — of, it was explained, “crab and cucumber with vinaigrette aged 12 years…excuse me, a vinaigrette reduction…to spark the appetite.” Whichever, the bite-size dollop had a pleasant mix of flavors.

Now bring on the meat!

The appetizer was quite good, although the ramp and olives were nothing exciting, and any more than two people would not have found the size adequate. The lamb was tender. The filet mignon, which I asked to be cooked medium, may have been overdone (that was my friend’s opinion; I’m no expert), a bit chewy on the inside and charred on the outside. But, as one who accepts what he is given in life, I accepted it and enjoyed it.

For dessert, we split the lemon tart for two ($12), which was excellent, very lemony, although not of the size you might expect from a dish billed as being for two.

Take points off the meal for a few aspects: the “artisan” bread that came with the meal wasn’t as good as that at Le Pain Quotidien a block away; the service was fair but not outstanding; and the view, of an industrial plant across the street, isn’t what you would call inspiring.

Total bill, by the way: $144.51. Gulp.

That said, the experience was a cut above Fleming’s, the steakhouse in Victoria Gardens, if a cut below Ruth’s Chris in Pasadena. Would we go back to Three Forks? On a rare occasion, sure. Perhaps to try the farmers market dinners on Sundays, which sound intriguing.

Plus, you never know when you might want the Three Forks specialty, a reduction of your bank account. And a dose of rusticity.

This week’s restaurant: Casablanca, 500 W. 1st St. (at Oberlin), Claremont.

This week’s restaurant is Casablanca, the Mediterranean place, named for my favorite movie, that opened in the Claremont Packing House last summer. There seems to be a split opinion out there in the blogosphere at the M-M-M-My Pomona site, with comments varying wildly — even between the couple who moderates the blog.

Well, I liked my meal there. There’s an inviting atmosphere and a decor with a lot of dark wood, balanced by copious windows. The service was attentive. A friend and I shared a hummus appetizer that was superior. I had the chicken kabob and was pleased with it. My friend got the lamb shanks and if anything it was better than the kabob, very tender. Why, I could have led a sing-along of “La Marseillaise” but restrained myself.

This post is based on one visit, so your mileage may vary, as others’ has. The place was worth my dough. The owner himself came out to ask how things were as we left. A liquor license is pending, he said happily, but in the meantime, they do serve wine.

No matter to me. I came to Casablanca for the waters.