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The trio of Bouchon restaurants carry a lofty reputation and this is no doubt a testament to the work of the captain of the ship, chef Thomas Keller.  The Los Angeles, or more specifically Beverly Hills, location of Bouchon serves as chef Keller’s single foray into one of the more prestigious dining cities in this country.  It’s at Bouchon Beverly Hills, a two-story homage to French bistro cuisine, that we find Keller’s Bar Bouchon, a two-year-old watering hole on the ground floor of the Bouchon space.

There’s no doubt I would have gotten a seat at Bouchon if my whirlwind schedule had permitted such indulgences.  Circumstances being otherwise, I gladly took up a spot at Bar Bouchon during happy hour in the midst of one gorgeous September afternoon.  Despite its role as the fire starter to one of the most gluttonous nights ever, I lived to tell the tale.

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If a person was to ask you to explain the definitive dish at the institution of Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, your response might read something like this:

Chicken and waffles: noun – 1) a deleterious combination of crunchy waffles and crisped chicken skin, met in the middle by juicy, intensely seasoned chicken meat under an onslaught of airy, melted butter and slathered in a bath of hot sauce, gravy, and maple syrup. 2) death on a plate.

One of the oldest symbols of inbred fusion cooking, an order of chicken and waffles is, for better or worse, a staple of Southern food and an expose of its soulful influences.  While it is most oft-identified with the Deep South, where places like Gladys Knight’s rule the roost, the Los Angeles based Roscoe’s House of Chicken ‘n Waffles, might be the most famous purveyor anywhere.

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Named after a once seedy section of Manhattan, The Bowery offers a taste of New York City to those who call Los Angeles home.  Occasionally identified as the purveyor of LA’s best burger, The Bowery also attracts a good number of out of town visitors, as was the case with yours truly during my West coast trip.

The Bowery can most easily be identified as a gastro pub, a byname they embrace by self-proclaiming the title of LA’s first such establishment.  A NYC inspired white subway tile exterior with a small patio serves as The Bowery’s call to arms.  Inside, those white tiles are supplanted by jet black ones as a handful of two-tops form a banquette; in a space dominated by the bar, The Bowery’s interior is packed tightly.  To round out the ambiance, a chalkboard drink menu is located near the front, displaying The Bowery’s repertoire of adult beverages.  It’s a simple setting that sets the stage for a not so straightforward menu.

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My last meal in Los Angeles was a lunch at Matsuhisa in Beverly Hills.  Before I headed north to the bay of San Francisco, I wanted to sneak into this widely regarded sushi bar, the first jewel in the crown of famed sushimonger Nobu Matsuhisa.  Nobuyuki-san, perhaps the first celebrity sushi chef, has an empire that stretches several continents and a multitude of restaurants.  But it was this little spot on the edge of Beverly Hills where he first rose to worldwide acclaim.

Nowadays, Nobu-san no longer ambles behind the bar at Matsuhisa, instead leaving these day-to-day activities to people like chef Yoshi, a congenial and talented man who hails from Hiroshima’s countryside.  With a lofty reputation, I am sad to say that my single meal at Matsuhisa, while completely pleasant, did not quite qualify amongst the best I’ve indulged in of this Japanese art form.

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There’s something incredibly LA about Wurstküche, which is German for sausage kitchen.  Situated in a revitalized section of Downtown Los Angeles, Wurstküche’s neighborhood has become gentrified in so much as its residents all live in true loft spaces, its many working artists breath life into every corner of its intermingled warehouses, and its visitors are there, at least in part, to see where “real art” is made.

This sausage house is the restaurant realization of Joseph Pitruzzelli and Tyler Wilson.  For Wurstküche, like so many other popular LA eateries, something magical must have happened during this most recent Year of the Rat.  Several of the restaurants I visited during my 2011 West Coast hoedown opened in 2008, Wurstküche included.

In the three-years since, this young duo has built a cash money machine that churns through customers seemingly as fast as their sausage makers churn through rattlesnake.  Obsessively popular, it’s a place whose food did not impress, regardless of how many people say otherwise with their wallets.

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Since its unveiling in 2008, seemingly every major food writer in LA has hit Gjelina; thus, it became a spot to explore during my recent West Coast adventure.  A wonderfully popular restaurant in the Los Angeles suburb of Venice, Gjelina runs under the direction of executive chef (and co-owner) Travis Letts.

Ultimately, Gjelina’s popularity is derived from the food, which is widely reported to be something of a godsend to the tongue.  Meanwhile, it’s supposed that you’ll often find persons on top of persons no matter what the time of day.  Consequently, I’d like to emphasize that if you’re not careful, you’ll miss the aesthetic pleasures that Gjelina has to offer.  In a restaurant that’s sure to be bustling during your meal, where something transcendent is supposed to show up on your table, it would be easy to miss the comforts that the space offers your eye (although not your ears).

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This is a tale of two sandwich shops.  One is Ink.Sack, a small take-out sandwich shop from Top Chef alum Michael Voltaggio.  It’s flashy, it’s forward thinking, and it’s got a reputation to uphold.  Thanks to its celeb chef and its location in little strip of shops on Melrose Ave in Los Angeles, the bar is high for Ink Sack.

Meanwhile, all the way across the country in one of Atlanta’s underbelly neighborhoods sits Victory Sandwich Bar, a punk rock meets hipster sandwich bar whose concept isn’t wholly different than Ink.Sack’s.  Though Victory’s origins don’t carry the same pressure as does Ink.Sack’s, the two restaurants are close enough conceptually that a comparison is fair, even though they sit roughly 2,200 miles apart.

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At face value, Son of A Gun in Los Angeles serves as the antithesis to its sister restaurant, the highly regarded though disappointing to me Animal.  Animal is simply dressed, whereas Son of A Gun is festooned with knickknacks.  Animal focuses on things of land, whereas Son of A Gun is a showcase for seafood.

But once you scratch the surface, you see that chef/owners Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo have built something deeply connected to their flagship restaurant.  Both restaurants focus on rich dishes where calories seem to take a backseat to flavors; and while the menus at both rotate on a daily basis, each restaurant has its staples.  Still, a single sitting at Animal didn’t frustrate, it instead tempered against the oodles of praise.  Meanwhile, in about 45-minutes of mealtime, Son of A Gun crashed and burned worse than the McCourt’s marriage.

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Nearly everything chefs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo touch these days turns into critical gold.  In the case of Animal, their first restaurant, Shook and Dotolo have ingratiated themselves to Los Angeles’s food scene as fast as anyone that I’m familiar with, and that’s no small feat.  That being what it is, lest we forget that these two are mortals, I was privy to some faux pas during a rather mundane experience while on my West Coast visit.

With my darling Flipper at the wheel (all my friends get nicknames – I didn’t kidnap a dolphin), the two of us set out from Long Beach for a little early-week treat at this lauded restaurant on N. Fairfax.  Greeted by a kindly valet and a warm smile from the hostess, we were seated promptly in accordance with our reservation time.  The rest of the evening was a mixed bag ultimately enjoyed thanks to good company (and a little vino).

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While New York may be considered the hot dog capital of the world and while Chicago may have a hot dog that bears its name, West Coast megaplex Los Angeles is the true champ.  Sure enough, there’s some council that keeps track of this stuff and LA supposedly consumes more weenies than either Chi-town or Nu Yok Citay.   In fact, the city of Angels has several hot dog institutions.  So it should not be all that surprising that I made a point to visit a trio of those institutions during my West Coast soiree.

Between Oki-Dog, Papaya King, and Pink’s, there’s about as much name recognition as there is with most any hot dog dispensary in the country.  So with a good bit of anticipation, I squeezed in a visit to each establishment during my six-days in sunny LA.

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