Heritage Family Pantry - You could live on this bread alone.

I found Heritage Family Pantry while searching for a place to eat near Long Beach. #1 Diner Companion Antoinette and I were picking up her sister, Carolyn, who was visiting from New York. A few days before, Diner Friend Lidia said, "Hey if you ever go down to Long Beach there's this place that makes amazing bread. It's called something like Family Pantry?" I replied, "Going on Sunday. Boom! Scheduled."



That Sunday happened to be Easter Sunday. Easter is kind of a big deal for some folks. It's a big going out to brunch after church or after sleeping in kind of holiday. We picked up Carolyn and headed to Heritage Family Pantry.



And then we waited for a good while for a table. It was packed. And oddly, even though H.F.P is clearly an "after church" inclined restaurant, with Bible written verses on the windows (pic below), there seemed to be more of the "sleeping in" category of folks there.

I've stopped being so shy about taking pictures at the table when I go out. When our waitress saw me taking pictures of the menu she stopped. "Pictures? You opening up your own place? Can I come work for you?" She was sassy. As we were leaving I heard her complaining loudly about being open past 2pm on Easter. "No one is coming in! They all ate already!"

Later, Diner Friend Lidia asked if we had had the "older, surly waitress with all the make-up?" Yes, we had. Apparently, she's legendary.

The menu at H.F.P. is pretty extensive, but nothing too crazy that made me say "I gotta try that!" There's a lot of emphasis on bread there since they do pride themselves on their homemade bread.



We all shared the cinnamon roll. It was rather bizarre looking when it arrived. I kind of thought it might be someone's biscuit and gravy. The roll was nothing like any cinnamon roll I have ever had. It was light and more like a bun than a roll. It was very good. The frosting was very buttery, but could have been a little sweeter.





Carolyn had the three egg breakfast with hash browns and a side of pancakes. We thought her eyes might be bigger than her stomach, but she powered through and finished her main plate and took out most of the pancakes. The highlight was definitely the hash browns. They were crispy on the top and bottom and buttery in the center.



Antoinette ordered the Roast Sirloin melt. The bread was amazing, first of all. Heritage Family Pantry makes their own and it is frankly some of the best bread I have ever eaten. Her sandwich was thick with meat and tomato. Luckily, she couldn't finish the whole thing so we took it home and I was able to eat it for dinner later. The french fries were seasoned with celery salt and were very good.



Curiously, they serve ketchup in a small dish--no bottles, which struck me as a little odd.



I went with the country-fried steak and eggs with a side of home fries. There are usually two ways you can go with country-fried steak: crusty tough leather or greasy slab (sometimes its both). This steak was perfect. It was still tender and even a tiny bit pink in the middle and the breading held to the meat. My eggs were also good. I ordered them over-medium so I could sop them up with my biscuit. The home fries were actually a little underdone and were the only disappointing part of my breakfast.



The biscuit was fluffy and much like the cinnamon roll, was more bun like than biscuit.

Heritage Family Pantry was a great breakfast spot. The food was definitely worth the trip and the atmosphere was friendly. Our waitress was the fun kind of irascible waitress you thought only existed in movies and sitcoms from the 70s. I highly recommend this place, even if only for the bread. My god the bread!

Food: Great.
Service: Good.
Price $7.95-$12.95
Pie: Yes.

Heritage Family Pantry
2601 Carson St.
Lakewood CA 90712

Cafe 50's--The Best Stuff is on the Walls.

I honestly was not expecting much from Cafe 50's on Santa Monica. In some ways "5o's diners"are to me what Bucca di Beppos are to Italians. You kind of hate them, but at least it's something, and it's not an Olive Garden (the diner equivalent of which is Johnny Rockets).

The problem with a lot of 50's diners decor is that they are basically cliched Reader's Digest versions of the 50s--Presley, Monroe, Dean, and Coca-Cola, repeated ad nauseum. Sure, Cafe 50's is going to have some of that; it would be incomplete without it.



But at Cafe 50's, it's a more complete view of the popular culture of the day. It's like they loaded ten years into a spray can and went to town.

#1DC Antoinette and I took a long time with the menu. We were there for dinner but our options were open. They serve breakfast all day and have a wide selection of sandwiches and burgers.

Interesting things we noticed were that you only get one free refill on sodas and hash browns are only available until noon on weekdays. They also have Buffalo burgers for only $1.98 extra. I'll forgive the anachronism of buffalo meat being readily available. It's not like this place is trying to be Medieval Times. Medieval Times is accurate, right? I don't know; I only go to diners.

By far the most impressive section on the menu is the milkshake list.



The Butterfinger shake was intriguing considering it lacked what I consider to be the secondary ingredient of a Butterfinger candy bar: chocolate. The shake was vanilla ice cream with peanut butter and root beer. Root beer? There were sips that were just straight peanut butter shake but then there would be a sip of the perfect combination and the aftertaste was pure Butterfinger.

Antoinette pointed out these two ads pasted on the wall next to our booth. Boys DO like girls who make Seven-Up floats.

We started with the most intriguing appetizer on the menu, the green bean fries, which are somewhere between a french fry and a zucchini stick with just a little bit of spice. They were very tasty, but they did give me green-bean burps for the rest of the night.



Antoinette ordered the Healthy Sandwich which is just a fancy way of saying "vegetarian." The sandwich was thick with cucumber, mushrooms, lettuce and avocado. The bread was little over-toasted and scratched up the roof of her mouth.



I went with the Sputnik Melt: turkey, coleslaw, cheese, and Russian dressing. It was good but a little dry--I would have preferred a bit more dressing. I resorted to dipping my sandwich in the remaining green bean fries' dip.

We both had sides of coleslaw. I like sweet coleslaw; in fact, the best coleslaw in the world as far as I'm concerned is from KFC. I was disappointed in Cafe 50's coleslaw, but Antoinette liked that it wasn't drenched in dressing and still had a little crunch left.

I could spend hours looking at the walls in Cafe 50's. There's an insane amount of cool stuff up there. The food I could take or leave, though. The milkshake was definitely worth it and I'd go back to try the pie.

Food: Decent.
Price: $7.95-$13.95
Service: Okay.
Pie: Yes.

Cafe 50's
11623 Santa Monica Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90025
http://www.cafe50s.com/





... This movie is about EXACTLY what you think it's about.

The Original Pancake House--Try the eggs!

You will notice a bit of up and down in the picture quality of this entry. This is because this review covers two trips to the Original Pancake House in Anaheim. The first visit was around Christmas and sadly was the last review Diner Photog Charlie Chu was able to attend before relocating to Portland. The second visit was just a week ago.



The Original Pancake House does honestly look like a house. It isn't much bigger than a regular house, either. During peak pancake times you can expect to wait and since they close at 2pm, it's all pretty much peak pancake time.



It can be surprisingly douchey at the Original Pancake House. I don't want to offend any of my Orange County readers but, y'all got some d-bags down there. But for every Ed Hardy dad and Zach Morris tween, there's a family out for Sunday brunch who are just regular folks. While we were waiting for a table, an older gentleman commented to a young woman who was carrying her baby, "My wife gave birth at the hospital not too far from here. When I was finally able to bring them home, on our way we stopped here for breakfast. My son's first restaurant experience was right here."



I love that the first page of the menu is basically a Wikipedia entry on "pancakes."



Now, no matter what you order at the Original Pancake House, you're going to be eating a pancake.



Maybe just one.



Maybe three.



Maybe six.



Maybe six of them made out of potatoes.



Even the non-pancakes kind of remind you of pancakes.



The coffee is really good. The waitresses are friendly and attentive. I hardly finished a cup before it was refilled.




On our first visit, I ordered the cottage cheese pancakes. They were all right. It was a pretty subtle flavor. On the second visit I ordered the Nebraska corn cakes. When the waitress told me "good choice, they taste just like cornbread," I was really excited. They were also just 'all right.' I've had better corn cakes at places that don't specialize in corn cakes.



I hate to say it, but the best thing I've tasted at the Original Pancake House was the beef scramble Charlie ordered. It was rich and cheesy and used a pretty great seasoning on the beef.



The runner-up was definitely the German pancake that #1 Diner Companion Antoinette got on our first visit. It's gigantic. It looks a deflated zeppelin laying lopsided on your plate. It's doughy and soft and delicious. She was smart enough to order it again on our second visit.

Overall, the Original Pancake House was just okay. I gave it two chances to impress and it didn't really do that. Faced with waiting twenty minutes for some only-decent pancakes, I may be tempted to go back to the Busy Apron just down the street and take my chances.

Food: Okay.
Service: Great.
Prices: $8-$11
Pie: None.

The Original Pancake House
1418 East Lincoln Avenue
Anaheim, California 92805
714-535-9815

Bun n' Burger - Fun n' something that rhymes with "burger"

Bun n' Burger is a place I was really excited to try. It's right in my neighborhood and has a delightfully cute art-deco exterior.



I had read an article about this place in the Alhambra newspaper and the picture that was included only showed the main dining room. It's an all-around classic design with booths lining the storefront windows and an oval counter taking up the middle.

Until my folks and I walked in that morning, I had no idea that there was a full room just out of sight. A room that can only be described as...



...the most-insane-yet-somehow-adorable-dining-room-in-existence. It's like the world's coolest flea market threw up inside.

Not a lot of diners have firearms displayed. I don't even remember seeing one at Revolver, where it wouldn't have been at all out of place.

There's a series of these pictures hanging up on the wall. They have an R. Crumb meets Norman Rockwell quality that I really appreciated.

One of the things Bun n' Burger is well-known for is their menudo soup. It's only available on weekends so that makes it more special. If you haven't had menudo soup, it's a Mexican soup made from a tomato base with hominy and tripe. You can garnish it with onions and cilantro as they have done here. Menudo is my chicken noodle soup when I have a cold. I buy it in giant cans at the ethnic market. This would actually be my first time ordering it at a restaurant. Bun n' Burger's menudo was pretty good, but not spicy enough for me.

My dad ordered the ham, bell pepper and Monterrey jack cheese omelet. It was less omelet and more folded over scramble. It was also delicious. They use honey baked ham in it so it's unexpectedly sweet.

My mom ordered the waffle breakfast. It was a pretty standard waffle. Her eggs were good but the bacon was a little chewy for my taste. It was a good cut, but just needed to be crisped up a bit.

I regret that this is where the food portion of the review turns sour. I did not like my breakfast. Chilaquiles can go wrong. They can be mushy and bland and just outright gross. Sadly, these were the chilaquiles that I had this morning. The potatoes were no better; they were, in fact, worse. They were drenched in peanut oil and were equally mushy and bland. I barely touched them. My eggs were very good, though. They must have been cracked and poured simultaneously into a circular mold to get them to look like that and be cooked evenly.

Bun n' Burger was just so adorable and pleasant that I would go back again just to look at more of the weird stuff they have on the walls. Despite how disappointing my breakfast was, my folks' food was good enough. The staff was friendly and the coffee was good. Overall, it is definitely worth a visit.

Food: Okay* (see below)

Price: $5-$8. Cash only.

Service: Friendly.

Pie: Yes, several.

Bun n' Burger

1000 E. Main Street

Alhambra CA 91801

(626) 281-6777

Take a look at the menu:

*UPDATE 7-14-10: We have since been back to Bun n' Burger a few times now and our food has been either good or great, but oddly, I have yet to try the pie.

A word of warning though-- if you plan on going in the evening definitely call. They seem to be really inconsistent with their hours, which is not a good sign.