foodie trip!

Twiggy and her boyfriend Matty are huge Travel Chan­nel fans — or more like, Travel-Channel-Food-Show fans. They love Man v. Food and Bizarre Foods, and watch it all the time.

When the two first watched the Man v. Food episode on Los Ange­les eats, they were pretty much set on pay­ing a visit to Phillipe’s The Orig­i­nal. Because really, why live in the south land and not visit a land­mark? So  Matty set a date, rounded up some friends (includ­ing me and Don), and planned a LA play day revolv­ing around var­i­ous eater­ies they saw on the tellie.

Phillipe is known for its French dip sand­wiches — it is the inven­tor, after all (or so they claim. But Cole’s makes the same claim as well). Sand­wiches come in beef, pork, ham, lamb, or turkey, and instead of receiv­ing a cup of jus, they dip the bread in it for you. Just tell them if you just want one side dipped, or both sides, or just “wet” with jus.

The beef sand­wich is good at best, but unre­mark­able. Per­son­ally, I like my French dip sand­wiches to be made with crispy, almost mouth rip­ping (a la Lee’s Sand­wiches) baguettes instead of the soft rolls they use here. The meat’s a bit dry, and gets caught in your throat with­out the aid of the 17-cent cof­fee or a diet coke.
But what makes it really spe­cial is their nose-flaringly, painfully deli­cious mus­tard. If wasabi and mus­tard had a baby, it would be Phillipe’s mus­tard. So good.

We wolfed our sand­wiches down in a flash, and after a dis­cus­sion about what makes a good hole-in-the-wall neigh­bor­hood gem (we came to the con­clu­sion that it had to be cheap, and good), then headed down to Santa Monica’s 3rd Street Prom­e­nade to walk the sand­wich off.

We got hun­gry again a shared a Cafe Spe­cial from Cafe Crepe. Nutella, Bananas, Hazel­nuts, and Grand Marnier can’t pos­si­bly go wrong. The Grand Marnier pools at the bot­tom with melted Nutella, and gives the snack a booze-tastic finish.

We got bored of the Prom­e­nade rather quickly and walked to the Pier. It was the first sunny day after our only rain ‘storm’ in years, so there was a  clus­ter­fuck of peo­ple there.

Lots of pup­pies too. The whip­pet was freez­ing her poor skinny ass off, even with her puppy coat on.

We stopped for fun­nel cakes.

Freshly-fried fun­nel cake is pretty much one of the awe­somest things to eat when you’re freez­ing and chat­ter­ing teeth on the pier.

Right after we fin­ished our fun­nel cakes, we headed out to Bay Cities Deli to try the famed God­mother sand­wich. It’s an old Ital­ian market-cum-deli with fan­tas­tic items like oil-packed anchovies (I think. It was labeled in Ital­ian), Alba truf­fle salts, and Ital­ian cook­ies. The deli counter is mas­sive too, and if you enjoy char­cu­terie like I do, you’ll feel like a kid at the candy shop. I tried to take pic­tures, but sadly, was rep­ri­manded by an asso­ciate. So we picked up our sand­wiches and drinks, and took it out­side to eat in the freez­ing cold.

The God­mother sand­wich is, sim­ply put, a mon­ster. Genoa Salami, Mor­tadella Cop­pa­cola, Ham, Pro­sciutto, Pro­volone, on chewy cia­batta bread, smoth­ered in let­tuce and topped with the usual sub condi­ments. It is a LA leg­end, but I, unfor­tu­nately, can not swear by it like the oth­ers. It’s quite deli­cious, but it is also not the best thing to eat when you are in near-hypothermic state. Also, it is a fla­vor assu­alt of salty and meaty — meat on meat on meat action, and really, there wouldn’t be any fla­vor bal­ance if it weren’t for the cheese and mayo. How­ever, the boys just LOVED it. Matty pol­ished off a ginor­mous help­ing, and Don wanted to buy another one after he ate his half (we shared a reg­u­lar because I was quite full). The other boys ate with much gusto as well.

Their French mac­arons, how­ever, swept me off my feet. Pis­ta­chio, rasp­berry, cof­fee, laven­der with apri­cot fill­ing, coconut with pas­sion fruit fill­ing, and choco­late with earl grey fill­ing — oh my! I was a happy girl.

Where will we go next? Stay tuned!

Phillipe’s Orig­i­nal
1001 N Alameda St
Los Ange­les, CA 90012
(213) 628‑3781

Cafe Crepe
1460 3rd St Prom­e­nade
Santa Mon­ica, CA 90401
(310) 576‑0499

Bay Cities Ital­ian Deli & Bak­ery
1517 Lin­coln Blvd
Santa Mon­ica, CA 90401
(310) 395‑8279

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Tagged as: dining, Friends, LA