Rose Cafe @ Santa Monica

I’ve been away for a little while, mostly because I was on a week-long colon cleanse program. (Appetizing, I know.) I’ve always wanted to do it, but wasn’t up for starving myself. So I found a program where I could eat normally and take a mineral supplement five times a day for a week. I’ll get into the gross details here.

I blame the colon cleanse on my moodiness as of late. Or maybe it’s just the rag. When I sat down with my grandmas in the patio section of the Rose Café over the weekend I was so bothered by the oversized plastic chairs that I started taking pictures.

Why can’t chairs cater to the 5-footers of the world? It’s not fair that the 'under-tall' must keep their feet hanging or struggle to maintain balance by searching for a random foothold. Chairs are built with back support, but if you can’t even reach it what’s the point? Rose Café’s chairs are actually your standard-issue ones they probably got from Home Depot, so I don’t blame them particularly. I blame America.

With that said, the café is one of my favorite brunch/lunch places on the Westside. The place is bifurcated into a restaurant and a deli counter with open seating. Tourists and locals alike swarm the place on any given weekend, so I like to head straight to the counter for a sandwich/salad combo. It's ready in 5 minutes and there’s always a table for you.

In the 7-plus years I’ve been coming here I realize it’s hard to go wrong. Some of my favorites are the caprese sandwich – fresh water mozzarella, basil and sliced tomatoes stuffed between some of the freshest bread in LA – and the salmon Florentine – a mixture of salmon, spinach and roasted tomatoes in a puff pastry. The deli salads are mostly good and the desserts are even better. I’m a fan of the bread pudding.

The café is open for breakfast but I wouldn’t bother going until 11:30 a.m. when the deli counter opens for full service. My grandmas and I were there at 10 a.m. last Saturday so we decided to take a seat in their restaurant. The food is just as good – just a few dollars more.

I tried the frittata, the Italian style open-face omelette. It came with a choice of potato hash or fruit. Of course, all the LA-ites around me chose fruit. Come ‘on people. Just work it off at the gym! Well-seasoned and pan-fried to a reasonable crisp, the hash was an excellent choice if I must say so. The omelette was just as tasty with roasted eggplant, roasted peppers, tomatoes, basil, and topped with crumbled goat cheese.

My grandmas shared the eggs benedict, lightly nestled over two hot, fluffy English muffins. I didn’t try it, but they seemed pretty happy with it.

Rose Cafe is a stone's throw away from the beach, so it's nice to walk over after lunch. Conveniences like this make me happy to be living near Santa Monica. Don't you wish you were here too?

The Rose Cafe
220 Rose Ave. Venice, CA
(310) 399-0711

3 Square Cafe @ Abbot Kinney Blvd.

Breakfast at 3 Square Café should be the first order of any leisurely weekend. It’s a corner cafe on Abbott Kinney Blvd. that’s both health-conscious (fresh-squeezed OJ, organic Heinz ketchup), accommodating, and just plain tasty.

That’s where grandma and I inhaled mouthfuls of hot apple pancakes and chicken hash last Saturday morning. Given we were at a hip Westside neighborhood at a peak brunch hour, I was very lucky to: 1) find storefront parking and 2) have the maitre d’ take one look at us and immediately usher us to a large communal dining table near the kitchen. Though that might just be the power of having frail ‘ol grandma by my side.

Chef Hans Rockenwagner opened this third dining installment earlier this year, infusing a little bit of the homeland into the menu with grilled weisswurst, German-style pancakes with creme fraiche, Bircher muesli, Bavarian breakfast meatloaf with eggs and a soft pretzel roll, and much more.

It was my first visit here, but I’m a sucker for glass-encased sun-lit cafes and just one bite of Rockenwagner’s apple pancake sent my taste buds soaring. Topped with cinnamon and sugar, it’s both crispy on the outside and hot and fluffy on the inside, never to leave you bored. Mix in the crème fraiche and you’ll find yourself savoring your dish until they’re calling ‘last order.’

Grandma and I also shared the chicken hash – bit-sized pieces of everyone’s favorite white meat stir-fried with mushrooms, peppers onions, basil and topped with two very beautifully poached eggs. It was a bit light on the seasoning but still a great savory companion to the pancakes. I’ve always been a fan of balance.

The closest I’ve been to Germany is the Swiss Alps so I really can’t vouch for authenticity, but this is definitely a place I have a little crush on right now, which really doesn’t happen often.

3 Square Cafe
1121 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice, California

(310) 399-6504

Bluebird Cafe @ Culver City

The way Los Angeles has been these past few days you'd think hell is next to freeze over. Snow in Malibu?! How'd that get there? As I type this, my right hand turns stone cold and my feet grow numb.

As I exhale a puff of white breath I dream of the next time I can wrap my fingers around a hot cup of minestrone soup like what you see above, something I found at Bluebird Cafe.

Open from Monday through Friday, it's a local hangout for stars and moguls from nearby Sony Studios in Culver City. Unless you work in the area, restrictive hours keep away 9-to-5 drones (yoohoo, right here!) who'd otherwise stake out the place for young Hollywood celebrities. Lucky for me, Monday was an office holiday.

Sandwiches are the cafe's main fare. Mikey and I tried them hot-off-the-press with proscuitto and Gruyere cheese. The panini bread was well-buttered and grilled to a flattened crisp with spare amounts of meat and cheese melded evenly within. Modest portions but sinfully good. Our combo meal came with the soup of the day, vegetable minestrone, which was amazingly fresh and tasty with big chunks of carrots, cauliflower and squash. No canned goods here.

Lemme tell you how happy I am to find this place--and in practically my own backyard! One time, I was riding my bike around the neighborhood and got lost. Guess what I found in the process? Bluebird Cafe! It lies among old warehouses and dance studios, off the beaten path 5 minutes from downtown Culver City. You can find your way there along Ballona Creek.

And yes Toto, they do have cupcakes. I kept staring at them the entire time. I came up close to take this picture, but when the waiter noticed me wiping the dribble off my face, he casually placed the cover over these two cakes. Darn. It's not like I would've gone without paying for them.

No, I didn't find myself among any Paris Hiltons. Not even a Perez Hilton. Just a bunch of us white-collar hooligans bundled up in Old Navy hoodies, cupping our homemade soup, hoping for warmer days ahead.