In the April 2006 issue of Food & Wine magazine, Kate Krader outlines a week-long road trip she did around southern California, starting in LA, through Santa Barbara, with a quickie side trip to San Diego. While she does dine at some top-notch spots like Spago and Providence in Los Angeles, it's not all about high-end dining. A recap of her whirlwind food and wine tour through La La Land:

• An LA institution, Pacific Dining Car (that just went to 24-hours), for dry aged beef
• Norman's on Sunset for their Friday night whole roast pig
• The Regent Beverly Wilshire's new restaurant, The Blvd
• Providence for fish, obviously
• Dinner at Sona
• Late night at the Hungry Cat in Hollywood
• Old school Greenblatt's Deli that has a remarkable wine list
• Sushi at Shibucho, where Bordeaux and Burgundies are better than sake and beer
• Silverlake Wine for the Monday night tasting event
• The Lodge Steakhouse
• Spago, which she says is her favorite place

I am doing a beef sandwich study in Los Angeles, which was basically motivated by the Italian Beef I had at Mr. Beef in Chicago. Now I know I'm not going to get the same Italian beef with giardiniera here in LA, but there are still a few places that are well-known for other types of beefy sandwiches - French dip, corned beef, and pastrami.

In the WWF (World Wide Food) Smackdown between Mr. Beef and the French Dip at Philippe's in Los Angeles, the Italian Beef won. Now I am moving on to pastrami because truth be told, I used to eat hot pastrami sandwiches all the time when I was little and my Mom would ask me to sit quietly reading in the clubhouse deli while she played tennis with her friends.

Langer's Deli is in a sketchy part of LA, which probably explains why they don't stay open past 4:00 PM. The interior looks just like an old-school diner, but in 1980s Denny's colors - brown, yellow, and orange. I didn't see a hot pastrami Reuben on the menu, so I asked them to add Swiss cheese and sauerkraut to their standard hot pastrami, with a side of Russian dressing. The sandwich was a little more than $10.

The sandwich was pretty thick, but it wasn't necessarily stacked high from the pastrami. They put a lot of sauerkraut, and though I love me a sour pickled cabbage (uh, hello? kimchee?), the amount of kraut was a little overwhelming. The pastrami was good, but much fattier than I am used to, and I'm not afraid of fatty pastrami. Overall, the sandwich was fine, but I doubt I'd risk my sanity by going back (I didn't feel very safe walking fromthe parking lot to the restaurant).

Next on the roll call: Johnnie's Pastrami (Culver City), and The Hat (San Gabriel Valley).

Langer's Deli
704 S. Alvarado Street (@ 7th)
Los Angeles, CA 90057
(213) 483-8050

If you live in LA (not "if you are from" LA because I don't know a single person "from" LA), or know anything about this odd city at all, then you know that LA's downtown shuts down into a veritable ghost-town after 5 PM. Or 6 PM if you're an attorney.

So it makes me wonder how restaurants like the Too Hot Tamales' pan-Latin restaurant, Ciudad, do for dinner. We've talked about Ciudad's sister restaurant in Santa Monica, Border Grill. I had lunch at Ciudad the other day for the first time, but I wasn't sure that I'd be willing to drive there for dinner. Having dinner at Ciudad means driving through ridiculous rush hour traffic along the I-10 freeway in the early evening.

Once again, it's time for the World Wide Food (WWF) Smackdown - a totally unscientific, wholly biased and completely personal, opinionated, non-blind taste test between some Chicago places I tried on a recent trip and relatively similar places in LA. If you've been following along, you know Chicago is up 2 to 1 for both Rick Bayless' kicking the Too Hot tamales' butts, and PJ Clarke's beer battered vegetables stomping all over Finn McCool's calamari. LA's one point comes from Pink's, though they might have to surrender that point since Portillo's just opened in Orange County.

Today, beef sandwiches go head to head in a battle of epicurean European proportions. The West Coast offers Philippe's in downtown LA, the home of the original French Dip, and the Midwest doesn't hold back with Italian beef from Mr. Beef in Chicago.

There are a few food places in LA that are sort of "historical" that are on my To-Dine List. I've already hit up Pink's the hot dog stand in Hollywood, and atea doughnut from the very recognizable Randy's Donuts off the 405 freeway near LAX. A few weeks ago, I finally got to try Philippe's in downtown LA, the birthplace of the French Dip sandwich.

Philippe Mathieu opened the restaurant in 1908. It was 10 years later, in 1918, that the French Dip sandwich was born when Philippe accidentally dropped the French roll for a policeman's sandwich in the pan full of fresh, hot gravy. Since the policeman was in a hurry, he took the soggy sandwich anyway. The next day, he came back with his buddies, asking for the "dipped" beef sandwich.

I went to Philippe's late in the day because I had heard how incredibly crowded it gets at peak lunch hours, but even atalmost 4:00 in the afternoon, I had to wait in line for a good 15 minutes!I ordered a regular beef French Dip. The roll was crusty and chewy on the outside, soaked with the juices on the inside, and overall, the sandwich was pretty good, though the meat was drier than I thought it would be. I will say, however, that the best part of the sandwich is the hot mustard.

The sandwich comes out plain (or with cheese if you order it), but there are plastic jars of fairly innocuous looking mustard on the tables. Be warned! It is very very very spicy. I am a heat freak (Korean, you know), and the mustard made my eyes water. If only for that mustard, I will be back to Philippe's. 

Philippe The Original
1001 N. Alameda St. (@Ord St.)
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 628-3781