An Uneven Weekend

Back on Friday, I did visit the local food trucks in my neighborhood, but can’t give a review unfortunately due to the fact the one place I choose to eat at gave me gastro-intestinal issues later Friday night/Saturday morning.  Since this is a rarity, I am not going to publicly call out the truck, but I did notify the owners of what occurred so that they can correct any problems.  After eating at all the different food trucks that I have the past couple of years, this is the first time I really wound up having an issue with the food (other than perhaps not liking it).  So I’m giving them the opportunity to correct any problems.

That being said, I did get some cupcake that evening also from Sugar Babies Cupcakery (http://sugarbabiescupcakery.com/) that I tried the next day – after I was feeling better, of course.  They have a shop on Fulton Ave. in the Sherman Oaks area that I pass nearly every day on my way home from work, so I was glad to have the opportunity to taste their cupcakes.  On their truck, they only have small cupcakes, which is fine with me.  I got a half-dozen for $10 and took them home.  So far I have tried the Salted Caramel (yummmmm), Red Velvet (luscious), Pancake and Bacon (interesting) and Birthday Cake (it definitely is birthday cake-y).  They have all been very delicious, and a small treat so I don’t feel like I’m being a pig.

On Saturday around noon-ish I met my brother, his wife and son at Philippe the Original (http://www.philippes.com/) – the best French dip joint in L.A.  I used to go there for lunch when I worked downtown eons ago, so it’s a nice treat to go there on a weekend and meet up with people.  If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it.  They have more than just beef on the menu too – you can get a lamb dip, ham dip, pork dip and turkey dip.  I’ve had the beef mostly, along with the lamb, but have to confess I haven’t tried the others.  It’s a fun atmosphere, always very busy.  They also serve breakfast.

And yesterday, before I took myself to the movies, I decided to lunch at Pitfire Pizza in North Hollywood (http://www.pitfirepizza.com/).  I have eaten there several times, and even blogged about it, but yesterday turned out to be a disappointment to me.  I usually have a pasta dish, but decided on pizza yesterday instead.  I even “built” my own, choosing to have roasted garlic, gorgonzola cheese and prosciutto on it.  I also imbibed with a glass of Malbec wine.

Here are my issues:  firstly, while at room temp…..you don’t want a wine a room temp when it’s 80 degrees.  They leave the bottles out in the hot restaurant and make no attempt to control their temperature, which can ruin any wine.  Secondly, the pizza, while tasty and it did have a crispy crust (which I like), seem to be hastily thrown together and little thought into the way the ingredients were incorporated.  The roasted garlic was basically cast as globs onto the pizza, the prosciutto was cut way to thick (it should always be paper thin) and was scant on the pizza – and as for the gorgonzola, I hardly tasted or saw any on the pizza.

While I could have complained, I was hungry and had little time.  I am going to email them though with my thoughts and complaints.  It’s not that the food is bad, but it is being badly done and that’s a major disservice to the restaurant.  Like I said, I’ve eaten there before and enjoyed it.  And the staff is all very pleasant (albeit they all seemed to be very, very young).