Singing The Blues

Could have been B.B. King on the main stage at Cozy's, but it wasn't.

Whenever I hit L.A., I always ring up my old movie buddy Jay Video. Like myself, Jay does video assist for motion pictures. Unlike me, he's still working in "The Biz."

Usually, he's working on some movie or another and I'll typically visit with him on the set for a couple of hours. But Jay's a big blues fan and on most weekends you'll find him at Cozy's in Sherman Oaks. We caught up tonight during Cozy's Open Mic night. A collection of blues musicians of different skill levels and ages who jump on stage and jam for a song or two. It's a good time and an interesting tour of those cats who really have their chops down and those kids that think they know how to play the blues, but are really just a hairs' breadth away from rock.


Cozy's
14058 Ventura Boulevard
Sherman Oaks, CA 91423
818-986-6000
L.A.'s Home of the Blues

Scoops

After the madness of splitting the Fat Deal at Fatburger, pizza and much more at Pizzeria Mozza and coffee at Intelligentsia, we decided to check out that most suspicious of ice cream parlors known as Scoops in the Wilshire Center neighborhood.

Suspicious because I've been hearing so much about it. Not just from the ever-sleuthing-for-tasty-places-to-eat Polly, but also from other food industry friends who say it's a "must visit" place while in L.A. Located in what seems to be a pseudo-hipster slash industrial slash blue collar neighborhood, with a lot of construction going on, Scoops is a little place that's bathed in baby pink, a remnant couch and a few kinda modern-ish cafe tables. Tucked away in a corner are some stereo speakers and a collection of DVDs from a failed neighborhood exchange experiment and there's a pull-down projector screen on the back wall that looks it came straight out of an elementary school classroom.

Peter, the guy behind the bar, is a friendly and affable chap who's enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the product. In this surly world of unhappy counter people, it's nice to find someone friendly and more than eager to give you a sample of everything in the case. Luckily, we arrived around dinner time - a traditionally slow time in the frozen dessert world, and we were able to chat, relax, sample, eat, chill, eat more and hang out for a couple hours.

The ice cream selection here changes on a daily basis according the owners' whims. Happily for us, the owner had some nice whims that week. We heard rumors of a bacon flavored ice cream that used bacon fat, as well as a foie gras ice cream that tantalized the mind. Things weren't that wild today but they were good. The Brown Bread was an instant favorite: vanilla ice cream filled with Grape Nuts - deelish.


Scoops
712 North Heliotrope
Los Angeles,CA 90029
323-906-2649

Fatburger

Getting the short end of the Fat Deal in Studio City.

Perhaps burgers are on my mind lately. Or perhaps I'm just on a mission for the Los Angeles Tri-Fecta of burgers. It's probably the latter.

After a brief shopping trip to my old haunt, Location Sound in North Hollywood, Polly and I made our way to the Fatburger in Studio City for a pre-lunch snack. This particular location is of peculiar interest because it was the first and only Fatburger in which I've ever eaten. Once upon a time, I was seriously impressed with their burger and thought it gave the rest a run for their money. I wanted to see if it was more of the same or if those were just romanticized memories of a rose-coloured time in my life.

Since we were due to eat at Pizzeria Mozza in a short time, we opted to split a Fat Deal meal combo of a 1/3 pound Fatburger, thick cut french fries and Dr. Pepper.

I gotta say, it was good. The burger was thick and had good flavor. It took a while to recieve our order but you could tell it was freshly made and the patty itself was hot and the veggies cold. Just look at the tomato - it's pretty darn thick for a fast food joint. The fries were standard frozen fare but they crisped nicely and were a good accompaniment - as long as you had lots of salt and maybe some ketchup. And of course, Dr. Pepper washes it all down nicely.

And it was just as good as I remember - and these aren't rose coloured days...



Fatburger Studio City
10600 1/2 Ventura Boulevard
Studio City, CA 91604
818-769-8725
www.fatburger.com