Jon "Doctor J" J.'s Profile

Decent atmosphere. Passable food. Weak. Ass. Service. Sorry. Get beers next door at 1739 if you really must waste your time here. 1739 is owned by the same folks so no party foul technically.

I'm not a vegan or vegetarian myself, but the lack of meat is nothing to complain about when the food is this good. What's better is the beer selection - 6 great brews regularly on tap, 4 more in rotation, and an additional selection of bottled beers. Delightful.

Absolutely beautiful space, but I have to say I was underwhelmed otherwise. We went for brunch and the food was certainly good but not great, at least for the price. I had a mimosa, and my wife had a couple mimosas to get our day started nicely... but then the bill came and at $13 a pop our morning buzz was promptly killed.

I haven't had dinner here, so I can't speak to that. But as far as brunch goes, I expect that I'll keep to my usual (cheaper) haunts.

Fine dining comes to the East side in this great new unpretentious restaurant. The menu is a good, simple selection of American food done with a bit of So-Cal flare at surprisingly reasonable prices (I had a fantastic steak that cost only $15). Service was friendly and accommodating for our large group of eight, especially considering there was a bit of miscommunication when we made the reservation and they thought we were coming the next day.

The place is BYOB with no corkage, which always earns an extra star in my book. Since you save on drinks, you can happily indulge in one of their tasty appetizers or desserts.

During my day to day interpersonal interactions I do my darndest to avoid being an arrogant bastard. Drinking is an entirely different matter and when it comes to my intra-imbibal experiences Verdugo is a place that happily indulges the Arrogant Bastard.

That is to say, if you're a beer snob and tired of bars whose selections don't extend past PBR with Sierra Nevada as the premium brew, yet you don't want a "premium" atmosphere with "premium" prices, you've found your new watering hole. Verdugo has an impressive selection of beers on tap and bottled, all in what appears from the outside to be a hole-in-the-wall dive bar in an unexpected location.

I was here on a Friday night and it was lively but not overcrowded. Most of the action happens out on the spacious patio which has  tables with benches along with actual wooden beer pong tables, complete with cutouts for your red cups.

Good selection of papers at wholesale prices, but the service is a little lacking.

Great little Italian BYOB option in Larchmont Village. The food is tasty, prices reasonable (especially since you can bring your own wine), service friendly, and atmosphere intimate. It's a good option for a group, though be sure to make reservations ahead of time.

Quaint little bike shop about the size of my living room specializing in fixed gears, if you couldn't gather that from the name. They're rather new but have a decent selection of framesets (if you're looking for a fixed gear) and a rainbow spectrum of (fixed gear) anondized components for all your accessorizing needs. The downside is that if you're looking for any type of bike other than a fixed gear (which, if you're new to cycling you probably don't want such a bike), you're best looking elsewhere. This is definitely a specialty boutique, though contrary to their name they do have brakes and brake cables.

Still, the staff is super friendly - all offering up friendly greetings and introductions as well as lot of compliments on my bike (if there's anything I'm a sucker for more than flattery, it's flattery about my ride). The shop reminds me a bit of Orange20 when it first started, though smaller. The difference, however, is that Orange20, while being able to cater to the fixed gear afficionandos, also has plenty to offer any other type of urban cyclist. Los Angeles Brakeless, however, may be defining itself too much as a one-trick pony. At any rate, I hope the best for these guys as I'm all about urban bike culture, and am interested to see how they grow.

This is an order-in staple at my apartment. In fact, as the other reviewer wrote, I've never eaten in the restaurant. It's always delivery. The food is always satisfying. I'd recommend the Yang Chow Style Fried Rice. They don't skimp on the meat and shrimp, either. Service is friendly and delivery is always prompt. The price is hard to beat. Apparently they have a $4.25 lunch buffet which I discovered when I actually went to the restuarant to pickup an order I called in. I hope they do the buffet on weekends because I want to give it a shot.

Food is pretty good, though during our last visit my fiancee was served up a bowl of lukewarm salmon bisque which was pretty disappointing. This is an "order at the counter and busser brings yer food out to you" establishment, so there was no waiter to come by and say, "How is everything?," to which Bronwyn B. could have replied, "Not so great, dude. My bisque is cold." The prices also tend to make my wallet ache. That combined with the stress-inducing, jam-packed weekend crowd make this less than an ideal brunch spot.