Taste

Image credit: ilovetaste.com

8454 Melrose Ave., (323) 852-6888, ilovetaste.com

Taste is definitely a Lesser Baldwin on the particular stretch of Melrose where it's situated, at least in terms of awareness. It's nestled among more famous spots like Lucques, Comme Ca, and Ago; it doesn't have a celebrity chef or owner; and its name is an easily pronounceable English word with nary a glyph or umlaut to be found. It's entirely possible that Alexis and I never would have tried it if we hadn't embarked upon this whole local-dining experiment in the first place.

No, I'm not gearing up to tell you that it's this incredible hidden gem, or that our lives would be hollow and meaningless if we hadn't discovered it. But that's okay. Not every restaurant has to be life-changing, even in a city where a lot of them are. Sometimes it's just nice to have a place you can go when you can't think of anything else, and Taste fills that role well. The food's good, the menu isn't huge but there's plenty of variety, they pour some interesting cocktails (I like the ginger-rita, which is pretty much what it sounds like), and if you flip to the back page there's a two- or three-course prix fixe for a great price if you like the options. The salads in particular are a standout, on par with the best in the area. You can waltz in at 9:00 on a Friday night and get seated right away without a reservation, but that doesn't mean the place is a ghost town -- far from it; it just doesn't attract quite the same numbers as its aforementioned neighbors.

If there's so much to like about it, why does it feel like I'm kind of damning it with faint praise? Perhaps it's because they over-salt the hell out of their mac & cheese? Well, there is that, but mostly it's because the service isn't great. We've been to Taste twice now and, while the second time was an improvement on the first, we still had a couple of minor but frustrating issues. It's nothing on the order of a place like Geisha House, where you feel privileged just to have your waitress cast a condescending eye in your direction; and certainly there are critically adored establishments that get away with much more egregious behavior; but nonetheless, it could be better. At least the guy filling the water glasses was always on top of things.

I'm glad we know about Taste. And given its proximity to our doorstep, I'm sure we'll be back there again on some Friday night when we're out of ideas.

Sweet Lady Jane

(Image credit: sweetladyjane.com)

8360 Melrose Ave., 323-653-7145, sweetladyjane.com

The service at SLJ isn't particularly good. Most of the people working there are fairly weird in ways that range from "comical" to "in-patient." There was one story on LAist a while back from someone who dared run the wedding cake gantlet, which really must be read to be believed. Oh, and the French press coffee is mediocre at best, and don't even bother trying an espresso-based drink.

These are all valid concerns, I guess. But they're beside the point. Really beside the point. So far beside the point that if they had to commute to the point, they'd hear every minute of Morning Edition and All Things Considered en route.

And the point is this: Early every morning, under cover of locked doors and an army of deadly chinchillas (Editor's note: really? locked doors? pls verify), the bakers at Sweet Lady Jane churn out cakes that are good enough to make you re-evaluate the meaning of your existence. (In short: whatever it was before, it is now "to eat more cake.")

Some of our favorites include the chocolate fudge espresso, the chocolate strawberry shortcake, the white chocolate lemon, and -- if you think you might not have access to sugar for the next few years and really need to stock up -- the dulce de leche. You can try some of the more unconventional options if you want, like the oreo tiramisu, but I tend to favor sticking with cake. (Except the seven-layer chocolate, which is at least three-sevenths disappointing.)

Pro tip: Go right before they close (around 11:30 PM) and you can have your pick of the breads and breakfast pastries that they're getting rid of.

Even pro-er tip: If you want to sneak in after hours, the chinchillas respond well to Hot Pockets.

Urth Caffe

(Image credit: WENN)

8565 Melrose Avenue (other locs in SM, BH, and DTLA), (310) 659-0628, urthcaffe.com

This seems as good a place as any to start, since the proximity of our new apartment to its front door was one of the main reasons we signed the lease. We love the freakishly perfect coffee (just the fuel I need to finish the Saturday crossword), we love the sandwiches and salads, we love most of the desserts. All in all there isn't much we can tell the L.A. food blog community about Urth that they don't already know, except perhaps this: Don't order the veggie lasagna. Ever. One of the restaurant's infrequent missteps, its similarity to a box of Lean Cuisine is so uncanny that it would be worth investigating if we had the time to do that sort of thing. The smart thing would be to remove it from the menu; but since the bill of fare hasn't changed noticeably in the several years I've been going there, I have a feeling that the lasagna (along with the rotating cast of bluetooth-implanted douchebags and vaguely Hiltonesque ultra-entitled squeakvoices) is there to stay.