The Belmont

Yesterday I got home from one long, demanding, depressing stint at work. I had spent the day working very hard to take care of a very nice person (with a lovely family) who was dying of AIDS. Meanwhile, my own adored sister waited for me at home, having trekked out from the desert for a rare visit wherein just the two of us were to spend a few days together. It was time to get the weekend festivities into swing. I was in a mood that could be described as equal parts melancholy, appreciative of my vitality and relationships, ready to party, and ravenously hungry.

Ashley didn't have any particular leanings, so I chose the Belmont--walking distance and festive. Nick and I had been there once for drinks only, and its impressive bar had met our standards of strong drinks made well. I thought I'd remembered a decent-looking food menu with some veggie options. Feeling that the world was the oyster of two young sisters taking on the town, I chose this as the place we would start our night.

We were seated right away, and they did deliver on some near-perfect gimlets. But that's where anything positive about the experience ends. After we saw that there was nothing vegetarian on the menu (what bar had I confused it with?), we should have just finished our first round and moved along. But I hate to be that high-maintenance vegetarian, and I didn't really care that much about what I ate, as long as it was food. So I picked the heartiest salad on the menu. Ashley ordered the truffle chicken.

Before I go any further, let me set up a background. I've had bad service in my lifetime. I've been to La Boheme. I've been to Fraiche in Culver City. Hell, I've been to Paris as a non-French-speaking American during the France-US war discord of 2003. It all pales in comparison to my visit to The Belmont.

This was, unequivocally, the WORST service of my life.

The food took an hour. Obviously, this is marginally acceptable for the simplicity of our order no matter what--had we been apologized to, had we been offered a chance to order an appetizer to sate us while we waited, had someone come to take our request for our much-coveted second round. But none of this occurred. Nobody came for that whole time. Not even a busboy to give us some water. I began to wonder if there was some repellent magnetic forcefield around our table. In fact, maybe it was some kind of blindingly bright nuclear forcefield, because our server deliberately avoided even brief eye contact with us. Finally we both stood up, indicating our readiness to stoop to the low of dropping a twenty on the table and walking out. This made the food show up. Even after that, we had to stand up to flag someone down to get our server to come over to take our order for more drinks. We had to repeat the third-party-flagging when my salad left me totally un-full and I needed some auxiliary fries. We had to pretend to be leaving to get the check. Meanwhile, the table next to us got served a three-course meal with drink refills. Ashley and I both pride ourselves on being great tippers--I'm a twenty percent minimum kind of girl--but let's just say that both of us saw fit to use the tipping process as a means of making a statement here.

The food was fine--Ashley said her chicken was good and well-appropriated with truffle. My salad was decent, although someone needs to tell these people for what uses balsamic reduction is intended, because it's not to water it down into a vinaigrette--hence the "reduction" process. I guess I can also give the place a point or two for the intriguing oddity of playing a collection of music comprised solely of the original recordings of Rock Band and Guitar Hero songs.

I fear that my fair sister and I were the victims of some meatist ideology here. It's happened to me a few times. Meatism is the phenomenon of being treated as a second-class citizen at a restaurant when you order vegetarian. They assume you're being cheap, when in fact, many of us veggies would be willing to drop some cash if the place would just put one interesting-sounding herbivorous entree on the menu. This is Los Angeles, people. I know there are plenty of flexitarians, pseudo-vegans, and anorexitarians, all of whom will eat meat in a "when in Rome" kind of setting. But there are a lot of us who really believe in sticking to it, too, and don't expect that it offends restauranteurs in such a manner as to provoke maltreatment. This discriminatory policy might work in some place in the middle of America, but I have a hard time seeing its viability in WeHo. It's Bush-era chic to not offer meatless options at a bar and then treat people like shit for not ordering filet mignon. FSM bless Obama.

It's not like you have it all going on, Belmont. The crowd was decidedly thinning by the time we left at 11:00. You remember that girl in junior high that acted really snobby, but she wore stirrup leggings and had a Hello Kitty backpack and didn't really brush her hair and had no idea that it wasn't cool? You wouldn't have been caught dead going to her birthday, but you might pretend she was all right momentarily if she had a pack of Bubblicious she was willing to share. The Belmont is like that. This establishment is having an identity crisis. It wants to be all snooty-hot, but it's full of douches and staffed by the same. It's right around the corner, so I'm not saying I'll never show up there for a drink again, but I'll come with cash in hand and already fed.





I have to work in a little PSA: you only die of AIDS if you stop taking your meds. So get tested often, and if you have HIV, stick with your treatment plan.

The Roger Room

How do I know that the $1795 a month I shell out for rent is worth it? Be-cau-au-ause there's A SPEAKEASY IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD! Obviously, I live in the coolest place that exists where an aspiring nurse practitioner and an aspiring screenwriter have (at least theoretically) viable job options.

The Roger Room is nestled in between Largo and...I don't even know what's next to it. Doesn't matter. You're not going there, you're going to the Roger Room. Which, as fate would have it, is labeled as a psychic shop. I'm reticent to have told you even that much, because I'm certain that at least a small part of my EXTREMELY favorable impression of the place is that Nick and I sauntered in only slightly before full-swing hour one Saturday night and sat right down at the bar--next to each other, no less, which you can appreciate for the true rarity it is if you ever try to drink alcohol anywhere in L.A. but your house.

The vibe is swanky-sexy-sultry, a la vintage Hollywood. The interior is done up to the nines in an art deco motif that is not completely unaware of its post-millennium incarnation. It's hot without making you feel like you don't belong, and you might also see someone really high profile. Our visit delivered on both: the bartender introduced himself and remembered our names all night, and we saw a lot of people who looked like other people who are famous. As far as the menu goes...show up thirsty, with an artsy appreciation for inventive, well-executed cocktails, and bring a lot of cash if you actually want to be drunk. (Hey, it's the same guy that owns Bar Lubitsch. I think we can all agree that the drinks are delicious, but a far cry from lethal.) The place's real selling point is the entertainment encapsulated in the creation of the drinks themselves. The bartenders' flashy showmanship in assembling complex cocktails with surgical precision at an impressive clip is...exciting, actually. I ordered another just for that. Pair your visit with a show at Largo for a real value pack of displays of high-quality talent.

Real Food Daily

(Image credit: Real Food Daily)

414 N. La Cienega Blvd., (310) 289-9910, realfooddaily.com

A true mecca for seaweed-craving, gluten-avoiding, lactose intolerant, and otherwise dietarily finicky Angelenos of every variety, RFD is a bastion of all-vegan, mostly macro fare. For astute people-watchers, this La Cienega spot is ideal. Nestled in with a Ducati dealership and a deceptively never-open, dungeon-gated Sprinkles, it draws from these neighbors an array of vinyl-clad motocross pricks and bulimics who, foiled in their plans to binge on pastries, come in instead to share seven plates between two of them, eating only when the other one goes to the bathroom. Add to that the characters of the waitstaff, and you've got some real fodder for musings on the oddities of human nature. Two pillars of the cast include a mild-mannered, polished-punk-appearing guy who turns out to be my high school best friend's HJNTIY 9th grade crush (Hey Andrew! Good to see you.) and a voluptuous woman who unsneakily fixes her eyes on my waist before syrupy-sweetly suggesting that I add gravy AND dessert to my order. Every. Single. Time. Despite her catty motivations, I agree that it's not a bad idea, and oblige her about half the time.

Ah, but the food. The menu fairly distributes its offerings among well-executed vegan versions of typically omni dishes (salisbury seitan with savory gravy, Mexico City-style tacos) and ultra-macro items (combos of beans, unheard-of grains, pressed salad, and sea vegetables that really might turn you seaweed-craving if you give it the chance). While the joint has topped our list of options for takeout for some time, I think Nick and I would both agree that the place endeared itself to us completely when it proved that it could dish out hangover food with the big dogs. Read closely here: after a night of partying, GET THE NACHOS. Add taco meat. And get the spicy cheese. Alternatively, if you're me, get your fiance to order them. There'll be plenty. And if you're still in need of a little hair of the dog, they serve booze--organic, of course.

A boon to their credentials is that they are the only vegan place I know of that consistently does dessert well. Besides my kitchen, that is...but that's not open for business until I become at least three times as frustrated as I am now about finding a job as a nurse practitioner. So keep your eyes peeled. All in all, the place has something for everyone, and I feel confident in saying that, as long as nobody orders the reuben, it'll be a crowd-pleaser in the company of visiting Midwestern relatives and raw-food-enthusiasts alike.

The Spanish Kitchen

(Image credit: The Spanish Kitchen)

826 N. La Cienega Blvd., (310) 659-4794, thespanishkitchen.com

Alexis had her birthday party here a couple years ago, and we brought in a giant cake from Sweet Lady Jane, and the kitchen apparently kept most of it. But we won't judge it based on that incident. Actually, TSK (not to be confused with STK just across the street, which we are unlikely to visit) really defies expectations, just not in a completely good way. Given the club/bar milieu of the stretch of La Cienega on which it's situated, it would be natural to assume that this would be a place with killer drinks but barely-okay food. So it's a bit surprising that the food is really quite good but the margaritas are... well, mostly water with a little lime flavoring and no discernible tequila. The insistence of the waitstaff on upselling you to a more expensive tequila isn't exactly endearing, either. (In my view, the house margarita is the standard by which a place should be judged. If it isn't good, you shouldn't be serving it.) On the plus side, TSK is perfectly good for either lunch or a booze-free dinner, and they do accommodate large parties easily (just keep an eye on your cake).