Kid Hit Menu Items: Until a restaurant comes around named French Fries ‘n Burger or Ice Cream ‘n Burger, the name Pie ‘n Burger alone is enticing enough. Although in our case most recently, Strawberry Milkshake ‘n Burger proved to be the foods of choice. The kids’ menu at lunch and dinner offers grilled cheese or PB&J ($3.50), hot dog ($4.25) or Jr. burger ($4.95) served with fries or fruit. Consider it your duty as a parent to introduce your kids to an esteemed example of a classic Southern California burger. Alternately, forget about burgers slathered with thousand island dressing and go for house-made hash browns, bacon and eggs, or hot cakes (thin or regular!) and other treats at breakfast.

Adult Perks: Pie n’ Burger is a beloved Pasadena institution, so the authentic retro vibes and physical details are many, including laminate surfaces galore, plaid wallpaper, rustic wood swivel stools and wall-mounted hand-painted menus. Time hasn’t entirely stood still though, since they have a truck and a Twitter account, and the open kitchen behind the counter serves salads (tuna, chef, grilled chicken etc.), and a “low cal plate,” that futile attempt at virtuous eating also seen often on delicatessen menus. Some restaurants apparently didn’t get the memo that cottage cheese and a couple pieces of stone fruit (probably in syrup) are no longer synonymous with healthful diets. Best to stick to the basics, starting with the $6.75 burger (or veg or turkey), or say, a tuna melt. My arm never need be twisted to try a chicken pot pie ($11.95) either. And I can’t look away from a round pie tin filled with lemon curd topped with an expanse of wispy meringue.


Pros: One-hundred percent no-nonsense food works for everybody. Seating is either along the low counter that extends the depth of the narrow space, or some tables in the back. A stop at Pie n’ Burger can be conveniently combined with a trip to the Huntington.

Cons: Early breakfast and dinner and/or off-lunch times are best when there’s not a wait.

Changing Station: No

High Chairs: Yes

Parking and Access: Parking lot and metered street parking along Lake Avenue, or on surrounding blocks.

Other Tidbits: In this current age of revisited burgers — novel, luxury, basic and otherwise — a burger experience can happen in an unprecedented range of restaurant environments. Pie ‘n Burger opened almost 50 years ago when the coffee shop, lunch counter and diner reigned supreme as an expressly American restaurant type and phenomenon. No extreme bells and whistles associated with crazy burger customization were on the menu then, and they’re not on there now. And wanna see some Little Old Ladies from Pasadena? Changes are you’ll find a few here. OK enough of that lecture. Point being, Pie ‘n Burger can satisfy mid-century fetishists, or just be a terrific place to get an outstanding paper-wrapped charred, iceberg lettuce-packed burger, along with chunky golden fries, an overflowing just-spun milkshake and flaky crust pie.

PIE ‘N BURGER

Gosh, I’d be nervous to take nutrition quizzes and realize how little I actually know about basic food and health facts. But if you have no such anxiety, want to support an educational initiative and maybe even WIN some stuff, then check out First 5 LA’s Eat Healthy, Grow Strong campaign. Weekly quizzes will be posted on First 5′s Ready. Set. Grow! website, and participants are entered into sweepstakes, with one new winner selected each week (multiple entries are allowed). Prizes include a $50 Trader Joe’s gift card, Growums Kits, and a Kidding Around the Kitchen Combo Pack. Also, First 5 LA will send a campaign kit that includes an I Can Eat a Rainbow book, growth chart and reusable grocery bag to the first 5 Taster Tots L.A. readers who enter the contest. (Please leave a comment here to qualify and so we can find you!)

Happy quizzing! Now, time to start reading those nutrition labels…

At a certain point when I’d added enough content to Taster Tots L.A. to make it USEFUL to readers around the city, folks would suggest I turn it into an iPhone app. Ya know, with all my tech expertise and entrepreneurial zeal. Thankfully I happen to know someone with precisely those qualities.

So with the launch of my pal Ben’s Know What app available TODAY at iTunes, 50 Taster Tots picks are available as an app! Other awesome contributors to what’s essentially a “hyper-curated city guide” include fellow food bloggers and writers such as Joshua Lurie of Food GPS (who has three guides), Caroline on Crack, Eddie Lin of Deep End Dining, Gustavo Arellano of the OC Weekly, and L.A. super mama Rebecca Woolf of Girls Gone Child. Plus lotsa recs for not-your-typical points of local interest on topics including true crime, architecture history, hiking and public art, directly from people who give a damn and know their stuff. At the moment guides are available for Los Angeles and San Francisco, with more cities to come.

Wanna know how to get it, how it works and who else is involved? Keep reading, please…

Get started by downloading Know What from the iTunes app store for $2.99, which comes bundled with 400 recs as part of the Know What Essentials package. Additional guides written by the Know What contributor experts cost $0.99 to $3.99 each. (The Taster Tots Know What app is $1.99 for 50 locations.) All guides are GPS enabled and have the bells and whistles to maximize utility and help you get more out of your city! At the moment, the Know What collective has about 1,300 locations to share. Not too shabby.

And while Know What is categorized as a travel app, it’s still useful for locals. Since as my dad likes to say, no matter where we are, we are ALWAYS tourists.

Below is the complete list of contributors and their Know What guides. Please show some love by liking Know What on Facebook and following them on Twitter. Thanks!!

Los Angeles:

• Aileen Holmes, local artist: OC: Sooo Not the Land of Bland
• Caroline on Crack, carolineoncrack.com: Drink Here: LA’s Best Craft Beer and Cocktail Bars
• Eddie Lin, deependdining.com: Deep End Dining
• Esotouric, tour company: Charles Bukowski’s LA and On the Trail of the Black Dahlia
• Francesca Lia Block, author: LA’s Dangerous Angels
• Gustavo Arellano, columnist, editor, OC Weekly: The Best OC Restaurants!
• Jessica Ritz, tastertotsla.com [that's me!]: Discerning Dining for Accompanied Adults
• Joshua Lurie, foodgps.com: Global Eats: Southern California; Prized Pig, LA’s Best Pork Dishes
• LA Bizarro, bestselling guidebook: 50 Ways to Lose Your Mind
• LA Freewalls, street art collective: The Biggest Street Art Gallery in the World
• Los Angeles Conservancy: Top 50 of 60s Architecture
• Mark Frauenfelder, co-founder boingboing.net: Unicorns, Carnivorous Plants and Other Angelenos I’ve Known and Loved
• Modern Hiker, modernhiker.com: LA’s Best Hikes
• Raina Lee, author: Karaoke Domination
• Rebecca Woolf, girlsgonechild.net: Fashion & Fun (for You & Your Fam)

San Francisco:

• Burrito Eater, burritoeater.com: San Francisco’s Top 30 Taquerias
• Camper English, Alcademics.com: The City’s Best Cocktail Spots
• Carolyn Jung, foodgal.com: Ultimate Guide to Bay Area Dining
• Catherine Weis, Local Social: Oakland’s Creative Renaissance
• Gary Singh, San Jose Metro columnist: Things in San Jose that Don’t Suck
• Joshua Lurie, foodgps.com: Global Eats: The Bay Area
• San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association: SF’s Secret Parks and Hidden Oases
• SF Hertiage: Essential SF: The City’s Architectural Icons; The Building Blocks of Auto Row and Pacific Heights: The Epicenter of Old San Francisco
• Steve Blank, entrepreneur and amateur historian: The Secret History of Silicon Valley
• Thinkwalks, ThinkWalks.org: Everything Explained and Local Nerd!
• Vegansaurus.com: The Best Food in the Bay Area as Picked by Genius Experts
• Victoria Smith, sfgirlbybay.com: Sfgirlbybay’s Bohemian Modern San Francisco
• White Walls: San Francisco Street Art

Kid Hit Menu Items: Luckily for us during dinner at Park’s BBQ the other night, the happy eating started when the banchan arrived. One kid would have been satisfied with an entire meal consisting of just the sesame-inflected broccoli and the glass noodles.  Those side dishes, along with an awesome mildly spicy combo of pickled carrots, cucumber, onion and chewy black mushrooms, kept us all busy while the gal-bi beef short ribs cooked ($33) and mushrooms (mix of sliced king trumpet, button and clusters of enoki, $15) absorbed the escaping meaty juices, followed by beef candy, AKA bulgogi ($25). The rice wrappers vanished before having the chance to be wrapped around sizzling flesh. Blazing red items that obviously pronounce their level of spice were moved out of reach. Because the meal went off without any mishaps, they each attempted to make a dent in the chocolate-covered ice cream bombs from the illustrated flip tent dessert menu that was staring at them the entire time.

Adult Perks: Park’s has a rep for its well-described wine list, which consists of Big Fancy California Reds (e.g. Stag’s Leap, Opus One), bottles in the less pricey range and a few choices by the glass. I also spotted Lioco and Heredia on the shelves, and maybe some other time a Park’s meal will call for sake and Korean specialties. But when it comes to Korean BBQ, I generally like to keep it simple and share a tall bottle of crisp Hite poured into those cute beer glasses. Played it safe when ordering dinner entrees, but Park’s has all parts of the cow, plus a list of Wagyu cuts and specialties such as abalone, cod, pan-fried mackerel and pancake with rock shrimp. And then comes the menu page with the stews, stone pot rice dishes, cold mul-naengmyeon noodles and other foods that require a much bigger crowd to taste a wider range.


Pros: The hum of grills and those shiny stainless vent hoods operating non-stop creates a good baseline of background noise. Tabletop cooking provides activity, entertainment and depending on how much you want to get into it, lessons in how proteins cook. Regardless, it’s an intense sensory experience. The boys had fun gently poking at the meat with chopsticks. (One even rocked his chef’s jacket and hat for the occasion.) Portions are huge, especially when you factor in the banchan, rice etc. ONE meat platter and the mushrooms would have been enough, but to this big leftovers fan, all that sweet and tangy marinated beef and especially the fat is more flavorful and succulent the next day. Every parent must, however, consider the obvious drawbacks and potential dangers…

Cons: A hot coal-stoked grill right in the middle of the table is what it is. The wait staff mostly attended to the cooking for us (this level of attention/protocol seems to vary depending on the restaurant but it’s more likely that I’m missing out on cultural nuances and signs) and the tray with utensils and meat was placed kind of far from our table. We also heard “is it done yet?” a few times. Vent hoods are effective, but Korean BBQ is a rinse-and-repeat kind of situation, and don’t wear anything you can’t stand to wash or easily dry clean. The dinner crowd lines up to the door and beyond, which based on a tweet the following day, might have included Ruth Reichl.

Changing Station: No, but there’s a shelf thing in the ladies’ room that can work in a pinch.

High Chairs: Yes

Parking and Access: Classic K-Town strip mall parking lot with valet attendants.

Other Tidbits: We waited years to attempt a Korean BBQ family meal. I’m glad we were patient, because by the time we went the kids were stoked and ready. They’d been to other Korean restaurants with tabletop grills that we intentionally avoided using — including one place in my parents’ neighborhood that was the site of such a disaster of a family meal that I’m fairly certain we’d be turned away at the door. We used that forbidden fruit and improved impulse control to our advantage. Success! It’s a psychological hurdle I’m glad we’ve tackled, so in due time I’ll start thinking about what size posse we’ll need to tackle pork belly, abalone, tofu and other wonders that come from the kitchen at Park’s. Because we’ll still need to order all that dazzling beef again, too.

PARK’S BBQ

Kid Hit Menu Items: Suehiro is a slam-dunk for Little Tokyo comfort food: miso soup, rice, gauzy crisp tempura, teriyaki, don rice bowls topped with fried cutlets, agedashi tofu, udon and soba noodles, plus a couple kids’ menu items — but that’s hardly even necessary. I recommend saving dessert for a stop at Mikawaya.

Adult Perks: A lot of this is beer-friendly food, so you can drink familiar Japanese beers by the bottle (Kirin, Asahi), or Bud, or some wine that’s worth skipping, and a smattering of sakes. Suehiro is open very late; if you’re reading this site, however, you probably don’t care too much about that. It’s by no means one of Little Tokyo’s preeminent sushi destinations, but there’s a small sushi and sashimi list, with more rolls available at dinner service.

Pros: Suehiro’s low-ceiling room filled with laminate eating surfaces and a mix of booth and table seating has weathered decades of affectionate use. No wonder the service is friendly, and vibe totally relaxed and great for all ages. Plus a comfortable low counter fronts the service area, which is where my kids love to sit. Either order a sampling of smaller side dishes, or get a generous combo, most of which hover around the $12 mark. The corridor lined with drawings showcases what customers can do with a pen and napkin when given a few minutes to unleash their creativity while waiting for lunch or dinner. That’s if they’re not too busy reading the manga comics Suehiro keeps around.

Cons: Folks chasing the more current Japanese food trends in L.A. that lean towards ramen (Daikokuya is a few doors down), izakaya and robata will be disappointed.

Changing Station: Yes

High Chairs: Yes

Parking and Access: Street metered parking or various lots around Little Tokyo.

Other Tidbits: Suehiro Café has nestled into its own spot within the canon of classic Little Tokyo restaurants.  The kind that are short on fads and fanciness, and long on dignified neighborhood tradition. Late hours might distinguish it from the others, but it sits alongside perennial faves that serve up soul-satisfying Japanese cooking; restaurants such as Aoi (our family favorite growing up, which I’ll cover some other time) and Oomasa across the street in the Redevelopment era-Japanese Village Plaza. Suehiro has the charm of being located in the historic century-plus old commercial strip along East 1st, with those checkered tiles out front and a no-frills interior that’s straight out of a mid-century utilitarian supply catalogue. These contrasts help imbue it with that inimitable Little Tokyo character. (Some bamboo screens go a long way.) Combine with a trip on the Gold Line, the Geffen, JANM, etc. and you truly can’t go wrong.

SUEHIRO CAFÉ

Kid Hit Menu Items: Not only is cold zaru soba appealing to most kids, it’s also nutritious and is the main attraction at the compact, efficient and down home Ichimiann Bamboo Garden restaurant in Torrance. We had a super hungry and cranky older boy who protested anything other than ice cream at the Foster’s Freeze next door, but he scarfed down the negitoro don rice bowl with tuna and scallion we ordered for him, and he probably would have gone for two pieces of inari sushi if he weren’t in such a hurry to get next door. (I usually stay away from tuna for lots of reasons but made an exception.) Even though handmade tender soba and to some extent, udon is the main draw, the bigger menu at the Rolling Hills location with sushi and tempura wouldn’t hurt.

Adult Perks: A big slate of handmade soba and udon offerings, mostly in fish-based broths with choices ranging from curry to lots of meat and fish combos. Or go for a hearty don rice bowl. Beverages consist of self-serve hot and cold barley tea. I love how the earthy nutty flavor of this drink butts up against and mellows out salty broths and sauces.

Pros: Those combo choices and toppings and a photo-illustrated menu help. It’s cheap and high quality. I had no regrets about nameko oroshi (adorable mushroom caps and grated radish) with thin firm udon noodles and all the condiment trimmings in that aggressively savory broth with a sweet finish. Many of the dishes come with the option of soba or udon, and served hot or cold. The long counter with lightweight plastic low stools was a fun way to mix up usual seating arrangements.

Cons: We arrived for a late post-Queen Mary lunch just before the restaurant closed lunch service at 3:30, but I bet the rushes get intense, and space is TIGHT. Although there’s some bamboo planters outside, this isn’t a lush garden setting. Instead it’s essentially a cramped utilitarian dining room with a counter and cash register smack in the middle. I don’t even think there’s a restroom, or if there is it’s buried in the back of the kitchen.

Changing Station: No

High Chairs: No

Parking and Access: Street parking or lot parking next to the modest building located in what’s a charming quiet corner of Old Torrance.

Other Tidbits: After a few exhausting hours wandering around the Queen Mary while the Steampunk conventioneers were making their way out, I strong-armed the family into going to Torrance for a Japanese lunch. Victory! Because frankly, it’s probably best to sit over cocktails in the arresting Observation Bar than to have a full meal — if you can stave off the brood’s hunger. Some quick smart phone recon landed us at Ichimiann Bamboo House, and unknown to us and luckily for the kids, it happens to sit next to an original, beautifully intact Foster’s Freeze. (Our next visit to Long Beach for the aquarium, however, will be timed around a rec I got from Zach Brooks via Twitter for Sanuki No Sato.) And just for fun and because it’s so damn amazing, I can’t help but include a couple more Queen Mary shots.

ICHIMIANN BAMBOO GARDEN