I sought out Angeli Caffe based entirely on my podcast subscription to a public radio show/podcast hosted by the restaurant's owner. I listen every Wednesday during my long run (not to be confused with the weekly episode of Filmspotting, which serves my Saturday long run). After driving the length of Melrose (just west of LaBrea) on a grey, rainy disgusting day, I couldn't help but feel a little repulsion toward Los Angeles. Granted, I'm an East Coast guy, with a genetic predisposition to taking up such a position, but I've spent enough time living and visiting the west coast, to consider myself a neutral. LA as a visitor can be, and often is, a wonderful whirlwind of consumerism at its grandest (no sarcasm intended). I often think about what anthropologists and archaeologists in three thousand years will take from our society. And for unadulterated consumerism, for better or worse, I would think Los Angeles makes a good case (I'd file Las Vegas under a different category. Maybe "unbridled decadence"). But it's on a grey day where LA's warts really show. Sure, NYC may have invented the grey day, but it built its empire around it. The city's psychology, architecture and mythology embrace it.
Which brings me to Angeli Cafe, a non-descript tenant on a block next to The Groundlings and a few steps from an Adult Pleasures superstore. Not exactly what I was expecting from the podcast host / cookbook author. Even the interior was a little underwhelming, I would have expected unpretentious, but found slightly gaudy wall decorations and, overall, a stylistic void. But I wasn't there for an architecture class, I was there for a light lunch before I was off to a meeting...
Cauliflower Minestrone
Eggplant Poppetti
Fennel and Endive Salad with Garlic-Parmesan Dressing
Now this is the Evan Kleinman I came for. Simple ingredients, all fresh, all prepared perfectly. Nothing extraneous. Even the (really) warm paperweight of bread they brought out was a treat. And let me tell you, those eggplant poppetti. I could have eaten fifty of them. I will pine, dream and return for them. Rain or not, I'm looking forward to my next LA trip and my next trek down Melrose.
Cost: $$
Rating: 7.0/10.0
Angeli Caffe
7274 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA
323.936.9086
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