Los Angeles

Under chef Walter Manzke, the Melrose Place restaurant's third incarnation is quite the experience.

The blue door, shuttered for more than a year and a half, is open once again, and the stage is set for Act 3. Step in, and you're welcomed with the offer of an aperitif in the enchanting garden where a pair of gnarly olive trees cast lacy shadows on the wall, water falls into a basin, and the air is scented with lavender.

Order Champagne and the sommelier waltzes over with a double magnum of vintage Champagne one night, pours an unusual Sacy rosé another time. You might be served breadsticks with transparent gold potato chips and spiced nuts or slender, cheese-laced churros that taste like New World gougères. The effect is somehow so civilized, you find yourself relaxing into another rhythm.

Bastide is back.

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Headaches are the worst. And if you don't catch them right when they start, they're hard to cure. I've had one for four days. My mom told me to drink lemonade.

Lemonade?

I've taken naps, sat in dark rooms, taken Aleve, even taken Fiorinal. What the eff is lemonade gonna do?

But I was desperate, and unable to operate a motor vehicle, so I walked to Cabbage Patch.

I told them my mom sent me and was convinced they could cure my headache. As if that was a normal thing to say to a cafe owner.

He told me of course they could and prescribed French lentils (which were beautifully presented with avocado and drizzled oil and tasted like they could purify your soul) and told me the mint lemonade was on Dr. Cabbage Patch. 

One of my favorite restaurants isn't close to where we live. Adana is forty-five minutes away in Glendale.

The light and airy dining room suggests a banquet hall in an elegant European boutique hotel. There are white tablecloths on all the tables, pastel landscape murals on the walls and delicate wrought iron framing the windows facing busy San Fernando Road.

I would enjoy the food at Adana at any price, but with large entrees costing from $6.50 to $10.95, there's a special pleasure in being served an affordable, well-prepared meal.

Even though there are 15 kababs on the menu, I mostly stick with the dark meat chicken kabob, the pork chops and baby back ribs. A friend who joins me on the trek likes the lamb chops kabob. They are all delicious.

Waiting for our entrees, we have an Armenian coffee, share a large plate of tabouli and catch up about family, work and movies.

In many places in the world a bakery is often the nexus of a neighborhood.  A place where the locals meet to buy baked goods and bread. Bread, the so-called ’staff of life,’ is inexpensive nourishment to many people. Slowly but surely The Village Bakery and Cafe has become the nexus of our Atwater Village neighborhood. Much like their sisters in Europe, it has a walk up counter with a shelf of various types of bread behind.

When I go in and see the stacks of freshly baked baguettes it feels a bit like it did when I bought the daily loaf while living in France. The difference here is you can also order coffee, a house-made pastry, breakfast or lunch, then sit and WiFi it up for as long as you want. Since it’s located very close to the horse stables and riding schools along the Los Angeles River, I’ve seen more than a patron or two wearing English riding boots and jodphurs as well as the occasional cowboy boots. A bit of local neighborhood color.