starry pop ups
It is always
fascinating to me to imagine what Los Angeles used to be, since, like New York,
it is a city that changes nearly every day. If you don’t visit a busy
neighborhood for a few weeks you are always likely to encounter numerous new
buildings, businesses, and total transformations of the area. Multiply that by
several months or even years—which given the vast spaces of Los Angeles, is
inevitable—and you might have missed major transformations of the landscape and
“atmosphere” of sections of the city you once might have thought were familiar.
I have always tried to imagine what “Chinatown”
might have meant in the period as presented in Roman Polanski’s film of the
same name, a time when its streets were somehow filled with inexplicable
dead-ends and the area, as a whole, was somewhat inscrutable. What is left today
is a few parallel blocks that lead directly from the heart of downtown Los
Angeles, dead-ending onto the freeway, where, in between, lie two major Chinese
dragon-infused arches guarding and circumscribing what one might be described
as “big Chinatown” and “little Chinatown,” although both are quite small in
area, consisting of, in the case of the “big” version, a few winding lanes,
filled with numerous ancient (at least in Los Angeles terms) Chinese
restaurants and venues selling Chinese bric-a-brac and junk, whose customers
are difficult to conjure up in one’s imagination, and probably even more
immaterial in real life. The “little” version consists of a long “backstreet”
promenade, most of whose former merchants have abandoned the space. Along
Broadway and Hill, the two major avenues which define these spaces, are some
excellent, but again elderly Chinese restaurants, my favorite of which is the Full
House Seafood Restaurant, where I have spent many a late evening after readings
attended across the way in “big Chinatown” at the au courant bar, Mountain, where the Otis College of
Art M.F.A. Creative Writing Program had, for a couple of years, hosted a series.
In the past few years, “little Chinatown”
has been overtaken by younger-owned, rather sophisticated art galleries and
other venues such as the one I was headed to on the evening of Saturday,
January 17th, PRB (Poetics Research Bureau) where my friends James
Sherry, Diane Ward, and Brian Stefans were reading.
Some of “big Chinatown” has also become
home to galleries, but far more of its spaces have been taken over by rather
more sophisticated restaurants such as Blossom, popular with my poet and art
friends, and other newer venues. The very day before I visited Chinatown again,
the Los
Angeles Times ran an article titled
“Chinatown Emerging as L.A.’s Hottest Restaurant Destination.” I believe the
article to be a bit of an overstatement, given the remarkable restaurants and
their shifting demographics throughout the vast city, but, nonetheless, I was
interested in reading of such new hot spots as the Thai-based restaurants, Pok
Pok, noodle shops located in the Far East Plaza and, soon, in the Mandarin
Plaza. New Orleans fare was now available in the former Hoy King space on Ord
Avenue, featuring New Orleans slings jambalaya and fried-oyster po’boys. Near
the vast Chesar E. Chavez Avenue, the Lobsta Truck (a food truck version of
which visits my neighborhood several days each week) had opened their new
Lobsta Shack, food to which of I come to become addicted, particularly their
Connecticut Lobster Roll. The beloved Empress Pavilion, long a favorite for
Howard and me, after closing down for several months, has just reopened.
Meanwhile, Chego, with its spicy pan-Asian
rice bowls had moved a couple of years ago to the Far East Plaza, where, so the
Times reported, the city’s first soup dumplings
were served in the 1980s. Nearby, the “splendid” Chiu Chow cafe Kim Chuy,
continues to sling fried leek cakes and its peanut-laced satay noodles as they
have since 1982. “At a tiny counter in a corner of Scoops, Cognoscenti Coffee
brews lattes flavored with Thai pandan leaf. Champ Ramen, a noodle project from
Alvin Cailan and Johnny Lee of Grand Central Market's insanely popular Eggslut,
is set to open in the plaza any day now.” And, finally, the Times noted, the Starry Kitchen sandwich stand, famous
for its Vietnamese-style bánh mì stuffed with fried tofu balls, pops up from
time to time. Starry Kitchen proper, “a semi-permanent pop-up that has been
operating within the old Grand Star Jazz Club for slightly more than a year,
almost qualifies as a Chinatown pioneer.”
I had read also of the Starry Kitchen in the LA Weekly that same week, where I had learned that
chef Thi Tran, had declared that if he wasn’t able to raise $500,000 by the end
of January, he would close down his “pop-up” establishment forever. He needed,
finally, to establish his own place.
I have to admit, not being a food critic, that
I read all of this rather amusedly and distractedly. I don’t get to Chinatown
very often, and when I do, I usually fall into the older mausoleums dedicated to
old-fashioned Chinese cuisine. Maybe I’ll try Hop Louie, described on the web
as an “Old-school, kitschy dive bar with standard Chinese chow, a range of
potent cocktails & a jukebox,” I thought to myself.
But
instead of turning down Mei Ling Way to that restaurant, I decided to wander a
bit, past Blossom, where I knew my poet friends would be dining (a restaurant
on the major Gin Ling Way, featuring, as its site correctly reports “Pho &
other Vietnamese staples…served in a bright, modern & understated space),
and into other desultory and dying old Chinatown paths. Suddenly, I encountered
what described itself as a Jazz Bar, momentarily forgetting what I’d read the
day before, and determined that I’d check it out. It was a bit too early to eat
anyway, and, at least, there I’d find a bar…maybe even accompanied by a bit a
jazz—if not live at that hour, at least recorded music. What I discovered was
already a quite busy space, where, from the long (briefly overheard) discussions
of waiters appeared to be a restaurant of some complexity.
Nothing might have suggested this at the
bar itself. The friendly Chinese bartender was, clearly, a bit removed from the
circus going on around him. The place appeared to be divided into a drinking
establishment and a larger eating space, with no apparent connection between
the two. When I politely asked if we might order food at the bar, he politely
responded, “Yeh,” but when I asked for a menu, he disappeared for a while,
crossing the room to retrieve a printed menu, returning after a few moments.
“Here!”
“I didn’t mean it to be such an effort,” I
sympathetically responded. “It’s all right,” he forgave me. “It’s just across
the room.”
Perusing the sheet he had provided me, I
realized that I had, quite accidentally, struck pure gold. Here was that
legendary “pop-up” which I had been reading about, Starry Kitchen. I drank a
gin and tonic and ordered again, just to assure him I wasn’t simply a foody,
come in to leer over the comestibles. He clearly appreciated my temporary
disdain.
“If I would like an appetizer, I queried….”
“You’ll have to flag down one of the waiters,” he snapped. “That’s a different
department….” I got it; he was not about to be associated with the other goings
on all around him. I ordered a beer.
“So, you’re a jazz bar?” I queried.
“Used to be,” he relaxed. “A great bar; all
the best musicians came here. The greats. But you know, it’s hard to get an
audience in Chinatown. We had the famous ones. But even when people came, who
loved the jazz, they wouldn’t drink. A few sodas, coffees. It was the wrong
kind of crowd. But we were an important venue in those days. All the great ones
played here! But now….” he flipped his finger off to the room around him,
“well, It’s something else.”
“Yes….” I pretended to sympathize. “It
is.”
Looking over the menu, when the bartender’s
eyes were busy with drinks, I had determined that I simply had to try one of the items it listed. Flagging
down a waiter, I asked whether there were any “Head+Tails” w/Viet Fish Sauce [very
limited]” left. They were gone.
“Our specialty,” she insisted is the
Crispy Tofu Balls. You should get those.” So I ordered.
1.
A short while later she delivered a
beautiful dish of four large balls, covered with a kind of green crunchy flakes,
within which was a creamy tofu mixture that, combined with the aioli dibbled
over the whole, was so delicious that, after a few bites, it was impossible to
leave it unfinished. The flakes appeared to be similar to, but without the
taste of, bonito flakes; these were lime green, which I later was told exist
only in Viet Nam, although my waitress first suggested they might be found in
South America (the chef assured me they were Asian only).
Another beer calmed the bartender, while the
absolutely luscious appetizer convinced me I had to have an entrée at this
“Starry Kitchen.”
The “Braised Sweet Soy Sauce Ginger Pork
Belly” certainly seemed appealing, as did the Malaysian Chicken Curry with
Okinawan Sweet Potatoes, both of which I was unlikely to experience in the more
mundane kitchens of West Los Angeles; and the latter was of particular interest
to me since Howard, my companion, does not like either curried dishes nor sweet
potatoes. 
The “on-the-fly” waitress again steered me
straight. “No, you have to have the “Claypot of Carmelized Striped
Bass+Pancetta (aka ‘Ca Kho To’).” Since I love Striped Bass and Pancetta, it
seemed perfect. Actually it was better. Two large pieces of bass lay in a
slightly tangy broth with the pancetta used more as lardons, fatty boiled
chunks of the Italian ham, than what one might have expected with Italian pasta.
It was such a delicate, yet robust concoction that I couldn’t let it go until I
had flaked off every strand of the bass from its crisp and edible skin,
dripping with the saporous broth. It was accompanied by buttermilk beer
beignets, usually a dessert pastry associated with New Orleans, but which,
here, revealed the savory French influence upon Vietnamese cuisine.
While I was busy consuming this memorable
meal, the chef suddenly appeared. A young, slightly spike-haired, comedic
figure, he joked “Well, we Vietnamese certainly have learned how to use the
micro-wave,” presumably insinuating just how primitive his “starry” kitchen
was.
He joked for a while with an attractive,
smartly dressed young Chinese couple before turning his attention in my
direction. “And how did you come to be here?” he asked, slightly insinuating
what was obvious, that, given the age of most of the diners, I was somewhat out
of place.
“Well,” I paused dramatically, “I had
certainly read about your food in the LA Weekly and the Los Angeles Times,
but I didn’t really know you were here. I
just sort of wandered in, perceiving this as a “jazz bar,” and then discovered,
later, where I’d landed. And then the food was so remarkable, better even than
the descriptions, that I’m stunned and overjoyed."
The young Thi Tran was absolutely
delighted. “Serendipity then! Serendipity,” he shouted. “That’s the best! You
didn’t come here expecting anything, and then…you found something here you
liked. That’s the best! That’s the reason I exist.”
I mentioned that I’d read of his vow to
close the restaurant in a few days. “I don’t care about the money. I really
don’t! I just want to be sure I have a place in which I can cook and upon which
I can depend. I don’t know….well, I need a real home. Don’t I?”
After my conversations with the bartender,
I knew precisely what he meant.
“Yes, you deserve that,” I insisted.” I
wish I had lots of money to help.”
The bartender eyed me slightly
malevolently. To appease him, I ordered another Tsingtao, although I was
feeling much to full to consume it. I paid the bar bill, which amounted to a
bit over the very reasonable food bill of $37.00. It had been one of the most
remarkable meals I’d experienced for years! And I was slightly depressed as I
left, fearing that I’d never again be able to taste the flavors I had just
savored.
Inside, several friends—Harryette Mullen,
Larkin Higgins, Thérèse Bachand, Joe Mosconi—were already gathered. Marjorie
Perloff showed up a few minutes later.
Andrew Maxwell introduced James, who read
from a longer new poem involving conversations with Richard Nixon and mafia
lawyer Bebe Rebozo, with whom it has been rumored that Nixon had a gay affair.*
I told James after that I didn’t quite like the way he characterized
“homosexuality” as having to do with evil behavior, the way gays had been
stereotyped so many times throughout history; but I surely did comprehend his
comparisons, in some respects, to a kind of secret cabal in which the
conversation was coded a bit like it must have been always in the old boys’
club surrounding Edgar J. Hoover and his long-time “lover” Clyde Tolson. These
were terribly conflicted and highly closeted men of a now-dying generation.
(See My
Year 2012: Center’s Collapse for a
discussion of the film J. Edgar).
Brian read his quite personal translation
of Apollinaire’s Zone, which he likened to a Los Angeles
typological representation. I was also struck by some of his comments
surrounding an event where, while visiting the Perloff home, he had felt completely
misunderstood by some of her guests. Brian, it appears is a far more shy and
insecure guy than I had imagined him to be, which may help to explain why we
have never quite developed a relationship. My seemingly gruff and sometimes
overbearing self-assuredness (which I know to be a kind cover for my own fears
and insecurities) must be terribly off-putting to someone like Brian, I mused.
After a short break, James read part of a
new essay, “Against One Model Alone,” in which he questions how poets and other
humanities figures might talk about the environment and other important social
issues. James basically argues against pietism and posits a need for an
embracement of non-hierarchical expressions that “travel from lower to higher
levels of abstraction.” Rather than argue for a kind of “either/or” position,
as James explained some of his ideas to me a dinner one day earlier, we need to
think in terms of an “and/and” perception of realities if we hope to influence
those outside of our communities. I have posted that essay on my Green Integer
blog.
I drove James back to his hotel in my
neighborhood while we discussed the events of the day and some of the aspects
of this significant evening of readings.
____
A new biography by Don Fulsom, a veteran Washington reporter who covered the Nixon years, suggests the 37th U.S. President had a serious drink problem, beat his wife and — by the time he was inaugurated in 1969 — had links going back two decades to the Mafia, including with New Orleans godfather Carlos Marcello, then America's most powerful mobster.
Yet the most
extraordinary claim is that the homophobic Nixon may have been gay himself. If
true, it would provide a fascinating insight into the motivation and behaviour
of a notoriously secretive politician.
Fulsom argues
that Nixon may have had an affair with his best friend and confidant, a Mafia‑connected
Florida wheeler-dealer named Charles 'Bebe' Rebozo who was even more crooked
than Nixon.
Los Angeles, January 22, 2015