Something I didn’t anticipate when starting this project was how many restaurant recommendations I’d get from friends & fam. Over the past six months I’ve heard more about people’s favorite restaurants than I ever have in my entire lifelong Angeleno-hood.
But only a few readers wax poetic to me about their Los Angeles food related memories, admitting that my reminiscing has conjured something in them, too.
My Aunt Joanne, perhaps better referred to as ‘the cool Uncle’, recently wrote to me about one of her LA food memories:
G Morning Ben,
I am in the mood to spill some ink in your direction so unlike emails where I really do try to keep things brief, right here I am going to let it rip.
About your Weekly Angeleno— when you mentioned your newsletter about eateries, I never dreamt you would be writing about places I not only knew, but places with layers and layers of personal history.
My first sleep over in the second grade was at Heidi Hesse's house. That Friday night itinerary started out at - yes - you guessed it - The Apple Pan!
Her family had all kinds of rituals - quite like yours - about getting a seat at the counter and what to order to save room for pie. After the Apple Pan we went to Griffith Park Observatory, arriving plenty early as her fastidious hyper organized German parents always did, so the first stop was to hang out at the pendulum.
We stood leaning against the rail looking into the pit eyes following the weight of the swaying ball way down there side to side under the great spell of gravity that Mr & Mrs Hesse (both elementary school teachers) were eager to explain to us. Something stirred inside me about the distance all the way down there and I was a bit worried about that ball sending messages to the fire in the center of the earth that could ignite everything with one single surprise tap and there and then before we were done with the gravity pendulum event, before the star show, before the ride home, before brushing my teeth in someone else's sink where there were no signs of siblings or the endless chaos of home, right there I knew for certain there was no way I would make it through the night away from Bruce and Bob and piles of unmatched socks and Mom and Dad kissing over cereal boxes on the morrow.
Sure enough not five minutes after lights out I let out my cry: "take me home".
Riding with Dad back to the real world where Bruce would be poking me about being a baby I decided it was a mistake to not get the fries. Fries over pie was and still is my vote. And anyway, who doesn't have room for pie?
She also included a special piece of LA dining culture— an original menu from Pig ‘n Whistle, a diner chain erected in 1927, one location formerly next to The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. The Pig recently saw it’s demise in 2021, probably from pandemic woes. In recent years, it wasn’t much of an attraction. The sticky floors and bar-like smell imbued by the touristic riff-raff of Hollywood Boulevard had greatly affected the ambience of Pig’ n Whistle. Still, it was a fun place to day drink. If I remember correctly, they had good fish and chips.
Much like the legendary Musso & Frank, at one time, Pig ‘n Whistle would print out their specials menu every day. Here’s the menu from July 6th, 1943: