Friday For the Foodies – L.A. Adventure 2011 Pt 1: Hamburgers & Hot Dogs

We ordered the following (all descriptions taken verbatim from their menu):

Hatch Burger $9 – four types of green chilies, house cheese (spice up your life)

Unami Burger $10 – unami x 6 – our signature burger, you will crave this one

House pickles $5

A couple of Abita Root Beers $3 each

and a side of their Sweet Potato Fries $4 (no picture) with a side of their Jalapeño Ranch dipping sauce. Good meal, I’d go back again to try it for sure.

Here is their menu if you have never been:

A few days later I hit up a place that several of my friends said was a MUST EAT if I was in L.A. That place is The Apple Pan!

According to Wikipedia…

The Apple Pan is a restaurant located at 10801 West Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles. It opened in 1947 and is locally famous for its hamburgers and apple pies served with vanilla ice cream. It consists of a single, U-shaped counter surrounding the central food preparation area. Closed on Mondays, The Apple Pan is open until 1 a.m. on weekends and midnight on weekdays. The Zagat Survey features The Apple Pan in various Top Lists including Burgers Tops and Best Buys.

In addition to being one of Los Angeles’ oldest continuing operating restaurants, The Apple Pan is notable as the basis for the popular Johnny Rockets chain of restaurants. Rockets founder Ronn Teitlebaum claimed he used The Apple Pan as a model for his successful 1940s-themed franchise, copying the menu, presentation, counter seating and grilling area for the Johnny Rockets chain based on this original restaurant: a small two-sided menu with few items, hamburgers served wrapped in paper and on cardboard plates, hamburgers grilled-to-order in full view of the counter-seated customers.

I ordered the following:

A cream soda

A Steakburger (double cheese)

Side of fries (when the fries came out the counter guy ketchup’d the plate for me)

My friend and I also split a piece of apple pie a la mode (although I was later chastised by an L.A. friend for not ordering the banana cream pie.) Here is the “after” pic of the apple pie a la mode…

Upon leaving The Apple Pan, my chef friend who I was visiting said, “I have one more place to take you right now as this really didn’t fill us up that much.”

The next stop we made was Carney’s at 8351 West Sunset Boulevard for chili dogs, beer and chicken tacos (well it was chicken taco Tuesday there!)

Here is the history of Carney’s from their website

Carney’s is a family owned business that prides itself on serving some of the best hamburgers and hot dogs in LA, and probably the world. We use the freshest ingredients on the market and have never skimped on quality.

~Brief History~

Carney’s was founded in 1975 by John Wolfe, Sr. and his wife Pat Wolfe. Together they worked countless hours building the restaurant into a Sunset Strip destination. In a time when hamburger establishments were popping up all over the place, John chose to build a restaurant out of an old Pacific Railroad passenger train. Being a former radio executive, he understood the importance of lasting impressions and being different. Not only was John good at publicity but he could also cook amazing burgers and hot dogs. John knew that by building a portable restaurant that if anything were to happened to their Sunset Strip lease, they could simply pick up and move their business elsewhere.

Needless to say, the business is still around today and it has become quite the LA Landmark. In 1981 Carney’s decided to add another location on Ventura Blvd in Studio City.

We decided on two chili dogs and two beers and sat at one of their outside tables on a blue sky L.A. day to enjoy them. Must say the chili dogs were damn good, with a nice snap and great flavored chili.

Here are a few more interior and exterior pictures of Carney’s…

Next week, my sweet tooth will come out as I extoll the virtues of a friend’s bakery on Sunset Blvd called Buttercake Bakery. Here’s a sneak peak at a couple of pictures from that day…

For of those of you that are curious, I did get in a lot of canyon hiking on the trip to burn off the calories. I completed three different Runyon Canyon Hikes at a little more than five miles each and one Topanga Canyon hike which clocked in around 10 miles. May just do a posting of the hikes as they were so scenic, peaceful and relaxing. If you have never hiked the Canyons around Los Angeles, here are a couple of pictures I took this trip:

The top of Runyon Canyon looking down…