Another sign that The Devil has infiltrated Culver City

Bad News: After 11 years in Culver City, Cooks Double Dutch is closing due to skyrocketing rent.

Good News: The business is packing up and moving across town to my hood--Silver Lake!

Bad News: Only the catering side of the business will be operating. The restaurant is no more.

Dammnit!!!! I really love Double Dutch and am very sad to see it get pushed out of Culver City. When I whined to the staff about not bringing the restaurant with the rest of the biz to the east side with them, they said I could just place an order with catering for me and ten of my friends. While that seems slightly crazy, I wouldn't be surprised if I break down someday and place a call for ten orders of their perfect sweet potato fries. But the liklihood of me sharing them with ten friends is slim, I could wipe those puppies off on the walk home.

For our last ever meal from the restaurant, I opted to try the Vegan Mac 'N' Cheeze. I'm not really a fan of fake cheese but I figured that since Double Dutch does other vegan classics so well (like their tofu burger and tempeh club which are both the best on the west side by far) their knock off of macaroni and cheese would be great too. Well, it wasn't the tastiest thing in the world. The cheese flavor was subtle. It really tasted more like noodles with oil than anything else and the few "cheese" chunks were crumbly and generally not too appetizing. With that said, I love the taste of just noodles and oil, I just don't love paying ten dollars for it (so I guess it's a good thing production buys my lunch!).

Even though my last meal at Double Dutch wasn't a total success, I will still miss the place dearly. So adieu, my love, and good luck East of Vermont!


Top photo taken by GreengirlLA on Flickr

Tennis, Tofu, Two Scoops, and Tecate

I meant to spend my Saturday doing the bajillion errands I neglected to do during the week, such as fixing my tire which has been leaking air for over a month now. But of course that didn't even come close to happening. Instead I started the day with a match of doubles tennis. I chose The Food Monster as my teammate and that turned out to be an excellent decision because not only did I discover he is insanely good at tennis, but he also had a very snazzy outfit that made him look a bit like Andre Agassi but less bald. We totally dominated, no thanks to me.

After that intense game we were all starving so we headed to the new Silver Lake location of Home which turned out to be just as whimsical and delicious as the original in Los Feliz. We ordered the Avocado Mash which is just avocados mashed onto a piece of thin sourdough. T'was slightly lame for three dollars. I got the tofu scramble which is by far the best of its kind in all of L.A., with the yellow curry being the ingredient that pushes it over the edge into crazy-good territory. The most drool-inducing food at the table however was The Food Monster's Frozen Iced Peach which is a blend of peaches, ice, mango, and coconut milk. At five bucks it's a tad more expensive than your average smoothie but its huge and could practically be your whole meal. I plan on making my own at home as soon as I get to the store.

After brunch we all seemed to have the same thought on our dessert-crazy brains: Scoops, of course. I think we all felt embarrassed about suggesting it as we had just stuffed ourselves like August Gloop proteges, but one of us sort of whispered it and that was all it took--we were off to Hel-Mel for the best gelato in the land. Scoops is always amazing, but they were in rare form--I tasted practically all the vegan flavors of the day: Vanilla Jack Daniels and Avocado Alcohol were good but I ended up getting Chocolate Sunflower Seed and Almond Mocha. Annnnnd that is the beauty of Scoops--when you order a One Scoop Cup you actually get two scoops! Oh Scoops, way to do your party in the great American obesity epidemic.

We returned to the The Food Monster's casa where literally all of us proceeded to take three-hour food coma naps before our raucous poker game and subsequent Tecate-filled Wet Hot American Summer theme party that night (I dressed up as The Cure Girl). It wasn't the most productive day, unless you count excessive eating and drinking as productive. Actually that sounds pretty good to me!


Home
2500 Riverside Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90039
323.665.0211

Scoops
712 N. Heliotrope Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90029
323.906.2649