Folks, this past Friday I went on a MISSION. The mission - bring back one of the elusive Angus Third Pounders from McDonald’s. These wily burgers are for now restricted to the environs of Southern California (to be exact: LA, Orange, Kern, Riverside, San Bernadino, San Diego and Ventura counties). I felt so privileged knowing I was going to be one of the first to try 1/3 pound of cow cooked McDonald’s style. Yeah.

(For those regular readers who are wondering if I’ve completely fallen off the apple cart, I’ve designated Friday’s as Anything Goes Day, which is the reason you’ll still see a lot of junk food reviewed here.)

So to be truthful - who cares, right? McDonald’s restaurants are everywhere here in the Southland and for the most part I try to avoid them whenever I can. Two reasons for that: McDonald’s hamburger meat tends to give me the runs for some reason (I’m certainly not “lovin’ it” when that happens), and there just happens to be an In-N-Out a few steps away from the McD’s I pass by frequently. Given the choice, it ain’t hard to go with a Double-Double Animal Style.

However, I wanted to report on it for the benefit of other Cheap Eaters out there who don’t live in SoCal. And more importantly, there is actually a current coupon for $1 off any Angus Third Pounders Sandwich or the Extra Value Meal , good until April 15.

Now, since the 1/3 pounders cost $3.99 normally, $1 off is a pretty good deal. I mean, you might pay that much for comparable sandwiches at other fast food places. And I wanted to try and see if the “Angus” hamburger was any different. And before you ask, I absolutely DESPISE Carl’s Jr.’s Six Dollar Hamburgers. I’ve tried them several times at many different locations and they are horrible. I actually have grown to despise Carl’s Jr. in general, but that’s another rant (and most likely an upcoming Hall of Shame entry).

I started off the day pretty excited - I’d been planning this “mission” since about 4 weeks ago but it was hard to get up the courage to actually walk through the golden arches.

Actually, my biggest fear was that they wouldn’t honor the coupon, which is a web-only printable thing. I’ve had the worst of luck with these coupons… there seems to be some sort of disconnect with the people who design them and the people who are training the serfs that are taking your order. (Side Note: When I say serfs, I’m not poking fun at the people working at fast food joints. I feel sorry for the folks who work in the trenches… remember that the next time they screw up your order, how draining it is to work at one of these places.)

It was high noon when I pulled up to McD’s, so I didn’t want to risk a traffic jam by trying the coupon in the drive-through. I walked up to the counter and said, “I have a coupon for a McAngus burger.” The girl looked at me kind of funny and said, “Oh you mean you want an Angus Third Pounder.” I’m still trying to figure out why they didn’t name it the “McAngus” burger, it’s just smoother than saying “Angus Third Pounder”. But anyhow, she took the coupon with surprisingly little fuss. The manager was called over to ask how the coupon was put into the computer, but after that I was set: a McDonald’s Mushroom and Swiss Angus Third Pounder was mine for $2.99.

Continue reading “Angus Third Pounder Coupon” …

One of my new year’s resolutions for the Cheap Eats site (besides some minor site redesigning and writing up a Manifesto) is to try and focus more on local restaurants and eateries. Being in Southern California has advantages in that there are billions of local joints and places with a myriad of cuisines to sample… all of them possible cheap eatery candidates.

I really haven’t written about them enough, though many times the problem is that I don’t have a camera handy and I’m too busy scarfing to think about writing up an entry. Plus, I don’t have the unlimited budget that Jonathan Gold has to try all these places…

Anyhow, maybe this is a good way to kick it off. Here is a list of the “Top 9 Cheap Eats” restaurants in Southern California by 9 On The Town which is a human interest segment broadcast on KCAL Channel 9 News. I found this while idly surfing around for cheap food sites.

Tropicalia - 1966 Hillhurst Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90027

Cha For Tea - 5720 E 7th Street Long Beach, CA 90803

Zankou Chicken - 1415 E. Colorado Blvd., #D, Glendale, CA 91205

Dona Rosa (Mexican) - 577 S Arroyo Parkway (@ California) Pasadena, CA 91105

Fassica Ethiopian Restaurant - 10401 Washington Boulevard (@ Motor Avenue) Culver City, CA 90232

Spring Street Smokehouse (BBQ) - 640 North Spring Street (just north of Sunset Boulevard) Los Angeles, CA 90012

El Nido Restaurant (Nicaraguan) - 2112 S LA Brea Avenue (@ 21st) Los Angeles, CA 90016

Ginja Lions (Caribbean/Asian) - 11320 Ventura Bouelvard (1 block east of Tujunga) Studio City, CA 91604

Indo Kitchen (Indonesian) - 5 N. Fourth Street (@ Main Street)
Alhambra, CA 91801

I have only actually been to two of these restaurants: Dona Rosa and the Pasadena branch of Zankou Chicken. Dona Rosa was pretty decent Mexican food, but you may remember my earlier disenchantment with Zankou Chicken. I’ve heard of Spring Street Smokehouse, Cha For Tea and Fassica… anyone try any of these places before? Leave a comment if so…

Interestingly, I was driving around Main Street in Alhambra a couple weeks ago and spotted a restaurant I had somehow missed before called Indo Kitchen but that was before I had seen this list. That’s piqued my curiosity and since that’s 10 minutes away from me I think I’ll be reviewing them soon!

Speaking of reviewing… I’ve been thinking of asking (begging) some “guest bloggers” if they’d like to write about a few Cheap Eats restaurants in their neck of the woods. This is because there’s no way I can do reviews of all of these out-of-state restaurants. If you’re interested, I’ll try get some more details up soon. But go ahead and contact me about what city you want to cover.

Why hello there… we haven’t visited the infamous Cheap Eats Hall of Shame lately, thought I’ve been meaning to put a few entries in. A friend sent me a bunch of food links the other day in L.A. (including the local Tofu Festival in J-town). I took one look at the link for the Port of Los Angeles Lobster Festival and knew I had a good candidate for the Hall of Shame.

First off, I’ll have you know that when I can afford it (read: when it is provided for free through hook or crook or maybe scavenging off an unsuspecting yuppie’s plate) I really do like lobster. I’m very partial to it, especially when it is stir fried with massive quantities of garlic, onions, scallions at any of the multitudes of Chinese restaurants around me. And actually, when a restaurant is having a promotion or sale, it can be phenomenally cheap. Same with crab, shrimp, fish, squid or any number of other ocean creepy crawlies. Yum.

But I have to give “un-props” to whoever came up with this Lobster Festival. First, “Port of Los Angeles”? What a joke. They must mean “Ecologically Unfriendly Ocean Dump of Los Angeles”. Actually, I know they mean San Pedro, but still. I live here, so I’ve seen the beach closures and know about the high PCB and heavy metals levels in locally caught fish. This is just some spinster trying to put a shiny happy face on L.A. in order to lift a couple more dollars off the Beverly Hillites.

Second, you will note that not only do the lobsters NOT come from the Port of Los Angeles, but they go to great pains to advertise that “The Port of Los Angeles Lobster Festival proudly serves only lobsters from the Great State of Maine.” In other words, these are ALL Maine Lobsters. This is just weird… I mean I totally understand the tradition of lobster festivals from the New England area because that’s where the durned lobsters come from right? So why does L.A. feel the need to make their OWN lobster festival that features lobster caught on the other side of the continent? They actually have to ship that 12 tons of Maine lobster here.

Continue reading “L.A. Lobster Festival” …

As promised earlier, I’m finally getting around to reviewing local area eateries near where I live. As you can imagine, besides reviewing fast food places and “quick sit down” places there aren’t too many chances to review actually restaurants since I try not to eat out too often. That is Cheap Eats Rule #1: avoid eating out when you can!

But anyhow, the other day I happened to be in Pasadena (for the Pasadena City College flea market) and decided to try out an old favorite of mine: Zankou Chicken. You might have heard of this Southern California fave without even knowing it, since Beck sings about it in his song “Debra” (off of the Midnight Vultures CD. Hey, if it’s good enough for Beck…

The first Zankou Chicken was actually opened in Beirut, Lebanon (1962). The owners, the Iskenerian family, then moved to L.A. and opened up the first American Zankou in Hollywood. In the early 90’s, they branched out into heavily Middle-Eastern influenced Glendale, CA and eventually spread to Pasadena, Anaheim, West L.A. and Van Nuys and will be opening in Burbank soon.

There are a lot of strong opinions about Zankou Chicken on either side of the “like-it, hate-it” camps. Some people say it’s the best roast chicken they’ve had while others say they have had better elsewhere, and for cheaper. They have a pretty famous strong garlic paste sauce that has always been a hit. Besides the classic rotisserie chicken you can also get plates which include the garbanzo bean and tahini based hommus (or hummus), pita bread, chopped tomato and these crazy purple-pink marinated turnip pieces.

Some of the more unconventional items on the menu are Shawerma (Marinated beef from a spit), Tarna (Marinated spiced chicken from a spit), Falafels (Fried mixture of Garbanzo, Fava beans, and split peas), and Mutabbal (Eggplant mixed with garlic and sesame)

I’ve always been somewhat split down the middle about the restaurant. I’ve certainly had better tasting Falafel wraps and Shawerma plates elsewhere, but the roast chicken was always really good. Crispy skin and not dry, even for the 1/4 white meat plate. I think the kicker that kept me coming back was the price, which was fairly cheap. The good quality Roasted Chicken Wrap with garlic paste for about $2 was excellent.

But this past time I went, I saw that nearly all the prices have been raised. A chicken wrap is now $3.29 and a 1/4 dark meat chicken plate is now $4.98. This is no longer Cheap Eats. They got a new glitzy looking menu lightboard, but I would have rather had the old boring menu if it meant cheaper prices. In some part, the price hike was overdue. I just can’t get used to inflation.

But I expected that the quality of the food would at least remain the same. Instead, the order of roasted chicken had crisp skin, but it was so salty that I almost had to discard it. And the crispy skin is almost the main reason I used to get it! The meat was just OK, but I had gotten the dark plate. I heard some people who got the white meat chicken plate complaining about it being dry. The chicken wraps were about the same, but it’s no longer very economical to get two of them which is what I used to often do. My wallet didn’t have the heart to divulge any more money to try and see how the Falafel fared.

Continue reading “Zankou Chicken” …