Gluttony, Part II: The Gourmand Strikes Back

Yesterday I met Shera on Melrose for brunch. We were both an hour late because of the damned DST change. Losing an hour of sleep truly vexes me. This was my second attempt to enjoy a meal at Crepe To Go, and will most likely be my last. I much prefer Acadie in Santa Monica...too bad it's far away on the west side. CTG's gimmick of naming their crepes after movie stars (I had the curry-and-sausage Bruce Lee) is cute but doesn't make up for dry crepes and smoothies over-packed with ice. I can't understand why Shera commutes all the way down from the Valley into Hollywood every weekend for the Marilyn Monroe. She always tells the Japanese proprietor to make her crepe extra crispy with just a little Nutella, and he never listens. She's friends with him anyway. When we left, I wanted a boba to wash the taste of the bad smoothie away and he told us there was a boba joint down the street next to the "bonn-dodge store". Uh, okay. We walked west looking for one of the several stores on Melrose that could easily pass as a bondage store, thinking that's what he meant. Then Shera spotted a VON DUTCH store on the north side of the street, with a Crazy Boba next door. Ain't Engrish grand?

Later, Jon came downtown and we picked up some imagawayaki from Mitsuru Cafe on our way to Daikokuya for the best ramen in L.A. Unfortunately, they're now temporarily closed on Sundays so we doubled back to Weller Court for Yakitori Kosiji, one of my new favorites in the 'hood. It's not as energetic as Kokekkoko and the set menu doesn't include hearts, gizzards and liver, but it's got more variety (with Kobe beef and pork-wrapped asparagus instead of the chicken entrails), it's delicious, and the atmosphere is relaxed and more refined. I finished my weekend with a bar of OCUMARE, another variety of Chocovic's "Unique Origin" line. This one is pure unmixed Venezuelan chocolate, with strong hints of tobacco, cedar and dried plum. I'm not talking about the taste of second-hand smoke; I mean that whiff of fresh tobacco you get when you open a new pack of cigarettes. Mix that "perfumed aroma" with "tones of exotic wood, nuts and dried fruit as well as spicy nuances," and you've got yourself some 71% cacao Ocumare. My quest for good chocolate is expanding, and I feel that it may soon lead me to Teuscher and Debauve & Gallais. $32 may seem a bit steep for an 8 oz. box of champagne truffles, (or in the case of the latter, $115 for a 1.32 lb box of "Pistoles Saveur" -- 99% cacao!), but when one is a glutton on an investigative mission to pursue the highest form of Epicurean pleasure, what's a few dollar bills? Okay, time for lunch!