Round Two - Day Nine - Train Adventure

Not much cooking today. In general for this month I am trying to avoid eating in restaurants. The idea being that I don't want to give myself the opportunity to say, "I don't feel like cooking today, let's go out for Chinese." But as I have mentioned before, I also don't want to turn myself into someone who is no fun, and I don't want to miss cultural experiences that are timely in nature. Both of those situations presented themselves today.

Baby J finally got his sleeping back in order and slept all night until 7am. A huge relief! All of this is easier to handle on more than five hours of sleep. For breakfast we had scrambled eggs, hashbrowns and coffee. Then I headed out to a Bachelorette brunch at Pop Champagne Bar for the beautiful Megan who is getting married on New Years Eve. I had already had breakfast, but that was several hours earlier, and I think it falls into the category of being no fun to go to a party at a restaurant and say, "Oh I make all my food from scratch, I can't order anything." How obnoxious! So I ordered the Lemon Soufflé pancakes, and they were delicious.

After the brunch I had planned a train adventure with DR, Baby J, and my brother Mike. After nine years of planning and five years of construction the six mile light rail extension of the Metro Gold Line opened yesterday. This train stops a short walk from my house, so we have been eagerly anticipating the extension for a long time. It goes into East LA, which is not an area I've had much reason to visit in the 13 years I've lived here, but I think the existence of this train will change that. So yesterday it was free to ride, and there were little festivals at many of the stops. Also there was an article in the Food Section of the LA Times about good restaurants along the route. It was kind of a madhouse, and I couldn't look out the windows on the ride as much as I wanted to. But I was excited to see so many people riding the train, and it was a perfectly beautiful Los Angeles autumn day. We rode the train to the end of the line then walked to a fish taco joint called Tacos Baja. It was nearly a mile away, which I wouldn't say was off the train stop. I don't mind a walk at all. As I said it was a beautiful day, but in the circumstances it was further than I wanted since we wanted to try a bunch of places on the route, and we had gotten kind of a late start. But that being said, it was worth the effort, the fish was crispy, the sauce creamy and the cabbage and tomatoes fresh and tasty. If you are out that way and have the time, I would recommend checking it out.

After the tacos we walked back to the train, and decided to walk along the route for a bit as the next two stops were very close, and we could get a better feel for the neighborhood that way. The next stop was the East Los Angeles Civic Center, which sits on beautifully landscaped park with a lagoon and ducks and farmer's market. Unfortunately we got there as the festivities were winding down and all the vendors were packing up. So after wandering around for a bit we moved along to the Maravilla stop. Here the LA Times recommended a little strip mall restaurant right next to the train, La Chiva Loca.

This place is known for it's tortas ahogadas, which is a sandwich soaked in tomato sauce. I know that the newspaper industry is suffering, but somebody must still be reading it because they had run out of sandwiches by the time we got there. They said it had been a really busy day. The only thing they had left were taquito's, which were little cheese filled tortillas, deep fried, covered in shredded beef, cabbage, onions and tomato sauce.

Based on the tastiness of this little snack I am looking forward to going back to try the torta.
By this time it was getting late and cold, and with a baby there is only so much you can do in a single outing before it becomes abusive, so we got back on the train and headed home. The three stops we visited were said to be the least exciting in terms of food, so we are planning a second train adventure for perhaps next week. Since it won't be the opening, we are hoping it will be a little less hectic as well.