Cheap eats: 5 restaurants with great food in the San Fernando Valley ...Middle East

It’s at moments like these that I appreciate the appeal of the Golden Corral chain. Not only is it an all-you-can-eat operation, but the costs are rock bottom.

I recently dropped by a new Italian restaurant, where I found the pastas all in the mid-$30s, and the entrées in the mid-$40s. Before that, I went to a new hibachi restaurant in a mini-mall, and found an order of tofu & noodles — no meat — was in the high $20s. Toss in some chicken, beef or seafood, and it went up into the high $30s.

A few days later, I stopped by a new Asian fusion hot spot in one of the beach towns. An order of fried rice was $50. A tofu appetizer was $28. And the place was packed, jammed, on a weekday. What these diners are using for money, I don’t know. But I got to tell you — eating out has gotten “really spendy” (as my daughter likes to say).

It’s bad enough that gas was north of $6 a gallon. It feels as if it won’t be long before neighborhood supermarkets offer estimates for your family shopping list.

Life in SoCal has gotten so spendy, I have a relative who moved to Las Vegas because it was more affordable. Recently, gas prices might be a little lower. Ditto the cost of buying a condo. But who wants to live in the middle of the Mojave Desert, with temperatures that reach 120 during the summer and the possibility of a water shortage that will turn toilet flushing into a crisis? I like Vegas — for a weekend. But living there?

That still leaves us with the conundrum of finding an affordable way to live here in SoCal. And believe me, as a guy who’ll go any distance for a good meal, I love when the bill comes … and I can pay it out of folding money. (Assuming the restaurant still accepts cash!)

And since this is a big city, we are blessed with a wide variety of spendy levels. If you’re willing to go (choose your descriptive) casual, funky, downscale, cheapo, dive-ish, home-style, ethnic, old school — whatever. They’re all true. They’re all good. And none of them need to make a huge dent in your wallet … or wherever you carry your coin.

Growing up, if I wanted to eat cheap, I hit a hot dog stand. These days, I hit a taco stand. Good places where the prices are, if not as low as they used to be, still low enough to remind us of the good times when gas was pumped by lads in logo hats (“You can trust your car to the man who wears the star.”) and your groceries were packed in paper bags at no extra cost — and carried to the car.

Am I nostalgic for the old days? Of course I am. But thankfully, they’re not gone — more or less — at some of the following good feeds…

Tun Lahmajo

202 N. Glenoaks Blvd., Burbank; 626-553-8717

Like most cuisines, Armenian is a reflection not just of its homeland in Western Asia, but also of the Armenian diaspora, with communities spread across the world — though mostly in Los Angeles. And within Los Angeles, largely in and around Glendale and Burbank.

Tun Lahmajo has been in its current location on North Glenoaks Boulevard since 2008 where it’s become a fixture of the local community. Show up on a Saturday evening, and the oven just inside the entry is ablaze with slabs of lavash and loshik, and the namesake flat rounds that are the Armenian pizza without pepperoni or anchovies.

For those who show up early, there’s a brief selection of breakfast dishes: Omelets with asparagus, with peas, with tomatoes and with the spiced, air-dried beef called basturma, which is akin to pastrami … but very Armenian. Much like the Armenian take on taboule — which is familiar, but also very different. And very good.

The grains are far smaller than most Middle Eastern versions. There’s more olive oil … and a lot more spice. This isn’t just a carb on the side of the plate. This is a salad worth eating all on its own. Indeed, a meal of taboule, lahmajo with cheese and meat, and a glass of tan is as satisfying a lunch as I can imagine.

Toss in a bowl of the Armenian take on borsch, which isn’t so much a soup as it is a vegetable stew of beets, cabbage, potatoes and so much more. I grew up eating borscht (with a “T”), too often out of the jar, where it was really just beet juice. I had no idea what I was missing in the real thing.

If you want to put Google through its paces: maravilla is a variant on lahmajo, but rectangular and perhaps even crisper. Dolma is, of course, grape leaves stuffed with meat and spices. Harisa is a porridge of ground wheat with meat and butter. Tjuvjik is fried chunks of liver with onions and tomatoes. Spa is a yogurt soup, made with egg, sour cream and herbs. Khash (spelled “xash” on Tun Lahmajo’s menu) is a legendary soup-stew of beef bones and beef parts.

Khashlama is a barbecue of lamb and vegetables. Aveluk is a salad of sorrel leaves, pomegranate seeds and walnuts. And pasuc dolma is a vegetarian version of meat-filled dolma.

“Pasuc” means “fasting. It’s the dish to eat during Lent.

For dessert, there’s Armenian sweet bread called “gata.” And, of course, paklava, which sounds like baklava because it is. This is cooking that’s traveled very well.

Heavy Handed

11838 Ventura Blvd., Studio City; www.heavyhanded.la

Just when it seemed as if the smash burger craze had peaked, along comes Heavy Handed to set it sizzling again.

Heavy Handed’s Studio City branch (the original is on Main Street in Santa Monica, and there’s a third in Silver Lake) is a wonder to behold — a madcap space in what used to be Mister O’s, with a mural on the frontage by DJ Neff that fascinates and captivates, even as you hunger for your burger and fries. There’s also an open patio that looks out on the nonstop traffic on Ventura Boulevard — a virtual light sculpture at night.

Heavy Handed has a great burger, a sandwich for a new decade, to sooth our souls come what may by the end of this year.

If you’re of the burger persuasion, you’re aware that the smash burger has been the cooking style of the moment. Which is a bit odd because I’ve been smashing burgers on my Weber for as long as I can remember. I’d take a package of ground beef, form the beef, spice it, put it on the grill — and give it a schmush. I didn’t think of that as a smash burger. It was just … how you cook burgers. Like spatchcocking a turkey, it created more cooking surface, allowing the meat to grill faster and more evenly.

These days, smash burgers are everywhere that burgers are served — though they haven’t appeared at In-n-Out, which resists trends with impressive tenacity. They’re not at Mickey D’s either, but give them time.

The success of Heavy Handed may well inspire a whole new generation of smash burger houses. Joints with names like Smash Burger and Smash House Burger began the trend. Heavy Handed takes a heavy hand to it, and gives it a whole new flavor.

There are more options, by far, on the beer menu than on the food side of things. The burgers are made of ground short rib — an excellent choice, nice and moist — served as a single, a double or a triple decker, topped with caramelized onions (and lots of it), with a mess of gooey American cheese (which melts so well!), crunchy pickle slices made in-house, and a variant on thousand island dressing called Heavy Sauce, which is Heavy Handed’s equivalent of secret sauce. It makes an already juicy burger that much juicier.

If you want, you can get extra sauce, extra pickles, hot chiles, extra cheese — and have it served in a lettuce wrap, which guarantees soggy lettuce. Stick to the bun; it’s how a burger is supposed to be eaten.

If the need is upon you, get a cup or cone of soft-serve ice cream — chocolate, vanilla or swirl (dipped in chocolate or not). Or with Funfetti, cookies and cream, or chocolate pretzels. Funfetti and craft draft? I guess.

Birrieria Apatzingan

10040 Laurel Canyon Blvd., Pacoima; 818-890-6265, birrieria-apatzingan.restaurants-world.com

Birrieria Apatzingan shares its location with a convenience store — a block house adjacent to a recycling center that can get very busy on weekends. It’s named for a city of 100,000 in Michoacán, famous for its birria — and especially its birria made with goat meat.

Birria is a joyous dish, a special occasion stew cooked for birthdays, Christmas, Easter and any other celebration. As in Mexico, at Birrieria Apatzingan it’s made with either beef or goat — which in the long-cooked birria can be a bit hard to tell one from the other.

Taste the two meats side by side, and you’ll find the goat to be tad gamier, perhaps a touch stringier. But not unpleasantly so.

In the long-cooked birria, the meat is reduced to its basic elements, flavored with an adobo of vinegar, chiles, garlic, and likely cumin and bay leaves. At Birrieria Apatzingan, it’s served with rice and beans. And it has a cult following in the local community.

Inside the birrieria, you’re handed the menu, which offers a modest selection of plates, classic Michoacan dishes, soups, quesadillas, dishes typical of Apatzingan, seafood platters, chilaquiles, tostadas and breakfast dishes — for the restaurant opens at 8 every morning (and closes at 5 every afternoon).

Warm tortillas, freshly made, flour or corn, come with every dish, flying out of the small kitchen visible behind the counter — a happy space packed with bubbling cauldrons of birria and more.

If you show up for breakfast, it’s huevos and more huevos. Huevos with tomatoes, green peppers and onions. With ham. With ham and sausage. With ranchero sauce. With nopales cactus. And in a burrito with ham.

But then, so many other dishes are breakfast friendly — heck, the whole menu is good for the morning meal. I love the chilaquiles, which I’ve referred to as Mexican matzoh brie, served with stewed beef, with chicken, and with remojadas (lentils). I’d be happy to have the chicken mole for breakfast, along with the carne asada, and any of the five quesadillas.

And, bless ’em, they serve the classic weekend tripe soup called menudo every day of the week. Menudo has a cult following, probably because it’s considered to be an excellent hangover cure. In Mexico, young boys can be seen carrying menudo home for their dads after a particularly happy night.

But it was the birria that brought me to Birrieria Apatzingan — in particular the goat. If you want, it can be ordered as a combination with the beef birria, and why not? Though I did have to ask the server which was which? In the deeply reddish-brown of the birria, it’s hard to tell them apart.

It was a wonderful meal, as good as any dish I’ve had at the many downhome Mexican restaurants of the San Fernando Valley. The meat and the spices had basically melded into a single element, in which the taste of each element would surface, briefly, and then descend again into the whole.

As a counterpoint, the mild flavor of the tortillas were perfect. The beans had been cooked to a point where they were more a concept of a dish than a dish in fact. The rice had a perfect texture — and more flavor than rice really should have.

Nat’s Early Bite Coffee Shop

14115 Burbank Blvd., Sherman Oaks; 818-781-3040, www.natsearlybite.com

Nat’s isn’t so much a restaurant, as it is a way of life. Those of us who have been around for a while can’t remember a time when there wasn’t a Nat’s on Burbank Boulevard; like Art’s Deli, it seems as if it was there before the Valley was the Valley.

Though Nat’s is open for both breakfast and lunch, and the lunch section of the menu is actually twice the size of the breakfast section, I mostly think of Nat’s as a breakfast joint. This is, after all, Nat’s “Early Bite,” not Nat’s “Lunch Spot.”

Related Articles

And those early bites are a pleasure, awash with the sort of classic dishes that make the presence of several eggs Benedict variations (on a separate breakfast insert), come as a bit of shock. Though the Benedicts are done Nat’s style; there’s a corned beef hash Benedict, a turkey sausage Benedict, a California Benedict with avocado. The original Canadian bacon Benedict is found on the regular menu. I guess the newbies are separated so as not to mess with the regular menu’s relentless classicism.

The newbies run to a mix-and-match chilaquiles option, where you choose a salsa, and a meat, to go with the fried corn tortillas scrambled with eggs and onions.

I think of chilaquiles as the Mexican equivalent of Jewish matzoh brie — which is also on the menu, made with matzoh instead of tortillas, and available for a little extra with salami and onions. It’s as much a dish from the old country as the chilaquiles.

Mostly, this is where you go for freshly baked cinnamon rolls and muffins; for a pair of eggs cooked any style (over easy for me, thank you); for bacon, sausage, ham, beef patties or turkey bacon; and for a terrific choice of ultra-crispy home fries, hash browns, tater tots or grits — yup, grits, just like Down South. And not expected at all.

Along with the mix-and-match chilaquiles, you can also design your own omelet, out of 36 different ingredients. Chorizo and feta cheese? Why not!

Like I said, there’s plenty of lunch to be found here — dishes as old school as anything served for breakfast. Including a  choice of five different club sandwiches; Nat’s Favorite is tuna salad, sliced eggs, bacon and tomato with mayo on toast — fantastic! Sandwiches dominate: French dip, Philly cheese steak, a bacon and egg sandwich, a trio of Reubens, a tuna melt supreme.

There’s comfort in so many of the dishes — an easy journey back to the way things used to be. I can understand being addicted to Nat’s. It satisfies the stomach, and it satisfies the soul.

Porto’s Bakery & Café

3614 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, 818-846-9100; 315 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, 818-956-5996; www.portosbakery.com

You can tell you’re coming up on the Burbank branch of Porto’s Bakery & Café about three blocks before you get there. That’s because you’ll begin to see bright-eyed acolytes, carrying multiple butternut yellow bags, filled with bakery boxes of wonders and joys from the bakery.

Because of the crowds descending on Porto’s constantly, the good-sized parking lot next to this much-loved institution fills up quickly. And most are happy to park within reasonable walking distance.

The walk doesn’t hurt, of course; the pastries in the boxes are gloriously rich. Though it would take a lot of steps just to cancel out the cream fillings.

Enter Porto’s on a busy day, and you’ll find an affable greeter at the door, who’ll direct you to the line that best fits your needs. The experience is more than a bit like a warm summer’s day at Disneyland. The staff is relentlessly cheerful. The colors are bright. The lines are long, but everyone is good mannered. And there’s much looking ahead at the cases to see the joys that await.

The difference, of course, is that at Disneyland you take home memories. At Porto’s you take home butternut boxes and bags, filled with memories for later.

Waiting on one of the several pastry lines (unless you were wise enough to pre-order, which sends you to a shorter line where happiness awaits with only a short wait — almost instant gratification!), the anticipation is palpable as acolytes moon over the Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake, the Milk ’n Berries Tres Leche, and the world-class carrot cake.

I’m glad to wait patiently for the house iced coffee, which puts Starbucks to shame. I figure they drink a lot of rum down in Old Cuba. But they probably put away a lot of coffee, too. A strong cuppa goes well with the chicken empanadas. But then … everything does.

Merrill Shindler is a Los Angeles-based freelance dining critic. Email [email protected].

Related Articles

Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Cheap eats: 5 restaurants with great food in the San Fernando Valley )

Also on site :

• Former Girlfriend of Elvis Presley Makes Super Rare Red Carpet Appearance
• Pabst Blue Ribbon Debuts 'Unmatched' Collab That Took Months to Perfect
• Trump's meeting with Sharaa, unthinkable just months ago, boosts Syrians' hopes