CLIMBING ABOARD THE PACIFIC DINING CAR
The exterior sign overlooking LA. Photo by Barry Stein
By Bob Vickrey
Our monthly lunch club members decided that we had stepped back in time as we entered the time-honored Pacific Dining Car at the western edge of downtown Los Angeles.
You won’t find nouvelle cuisine or Asian-fusion on the menu at this 96 year-old LA steakhouse. This place is all about the meat. Vegetarians would likely starve at this old-fashioned eatery. Tofu and kale lovers need not apply.
This 24-hour landmark offers plenty of old-fashioned glory, featuring white linen table cloths, real silverware, and fine china. The waiters there even wear formal dinner jackets. Several dining rooms feature various themes, including the original Victorian-style dining car with crushed green velvet chairs, antique lamps, and overhead brass luggage racks—just in case you plan to stay for awhile. (And after eating lunch there, we wished we had brought our luggage so we could have stayed for dinner.)
Fred and Grace “Lovey” Cook opened Pacific Dining Car in 1921, and the restaurant is still owned today by a third generation of family members.
Our waiter Jaime began his career there in 1986 and is one of many servers there that are longtime employees. He gladly entertained our many questions about the history of Pacific Dining Car and his 30 years with the restaurant. You won’t find any wanna-be actors working there awaiting their big break in show business. These are professional waiters who seem to love their jobs and who take pride in their work.
Jaime rattled off the names of several A-list movie stars that frequent the place and reminded us that City Hall is not far away, and said there is a steady stream of top city officials who eat there often—including an occasional visit from Mayor Eric Garcetti.
Given the layout of the small dining areas with wood and glass partitions separating the rooms, PDC becomes a natural setting for business conferences. And if you’re on a company expense account, why wouldn’t you want to meet at this classy joint?
The Victorian interior of PDC-Photo by Barry Stein
Their menu selection of expensive steaks looked downright tantalizing. We had already been told that steaks at PDC were the very best served in the city—and for the price—they certainly should be. A rib-eye will set you back $75.95 and a “Cowboy Steak” is all yours for $84.95. That may have been the very moment when I asked to see the breakfast menu.
They do offer a wide range of entrees other than steak, including several enticing-looking salads. Barry opted for the grilled shrimp Cobb salad, while Arnie chose the chicken Panini with vegetables. Josh took on the huge veal chop that was larger than his plate and knew the moment it was placed in front of him that he was in for an extended wrestling match. I went with the Eggs Ranchero, which turned out to be the best breakfast dish I’ve had in recent memory.
You know the Pacific Dining Car is special when you first step inside the front door. It offers a formal atmosphere, yet is comfortable and friendly, without any air of pretension.
As we were wrapping up our lunch and about to ask for the check, I glanced over at Josh who was still battling his giant veal chop which appeared to be fighting back. Just as I envisioned the match going into overtime, he suddenly threw out his white cloth napkin in surrender and called for a doggie bag.
We had recently come to the conclusion that just because a restaurant is famous and historic does not guarantee that it serves good food. But Pacific Dining Car proves that a place can have a long rich history and still offer excellence in the quality of its food and service. We agreed that our trip there ranks with the best restaurant experiences we’ve had since we began making the rounds early last year.
Now, the question becomes: What do we do for an encore next month? I have a strong suspicion that we’ll be finishing our lunch at some trendy Westside spot when our waiter will suddenly disappear during the meal. When we ask about his whereabouts, we’ll be told by another waiter that our server Chance has just been called out for an audition for a major television series. “Hi, my name is Xander, and I’ll be taking over for Chance. Have you guys ordered yet?”
Bob Vickrey is a writer whose columns appear in several Southwestern newspapers including the Houston Chronicle. He is a member of the Board of Contributors for the Waco Tribune-Herald and a regular contributor to the Boryana Book website. He lives in Pacific Palisades, California. Photo by Barry Stein
Our waiter Jaime–Photo by Barry Stein
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Honey on the road to San Francisco with some of the Spanish explorers
NOTES FROM ABOVE GROUND
By Honey van Blossom
(Honey is a Belgian Marxist former strip-tease artiste)
"Cities of the Golden Gate," Raymond Dabb Yelland, 1893. Most illustrations can be enlarged by clicking on them.
Prologue to the story of the Spanish exploration and settlement of California
Seasonal migrations of animals now extinct in California probably created the roads the native people used before the Spanish land exploration of California. “The heyday of giant mammals in North America was the middle and late Pleistocene, an epoch that started 2.6 million years ago and ended 11,700 years ago, around the time the Earth was thawing out from the Ice Age. The gigantic beasts, which migrated from Asia across a now-vanished land bridge called Beringia, are known as Rancholabrean megafauna, after the famous La Brea tar pits in downtown Los Angeles — the graveyard of thousands of saber-toothed tigers, giant bison and other extinct animals.”[1]
The seasonal migrations of the large mammals may have created the substantial roads used by the indigenous people after their arrival.[2]
Paul S. Martin and Richard G. Klein argue that Paleoindian over-hunting led to the extinction of the megafauna.[3] Others argue that climate change was responsible for mammoth and mastodon extinctions. As the last major glaciation ended around 12,000 years ago, climate warmed too quickly for the megafauna to adapt.
