South-Closed

South
3001 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica
310-828-9988

Personally, I hate the westside of Los Angeles-which includes areas/cities like West LA, Santa Monica, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, El Segundo, Westchester, Marina Del Ray, because the people there are such pretentious assholes. They are all douchebags with Ed Hardy clothes. Ok, the women may look nice, but they are filled with silicon and botox. Who the hell wants to be around that?

Anyways, I heard about South- really it's a sports bar, that served up some good soul food. I was a bit hesitant to try soul food in Santa Monica, but figured why not? If worse came to worse, I can laugh at all the douchebag, pretentious, asshole people of the westside!!

I went to South, on a Sunday. So, it was packed with football fans. They had every game on and fans of every team were all over the bar. Honestly, there weren't that many douchebags at South. Maybe, they only show up at night.

While I was looking around for a seat, and I saw a gameday menu. I had looked at their online menu and knew what I wanted; fried chicken. But, I didn't see fried chicken on the gameday menu. So I asked the bouncer, if they served their full menu, he said yes.

A few minutes later, I found a seat, and when the server took my order, I wanted to make sure they served the full menu. She said "It depends on what you want." Huh? I said fried chicken, she said they could do that. Whatever, as long as I got the fried chicken, mac and cheese, and hush puppies, $16, it was fine.

A few minutes later, I got four small pieces of fried chicken, a huge helping of hush puppies and mac and cheese. I tried the white meat first. This was a small portion of the breast meat and it had a strong paprika taste, a pretty good crunchy, and it was pretty moist. Not the greatest fried chicken ever, but solid. The interesting part was none of the other pieces had the strong paprika taste. All other pieces; wing, leg, and thigh, were your regular fried chicken seasoning; salt, pepper, onion and garlic powder. The wing and leg were ok, nothing special. But, the thigh was so moist and juicy. The $16 price tag is a bit high for four small pieces and I don't care that I got two sides, that were good sized portions.

The hush puppies were among the best I've ever had. Seasoned perfectly, cooked perfectly-a light golden brown, and just wonderful.

The mac and cheese was fairly bland and they could have used more cheese, but the macaroni was well cooked.

Service. Ok, I know it was crowded on Sundays during football season, but there was only one server for the entire back section!! Not good staffing by the manager. The server was nice, but the first time around taking orders, she missed me completely. It took her awhile to come back, since she had the entire back section. Then she finally took my order, but she never gave me my drink order. I had to ask the busboy for my ice tea. The tables didn't have any silverware and the busboy/runner, who brought me my food, didn't bring any silverware. Bad training by management. My food did arrive quickly, in fact a very quickly considering the number of people at South.

I'm cutting the server some slack, because she was working hard but she is just overwhelmed!! They need to add, at least, 2 more servers in that back area.

I may come back for the food, because I saw a waffle fried chicken sliders that looked very good.

Joe's Pizza-Santa Monica

Joe's Pizza-Santa Monica
111 Broadway
Santa Monica
310-395-9222

As readers of The New Diner know, I love Village Pizzeria for NY style pizza. Nothing in LA comes close. But a fellow foodie told me about Joe's Pizza in Santa Monica so I decided to give it a try.

I got the plain slice, $2.75, and a pepperoni slice, $3.25. The plain slice was very crispy, almost too well done, and didn't have a lot of gooey cheese. It's ok but doesn't come close to Village Pizzeria. The pepperoni was the same, crust overcooked and not enough cheese. The pepperoni were ok, nothing special.

Service was good. Greeted as I walked in, order taken, and friendly people. Cash only is written on the register but they will take credit cards on order of $18 or more.

I read some people say the prices are a bit high but I found them to be fair. But I didn't think the pizza was anything great. I much prefer Village Pizzeria or Rocco's.

Border Grill-Santa Monica-Closed

Border Grill
1445 4th St
Santa Monica
310-451-1655

Border Grill is an overpriced, upscale Mexican place in Santa Monica.

I looked over their menu and most are over $20 but nothing seemed that good. There wasn't anything on the menu that told me to order this now. So I just got a chicken adobo quesadilla, $14.50. The quesadilla was nothing special, even with a sweet adobo sauce. I'm thinking I can get a better and much cheaper quesadilla at El Torito.

Service was below average. We had to wait long periods of time for refills. The server wasn't around that often and either other servers or busboys helped with refills and any other requests.

I would not go back to Border Grill. High prices, very average food and below average food makes the worst combination.

Yankee Doodle's-Closed

Yankee Doodle's
1410 3rd St Prom
Santa Monica
310-394-4632

One of the better sports bars in the area is Yankee Doodle's. It's a huge place with tons of TV and pool tables.

We went there for some appetizers and decided on the appetizer platter for $18.95. The platter included ribs, cheese sticks, buffalo wings, nachos, and quesadillas. I had a bit of everything so here are my comments.

Ribs: This is typical suburban BBQ ribs. Baby backs ribs, cooked in an oven and just drowned with BBQ sauce. There is no smoked flavor and nothing outstanding about them. They were meaty and tender but then again babybacks should be. We got five bones, about half a rack, which is a pretty good deal.

Cheese sticks, just the regular, everyday cheese sticks. Nothing outstanding or bad about them.

Buffalo wings: Not as spicy as I like them. But a nice tangy flavor and good sized wings.

Quesadillas were filled with just cheese. Nothing outstanding about them.

The nachos just had cheese on them and some salsa. Nice crisp chips.

Service was pretty good, though it took a long time for the server to greet us and take our order. What I found interesting was that the server, a young lady, had a Hilary for President sticker on her notepad. Now personally I could care less who you vote for. But I think it's important that people do vote. I was surprised to see a young lady like having any interest in voting.

Yankee Doodle's is bar food. Good stuff, nothing outstanding but a great place to watch a game and enjoy some munchies. I would have no problems going back to Yankee Doodle's.

Reddi Chick

Reddi-Chick
225 26th Street
Santa Monica
310-393-5238

Why do I do this to myself? I always see a sign for BBQ ribs and I have to go in and order some ribs. Why? I know that Phillips has the best ribs around. Why do I even need to try other places? Especially places like Brentwood, where the lily white population thinks good BBQ ribs is Tony Romas.

Reddi-Chick located in the Brentwood Country Mart tries but the ribs aren't good at all. I got the 1/2 side of BBQ pork ribs, $10.12. The ribs were meaty and huge. But they lacked any type of smoke flavor and worse of all, they were greasy, very greasy. They were also chewy and tough.

Reddi-Chick is order at the counter and eat at the tables type of place. Service was good. They were helpful and pleasant.

But there is no reason for me to go back to Reddi-Chick for the ribs. Their chicken though looks very good.

The Counter

The Counter
2901 Ocean Park
Santa Monica
310-399-8383

These reviews should make Chowhound poster, Burger Boy very happy. Well maybe not since he hated The Counter. Burger Boy is a very good poster and has always come up with reviews that are right on the money. But he hates The Counter and I disagree. The Counter is very damn good. Burger Boy is one of the few Chowhound posters, who's posts I will read. He doesn't BS you with a bunch of crap. He gets right to the point. Burger Boy, when you read this email me and we'll go to one of your favorite burger places, J & J's!!!

At The Counter, there is a clipboard and you mark what type of burger (Beef, turkey or veggie. They also have a grilled chicken.) Then you choose the toppings you want.

I choosed the 1/3 lb beef with Tillamook Cheddar, lettuce blend, tomatoes, and honey mustard dressing, which is served on the side, for about $7. The burgers are cooked medium but you can order them any other way. I really liked the burger, nice and juicy and all the toppings were fresh. You can't complain about what type of toppings because you picked them. Burger Boy may think I'm weird, but The Counter's burger rank right up there with the burgers at Pie and Burger" and The Apple Pan.

Service was below average. Our waitress was your typical teenager who is just there for the money. After we were almost done with our burgers did she ask "How are things?" She didn't notice my water was almost gone and never bothered to ask if I needed a refill.

I would go back and either sit at the bar or take out. Or at least have a different waitress.

Father’s Office

Father’s Office
1018 Montana
Santa Monica
310-393-2337

After hearing so many good and bad things about Father's Office, I finally went and tried it. The first myth that needs to be cleared up: There are NO substitutions, Modications, Alerations or Deletions. This is on their menu in bold letters. Which means if you don't like caramelized onions on your burger, tough, they will come with carmelized onions.

A buddy and I split the Office Burger, which is a pricey, $10.75. The Office Burger is made with dry aged beef, caramelized onions, applewoud bacon compote, gruyere, maytage blue cheese and arugula, on a french roll. As you can see not the usual things somebody puts on a burger. There are a lot of flavors competing and the caramelized onions really stand out with it's sweetness. Surprising I liked it. The french roll is toasted and very soft. The burger was cooked medium rare and was nice and juicy. While I do like the burger there are so many different flavors working together so it's almost like you're not eating a burger.

Now another myth is that people are Father's Office are a bunch of jerks. But that wasn't the case for me, I grant you that there may have been times when people are jerks but I haven't seen it. Though I did have a huge problem with their entrance policy. They allowed my friend in and he was the 49th person in Father's Office. Thus until somebody came out, I couldn't get in. I guess the fire marshall has been around and more than 49 people would be a violation and fine. It turned out ok because the very nice girl, who was first in line, allowed me to be first in line, as she was waiting for five other people. During the wait, the girl was a walking ad campaign for Father's Office with her "This is the best burger you'll ever have." I think being on the West Side some people may have chip on their shoulder to that "West Side" attitude. I find many places in Orange County to be worst, with jerk people and the dumb surfer dude and his dumb blonde beach bunny.

There is no table service, you have to go the bar and order. The female bartender was a sassy, smart a$$ed young lady. Which is a plus in the my book. I ordered a real Coke in a glass bottle. The Coke was made and bottled in Mexico, where they are made with sugar and not that crappy corn syrup. She was giving me good natured attitude and being the smart a$$ I am, I returned the favor.

I had a good experience at Father's Office and enjoyed the burger. I don't like the have it my way, welcome to Russia way of ordering but sometimes you can't change things. Parking can be an issue and of course you will be waiting in line awhile to get in.