Pho, a long long way to ruuuun!!!

It was a cool and grey dayspin when your own Metrowalker went to chase the blues away with a little levante de ferro. As you remember oh my brothers and sister, Glendale is the place where the palace of FE resides.

After a bit of sweating, grunting and general contortionating that goes with chasing away the blues, the growling winds of hunger buffeted your harlequin to and fro. How strange that your uncle thinks of grinds when shortly before all he could think of was air.

Quickly I made my way to a new palace of grinds called The Pho Hut. Once the abode of Korean eats, the Hut of Pho is a very comfortable space, lined with bamboo and slowly turning ceiling fans.

Oh mi familia, we all know nothing beats a cold and damp dayspin better than a big bowl of noodles and broth, so your uncle wasted no time.

Now the first thing that my glassies miraed was a flow chart on the ordering and eating of pho, a honto to Odin flow chart my brothers! Like one of those old doodle drawings you used to make in the 8 to 3, remember? When teacher use to make you clicky-clack the old thinking machines!

I wasted no time and ordered myself a big bowl of pho, with three types of gyu meat. The bovi treats ran to flank steak, thin slices of round steak, and leaf tripe, (and you know how Uncle loves him his tripe) with a side of those fresh spring rolls wrapped in that rice paper that feels like dolphin skin to put pau to my growling stomach.

Oh cousins, the size of the bowl was amazing, you could have bathed a baby in the bowl, with a strong dark broth for the little biosphere of meat and toppings to swim in. The steam off the bowl made it look like an August day here in the smoggy metro of lost angels.

I set to slurping, and found the broth to be salty and flavorful, with hints of ginger, onion, and lots of gyu flavor, there was also the msg….sooo much msg.

I swallowed my soup and the room swam, then a shaker bottle on the table asked your uncle if “he was experienced” whatever that meant. Now dear family, your vibrant victual vagabond, is a hearty creature. No added chemical taste enhancer could fell my desire to grind me some Pho.

Yet all of those silky strands of sumptuous starch were sadly squished into a sphere! They were sunk in the bottom of the bowl and refused the deft enticement of your narrator’s chopsticks. Oh horrors my cousins! A fellow dining with his familia bravely fought with his noodles using his chopsticks and spoon. He finally lifted the entire ball of pasta out of his bowl to wrestle it into airborne submission.

It looked like he had the noodles at his mercy, when with a starchy roar, the creature squirmed away from him and dove back into the dark broth. Its abrupt plunge, splashed him, the lady who accompanied him, and her little keiki with a shower of hot soup causing them a little laughter and the man’s renewed campaign to conquer it.

Well Metrowalker is no noodle novice, he is a patron of pasta, and he knows cousins that the only way to subdue spaghetti, to capture cappellini, is to corner it and douse it with hot liquid. So with spoon and stick I fluffed the pho, and with the help of the broth in the bowl untangled it to all of its glory.

Once subdued, the pho was tender, and alternating bites of fresh spring roll with slurps of soup quickly beat down your own harlequin’s hurricane of hunger.

Can I suggest the Pho hut to you dear cousins? Well if the MSG doesn’t send you shrieking into the night, and you are close to Glendale then it isn’t a bad place at all. The folks are nice, the bowls should come with lifeguards, and the challenge of eating those sticky noodles makes the pho kind of like a prize after defeating a dragon.

The Pho Hut
312 N Brand Blvd
Glendale, CA 91203

Lifting my spirits and some heavy metal

Has it been so long since we have written cousins? Oh the shame, well here I am back with you again, Metrowalker! Your very own lord of misrule!

I hear you my dear brothers and sisters, crying out that this big old evil metro is making you feel deep dark and blue? I too! I too! So your own Metrowalker went a jaunting not too long ago to find a little something to raise his flagging spirits, and lighten the old murmuring red pump.

First there was the little matter of levitating the ferro cousins, everything seems so much nicer when your muscles are rewarding you with happy dappy bursts of dopamine from their over use, and your own Uncle loves the weird buzz he gets from the little bits of sangre floating in the corners of his winkies.

Of course afterwards, the horrible hollowness of appetite roared, a terrible noise that drove your own victual vagabond to distraction. So off I capered looking for something grand to fill the aching void.

Now Glendale is wild with grinds, Italian, Asian of all sorts, and of course Armenian places dot the suburbs like stars in the heavens. But nothing would do but the soul grinds of our own Eastside metro cousins, that’s right …DELI!

Fortunately, oh my brother and sisters, there is a temple to the cured, the smoked, and the pickled, not far from where your own Metrowalker chose to sweat out his blues

We are talking Billy’s Deli, the meeting place for those who need a knish, crave corned beef and must have matzo balls from before the Galleria was a twinkle in some developers eye.

Perching in a booth, your loyal narrator perused the menu, its plastic protected pages full of sandwiches, salads and selectable delectable from the cold larder, oh what to have? I caper and bound with the multitude of meals that are menufied.

Then a voice called out from deep inside, a sandwich of pastrami, and tongue on toast would just be the piece of the puzzle, with a side of those sour pickles and pickled tomatoes to cap off the taste. Of course I ordered some fries too, if you are going to toast in perdition, you should do it for something good no?

Mira that tower cousins, a veritable butcher shop between rye, and I your own hungry harlequin attacked it with gusto! The pastrami was tasty, as was the smooth fatty tongue, touched with a bit of spicy mustard and punctuated with a salty sour tomato, oh the bliss….

Billy’s is also the home of according to my departed brother Ian, to quite the chopped liver, and after trying it I have to say he was right. It is rich and sweet with caramelized onions, with just a hint of metallic tang of organ meat.

This viande is just the thing for your toasts or crackers, topped with some sharp pickles or even smooth chopped egg it is a grand experience. Now brother Ian said it was made with beef liver, when every other deli uses chicken, and that makes all the difference. Be it bovo, or yard bird, I must say that a tastier dish I could not have had.

But what is the true measure of a palace of pastrami cousins? Is it the status of their salami, the rank of their roast beef? No say I! As these grinds are sometimes not even made en casa. I propose that it is the soup that gauge the height of the castle's walls oh my brothers and sisters. Billy’s has all the usual suspects, chicken noodle, matzo ball, and of course chicken in a pot, enough to keep a cold ladened dancer happy for some time.

Your own feasting fool tried the matzo ball, and cousins it was not bad at all!. The broth was mild, speckled with chicken and carrots, with a dumpling dense and flavorful. Was it the soup of your own Metrowalker’s granny gran? No, but then again, your very own Uncle never knew his grandmom, and even if he did…well she would think a matzoball was something that you sprayed for.

Can I recommend Billy’s to you oh my cousins, well Bon V, Metrowalker’s meal munching amigo has a thumbs down on the joint, but I liked it friends, a great place to rest after making like the governor and defying common sense and gravity. I will be back to try Billy’s borscht, that beet bastion that has buffered Bolsheviks by the bowlful. Ian said it was the bomb.

Billy's Deli

216 N Orange St,

Glendale, CA 91203-2612