Two Country-Style Choices in Larchmont Village

It may be a TV-soaked kid’s view of the Wild West but when I see cars diagonally parked, I automatically see Laramie and Cheyenne. Larchmont Village (Larchmont between 1st Street and Beverly Boulevard) brings up that cowboy-backlot feel. And two take-out shop/restaurant/catering places on the strip have a decidedly old-time country approach to food.

Day Dreams, which opened a couple of weeks ago, bills itself as a “Country Food store--deli & restaurant.” Open for breakfast and lunch (with $5.50 the highest price on the eat-in menu, for a turkey breast platter), there are usually a dozen main course selections and a counter full of extraordinary sweets to take out.

But Day Dreams’ ace-in-the-hole is its desserts. Imagine if Auntie Em were able to bake. There’s a frothy lemon custard cake pie and a delicate poppyseed cake. The I-don’t-think-we’re in-Kansas-anymore treats also include a glacier-sized marble chocolate cheesecake and glorious peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies. Eighty-five cents gets you a big slabby cookie; it’s $1.85 for a grand slice of cake.

While the main dishes are not as brassy, they still have an individual’s touch. The potato salad is spanking fresh with orange and lemon zest and the simple tuna salad comes tossed with fresh dill. A lush curried chicken salad with rafts of unsweetened coconut is a bargain (compared with prices at many upscale take-out shops) at $6.50 per pound.

Cajun roast chicken was unusual--herbaceous and extremely moist. The smoked trout was wonderful. Pass on the stodgy, bland potato soup. Fresh roasted turkey, big fat muffins and homemade soup are prepared every day. An ordinary-looking spring harvest pasta (read: pasta primavera) was a swell surprise with its chili oil and fava beans. There are 11 “Festive Food Boards”--from roast beef to cheese platter to crudites--which need to be ordered 24 hours in advance. They range in price, per person, from $6.50 to $12.95. We’re talking very simple fare here, but we’re talking steadfast.

Daryl Trainor’s Village Catering Co., a few doors away, has been a fixture on Larchmont for five years. The Times has rated its brownies some of the best in town. While brownies weren’t available the times I was in, Village Catering’s level of quality is, indeed, very high. The country feeling here comes from the hand-made quality of the food. While they do have a few tables, and sandwiches, salads and baked goods are available for lunch, much of their take-out food is substantial dinner-time fare.

There’s a blackboard of daily specials, listed, I might add, without price. (“98% of our customers are repeats,” Daryl Trainor explained. “They just know.”) Surely, they just know that the fried chicken is perfect--peppery, lightly battered and moist--breasts $2.50, legs $1.50, thighs $1.75. And, undoubtedly they just know that the mega-squares of chile relleno’s, enchiladas (stacked with tortillas, not rolled) and collard greens au gratin will knock your socks right off.

Nearly everything--except for an overly mayonnaised corn salad with red pepper and hearts of palm and a gleaming game hen that was dry inside and cloaked with awful strawberry jam--tastes alive. Homemade veal sausage sneaks up on your mouth slowly and then bursts across the tongue; a savory celery root salad is cut thin as angel hair. A rice, onion and parsley salad is vinegared just right, and the snappy cabbage slaw is streaked with celery seeds. The wonderful crisp buttery crust on the chicken pot pie is decorated with swell-looking pastry leaves; the filling, baby food-mild.

Desserts include a refined cinnamon apple pie, a juicy fruit salad, an intensely sweet, sticky lemon orange crunch bar and lots of cookies which--if you don’t compare them with Day Dream’s extraordinary ones--are pretty good.

When you don’t want to be home on the range, Larchmont is a good place to remember.

Day Dreams, 125 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 463-2814. Open Tuesday-Sunday, 8 a.m.-6 p.m., brunch served Saturdays and Sundays. Cash and personal checks accepted.

Village Catering Co., 139 1/2 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 465-6175. Open Mondays through Fridays 9 a.m.-7 p.m., Saturdays 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Cash and personal checks accepted .