In Quest of the Dry Martinez

Years ago, when I was a columnist in Oakland, Herb Caen would invite me to lunch occasionally. I suspect he did so because he felt us Oakland guys, being forced to eat in the East Bay, were not being properly fed. Herb believed the only true meals in the world were served in Paris and San Francisco. Everything else was dog food.

I remember once when I was planning a vacation to Los Angeles, Caen strongly advised me to take enough food to last for the duration of the trip because there were no restaurants south of Santa Barbara. He suggested beef jerky, sourdough bread and a 1958 chateauneuf-du-pape.

But that was a long time ago and even Caen, the San Francisco Chronicle’s master of three-dot journalism, is willing to admit that Loose Angles, as he used to call it, has come a long way in terms of restaurants. I agree.

That should have been apparent to anyone who read the top 40 eating places named by our restaurant critic, Ruth Reichl, in Sunday’s L.A. Times Magazine.

They sound like terrific places that anyone with a controlling interest in Standard Oil ought to try. The only problem, in addition to price, is they’re a scant too esoteric for us little people. Citrus, for instance, not only hits you pretty good in the wallet but serves “light food with a sense of humor.”

I’m a basic kind of guy and unless food with a sense of humor suggests a potato wearing a clown face, I don’t know what it means. I avoid Citrus for that very reason. I’d rather die than laugh at the wrong entree.

What this town needs is a list of restaurants for my kind of people, which is to say those of us who scratch when they itch and are not amused by their potatoes.

Take Anne Chinese Deli of Chatsworth, for instance.

I mention it first not only because you can get lunch for under $4, but because they don’t serve martinis. I am too often accused by my wife of favoring a restaurant only because of its ability to mix vodka with vermouth.

She regards it as a family curse, because the martini was supposedly created in and named for the town of Martinez, across the bay from San Francisco. Name pride has steered me in search of the perfect dry martinez for most of my adult life. The quest continues.

Anne Chinese Deli serves nothing stronger than sumpsin.

That’s the restaurant’s real name, by the way, Anne and not Anne’s. It is run by Chinese people who do not understand apostrophes. I haven’t been there for awhile, but when I used to go regularly not every food server could speak English. Others spoke it only marginally.

That’s where sumpsin came from. You stand in line to select your three choices for the luncheon special. I seemed to always end up with an elderly Chinese lady who, after I had selected my three entrees, would ask, “Sumpsin?”

I thought it was another name for a sauce I probably wouldn’t like, so I said no. But then one day I said what the hell, I’ll try it. So when the elderly waitress said “Sumpsin?” I said “Why not?” She said “What?” and waited. I said “Sumpsin.” She seemed perplexed and repeated “Sumpsin?” I said yes again. She said “What?”

I am not a man of immense patience, and after about the fifth time around I raised my voice so that she would better understand and said “Sumpsin! Yes!”

At which point, another server came over and said, “She wants to know if you’d like sumpsin to drink.” Something. Sumpsin. It was short-cut English. I ordered a Diet Coke. It was better than nussin.

Mostly I eat Italian food. You’ll find me at Papa Tony’s in Woodland Hills, sucking in long strands of spaghetti and dripping sauce on my shirt front. I eat that way because at Papa Tony’s you are suspected of being a snob unless you make a little sucking noise and slop a little marinara sauce.

In addition to their suckable pastas, Papa Tony’s also has an excellent wine list. Cheap red and cheap white. I suggest the cheap white. The cheap red is nice too, but it tends to turn the teeth and lips a kind of bloody crimson, which frightens those who might mistake you for a vampire when you smile.

I was intending to make a list of at least five dining places that fatten rather than amuse, but I only have space enough to suggest Sherman Oaks’ Fiore D’Italia because of its decor of plastic grapes that light up, and Mort Diamond’s hot dog cart, which is usually parked at the corner of Sherman Way and Owensmouth in Canoga Park. Mort ran for the City Council once and provides discourses on municipal malfeasance with his dogs.

The food may not do a lot for you, but you’ll be amused by his presumption. It always makes me chuckle.