Shop Talk

Hang the New American Cuisine: Coffee shop cooking is, of course, the real American vernacular, the tie that binds San Dimas and Denver, the stuff that’s copied all over the world. When you spend a month in Italy or Japan, what you become hungry for is probably less lavender-crusted ahi carpaccio than a cheeseburger medium-rare, less a glass of Diamond Creek Lake Vineyard Cabernet than a really good chocolate malt. Walk into a coffee shop anywhere in the country, and you probably know what you want without looking at a menu: patty-melt, black coffee, an order of fries. Until you know a place better, you’re unlikely to order the almond chicken salad croissant.

When retro-American cooking was the big thing about five years ago, the Pickwick Five Horsemen Inn was almost hip, frequented by people who’d read a French restaurateur’s paean to the place in a glossy magazine, praised by underground rags for its perfect BLTs. It was kind of cooler-looking back then too, with big sort of chess-player horsemen mounted on sticks outside and an exuberant sign where today there is an understated green thing befitting Pickwick’s status as a Conference Center, but the Five Horsemen is still a good ‘un, one of the best two or three coffee shops in town.

Tucked away into a bend of the Los Angeles River, anchoring the lower Burbank no-man’s land of trailers and stables and tack shops, the Five Horsemen is a fortress of undiluted coffee-shop Americana, a fragrant bastion of bacon burgers and chocolate shakes. Walk in, and you’ll find a restaurant that could be anywhere in the West, red-leather-booth Rotary-chic dining rooms, horsey stuff on the walls, bogus Tiffany lamps and lighted pie displays that could just as well be in Flagstaff or Billings. There is a waitress named Mabel who will warn you away from the French onion soup, and a bowling alley around the back. Out the window, there are fine mountain views. Large, clean-cut families share big chef salads and enormous banana splits. A meal at the Five Horsemen provides all the comforts of a trip to Needles without the drive.

What you get at the Five Horsemen: a hamburger, good, crunchy steak fries, a cup of fresh turkey-vegetable soup, a chocolate shake.

There are the exemplary milkshakes, thin, gritty with ice crystals, smacked with--rather than overwhelmed by--chocolate, topped with just the right amount of commercial whipped cream, the milkshake you dream of during a long, overheated desert drive.

A Virginia Clubhouse is a turkey club with decent smoky ham instead of the bacon, a pretty wholesome sandwich indeed. An Italian sandwich is a better cold-cut hoagie than you’d expect from a coffee shop, if not by much. A chili size, supposedly invented more than half a century ago by a Los Angeles restaurant called something like Ptomaine Tommy’s, involves a giant casserole filled with mild, homemade-tasting two-bean chili, a slab of be-garlicked Italian bread, and a grilled hamburger patty topped with a slice of processed cheese--a sweet, homey dish. Crunchy-crusted fried chicken has a peppery tang. Rib-eye steak sandwiches are crummy in an exactly appropriate way.

The Five Horsemen might have the best bacon-avocado burger in town, smeared

with a sugary sauce, encased in a doughy bun, the smokiness of the burger patty shining nicely through the gloppy whole. There is the Famous Grilled Cowboy Sandwich, thin slices of sourdough toast, thick, smoky patty of grilled hamburger, a glob of melted jack and a bigger glob of grilled onions, a salty, greasy, wonderful mess set off by the sweetness of the onions and the crispness of the bread, one of the most delicious patty melts around. (The Famous Grilled Cowboy is less successful with grilled knockwurst in place of the burger.) But take it from me . . . stay away from that croissant.

Pickwick Five Horsemen Inn Restaurant

1001 Riverside Drive, Burbank, (818) 846-2668. Open daily, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Full bar. Lot parking. Banquets. Takeout. Bowling and ice skating. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $8-$16.