They’re Crepes, but They’re Not From France

Crepe in the Grip. Maybe not the name I’d have come up with, but this place is a real pop-culture phenomenon.

On one hand, it’s an Asian-style youth hangout: bright colors, two TVs (one usually tuned to a music video, the other to a video game), stacks of magazines in English and Japanese, an eager, youthful atmosphere of rock ‘n’ roll, Pokemon and manga comics. With your order you get a sheet of jokes, some silly, some mildly racy, some in the urban myth category.

On the other, it’s an unexpected variant on the wrap sandwich parlor, using freshly made crepes instead of tortillas. Crepes, it appears, are a craze in Japan these days. The owner of Crepe in the Grip went there (not to France, despite the models of the Eiffel Tower scattered around this place) to study crepe-making and uses two Japanese-made crepe griddles.

When you order a crepe, one of the crepe girls, as they call themselves, will ladle batter onto a griddle and squeegee it around with a T-shaped spreader made of wooden dowels. The resulting crepe is not as rich and heavy as a French crepe, but very pleasant, with an enjoyable spongy texture, a little softer than an Ethiopian injera bread.

The fillings split the difference between Asia and America. The hot ones are either chicken or beef in teriyaki, American-style barbecue or quasi-Chinese black pepper sauce (which is, by a short length, the most distinctive of the three sauces). The fillings come with lettuce, and the crepe is neatly rolled up into a cone and wrapped in paper.

Or you can get sliced turkey, a rather plain tuna salad, or ham and cheese. Actually, I think the ham and cheese works best--the lettuce gives it a light, sweet taste. If you want it a little less light, you can get the ham, cheese and fried egg crepe.

The same fillings are also available on French rolls or croissants. As at a burger stand, there are meal specials: a crepe or sandwich with a tiny cup of salad (lettuce and corn kernels in ranch, Italian or Thousand Island dressing), potato chips, a miniature dessert crepe filled with pineapple and whipped cream, and a drink.

And then there are the rice bowls, which seem a little more Asian. They’re rice topped with any of the hot beef or chicken fillings plus chunks of carrot and cauliflower.

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In France, it’s easy to find creperies that serve crepes with meat fillings, but here we tend to think of crepes as something served sweet, like American pancakes. And dessert crepes are by far the largest part of this menu.

I happen to have a theory about them. Back in the ‘80s, several restaurateurs announced that they were bringing back the old-fashioned American soda fountain. They never really got it right, though--there weren’t enough kinds of sundae, for one thing.

But the soda fountain eventually did come back, not as a campy, self-conscious revival, but simply in response to the eternal American sweet tooth. Today, the espresso parlor has become a de facto soda fountain. Starbucks and its like sell a lot more dairy products than coffee, and many have started making drinks from fruit syrups with no pretension at all of caffeine content.

With its huge range of dessert crepes, Crepe in the Grip is, in effect, providing ice cream sundaes served in crepes. The basis is strawberries, bananas, peaches and pineapples, stiffly whipped cream, condensed milk (so thick it’s laboriously dispensed from a squeeze bottle) and chocolate sauce. There are also sweet red beans and mangoes (even butter and maple syrup, if you want).

The crepes don’t have to include ice cream, but the ice cream flavors (not all available all the time) include vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, mango, litchi, taro, red bean, green tea, ice milk tea, coconut-pineapple, coffee and plum wine. You can doctor any combination of ingredients with chocolate chips, almonds, peanut butter, strawberry sauce or peanuts.

And if you do, there, but for a parfait glass or banana split bowl, goes a sundae, in my book. Count on seeing more of Crepe in the Grip. Branches are supposed to open in Torrance and Alhambra this year.

* Crepe in the Grip, 715 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel. (626) 282-5265. Open noon-9 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; noon-10 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays; noon-7 p.m. Sundays; closed Tuesdays. No alcohol. Parking lot. No credit cards. Entree crepes, $3.38; bowls, $3.44; dessert crepes, $2.25-$3.55.

* What to Get: black pepper beef crepe, ham and cheese crepe, teriyaki beef bowl, dessert crepes.