THE ENABLER
Los Angeles is littered with kitschy relics. The Enabler’s favorite (beside Circus Liquors and Clifton’s Cafeteria) is the 38-year-old Bavarian wonderland known as Alpine Village in Torrance.
The Enabler first noticed the cluster of sloping, brown-shingled roofs cropping up on the smog-smudged horizon as we drove south on the 110 toward San Pedro’s apocalyptic sunken city. Having gorged on plenty of Warsteiner Dunkel at Silver Lake’s Red Lion Tavern, the Enabler knew just what those roofs represented. Alpine Village was where the Lion’s crotchety old German boss disappeared to when he tired of the young and trendy and craved the forthright company of his own people.
The compound’s center of gravity revolves around a market (selling fare such as wienerwurst, liverwurst pate, sauerbraten and head cheese) and a drafty lodge of a restaurant called the Alpine Inn. There, on gloomy Mondays, the Enabler repairs to hear live big band tunes and throw back a few cringe-inducing Steinhager shots.
The German people get a bad rap for being emotionally icy and all too efficient. But in L.A., everything gets reinvented, and even the frostiest Old World village can be imagined as a sensual pleasure palace. Especially if your pleasure is tubed beef.
833 W. Torrance Blvd., (310) 327-4384.
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