Tag Archives: Sandwich

Ford’s Filling Station

Restaurant: Ford’s Filling Station

Location:  9531 Culver Blvd, Culver City. 310-202-1470

Date: April 28, 2011

Cuisine: Gastropub

Rating: Always great for lunch.

ANY CHARACTER HERE

It was a gorgeous day (again) in LA, so I headed out to find another good lunch spot with outside dining. We ended up in Culver City with its rather large selection of good lunch spots and specifically at Ford’s Filling Station, which is run by Benjamin Ford, son of Han Solo. The place has been around awhile but before this he had another place in Beverly Hills which was very good — but I can’t remember the name.


Notice the “pig country” sign. They offer on the menu a 8 person minimum whole pig dinner with a whole roast pig!


Outside, there are two different patios. In general, Culver city has a lot of outside dining which is nice. For some mysterious reason LA restaurants often lack al fresco. This makes no sense given our weather.


The menu.


“Bacon wrapped dates, stuffed with cheese.” Um yum! I love this dish, and I’ve had it at many places (like recently at Upstairs 2). These were as good as any, showing off the sweet and salty.


“Shrimp Curry, jasmine rice, marash pepper and applewood smoked bacon.” Also a really great dish. Very similar to the one I had at Gladstones. The bacon made it even better.


Sliced serrano peppers in has you want to spice it up.

“Pulled Pork Panini, melted gouda and spicy pepper relish.” The beans were awesome too, with a nice smoky porcine flavor.


A close up of the sandwich itself. I had expected something like a North Carolina pulled pork sandwich. That’s kinda tangy. This was more the succulent roast pork with cheese. Yum.


The dessert menu.


“Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich, chocolate chip cookie and mint chocolate-chip ice cream.” The ice cream was great, very similar to the mint ice cream I had at Sweet Rose Creamery, tasting as it did of fresh mint leaves. The fudge was good too. The cookie needed more butter, it was a little dry. Not bad, and the overall dessert was still very good, but with a really awesome cookie, it could have been… really awesome.


Inside, the stripped down old-school culver city building provides a nice deconstructed interior. I’ve never been here at night but I bet it’s a good watering hole.

Another good Culver City place is Fraiche, here for review.

The “Reform Kosher” for Passover Tuna Melt

We were scrounging around for lunch and came up with this variant passover tuna melt. While “passover” compliant it is in the tradition of the Great Trefa Banquet of 1883. You’ll see why. My wife did not participate — for the same reason.


So in making the tuna itself. At home I use this red chunk Italian tuna packed in olive oil which is amazing. Here I only had some Trader Joe’s albacore packed in water. So I added some olive oil (I don’t like mayo with my tuna). I also threw in some chopped cornichons, fresh ground pepper, lemon juice.


And mustard. Now this is a great mustard, but as we searched my mom’s very deep pantry, it came up.


Notice the price on this baby, and the yellowed tag. Today you’d find this tub for around $29, therefore dating this particular example to the 80s. We moved on to a lesser, but “younger” mustard.


The tuna.


The matzah, waiting.


Here’s the Trefa, a little Prosciutto.

Matzah, ham, then tuna.


A nice aged cheddar (goes so well with the ham).


All four.


A little trip to the toaster oven and…


Voila.


Close up. Yum!


Others who aren’t tomato haters used some of these.


As shown.


And after baking.


Our explorations in the pantry also turned up this vintage can of hazelnut oil, complete with archaic french price tag. It might date back to the late 70s!

For a similar non-passover snack, see here.

To see my passover seder, click here.

Gobbler’s Last Stand – The Sandwich

The Thanksgiving feast contains many useful components for a great sandwich, and in this day and age when the only food available on airplanes is a box of randomized vending machine junk, what better way to eat and fly.

This was my brother’s version. There’s turkey, stuffing, provolone, and prosciutto (because ham makes everything better). Oh, and arugula and tomato.

Mine is similar except I left off the tomato (yuck!) and added a little salami as well (two kinds of pig are better than one!).

And my wife’s. Tomato yes. No cheese or pig products. Still makes a yummy way to see turkey off.

 

We even took along some of the homemade cranberry sauce to add to the sandwich, but it was packed separately to prevent soggy bread (a big no no).

And some of these little fellows, cornichons, as complement. They really are the best kind of pickle.