Local Papers
BY MERRILL SHINDLER
RESTAURANT CRITIC
Daily Breeze Rave! Friday, June 15, 2001
There is a tradition of invisible
restaurants here in Southern California, odd spots with a minimum
of signage, such as the fabled (and
long departed) Steak Pit on Melrose Avenue
- in Los Angeles, which displayed its name in
no manner at all, and had a locked front
door, through which you could enter only
if you mentioned the right names. (I always
heard "Robert De Niro sent me" was pretty
effective.)
There was another place, in West Hollywood, called Scully's, which was nothing
more than a coffee shop in a motel. Yet its
phone number was unlisted. And the
famously crusty Scully would let you in
only if he knew you. We are an eccentric
region and our restaurants often reflect
that point.
Lomeli's of Gardena isn't nearly as hidden as the Steak Pit or Scully's. There is a
sign in front. And its phone number is listed. Even if you're unknown to the management, you're welcomed in for a meal.
And yet, one could drive past Lomeli's
100 times and not notice it. The front is a
total blank, except for a door to the right,
and a modest sign announcing that this is
Lomeli's. In a land of neon and glitter,
Lomeli's is the near side of invisible. It sits
on one edge of a shopping mall, across
from a Target, in a neighborhood -where
udon and soba are more common than linguine and fettuccine.
And it thrives — on any given day,
Lomeli's is full or darned close to it. The
restaurant has a buzz, and a loyal clientele
who long for the Big Portion Cuisine of
Lomeli's, and have since 1978. If there's one
place to go for ravioli in Gardena, this is it.
Lomeli's is a long, narrow room, with
booths against the walls and two-person
tables down the middle. The two-tops (as
they're called in the business) are odd, for
their chairs are on wheels, with high backs
and arms; they're the sort of chairs you
might find in an executive office. They're
comfortable chairs, they're just very unexpected — it's not many restaurants where
the chairs are on rollers.
Though Lomeli's only dates back to the
late '70s, the menu feels far older, with
many retro touches that are a treat to find.
One is the complimentary glass of wine
. that comes with the "Luncheon Specials"
and the "Complete Dinners."
The wine is nothing to get too excited
about — my server asked me if I wanted a
glass of Chablis, blush or red." What
arrived was a decent generic glass of wine
that was more a nice gesture than anything
else. And it's a rather venerable gesture -
back in the '30s and '40s, when most local
restaurants offered preset menus, a glass of
wine regularly was listed as an appetizer
(along with a green salad, a bowl of consomme, and often a scoop of chopped
chicken liver - that was California Cuisine a half-century ago).
Another eldritch touch is the vorspeiss
platter that arrives as soon as you sit down.
It's just carrots and pepperoncini. But it's
pleasantly reassuring — something to do
with your hands while you wait for the
arrival of the garlic bread, and the minestrone (a good cup of soup, with lots of
pasta shells, in an understated tomato
broth).
Most diners at Lomeli's seem to opt for
the "Complete Dinners," which come with
minestrone or a salad, garlic bread, wine,
and even ice cream for dessert — a considerable amount of food for between $8 and
$12 (depending on your choice of entrees).
The options are classics, right out of
Naples. There's a multitude of raviolis
from which to choose, variously filled
with beef, cheese, spinach, shrimp or
chicken, and variously doused with tomato sauce, marinara sauce, meat sauce,
meatballs, pesto, pesto with mushrooms,
sausage, mushroom sauce, and Alfredo
sauce. There's baked cannelloni and
baked manicotti, both dishes large
enough to feed a small village. Lasagna is
done five ways; shrimp scampi is done
four ways (two with scallops, two without).
Alfredo sauce and red sauce appear in
almost equal amounts, the former making for one serious hit of caloric intensity.
(Damn the cholesterol — full speed
ahead!)
My particular favorites are a pair of
pastaless casseroles - one based around
meatballs, thick and heavy and crazed
with flavor, the other built around
sausages. In both cases, the meat is melded together with gobbets of melted
cheese. In both cases, you can have them
over pasta for a buck extra. I passed on
the pasta, as a sop to my expanding girth.
For those in need of emotional support, there are four preset combos that
offer a bit of this and a bit of that, basically mixing and matching lasagna, ravioli,
spaghetti and sundry sauces. There's a do-
it-yourself section as well, where you can
mix seven pastas with 13 sauce options —
the pasta shells with clam sauce and garlic is a nice way to go.
There's a classic antipasto, served in
two sizes, overflowing with ingredients in
both cases. (Abbondanza is the driving
theme here.) And they offer a perfectly
decent thin-crust pizza, with 18 toppings,
and a crust that holds up well enough,
though it's not quite as resilient as your
standard New York pizza, which never
droops.
For those dropping by for lunch, there
are daily specials for $5.25, including
such simple pleasures as the Wednesday
special of a slice of pepperoni pizza with
a side of spaghetti (a combo right out of
my Bronx childhood), and the weekend
special of a meatball sandwich with a
side of spaghetti. Not "pasta," mind you,
but spaghetti in the old Italian-American style. Among the sandwich options,
there's both a submarine and a torpedo
(it's the shape and size of the roll that
determines the moniker).
And on the back page of the menu,
there's a selection of hot dinner trays to
go. You can get a tray of meatballs with
bell peppers and cheese that feeds 20 for
$49.95; it comes with garlic bread. I figure that's not something I should have in
the fridge. Italian meatballs are a great
late night treat. I know my wife would
not be kind if she found me sitting in the
kitchen at 2 a.m. eating one meatball
after another.
Merrill Shindler talks about restaurants from 5
to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday on KLSX-FM 97.1.
