Pine & Crane
I’ve read about this place when it popped up on Eater LA (doing some due diligence on places to eat this trip). It was a surprise to see a Taiwanese place pop up in Silverlake. Sure I’ll buy into the hype. We didn’t have any ideas for lunch. Everything good in Little Tokyo had a line. So why not.
There’s this term called Americanized Chinese food, which isn’t something I’m going to knock. Some good stuff came out of that. Here though, it’s hard to say. My Taiwanese friends asked, why overpay for the stuff in hipster town when I could go east into San Gabriel Valley. The answer was, it was noon, we were starving and a little parched form drinking the night before. Well, I have to say, I was worried there would be a wait at this place given what I was reading. Luckily, that wasn’t the case.
The system there was a little different for an Asian. Order your food. Pick out a drink. Get a number and find yourself a table. Get your own water. Decide on making some friends at the communal table. Who knows. The possibilities are endless. We waited around and saw a table pop up right when one of our dishes came out. 12:30. Not too shabby.
The best description I have for the food would be ‘healthy.’ Don’t think it’s what they were aiming for, but I say this because, Taiwanese food for me was usually on the oily side. This was implemented cleanly, without the elbow grease you usually find in Asian food. This may be why it’s so popular. Flavors were all there minus that greasy regret. My recommendation, order the food to share. You’d be surprise on how filling the stuff is. After heading back to the hotel, I needed a little nap. What? I’m on vacation here!
Pine & Crane
1521 Griffith Park Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
Silver Lake
+1 (323) 668-1128
pineandcrane.com
Verdict: It’s good, but for my Taiwanese food cravings, I’ll head over to San Gabriel.
This was a lot than what my friend had imagined and he’s not a small guy. He finished about half of it before it was over. It was good. Even though it may not look it, it packs a good dose of heat. With the smoothness of the tofu and bits of pork, it had all the right ingredients for a hearty meal. $9.00USD
On a hot day this stuff would be perfect. It was an overcast day so not optimal, but who’s really paying attention to that when you’re hungry. All you want to do was to tear into the rich sesame goodness of these noodles. My friend said this was suppose to be spicy. I never associated heat with dan dan noodles. $7.50USD
So simple, yet so good. Pine and Crane place nailed it. Ly Rou Fan was one of my favorite staple dishes in Taiwan and this brought me back. The minced pork wasn’t too salty, just savory enough to keep the rice from being lost in the flavors. I wished the eggs were a little less hard boiled though. $6.00USD
In terms of noodle dishes, this one was my favorite. The noodles were nice and chewy even after sitting in the wonderful meat sauce. I wish I had a better term for that, maybe, delicious meat sauce? Anyways, we shared this. Next time, I’ll think about keeping this all to myself. $8.00USD