A Little Taste of Greatness

Wednesday night I stopped by the grand opening of our newest restaurant here in town, Sierra Bistro. Truth is I was not planning on going because I knew just enough of the story through secondhand accounts to have decided that it wasn’t really all that new. They have even kept some of the old menu items from .

However, a friend actually challenged me to write a column about this hot happening in the Sierra Madre culinary scene, so I strolled into town to meet some folks and check it out. I arrived just after 7 p.m., and just in time for the last of the free appetizers and wine. Sadly, anyone who was hoping the gratis food and drink would last until 8:30 p.m. as advertised was out of luck. But I was able to sample the last of food, and was pleasantly surprised. I am a food lover but not a food critic so I will leave it to someone else to dissect the sliders and soups they were serving.

But seeing others miss out led us to a conversation about the quality of the dining establishments in Sierra Madre. I remember once counting up the number of places you could get something to eat in town. You can travel less than a mile and have over 15 different choices. And that’s not counting markets and liquor stores. Restaurants may finally outnumber hair salons in town. And in that mix there is a lot of good. There is only a little great. Great people, great atmospheres, and a few great dishes that I can count on, but for the most part I dine in town for the first two reasons.

I was goading my friend Chris, who is a wine connoisseur and knows the joys and perils of the restaurant business, that he should open a wine bar here in Sierra Madre. He scoffed and said that was a ridiculous idea and a waste of time and money, and then he laid out a whole concept and menu for a restaurant that he had clearly put some thought into. I won’t spoil it just in case he ever does decide to pursue it anywhere in the world.

And then, because Chris isn’t lacking confidence, he said he would never open it in Sierra Madre because he thinks deep down we don’t really want anything that great here in town (implying that it would of course be a raging, critically acclaimed success which I don’t doubt at all). If we had a restaurant that was great enough to be known far and wide to critics and foodies trolling the innumerable restaurant blogs in L.A., then those people would come here and it would be crowded with strangers and we, the locals, might not get a table or feel as at home as we would like at our local joints.

Sadly, it reminded that a few weeks ago I was chatting with Bill Coburn, director of the , and he was telling me about a series of mini-food truck festivals he has arranged this summer in Memorial Park. The first is supposed to be next Saturday, June 25, and I am totally looking forward to it. I plan to park myself on a blanket on the grass in front of the bandshell and graze my way through the delicious samplings. But I actually told him which trucks not to invite because they would attract crowds that were too big and the lines would be too long. He looked at me like I had just lost my mind. And hopefully he completely ignored my grumpy, maniacal ravings and went right back to work and invited those trucks to a future festival. Because Chris is right – we may not want anything too great, but we deserve a little taste of it now and then.