Friday Night

My officemate Hector is headed off to our Cedars-Sinai project by the Beverly Center. In honor of his departure we spent last Friday evening downtown (where he lives) bowling and drinking. We started at the new Lucky Strike Bowling Alley at the city center. They sell themselves as "upscale bowling." The alley was relatively clean and nice but since most bowling alleys look like giant ashtrays that isn't saying much. The happy hour was the highlight with $3 pints. I asked the waitress for a pint of Newcastle to which she responded that they didn't have "pints" but they did have plastic 16 oz cups. I informed her that 16 oz's is a pint. Not sure if an upscale joint should have waitresses who know what a pint is, but the beer was delicious none the less. We also ordered pizza (decent), fries (very crispy and salty), and artichoke dip (repulsive). The dip came with half as many pita chips as you needed and for some reason was covered in disgusting cheese. Also the food was not priced like the drinks so 8 bucks for crappy dip was a rip off. Come for the drinks and $5 dollar rounds (before) and don't stay for anything else.

From there we went to Lawry's Carvery next to Staple's. I was going to order the turkey club but the consensus of everyone who worked there was that the Prime Rib Bleu was the dish to order. The prime rib was perfectly cooked and melted in my mouth. It tasted a little like butter and didn't taste at all like steak. Somehow the perfectly red, tender and fatty meat had very little taste. For that reason I added Lawry's Seasoned Pepper and Lawry's Seasoning Salt to every bight. The Lawry's Seasoned Pepper saved the meal. It was so good I had to take it home. I casually slipped it into my jacket and now I have it for the next tasteless steak sandwich I get.

Lawry's was good enough that I would try it again, as was the Lucky Strike happy hour. Don't waste time eating at the bowling alley though. While it may be "upscale" the food is not worth the bucks and the pints are only 16 oz's.