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Triumph of the New At Rowdy Red Wine & Burger Bar In Los Angeles

Posted by Damon Gambuto, January 28, 2009 at 5:15 PM

Why is the new so interesting? This is the question that fueled the heated Saturday night dinner conversation at our house this past weekend. Specifically we talked about what I termed “The Cult of the New” that plagues the blogosphere. When it comes to writing about food (or music, among other subjects) there exists a competitive culture of "I found it first" that seems to influence the way people go about forming their opinions.

The relentless drive to be the first to have publicly proclaimed something worth the world’s attention has infected the way people assess just what is worth our attention. In the world of aesthetic arbitration saying that a brand new restaurant is “just okay” alloys the pleasure of having found it first. You want to be the person who told everyone about the must-try spot, not the place that they can skip. That is to say, it’s cooler to find something great because feeling cool feels so good.

Herein lies the source of problem. I’ll skip my drunken ramblings on the evolutionary biology of this pleasure of the new (it’s our brains' fault!), but the basic point is simple: People are incentivized to tell you that what they have had—that you have yet to have—is good. This leads to the formation of small groups of committed fans proselytizing on behalf something that might not be as good as they think it is because it just feels good to say that something is good. (For a musical equivalent, Radiohead comes to mind.)

This isn’t the whole story. There is the simple fact that sometimes those things are genuinely good. There is also the more complicating fact that I’m justifying the value of connoisseurship (which is as ridiculous as it is self-serving). We are all able to determine what we like on our own, much to the collective chagrin of the arbiters of taste. I imagine that what I’m trying to tease out is a discussion of the mechanics of how we go about deciding what we like.

As the evening pressed on we all became louder and more entrenched in our various takes on the issue. It may have had something to do with the fourth bottle of Pinot, but I like to think it was just my and my interlocutors better understanding of ourselves. Eventually I determined that I needed put myself to the test: I would review a spanking new burger spot.

Luckily I live in a city that devoted to the new (and the young, and the blonde), so it wasn’t too tough to find a place that fit my needs. Tucked below twin office spires in Downtown Los Angeles is a new restaurant called Rowdy Red Wine and Burger Bar. The name is certainly a mouthful. The burger? Read on.

The Business Lunch

The restaurant is located in an underground food court/shopping area that services the business folk’s lunch hour wants and needs. During the day this part of Los Angeles hums with activity in a manner that is akin to midtown Manhattan. I am rarely in this part of the city during the day, but whenever I do find myself there I am struck with a wave of nostalgia for my time in New York City as a young (semi) professional. I had just graduated college and scored a good gig working for a media company that had offices in Midtown. Even now I can think back to my wonder at thousands of the people making their work lives out of just our building. It was a time of self-discovery. I learned about Midtown’s amazing food cart culture, the pleasures of the New York City by-the-pound salad bar, and the surprising appeal of a woman in a pantsuit.

The nostalgia quickly turned to realistic memory as I tried to park my car. Driving around in circles looking for a reasonably priced parking lot in Downtown Los Angeles is only slightly easier than the same task in New York. I gave up and bit the $3-per-15 minute-bullet. The truth of the matter is Downtown’s Financial District is no place for an interloper like me during the workday.

The Burger Underground

I walked up the flowerless Flower Street to the entrance of my underground food court destination and spied the escalators going down. The perfectly blue sky overhead made me shake my head. I understand why they make underground malls in frigid environments or cities where space is at a premium, but it seems sad (if not sadistic) to force all these shirt-sleeved men and buttoned up women into the bowels of an office building during their one hour of freedom in this sprawl of a city that enjoys hundreds of sunny days a year. I remembered why I left the office life behind.

The 505 Flower shopping plaza is comfortably new and uncomfortably antiseptic. The layout lacks any decent sight lines and while the ceilings are high, they are certainly lower than they should be. It doesn't have the pleasing “underground city” aura of, say, the Dining Concourse at Grand Central Station.

Sitting on the corner across from a buffet Chinese food spot and a flower shop is Rowdy. There is no sign (as of yet), but there is a slick red square design that signals a little more refinement than most of its neighbors. The “walls” that face the common area are garage door-style so the space opens up nicely. Inside the lighting is subdued, which helps you take a moment to slow down for your fast lunch.

Ordering is done at a front register—then it’s off to your table. Although they’ve done a nice job of making the place feel like restaurant, they are still working out some kinks. The woman who took my order was overwhelmed by my order of a medium rare cheeseburger combo (fries and a coke), a plate of sliders, and a milkshake. It’s like she thought I had ordered too much food for one person. Imagine.

A New Sensation

I got to my booth and found my backside wet from a recent wiping by the busboy. Points for cleanliness, but demerits for lack of dryness. The place was only half full despite being the height of lunch hour—not a good sign. Doubtless the regulars at the food court had tried the place by now (it’s been open a few weeks), leading me to believe that it must not be any good. I knew “the new” was a problem!

My food arrived in minutes. It was startling. I looked down my phone to fiddle with some text messages and boom!—milkshake. I went for a Peet’s coffee shake in honor of all the over-caffeinated professionals around me. The shake was great. Frothy, sweet, but not too sweet, and it looked beautiful. A couple of sips, a spoonful and…”Your food, sir.” Really? Already? Great. Let’s eat. Or rather, let me eat.

Before I dug in I immediately became suspicious of the cheeseburger. The bun looked buttered and great, as did the meat (1/3 pound of Certified Humane Meyer’s Black Angus), but were they kidding me with this hunk of lettuce? It must be a mistake. I looked around at some other burgers and sure enough, this measure is standard. Look, I love a wedge of iceberg before a steak (assuming there is some crumbly, creamy blue cheese dressing around), but on my burger, one leaf will do. Oh, and there was also a thick slice of tomato, but there’s a story behind that. The name of the restaurant is a reference to a type of heirloom tomato named the Rowdy Red. It was introduced by heirloom tomato guru Gary Ibsen. He named it after his neighbor Clint Eastwood. Well, actually he named after Clint’s character on the television series Rawhide. It’s all very fascin….zzzz.

Back to the burger. The sliders looked to be in order, as did the very attractive fries. The latter are fast food slim with a skin on the tips. They were flavorful and crisp, but that didn’t take any lettuce off my burger. I bit through the vegetable garden and finally got to some meat. It tasted…really good. Like, wait a minute, am I just really hungry or was that bite of food actually really good? I went for bite number two. Still good. The lettuce, tomato, and some newly discovered thick slices of pickle were annoying, but this burger was good.

I went for the slider. A little bit much on the bun (a different variety from the very good seedless white that comes with the burger), but the meat was great. Both the slider and the burger were perfectly cooked. The griddle added a little crust, and the interior was juicy, fatty, and pink–oh my!

It dawned on me that I was staring at an almost great burger. Then it dawned on me that I knew how to make it great. I took off all the excess foliage and dug into a straight-forward cheeseburger. Now it was great. And it’s new. My resistance to the new was futile. Novelty was beating up my brain and I liked it. I tore through the rest of my food with abandon. The table looked like a crime scene by the time I finally come up for air.

Speaking of air, was it the lack thereof that made me so giddy? I escalated my way out of this underground bazaar and tried to make sense of the experience. Walking back to my car, it came into focus: The burger at Rowdy isn’t perfect. The lettuce, tomato, and pickle were all too much, and this is coming from a guy who likes a little veg on his burger. That said, this is easily remedied by some quick reconstruction at the table or a little customization at ordering. Also, the location is not very pleasing and until it opens for dinner and the weekends (soon, according sources) the pricey daytime parking fees negate the eminently fair (bargain, even) pricing of their food and drink. Oh, and their drink—they are a wine bar that, for the moment, doesn’t have a license to serve wine. This too will be remedied in the near future.

In the final analysis, Rowdy is great little restaurant in becoming. Their burger is great, but for a few missteps. If it opened in my neighborhood it would be a "go to" spot. As it stands, I’ll probably go back despite its food court location.

I walked back to the parking lot and waited for the valet to bring me my car. In the meantime I chitchatted with a guy waiting there. He worked in the neighborhood. I asked him if he’d been to Rowdy yet—he hadn’t even heard of it. I told him the quick version of the meandering story I just told you and he lit up. He was excited to try it; I encouraged him to. Just then my car arrived and I hopped in. Driving away I felt a rush of pleasure from the interaction—the pleasure of turning someone on to something new that I knew was good. I’m pretty sure he thought I was cool.

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Tags: AHT reviews, Damon Gambuto, LA, reviews, Rowdy Red Wine and Burger Bar, Southern California