For the Love of Art and Food

Culver City has grown.

I remember a short time ago, when I was fresh out of college and freshly moved home after a four-year stint in the Silicon Valley.  It was during these times that I found myself becoming increasingly more familiar with this county they call Los Angeles.  As maligned as it is across the country, I believe LA is a misunderstood city/community.  There are those who describe it as a vast array of loosely connected villages, a poor imitation of a large city, and even those who dub it "Hell-ay."  Admittedly, I wasn't too fond of the complex system of freeways, nor was I really a fan of sitting on the 405 for hours on end, but through patience and a sense of adventure, the city really has carved itself into something very, very close to being called home.

Taking my very first post-college experience with LA being spending a lot of time in and around Culver City and the west side with a few friends of mine, no doubt due to their convenient apartment location near the downtown Culver area and of course their penchant for perusing West Los Angeles, my experience began perhaps a bit insular.  Really, when your regular weekend dinner is a place called "Tom's #5" there's not much other explaining that needs to be done.  It took a while, but after a few years, we've ventured out to the South Bay, East Side, Long Beach, San Gabriel Valley, North Hollywood, Pasadena, and practically every other nook and cranny save for Central Los Angeles.  No place has asserted itself more changed in my mind than that place with which I became familiar.  The Culver City area, while somewhat small, has always contained a good-sized arts community, none of which I experienced in my first years, but that has changed dramatically with the city's first officially recognized Art Walk.

Presented by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Walk took place this last weekend in a variety of galleries and studios along Culver Boulevard and La Cienega.  Showcasing mostly local artists, the galleries were open to the public and were a tremendous eye-opening experience for myself in that I never knew so many existed amongst the various cafes and surrounding production studios.  I can't possibly name every single artist we saw along the way, but I was most impressed by the diversity of styles and media through which they sought to express themselves, no doubt they are quite gifted in their talents, but also gifted with a largely supportive West LA arts community. 

So we took most of the day in.  About two and a half hours of walking along the streets of Los Angeles.  Seeing so many others waiting at crosswalk struck me as an anomaly, since when did so many people actually walk in LA?  What was even more surprising was how many people were interested enough to make the trip down to a relatively small, but burgeoning city for what could have been a parking disaster.  Luckily, there are no shortages of structures or permit-lined streets to cause a surface street traffic jam.  Lucky is the city also, that there are plenty of quality restaurants to entice those willing to brave the drive.

Growing as much as it has, Culver does benefit from these eateries.  You have your requisite gastropub, Ford's Filling Station , the vegetable heaven Tender Greens, and grilled-cheese lovers new spot, Meltdown Etc, to name a few.  This night, we chose to sample the somehow elusive Honey's Kettle for the most decadent fried chicken.  If there is anyplace in this city that I will travel for fried chicken, it will be Honey's Kettle.  At first bite, the battered skin pops and cracks, only to reward you with what has to be the most moist and tender chicken I've had thus far.  Each dense biscuit is a flaky pillow of buttered nirvana.  The sides were unremarkable, aside from the painfully sweet pickles, the coleslaw was a bit wet, so I'd recommend sticking with the basic chicken and biscuits for now.  If anything, it's one of the few places in the city to serve Mexican Coke.  If you know what I'm talking about, I need not say any more.

There we were though, in a Culver that was not the city I remembered from five years ago.  How far it's come has nothing to compare to how far it can go.