The Clifton's Diet

An article in the LA Times alerted us to a Los Angeles institution -- Clifton's, a downtown cafeteria.  Fun!  Kitschy!  Good cheap food!  Authentic LA!  I love cafeterias (ever since the one in Dadeland Mall, Miami FLA), so I convinced the wife to accompany me that very day to Clifton's for a late lunch around 3PM.

Parking is such sweet sorrow.  Actually not sweet at all.  You'll pay $15 to park anywhere near Clifton's, thus ruining anything "cheap" about your lunch.  But no matter -- we were full of eager anticipation for our gustatory adventure.  We haven't walked a downtown street in years, so we were enjoying the multi-cultural throngs on a warm winter day as we strolled towards the restaurant.  The entire jewelry district lay before us, but we didn't see any elderly Nazi war criminals.

Walked in the front door of Clifton's and were immediately struck by the dingy sadness of the place.  The famed bakery counter, bathed in non-appetizing flourescent tones, was only half-full of lonely, aging cakes and pies.  On a bench right near the entrance sat a 400 lb woman in a mauve jogging suit hiked up her top in order to scratch her Buddha-like belly.  Surprisingly, I remained hungry.

The decor itself seems to have seen its best days about 40 years ago.  It's meant to have a sort of log-cabin, Country Bear Jamboree feel to it, but now has the feel of one of those run-down Santa's Villages, as if the Bears had gone bankrupt a while back.  There are little pockets of theme-park-ishness with woodsy cabin interiors next to formica tables, and back-lit photos of the American west on the walls.  There's even a motorized racoon who slowly, jerkily pops up out of a tree trunk every five seconds or so.  His fur looks dirty.

We grabbed trays and ambled on down the food line.  It seemed like "late lunch" was a bad choice, since the food looked old enough to vote and many of the sneeze-guarded countertops were bare.  I chose a fried chicken leg, spinach, mac n cheese, and a piece of chocolate banana cake.  The lovely wife got spaghetti and meat balls.

We chose an upstairs table overlooking the great unwashed below.  The place was sparsely populated, with the occasional patron yammering to a seemingly perfect stranger about some inanity.

The food was LOUSY.  Chicken leg bland, ditto the mac n cheese.  Cake a little bit stale.  (Spinach OK I guess.)  The wife glumly ate her spaghetti in dutiful silence, offering up that it was cold only when asked.

But here comes the best part.  I almost immediately started to feel a rumbly in my tumbly, and not the good kind.  (Is there a good kind?)  My stomach twisted and turned, as if trying to avoid the food coming down my gullet, like Regan in the Exorcist trying to avoid a splash of holy water.  I hastily recused myself to the downstairs mens room, which was old and run-down but clean.  Still, this was one of the rare times I used one of those tissue  paper toilet seat covers.  Isn't it neat the way its little paper tongue makes it flush itself down?

I told the wife we better cancel out movie plans and head home.  She nodded, worried.  Pretty much once I got behind the wheel of the Prius and motores back onto the streets of downtown, heading back to Glendale, my intestines started sending me a message.  An urgent one.  I had to GO.  I gunned the little engine and turned my wheels onto the 110 North.  Right into bumper-to-bumper TRAFFIC.

Now it was a race against time.  And not a fun one.  I needed to go, and I wasn't about to stop in Chinatown and look for an open restaurant.  We inched along as I tried to visualize making it home in time and breathed deeply.  Things were getting more urgent with every minute that passed.  Soon we got onto the 2 North, out of traffic, and I stamped on the gas pedal.  The fried chicken leg sped through me.

Got home, ran into the first floor bathroom just in time.  Phew!  Look out below!

So thank you Clifton's, for a memorable afternoon.  Never again.