A-Frame
Coffee
All you can eat a-hop pancakes – Buttermilk Chicken – fried drumsticks
Monsieur – Benton’s ham dust, aged white cheddar
Blueberry Orange Zest
Mango Lechera – sweetened condensed milk
Corn Bread – grilled and served with Plugra butter and salsa verde
Chu-Don’t-Know-Mang – pound cake cinnamon churros with malted chocolate milk and vanilla ice cream
Having already ventured to Venice for truly superb pastries at Superba Food + Bread it was admittedly ignoring the advice of several friends that I backtracked to visit Roy Choi’s A-Frame, the “Stacks on Stacks on Stacks” pancake promo seemingly a can’t miss concept, though in reality the experience was average at best. Conceptualized as a “modern picnic,” with communal tables and metal plates set inside a high-beamed house of the style from which the restaurant derives its name, my arrival at the Culver City locale coincided with the 10am opening and with an atmosphere so casual that one young waitress was wearing a see-through top over nothing but a bra and painted-on pants suffice it to say that service was equally relaxed, both water and coffee left to languish though additional plates of pancakes were eventually expedited when I explained I simply wanted to taste a few bites of each. Offered “all you can eat” at $14 with three thin flapjacks per plate it was with the benign buttermilk variety alongside an excellent fried chicken leg that I began and with syrup likely Log Cabin (or worse) I quickly moved on to a second savory, the “Monsieur” a meager offering with a small slice of cheese and a complete lack of porky sapor to found. Diverting from the pancakes to sample some of Choi’s more creative cuisine it was next that a plate of dense cornbread arrived and with a rich dip of salsa and melting butter applied liberally to each bite the meal immediately improved, the ‘signature’ churros equally compelling with a butter-rich crumb beneath cinnamon-sugar excellent on its own…and all the better when dipped in a chocolate milk sidecar floating a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Turning back to pancakes, this time taking the sweet route, it was finally here that some value was found and although the macerated blueberries were quite pleasant it was the freshly cut mangos amidst condensed milk drizzle that delivered best of all, the completely saturated top cake quickly devoured while ignoring the dry duo below.
RECOMMENDED: Mango Lechera Pancakes, Corn Bread, Chu-Don’t-Know-Mang.
AVOID: The pancakes themselves are thin and uninspired, decidedly unworthy of the $14 tab even if they are all-you-can-eat, the “Monsieur” particularly poor in execution, though the chocolate chip variety delivered to the table next to me appeared quite disastrous as well.
TIP: Offering free unsecured WiFi and plenty of electrical outlets, but opting not to turn on the air conditioning despite the restaurant easily topping 85 degrees, those more tolerant to such temperatures than I could certainly sit down, stay a while, and eat to their heart’s content while those looking for options with a bit of breeze would be better suited to request seating on the shaded patio, an area that grew quite loud as several 20-somethings indulged in all-you-can drink mimosas, available for a mere $12.
http://aframela.com
