On a recent Sunday morning, Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks was sizzling — both in terms of the temperature, which was well into the 90s long before noon, and in terms of locals hitting the street for Sunday brunch.
Most notably, the crowds were at the Blu Jam Café (15045 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, 818-906-1955; also at 23311 Mulholland Drive, Woodland Hills, 818-222-1044; www.blujamcafe.com), where the crowd was considerable from the moment the doors opened, with hungry Valley denizens in need of some serious carbs in the morning after the night before. If you’ve had one (or two mezcals) too many, a pile of pancakes should set you right. And leave you wishing the football season would start again, so you could spend the rest of the day semi-comatose on the couch.
You eat breakfast and lunch at Blu Jam Café, and it’s hard not to wonder what dinner would be like. Of course, all you can do is wonder, because they only serve breakfast and lunch at Blu Jam. But each of those meals is packed with dishes so substantial — and so crazy delicious — that dinner may well be a non-necessity. Or at least nothing more than a couple of sushi rolls, to tide you over. Beyond that, you’ll probably be digesting for hours.
Just consider the Argentinean Brunch Steak. For those of us who think of brunch as a fine time to kill a couple of bagels, some cream cheese and lox, this is a crazy big meal. It’s a grilled beef tenderloin, of considerable heft, with grilled spuds and grilled veggies, topped with an egg done sunny-side up (which is to say, perfect), with a house-made chimichurri sauce flavorful enough to drink as a beverage. Chimichurri with vodka? Why not?
Perhaps even more substantial is Kamil’s Breakfast, which allows you to begin your day with a platter of pan-roasted macaroni and cheddar, with scrambled eggs, bacon, ham and garlic. Put another way, it’s a breakfast (or lunch) of mac and cheese with scrambled eggs and pig meat. I need to take a Lipitor just thinking about it. And I have no doubt I’d finish every bite. I certainly did when confronted with the Morning Hash which instead of traditional corned beef is made of Black Forest ham, onions, spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, grilled potatoes and mozzarella to hold it all together. With scrambled eggs. Crazy — and crazy good.
And lest I give the impression that this is an all-breakfast restaurant, it’s far from it, though there are plenty of egg dishes. There’s an admirably rich, thick goulash that travels home very well for later enjoyment. The sandwiches are grilled and pressed, a wonderful touch. The salads are of the moment — kale, beets, arugula, balsamic. All the buzz words are there. And for those who want lunch for lunch, there are several Wagyu beef burgers, along with Wagyu beef tacos, chicken schnitzel, grilled salmon, pepper steak and more.
There’s probably dessert, but I’ve never gotten around to it. I’m too busy wondering if I’ve got any looser pants in the closet.
Things are not nearly as packed down the street at Petit Trois (13705 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks; 818-989-2600, https://valley.petittrois.com), a wondrous creation of the team of Ludo Lefebvre, Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo. It’s where the brunch is madcap Parisian — like the Left Bank taking over the whole city! This is proper French bistro cuisine, though often with a snappy twist from the restlessly imaginative chefs. Fun! How else to describe, for instance, the Mec Muffin served for breakfast — the house take on the McMuffin, which raises a notably nasty culinary experience to the level of great food, using several of the same ingredients, but prepared with far greater skill.
The muffins are, of course, homemade — they’re English (French?) muffins of such perfect crispness, they could easily be eaten naked. The Parisian ham is a thing of beauty, looking and tasting like real ham, because it is real ham. The egg is beautifully turned, with a yolk that spills open. There’s a smattering of sage, of all things. And the American cheese — which is decidedly not a Kraft single — is a reminder that, at one time, American cheese was a cheddar variation that was real food, and not a food snob punchline.
The breakfast menu has its fair share of good French bistro dishes — a classic croque monsieur and croque madame, eggs meurette (with eggs in a red wine sauce), an omelette with Boursin pepper cheese, tartines topped with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon or bacon. And of course, Nutella, always Nutella.
There are croissants. There are madeleines. (And a big hello to Proust!) But there’s also steak frites, trout almondine, a fantastic confit fried chicken leg covered with a giant frisee salad.
But the dish that turns heads is the Big Mec Double Cheeseburger, which oozes a foie gras Bordelaise sauce — indulgence on top of indulgence. Heads turn when one emerges from the kitchen, for this is a dish that stops diners in mid-bite, causes eyes to boggle, and brains to explode. It’s a dish made for Instagram — and the smartphones come flying out.
It does the same thing come lunch and dinner, a showstopper of a dish that tends to make casual diners overlook the fact that there’s much on the menu worth eating, most of it very bistroish. Petit Trois is the place to rediscover the pleasures of escargot — snails to you, buster! — done Burgundy style in garlic, parsley and butter sauce. With lots of chunky bread for mopping up the good juices. (For the record, I’ve long believed the dish could be served with anything snail-like, mushrooms perhaps, and it would be just as good. The snails are a novelty ingredient. It’s the sauce that makes the dish worth eating. A bowl of the sauce with a plate of crusty bread would be just as satisfying. I think.)
The menu is not large. It does not overwhelm. It’s far from encyclopedic. Rather, it’s a greatest hits version of the best French bistros, a restaurant that would soothe most, were the weather outside grim and grey, and only a good French onion soup, topped with a thick layer of gruyere and emmenthal would warm your soul. But this is Sherman Oaks, and the weather is rarely anything but bright and cheery. And a cocktail list of libations with names like Fleur du Mal, Ode to Picon and Manhattan Noir work just fine. As does a chilled glass of Aligote. Along with a crazed chocolate soufflé.
Paris and the Seine can live in your imagination. Ventura Boulevard will have to do.
Merrill Shindler is a Los Angeles-based freelance dining critic. Email mreats@aol.com.
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