Before smashburgers, a crisper L.A. burger

Oct. 25, 2024 9:57 PM PT

Lettuce, cheese, pickle, onion ... on a buttered bun. Also, masa-powered sourdough, spooky cocktails, New Haven-style pizza ... with the char but without the coal, a World Series-sized L.A.-New York food fight, plus game-day specials, including restaurant picks from Shohei, Mookie, Walker and more of our favorite Dodgers. I’m Laurie Ochoa, general manager of L.A. Times Food, with this week’s Tasting Notes.

Round and crisp

Cassell's cheeseburger with iceberg lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle and Thousand Island sauce at its Chinatown location.

I was eating cold soy garlic noodles topped with a beautiful smoked egg outside Jihee Kim’s acclaimed banchan shop, Perilla LA, when I noticed a sign for Cassell’s Hamburgers. At first glance, the old-school burger specialist might seem as if it wouldn’t fit into the food hub that is evolving at the edge of Chinatown around a bungalow courtyard in Victor Heights, with Jennifer Yee‘s praised vegan croissants at Bakers Bench next door and Baby Bistro chef Miles Thompson‘s new project coming soon. On the other hand, the whole complex is across from Eastside Italian Deli, longtime favorite of Dodger fans.

Opened by Al Cassell in 1948 as a lunchroom across from Bullock’s Wilshire, Cassell’s spent much of its life in a low-slung, nondescript building on Sixth Street where one-third- and two-thirds-pound burgers were dispensed cafeteria-style along with horseradish-spiked potato salad that, while not quite like mashed potatoes, was of the smooth and ice-cream-scoopable school. When I lived in Koreatown years ago, walking distance from Cassell’s, I came to love the sharp-sweet flavor of that potato salad and the way it cut through the heft of the USDA prime patties that the place was known for using.

In 2014, four years after Cassell’s founder died and after the restaurant nearly went out of business, Christian Page, formerly of Short Order and currently at Hawaii’s Lana’i City Bar & Grill, helped revive Cassell’s at the Hotel Normandie with owner Jingbo Lou.

At first, fries were not going to be on the menu, in deference to Al Cassell’s no-fries policy. But these days fries are available along with the potato salad. Cheddar is one of the cheese choices, not just slices of American. And while the cafeteria line is long gone, the burger comes unadorned on a buttered bun with cheese oozing at the edges. On the side is a plate with iceberg lettuce, a slice of tomato, a slice of red onion and a pickle along with a cup of Thousand Island dressing. You can be your own cafeteria cook and decide how you want your burger adorned.

My choice is to add the salad, so to speak, for that classic L.A. lunchroom burger contrast between the cold, crisp iceberg lettuce and the melting cheese adhering to the griddled hamburger patty with the edges of the buttered bun adding one more level of crispness. This isn’t the smashburger way, which may sometimes come with lettuce but most often favors the full press of bun, meat and cheese.

Not a smashburger: A cheeseburger at Pie 'n Burger in Pasadena.

The very good Cassell’s burger in the new Chinatown location, which opened during the summer, reminded me of my two favorite old-school L.A. burgers, from Apple Pan and Pie ‘n Burger. At Apple Pan, I always get the hickoryburger with Tillamook cheddar, the smokiness of the sauce bringing extra oomph to the whole endeavor in a way that plain ketchup never would. At Pie ‘n Burger, I save the ketchup for the fries alone. Instead, as at Cassell’s, Thousand Island dressing is one of the layers along with pickle, tomato and always iceberg lettuce. After all, as the late, great cookbook author Marion Cunningham wrote in this paper nearly 30 years ago, “Iceberg lettuce is a close friend of every sandwich of note,” including the hamburger.

Cunningham wasn’t just riffing for a column; she was known for her deep love of iceberg lettuce — and for making sure all of her recipes could be made with ingredients available at most supermarkets. I was lucky enough to know Cunningham and enjoy her relaxed style of cooking a few times at her Walnut Creek ranch-style home. Here’s a bit more from that 1990 iceberg lettuce story she wrote, to give you a sense of her passion and humor:

“If it could, iceberg lettuce would smile. Round and crisp, it is a perfect creation. Although its flavor is delicate, it is a sturdy creature, unlike some of the frail field lettuce that wilt, swoon and get the vapors. My dog Rover loves it, especially dunked in meat drippings; he wouldn’t touch arugula with a 10-foot pole.”

From the counter at Apple Pan, you can watch the cooks assemble the burgers, and one of the best sights is the lineup of iceberg lettuce portioned to fit just right on each bun — “round and crisp,” exactly as Cunningham would say.

Welcome to Dodgertown

Illustrated fight cloud with NY and LA foods

Fireworks are booming all over Los Angeles after the Dodgers’ Game 1 win in extra innings of the World Series. Let the gloating begin. For the rest of this month, and possibly into the first two days of November, even some of the mellowest Angelenos will be feeling the rivalry between L.A. and New York. Food’s columnist Jenn Harris, normally so easygoing, is certainly ready for a fight when it comes to defending her city.

“Los Angeles has always been the better food city than New York,” she asserts, and then makes her case by assessing the major food groups of both cities: pastrami, bagels, pizza, Korean food, burgers (In-N-Out over Shake Shack) and, yes, even smoothies.

Food reporter Stephanie Breijo runs down all the ways Los Angeles restaurants are celebrating the Dodgers with World Series food and drink specials, and assistant food editor Danielle Dorsey has mapped the restaurants some of our favorite Dodgers players, including Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Walker Buehler, Max Muncy, Chris Taylor, Gavin Lux, Gavin Stone, Tony Gonsolin, Alex Vesia, Emmet Sheehan and even manager Dave Roberts — who is a fan of Girl & the Goat. And Freddie Freeman? He didn’t answer, but we’ll put him down for a Denny’s Grand Slam.

Nixtamal king

“I’m not trying to make the same exact thing every time. ... It’s artisanal. You’re making it by hand. I try to not get too caught up in making perfect.”

That’s baker Arturo Enciso, founder of Long Beach’s Gusto Bread, which is changing the way many of us think about Mexican sweet bread by using sourdough starter, stone-milled grains and often masa for conchas and other pastries. Consider the sweet he calls nixtamal queen, a play on France’s kouign amann, which he makes with masa and bread baking techniques that are closer to the methods in the original, historical version before pastry chefs started using croissant techniques. On the outside it’s crisp and caramelized; inside it’s soft and tender.

Deputy food editor Betty Hallock spent the day with Enciso, watching him make one of his most popular seasonal items, pan de muerto for Día de Muertos. Her story takes readers through Enciso’s thinking during each step of the process and includes a recipe so you can make the bread at home.

New Haven char without the coal

Founder Chris Wallace tosses pizza dough into the air in the open kitchen of Ozzy's Apizza in North Hollywood.

Can you make a New Haven-style pizza without a coal-fired pizza oven? After all, that’s what the famed pizzerias Frank Pepe and Sally’s Apizza uses.

“I was always wondering why New Haven pizza was never out here,” Chris Wallace told Food’s Stephanie Breijo this week. “Everyone’s so set on coal. But here’s the secret: Not every New Haven pizzeria uses coal. Zuppardi’s, which is one of my favorites, uses Bakers Pride gas deck ovens. They’ve never used a coal oven a day in their life. So I was like, OK, so if they can do it, why can’t I?”

Armed with a 72-hour cold ferment and a gas brick oven, Wallace, “after years of pop-ups” around Los Angeles, has opened his own New Haven-style pizzeria, Ozzy’s Apizza in North Hollywood, with, as Breijo writes, “the requisite New Haven-style char, with a crunchy but still chewy crust that stops just shy of burnt.” Read her story to find out more about how he does it.

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