Love Letters

Who is Ketty Lester?

Quick!

Ok...here's a hint:



Hm...stumped? Or maybe just disturbed by the hint?

Uh...ok...then here's Ketty Lester:
(You get a star next to your name if you already knew and a smiley face if you needed the hint)



See, you knew who Ketty Lester is!

[If you're still scratching your head, then I don't know what to tell you...]

She sang the song Love Letters, which is one of the most beautiful, seductive, and longing ballads I know. The song was recorded in 1961, originally done by singer Dick Haymes in 1945, and was actually released as a b-side. It went on to sell over a million copies as radio djs preferred it to the a-side (I'm a Fool to Want You for those who like useless facts). Most of you, or us, or at least me, remember it from the soundtrack to the movie Blue Velvet, by David Lynch.

The movie came out in 1986 and I was WAY to young to watch such a disturbing movie. However, a revival of the movie in the early 90s due to the popularity of Lynch's epically disturbing and provocative TV series Twin Peaks brought it back to the big screen in Sacramento to the Crest Theater for midnight viewings. That is where I first saw it, the summer between my junior and senior year (or was it the summer after I graduated from high school? It's all such a blur now) with my circle of friends- a group of artsy misfits (outcasts would be too strong a word) who appreciated things just outside of the mainstream. I don't even remember how it was that we all exactly became friends. Some of us were varsity athletes. Some of us were artists. Some of us were writers. Some of us were nerds. Some of us were all of the above. What is most amazing is that nearly 20 years after first finding each other, the core of us remain close; in spite of times apart, successes, failures, rehab, marriage, divorce, kids, etc. The older I get, the more I value these friendships because I know I can always count on and trust my boys (and one girl) from Christian Brothers. And strange as it is, whenever we get together, I still feel like I'm back in high school, borrowing the parents' car, already thinking of the excuse for staying out past curfew, trying not to get into too much trouble.

Now that we're all, for the most part, back living in Sac, we have started a new semi-tradition of the Gentleman's Breakfast- once a month on a saturday, just the guys. It's good to reconnect, stay in touch, grounded. We've kind of slipped on that the last month or so and put together a Gentleman's Dinner.

"I am not going to be in your fucking blog!"

And I love you too Jacques...
[*For some reason he didn't want his "real" name used here, so I'll call him Jacques, which is what I use to address him when I call him on the phone]

"But this whole journey is your idea," I argued...It really was.

Jacques moved back to Sac recently after living in the Bay Area for years. He is a fellow gastronome, though his tastes lean more toward Asian food. As of late, he's been on a Korean food kick- on an ongoing quest for good Korean chicken. Knowing my quest for Hood Food, he'd been telling me about a Korean chicken place he'd heard about in Rancho Cordova. It was his idea to have the Gentleman's Dinner out there.

So with Jacques driving and Larry riding shotgun we headed to East Sac to go pick up our friend Carey and head out Highway 50 to Bradshaw Road. Rancho Cordova. The Hood.

As we talked about marriage and kids, the 3 married and kids guys and me the divorced one, we made our way further and further away from the comfort zone of the grid.

"What's this place called?"

"Pizza and Chicken Love Letter," answered Jacques.

Larry, Carey and I weren't sure whether to be very stoked or very afraid.

Yes, those are fuel tanks in the background

What font is that?

Can you read Korean?
(also, I'd like to think Club Silk Too is the Korean, Rancho Cordova version of the Mexican, Franklin Boulevard, Club La Pantera)

The grocery next door where they don't sell batteries

We arrived at the weed surrounded strip mall near the old drive-in theater, a place that had certainly seen better days. The parking lot was empty, save for a smattering of cars, which was not unexpected on a Monday evening. I actually went into the market here because the batteries in my camera died. I did get a little kick out of the fact that in spite of this being a predominantly Asian hood, it was Latinos carrying boxes in to and stocking the place. Gotta love California's diversity...They didn't have batteries and if they did, I wouldn't have known where to look because everything in the place was Asian with all signs and products bearing Asian script. Luckily I had some in my jacket...

I would really like to come back on a Friday night around midnight...just because

Ok, this is the second Asian restaurant I've been to with a waterfall in the entryway

I'm now starting to think as paintings of churches are to Mexican restaurants, so are waterfall murals to Asian restaurants. I like it though. It gives a place a kind of funky, downhome feel to it. We were greeted and seated by another Latino...ah the irony. It reminded me of a reverse situation where I found a little Mexican joint in Manhattan that was completely run by Asians. God bless America!

We sat in a cozy wooden booth surrounded by posters of very hot Asian women doing their best to entice men to buy certain brands of beers.

One of their booths

Yes, I think I would buy a beer from her...and I don't drink anymore
(I'd give it to Jacques though...)

This is what illiteracy looks like

The four of us settled in and looked at our menus, deciding what to get. Let me assure you, the name is no lie. There are only two things to get here...literally: Pizza and Chicken.

Pizza

Chicken

This made me happy. As I've said before, citing my food guru/idol Anthony Bourdain, you have to love a place that only has a few things on the menu. Better to do a few items well, than to do a bunch of items mediocre. Even more so, I was loving the fact that this was a Korean joint that was doing just pizza and chicken. It was a bit surreal, but in a good way.

We decided to just order a bunch of food and share it family style.

Our Order:
Bulgogi Pizza
Fried Chicken
Sweet & Mild Chicken
Hot & Spicy Chicken

Bulgogi is Korean-style barbecued beef, marinated in soy sauce, garlic, sesame oil and sugar. We all thought this was an interesting thing to put on a pizza. I was curious about the sweet potato pizza on the menu, but alas, I was overruled.

After we ordered, our server brought us some daikon radish in a pool of vinegar and dill, along with some spicy cabbage as an appetizer.

Love the name on the plate...in case you forget where you are

I have to be honest. I'd never had daikon before. Being Mexican, it reminded my of jicama, the cool, refreshing root that my people eat, though with lime and salt. I also enjoyed the spiced up cabbage with the thousand island-ish dressing. It didn't take long for out feast to arrive, with us being the only people there.

Hot & Spicy Chicken

Fried Chicken

Sweet & Mild Chicken

Bulgogi Pizza and Hite Beer (For Larry & Jacques)

2-Liter of Coke for Carey and Aaron

With a pile of napkins to go along with our feast, we dug in. From the start, we realized that the napkins would be of no use to us. So much sauce. We gave up on trying to wipe our dirty little hands as we ate and just kept on eating.

Dexter after a kill, or Carey demolishing chicken?

The spicy chicken was definitely spicy, in an Asian chili pepper way, as opposed to a more Mexican jalapeño way. It had pleasant undertone of citrus sweetness that tempered the heat. Even though it was drowned in sauce, the chicken skin stayed nicely crispy, as was the case with the sweet & mild chicken. The fried chicken was nice in that it wasn't greasy, just light and crispy.

We were all impressed with the quality of the chicken and the way it was cooked. It wasn't dry, like you sometimes get at restaurants of ill repute. Also, there was a lot of meat on the bone. I mean, don't you hate it when you order chicken and it's all bone & gristle? This definitely was not the case here. There was plenty of meat in each bite. We surmised that the chicken orders were literally whole chickens that were artfully cleavered and not pre-cut. We even did the math on the "whole" chicken order of the sweet & mild chicken (as opposed to the half orders of fried chicken and hot & spicy chicken). There was indeed two of everything.

The bulgogi pizza wasn't half bad either. I mean, pizza is pizza. You have to be an utter and complete moron to eff it up. I liked the novelty of the bulgogi topping and it was plenty cheesy, which is never bad, because I do love cheese. The crust wasn't flaccid and paper thin. It was almost like a Boboli style crust. Hm...Bulgogi Boboli...Say that 5 times really fast.

As you can see below, there was major chicken carnage:

Jacques' wreckage

Larry's dirty little hands

Jacques was so excited, he got his shirt dirty!

A sheet over the corpse...this chicken did not die in vain

This is all that remained...

Sufficiently filled with chicken, the young latino who was our waiter and server came by with the bill and offered us with a parting gift...

Would we like a Korean beer model poster calendar?

Uh...Yes, please. I mean, how could I say now? And what a surreal cherry to top the surreal eating experience.

Wow! I look like a letch...

There are worse love letters to get. You could always get a love letter from Frank Booth (if you've seen Blue Velvet, you'll know what that is). So while I wait for a real love letter, Kitty Lester-style...I'll take a Pizza & Chicken Love Letter.

Pizza & Chicken Love Letter is located at:
2990 Bradshaw Road
Sacramento, CA 95827
(916) 369-2009