CLIQUES

Los Angeles has always been a city of out-oftowners, restless wanderers eager for a taste of the American Dream, but hungry as well for the nostalgic flavor of their hometown chow. Some dishes travel not at all--the occasional attempt to re-create the fabled Chicago-style chop suey in Los Angeles has been a pitiful failure, and you can’t get a good order of scrapple in Southern California, no matter how hard you look. Other dishes, however, seem to prosper in the warm Pacific breeze.

The most famous street food in New York, the Sabrett hot dog (complete with the requisite soft, sweet, red onion dressing) is served at Manhattan Franks in Sherman Oaks (along with such Big Apple totems as potato knishes, Devil Dogs, Yankee Doodles and Yoo Hoo Chocolate Soda). In New York, they eat their hot dogs in the sort of discreet packages created at Manhattan Franks. In Chicago, however, a hot dog is a full meal, a fair simulacrum of which can be found at another Sherman Oaks landmark called Rubin’s Red Hot, where the buns are wide enough to accommodate a fat Chicago dog, along with relish, onions, tomatoes, mustard, catsup and goodness knows what else.

Some small distance north, a fine taste of Texas-style barbecue can be found in Van Nuys, at a down-home shack called Dr. Hogly Wogly’s Tyler Texas BBQ, where the brisket melts in your mouth, and the beans are pale and sweet, with the vaguely acrid smokiness of food cooked over a mesquite fire. For those who long for the spice of N’Awlins, the Gumbo Pot in the Farmers Market makes the best po’ boys and the only worthy muffalettas in town--greasy and nasty and just right.

The quest for the Philly cheese steak takes us to a Venice dive named the Great Western Steak & Hoagie Co., a favorite of folks like Wilt the Stilt and Jane Fonda, who agree that the sign in front noting that it’s “3,000 miles to Philadelphia/Eat here” has a certain logic to it. Suitably hot Buffalo chicken wings can be found at the The Wings at the ocean end of Washington Boulevard in Venice, where a sign notes that Buffalo, and apparently the rest of the country, is also 3,000 miles away from Los Angeles.