The Basics Unleashed at Black Dog

I have this feeling that there’s such a thing as museum-adjacent food. Maybe it’s because the Craft and Folk Art Museum originated back in the ‘60s as the Egg and the Eye, a clever little omelet shop down the street from the newly opened L.A. County Museum of Art. As I remember, it specialized in dainty snacks that tended to combine curry spices and raisins.

Maybe I’m wrong. For all I know, people might feel like sushi or ribs when they’re on their way to or from a museum. Or French apple pie--a palatial Marie Callender’s stands next to LACMA these days.

But I thought of the Egg and the Eye when I bit into a white Cheddar sandwich at Black Dog Coffee, a coffee shop a block east of LACMA. There it was again, the flavor of curry and raisins--except that, in this era of novel dried produce, the raisins turned out to be dried cherries.

Black Dog does have a museum-adjacent air. It boasts a pleasant sidewalk dining area for European chic, the interior is painted chartreuse and purple (with some retro glass bricks in one wall) and the design features one lurid abstract painting, a plate showing a woman’s eye winking and several lamps shaped like narrow cones. I’ve seen people rustle art catalogs as well as newspapers as they shovel their granola.

Breakfast is pretty basic--egg dishes with good fresh eggs (but no breakfast meats), oatmeal, a vegetable frittata sandwich, a breakfast burrito, a pasta or two. Lately the place has been featuring Dr. Atkins’ Diet low- or no-carbohydrate items, such as Brad’s scramble, something like a Joe’s special with ground turkey in place of the ground beef. The combination of turkey, eggs and spinach is not bad, though the little pot of ketchup improves it, if you aren’t actually counting those carbs.

Sandwiches Are Its Specialty

There are also basic salads, such as Caesar (with or without chicken), spinach and Chinese chicken. But the real specialty of Black Dog Coffee is sandwiches, which mostly come on fancy breads. The white Cheddar, for instance, is on something like a French roll studded with poppy, sesame and fennel seeds. The cheese is pretty good too, though too cold, and the combination of curry and dried cherry is a matter of taste.

Two other sandwiches on that seed bread strike me as better. The pesto turkey breast is real turkey breast, not a turkey roll, and the flavoring of pesto and tangy dried cranberries works surprisingly well.

A roast beef sandwich on seed bread is flavored with Parmesan shreds and red pepper puree, giving something of the effect of the ancient canape topping of pimento and cream cheese. The lettuce on both these sandwiches is romaine, by the way.

Michette bread, which is sort of like a chewy hamburger bun, is used for a good sandwich of goat cheese, arugula and sun-dried tomatoes, and for a less successful one of chicken breast on spinach and watercress--its ginger-peanut butter sauce barely registers. An egg salad on a different kind of round bun also has spinach and watercress, and a hideously sweet dose of mango chutney.

One sandwich comes on ordinary egg bread, a BLT with plenty of mayonnaise (and a crinkle-cut carrot stick to make you feel better about your indulgence). And there are a couple of wraps, such as the pleasant Asian wrap: a flour tortilla tightly packed with chicken, shredded carrots and romaine, with some crunchy chow mein noodles and a little ginger dressing.

To follow your sandwich, or accompany your coffee, Black Dog offers a few pastries--croissants, Danish pastries, big chocolate chip or oatmeal cookies. There might be a rich dark chocolate brownie with chocolate frosting, or a less flavorful peanut butter “blondie.”

Needless to say, you can get all sorts of espresso drinks and coffee blends with shaved ice. They’ll make you fresh orange or apple juice, or a fruit juice smoothie with shaved ice. A cold case holds mineral waters and other recherche beverages, including ICB root beer and Slim Jones sodas, which have appeared on cable TV’s “Baywatch” parody “Son of the Beach,” probably because of their bright and beachy but somewhat dorky colors.

Black Dog Coffee is a mellow place to have a bite and a sip. Above all, it’s museum-adjacent.

* Black Dog Coffee, 5657 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. (323) 933-1976. Open 7 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. No alcohol. Street parking. All major credit cards. Lunch for two, food only, $8.50-$12.50.

What to Get: roast beef sandwich, goat cheese sandwich, pesto turkey breast sandwich, Asian wrap, chocolate brownie.