A Los Angeles Classsic
Tuesday, May 24, 2005 16:10I had the most delightful surprise today: lunch at Pacific Dining Car (PDC). Open since 1921, this historic restaurant has been a staple of the Los Angeles culture through good times and bad. The one thing that has not changed is great the quality of the food is.
Although PDC is known best for their steaks (and beef in general), I decided to try their crabcakes ($26.95). A gravy boat filled with homemade tartar sauce and half a lemon are on a separate small dish. The best crabcakes I have ever had in my life were in Bethesda, Maryland. The ones I had for lunch today were a very close second. One of my main complaints about many restaurants’ crabcakes is that there is very little crab; it is mostly cornmeal and various veggies (chopped red bell pepper, green onions, and corn). PDC’s crabcakes remind me of the ones I had in Maryland because it was almost entirely crabmeat! Imagine that. Side dishes must be ordered separately and cost an additional $4.95. I ordered the cauliflower polonaise, which was delicious.
My friends ordered the filet mignon with black pepper sauce and pot roast with potato pancakes. They both enjoyed their dishes very much. The filet mignon looked very lean and was cooked to a perfect medium – mostly pink but not bloody. The pot roast was a little surprising because instead of a big chunk of meat that flakes off, the beef was served in 7 or 8 slices. My friend found the beef to be very tender and much to his satisfaction.
I would have taken photos of the elegance of the interior of the restaurant, along with the food, except I didn’t have a camera with me. It is more comfortable than any train could possibly be. Like I said earlier, this venture was a complete surprise and really the highlight of my day (so far).
Tips: Theater and music center listings recommend PDC because it is one of the restaurants in downtown LA that provides free shuttle service in the evenings to multiple venues. Whenever you want to go to PDC, it will be open and ready to serve you because this place is open 24/7!
Pacific Dining Car
1310 West 6th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90017
(213) 483-6000
Breakfast: 11 pm to 11 am
Weekend Breakfast: until 4 pm
Lunch: 11 am to 4 pm
Afternoon Tea: 3 pm to 5:30 pm
Dinner: any time
Special Services: valet parking, hand car wash
Also a location in Santa Monica
2700 Wilshire Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90403
For Reservations: call (310) 453-4000
Open 20 hours - 6 am to 2 am, every day of the year
Breakfast: 6 am to 11 am and 11 pm to 2 am
Weekend Breakfast: until 4 pm
Lunch: 11 am to 4 pm
Afternoon Tea: 3 pm to 5:30 pm
Dinner: any time
Special Services: valet parking
By Pauline (see more of her posts).
laura says:
May 25th, 2005 at 6:06 pm
Pauline… I saw a contestant from this season’s America’s Next Top Model get loaded at PDC and then proceed to barf all over herself and her chair in the dining room while the other contestant’s watched. I can’t help but think she really funked up the room and it’s ruined the idea of eating at PDC for me forever.
Pauline says:
May 26th, 2005 at 7:23 am
Yikes! Well, there was no funkiness when I went (thank goodness). Then again, there are several areas to PDC. I ate near the entrance, which was in a fairly open space. I’m assuming that Top Model probably wanted a bit more privacy and used the Wine Room or Huntington Room. Let us hope that after the taping PDC had the sense to burn the chair (and everything else that was in the room). In the meantime, maybe try the PDC in Santa Monica to help subside the damage of watching something so traumatic.
Sigh. It’s bad enough models look like they don’t eat, but they have to go ruin nice restaurants for us now, too.
Pauline says:
June 1st, 2005 at 12:51 pm
Just a follow up… Went there for lunch today and had the filet mignon. Absolutely wonderful! It’s no wonder why Pacific Dining Car is so well-known for its steak. Also tried the raspberry creme brulee, which was extremely rich.
SoCalorie says:
June 1st, 2005 at 12:55 pm
You hit so many L.A. restaurants a day it’s like you’re moving to Illinois or something.
Pauline says:
June 1st, 2005 at 1:20 pm
Haha… or something! What made my lunch at PDC more touching today was that it was a good friend at work who was treating me to a goodbye meal. I think goodbye happy hour is tomorrow and Friday.
By the way one of my friends today had the bread pudding which still was pretty heavy with the Tennessee whiskey. Another friend ordered the raspberry sorbet, which was big enough to share for 2 or 3 people.
thranduil says:
May 2nd, 2006 at 7:03 am
We happened to go to the Santa Monica branch (which is now open 24 hours) for a late celebratory lunch over the weekend and it was fantastic!
We started off with the roasted artichoke appetizer, which was accompanied by a tasty lemon sauce. We split a couple of the sides: the mashed potatoes, which was not overly creamy and was surprisingly spiced with mace, the creamed spinach, which was also not overly creamy and allowed to spinach flavors to come through, and the steamed asparagus, which was a very nice complement to the meat (!).
We got a new york strip steak and a dining car club steak. The strip steak was superb - juicy and tender - and the club steak had that wonderful sirloin beefy taste. The only downside was that I had ordered the club steak with smothered mushrooms on top - the tip ended up being medium instead of medium rare, probably from having the mushrooms on top. But I love mushrooms and I’m not picky about good meat. However, next time I think we would both order the mushrooms on the side (which we did for the strip steak). It also came with a sweet tomato-based relish which was interesting, but really the meat stands alone quite well.
We were stuffed, but we couldn’t pass up on dessert. We went with the chocolate souffle, which was heavenly light and topped with a perfect dollop of whipped cream. We aren’t really chocolate people, but that was one that might change my mind, at least.
All in all, a great experience. The ambience and service are wonderful. You get what you pay for.
The funniest thing that happened was unrelated to the dining experience. We brought our own wine (corkage is $35). Since it was unfiltered, we asked for a decanter. The decanter was a bit small and looked a bit more like a vase. As our server was pouring our wine, we could overhear the wait staff in the background saying, “Do you see that decanter - it’s terrible! We need to get some new ones.” So maybe you they’ll have some new ones if you happen to go. :)