more Californianess

hey, "El pollo loco" -- Spanish, remember? so you'll get tortillas.

No biscuit :)

(And that's a good place to get food, too. I am more familiar with the SoCal chains, like the revered In-n-out Burger, but in general, local-to-California fast food beats any national chain.)

I've been following all your LJ entries; this is just the first one where I felt like I could say something helpful.

mmmmm.... in-n-out burger.

EPL is one of my favorite CA chains (the other being In-N-Out). Unlike KFC, the chicken is good and tastes like, well, chicken, and I like having my choice of parts; you can get all thighs if you want, and I usually do. Good sides, too; ISTR that their mac-n-cheese is tasty, as are the beans. Try the corn tortillas next time.

Yeah, I was pretty pleased with the meal. The chicken was good, and so was the BBQ black beans.
We haven't tried In-N-Out yet, but we'll have to soon.

Whenever we have been in CA. we have made a trip to Baja Buds. It's generic AmerMexican food, Tacos, burritos etc. It's not bad but nothing really special. It's the name that attracted us the first time. Then we just had to go back for sentimental reasons.

OK, that's a new one on me.

FYI, ISTR "vegetarian" often means "includes weird ass vegetables like advocado", in CA. So, if you see "Lasagna, sausage or vegetarian" they don't mean "either with or without sausage", they mean "either with sausage or with zuccini/squash/spinach".

And they put advocado in the most remarkable things....

Yes, but avocado belongs in the most remarkable things!

I remember walking into a Popeye's on I-85 in South Carolina one evening and asking what a "sausage biscuit" was. (I was guessing it was either a biscuit with sausage bits baked in, biscuits with sausage gravy on them, or a sausage-biscuit sandwich.) The woman behind the counter said, as if I was an alien or not right in the head, "It's a sausage... biscuit...". So I ordered it, and found out it was a sausage-biscuit sandwich.

I never ate at El Pollo Loco that much, but it certainly seemed healthier than KFC and the tortillas meant you kept your hands cleaner while eating with your hands.

Other chains I miss:
- Everybody seems to have mentioned In-N-Out already.
- Hobee's, a diner chain with good breakfasts and great beef/chicken/veggie/tofuburgers and a lovely cinnamon spice hot tea (Central and Rengstorff, Mountain View)
- La Salsa, a yuppie-burrito chain (one on San Antonio Road in Mountain View)
- Max's, a chain of over-the-top jewish-deli-cum-50s-diner restaurants (of the $9.50 hamburger, but worth it when you're in the mood sort) (nearest to you in the Stanford Shopping Center)
- Togo's, a sandwich chain almost as ubiquitous there as D'Angelo's here, but (in my rose-tinted memory) much more in the whole-wheat-and-avocado-and-sprouts sandwich model. They've made a tentative move to go national, and last I saw (here in MA) they were starting to sell grilled sub sandwiches -- if I want that, I'm going to Quizno's, not Togo's! (One at El Camino Real and El Monte Ave, Mountain View)
- Erik's Delicafe, with sandwiches and soups more along the pastrami-and-mustard sammich model. (One in the shopping center on Grant Road just south of El Camino; Grant Road is the continuation of 237 after it stops being a freeway.)
- The Original Pancake House: Just pancakes, just breakfast and lunchtime, lines out the door. Very good at what they do. One in Los Altos.

Not a chain, more of a trend:
- There are a bunch of independent burrito places all with the same business model: have a steam table with 50 different things there, and a tortilla steamer. Make anything you ask for into a burrito the size of your head. Sell it reasonably cheaply.

Regional chains I don't miss:
- El Pollo Loco, Del Taco, Jack-in-the-Box, Wienerschnitzel, Carl's Jr for fast food.
- Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes and Fresh Choice, all-you-can-eat salad bar type places.
- Sizzler for trying to be both a steak place and an all-you-can-eat salad bar.
- Carrow's, Coco's, Baker's Square and Lyons are all relatively interchangeable diners (er, 'casual bakery-restaurants!') that are a step up from Denny's, maybe.