Hi, I'm Carla Hall of ABC's The Chew. You're listening to The SoCal Restaurant Show on AM830KLAA. Pretty who? And welcome back. It is The SoCal Restaurant Show, and we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 AM until 12 noon, right here on AM830KLAA, the home of Angels Baseball 2024. And you can also catch us on the AM830KLAA Angels app. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host to the show, and we're proudly presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety produce and West Coast Prime Meats. We're journeying back to Culver City, particularly the Helms Bakery District and the newest restaurant there, Loostig, which has an Austrian theme, but a lot of other elements, and also a sense of fun. And we are speaking with their executive chef, proprietor Bernard Myringer. Chef, thanks for hanging in there. Welcome back. Chef, let's talk about the menu a little bit. You don't have, in terms of your printed menu, this is not organized in the conventional fashion with appetizers, entrees, and sides. Again, this is part of your playfulness. But before we start talking about some of the specific items on the menu, as I mentioned earlier, you really go out of your way to prepare as much from scratch as possible. And at least to me, it doesn't seem like you have a huge kitchen. Tell us about why you want to make the effort to do all the items that go in your bread basket, and please describe that. And there is an Austrian word for that that I wouldn't really even want to try to pronounce. But it's a very impressive bread basket, but you're baking all that stuff in-house. And then tell us about the trio of spreads that go with that, because that's a lot of fun, too. So we pronounce it both sides, which is easy for you, Bernard. Come on. You can either do it in the evening, or morning, or whatever. And in my opinion, it's just different breads go better with different spreads. And that's kind of, especially in Austria with such a bread-focused culture that bread is a big part of almost every meal period. So, to me, it was always especially coming from Austria, having worked all over the world, and then arriving in LA in 2008, I was like, "Oh, my God. Where am I going to get probably bread here? Like, this is crazy." And, you know, nowadays, there's some really good bakeries out there, and some very talented bakers. But back then, when I opened downtown, I brought in a master baker from Austria, Renee. And he is, he moved up to a little San Francisco, probably came back to Los Angeles. And too, he and I collaborated against, and we still want to do this kind of bread. We still want to show off what breads really can be, fresh, done with organic ingredients, natural salados, no yeast, but just really authentic, well-made bread. And so, it's important, especially for restaurants like Loose Dig, where we take pride in the quality, and in what we do in the presentation, it's just seeing the program that it starts with the bread baskets. And then, of course, you know, as you mentioned, all the different categories, it's got to be fun. Like, the minute you sit down, I want to have a smile on your face. And, you know, that's why we don't categorize it, appetizers, main courses, salads, and then desserts, because, you know, that's something you'll find in 20,000 other restaurants in the city. So, you know, again, I just like to feel a little different, do things a little different. So, I think Los Angeles is a great, not being part of many things, but there's also a lot of repetitiveness where it's just nice sometimes to be someone that does something definitely. Chef, I think you're succeeding that category, but it all has to be delicious, and it is. Now, you wouldn't expect French fries to be on a menu from a restaurant of a chef with your caliber. Your fries are wonderful. Tell us about that. And, you know, you see a lot of those orders going out. I mean, you know, quite honestly, I don't think I've ever met anyone that doesn't like French fries, and it got you a great shareable thing for the table. And so, when I originally wrote the concept, right, and it was kind of like, what's the philosophy of Los Angeles? They got a name being cheeky and fun and whatsoever. But one of the main philosophers is, and I call it, we speak food, right? So, it's the most universal language in the world. Everybody comes together when it comes to food. And everybody understands it. Everybody needs to eat. Everybody has their favorites, their cravings. It's such such a big thing all over the world, right? And so, I figured, okay, that's the perfect catchphrase, let's call it, "Folistic" words. Like, you know, it's food. It brings people together. And what's a better snack on the table than just perfectly crisp, lightly salty, French fries. And then with the perfect clothes, the bean sauce, that's not just ketchup. And so, yeah, people really appreciate it. And then, quite honestly, it's also a perfect carrier for so many different flavors. That's why we have three different versions of it where, you know, you can go plain and simple, you can go curry, a little bit more oriental, spicy, different. And then you have see the fries, which, again, it's a potato with kind of a cheesy dressing and caviar in our scenario. And it just works. And it's craveable and delicious. And it's the perfect start put on the table and share. Chef, all true. Now, of course, given your Austrian heritage, there has to be schnitzel that's on the menu. Tell us about your two styles of schnitzel and what you serve it with. So, you know, as an Austrian, schnitzel has a very special place in my heart. It's just something, you know, you grew up on a Sunday. The family will go to restaurants. It's always something unlike the classic restaurant menus. And it's something that just fits every occasion in my dinner. But it's something you can always eat. There's never really a bad time to eat schnitzel. That being said, it has to be well done. Like, it has to be properly executed because of terrible schnitzel. It's just terrible. I just have one in jail and I could not believe how bad schnitz it can be. So, since being a biological, I was literally like, it's crazy that this city, a caliber like Los Angeles, doesn't have like a proper. And I named authentic here to a degree because we're playing with some of the classic components. But when it comes to the schnitzel, we don't mess around, right? It's the best possible wheel, grab a big breadcrumb to the highest quality, organic egg, organic flour, simple, and then fry to order, bread it to order, move the oil so it gets this nice little puffiness and flicking it to it. And that's just the perfect schnitzel. And that's how it should be done every time and all the time. And, you know, we're in Austria's service with Lingenberry Gem, which, in my opinion, is just the perfect companion for the schnitzel. But then again, you know, it wouldn't be listed if we wouldn't take it to a little bit of another level of play with it, to wear a little bit of user line to it, the tartness, the sweetness, yet then you have that lime and the brininess and the freshness of the user. It just complements it so well. And the cost that gives you the potato salad or the parsley potatoes, which we basically do the parsley potatoes, was to shishu the peppers. So again, giving something that's, you know, birthday and rich, that love peppery, sweet, yet spicy addition that just works really, really well with that bright, fresh, sweet user compound. So again, as a whole complete dish, it just makes it so much more fun than the classic schnitzel. And that cucumber salad that's an option is unusually good, too. So definitely something that you want to order. Now, again, chef, talking about your sense of fun, you have a section of pizzas that are on your menu. You're not going to find these anywhere. A standout for me that I order every time I'm there. Give us the description, chef Bernard, if you would, of the raclette cheese pizza. Because again, I've not seen this anywhere. So, you know, when I first created listing, I was like, okay, the menu is going to have items for people like, what the hell is this? Like, why would someone do this? And I was like, you know what, we're going to play with pizza, too, because pizza is something universal. Pizza is something that's the same thing like schnitzel, almost everybody likes. And there's never a bad time for pizza. But then I don't want to do pizzas like everyone else. So I was like, okay, any pizza that we're going to put on the listing menu is a dish that would never be a pizza. And so, you know, we have a ratatouille. We've got the croque mister. We've got a goulash pizza. Like, all those things do not belong on the pizza, yet they work incredibly well. And then raclette cheese, which, you know, I worked in Switzerland in tomorrow a little bit. And it was such a popular thing where, you know, you have the half of the raclette cheese wheel with that little boiler, and then you scrape off the cheese, and there's always some boiled potatoes and a little bit of pickles, and then some, you know, white sliced white bread. I was like, okay, these are the flavor profiles. But, you know, the dish itself is so simple, yet delicious. We can, we can have some fun with this. Like, it makes sense. It's just bread, basically, with cheese, pickles, and why not make it into a pizza? So we basically bring in this beautiful Swiss raclette cheese. We put it on our sourdough spelt crust, and then we hope, like, we pickle the vegetables in-house that we garnish the pizzas, if different colors, different textures, different vegetables. Plus, we serve it with a side of the pickling cheese, because, you know, a lot of times, when you eat a pizza, you have, like, the bread crust less, where you don't have that much from the topping left on it. So it's the perfect thing to dip into the, you know, kind of fruity vegetable pickling cheese that then, you know, makes the crust so much more enjoyable. So I figured that's just the perfect, fun way to put in black glass cheese, and people seem to really like it. And it's definitely one of the pieces where, if you're not a cheese and bread lover, this is not the pizza for you. If you love cheese and bread, that is a pizza for you. Definitely a fun item, Chef. As we're fighting the clock, we need to let our listeners know, Chef Bernard, what meal periods you're open for. It's dinner nightly, but which day is for lunch, which days for brunch? And you might just very quickly mention Sausage Howard. Okay. So we had a few changes given that we just launched our bar menu yesterday. So we had basically opened Tuesday, food Saturday from noon till 2.30 for lunch, and with a kiosk that basically stays open through the afternoon with, like, some fun snacks, sausage, schnitzel, ice cream sandwich, and so on. So if you just want a quick bite and snack, you can take up from the kiosk. And then we have a bar menu now that starts at 5 p.m. through basically until we close, until we basically open night time from 5 till 10, and then Friday Saturday we're open to 11. And sausage, pretty much, we'll get replaced by the bar menu because it's more fun bites, craveable ones, the sausages on the dinner menu now. So it just makes it a little bit easier, a little bit more efficient and less complicated, which mainly is what I got it. Ladies and gentlemen, it is loose dig at the Helms Bakery District in Culver City spelled L-U-S-T-I-G. When you're there, you cannot miss chef Bernard Myringer. He will be the tallest guy in the room and probably the tallest chef we know. You are listening to the SoCal restaurant show. When we return, as promised, it is chef Andrew Grool with Ask the Chef. We're proudly presented by Melissa's World Variety Produce and West Coast Prime Meats. Please stay with us.
