We hear about new restaurants from many different sources: newspapers such as the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, magazines such as Inland Empire, and recommendations from family and friends.  And sometimes we just drive a place that looks interesting or like it might be good.  We drive back and forth down Citrus Avenue through downtown Covina many times so we can always tell when new businesses have opened or are in the process of opening there.  By driving by we learned about Olamendi’s Zona Rosa (see earlier review), and the Young Performers’ Institute Live the Music musical revue at the Covina Center for the Performing Arts (CCPA).  At the northwest corner of Citrus Avenue and College Street there’s an old building that used to house a camera shop.  They have since either closed down or moved to one of the side streets.  For several months in the late summer and early fall 2009 they had been renovating the place as a new restaurant: 3 Vinos.  It was hard to miss with a large blue sign below the clock on the top corner of the building.

My mom visited us over the weekend of November 7-8, 2009.  Before she came she told me she wanted to take us out to dinner for our birthdays, both of which had taken place the previous month.  We decided this was a good time to try 3 Vinos since it was close to where we lived and had opened within the past few weeks.  We could see the blue lights of the bar inside from the street.  We checked their website but it didn’t say much other than hinting that their food was Latin and giving a couple of songs on their play list.  These included “La Vida is un Carnaval” sung by Celia Cruz and “Bombalero” by the Gypsy Kings.  Well, we had enjoyed Latin food at many other places.  We knew this usually meant food from Spain or Latin America other than Mexico.  But it also meant something different at every Latin restaurant we had visited so we were curious to find out 3 Vino’s take.

On the afternoon of Saturday, November 7, we went to church in the evening.  On the way there we drove by Gladstone High School where my mom’s cousin teaches.  We drove down Azusa Avenue past the North Woods Inn and our gym.  We drove by our credit union and still arrived at church early.  After church we drove north on Citrus into Downtown Covina, turned right on College Street and parked in the public structure there.  We went up to the second level where we could park in the blue-lined parking spaces for 3 hours for free.  Curiously there were no other cars in the structure despite all the angled spaces along Citrus being full.  We took the elevator down to street level, crossed Citrus Avenue and College Street and entered the restaurant.  We hadn’t made a reservation so we weren’t sure what to expect.  I don’t think the website had given a phone number.

Upon entering we noticed that the restaurant was a large space with high ceilings and dark hardwood floors.  The interior walls were brick, probably part of the original building’s structure.  The lighting was slightly dark.  In the middle was a large bar that wrapped all around and had blue light emanating from the counter.  Above it were flat glass double panes filled with water and lit with blue lights in which air bubbles decoratively floated to the top.  The left (south) side of the place was filled with large flat black leather couches.  I guess it was more of a lounge section.  The tables of the restaurant were on the right (north) side of the space.  After we entered a waiter said he could have a table ready for us in five minutes.  We sat down on one of the leather couches and studied a menu that the waiter had given us.  3 Vinos’ take on Latin Food seems to include Cuban (e.g. Cuban Sandwich), Spanish (paella), and South American (e.g. Loma Saltado from Peru).  The menu has separate sections for appetizers, soups/salads, sandwiches, meat, chicken, seafood, and desserts.  The appetizers, soups/salads, and sandwiches cost between $6-$22 and the entrees cost between $12-$25 with some of the steak entrees being more expensive.  The desserts were also expensive at around $8-$9.

We ended up waiting for about 20 minutes from 6:55 pm to 7:15 pm.  We figured if we had to wait too long we could just go to Mr. Pollo where they also serve Loma Saltado.  A hostess asked us whether someone had taken our name.  Soon after that the waiter we first talked to seated us on the north side of the restaurant.  He had given us the choice of indoor or outdoor seating but we felt it was too cold outside.  Our small table for three was towards the back near the speaker.  Throughout the time we were there they played loud Merengue music.  Some music sounded like Merengue remixes of songs.  Above the bar screens showed the USC football game and later the Arizona game.  Most every table was filled and people were all dressed up.  After we had come in, many other parties entered and waited in the lounge area in the black leather couches, many of them ordering drinks at the bar.  When the waiter came by we pretty much knew what we wanted to order since we had studied the menu while waiting in the lounge area.

They first brought us waters to drink and some rolls with green spread on the side.  I didn’t taste the spread but it looked a bit like pesto.  They brought my wife’s orders first, I think because she ordered a soup and an appetizer rather than an entrée.  She first received the Caldo Gallego soup that had beans, Spanish (i.e. pre-cooked) chorizo, and other meat that looked like bacon.  Her appetizer, Patatas Bravas, consisted of many long wedges of potato slices covered in a spiced red sauce along with other sliced vegetables such as bell pepper and tomato.  I tried one of the potato wedges and found it good and filling.  My wife had noticed that one potato dish on the menu had “papa” in the name and another had the word “patata”.  She looked them up and found that they both translated to “potato”.  She enjoyed both her orders even finishing all the potatoes.

We probably should have asked the waiter to bring all out orders at the same time.  My mom had never tried the Peruvian dish Loma Saltado before.  My wife had it at Dos Burritos many weeks before and at least one other restaurant.  She insisted that my mom try it.  It’s definitely not something that could be found in Juneau.  When the waiter brought it to her he even said it was delicious.  It looked good: strips of beef along with slices of peppers and tomatoes in a dark sauce and all on top of a bed of thin French fries.  There was also some rice, black beans, and a few fried plantains on the side.  She enjoyed it though all together it was a lot of food.  She let me try some and I especially enjoyed the fries soaked in the flavorful sauce that had a hint of soy.  This reflects the Asian influence on Peruvian cooking.

I ordered something we had never seen on a menu before: Pollo Fricasee, a Cuban-French dish.  That’s an interesting combination.  It came in a shallow bowl with the rice in the middle with white meat chicken, tomatoes, potato, and slices of green olives in an orange-colored sauce.  The sauce had a vinegar-citrus taste and was actually the best part of the dish.  It was all very good when mixed together.  It came with a small bowl of black beans on the side and some fried plantains.  My wife had the beans.  The plantains were sweet and made a great dessert.  It was a lot of food but I was able to finish.  When the waiter collected my empty bowl he joked, “It looks like you didn’t like it.”

When we first sat down at our table we noticed some instrument cases against the wall nearby.  They looked like they held conga drums.  As we ate dinner some more people brought instrument cases that looked like they held guitars.  I guess they would have a live band playing later on.  It looked like there was a small stage set up in that corner or that one could be set up.  We didn’t get a chance to find out.  When we left the place was much more crowded than when we arrived.  There were even some employees outside possible checking ID.  We walked around downtown Covina a bit.  Most of the shops were closed but both bookstores were open.  We looked around the Covina Bookstore and bought the new Trader Joe’s-inspired cookbook.  They were serving cookies at the other bookstore, the one that sold used books.  We passed 2-3 jewelry stores, all closed with their display jewelry stashed and hidden from view.  Also closed was the shop Vintage Dreams where my wife had bought the dress and hat that she wore at Lola’s 1920’s-themed birthday party in April 2009.  The Covina Center for the Performing Arts was closed but we did see posters for the upcoming show there, Gilbert and Sullivan’s “HMS Pinafore”.  After walking around we returned to our car in the parking structure on College Street that was still empty except for some skateboarders and drove home.

Well, we never figured out what the three vinos actually were.  I’m guess that one was for Malbec wine from Argentina, another could be wine from Spain and the third wine from Cuba, if it comes from there.  I’m glad we waited out the 20 minutes for the table even though they said it would only be five minutes.  I got to try Cuban Ficasee, possibly my only chance.  The food is expensive but it’s worth it once in a while.  I wonder what other places might spring up in downtown Covina.

We went to 3 Vinos for the second time on Sunday, December 6, 2009.  Not long before that some 3 Vinos employees were passing out fliers near the Covina Metrolink parking structure.  The fliers announced the Sunday brunch at 3 Vinos between 11:00 am and 2:30 pm.  On the 6th we went there after power pacing (a.k.a indoor cycling or spinning) class at the gym.  This time we parked in a public lot behind the restaurant.  We weren’t sure if our workout clothes were too casual and when we entered we saw a sign on the hostess’ desk that said, “Dress Code Enforced”.  But the hostess let us in and allowed us to check out the buffet before deciding whether we wanted to try it.  This time they had seating on both sides of the bar.  I noticed some instruments mounted decoratively on the wall on the right side.  The food looked good so we had brunch.

A server let us choose between Mimosas and orange juice to drink.  We chose the latter.  The buffet had so many interesting foods: steamed yucca, fried rice (reflecting the Asian influence on Peruvian cooking), white rice, picadillo (ground beef in sweet tomato sauce with potato and olives), pork chops, chicken in tomato sauce, and ropa vieja (shredded beef in red sauce with green pepper).  They also made omelets to order and had many ingredients on display.  They sliced beef to order and there were some traditional American breakfast foods: bacon, sausage, eggs, and pancakes.  They had two soups: caldo gallego and pozole.  There were lots of desserts including strawberries, sugar cake, and fried plantains.  I enjoyed the fried rice, picadillo on white rice, ropa vieja, and fried plantains.  My wife had some of those and also the pork chops and sugar cake.  The place was about half full.  The flier had advertised live music during brunch and we saw some musicians start to set up but then they sat back down.  We didn’t get to hear any live music for the second time.  But the food continued to satisfy.  No sophomore jinx for 3 Vinos.

This is a book I had wanted to read for a while but for most of that time it wasn’t available from any of the libraries I most often visit.  I even considered ordering it from the author’s bookstore, Tia Chucha’s.  Then in September 2009 I noticed on Cal State L.A.’s online catalog that they had it in their new book section.  It was about time they got it since it was published in 2002 and CSULA is very close to if not within East L.A.  I first heard about the author, Louis J. Rodriguez, because I was interested in learning more about gang culture.  Coming from Southeast Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, I hadn’t heard much about gangs.  My closest gang affiliation was playing a member of the Puerto Rican gang, the Sharks, in a high school production of West Side Story.  A while ago I read an article in the L.A. Times, possibly in the book review section that mentioned the book Always Running as a definitive account of gang life in the L.A. area.  Later I checked out the book that's a non-fiction memoir by Luis J. Rodriguez.  It’s about his life in the gang Lomas or “hills” in the west San Gabriel Valley in the late 60’s and early 70’s.  They were rivals of the gang “Sangra” that was slang for San Gabriel.  This was back when mostly Latinos lived in the area and long before it was populated by Asians.

Always Running was written as a warning to Rodriguez’s eldest son who was 15 at the time and starting to get interested in gangs.  It is not a happy book and at times the story is very violent and graphic.  About the only humor is in the author’s and fellow gang members’ nicknames.  He’s called “Chin” because an injury made his chin more prominent.  One of his homeboys is called “Chicharron” because of his dark skin, I think.  Though it doesn’t romanticize the life at all, much of the book’s writing has a poetic quality to it.  You could almost say the book is urban and gritty and poetic and lyrical at the same time.  I remember seeing late author Frank McCourt be interviewed by author Mitch Albom at the 2006 L.A. Times Festival of Books.  McCourt said he was tired of critics saying his writing was “poetic and lyrical” just as they describe most Irish or Irish-American authors.  He said, “I want them to say (my writing is) urban and gritty.”  Well, Luis J. Rodriguez seems to have succeeded at being both.  It’s a dark book with a hint of hope at the end.

Rodriguez had written other books, poetry, more non-fiction, and even a children’s book.  In one of my classes at CSULA we reconstructed one of his poems about a noisy machine.  He has a website, www.luisrodriguez.com that includes his blog.  I read it sometimes.  It describes his speaking, writing, fundraising, and gang intervention activities.  The Republic of East L.A. seemed interesting: a book of twelve fictional short stories all connected to East L.A.  It took some time to locate the book in the Cal State L.A. library after I learned they had it.  I didn’t know where the new book section was.  The location wasn’t given online as it is for the other sections but I figured it couldn’t be too hard to find.  I eventually found the new books on a few shelves on the north end of the library’s ground floor.  It was near where they had special exhibits.  At the time they had different chess sets from around the world (see earlier blog).  They had the paperback edition that was orange and yellow with a picture of a young woman on the cover.  I’m not sure about the origin of the photo.  It seemed to correspond most closely to the story “Las Chicas Cuecas”.  The book does give the origin of the photo of two feet standing on the lower rung of a metal fence that is used for the title page spread and the chapter opener page.  It is from La Jette, a French short film from the 1960’s that inspired the 1990’s film Twelve Monkeys.

All the stories in the Republic of East L.A. either take place in the area or have characters from there, usually both.  I think Rodriguez lived there when he as a young adult, after his gang days.  The stories are all fiction, though I believe some parts may be semiautobiographical such as the story “Miss East L.A.” about a rookie reporter for the fictional free community newspaper called the Eastside Star.  The title of the book, The Republic of East L.A., comes from a quote attributed to barrio evangelist Jo Jo Sanchez in an early 80’s L.A. Times article.  I think most of the stories were originally written in the 20 years before the 2002 publishing of the book.  A few seem a little dated such as “Pigeons” that describes West Covina a place “with only fairly well off Anglo families.” (p. 9)  Or maybe he was describing it as a place that used to be like that.  Now it seems like more Asians than Anglos live in West Covina.

I like how all the stories reference streets, areas, and/or neighborhoods that actually exist.  I could locate just about every East L.A. street mentioned on a map.  Rodriguez spends several sentences describing the former General Hospital now called USC-L.A. County Medical Center.  He writes “A lot of Chicanos inhaled their very first breath there—and exhaled their last.  It’s the cheapest and most overworked hospital in the city.  Our hospital.  East L.A.’s.” (p. 178)  Many places mentioned or even featured are not in East L.A.  At one point the main character of the story “Mechanics” suggests to his wife and family that they go out to eat at a “good restaurant” such as Clifton’s or Philippe’s in Downtown L.A.  The narrator/limo driver in the first story, “My Ride, My Revolution” describes driving Taiwanese businessmen to Valley Blvd’s Asian Heights in Alhambra.  The preachy narrator of “Oiga” describes how she walked miles and miles to her ex-boyfriend’s house in Hacienda Heights.  I can understand that because Hacienda Heights is far away from many places.  Then there’s the party scene in “Las Chicas Cuecas” that takes place at a house in Highland Park on Avenue 47.  The author mentions that the area is controlled by the gang The Avenues.  They are one of the first gangs I heard about after first I moved to the L.A. area.

I was hoping the stories wouldn’t be as dark and graphic as Always Running and they weren’t, for the most part.  They are a bit depressing, more than I thought they would be.  It’s as if East L.A. is full of broken dreams.  But some stories such as “Finger Dance” have some hope.  Some are darker such as “Shadows” and “Pigeons”.  “Las Chicas Cuecas” is a bit dark and graphic in parts but also includes some hope.  Its title translates to “the bent girls” as in they’re bent out of shape by their difficult life but they’re not broken.  Some stories contain humor or other things I can relate to.  In “My Ride, My Revolution”, the first person protagonist, Limo driver Cruz Blancarte, listens to a tape of the band Pavement as he waits for his next rider to board.  In “Mechanics”, a coworker of the main character quotes Charlie Parker when he says, “Just remember, romance without finance is a nuisance.” (p. 117)

The Republic of East L.A. is pretty good but I’m glad I didn’t have to buy it to read it.  I guess I was used to reading Rodriguez’s blogs about his work and his and his wife’s bookstore/press, his gang intervention work, and his promoting art as an alternative outlet for youth pressured to join gangs.  I guess life is hard for most residents of East L.A. and Rodriguez realistically portrays this.  But it’s not all bad and the book ends on a high note.  How could it not with a story titled “Sometimes you Dance with a Watermelon.”

I first heard about the book Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi from the assistant director of Alumni Relations at my undergrad college. I had lunch with him at Pho 777 in Azusa in July 2008. I was looking for ways to improve my networking skills and the assistant director strongly recommended this book saying that it has helped him greatly with the public relations aspects of his job. I checked out the book from the Covina Public Library. It’s hard to miss with its orange cover. It was published in 2005 that actually makes it a bit dated. It has around 200-300 pages separated into 3 main sections and many smaller chapters. I mostly read it during my spare time at home and, though it read fairly quickly, it never felt like fun or pleasure reading. In fact, it made me feel a bit stressed to read it. I kept going, even past the rule of fifty because I thought I might find something very useful. There were some possible good ideas, and some profound insights. But there were also some strange, less focused ideas. The book’s tone seemed to be almost frantic (e.g. you gotta do this, you gotta do that) and despite having chapters and main sections, it didn’t seem very well organized. The section on small talk that seems to me to be one of the first steps to networking doesn’t appear until the latter half of the book. Often, the book seemed more like an autobiography than a self-help book (therefore a self-self-help book?) or that it was only for a certain type of person (extroverts) or career (sales/marketing).

Never Eat Alone begins like an autobiography where the author tells how he started learning how to network as a child and teen. In this section he recommends being audacious and not be afraid to ask anyone for anything because they may just give it to you. He then veers off into goal setting that I guess is related to networking though only in that they are both ways that help lead to success. I guess his point is that you need to have goals if you want to network. He gives an example of Yale (that happens to be his alma mater) class of 1953 being survey on whether they had goals and whether they wrote down their goals. Twenty years later the 13% who had goals but didn’t write them down were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84% who didn’t have goals. However, “the 3% who wrote down their goals were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97% combined.” (Ferrazzi, p. 24) His point seems to be: when you graduated from college, you should have had goals and you should have written them down. The survey could also have proven that if you were lucky enough to know what you planned to do, you did better. I’m not sure if he states it explicitly, but I don’t believe it is ever too late to write down your goals and pursue them.

Ferrazzi goes on to use the New Agey metaphor of the “blue flame” and bliss for a goal as in “follow your bliss” or follow your blue flame. He describes how Joseph Campbell determined that his “blue flame” was the study of Greek Mythology. “After graduation (from Columbia U.) he moved into a cabin in Woodstock, NY where he did nothing but read from 9 in the morning until 6 or 7 at night.” (p. 27) This is an interesting account but one I expected to read in a book about networking. I bet Campbell ate alone many times during those five years. This account also reminded me of seeing a video of Campbell speaking in my Into to Religious Texts class. At the time I thought he gave a rather dull and unfocused lecture that was difficult to understand. Maybe I’d appreciated it better now that I’m older. Ferrazzi also writes that, “Campbell believed that within each person, there’s an intuitive knowledge of what he or she wants most in live. We only have to look for it.” (p. 27)

I did learn a few possibly good networking ideas from the book. One is to frequent a favorite restaurant that’s preferably high-end, get to know the staff and eventually the owner. Bring coworkers there and have them cater an event. According to Ferrazzi, the restaurateur will soon introduce you to their important clients. Another idea is social arbitrage: bringing two people together for mutual benefit. If you don’t known enough people to do this, you can become a knowledge broker. You can get knowledge free or nearly free from books, articles, or the Internet. You just read the information, summarize the big ideas and why it might be useful, and send it to people you want to meet or already know who might benefit from it. Another good idea is to write an article. First you find something you’re interested in, then find a newspaper, newsletter, or publication that might be interested and the editor will probably say, “Let me see it when it’s done.” (p. 247) You identify the top experts on the topic you’re researching and call them for an interviews saying you’re calling on behalf of the (name of publication). Ferrazzi writes, “What you’ve unknowingly done, by calling these people and setting an interview is establish a terrific environment for meeting anyone anywhere.”

Ferrazzi presents some ideas that weren’t as new to me but still good. One is to improve your speaking skills and when you’ve gotten better, volunteer to speak at conferences or events. You can get involved with an organization such as Toastmasters Club who’ll give you a chance to practice in a non-intimidating environment. I know from experience about meeting people by speaking. After presenting at a couple of conferences for work, it seemed like all these people I didn’t know knew my name. Ferrazzi also suggests the book How to Make Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I had heard of it and had always thought it was just a generic self-help book. But after reading Ferrazzi’s account of the book’s history and main ideas, I think it might be worth checking out sometime.

Some of the more profound ideas that Ferrazzi presents also make sense. Late in the book he describes a meditation technique called Vipassana, “a technology for inner peace that can drive fear from the heart and help us have the courage to be who we really are.” (p. 295) That sounds similar to the the Bene Gesserit chant to alleviate fear from Frank Herbert’s book Dune. Per teacher S.N. Goerska, Vipassana involves a “grueling 10-day course, during which practitioners sit for hours-long stretches in absolute silence, without eye contact, writing, or communication of any kind except with teachers at the end of the day.” (p. 296) Like the story of Joseph Campbell, this sounds interesting but I’m not 100% sure how it helps with networking. In sounds like the course involves eating alone. Ferrazzi also includes an interesting quote from the Rabbi Harold Kushner: “Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. These rewards create as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter so the world will be a little bit better for our having passed through it.” (p. 294) I’m not sure I agree with that 100%. Another profound idea that Ferrazzi describes that’s more pertinent to networking is “refrigerator rights”. He argues that we need more “refrigerator relationships” with people we are comfortable and informal enough to allow us to walk into one another’s kitchens and rummage through the refrigerator without asking. (p. 289) He references this idea from Dr. Will Miller and Glen Spark’s book Refrigerator Rights. Due to “increased mobility, American emphasis on individualism, and the overwhelming media distractions available to us, we lead lives of relative isolation.” They argue that the refrigerator relationships keep us well adjusted, happy, and successful.

The book seems to encompass not just networking but Ferrazzi’s entire philosophy about being successful. The views are very much his own and have obviously worked out well for him. I’m not sure they would work as well for those of us that are different from him. Also the way he presents some of his ideas is sometimes haphazard or a bit digressing. In the chapter of how not to be the smoozing networking jerk he makes the point that you should never go to a party or conference empty handed or without anything to offer. That makes sense. But as an example he mentions bloggers who write online journals for free and are “often rewarded with a devout following of people who, in return, offer as much as they receiving.” (p. 59) I like that he gives kudos to us bloggers and makes blogging seem like a form of networking, but how does that apply to the party or conference he started out with?

There are parts of the book that seem a bit dated. I guess the book is a bit old, having been published in 2005. He doesn’t mention MySpace or Facebook at all though he does briefly mention Spoke, LinkedIn, Friendster, and a few I hadn’t heard of: Ryze, Zerodegrees, and Capital IQ. The latter aggregates market data and information on executives. Ferrazzi is only partly sold on e-mail that he believes wallflowers use to avoid personal interaction. Digital media may make communication faster, but Ferrazzi believes they are not effective at making friends. He also believes that mean business is over and mean guys finish last. He asserts that we live in a new “abundance of choice in business in everything from products to career paths.” (p. 58) He bases this on quotes from author and friend Tim Sanders. Another reason Ferrazzi gives for mean business being over is that e-mail, instant messaging, and the web make it almost impossible for a crummy person to keep his or her reality a secret anymore. I’m not so sure that the “abundance of choice” still exists in the current economy.

Speaking of the economy, last year I read in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune about “Pink Slip mixers” where people who had lost their jobs would meet at a bar, restaurant or club, commiserate, and figure out ways they could help each other. This seemed like a good idea to me especially the part about having something to offer the others. It almost seems consistent with Ferrazzi’s idea of always having something to give. But Ferrazzi later writes that these networking events are useless and only for the desperate or the uninformed. He writes, “Imagine a congregation of people with nothing in common except joblessness. That’s not exactly a recipe for facilitating close bonds.” (p. 99) I ask, “Why not? What about the adage ‘misery loves company’?” And, if attending these networking events is useless then what kinds of events should the unemployed attend?

Something I had hoped the book would cover was small talk. There is a chapter on it but I didn’t find it very helpful. It basically said to be genuine and determine the other person “Jadori window” on how much they’re willing to open up. I wish he gave some examples of conversations.

Overall, I found some things in the book that might be helpful but not enough to redeem all that I didn’t find helpful or that I disagreed with. Also the book’s message was inconsistent at times and the content was organized in a rather haphazard way. At one point Ferrazzi says to never eat alone and at another he praises a meditation technique that involves talking to no one. I get that he has had an interesting and successful professional life and a number of things have worked well for him. But this doesn’t mean they’ll work for everyone. I also don’t buy into the whole philosophy that there should be no boundaries between work and personal life. I didn’t find the excited and almost stressful tone of the book to be easy reading. I’m glad it wasn’t too long or I wouldn’t have finished it. I may recommend it for people like Ferrazzi or workaholic extroverts with type A personalities. For everyone else, go ahead and eat alone.