When we first visited the Crack Shack chicken eatery on Green Street some three years ago, we merely sampled a bit of this, and a bit of those over there. Two years and a pandemic later, we finally revisited the spot for a closer look.
Well worth it, chicken fans.
We visited the Crack Shack on Friday as part of our DineL.A. coverage, and enjoyed two of their specials—the Double Clucker and the Firebird, under the trained guidance of General Manager Andy So. That’s him in the video.
Andy is a guy who loves the Crack Shack. As he told us recently, “It really comes down first and foremost, to the food that we’re serving.”
So explained that the creative team that created the Crack Shack is the same team that was behind a restaurant called Juniper and Ivy in San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood.
“After the success of that restaurant,” said So, “they decided to create a new concept and they want to do more of a casual restaurant, but bringing in the same ingredients that they use in the fine dining restaurant,”
“Essentially the sourcing of the ingredients to purveyors and all of that remained the same,” So added, “but the focus was now on chicken and elevating that, and focusing on the ingredients and where we’re getting it from. And that, in the end, ultimately shows in the taste of it”
Jidori seems to be the theme of the secret recipe that makes their chicken unique, with their non-GMO free-range birds.
“That’s the top tier chicken you can use,” said So, ever so cagily. “All we’re doing is adding a little bit of this and that, with our recipes and just elevating it, and this and that.” We assume there is a secret recipe at play here.
We began with the Double Clucker, which features two ground chicken patties, which are made-in-house, cheddar cheese, bacon, smashed avocado, their house burger sauce, pickles, and fried onions, on a potato roll.
The Double Clucker is served with their Schmaltz Fries, delicious despite the moniker. The Russet potatoes are seasoned with the eatery’s Crack spice and Schmaltz oil, rendered chicken and duck fat, which the fries are coated with after frying. Dangerously good.
The Firebird, the chain’s most popular sandwich, is spicy fried Jidori thigh, cool ranch dressing, crispy onions, pickles, fried onions, on a potato roll, with fire sauce, which is a mixed blend of their house-made spice with canola oil.
It’s as tasty as you might think, but not as hot as you might fear.
The Crack Shack is at 30 West Green Street, Pasadena 91105. Doordash.com, toasttab.com, postmates.com, trycaviar.com, seamless.com, ubereats.com, grubhub.com. For more call (424) 901-0077 or visit https://www.crackshack.com/
Le Grande Orange Still Rocks the Cheeseburger
One of Pasadena’s favorite spots battles through the pandemic
Along with everything else the pandemic has brought, Pasadenans have had to suffer through more than a few restaurants which have shuttered their doors, unable to survive.
But for every closed door, there are doors which remain steadfastly open, and among those, are a few of Pasadena’s favorites—like La Grande Orange at the Del Mar Gold Line station.
As part of our DineL.A. coverage (It runs through Sunday), we dropped in on our friends at The Orange for our first visit since long before the world closed.
“DineL.A. has been great for us,” Said Manager Justin Markowitz Monday evening, sitting and chatting under a comfortable table heater, eight feet from other tables in the spacious patio.
“We’ve been getting a lot of people from out of town, as far away as Santa Monica and Ventura, as well as locals from Arcadia.”
Markowitz also noted that many of the visitors are “train people,” which is easily understandable, since the Gold Line station is literally across the outdoor patio from the restaurant.
“We’re also seeing people making their way down from Colorado Boulevard after shopping, both locals and tourists,” he added.
But there is a cheeseburger on the table to discuss, one that Markowitz unabashedly calls “super delicious.”
“It’s a 7 oz patty there with cheddar cheese, pickles, tomato and our house-made Russian dressing,” he said. The burger comes with a choice of fries, or a salad, which we opted for, health-conscious peeps that we are.
The DineL.A. dinner also comes with a long list of beers on tap, including a 1903 Lager, Sky Kraken from Fremont Brewing (“not too crazy hoppy,” Markowitz noted), a Smog City Amarilla Gorilla, as well as a wide range of cocktails in the evening, which includes Sangria, and their popular Old Fashioneds.
There is also a pizza special from the restaurant’s Luggage Room Pizzeria, which we will be sure to come back for soon. But tonight it’s the cheeseburger, which we had to be careful not to devour in five minutes.
Until then, Markowitz is eager to see the re-opening of indoor dining at la Grande Orange, following the roller-coaster regulation ride of the pandemic surges. He also assured us that the outdoor tables on the west patio side of the eatery, closest to the Gold Line, will more than likely remain, as the world slowly begins to re-emerge.
And you can take a Gold Line train to the re-emergence.
La Grande Orange is at 260 S Raymond Ave., Pasadena 91105. For more call (626) 356-4444 or visit https://lgostationcafe.com/.
