Lunch today at Mish on La Brea.
Jenn Harris of the Los Angeles Times and I obviously have a very different palate because she just gave a rave review to Mish, singling out the matzo brei as the stuff of her “wildest dreams.” Review: Forget your grandma's matzo brei. This is the Jewish deli of my wildest dreams
I, by contrast, would describe the matzo brei as the stuff of my wildest nightmares. If it wasn’t the worst dish I have ever eaten in my life, it is definitely among the top five.
Mish Matzo Brie
I was a little confused initially by the fried egg, since I had assumed that the chef was cheffing things up, or gilding the lily so to speak, by adding a fried egg on top of scrambled eggs. But it turns out the fried egg is the only egg part of the dish. The rest of the dish consists of soggy, non-crisp balls of what are apparently matzo, but which do not taste of matzo. Rather, to me, the balls taste like someone decided to deconstruct Krispy Kreme donuts by breaking them into pieces, heavily salting them, then dousing them with maple syrup, and deep frying, and then bringing them to table topped by a fried egg. Minus the fried egg, it tasted to me like something you might find at a county fair, where they fry up oreos, Twinkies or whatever. Literally one of the worst things I have had in my life. Reminds me of college, where a friend used to put chocolate ice cream in his pancake batter. Yes, you could, but why would you?
The turkey sandwich I had last month at Mish wasn’t bad, so if I could ever bring myself to return, I would stick to the sandwiches.
. This is Chef Rocio Camacho’s latest place, and it still proves with moles (to paraphrase the late, great Arthur Conley): “She’s the queen of them all, y’all.” Her other places received some love in the Chowhound days, and her Bell Gardens place has come up here, but I haven’t seen this location mentioned. There’s a build your own mole section. Choice of one of nine moles over one of nine proteins.
