Sunday, April 08, 2007

Table 18

A truly underground hot spot is hard to come by in L.A. Once your Parises and your Dicaprioses start showing up, it's all over. Every wannabe trendster in town *has* to be there too.< /hotspot >

Enter Table 18. A dining spot so secluded there is no address, no sign out front, no phone listing. They serve excellent Thai food and plenty of beer. The crowd is lively and varied, from attorneys to the semi-homeless and coincidentally almost all patrons are cyclists. Conversation topics range from the mystery of the derailleur to the mystery of the vagina. Table 18 turns away no one. Basically if you can find Table 18 you are welcome to its bounty.

Here's a spy shot of Table 18.

Beer from Avery Brewing and a flaming Sapporo can full of torch fuel are just a few of the sights at Table 18.

At Table 18, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave...

The history behind Table 18 is that the food actually comes from a neighboring upscale Thai restaurant called Talesai.

The owner of the restaurant and his staff have fondly come to recognize the PVC table behind the bike shop as an extension of their own table layout. Requesting delivery to Table 18 gets wait staff delivering food and utensils to you via the back door. So while Mr. fancy-pants is having his Beemer valet parked out front to impress his latest Match.com date, we're having the exact same dishes brought to us while we crack open fine Belgians, microbrews and other tasty Ales from the the primo Vendome Liquors down the street and talk about bikes and laugh as loud as we please without annoyed looks from our fellow diners. Dessert? Yes please! Someone grab the menu and call it in...

See you there?

2 comments:

crankedmag said...

That's a beautiful thing. Exceptional really. I'd like to see more bike-esque restaurants around, maybe more places that meld their fare with their interests to attract bikes. I'm thinking of places like Velo Rouge Cafe in SF. I think there's some place like that in Seattle here too. We have to, of course, be thankful of all the bike friendly bars that exist, like Hooverville and Shorty's here in Seattle. I can only vaguely remember by name the ones from other travels to Vancouver or Portland.

Yeah bikes are cool. Thanks for the link.

Michael

mr.easy said...

I found table 18, actually I was just looking to use the phone.

sometimes I'm kinda sorry I did.
But then much like the opium dens of the 1860s and metal flake paint, you just can't stay away or look away.