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Not good, blogs Colleen Cuisine. She didn't go in looking for a gourmet experience but "just hearty good food:"
After shuttering its doors for remodeling nearly two years ago, Du-par's at the Original Farmer's Market is once again open. Why should you care? You shouldn't.As you can see, I've given this place a new name: Sub-par's. That's because everything we ate was... yes, you guessed it... sub par....
I don't know how they do it, but within seconds of being poured, the coffee magically becomes lukewarm. I witnessed it three times: three pours from a seemingly "fresh" pot of coffee, three times that the first sip felt like drinking a can of soda that had been sitting out in the sun....Their French Toast doesn't even hold a candle the French Toast at Bread & Porridge, or Hugo's...The tuna melt was a near disaster.
[cut to the chase]
Seriously folks...Don't waste your time (or the calories) at Sub-pars.
I'm told there's a big grand re-opening planned later in the month with a bunch of politicians tapped to drop by. Meanwhile: Ellen Bloom likes it, despite the missing counter and that the chicken pot pie has doubled in price.
* Also: Royale has opened in the Wilshire Royale at the corner of Rampart and Wilshire boulevards. It's one of the few 1920s survivors in that stretch, originally The Arcady apartment-hotel. As I write in Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles, the site has a lengthy past. The elegant and historic 1902 Higgins mansion, one of the grandest homes ever on Wilshire, occupied the corner before being moved to its current spot on Lucerne Boulevard, just north of Wilshire in Windsor Square. The Arcady opened in 1927, run as many were by a woman, Olive Phillips, a leading temperance activist of the day. It later became a residence for elderly members of the First Congregational Church at Lafayette Park, then a Howard Johnson's. (Royale, coincidentally, is reviewed in today's Times by S. Irene Virbila.)
Previously:
New year's food notes