5900 El Cajon Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92115
619.286.8434
http://www.livingroomcafe.com/
Typically, if you were to ask me what San Diego is like, you’d find yourself the proud owner of a terse-yet-accurate response: “Nice.”
Not anymore. Southern California was experiencing a heat wave and I don’t know a single person in San Diego who has air conditioning. Granted, most of the people I know in San Diego live in my apartment, but still there was no need for most people in Southern California to own an air conditioning unit until this cruel, uncomfortable August. I walked up to my roommate Raf’s bedroom door, where he sat in front of his laptop probably Tweeting or something.
“We need to get out of here. I’m buying a fan.”
Lunch was in order, too. Anything to keep us in humane conditions. We decided on Living Room Cafe, which was a minute’s drive away. The front — a pair of Greek pillars holding up a sign with “Living Room Cafe” in neon cursive light — made me think it might be an expensive, geriatric brunch place. It’s good to be wrong.
The vibe of the place is very college cafe, albeit with a fancier decor which includes furniture that looks like it was scored at consignment shops to make it look like — guess what — a living room. The ultimate effect is that some college hipsters took over a quaint Southern restaurant.
I had been looking for a place like this. A year and a half ago I was happily living in downtown Gainesville, FL, just a few steps away from the college cool kid hangout, Maude’s Classic Cafe, where I didn’t spend nearly enough time just hanging out, writing and seeing who comes by. That’s wasted time for you.
“Anything to drink?”
Oh, right. I just ordered a veggie quesadilla.
“Iced raspberry tea. Please don’t let me die.”
You better believe we sat inside. At our antique dining room table, we waited for our food while our conversation shifted from our friends’ oversights to film, as it so often does. We shared a mutual appreciation (to put it lightly) for Inglourious Basterds, particularly the way Tarantino doesn’t try to make a dignified, historically accurate period piece completely devoid of personality. When the server brought my quesadilla, she asked if I wanted the little plastic containers sour cream and salsa that typically came with my meal. She took the sour cream off my plate and walked off — surely a sign of not only a decent, unwasteful business practice (imagine how much zesty onion ring sauce Burger King wastes on a daily basis), but a sign that they probably needed to save some cash by not wasting condiments.
I ordered my quesadilla with provolone, better known as The Cheese for People Who Hate Cheese. Cheese, when not completely mild and melted on a pizza, generally disgusts me — a fact that, combined with my general aversion to milk and yogurt, makes me a semi-vegan, albeit unintentionally.
As such, there wasn’t much typically Mexican taste to the quesadilla, its veggies suspended in the mild, melted cheese — all well-contained within its flaky tortilla. The salsa did most of the heavy lifting as far as spice went, but the quesadilla had a welcome, homemade taste. All this, and a refreshing side of fresh fruit — grapes and slices of cantaloupe and orange.
Across from me, Raf found himself with a classic egg and sausage breakfast — the sort of thing that’s hard to screw up, especially if you have an entire breakfast menu. He seemed to like it. Then came talk of Seven Samurai, the mother, father, grandfather and drunken uncle of cinema. The film that required a dozen Criterion releases — each one more Criterion than the last — for home video to get it right. The film that cannot be contained on one disk and takes a significant portion of your life to watch, which you will never regret the moment Toshiro Mifune slices through robbers and bandits with his katana. If there is a more chaotic final set piece in all of cinema, I haven’t seen it and it probably isn’t as nearly as beautifully orchestrated as Kurosawa’s. Except maybe The Wild Bunch.
And with that, gone were quesadilla and egg alike. Only fruit rinds remained of our meal and there was still more to be done with the day. My iced tea vanished in anticipation of the outside sweltering.
As for my coveted fan? Every store was sold out, which meant I would have to make more afternoon trips to the Living Room Cafe.
by Danny Djeljosevic
