The Oinkster

New thing, ate at The Oinkster in Eagle Rock, CA.

It's funny to see Eagle Rock as a hip, trendy and happening place. Growing up there, it was always sort of a small town and bordering on seethy and ghetto. In the last 10 years it's become a kind of emerging hipster place with great small food places, and trendy areas to hang out. They have a Friday Farmer's market by my old elementary school. My husband said he went to a music festival where the whole main street was shut down and they had bands playing all along it. He said he watched a band play in the florist shop and like that type of thing. I think it's the Occidental college influence, but overall it's a surprising and nice evolution.

Anyway in my old town, Guy Fieri featured The Oinkster on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. He's featured other favorite food places of ours like Polka and Fab's Hot Dogs, but The Oinkster was a new one that we had never been to but driven by and felt compelled to try. 

The Oinkster has a very classy asian influence on the diner style. The decor has bamboo walls and round lantern type lights inside. The bathrooms were really nice too surprisingly. The place was classy all over.

I was really excited to order the Ube Shake. Ube is a native Filipino purple yam, that's sweet like sweet potatoes but has it's own unique flavor. It's often used in desserts and I've had it before freshly boiled and pounded into a paste/jam, and it's amazing. The Oinkster puts it in a shake and it is amazing delicious. Even my husband who is American - really really liked it.

We got there right before the rush and tried the Oinkster Pastrami sandwich, the pulled pork sandwich and split a large order of fries with extra garlic aoili sauce. The patio seating was lovely. The food came surprisingly quick, and oh was it delicious! I can say it's the best pastrami I've ever had. Beats The Hat - no question. The fries, well, with the garlic aoili sauce - wow! The pulled pork sandwich was ok. It was good, but after the best pastrami ever, doesn't compare. The food was so good, just good - great. My compliments to the chef!

The only downside is that the show was featured on Triple D and we overheard someone talking to a server. I guess that show tripled their business. Some of these spots were already our favorites like Polka, and with success comes a lot of people. We beat the rush and the food and service runs pretty quickly, but we watched a line go from 5 minute wait to out the door 30 minute wait for this place. I hope they stay successful, but don't want them to change too much or become too much of a hassle to visit because they are so successful. Oh well. I suppose we can't save it all for ourselves. 

This is another reason I'm falling in love with LA - all sorts of cool new spots to discover and try :)