2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar Match 7 - FRANCE 🇫🇷

🇫🇷 FRANCE (7 of 32)

22 November 2022 Match 7: France 4:1 Australia
📍 Sweet Lily's Bakery & Café, Studio City

🇶🇦🇪🇨🇸🇳🇳🇱 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇮🇷🇺🇸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🇦🇷🇸🇦🇲🇽🇵🇱 🇫🇷🇦🇺🇩🇰🇹🇳 🇪🇸🇨🇷🇩🇪🇯🇵 🇧🇪🇨🇦🇲🇦🇭🇷 🇧🇷🇷🇸🇨🇭🇨🇲 🇵🇹🇬🇭🇺🇾🇰🇷

<--- MATCH 6: 🇲🇽 MEX v POL 🇵🇱  |  HOME/MAP  |  MATCH 8: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 WAL v IRN 🇮🇷 --->

Since France enters the 2022 World Cup as defending champions but with so many injuries and questions swirling around the team, it was with pleasure to see them for their first match against Australia. On a day where so many surprises had already happened, there was a palpable suspense on the minds of the 15 or 20 French people that filed into the bakery to see their team play against a side they should beat. Sweet Lily's had purchased a very large TV for the event, hung the ubiquitous set of World Cup flags that pop up every four years, and organized their tables for viewing.

There were Kylian Mbappe jerseys and plenty of cafés au lait, and most people showed up early to order pastries and late breakfasts to enjoy before the match started. Just before kickoff, a huge order of hundreds of baguettes were being shoved into bags to be delivered to a restaurant. The two year old bakery had obviously already found there footing in the local market.

A 9th minute Aussie strike put them up by a goal and led to ecstasy down under and quite a few oh la las at Sweet Lily, as customers finished their coffees and threw their hands in the air. But it lasted less than twenty minutes and France eventually scored four unanswered. Mbappe, the eventual best player in the world, got his goal in the 68th minute, leading to the biggest cheer of the fans at Sweet Lily, which gave the French team a 3:1 lead and properly put the match to bed.

Pastries and desserts seem to be the most popular items here, with many local customers coming in for a few items for takeout and then checking out the match for a few minutes. They also have a list of proper meals, like the croque madame seen below if your appetite is more demanding.

Previous/other articles featuring cuisine of France:

Centro Basco, Chino (French Basque)

Le Doner Kebab Grec, Inglewood

Normandie Country Bakery, West Adams

🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷

<--- MATCH 6: 🇲🇽 MEX v POL 🇵🇱  |  HOME/MAP  |  MATCH 8: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 WAL v IRN 🇮🇷 --->

 

🇶🇦🇪🇨🇸🇳🇳🇱 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇮🇷🇺🇸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🇦🇷🇸🇦🇲🇽🇵🇱 🇫🇷🇦🇺🇩🇰🇹🇳 🇪🇸🇨🇷🇩🇪🇯🇵 🇧🇪🇨🇦🇲🇦🇭🇷 🇧🇷🇷🇸🇨🇭🇨🇲 🇵🇹🇬🇭🇺🇾🇰🇷

I COULD USE YOUR HELP

Eat the World Los Angeles is and always has been free. It is a hobby born of passion and never solicits money or free food from restaurants. No advertisements block the content or pop over what you read. If this website has helped you explore your city and its wonderful cultures a little better please tell your friends about us and if you have the means to contribute, please consider doing so. Eat the World Los Angeles is a labor of love, but also takes a lot of money and time everyday to keep running.

Thank you!

VENMO: @JAREDCOHEE

CASH APP: $JaredCohee

PAYPAL: (no account necessary, use link)

Le Doner Kebab Grec

🇫🇷 FRANCE

📍 6901 La Tijera Blvd., Inglewood, South Bay

(One of a couple locations, check vendor for weekly schedule)

🅿️ Parking in busy plaza is usually possible.

💲 Cash and payment apps only.

🥤 No Alcohol.

There may not be a French flag hanging from the makeshift tent that houses Los Angeles's newest doner kebab stand, but anyone that has ever been out late in Paris for a "grec" will make the connection from the line of sauces set up prominently. These Nawhal's bottles are actually from Belgium, but might be more important to the sandwich than the bread or doner meat, and anyone claiming to have French-style doner kebabs without these would be laughed out of (any) town.

When the new business owner Tony welcomes you to his stand with a smile and delightful French accent, it all starts to make sense. He is originally from the city of Creil, a banlieue about 25 minutes train ride north from the Gare du Nord and the place his family ran an Algerian restaurant. Tony says he has sampled every single doner kebab in Los Angeles before deciding to open up and provide his take, the taste from home he misses most.

When he speaks while assembling your sandwich, you can immediately tell this is a labor of love. Although this late night food is the product of 1980s Turkish immigrants in France just like it was a decade earlier in Germany, somehow the treat became known as a "sandwich Grec" to French people, or "Greek sandwich." There are certainly similarities with the Greek gyro, but this is halal food and has become popular with folks that keep these dietary standards.

Just like in France, this doner kebab stand seems popular with French-speaking north and west Africans, who are happiest to see him out in the evening and are already regular customers despite the business being only one month old. A small survey while waiting for the kebabs to be made had the Algérienne sauce coming out slightly above Marocaine, with blanche and Andalouse available for those that avoid spice.

When you order a doner kebab, Tony shaves enough meat off the spit and grills it with onions. A generator is turned on that powers a small bread toaster, and a sandle-shaped loaf is slathered inside with the sauce of your choice and thrown in one at a time. This bread proudly comes from Eclair and Café in Torrance, the bakery Tony says has the best French bread in town. Like the sauces, the correct bread is essential for a proper French doner kebab ($10 each, below).

When the beef and lamb doner gets its edges nicely crispy from grilling, it is stuffed in the now toasted bread. A combination of lettuce and finely sliced tomatoes and onions join the meat, finished off by another generous squeeze of sauce on top of everything. It is a lot of food for $10, the perfect sobering snack when you stumble out of a nearby bar.

If you have chosen your sauce wisely, that first bite through the soft bread and into the meat and sauces is the kind that will have you widening your eyes and nodding your head. The toppings are not overwhelming, making sure the most important parts of this sandwich shine through in every bite. There is no shortage of Greek or Turkish food and other doner kebab versions around town, but the French style is new and should be sampled at least once in your life.

Currently on Friday afternoons and through the evening, Le Doner Kebab sets up in front of the King Fahad Mosque in Culver City. Tony lists his hours as beginning at 15:00 this day but starts service there closer to 13:00 as people leave after Friday prayer and crowd his stand. Here back on the Inglewood-Westchester border, his service is more oriented towards those in the nearby nightclub and the residents of the neighborhood that are dearly missing their sandwich grec from back home.

🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷

I COULD USE YOUR HELP

Eat the World Los Angeles is and always has been free. It is a hobby born of passion and never solicits money or free food from restaurants. No advertisements block the content or pop over what you read. If this website has helped you explore your city and its wonderful cultures a little better please tell your friends about us and if you have the means to contribute, please consider doing so. Eat the World Los Angeles is a labor of love, but also takes a lot of money and time everyday to keep running.

Thank you!

VENMO: @JAREDCOHEE

CASH APP: $JaredCohee

PAYPAL: (no account necessary, use link)

Normandie Country Bakery

FRANCE 🇫🇷

📍 3022 S. Cochran Avenue, West Adams, South Los Angeles

COVID-19 UPDATE: All of the dining here takes place on an airy covered outdoor patio. Staff are still wearing masks and some tables have plexiglass dividers between them.

You may have driven by Chef Josette's ode to French cooking and baking a hundred times without noticing anything but the High Notes cannabis shop on the corner that grabs the attention. The faded French flag that flies in front of her establishment is just not sharp enough to come into focus while cruising by on Jefferson Blvd. past the gigantic Restaurant Depot.

But this business has been here at the southern edge of West Adams since before people were writing Yelp reviews and George W. Bush and Al Gore were running against each other in 2000. Other restaurants and bakeries have come and gone under her brand, but now the business is concentrated here and in the large kitchen which takes up most of the space, meaning all dining takes place outside.

While you sit at a table, it is likely someone will walk in to buy a single baguette to return home with. The only things missing are the Paris street scene, a beret, and maybe a cigarette in their mouth. The coffee is also good but unfortunately is served in a paper to go cup, reminding you even more that you are far from France despite the attempts.

But forget all that and take a look at the pastries before sitting down and imagine what your dessert will look like after a breakfast or lunch on the patio. Chef Josette also vacuum packs many of her favorite dinner items like duck confit and sells them in individual portions to take home and reheat. Sometimes you might find boudin blanc, a white sausage that made with chicken, truffles, eggs, and milk.

A big cup of onion soup ($10.40, above) is a good move, usually made with meat stock but here tasting as if it could cater to vegetarians. The rich, peppery broth is covered by croutons and plenty of melted Swiss that creates unbreakable strings when pulled from the cup. A bread basket will arrive with some sliced sections of the chef's delicious baguette, perfect for dipping into the onion broth.

If you have not indulged in breakfast pastries like the very tasty croissants with or without chocolate inside, there may be more room than just for soup, in which case you should look for the specialties section of the menu and enjoy the unreal French toast or quiche lorraine.

The kitchen also puts out a mean croque monsieur ($16.64, above), a sandwich that can definitely not be picked up. Their is ham and Swiss cheese between layers of bread, but what weighs this down and makes it special is the béchamel sauce on top, slightly charred during baking.

The ham inside the croque monsieur and in other items like the crêpes may appear visually like the packaged stuff you can grab from the nearest Food 4 Less, but when you have it in your mouth a full smoky flavor proves it is much more special than that.

In the United States, Bretagne is known for the place that crêpes come from, but nextdoor Normandie eats them just as much and of course there are rivalries. Chef Josette offers a crêpe (or "galette" as the savory versions are known in France) named for both provinces, but since she is from Normandie and that name is on the awning, start with La Normande ($16.64, above).

Galettes use buckwheat flour rather than regular flour which works better for sweet crêpes. The buckwheat combines well with La Normande, made with more of that smoky ham and Swiss cheese, which is hard to get enough of during visits here.

When it is time for pastries, there are plenty of options, both traditional and more modern takes like this mille-feuille that seems to be topped by a crisp baked crème brûlée. You can also take many of the items home if there is no room, like small sleeves of macarons ($6.24, below), which are absolutely unmissable for fans of the dessert.

While not enjoyed during this visit, do not miss the chef's country-style pâté, which she has been making since her days as a teenage in Normandie, long before she ever thought about being in the United States. Her brand has a pâté label that has existed since 1986, but you can also get it in a simple sandwich that includes mustard and cornichons. Pretty much anything you might be craving from the French part of the world is done in some form at this little French oasis in West Adams.

🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷

I COULD USE YOUR HELP

Eat the World Los Angeles is and always has been free. It is a hobby born of passion and never solicits money or free food from restaurants. No advertisements block the content or pop over what you read. If this website has helped you explore your city and its wonderful cultures a little better please tell your friends about us and if you have the means to contribute, please consider doing so. Eat the World Los Angeles is a labor of love, but also takes a lot of money and time everyday to keep running.

Thank you!

VENMO: @JAREDCOHEE

CASH APP: $JaredCohee

PAYPAL: (no account necessary, use link)

Centro Basco

BASQUE COUNTRY 🏴󠁥󠁳󠁰󠁶󠁿

COVID-19 UPDATE: The full dining room and bar are completely open and mask usage is not widely in place here, including staff. Unlike some Basque eateries, you can get a private table here, and the traditional Boarder's Table seems to still be on hold.

📍13432 Central Avenue, Chino, San Bernardino County

Opening the doors of Centro Basco can be somewhat of a shock if you come unprepared to leave the mentality of the current day. In winter, with the snow-capped Mt. Baldy and friends of the San Gabriel Mountains looming nearby and the crisp, clear blue skies above, your eyes take a moment to adjust to the darkness of the dining room you walk into from the parking lot.

When they do, you notice a group of Basque beret-wearing seniors having glasses of chilled house red wine or Picon punch while discussing the day's news, and the tables are full of families and groups of friends digging into multiple courses of the daily menu. It seems that everyone knows one another, and often times when passing by tables to say hello conversations alter between English, Spanish, and Basque (called Euskara in Basque).

Centro Basco opened in 1940 when the surrounding area was full of dairy farms and Basque people settled for work. It was first and foremost a boarding house, a place for these laborers to rest their heads and take their meals. (It still has one resident). Since the 1970s it has been owned by one family and run just about the same way ever since.

 

Even as the farmlands have been paved over and the need for boarding has dwindled, the restaurant has remained a very important communal hub for many generations of Basque-descended peoples. They come with their families from all over Southern California, especially since the Noriega Hotel in Bakersfield closed shortly after mandatory COVID lockdowns started in 2020. (For much more Centro Basco history, read this great Gab Chabrán Los Angenleno article).

If you visited the 75th anniversary of Centro Basco back in 2015 you would have found the handball courts alive with children playing pilota while their parents filled the interior and the temporary tent set up for the occasion. Nowadays even before COVID the courts are usually quiet as time continues to crawl forward, but the restaurant and the many people who come here regularly hope 2022 sees much more fortune than the past two years.

There are multiple rooms (and bars), but even the main dining room can comfortably host small and big groups within its wood wainscoted walls. Old photographs and paintings set the mood of culture and tradition, but within minutes of sitting down even those with no familiarity into Basque food or people cannot hide from the warm, contagious vibe.

The picon punch cocktail.

Usually it would be recommended that a first-timer sit down with complete strangers at the Boarder's Table, the more traditional way that those staying would take their meals communally. Soups, salads, beans, and any other starters would be set down in large amounts and diners would serve themselves, invited to eat as much as they could.

Traditional Basque communal meals are of course not in line with stopping a pandemic, so for now individual tables are the norm but those that order the family meal can still take as much or as little of each course as they like as the restaurant tries to keep as much intact as possible.

Centro Basco is not shy about letting you know they have the "Best Tongue In Town," so even when you plan on ordering the family meal or other entrées, take a side of tongue and tomato ($3.95, above). The beef tongue is sliced thinner than the tomatoes and the whole thing is drenched in olive oil and lemon.

It is not a wow-factor dish, but the simplicity and the tongue's marinade are enough to pack a pleasant punch when equal portions of both pieces are taken. If this modest amount is not enough, a family size platter of ten pieces of both can be ordered for $19.95.

The restaurant always adds the descriptor "French" in front of its Basque cuisine labels, so it is no surprise that one of their most popular dishes, poulet Basquaise ($18.95, above) is written in that language. The half chicken is smothered in a classic Basque piperade sauce consisting mostly of tomatoes, onions, peppers, and plenty of garlic.

Despite not having access to the Boarder's Table, it makes a lot of sense to enjoy a family meal if you are coming for your first time or your hundredth. For $27.95, the courses before the entrée are unlimited and at least one glass of the chilled house red is included. On this last visit, the following dishes were all part of the menu:

Beef fideo soup.

House beans and blue cheese.

Salad.

Lukinka and garbanzo beans.

If not part of the family meal, make sure to try the homemade lukinka, pork sausages that somehow taste like the earth and the farm they come from. There are no throwaway meats used in these, the dense links are full of prime cuts and flavor. They can be enjoyed on buttery noodles or as a sandwich on any given day.

The family meal serving of lukinka came with garbanzo beans and a sauce that seemed simmered altogether with the beans and sausage for ages. It is full of many spices, but once again brimming with garlic and outstanding.

On this occasion the entrée was a piece of top sirloin, also blanketed with chopped up sautéed garlic. After the beauty and flavor of all the Basque dishes that came before it, the steak seemed plain and was the only weak link. Fortunately the fries it was served with were crisp and just right, and some of the other items were still around to make for more interesting bites.

If the circumstances in the world allow it, plan to join Chino's Basque community for Easter, when the Centro Basco always puts on a celebration of food and community worth experiencing. And if you leave and still have not had enough Basque flavor in your day, head around the corner to Hottinger Family Meats, a market that has served the Basque community since 1941.

🏴󠁥󠁳󠁰󠁶󠁿🏴󠁥󠁳󠁰󠁶󠁿🏴󠁥󠁳󠁰󠁶󠁿

I COULD USE YOUR HELP

Eat the World Los Angeles is and always has been free. It is a hobby born of passion and never solicits money or free food from restaurants. No advertisements block the content or pop over what you read. If this website has helped you explore your city and its wonderful cultures a little better please tell your friends about us and if you have the means to contribute, please consider doing so. Eat the World Los Angeles is a labor of love, but also takes a lot of money and time everyday to keep running.

Thank you!

VENMO: @JAREDCOHEE

CASH APP: $JaredCohee

PAYPAL: (no account necessary, use link)