Ladyface and the GPS

Yes, having been there on the same trip that took me to the Netherlands, I can say that Belgium is truly a land of great fries. Recently, the GF discovered another Belgian restaurant in Southern California, which brings the total I know of to two.

Ladyface is located in Agoura Hills, just off the Kanan Rd offramp. It's in a strip mall, of all places. Malls are generally soulless holes, but as the chains fall on hard times, vacancy creeps up, and independents start sprouting up again.

It's a very upscale pub, transplanted here. Menu items are fish and chips, and burgers and so on, but it's all very high quality. My burger was made from grass fed beef, and it had bleu cheese melted over it.

When you order fries, there are choices of sweet or regular potatoes, and a variety of options for seasonings and dipping sauces. We got regular potatoes with salt and pepper. One of the dipping sauces is a Belgium meets the US ale and ketchup sauce that was incredible.

While driving around, I reset the GPS to speak "Nederlands-Belgie." During the blog about Geert "Big" Mak, I drove around with it set on Dutch from the Netherlands. I was amazed to hear a difference through my limited understanding. If the GPS is correct, Dutch in the Netherlands is more monotone, while the Belgian variety is more animated.

Why bother?

I like Dutch language reading material, but I asked myself that question anyway. In my first blog, Learning Dutch with Geert Mak, I covered the novelty angle. I made it to the end. Unlike De eeuw van mijn vader (My Father's Century), Kaas is available in English. It is not exactly a best seller. It's somewhere around 350,000 on Amazon, which means that it sold to about 10 people, 3 of whom returned it because they wanted a book about food.

Still, there is some uniqueness to the book. I'm reading the graphic novel adaptation by Dick Matena. In terms of format, it's a first for me, maybe a 1.5. The last book I read in this format was a compilation from Mad magazine. Also, while Kaas is available in English, this adaptation is not.

This blog will be shorter for 3 reasons:

1. The book is shorter. The last one was 499 pages long, and it had very few pictures. This is a well illustrated 283 pages.

2. I can read in Dutch faster than I could before.

3. There will be far less cultural commentary. While the Dutch community in Southern California is small, the Flemish community is even smaller. Instead of hosting a festival, they meet at a restaurant when they want to get everyone together.

This blog will have additional ideas for promoting the language and Flanders itself. For the moment, I can't think of how to promote the place. A couple of years ago, I went to the Los Angeles Travel Show. There was a small booth for Flanders, where one lady was working alone. The booth featured Tintin, an international icon who is almost completely unknown here. Some better ideas might have been Audrey Hepburn, Hercule Poirot, Eddy Merckx, St. Damien or Django Reinhardt.