Recommendation: Chori-Man & Colossus Bread
A two-ingredient perfect South Bay morning.
Ugh. I’ve been stuck in a piece that’s become a bigger thing than I thought it’d be. It’s good, but now it’s a whole thing. Now I want it to be really good.
So while we wait for the Annoying Big (Really?) Good Thing, here’s one more recommendation for my favorite spot in the South Bay. I’ve recommended them in several lists already—but they’re worth being recommended this many times, and then many more times.
Here’s a perfect weekend morning.
Wake up at 7, or 7:30, or 8am latest (the day is already ruined for so many of you, but bear with me). Do not shower; instead immediately throw on comfy, warm clothes and check the traffic to San Pedro. It’s light, because this is LA and a grand total of seven other people are active at this blessed (cursed) hour. Start the car with all the confidence of a two or three hours-better person than the rest of the city. The pot of gold (burrito of chorizo) at the end of this rainbow is already earned.
Hit the road. With the unpacked highways it’s a blazing-fast 45-minute drive. Put on a podcast; the silliest, least essential one.
About 39 minutes into the podcast, the 110 reaches its southern delta, spilling into San Pedro and Terminal Island. The peninsular portside community is as quiet as anywhere in LA on weekend mornings. Drive down Gaffey, the pleasant main drag, past fast food and diner and gritty neighborhood joints of every brand and nationality, many of them already open and united in serving dark drip coffee to the usual early birds. Make a right on 19th, then a left on Alma. A couple blocks later, there are the next-door sibling stores. There are a few other bleary-eyed, bundled-up folks waiting around—but this line’s a mere shadow of what it’ll be in another hour.
Stop by Chori-Man first. The order window slides open. Order the Tolucan green chorizo burrito with everything. Drop a few extra bucks in the can with the taped-on note that says, “Local college students working here!! Please tip!” Then, jump in the short, sleepy line for Colossus Bread. The intrepid local baker has one of the best immediate welcome smells in the city, a breeze of a hundred variations of butter and caramelized sugar and fruit baking happily away. Get a croissant and a seasonal danish and a black coffee (the wait for espresso drinks tends to hold up the line; plus, nothing goes better with an overcast coastal morning and rich pastries and a spicy, salty burrito than bitter-plain coffee). Exit Colossus and the burrito is ready to pick up from Chori-Man. Throw the brown papered treasure in the car and drive a few short minutes to White Point Beach.
(So far, this is an awful lot of effort for what has been described as “a perfect weekend morning.” I understand. Many other iterations of perfect weekend mornings probably involve as minimal an amount of effort as is possible for a human being to exert. Breakfast may even be served in bed. But part of the reason this particular morning rates as perfect is in the effort of the journey required (if you’re from any part of LA that isn’t San Pedro) and in the choice to undergo that effort. This morning is not achieved by convenience. It’s not for the ‘gram, though it’ll be awfully pretty. It’s for the sheer, luxurious pleasance of it from start to finish. Which reminds me—we aren’t finished.)
White Point Beach.
Cruising down Western, make a left at the bluff and a right into the White Point parking lot. Pay the fee, then roll carefully down the steep hill overlooking the rocky half-moon cove below, already populated with surfers and spectators. Drive to the far end of the parking lot, where a couple dozen tall palm trees creak and bend in the gentle ocean gusts. Gather your breakfast picnic materials and proceed into the Royal Palms Beach Park, across the enduring terrazzo-tiled floor and past cavernous, defunct fireplaces scooped out of the cliff face, vestiges of a resort long gone. Pick a concrete table under the palms, waves crashing a dozen yards away. They, and the trees swishing in the intervals, are all there is to hear.
Tuck in without a further moment’s hesitation. There is plenty of time to eat, and breathe, and watch the water and the trees and the surfers in the distance and the slowly approaching man walking his two sweet dogs, one tiny and ancient and the other friendly and giant, as dog pairs oddly tend to be. There are places to go and things to do today, this weekend, next week, soon…but later. All later. For a while yet the perfect morning continues. As long as the burrito, and the seasonal danish, and half the croissant, and most of the coffee last, anyway. And a little longer still. Maybe as along as the trees swish and the waves crash. And that’s plenty.
Find The Chori-Man and Colossus Bread via their links here.
I’ve recommended Chori-Man and Colossus about seven different ways in this newsletter now. If you haven’t been, it’s officially on you.