Joan's on Third

Joan's On Third

8350 West 3rd Street

Los Angeles.

Andrew gives Joan's on Third 3 chews out of 5.

"We're not in it for the food, we're in it for the environment"

—fake quotation from the owner of Joan's on Third.

So the highly acclaimed Joan's—located just blocks from my house on West 3rd Street—has surprisingly mediocre food. You would never guess this while looking at the huge congregation of people waiting outside (to be explained later). I have been to Joan's many times, but have never felt so strongly about it to go and bash it as I plan on doing in this review. I have ordered many things from sandwiches, combinations of several gourmet appetizers/sides, to salads that could last longer than Thanksgiving leftovers.

My most recent trip to Joan's felt like it was off to a good start when I ordered the Chinese Chicken Salad. Classic. After I received my number (97, if anyone wanted to know), my friend, Alex, and I went to look for a table. We went outside. No seats. We went inside. No seats. We went outside again. Then we even contemplated sitting at the communal table. There were two seats left, across from each other, perfect. The only thing was that there was a huge indoor plant on the table which acted as a barrier between the two seats, not optimal. How social. So this is what that big outside congregation of people was about. They were searching for seating. Then I realized, this is what this place is all about...people don't come here because they like food, it's because they like having a ridiculously hard time finding a comfortable place to sit. There is not enough accommodations for all the hungry trendy people. Finally, we thought we had found a table, but then one of the servers who worked at Joan's did not allow us to sit there, and proceeded to call a group of 4 pretty girls over to sit at the table. Then I realized, "okay so now this is either (a) about looks; or (b) sucking a Mexican dick." I was not into either of these ideas. After about 14 minutes of searching, our legs finally came to a rest when a nice couple made eye contact with us and used eye/body gestures to tell us "here quick come snatch our seats before the other vicious chair hunters come and kill you with their chair hunting knives." Very nice couple with a very large gesture vocabulary.

Conveniently, our food came right as we sat down. Since any rational person would say food quality is directly proportional to the time of food preparation, I expected a good meal—especially being at Joan's and all. Alex got a Roast Beef Sandwich, and quickly decided that amongst his search for the best RB Sandwich, this one was strictly dominated by that of Clementine. Weak competition with a very similar cafe, Joan's! My salad was good for anyone who loves having a heavy doughy feeling after taking one bite. That's what I look for in salad, I want the heaviest possible food, with the doughiest, starchiest aftertaste. Right? The ratio of wontons to lettuce pieces in my salad was probably about 10 to 2. I'm not kidding...if i was lucky enough to find 4 pieces of lettuce, I was forced by the manager, the owner, and all the chefs to eat 20 wontons in that same bite. It was terrible and almost made me cry. The worst part was how they forgot to bring us water, which led to a terrible starchy residue that eventually almost glued my mouth closed. That actually could have been a good result. So a losing Roast Beef Sandwich and a heavy, starchy salad...Joan's definitely is not about the food.

So what is the hype? What is this place all about? Well I thought it was about the atmosphere. I don't like to say it is, because personally, I'm not about a viciously competitive chair hunting environment. To each his own. Well, this restaurant could be all about their Sweet & Crunchy Pickles. They are seriously fantastic.

Let me just end this by saying I hated all my fellow chair hunters for trying to deprive me of a seat. Assholes.