Salmon

It is very easy to drive on the main commercial portion of Brand Boulevard in Glendale between Colorado Street and Glenoaks Boulevard and find restaurants varying in ethnicity, price and quality. But you need to continue traveling farther north to find top-notch culinary excellence at a marvelous gem called Gennaro’s. This stretch of Brand is still primarily business-oriented, but the look and feel are different, and Gennaro’s reflects this mood. Upon entering you notice décor that is elegant but not ostentatious — upscale in a manner that seems appropriate for an excellent Italian meal.

Some kids have mentors that take them to ballgames, help with their homework, or simply guide them through the obstacles of life. I have a food mentor. As soon as I got teeth, I was chewing on a gyro and learning that raw fish comes on a roll of rice. My mentor is my cousin Anita, who lives in Oregon now and works for Harry and David. So when she's not sending me Moose Munch, she is here visiting her old hometown and teaching me a thing or two about food. Last week, I knew the perfect place to take my mentor for lunch was Octopus Japanese Restaurant.

Consider L.A. a model for water Faced with our current water problems, one solution for Burbank that I don’t believe has been brought to the fore is a program the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is offering their customers. That is a cash incentive to replace their grass lawns with drought-tolerant plants. Along with the cutbacks in other water usage, it should make a big dent. But unless there are penalties, some people will not restrict their usage in other areas.

In 1959, a quartet of teenage musicians from Liverpool, England, were playing small local clubs under the name of Johnny and the Moondogs. The following year, they would change their name to the Beatles. Across the pond, the United States would start the year with 48 states and end it with 50. The men who would grow up to be the 42nd and 43rd leaders of those states were in grade school, and two more years would pass before the country’s current president would be born. In Burbank, folks were doing much the same as people all over the nation — listening to Elvis, Paul Anka and Bobby Darin on the radio, watching new shows like “Bonanza” and “The Twilight Zone” on TV, and going to see movies like “Ben-Hur” and “Some Like It Hot.” That was also the year that two young entrepreneurial Burbankers named Al and Delores Thomas gathered up $5,000 and opened The Tallyrand Restaurant on Olive Avenue.

This is not your parents’ Chinese restaurant. Forget the red vinyl booths, papier-mâché dragons and rice-paper lanterns hanging everywhere. And don’t expect the kitschy plates or pots of tea. It is a minor detail, but it says everything. The fortune cookies are delicious. Instead of the usual break-your-teeth perfunctory after-dinner treat, here they bring fortune cookies wrapped in brightly colored foil that are fresh and have been partially dipped in white chocolate.

I'm not sure where it was on the road of life that I got the idea that health food stores were full of things that didn't taste very good and should be avoided. But I do know where I was when I found out how wrong I was ? the Full O'Life Health Food Market and Restaurant in Burbank. Maybe I confused health food with foul-tasting diet food. Whatever. All I can tell you is that I feel like I've made a new friend, though I'm admittedly late to the party. Full O'Life has been a part of the community since 1959, making it one of the first natural food stores in the region.

Sometimes you can't be too literal when it comes to restaurant names. Case in point ? Bake It Again, Sam!, the bagel shop on Riverside Drive in Burbank. The name has nothing to do with twice-baked bagels, which don't actually exist. Instead it's a play on the line famously not spoken by Humphrey Bogart in my favorite movie of all time, Casablanca, "Play it again, Sam." In the movie, it's all about a song. Here, it's all about the bagel. Making the perfect bagel is more art than science.

Bill Scollon The Castaway, a fixture for more than 40 years -- a run interrupted only by fire and rebuilding -- is arguably "the" place in Burbank for special occasions. On any given night, you'll find people celebrating anniversaries, birthdays, reunions, promotions -- you name it. And why not? The food is good, the view is terrific and the island decor appealing. But the most outstanding feature of the restaurant is not the hanging plants, shell lamps or the aquarium.