I was lying by the pool in the middle of a vineyard in France (which is pretty much like throwing a duck into the middle of a lake and giving it lots of bread) when I was seized with a pang of emotion for most of my immediate family and texted them to suggest having lunch on the Sunday I got back. They were clearly not feeling the love, or just hadn’t started on the rosé at midday, and the only one who was interested was Sister Number 4.
Famed for her inability to organise anything, arrive anywhere on time, or respond to texts unless in her direct and immediate interest (a genuine feat given that her phone is superglued to her face), I wasn’t too concerned when she hadn’t replied to a single message on Sunday morning. I finally got hold of her at about 11am. She grumbled down the phone like the kraken for about five minutes before she grudgingly agreed to let me buy her lunch at Honky Tonk on Hollywood Road.
It started to rain as I left my flat so I was forced to break into the casual ‘I’ve been caught in a downpour!’ jog that you see in films, complete with waving a newspaper ineffectually in the air above my head. I got pretty into it and was therefore surprised to notice, from a fleeting glimpse in a shop window, that I didn’t look like an artfully tousled film star so much as a loping Neanderthal with mad hair. I put my jacket over my head and walked the rest of the way staring at the pavement, lamenting my own hubris. Just another one of those things that isn’t true in the movies, like running through airport barriers to stop the love of your life getting on a plane. Don’t. You’ll get shot.
I loped into Honky Tonk, feeling as proto-human as I apparently looked, and waited for the sister at the bar. The restaurant bit at the back was empty but for a lot of balloons, which looked sort of sad in the clear, grey light of a rainy afternoon. On reflection, given the hard liquor and rock music, this is probably more of a Thursday night kind of place than a Sunday lunch one, but they’ve tried to allay that with a good looking brunch and good looking staff. We asked for marmalade margaritas. Tequila is a struggle at 1pm, which is probably a good thing, but they were great.
The menu is full on Americana. Not completely Southern grits, not wholly the dirty burger thing, not just Tex-Mex, but a roll call of the greatest hits from the good old US of A that complemented the stars and stripes playlist perfectly. Sister number 4 didn’t know what a quesadilla was (she also doesn’t know what a bison is, incidentally) so we ordered those and some pork ribs to share for our starters. They were eaten with glee. The quesadillas were bite size and especially delicious. The ribs were not an overwhelmingly Desperate Dan style rack so were manageable, but this is still filling food. I only just forced down my mac ‘n’ cheese (and I was so good last time at not ordering macaroni cheese!) and my sister’s little face crumpled when she realised that there was absolutely no way she could fit bourbon and dark chocolate s’mores into her jeans.
There was a lot more to explore here in terms of cool American drinks (juleps, sazeracs, picklebacks, craft beers) but it felt a bit wrong to bomb through those at lunchtime, so I will be back one evening to do their menu justice: this is more a watering hole than a gastronomic temple, but none the worse for it.
