The Delicious Life is mostly dining out, and a little more than just dabbling in the kitchen, but I've noticed that the drinking part is seriously lacking. Dry dry dry. Dry as a wine glass at an AA meeting.
But desert dry on the blog is not really for lack of occasions in my real life, for there have been quite a few occasions on which it has been luxuriously lush. I just have a wee bit of a problem, that we’ll just call a sanity malfunction, when I go out for drinks. I forget to take pictues, that is, if I even remember to bring a camera with me at all, and now that I think about it, just where in, on or around this dress-to-impress outfit do you think I could carry a camera?!?! Exactly. In my purse, party girl! Alas, I always tend to leave my purse on some chair or some tabletop as if we were partying in Idaho. Beer goggles? Oh, no no no no. We call it Absolut trust.
I will do better. I swear.
Now, the scene of many crimes is called Phaze, a new-ish schizophrenic bar. It’s a club! It’s a lounge! It’s a restaurant! It depends on how well it’s been medicating itself, I guess. Two friends’ rented the place out to celebrate their birthdays in a sneaky, back-alley, back-handed, “we bring you big bar revenue!” deal with the owner. Dammit. I wish my friends were mobsters, but they’re not. They just said they’d cover the bar minimum and when I found out what that bar minimum was, and did the math in my head, and took into account who our friends were, I laughed. We’d hit that minimum by 10 pm. Doors opened at 9:30, I believe.
Phaze is not in my usual “out on the streets” part of town. It’s also not my usual “out on the town” part of town either (that would be SaMo or Hollyweird). Ha! Did you get that? "Out on the streets?" Are you keeping up? Hey, why don’t we drink some water to sober up a little, okay? Phaze is in Torrance. It’s in the South Bay, and if you’re down with the vernacular, it’s in da South Bay, wassup mah honeez and homeEEeeyz!!!1!!11 I did a search to see just what kind of place Phaze is and the pages that came up all pointed to a clientele of early 20s hipster azians. Please, don’t take offense if you are of that rice-rocket-driving, Sanrio cel phone accessory carrying, Mystic-tanned, high-lightened, frosted tip, uber-hip, pop anime, American wanna be FOB group. I used to be one of you, too. You’ll grow out of it. I almost have. ;)
The drive down the 405 is long from the Westsaaaa-iiiide, and it’s a little deceptive, because the turn off the freeway via google maps takes you right into the industrial Japanese auto maker microcosmos. Wait a second here. *pause* Phaze is attached to a hotel. *blink* The hotel is in HondaToyota-town. Are we going to party it up in some corporate Marriott conference center Grand Ballroom "A" that has been transformed from the previous morning’s Annual Revenue Meeting into...the Junior Prom or a even worse...a wedding reception?!?
We pulled into the parking lot of the Torrance Plaza Hotel and were *shush*ed with a downward wave of the attendant’s hand to keep our engines down. Oh right, please be courteous of our residential neighbors by not revving your rice rockets. Strangely, as we made our way to Phaze’s front entrance, I wondered why our sandals’ clack-clack-clacking was so eerily echoing off the pavement. It was vewy vewy quiet.
We had to interrupt the bouncer/guest list guy from reading. I know I often joke about the Japanese animation craze, but I am not joking this time. The bouncer was reading manga. I thought it was hilarious. He checked our names off the list, which made me feel all special VIP kinds, but in reality, it was a birthday list that has to be done for private parties. Let me live in my dream Entourage world! The bouncer went right back to reading.
the throngs! the crowds!
Inside, Phaze was set up like a club/lounge, with nothing remarkable about the decor. Most of the tables and chairs had been stacked up and pushed to the perimeter, save for a few set up in a corner for the wallflowers. There’s a flat panel screen toward the back of the space, and I think there might have been a photo/video montage playing on loop of our birthday boy and girl that they had provided to Phaze. The area near the screen is set up more as a lounge with sofas and potted fake plants, but no one was there. All of the action was at the bar.
The actual bar is small, and as a hallmark of poor bar/club design, placed right inside the front door. Our party wasn’t enormous, but for any bar or club that expects throngs of customers, or to at least look like it’s packed like it’s the opening night of Avalon, the bar should be at the back, or at the very closest, in the center of the space. A bar in the front creates a bottleneck at the entryway. Perhaps the fear is that people won’t find the bar, or will be too shy to traverse a grand empty dancefloor, or will be too lazy to go that far back. Customers will find the bar. They can sniff out a Red Bull vodka faster than a papparazzo on Britney. Besides, Red Bull glows in the dark. (It does. Try it) And there should never be any question about shyness from attention. This is LA, for God’s sake. My bad. Da South Bay, wassup wassup?!?!!!111! Even better. :)
If you were already pretty far into your Absolut haze (it took three for me), Phaze very graciously put up cardboard signs written in multi-colored Sharpies, “Order drinks here” so you wouldn’t get confused. The bar was also serving food that night – bar snacks. The had something like popcorn chicken, nachos made with that nuclear power plant plastic waste liquid cheese (which I love), and the most impressive item on the mini-menu, a cheese plate. A cheese plate! Phaze has a cheese plate! And then I saw our bartender boy, his hat flipped around backward over his pop garage punk band hair, toss about a dozen cubes of what looked like Velveeta on a paper plate like he was going for snake-eyes at the Craps table. He stuck a half dozen toothpicks in the cheese and put it on
the bar top. Cheese plate. LOL!
I shan’t go into too many of the antics of the evening, but here are a few words that may tip you off to the kind of evening that transpired as our friends overtook Phaze: tiara, feather boa (remember, there is a birthday BOY here, too), handcuffs, funnel, “They’re real,” and a few other interesting tidbits that shall go unmentioned. Okay, and someone also grabbed my arm and said, “I read you blog!” Okay, now who’s the snitch?!?!
Phaze is not likely going to make any Top 10 LA list this year, Nightlife, Restaurant, or otherwise. It probably won’t make any list next year either. It’s a bit far from me and doesn’t offer anything different or better from anything else that’s much closer.
Except that cheese plate.
Phaze
@ the Torrance Plaza Hotel
20801 South Western Avenue
Torrance, CA 90501
310.328.5899
tags :: food : and drink : japanese : drinking : bars : restaurants : reviews : los angeles
Rebecca says
Do you have a favorite drink you crazy Lush? I am trying to expand my alchoholic horizons...
Neil says
The very fact that it is named Phaze is already not a good sign.
sarah says
becky: hm, well, i do like a nice glass of wine, a fine chianti, a luscious zingy zinfandel...oh, who are we kidding here?!?! i love cocktails! however, i am not so into the fruity frilly drinks - i just find them way too sweet and filling. the only really sweet and creamy cocktail i like, which is really really weird is, a grasshopper - just creme de menthe and vodka over ice. no cream, no blended with ice crap.
i can take a mojito every once in a while, but i swear, sometimesi find that they are far too much effort for what you get - a salad with a rum dressing.
the one i always drink is Absolut Citron and soda. again, most people like tonic with their vodkas, but i think it's too sweet.
i just discovered with a friend that Absolut peach with ginger ale is pretty okay. a little sweet smelling, but not too sweet tasting.
neil: phaze. i know. i was pretty anti-phaze when i heard the name, and it was a completely lost cause when i found out it was in the south bay. i'll stick with santa monica and hollywood.
djjewelz says
fo sheezy my breezy sarah.
This post was far mo ghetto!
EAAAAAASSSTSIIIIIIIIDE!
Anonymous says
What are those drinks on the bar?!?! Are those shots?!? Tequila? Now those would be some scary tequila shots.
sarah says
djjewelz: dont hide it. you are one of the rice rocketeers, aren't you?!??!
anonymous: i actually have no idea what those drinks are, as i didn't have one of them. i am going to guess, though, that they were some sort of wicked birthday shot. makes me *shudder*
hermz says
Just goes to show, we can make any place fun!
Maure says
Hello, my name is cheese plate, and
i'm a ....
yes, the traditional introduction
followed by the sad story - so familiar to the recovering mini-menu-ic.
sarah, that may have been the saddest, yet most descriptive bit of food blogging yet. I feel like charlie brown after lucy pulls away the football - or that time is accidentally stepped on the snail in my bare feet.
Phaze sounds like the kind of place that offers a caviar special,
when they simply forgot to clean and gut the fish.
who else could it be, x0x0 says
Yo, yo, yo Sarah/Susan (or is it really Sung-Hi? ;) ),
you're favz in da house, waiting on that birthcert still ;-) It's rice-cookers damn it, get Ur slang correct, for fox ache!. Do a Google on 'hot import nights' if you want to go to the next, rice-rocket convention, and get in line for your Azian playboy starlets personalized autographed pics. Or read Import Tuner magazine (no autographed pix though, hehe). Kailia Wu, get her one and only (well she supposedly graduated from UCLA, had a b/f at the time, when she did it) XXX movie, now wanna be pop/hip-hop singer. check out her video with the mindnumbingly witty title "Get Up On You" (hint, hint Sarah; can we play that one together? ;0 ! )
http://www.kailapop.com/KailaVideo2.html
Careful you're not drinking any mixed cocktails from the frez, when you watch this vid, as you may spew LUrAO, Why this one's almost up there with the Hoff vid. check it out! "Hey, uh huh, uh huh...get a little kinky, uh huh, uh huh, let me get up on you, get a little freaky" ;)
We have a winner, Sarah's new fav 'rice-cooker' song!
U be watching too many 2Fast2Furious movies...'rice rockets'...get out, Ur killin me ;) , the 20's somethings down in the bay, same as the guys/chicks across the street from Kiriko over in the storage facility parking lot on weekends.
ZingyZin....argh! Sarah, ZingyZin has a rhyme I know, but ZingyZins completely blow! Lusty, seductively, smooth and lip licking yummy like Delish Sarah herself, Zinfandel... is what you want, is what you want, is want you want (drink enough high-octane Zinny of the likes I can hook you up with, and the thumpin bass beat of that 'classic' INXS song will def get you shakin Ur groove thang, lol. ...yeah, I know, I'm bad that way ;) ).
Hmm, guess I need to take oh Sarah down to the Bev. Warehouse one of these days before they run out of the Christmas/Holiday ales that Sarah would find to go quite well with some spicy Kimchee (or at least her awesome mom's going to like it/me ;) ). Then again, they've got plenty of SEX for sale there, and from France "X-rated" vodka too, just the way Sarah likes her sin.... ooh la la.
hey everyone, lets all play a fun game with Sarah on April fools, lets all use a Korean proxy on that day, and freak out Sarah when she goes to look at her new stats data.
BTW, I'm the velia.net location: Fankfurt Am Main, Hessen using anonymouse.org on one of the listings in your new stats.
Anonymous says
Damn! Let me know when you go next time; You can finally meet your 29 year old Korean secret admirer. ; )
"J2K"