Tasting Arcadia

Episode 22 - 1913

• Karen Mac Nair • Season 2 • Episode 22

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Ever wondered what happens when culinary excellence meets healing? The latest episode of Tasting Arcadia with Karen Mac Nair takes us behind the scenes of 1913, with Christian Eggerling, Director of Hospitality and Culinary Operations. 1913 is a hidden gem nestled within City of Hope's Duarte campus serving delicious food. Christian also share what he bringing to Taste of Arcadia.

For more information and tickets to the Taste of Arcadia visit TasteOfArcadia.com.

Follow us on social media. Join us for another episode of Tasting Arcadia.


John Villa:

Welcome to Tasting Arcadia, the official podcast of Taste of Arcadia. Taste of Arcadia is an all-inclusive event featuring food and drinks from the San Gabriel Valley restaurants, all for one price Sample food, wine, beer and spirits. Check out our brand new cars, visit our business showcase booths, smile at our photo booth and shake it on the dance floor with me, john Villa from Dance Syndicate DJ Entertainment. Taste of Arcadia is September 13th at Santa Anita Park. The fun goes from 2 to 6 pm, with special VIP entrance at 1 pm. Don't forget this is a 21 and over event. Get your tickets today at tasteofarcadiacom. Now let's hear it for our host, Karen Mac Nair.

Karen Mac Nair:

Thanks, John. It's so great to be back to our next episode of Tasting Arcadia. I'm here with Christian from 1913. Christian is the Director of Hospitality and Culinary Ops. Welcome, Christian.

Christian Eggerling:

Thank you, good to be here.

Karen Mac Nair:

Thanks for coming. We're excited to have you at Taste. So first I'm going to start off. Where is 1913?

Christian Eggerling:

1913 is located in the Judy and Bernard Bernard. Excuse me, judy and Bernard, why am I not remembering Briskin Hope Village Hotel?

Karen Mac Nair:

Okay, great Is it. In what location Do you have a? Where is it near so?

Christian Eggerling:

we're located on the northwest corner of City of Hope Okay great, which is the Cancer Research Center Hospital that's here in Duarte, California.

Karen Mac Nair:

Wonderful. What hours can we come visit this wonderful I have to compliment too indoor-outdoor seating area? I love your outdoor seating area. That's one of my favorites. But go ahead, when can we come visit you?

Christian Eggerling:

We're open seven days a week. Monday through Friday, we're open from 7 in the morning until 9 pm, and then on the weekends, we're open from 9 am until 9 pm.

Karen Mac Nair:

Biggest question that comes to us at the chamber is do you have a happy hour?

Christian Eggerling:

We have a social hour.

Karen Mac Nair:

Ooh, love that, love to play on words.

Christian Eggerling:

We offer the social hour Monday through Friday. It's from 3 o'clock in the afternoon until 6 o'clock in the evening. And then on the weekends it's from 12 noon until 9 pm.

Karen Mac Nair:

So you get to be social for a really long time on the weekends Much longer. Yes, I do love that. So why don't you tell me? Do you have any history of 1913? Tell us a little bit about the background.

Christian Eggerling:

Sure. So 1913 is the founding year of City of Hope. Oh, we have a food service program which is called Nourishing Hope, which is part of what we established in 2016, late 2016. It is part of our inpatient food services program, but the food service that we offer at the restaurant is our highest level of food service that we have. It still coincides with everything that we established for clean food.

Christian Eggerling:

We've deemed this progressive American cuisine, meaning that things are always changing. We're offering clean, seasonal food, as close to sustainable farming, as close to the hospital as we can get. So we're pulling from farms that are as far as Temecula, maybe here, altatina, as far north, maybe as Central Valley, california, so we're trying to keep it as local as possible. We serve. All of our food is going to be fresh. Any of the seafood that we're going to prepare is going to be fresh. Offering certified Angus prime beef Wow. Any of our pork products are all natural. All of our poultry is going to be fresh. Abf meaning antibiotic-free poultry.

Christian Eggerling:

So, turkey chicken. Everything is going to be fresh, meaning that nothing is coming frozen.

Karen Mac Nair:

I love that and I feel like I've been there for lunch. Let's start there. Good Been there for lunch and social hour. Even though I didn't know that was the name, right, okay, good, I did taste how. I knew it tasted different, I knew that there was something special, but I never knew the story behind it. I just felt like, oh my, that it was a step above other restaurants that you might taste. So it's nice to know the history and that is Farm Fresh or as close as we can get.

Christian Eggerling:

Especially in our area. It's our version of farm to table.

Karen Mac Nair:

Love it. So do you have a favorite dish, drink, inspiration something?

Christian Eggerling:

Any of the dishes. It's what we've developed over the years. I've been there since late 2016. But it's a team effort we have. Chef Juan is our chef at the restaurant, chef Karen she is our executive chef for the entire property.

Karen Mac Nair:

Oh, wow.

Christian Eggerling:

I started off in her position and then we've expanded and developed quite a bit over the number of years that we've been doing this. But we work hand-in-hand with our clinical nutrition team, so it's got a lot of thoughtfulness behind everything that we've been doing.

Karen Mac Nair:

I love that. So what I'm hearing you say is it's hard to pick which one could be the favorite, because there's so much thought and passion behind the entire menu.

Christian Eggerling:

There's a lot of development over the years that we've been fortunate enough to be able to do Any of the entrees that we offer To be able to do Any of the entrees that we offer double-chop lamb chops, that we offer it's Colorado lamb.

Christian Eggerling:

We have a certified Angus filet that we have on right now and again, this is seasonal we're in the summer months We'll offer coming up in the fall and the winter months we'll offer probably a lamb shake or we'll have maybe oxtail on as well. So we change as we go through the year. Every 12 weeks or so is how we'll change the menu.

Karen Mac Nair:

Do you feel like what is most popular on the menu changes with the seasons also?

Christian Eggerling:

Absolutely Okay and we'll see a fair amount of folks will make commentary about what they like, what they don't like or what they'd like to see. Come back, we get that a lot. We'll have a lot of folks that'll say oh, I really liked the salmon that you had on last you know, a couple months ago right, it'll be back gotta wait for the right.

Karen Mac Nair:

What is salmon season? Does salmon have a season?

Christian Eggerling:

uh, well, you'll have here for for the most part, it's. It's not too much that we'll. We'll offer it. We offer it all year long but, we're we're trying to offer it in the cooler months okay, nice sure um, what is a great way?

Karen Mac Nair:

as a chamber, as a community, we can really everyone listening to this podcast. How can we support your business, the 1913 restaurant? What's the best way that we could?

Christian Eggerling:

support, come in and have lunch or dinner every day.

Christian Eggerling:

I love that, yeah, yeah, I think you know we're. We're fortunate enough to be a big part of City of Hope, so we have Monday through Friday. We have a good calling for all of our staff that are coming over, and then we have the patients that are that are coming through as well, and their guests and the families with all of those patients as well that are coming in through the restaurant. We would like to see a little bit bigger turnout over the weekends. The weekends are a little bit slower for us and we've got plenty of room and availability for folks to come in and try us out.

Karen Mac Nair:

I love that. So did everyone hear that? Come support, show up at 1913. We heard social hour was long on the weekend. So they have a beautiful outdoor indoor area. Doesn't matter the weather, there's a great place to sit and enjoy. So what do you plan to bring to Taste of Arcadia this year? Because that's what the podcast is all about going to Taste of Arcadia, what do you have for us?

Christian Eggerling:

So one of the menu items that we do offer are pork. Belly buns. Actually is one of our hot items, but we're going to do a cold version of a cucumber canopy. Ooh, so that's—. I'm a huge cucumber fan. Oh good, so these are European cucumbers.

John Villa:

Okay.

Christian Eggerling:

Oh good, so these are European cucumbers. And then we braise the pork belly for between three and four hours, depending on the size of the piece, and then that has a. It's more of a Chinese type of barbecue. Okay, we'll reduce, and it's a little sticky.

Karen Mac Nair:

That's why we have great napkins that are branded from 1913.

Christian Eggerling:

Yeah, and then we have our version of a classic shrimp cocktail. It's just got just a little bit of wasabi in it, so we'll give it an extra kick besides the horseradish, and those would be the two different offerings that we'll have for the Taste of Arcadia.

Karen Mac Nair:

I'm very excited they're sitting in front of me to be able to try, but before we dive in, is there anything else? Oh, do you have any events coming? I forgot to ask that.

Christian Eggerling:

We do have an event, but we're also going to be offering we call them refreshers. We're also going to be offering we call them refreshers. So when you come to the hotel in more of a traditional hotelier type of entrance, when you're first coming in through the lobby and you see the lobby, and it's a beautiful lobby, you're going to be greeted by our folks, um, with patient accommodations, and we offer a drink and just a little snack just to come in. And what we offer so it's seasonal, wow. So we have a different iced tea that that you would be able to drink, but we didn't bring that today.

Christian Eggerling:

But the cookie is what we will be offering at the Taste as well. So this is our summer strawberry lemonade cookie that we make and just to give you kind of an idea of it's one thing to have the understanding of we're always trying to source clean and try and have the higher nutrition and better for you offerings. We'll take something like a traditional cookie and, instead of using something like white flour and granulated white sugar, we utilize whole wheat pastry flour and we use turbinado sugar so we're.

Christian Eggerling:

We're everything that we're trying to really produce and some of those comfort items that you would think. We'll put that spin to it and make it as healthy as an option as we can.

Karen Mac Nair:

I just feel like I should clap because all the thought that is put into it just to take care of our bodies. We can still enjoy great food, but still take care of who we are on the inside, which sometimes is forgotten. Exactly so would you like to share? There's an event coming too.

Christian Eggerling:

Along with many of the other different events that we do offer every year or, excuse me, every month. The next one that we do have that's coming up, similar to your last podcast for your tequila we have cascadas tequila tasting on august 27th. That's from 5 30 to 7 pm and we offer it to the public as well oh great.

Karen Mac Nair:

So are you on social media? How do we find out, because I'm sure this isn't the only event, I'm sure every so often events. Is there a website, social media? How do we find out what's going on?

Christian Eggerling:

we do have social media and I don't know, uh, but we can get you that information, okay, great. I don't know what it is off the top of my head other than open table okay, so go to open table.

Karen Mac Nair:

You can probably go to website and put in 1913 and see if you can find it restaurant and bar, and if you're at taste of arcadia, make sure you come by the booth. So we're on to now. My favorite part is the tasting. Which would you like me to start with. I'm going to end with the cookie, is that okay?

Karen Mac Nair:

I'd probably start with the pork so we're going to start with the pork and my napkin. It is beautiful. Okay, take a bite. Mmm, that flavor Tender too. Yep, a little bit of spice. It just got there.

Christian Eggerling:

Okay.

Karen Mac Nair:

Good, but I'm a sissy when it comes to spice.

Christian Eggerling:

Oh.

Karen Mac Nair:

Well, it's sweet and salty. I'm going to taste the sweet Very tender. The cucumber is a nice addition.

Christian Eggerling:

Yep.

Karen Mac Nair:

Again, we can add our vegetables in different ways. We just have to pay attention. That's to all my people out there. Okay, so good. Good, I'm going to eat the rest, but not when everyone's listening to me. Sure, okay, carry a napkin, and next we have a shrimp. I love the lettuce too. Should I put it inside?

Christian Eggerling:

You can.

Karen Mac Nair:

I feel like I'm going to make a little.

Christian Eggerling:

You're good.

Karen Mac Nair:

So I'm putting the shrimp. Sorry, I was quiet for a minute because I'm still chewing Inside some great lettuce and then pouring the sauce, but not too much.

Christian Eggerling:

I'd go light if you're If.

Karen Mac Nair:

I'm sensitive.

Christian Eggerling:

If that's spicy, this will clear your nose out pretty good.

Karen Mac Nair:

Okay, just so you know I am a sissy. Everyone else will say Karen, that's not spicy. Okay, here we go. So delicious, Not too spicy. Okay yeah, hold on, it'll come. Okay, okay, so rude talking with my mouth full, but yep, okay, good flavor, though not over powerful nope good, the shrimp is so good, so good, I'm gonna try dipping too. I'm gonna go old school. Okay, your face, you look so scared for me no, it's all good, so very good, delicious good.

Karen Mac Nair:

Now we're on to a cookie. I know people are saying I can't believe you get paid to do this, karen, I've had that conversation good job to have I know, okay, so now we have the delicious cookie. What was the center?

Christian Eggerling:

uh, so it's strawberry lemonade cookie, just for the summertime so I do see strawberries, fresh strawberries in there.

Karen Mac Nair:

Okay, um so soft. I love a soft cookie. So good so you just walk in and they hand you a cookie they hand you a cookie and a tea.

Christian Eggerling:

I think we have a hibiscus tea. I don't know what our latest tea is right now.

Karen Mac Nair:

I love that we'll change that seasonally as well see, you have to go multiple times in the season so you can learn what your favorites are sure and make a request. Well, Christian, thank you so much for being here. We're so glad that you're gonna be at taste of arcadia. Don't forget to get your tickets at taste of arcadiacom. Visit the 1913 booth. Give us your feedback about all this wonderful natural foods that are so delicious. I'm still I'm swallowing for the cookie. I just need milk. All right, thank you all for listening. We will see you on the next episode. And, John, take us away.

John Villa:

Thank you, Karen, for another great episode. You can hear us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and iHeart Radio. Don't forget, join us on September 13th at Santa Anita Park for Taste of Arcadia. You can get your tickets now at tasteofarcadiacom. Thanks again for joining us for Tasting Arcadia. We'll see you at the Taste.