Three on Fourth - When Standards are Affected by Situation

A dozen guys.

No, make that a baker’s dozen, because there was that one who showed up on your radar twice, but with a different personality each time, so technically that counts as two. A different guy every couple of weeks for the last six months because each time, he turns out to be too arrogant, annoyingly modest, suspiciously charming, obviously awkward, overly gentlemanly, underly refined, too much testosterone, not enough balls, cries a lot, never cries, talks too much, doesn’t talk at all, talks with his mouth full, full of it, full of himself, selfish, uncomfortably giving, too much, too little, too something, too anything, because basically, every single one of them was just sort of…

Hey, thanks for dinner! (Houston's?!) Send me an email later, ‘k? (Right) Cool. Bye.

Your Inbox has a lot of unopened emails. A lot. But you don’t have the heart to Trash them. Rejection is so harsh, isn't it? You just let them slip to the memory of Page 2.

Because none of them, not one, not a single one, was The One. They didn’t even have to be The One. Maybe The Two. Hell, you would have taken The Three, but they were all just dumped into that ever-growing center of the bell-curve. Average. Boring. Doesn’t do it for you. Not only doesn’t for it for you, but like, really, really, really, doesn’t do it for you to the point that it does…the opposite.

Turned.

Off.

*sigh*Next!

Then.

Oh my. Then.

Then you have dinner with tall, dark, quiet, and unassuming.

Not arrogant. Not modest. Not exactly charming, either, but sooo much better than everyone else that's crossed your plate in the last six months. And by comparison, you know what?

He kind of...does it for you?

Hell. You know, you think he might…

He might…

Hm, this is weird….

Could it be? Could he be? *Gasp!*

He might be that fucking rockstar for whom you’ve been silently screaming!

Is he...?!?!?

No, kitten, he’s not.

He is not The One.

Nor is he The Two. He might be The Three, but even though in utter exasperation you said you'd even take The Three, you know that in reality, logically, in your sane state, you know - for fox ache you know - you'd never take The Three.

Don't take The Three. You may not have the tall-dark-and-reads-the-new-york-times Checklist like every other girl out there, and you don't have standard socioeconomic "standards" that can be explained in words, but you do have something without which, and The Three is without, you know you're just...settling. Don't settle. You should never settle.

But.

You lower your non-standard standards. You settle.

I hate when you do that.

You won't be trulymadlydeeply forever after happy because you won't have that something, but you deceive yourself into thinking that at least you have something. You convince yourself that something is better than nothing. In fact, you convince yourself so hard that you don't even say to yourself, "something is better than nothing." You just completely forget that you ever had that standard of something because you think The Three is The One.

settling for The Three (on Fourth)

I settled.

For Three on Fourth.

A long time ago, Three on Fourth used to be Rocca. I wanted to to try it; I thought about it on several occasion; I mentioned it whenever we were deciding on where to go for dinner; but by the time I finally worked myself up to going, the place closed. That seems to happen to me a lot in many parts of my life - too deep analysis, too long "thinking," too much weighing of options that I end up too late. But that's a blog post for another day!

We went to Three on Fourth because I pass it every single day as I pull into the parking structure for work and I was determined to try it before it closes. It's not that I expect Three on Fourth to close; that location seems to have a mini-curse.

The hostesses made a small to-do about seating us, which made me feel special, as if they were trying their hardest to accommodate us. Then I realized that for Friday night at dining prime time, the restaurant was rather empty. The to-do was a show and having more than one hostess was mild overkill. The space is dark, narrow, but lofty, reaching upwards through the second floor to another smaller dining balcony that overlooks the ground floor. I wanted to be impressed. We headed upstairs just for fun and sat at a small table against the front railing. Through the evening, I kept peeking through the bars to see what kind of action was taking place amongst the plebes because it was noisy. There was no action. There were no plebes. Just a lot of unexplained noise.

balcony vip

sniper shot. no target all night

Three on Fourth is supposedly named because the cuisine comes from three places: America, Europe, and Japan. I can understand Japan, but America and Europe? America must be comfort food (they have Mac n Cheese), but Europe? What is the "cuisine of Europe?" Last time I checked, there were about a bazillion cuisines all over Europe, and if you take into account the Mario Batalization of Italy's regions, then it's five bazillion. Three on Fourth Should really be called Everything Except Asia Except Japan on Fourth.

The breadth of the menu is just a minor irritation, though, because for anyone who has culinary ADD, the scope of cuisines is perfect. I really was interested in just about everything on the menu. Unfortunately, we were there to "meet," so we kept the food order conducive to conversation: light.

better with bacon

it's fried vitamin a

I was excited by the Brie salad. Under normal circumstances, I would have been mildly disgusted by the fact that a restaurant would have the *ahem* balls to simply put a wedge of Brie large enough to serve to a cocktail party on a small salad for one person. However, given my dining situation in the last few weeks, it was a wedge of Brie! It was perched atop greens with crisp bacon and mushrooms! It was brilliant. And yes, we finished that whole piece of Brie.

We had some sort of wholly unremarkable grilled thing.

Sweet Potato Fries, however, were wholly remarkable - cut slightly thicker than most, as crisp as a sweet potato fry can get, and sweetly chewy inside. I have a soft spot for sweet potato fries, partially because an ex-BF loves them (amazing! one instance where she's not bitter about an ex, thereby swearing off all things associated with him!), but mostly because the invisible Commission for the Advancement of Profits from Sweet Potatoes has done a fantastic job of marketing sweet potatoes as a high-nutrtion food. Antioxidants! Vitamin Something! It's orange! It makes eating them as French fries absolutely guilt-free.

Three on Fourth was awesome! For the Promenade (though it's not quite on the Promenade). Okay, so it wasn't awesome. It was almost awesome. For as long as it's there, and as long as I'm there, I'll probably go back.

Sure, it's settling, but at this point, something is better than nothing.

Three on Fourth
1432 Fourth St (between Broadway and Santa Monica Blvd)
Santa Monica, CA 90401
310.395.6765

** a year ago today, we were headed toward amazing graze **
** two years ago today, i began seoul searching with my grandmother **

tags :: food : and drink : american : european : japanese : restaurants : reviews : los angeles