Rush Street, Culver City

Rush Street, Culver City
9546 Washington Boulevard
Culver City, CA 90232
http://rushstreetculvercity.com/

Telephone: 310.837.9546

Monday - Wednesday:
11:30 am - 12:00 am
Thursday & Friday:
11:30 am - 1:00 am
Saturday:
11:00 am - 1:00 am
Sunday:
11:00 am - 11:30 pm

















Still sticking close to work lately. Rush Street is very close to M Cafe de Chaya and Tender Greens, Rush Street being the closest to work. Walking from the front door of work to the front door of Rush takes about two minutes, with time allotted for the extremely lazy crosswalk signal (see the clouds in the photo above? Walk towards them and that's where work is).

I appreciate Rush because it's a bar (neither Tender Greens nor M Cafe have liquor, depressingly) as well as a restaurant. Lovely, lovely rows of bottles:
















Perhaps I am appreciating the alcohol a bit too much? I'm Korean, it's in my blood.

My current favorite drink at Rush is the Pom Royale. Served in a martini glass, it's a combination of vodka, pomegranate molasses (I need to find a tub of this stuff), lemon juice, lime juice, pineapple juice, and champagne. The vodka settles at the bottle, since the champagne is effervescent, so the drink tastes quite different from beginning to end. Yummmmmmm.

Anyways, I was at Rush on Wednesday night to meet some girlfriends for a quasi-reunion. We had all met and befriended one another at Rhythm + Hues. I hadn't seen this group of friends for a long time, and it was great to catch up (minus two that couldn't make it because they had to work *shake fist at work*).

We decided on Rush (okay, I decided on Rush) because it's close (to me) and they have pretty good food and drinks. Plus, one of the girls is a gelato fiend, and there's an Italian restaurant across the street that sells gelato by the quart (Cafe Ugo- I had the pistachio gelato for dessert (in a cup, not a whole quart!), and it was good, albeit way too sweet. All their gelatos run a little too sweet and a little too light).

I quite like Rush. The actual place is beautiful. I love the architecture, with exposed ceiling beams and skylights, lovely weathered brick walls, and minimalist decor.

I think that the very things that make the place beautiful, though, are also what makes it so. annoyingly. loud.

I do not appreciate trying to have a conversation over dinner in a place that sounds like a club. If I wanted a club scene, I would have GONE TO A CLUB. Imagine that.

There's a loft where the dj is (the dj that needs to KEEP IT DOWN while people are trying to converse) and an outdoor area both upstairs, past the loft, and downstairs, outside the front door. I think this is a stripper pole:
















What the heck else would you call it?? It's in the loft area ... for ... bachelor parties ...? No idea.

Rush is also supposedly "Chicago style," which I don't understand at all. What is Chicago style? I get it (even if I don't like it) when people call places "California style" and proceed to use wicker (ew!) and palm tree prints (ew!) all over the place. Yeah, we have palm trees here and we're right next to the ocean. Sure.

But the Chicago thing isn't evident at all at Rush, unless you count the fact that they have Chicago dogs on Wednesdays. What do they do to hot dogs in Chicago that make them better than regular hot dogs? And have you ever had a Dodger dog? Is a Chicago dog better? I'm entirely unconvinced by the Chicago thing. Gimmicky, that's all it is. Even their pizza is thin crust! (Maybe stripper poles were invented in Chicago?)

The food is passably good. I've only ever tried the two types of burgers they have, the turkey burger far surpassing the aged beef burger. I had never had pickled onions before, but they come on the turkey burger and are surprisingly good. (I don't like raw onions, only cooked ones.) I'm not brave enough to try their other artsier fare ... I'm not a brave eater by any stretch of the imagination.

Oh- their fries are fantastic! I'm not a fan of sweet potato fries, so I get the regular ones, and they're great.

Verdict? I would go back just for the Pom Royales. And fries.