January is over. Let’s make the most of the shortest month…
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Perhaps one of the most enthusiastic openings of any casual local eatery recently is the stateside debut of Japanese breadmaker Bread, Espresso & (Redondo Beach).
The pre-opening queue was over 50+ deep for this 32-seat store by 7AM on Saturday!
Their signature “mou” bread is as advertised: Soft, and great with both sweet and savory accompaniments. I consider them “soft open” mode only at this time, as they seem unprepared for their sudden surge of success. Undoubtedly, the food they did manage to put out was really delicious, but many of the items on the menu - both food and drinks (including any other beverages other than coffee and iced tea) - were unavailable. This is a place I’d certainly come back to try again, but just in a few more weeks…
Bread, Espresso &
1212 S. Pacific Coast Hwy., Suite 100
Redondo Beach, CA 90277
424.506.5060
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Great report look at that line!!!
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Oliboli is still great. Had the maple and bumbleberry this weekend. A hot fresh donut from Oliboli is hard to beat. Can’t wait until Harry’s Berries are back. The Meyer lemon is always great too.
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I hit that up on my way down south last week. Fresh oliebollen made an early-morning drive way easier. I even prefer them to the donuts!
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They’ve a Pierre Hermé-inspired special for the month of February. Isapahan…raspberry, lychee and rose.
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My friends son inhaled the lychee rose donut. I wanted a bite but I also like having fingers. He said it was great.
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La Macellaia sandwich from Cheese Store of Beverly Hills. Well made. Delicious. Great ingredients. Loved the crunchy bread. Parking in the area is a bit annoying but don’t let it deter you.
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The new Fullerton Mo Ran Gak is packed to the gills but they turn over tables fast. Really excellent attentive service. We got there 4:30 on Saturday for 8 people and were seated at 5:10. Very good circulation so your clothes aren’t smelly.
We had 5 orders total. Fluffy and well seasoned. You must order.
Non marinated Prime B combo. Brisket, short rib and steak. Got 2 of these. Combo comes with egg and a jigae. Highly recommended.
The naengmyun is tops.
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6100 Bread in Santa Ana has been blowing up on the socials. I was 1st on line on a Sunday at 7am. They open at 8am and there were about 75 people behind me. They post about using Beurre du Bordier. You can definitely taste it in the croissants. Tried the plain, sugar and some cheese chili croissant. All were very good.
Very soft fluffy rosemary focaccia.
Croissant cinnamon roll with vanilla cream cheese frosting.
Chocolate chip cookie at 8am never hurt anybody.
The only miss for me was the pan de sal. It was fine but didn’t really taste like anything.
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Karlo is on fire. His bread features in the current menu at Somni as well. I went to his first drop in Santa Ana a while back, and the milk bread was sold out in no time flat.
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I went recently as well and I think their ube cruffin is one of my favorite on the sweet side. One thing I didn’t get a photo of was the ube cream inside which was really tasty (even if a little gimmicky).
Was able to try some of almost everything they’d made for that particular day. They only had one savory option then, a cheese/tomato which was great for a light lunch. The focaccia was nice but I don’t have much focaccia. Also had the blue corn sourdough and the aroma is amazing. Flavor wise on its own I’m not sure if the markup is worth. But I had some avocado spread I added and it worked amazingly well together. That was pretty worth but I’ll probably their normal sourdough next time just to compare.
They also had this thing they called a monkey queen which I really liked. The prices are a bit high but I’ll probably go back again.
Oh fwiw the chocolate croissant is nice but my coworker who really likes the chocolate croissant at CAR in Pasadena seemed to indicate she preferred CAR and thought the normal was better than the chocolate.
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Yes 6100 is not cheap but everything we had was good. I’m gonna try getting a sourdough loaf and the monkey bread next time. The focaccia, chocolate chip cookie, plain croissant and sugar croissant were the favorites of the household.
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I really liked the chocolate chip cookie too! For the sourdough, you can ask them to slice the bread for you which was great for me. Slices are huge. Definitely recommend the monkey thing. That and ube cruffin were my top two.
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Wildcrust (Highland Park). Per curiam. Good neighborhood restaurant.
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Jay Bharat (Artesia). Average chaat. Bland and bare bones by Indian standards. Doesn’t burst with flavor. For example, the pani puri has no black salt (kala namak) and no fresh chopped cilantro. It could use some mango powder too. The frozen, fried stuffed taro leaves (patra) are pathetic compared to the fresh ones I used to eat in Atlanta. https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/chat-patti-indian-vegetarian-restaurant-decatur?select=u2akyAj059U8DolqZO4_6Q
Yet all this being said, the food is still very tasty! It’s not like there’s bad chaat. Tried 3-4 times with consistent impressions.
Peony: I actually quite like it.
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Tsubaki: still tasting better than an Echo Park restaurant has a right to. A la Dolly Parton
Too much hassle to post pictures. It always times out.
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2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Photo upload limit
I know Mendocino Farms isn’t exactly chow-ish, but I really like their Baja Green Goodness salad. I actually kind of crave it. In general, I think I might like their salads more than I do their sandwiches (the latter are rarely leave me feeling relatively full):
Annual trip to Bacari Silverlake. I find the multiple locations around LA to be a bit concerning (in terms of quality control), but the food last night was still as tasty as ever (aside from the feta phyllo pastry; more about that later).
Everything here seems just a touch overpriced (which how I always feel about tapas-style places), but they employee a huge # of employees, so someone’s gotta pay that. I was not particularly happy about being charged the $7.50 for still water (that I assume was tap) that wasn’t brought to us until we had basically finished our mains.
Delicata squash, lamb hummus, salmon, smoked mushroom pizza (which was actually a pretty decent size), “the best cake,” feta phylo.
The feta phylo is essentially a block of feta w/ phyllo, sugar syrup, and supposed to be served a room temp. For reasons that are unclear to me, one end was a totally diff temp than the other end, meaning I got a room-temp bite (not bad), and partner got a bite of cold, hard feta. The syrup could’ve used some sort of citrus (very, very badly), and the savory seed mix would’ve been really tasty on basically anything else but seemed very dissonant w/ the rest of the dessert.
Server said that he hadn’t ever eaten the inspiration for the dish. I assume the inspiration is galaktoboureko; my own experience being the excellent one at the Moushi Beach pop up (@micheldelving), I found the one at Bacari to be really, really disappointing. The only miss we’ve ever had there.
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