Hi all! We just moved down to Palos Verdes from the Bay Area. Our in-laws are in Arcadia. Unfortunately, our home is still being unpacked and we’re unable to host Tgiving this year and our in-laws are mid-move themselves. So… we were hoping to find a nice restaurant that could accommodate 5 adults / 5 kids with outdoor seating. Pretty open on cuisine (we eat a ton of Chinese but are pretty adventurous) and location (can be in their / our neck of the woods, in between or somewhere else!).
Would love to know if anyone has had good experiences anywhere in the past that we could consider.
Warrior: you could do a lot worse than Kali, a Michelin-starred restaurant with a big patio that currently has outdoor seating available for Thanksgiving on OpenTable.
The outside area isn’t especially large and it’s not a nice dedicated outdoor patio like other restaurants. If you’ve ever been to that strip mall the outdoor area is basically in the walkway between shops in front of the restaurant. But on Thanksgiving it might be ok if all/most of the other stores are closed.
What about places that are open for Thanksgiving Day, but are not serving Thanksgiving meals - yet still festive. Thanksgiving food does very little for me. SGV ideas?
We ended up doing Meat on Ocean in Santa Monica. Wasn’t sure what to expect, but it ended up being a great “re-entry” to society… amazingly, this was the first meal we’ve eaten out as a family since Feb 2020!
Couldn’t have asked for better weather. Seated at 4:45 and had a beautiful view of the sunset. All the windows were open, so even with a grandma and young kids, we felt totally comfortable with the air circulation. Service was harried, but kudos to our server for having a great attitude the entire night.
Most of us got the Tgiving dinner. Massive portions of turkey or ham with typical fixings (mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, yams.) Wouldn’t say anything blew me away but I greatly appreciated that everything felt somewhat light and not laden down with butter / salt.
Starter was clam chowder. Again, not a super heavy rendition but flavorful from bacon and chock full of clams without too much potato filler. For the kids at $25 per meal, they got bowls of chowder, a huge entree and then dessert. At $68 for adults, it felt fairly priced.
I absolutely loved the pumpkin pie cheesecake. It actually felt lighter than a traditional pumpkin pie, almost veering more towards an Uncle Tetsu, although less cakey. Almost as if you whipped the cheesecake to get it more airy. Perfect crust. I could have eaten another slice!
I ended up bailing on Tgiving dinner and getting a NY strip. Had zero complaints. Seared nicely with a crust on the outside, juicy and medium rare as I requested on the inside. Only bummer was they finished with butter which I hate - I’m a salt and pepper only guy.
All-in, couldn’t have asked for a better evening with family, solid food and lots of drink!
Thanks all for the recommendations… I tried to get a couple reservations and by the time I got around to it, some of the suggestions were fully booked
