Happy New Year everyone
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To you as well!
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To you as well and thank you for your moderate moderation!
Happy New Year too!
We started ours with a new adventure - the Doomie’s vegan pasta pop up. (The pasta maker from Otium teaming with Doomie.) Freshly made spaghetti with a yellow pepper sauce, toasted pepitas, sliced dried figs and I think some lemon zest? So good!
(FYI, the pasta itself was soft, not al dente but to my understanding that is how they do it at Otium.)
Got to chat with Doomie himself and he was sweetly excited at what a different thing it was for him to be doing. For our bread service he put down two sheets of parchment paper, swooshed olive tapenade and then a cannellini bean hummus, then a squiggle of cranberry jelly, then sprinkling of black lava salt, then dots of pistachio oil. You were then given triangles of roasted tomato waffle and pesto waffles to use as your bread to dip and swirl. It was so pretty and playful and my husband was so excited looking at it that I had to say “Hey. Don’t expect this at home.”
This am - crepes at http://www.crepessansfrontieres.com downtown.
Loved how beautiful the Spring Street Arcade is and our crepes were not free ($11 & $12 each) but - were extremely well prepared, flavorful and BIG. I have more than half of mine left! Great coffee there too - Lavazza. One cup was powerful and enough!
The rest of today and tomorrow? Soup, salads and low fat turkey to make up for my indulgences! But a very nice way to begin the new year : )
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Mendocino Farms in Santa Monica. I had tried the one in MDR several yrs ago and wasn’t particularly impressed (I think I had a curry chicken sandwich?). This time, I thought it was great. Pork belly banh mi, Peruvian steak sandwich, grape lemonade (which didn’t have a recognizable grape or lemon flavor), and passionfruit (I think) ice tea.
Then went next door to Sidecar. My, my, that’s some good sh*t. I don’t even like donuts (usually), but I’d happily eat these again. We had the chocolate one, and it was soft, warm, rich, and not overly sweet. Wow.
And then we saw a nice sunset in Palisades Park. 
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love the pork belly banh mi (although I have a somewhat love/hate relationship to the bread choice). it’s a nice balance of fatty pork and the zingy crispness of the veggies.
Clay pot ginger chicken with cilantro, served with broken rice, Phorage (in West L.A.)…
I had been looking long and hard to find a great Asian stewed chicken dish to replace the wonderful chicken with chestnuts at (the long shuttered) Giang Nan in the San Gabriel Valley. Who’d a thunk the next worthy successor would be from West L.A.?!
This is a great, hearty dish which calls out for rice. It’s imbued with bold flavors on multiple fronts, and the chicken thigh remains deliciously tender. Props to the gang at Phorage for making this dish a permanent item on your menu!
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Why the love/hate w/ the bread? Is it b/c the bread is really tasty but doesn’t resemble a baguette, like, at all?
exactly. I also find that it starts to fall apart and get a little soggy by the time I get through the second half.
The new Rose in Venice. Smoked Bucatini Carbonara (my favorite pasta dish in LA has just moved down the street from Superba Snack Bar with Jason Neroni). Still wonderful…
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Is the last dish bread pudding?
Glad to be of service
Yes, their chocolate bread pudding…
Handy’s Market in Burbank. Finally was in the area on a Saturday to try their bbq. Got a rack of beef, 2.5 pound tri-tip, 2 each mild and hot sausage. It was ok, I wouldn’t go out of my way to get it
Then a late night run to The Spot on Pico. Got the supper box . Supper box is $15 comes with one piece of fried chicken, two sides, 3 waffle sticks, their cobbler of the day and a drink. I chose dark meat, meat and potatoes, rice and gravy. Cherry cobbler was Saturday’s choice. I also added a side of the hot link. It comes chopped with some onions, it’s what they put on the sandwich.
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While in Napa, I learned that traditional Santa Maria tri-tip can be done by dry rubbing the meat at the most 24 hour in advance, and then seared on high heat for 5 minutes per side and then wrapping it in foil and throwing it in a cold oven to finish cooking for roughly and hour. I’ve been using this technique and it’s fabulous.