Showing posts with label brentwood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brentwood. Show all posts

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Bar Toscana, Brentwood's Hidden Italian Gem

Bar Toscana is the cocktail bar next door to longtime Brentwood favorite, Toscana. The Italian trattoria has been in business for 26 years. In the competitive culinary world of Los Angeles, that means they must be doing something right!

For their cocktails at Bar Toscana, they have brought William Perbellini who came from Italy to head the bar program here.

Bar Toscana

Perbellini's cocktail menu ranges from the classics to the seasonal, like this Costa Esmeralda (cognac, Grand Marnier, grapes, and sage)
Bar Toscana
I love grapes as a cocktail ingredient, and here it is paired with a grape-based spirit.

Barrel aged negroni with Plymouth gin, campari, and sweet vermouth
Bar Toscana
This was an unusually good negroni, expertly made and even smoother thanks to the barrel aging.

Friday, October 23, 2015

The Little Door in Santa Monica

by guest blogger @btsunoda

Driving through Brentwood on 26th Street, you would never know that a restaurant exists at 246 26th Street. The front wall of the establishment is beautifully wood stained with decorative wrought iron and grape ivy. With the absence of a sign, it wasn’t apparent that a restaurant is just behind the little door in front.


Walking inside The Little Door, it’s almost like a protected oasis within the city. The covered patio area offers a lot of indirect light and you immediately feel like you’ve arrived at someone’s home. A decorative wall mounted water fountain and an abundance of greenery accentuated this feeling.
DSCF7963
The Little Door is a French restaurant and a group of us were there to experience their new Sunday brunch menu. They first opened up in West Hollywood and due to popular demand, they decided to open another location in Santa Monica.
1456
We were treated to a champagne brunch featuring Veuve Clicquot. Most champagne served in restaurants is really sparkling wine because France regulates what can actually be called champagne. Veuve Clicquot Brut (a.k.a. Yellow Label) garnered a 90 point Wine Spectator rating and is the real deal. This is a dry champagne with hints of fresh peach. I was surprised to learn that each glass of champagne only has 72 calories.

Veuve Clicquot Rosé is blended with approximately 50% pinot noir and gives it a pink hue.
1462
Wine Spectator also awarded this with a 90 point rating. I actually enjoyed this more than the Yellow Label Brut. It was a bit drier and had notes of red berries. After nibbling on the assorted Cheese, Nuts and Fruit plate, I quickly realized that sometimes the simple things are best.

While the Smoked Salmon and Mini Waffles didn’t appear to be interesting to me at first, I really enjoyed it.
1467
The waffle was crisp and I appreciated the warm premium dark maple syrup. The saltiness of the capers with smoked salmon nicely offset the sweetness of the syrup. The black heirloom tomato was meaty, sweet and very enjoyable.

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Il Piccolo Verde (Brentwood)

With the rise of inventive and off-the-wall menus these days, we sometimes forget how good how good old school cooking is - like classic Italian, for example. At Il Piccolo Verde, a cute, small, Italian place in Brentwood, I was recently reminded of it.

IMG_4063
The Baked eggplant parmigiana is a bit different, since it is stuffed with zucchini ($12)
Eggplant Parmigiano
There's an old school wood fired pizza oven here.
IMG_4062
We tried the Pizza Napoletana, topped with tomato sauce, fresh burrata, and basil
Pizza

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Brü Haus: Brentwood's Gastro Pub, Now Open

Brü Haus has opened its doors right next to Cabo Cantina with around twenty draft beers and about the same number in bottles. Brü Haus is possibly Brentwood's first gastropub; at least I can't think of another.

Photobucket
The main fare at Brü Haus is the sausages with interesting selections (including a Berliner currywurst) and vegan options, burgers, and pretzels. They have about 20 beers on tap and an equal number in bottles.
Bru Haus Pub

Make sure you get some of their housemade sauces (sambal aioli, jalapeno ranch) to go with either your sausages, burger, or fries (or sweet potato tater tots). My favorite was the bright pink beetchup. Yes, that's beet ketchup. Sounds weird but I was hooked.
Beetchup

Monday, November 19, 2007

The Tried and True Sushi

Undeniably Los Angeles has an excess of sushi restaurants, and it can take quite a few miserable trips to filter through and find those good, reasonably-priced places that you can return to over and over again.

Among these good ones, Asakuma is my favorite. A bit more expensive than Hide, but without the wait and hassle and bad service (the sushi chefs at Hide are great but the waitstaff is ... meh...). In all my experience sitting at the sushi bar at Asakuma, I have never gone wrong.
I typically come in towards the end of the night, so it's pretty quiet usually. I always start with my standard favorites, hamachi and salmon. My regular sushi chef always gives generous portions (generous fish!, not rice as in other places) of the fattiest freshest fish :)
After these two, I suddenly have to decide what to order next. I usually ask for live scallops if they have any (at the end of the night they usually don't :( ). This time I opted for the Tai.
I like to eat my sushi in two bites: one bite to eat the fish with all the rice, another bite is the hanging tail end of just the fish itself. Asakuma's fish-to-rice ratio is perfect for me.

Ended the sushi meal with the sweet unagi, delicious as usual.Finish off the meal with some refreshing oranges, on the house.


Asakuma
11701 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025
Phone: (310) 826-0013

Asakuma on Urbanspoon

Gourmet Pigs   © 2008. Template Recipes by Emporium Digital

TOP