Showing posts with label mondays after 10. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mondays after 10. Show all posts

Friday, December 19, 2008

Mondays after 10PM : Where to Eat?

Half of LA pretty much shuts down on Mondays, and the other half seems to shut down at 10 PM.

Here are a list of the places I've found (so far) that are open past 10 pm on Mondays - on the westside (ish)

1. The Bazaar
465 S. La Cienega Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA
310.246.5555
http://www.thebazaar.com/

Open until midnight.




2. Riva
312 Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica, CA
310.451.7482

Open until midnight.




3. Wakasan
1929 Westwood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 446-5241

Open until 11 pm.



4. XIV
8117 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 656-1414
http://www.sbe.com/xiv/

Open until 11 pm.


5. Gjelina
1429 Abbot Kinney Blvd.,Venice, CA 90291
(310) 450-1429


Open until midnight


6. BCD Tofu House
3575 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90010
(213) 382-6677
www.bcdtofu.com

Open 24 hours.

7. Loteria! Grill
6627 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028
(323) 465-2500
http://www.loteriagrill.com/loteriahollywood

Open until 11 pm


8. Father's Office II
3229 Helms Ave.,
Los Angeles 90034
(310) 736-2224
http://fathersoffice.com

Kitchen open until 11 pm (bar until 1 am).


9. Simpang Asia
10433 National Blvd #2
Los Angeles, CA 9003

Open until midnight daily.




10. Cecconi's
8764 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90069
(310) 432-2000
www.cecconiswesthollywood.com

Open until midnight M-W, 1 am Th-Sat, 11pm Sun.



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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Riva: Travi's New Baby

Jason Travi's (of Fraiche) new restaurant, Riva, sits near the Third Street Promenade and is open all-day, probably to accomodate the shoppers. In addition, though, they are also open until at least midnight every day, Mondays included. So there you go, one of my late Monday night dinners!

The restaurant was big but at late Monday night was fairly empty - 3 or 4 tables filled.

We started with some salmon belly crudo with homemade mustard
The salmon belly was smooth and delicious. I have to say I really, really enjoyed this dish. I didn't see it on the online menu afterwards and was pretty bummed :/ I definitely would've ordered it again if I see it!

Next we had the hachiya persimmon with speck ham and arugula
This was again another dish that would make me come back! The persimmon was sweet and ripe - some of the best persimmons I've ever had. They pair very well with the slight saltiness of the speck ham and the arugula provided a nice texture contrast. I think I would come back to Riva even if just for this dish (I'm very partial to persimmons though).

Since the portions thus far were fairly small, we also got the roasted quail with farro and fall squash and pistachio pesto
The quail was decent, but not the best I've ever had. Not as meaty or gamey as I normally like.
I'm also uncertain about the farro combination.

The other main thing Riva offers that Fraiche does not is pizza. The pizzas here are around $15 - not cheap and actually about the same price as Pizzeria Mozza. So how were they?

We had the pignoli pizza (pine nuts, tomato, smoked pancetta, reggiano)
I liked the thin crust and thought that the whole tomatoes were great. The sage leaves added a very nice aroma and flavor. Overall I enjoyed this pizza (although it's expensive).

We also had the eggplant parmesan pizza.
Literally an eggplant parmesan, baked on top of a pizza crust. Quite an interesting dish - hard to eat as a pizza though since the 'topping' was very heavy. This filled us up quite a bit and was pretty enjoyable.

For dessert we went with the sweet potato cheesecake.
An extremely rich cheesecake, especially so since it is sweet potato and also topped with melted marshmallows!
This was actually too rich for my taste - once the ice cream to cut it is gone I couldn't eat any more of it.

Overall I thought Riva was pretty good with a couple dishes that really highlighted the meal and that I would go back for (the salmon belly and the persimmons with ham!).

Riva
312 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA
310.451.7482
http://rivarestaurant.wordpress.com

Riva on Urbanspoon

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Wakasan: One of Westside's Best Deals

Wakasan is one of my favorite recent discoveries. Why? Well, 1) they're open late - 11:30PM M-Th, and 12:30AM F-Sat (they close at 10:30 on Sundays). I don't know if you remember my ordeal on finding late night places on Mondays, but, well, this about fixes it all! 2)It's a great deal. They prefer you to do their prix fixe menu that's $35 - when I did, I ended up getting 12 items and was stuffed - probably too much so for 11pm on a Monday ...

Thanks to Mattatouille for pointing this place out to me!

1. Cold bean sprouts

2. Bean curd - before it's formed into tofu with vegetables, and
3. Ankimo with ponzu sauce, cucumbers and salmon eggs
The tofu curd had a very interesting texture and the dish overall was great.
The ankimo was also good, and I really like the combination with the cucumbers!

4. Sashimi: Tuna, old yellowtail, red snapper

They're not the best quality sashimi, although it wasn't bad. I wondered why the "old yellowtail" - because, yes, it tasted pretty "old". Anyway it wasn't bad and for $35 for this and a lot more I wasn't going to complain.

5. King crab legs
Yum. They're king crab legs, I don't know what else you want me to say O:)

6. Grilled items: Miso salmon and green beans wrapped in wagyu beef
Pretty standard, salmon's a bit overcooked and hence, dry, for my taste, but overall everything was solid, even though not remarkable.

7. Braised Skate wings
This was my first time having skate. It was pretty fishy, but also pretty meaty. The braising has made it tender, so it was quite tasty - although I wasn't able to finish it because I was full and also because it was too fishy for my taste.

8. Shrimp with sweet potato fried rolls
This was served with cocktail sauce, which I wasn't too keen about. Overall this was pretty bland in my opinion, although it did have nice textures.

9. Chawanmushi
With ginkgo, small shrimps, etc, this was one of the best chawan mushi I could remember having.

10. Miso soup

11. Chirashi with tuna, scallops, uni.
Again, the fish quality is not the best, but the uni is not bad. I didn't really like the scallops as they were not fresh, but I thought the other two were decent.

12. Vanilla ice cream
I can't say for sure but this tasted very much like Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream. Which meant it was good :)

Overall we had a great variety of dishes, and some of them very interesting ones I've never had before, and all for $35. Plus they're open late daily. I'll be back here, and I think you know when :P

Wakasan
1929 Westwood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 446-5241

Wakasan Food Service on Urbanspoon

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Mole and Margaritas: Loteria Grill

I finally tried the somewhat-new Loteria! Grill in Hollywood about a week ago. A completely different ambiance than its predecessor at the Farmer's Market, this Hollywood outpost has high ceilings and a nice looking bar.

The salsa and tortilla chips at Loteria are amazing, but as some have noticed, they're pretty stingy about it. A small portion for the 4 of us, we chowed it down in 5 minutes. We flagged down 4 waiters to ask for more, but their 'yes' never materialized into more chips and salsa. Finally we managed to flag down a busboy who graciously actually brought us more!

Tacos aren't cheap at $3.50 a piece if you want meat. I ordered two cochinita pibil tacos (slow roasted pork)
cochinita taco
No rice or beans were given - just two tacos at $3.50 each. The tacos were great, thought. The cochinita pibil was very flavorful, with a light spiciness. The meat was very tender.

For drinks I ordered a mango margarita (I believe this was $11).
mango margarita
A delicious margarita although the mango flavor was not that prominent. The only problem - bcs I ordered this the server didn't bother bringing me water ...
Loteria definitely has service issues :(

One friend ordered the chicken mole enchilada ($12).
mole enchilada
I tried a bite of this and absolutely, absolutely loved the mole sauce! The enchilada is also a better deal with more food, and rice and beans. Next time I will get this instead of tacos..

As I said, I absolutely loved the sweet and smooth mole that I ordered another taco - this time chicken mole (I just wanted more of that mole sauce!)
mole taco
The mole taco was great, and did the job of satisfying my craving.

A couple friends ordered the Michelada for a drink ($9), which is basically a bloody mary mix with cerveza.
michelada

We all really liked the food at Loteria, and I will definitely come back another time, if only for that mole. Again, though, service can be much improved ...

Loteria! Grill
6627 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028
(323) 465-2500
http://www.loteriagrill.com/loteriahollywood

Loteria Grill on Urbanspoon

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

XIV Create Your Own Tasting - It's a Learning Curve

Another late Monday night dinner, but I felt like this time god's on my side. The newly opened restaurant XIV is open Mondays until 11 pm, and blogger kevineats has already done a blow by blow review of every single thing on the menu. So I just have to go eat, right? :)

For a place that's been open for only a week, and on a Monday night, XIV is bustling busy. Everyone in there seems to be the clubbing type, of course, but hopefully it was dark enough that I somewhat blended in ...

XIV lets you create your own tasting menu and every dish is priced at $8, and as I learned later this means you should order carefully. The catch - each person on the table has to have the same dishes. In this regard, I like Sona's tasting menu where they give everyone a different dish - lets you try more dishes. Our server was extremely friendly and down to earth - loved her. But the dishes were coming practically in twos which I found weird... My risotto was getting cold as I was eating my salad.

Instead of bread, they serve some Naan with Feta Cheese, and as all have speculated, it's probably because of Michael Mina's middle eastern background.The naan was excellent and the combination with the feta cheese worked extremely well. Each person is given our own dish of naan, and yes, we finished it all.

Our tasting menu started with Foie Gras Terrine with Cranberry gelee on top, cardamom, greek yogurt, flatbread
Great foie gras terrine, and I loved the cranberry gelee on top - nice combination of flavor and texture there. The terrine was dense and smooth.

We also had some salad (not my idea, really *sigh*). The menu read: Heirloom Tomatoes, gem lettuce, avocado, bacon vinaigrette
As you can see, not much heirloom tomatoes there. Baiscally a tiny lettuce salad, for $8 ... Yeah I don't think so. There won't be a second time. The lettuce also wasn't particularly fresh.

I then moved on to a more satisfying "vegetable" dish: Black Truffle Risotto, sweet corn, castelmagno cheese
Great dish - creamy, aromatic. The sweet corn cuts the richness very nicely.

Black Cod, spaghetti squash, matsutake mushroom, foie gras dashi
My favorite dish of the night. The black cod is cooked very, very nicely. The texture is the best I've ever had on a black cod and the flavor is very delicate - amazing. The fish and the dashi goes together perfectly. The spaghetti squash added another layer of texture, and I thought everything worked very well together.

For the red meat we had the Roasted Venison, Onion, Brussel Sprouts, huckleberry
The veal was cooked nicely - medium rare and very tender and flavorful. I also loved the onion and brussel sprouts, although as kevin mentioned, seems superfluous.. The meat itself however, was good but not the best I've had. It wasn't as game-y as I would've liked. That aside, this is one of the better preparations out there.
Also, the portion is a bit on the small side - three small slices of meat. I guess it's only $8.

White Chocolate Cube, orange blossom cream, coriander, pistachio, sake
Drizzled with black sesame sauce. The cube looks like the XIV building itself. Crack it open and you'll find all the pistachio, orange blossom cream etc goodness inside. Also love the black sesame sauce - actually I'm completely biased, I love black sesame. My one and only complaint: I wish it wasn't white chocolate but dark chocolate. Again I'm completely biased here :)

Lemongrass custard, cola, buttermilk, sweet potato-yuzu mochi, saffron
I thought this dessert was tasty and interesting. The mochi was good but pretty sticky. Although I liked the taste of this dessert, it left my mouth feeling rich and sticky while I was hoping for something more refreshing. Overall I liked the cube better, but again, this one still tastes good.

XIV definitely knows how to prepare their food, meat and fish in particular, but the $8/dish can lead to a hit or miss so do order carefully (i.e. avoid cheap salads).
Oh and I forgot to mention - Valet parking is a ridiculous whopping $14.

XIV
8117 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 656-1414
http://www.sbe.com/xiv/

Hours: Sun-Wed 6pm-11pm
Thu-Sat 6pm-2am

XIV on Urbanspoon

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