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

Corn Pizza, Twice Over.

Zelo was recommended by a friend of mine as "the best pizza in town" so obviously I had to check it out. I suggested it to a group of friends when we were meeting up - funny, we seemed to have pizza everytime we meet up ...

What's so unique about Zelo is their cornmeal crust, and their signature pizza is their Corn pizza:
This consisted of the cornmeal crust+white corn+marinated onions+mozzarela+chives. Being a corn lover, this pizza was totally awesome! The cornmeal crust is definitely different, and unlike regular dough, actually has flavor and (when done right) enhances the whole pizza.

You can order by the slice ($3.50), half ($10.00), or a whole pizza ($18.00). They're normally cut up into six slices but since there were four of us, the workers were nice enough to cut them into fours for us :) extra points for service ;)

Below is the the corn pizza and the mushroom pizza (from the specials):
The corn, like I said, was *amazing*. The mushroom pizza was also good. The basil and sundried tomatoes were a really nice touch, but it still can't compare to the corn one.

We also got another of the specials, the spinach pesto. It's apparently very popular so it shows up on the specials a lot.
I think pesto makes everything that much better, so naturally I like this one a lot! They put a lot of pesto sauce. Spinach, pesto, and basil? How can you go wrong? The corn is still our favorite though (A friend of mine told the waiter that he should've told us to just order the corn pizza and nothing else :P But I'm glad I got the spinach pesto too!).

We ordered three slices for each person, which ended up being A LOT, since the cornmeal crust made the pizza very dense and very, very filling.


Zelo

328 E. Foothill Blvd

Arcadia, CA 91006

www.zelo.us

Pizzeria Mozza: Pizzas and Hypes

With all the hype surrounding pizzeria mozza, I got curious and decided to walk in and try it one night. I called the day before and couldn't get reservations, but there was only two of us and we got seated at the bar immediately. Lucky :)

As with other hip restaurants, the place is loud and it's hard to hold conversations unless you're sitting right next to each other so the bar actually ended up working out just fine.

We placed our order and waited. It took a while to get served - we were starving so it might have seemed longer than it really was. We saw a bunch of salad dishes going by and they all looked really great. Too bad we didn't order any this time around but next time we definitely have to try one.

We got the mussels for appetizer:
I really liked the bread and the broth, but I didn't really dig the yellow sauce. It was a slightly spicy mustard-based sauce and I thought it overwhelmed the mussels! I would've been much happier with just the mussels and that yummy broth :(
I've definitely had better mussels elsewhere.

For our first pizza we had: Prosciutto Di Parma, Rucola, Tomato & Mozzarella
It was definitely good prosciutto, and the rucola is a great touch. Personally though I'd like more tomato and cheese. You might say that that's just because I'm used to the normal pizza and want something similar, but I still think that this pizza is a little bit on the dry side. But again, though, the prosciutto is definitely good.

The dough is good and as you can see their crust rose more than normal pizza crusts and is "puffier" which is also a plus. It's not as dense and filling.

On average the pizzas are $15 and each one is little more than an individual serving. In our mind this was definitely expensive for pizza, although it is better than most (but is it a better deal than, say, Zelo?).

For the second pizza we got: Wild Spinach, Finocchiona & Cacio Di Roma
The spinach was crispy and there was a little spicy kick to it. Overall it was closer than a "normal" pizza, although with much better cheese and dough. The prosciutto was tastier and more interesting.

I also saw them making this one pizza and put a raw egg right in the middle:
I didn't remember from the menu which pizza this could be, but it looked really interesting - I'll have to find it and try it next time.

All in all I thought the pizzas were pretty good. I wouldn't mind coming back, although it is expensive at $15 per pizza. On the other hand, it wasn't so spectacular that I would be craving to come back anytime soon ...
I do want to try those huge salads that looked really yummy, though.

Pizzeria Mozza
641 N Highland Ave
Los Angeles, CA
(323) 297-0101

ABK gems: Abbot's Pizza

Abbot Kinney boulevard certainly offers a variety of excellent food establishments (others that have been reviewed here are Jin Patisserie, 3 Square Cafe), and luckily there are still cheap eats like Abbot's Pizza. I haven't come here much since I normally do not crave pizza, but that day we happened to park right in front of the shop, and we couldn't help but go in.

The first thing that got our attention was the salad pizza. It was literally, like a salad on top of Abbot's bagel crust pizza, as you can see yourself. Lettuce, avocado, tomatoes, and sprinklings of blue cheese on top of a lightly cheesed pizza slice. And it was surprisingly tasty. Not to mention it's a lot healthier than most things you could eat. We really really liked this slice of pizza.
For the other slice we got tomato and basil. This too was good, although we preferred the salad pizza. They gave us 2 slices since they said these slices are smaller. All of these = $9! Quite a bargain if I may say so. With so many interesting options to try, and a good experience so far, I will definitely come back to try more. Or just get that salad pizza again.



















Abbot's Pizza

1407 Abbot Kinney Blvd
Venice, CA 90291
Phone: (310) 396-7334