Panini Lunch at CiBOTECA (Santa Monica)

I'm always looking for places near Toyota Santa Monica to kill time whenever I take my car in (since that Toyota location has no wi-fi). During my last service, I walked over to Broadway to the new-ish CiBOTECA, a cafe and marketplace that serves paninis, cold deli items, and desserts.

I tried two different paninis, starting from the Cotoletta (Veal Milanese, dijon mustard, shaved parmesan, mizuna, $9)

Crispy veal cutlet between crunchy toasted seed bread!

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Tee's on the Green: A Hidden Gem in Tujunga

by guest blogger Brian Lee @iam_robot

Some of LA’s tastiest burgers come from the most random, tiny, oblivious places strewn all around town from South Bay to San Gabriel Valley to East LA to North Hollywood. For me, I always have higher appreciation of food served from push carts on street corners or alleyway storefronts rather than bright vibrant storefronts marred by eccentric tourists on Hollywood Blvd.

First off, I just wanted to say how excited I am to find this hidden gem, Tee's on the Green, in Tujunga.

I gave full credit to owner Tiffany Casper - not only for inviting me but also for flexing her muscles to craft the perfect burger that made haute burger joints seem amateur by comparison. I mean, if you’re like me and spend lots of time around the 210 Foothill Freeway/ La Tuna Canyon Park either for hiking or just to pass the highway, you’d understand my untethered delight in finding this place. 

During my visit here, I had the chance to devour their Hot Mama Burger with a side of zucchini fries/ onion rings.

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Zinque Cafe and Wine Bar in West Hollywood

The old Nishimura space across the street from Pacific Design Center was always closed off by a tall wooden gate. Now it has turned into Zinque Cafe and Wine Bar and the gate gave way to a charming outdoor dining area, complete with a fireplace.

The food menu is small, but we tried some good things here, starting with the Cheese Plate ($16) which included comte, blue cheese, and epoisses

Though you don't get to choose the cheeses, they're all good and come with fun accompaniments. Now, the server might tell you the one at the end is brie, but I was told Zinque is one of the few places in town that serves Epoisses. Instead of brie, we had a slice of the wonderfully stinky epoisses, even better with the honeycomb.

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Anniversary Afternoon Tea at The Langham Boston

Once a year, The Langham hotels celebrate their anniversary by serving afternoon tea service for the original price that the first Langham hotel in London charged. Back in 1865, afternoon tea was 1 shilling and 6 pence. That means, dear readers, that on June 10 you can get the $38 afternoon tea at The Langham in Boston for only $0.15!

I was lucky enough to go to the Pasadena Langham in 2011, but now it's gotten so popular you can only get reservations for the special priced-tea by lottery only. Knowing I would already be in Boston, I entered the lottery for the Boston Langham, and what do you know, I got it!

My friends and new roommate and I took a long lunch that Tuesday and headed to the hotel lobby. Gift bags in the pretty Langham pink color were on the table .. ooh, but more on that at the end.

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Freshology: Delivering Healthy Meals

We've seen a surge of meal delivery services recently, from vegan to raw to special dietary ones. One of the big players is Freshology. Freshology delivers a day's worth of prepared meals that are healthy, low calorie, and well made. They'll drop off the cooler in front of your door really early in the morning, so you'll have your breakfast ready.

The menu changes daily, of course, but here's what I had:
Breakfast was oatmeal with almonds, a bit of milk, and fresh grapes and berries.

The oatmeal was light instead of dense, and I really enjoyed it with the grapes. I normally eat pastries or something rather unhealthy for breakfast, and I have to admit I felt rather energized after finishing this.

For lunch, a shrimp salad sandwich with a side of watermelon salad (not pictured)

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Healthy Food that Surprises at Stamp Proper Foods in Los Feliz

If you're looking for healthier food that isn't boring, try Stamp Proper Foods that's recently opened in Los Feliz. Owner and Chef Catherine Baker was a model for 20 years before opening Stamp Proper with partner David Beckwith. Said partner is actually also Catherine's fiance, who apparently had lost a lot of weight since they started dating and loved the food so much he thinks she should open a restaurant.

Sure, as with healthy restaurants, there are lentils, gluten free baked goods, smoothies/juices, and all that. But what I like about Stamp Proper Foods is Catherine's twists on all of these.

For breakfast, I really enjoyed the Moroccan Lentils and Eggs (lentils, sauteed spinach, poached eggs, date chutney, toasted almonds, currants, and grilled lemon - $14)

It's the little things she added that impressed, like the crunch from the toasted almonds, and the sweetness of the chutney and currants.

Sandwich options included Bison meatloaf sandwich, with sharp cheddar, spicy ketchup on sourdough ($14, choice of house-made slaw or mixed greens)

As you can see, this isn't a vegetarian restaurant, but they opt for the leaner meats.

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Genius Hour and Ramen at Backbar in Somerville (Boston, MA)

4-6pm at Backbar in Somerville's Union Square is dubbed the Genius Hour. I just found out that happy hours as I knew it in LA is illegal in Boston, as in they're not allowed to discount alcohol. What Boston bars/restaurants do instead is discount food or have special food items during "happy hour". Backbar's Genius Hour, then, is the only 2 hours of each day when you can get their lauded Genius Ramen.

It's a great time to chill at the bar, as well, though. It's calm and quiet, the sunlight passes through the skylight.

The ramen's broth changes from season to season. In the winter you might find a rich tonkotsu (pork) broth. At the end of spring when I went, they had a chicken dashi broth, finished off with tare ($14).

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Emporium Thai: Southern Thai Cuisine in Westwood

by guest blogger @iam_robot

I remembered a few years ago Thai food was considered an exotic cuisine prevalent only in big cities. These days, getting a Thai food fix is becoming an easier process than locating the next Starbucks. And they’re often mediocre – heat is often tempered while sweetness accentuated to adjust to American palates.  Therefore, I’m always looking for a good Thai Food - something a little better and different from the conventional.

Last week, I was very excited to attend a tasting at Emporium Thai Cuisine in Westwood. This place has been open since 2000 and it’s owned/ operated by the same family as the super famous Jitlada on Sunset Blvd. Rumor has it, this is the place where Jazz and Tui of Jitlada started out before venturing out on their own.

Nevertheless, Emporium Thai Cuisine is a cut above the usual. Focusing on authentic Southern Thai recipes, Emporium is swank but the price is right. It offers an extensive selection - beyond the usual suspects like green papaya salad, chicken pad thai, pork satay, fish cakes and various curries, they have other lesser-known but even more intriguing dishes to try– Crying Tiger Beef, Khao Yam (fragrant rice salad with dry shrimp and coconut), Mussel Soup, and Crispy Pork Pad Prik King. If you're like me, you'll want to try them all at the highest heat level. I love how all the dishes can be customized to our preferred spicy scale of 1 – 10, with 3 being moderate and 10 being devilishly spicy.

Below are the dishes I tasted that night:
Coco Mango Salad with Fried Tofu

This is a very common Southern Thai appetizer. What struck me with this dish were the variety and vegetables, herbs, spices and accents in the salad. Shredded raw mango, dried coconut, Thai chilies, lime juice, and deep fried tofu were all present in perfect proportion. I thought this dish was a great way to start – light, refreshing, sweet and a tad spicy. In terms of texture, I really like the tofu crispiness and the red onion crunch.

Crying Tiger Beef

This is the same Crying Tiger Beef I always ordered at Jitlada. 5 years ago, I remembered I had to go to Jitlada the next day after watching Curtis Stone cried his eyes out proclaiming “hot, hot, hot” at The Best Thing You Ever Ate (Food Network). Essentially, this dish is char-grilled, marinated beef served with their homemade chili sauce. If I have to guess the chili sauce is made with shallots, onions, mints, fresh Thai chilies and lime juice. I love this dish so much! Meat is sliced thinly but very tender to the bite. The sweetness from the beef marinade complements perfectly with the heat and tanginess of the chili sauce. This is my definition of fun-eating!

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New Secret Kitchen Item from Crustacean

by guest blogger Bryan Tsunoda @btsunoda


Crustacean in Beverly Hills has been around for quite some time. The roasted crab and their famous garlic noodles are crowd pleasers and what Crustacean is best known for. Despite its name, Crustacean is so much more than that and I recently had the opportunity to sample some of their new offerings.

Crustacean is also known for its “Secret Kitchen.” A closed door kitchen within a kitchen, it’s where some of the restaurant’s most coveted dishes are prepared. Since their opening in 1997, only six dishes have been created in the Secret Kitchen. Now, there's a new Secret Kitchen item that we'll be tasting tonight.

As I entered Crustacean, a three piece jazz ensemble provided entertainment to the bar patrons. The walk on water entrance features a serpentine shaped aquarium that doubles as a floor. It was obvious that Crustacean is still a place to be seen as everyone seated at the bar had the required ‘look’. Our group was led outside through the side door of the restaurant, entered an unmarked exterior door and walked up a flight of stairs. We learned that this is Crustacean’s new “Secret Room” - a new private place to dine. Celebrities enjoy the fact that they can be whisked in from valet parking through the separate side door.

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Exploring the Borough Market in London

One of the Chowzter stops in London was The Borough Market, one of the largest and oldest food markets in London.

I never realized until then just how much the Brits love their cheese. It seemed like more than half of the market was selling cheese! And they look and smell amazing. If only there was a way for me to bring them home ...

One of the Chowzter picks is the sausage roll from The Ginger Pig. The Ginger Pig is a butcher shop so they make their own pork sausages with sage and breadcrumbs. The sausage is wrapped in a crispy puff pastry. Surprisingly large and sure to fill you up. During the holidays they add cranberry to the sausage as well.

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Brunch at LA Spice (Culver City)

LA Spice is a catering veteran in Los Angeles, having catered some of the biggest events in town (and outside of town). The owner, LeAnne Schwartz, started missing the daily interaction with customers, though, and decided to open a small cafe in Culver City. LA Spice Cafe is mainly open for lunch and brunch (from 8am-4pm daily).

There's a cornmeal-crusted fried green tomato sandwich with jack cheese, avocado, pickled red onions on a demi baguette ($10.50)

I added bacon to this to make it a BL-fried-T sandwich! Crisp, fresh green tomatoes encrusted in crispy cornmeal batter, add to that the creamy avocado for a satisfying bite.

The eggs benedict is served on housemade biscuits with oven roasted tomatoes, goat cheese and avocado hollandaise ($12.95)

The avocado hollandaise is a nice touch and brings the dish together.

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Oyster and Sauvignon Blanc Pairing with Matanzas Creek

It's unusual for one winery to produce four different Sauvignon Blancs, but Matanzas Creek Winery took the challenge. One afternoon, I attended a tasting of their four sauvignon blancs, each paired with a different oyster. The tasting took place at L&E Oyster Bar in Silver Lake.

We started off with the Sonoma County Sauvignon Blanc. In this one, there's high acidity and I definitely tasted the lime and nectarine. To produce this, the winery uses a lot of dry ice to keep moisture out during low temperature fermentation. The winemaker, Marcia Monahan, has moved towards picking the grapes based on color instead of brix.

They paired the wine with Shigoku, a tumbled oyster from Willapa Bay in Washington. I learnt a lot about oysters during the tasting, too. So the Shigoku is the same species as the Hama Hama oysters, but farmers put them in metal tumblers. Being tumbled throughout their lives, the Shigoku develop more muscle and a thicker shell. Tumbling oysters are supposed to make them sweeter, firmer, and milder.

This was a very traditional pairing. With a high acid sauvignon blanc, it brings out the sweetness of the oyster and extract a stronger "sea" flavor. I like the Shigoku better the Bennett Valley, though.

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Build Your Own Burger at Nick + Stef's

Nick + Stef's in downtown LA has started a Craft Your Own Burger experience, available daily after 5pm at the bar and patio areas only.

You can choose your own 8 oz patty, toppings, cheese, and sauces, but being a Patina Group restaurant, there are some wild card options like bone marrow and mac n cheese! I, of course, had to make one with bone marrow. You can see the options below:

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Hungry Cat's Crabfest Returns July 27, Summer Crab Nights, and Last Year's Review

The annual Crabfest at The Hungry Cat will return to the Hollywood locaton on July 27! This year, the Santa Monica location will hold "Summer Crab Nights" which will be more like a mini Crabfest. The Summer Crab Nights will be held on Sundays June 29, August 10, and September 7, where you can get half a dozen Maryland blue crabs with sides of corn on the cob, tomato and watermelon salad, cornbread and a dessert for $35. The dealio is at 3-8pm on those dates.

The big Crabfest (now in its 10th year) itself is $75 for 5 courses and will be at 1-7pm - again, July 27 at the Hollywood location.

Here's what the Crabfest was like last year:
We each started with a bowl of Maryland Crab Soup, a flavorful and comforting soup with a generous serving of crab.

Next was a Beer-battered soft shell crab sandwich, b&b pickles, spicy remoulade

This was a substantial sandwich for just the second course! It's a well proportioned sandwich with good bread that complements the crispy soft shell crab.

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Sipping through the Spring Cocktails at Mo-Chica

by guest blogger Brian Lee @iam_robot

By now I trust you all have made it to Mo-Chica. Since its opening more than 2 years ago, this modern Peruvian delight is known for its fantastic lunch deal, expansive happy hour menu and wildly exotic fares (alpacas stew, Amazonian fish escabeche, etc). It’s definitely one of my favorites and it almost seemed like a miracle when Zarate moved to this upscale DTLA location after 3 years residing as a modest food court stand in Mercado Paloma (east of USC). I remember I was redeeming my $20 groupon and I was thoroughly wowed with his mashed potatoes & crab dish (Crab Causitas).

Last Monday I had the chance to taste their spring cocktail menus. Each season, experienced mixologists update their cocktail menu to accentuate local and seasonal ingredients and both classic and new trends. This time, Deysi Alvarez, also mixologist at Zarate’s Paiche & Blue Tavern, incorporates fresh fruits and floral accents to match up Zarate’s fresh tropical dishes like Chicken Truffle Causitas and Crab Causitas. I think I ate 8 of those crab causitas ...

I really like how Alvarez infuses lots of unconventional ingredients into her drinks (egg whites, chica morada reduction, or rhubarb cardamom gomme). As strange as some of these ingredients sound, her drinks are very approachable to amateur cocktail drinkers like me – they mostly taste refreshing without being overly fruity or sweet.

Below is the list of cocktails presented to me:
Basil Blossom - Thai basil infused quinoa vodka, violet liqueur, fresh lemon, simple syrup, soda water
 This is probably my favorite. I am bewildered with the floral aroma and burst of fruity flavor from the vodka and violet liqueur. I was hesitant about the violet liqueur inclusion at first but the aroma is very subdued & not artificial at all. Overall the cocktail feels very light with some fizzy finish. I thought this would pair very well with lightly seasoned dishes or steamed vegetables.

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Produce-Forward Cuisine at Verbena (San Francisco, CA)

Verbena is the new restaurant from Chef Sean Baker of Oakland's Gather. The hip Russian Hill restaurant is not a vegetarian restaurant, but its produce-focused menu is certainly vegetarian friendly.

While I normally wouldn't have ordered this based on the description, I was immediately glad the waiter suggested the Sprouted seed bread with chevre and beet sauerkraut ($7)

The housemade chevre has a nutty tone and the warm, toasted seed bread, even on its own, is outstanding.

Here, you will find hard-to-find ingredients in unusual combinations, like the Cardoons and Rhubarb with caramelized honey dressing, Douglas Fir yogurt, nepitella ($11)

Nepitella is an Italian herb also known as Calaminta. While I'm not a huge fan of the tart rhubarb, it plays nicely with the yogurt.

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Flying Out in Style with Petrossian LAX

On the day I left for London, the new Petrossian at LAX Tom Bradley International Terminal was having a media tasting, so of course I had to go! Talk about perfect timing. It was my first time at the new terminal, and the classy Petrossian decor matched the sleek terminal.

Now, jetsetters can wait for their flights while drinking cocktails garnished with caviar powder. The High Society cocktail is made with Tanqueray gin, St. Germaine, and green chartreuse. The glass is rimmed with caviar powder, which is also in the lemon "boat"

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Theatrical Cocktails at Artesian Bar (London, UK)

I had limited time on my first London trip, and a lot of cocktail bars to try. Artesian Bar in The Langham London was named World's Best Cocktail Bar by Drinks International in 2013, so I knew I had to try it.

I liked the bar as soon as I entered. It's beautiful and comfortable, the menu is intriguing and the service and pacing impeccable.

I was served a glass of sparkling wine upon seating, garnished with a petal in that Langham pink color.

The menu is revamped annually. This year it is a color coded wheel. Yellow indicates rich and aromatic drinks, green is refreshing, etc. You read the menu drink by drink through the butterfly shaped opening.

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New Cocktails Hit Santa Monica at The Charleston

Realizing there wasn't really a spot for craft cocktails on that strip of Wilshire Blvd in Santa Monica, The Charleston's new GM, Chris Cheng, decided to launch a brand new cocktail list. There's no famous bartender involved, but his experience working with Beau du Bois at The Corner Door helped him create a solid starting list.

One of my favorites was the Cootie Catcher, made with gin, honeydew, luxardo triplem, lemon, and orgeat. Name aside, it's rare to find a honeydew cocktail and the honeydew flavor is nicely enhanced here. The orgeat they use is St. Vincent, which is infused with orange blossom and rose water - it's a local product made by one of the bartenders at Bestia!

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New Menu at Roadhouse LA with Chef Kyle Schutte

About 3 years ago, I encountered chef Kyle Schutte's cooking at Vu. He called it "progressive comfort food" and I still remember his chicken fried watermelon. He had a short stint at Corner Door and I'm glad he's finally found another home at Roadhouse - that barbecue restaurant at The Improv.

One of the favorites during my dinner was the Root beer-cured bacon, soft scrambled vanilla scented eggs ($12)

This is made with housemade root beer syrup and the thick bacon is brined for 2 days then smoked for 12 hours.

Chicken Fried watermelon with pickled rind ($6)

Yes, the dish I had at Vu made another appearance here! These are quite interesting and worth a try if you've never had it before.

I really liked the Punjabi Poutine with thick cut fries, coconut curry spinach, grilled cheese curds, queso fresco, goat meat and goat gravy ($12)

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