West End Roof Top Opens at The London West Hollywood

With our year-round perfect weather, LA can't have too many rooftop bars. Well, there's another one now, West End Roof Top at The London hotel in West Hollywood.

The West End is a pretty relaxing place to hang out and offers nice views of the city.

The rooftop bar has some frozen blended drinks and easy drinking cocktails. My favorite was the Churchill Goes Tiki (bourbon, pineapple juice, orange juice, orgeat, 1821 Japanese chili lime bitters, $17)

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LA Food Events in August to Put on Your Radar

So I'm a few days late posting about upcoming August festivals (sorry) but summer is in full swing in LA and there are plenty of upcoming food events you should put on your radar!

August 11
Hitching Post 2 Pop-up at LA Wine
This famous Central Coast spot is popping up for one day only at LA Wine. They're bringing over their red oak-fired grill to LA to serve up at LA Wine's outdoor patio starting at 5pm until sold out.

Photo courtesy of Hitching Post

August 22-25
Los Angeles Food & Wine
This year's LA Food & Wine Festival has set up 14 different events over 4 days. Some of my favorite picks include the dinner at Magic Castle with Chef Jason Fullilove and Andre Bienvenu (from Joe's Stone Crab) if for no other reason than you get to go to the Magic Castle. Multiple guest chef dinners are scheduled including the Legends dinner with Nancy Silverton and Jeremiah Tower. For those who want to attend one of the walk-around tastings, there's a Burger Throwdown with Alvin Cailan, LA's Faves and Craves with Jet Tila, The Great Steakout with Curtis Stone and Brunch so Hard with Jeremiah Tower.

Ma'am Sir will be serving this Hawaiian POG cocktail for their dinner collaboration with Chef Sheldon Simeon from Lineage (Maui)

August 25-27
Western Foodservice & Hospitality Expo
This one is more for the industry folks. The expo's exhibitors include food products and beverages to new technology and everything you can think of that's related to restaurant operations. The expo also takes place at the same time and area as the Coffee Fest and Healthy Food Expo.

August 30-September 1, 2019
LA Times’ The Taste
The Taste, put on by LA times, always takes place over Labor Day Weekend and this year is no exception. For three evenings on Friday-Sunday, head to the walk-around tastings complete with chef panels, wine seminars, cooking and mixology demonstrations. The participating chefs change each day from Badmaash, Meals by Genet, Otium to Redbird.

Heroic Deli & Wine Bar is The Santa Monica Neighborhood Italian Spot To Go To

If you live or work in Santa Monica, then you need to know about Heroic Deli and Wine Bar. The place is divided into distinct spaces with the wine bar on one side and a cute communal dining on the other side.

On the deli side, I tried the OMG sandwich. The OMG is their challenge to Bay Cities' Godmother sandwich, and it's a great sandwich. It's served on freshly toasted ciabatta that had a nice crunch. Sure, at $16 it's more expensive than the Godmother, but it's filled with better quality ingredients (I shared the sandwich so only showing you a little piece here)

The sandwich is made with Italian prosciutto, salame, capocollo, mortadella, porchetta, smoked mozzarella, artichokes, housemade giardinnaire, house roasted tomatoes, olives, mustard, mayo, and Italian black summer truffles.

I also tried quite a few dishes from the wine bar side over my two visits there, including:
Insalata di Granchio (Pacific crab, lemon zest and vinaigrette)

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Korean-Italian Fusion at Concerto (Koreatown, Los Angeles)

Concerto in Koreatown has been open for a while now serving pastries and Italian food. It's the type of Italian restaurant you might see in Korea. I haven't visited Concerto until recently, but a friend of mine posted about their kimchi carbonara and I was intrigued by the Korean-Italian fusion, so when I was invited to check it out, I accepted.

Concerto was pretty busy on a Friday night. They have at least three separate dining areas including one upstairs. Our dinner started with their freshly baked focaccia bread with a whole head of roasted garlic Yes, a whole garlic!

For appetizer we ordered the Pico de Gallo squid. This is kind of like calamari except it's only the fried tentacles and none of the body/mantle.

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Baja California Food and Themed Cocktails at The Corner Door (Culver City)

This is bit of a late post, but a couple of months ago I revisited The Corner Door in Culver City, which is under the Umbrella Hospitality Group (Melrose Umbrella Company, LONO). I hadn't visited since Beau DuBois moved up north, but The Corner Door is still going strong under the direction of Liam Odien behind the bar and Executive chef David Lespron, who previously worked at various sbe establishments like Katsuya and Michael Mina's now-shuttered XIV.

The food at The Corner Door can be described as a Baja California menu. We started off with some fresh Shigoku oysters from Baja, served with "soft Aztec herbs" and citrus, $4 ea


For the cocktail, they're doing an Astrology themed menu. The menu is designed like an astrology chart with each drink for the twelve signs.
Being the clarified milk punch fan that I am, I started with Age of Aquarius (Real McCoy 3, Appleton rum, almond, aloe vera, clarified, glitter - $15)

It's got quite the presentation with the blue glitter! On the sweeter side, but again, I like milk punch so ..

Chef Lespron is doing some beautiful tacos with handmade tortillas here. We got the Fish tacos (wild Japanese yellowtail tacos, you can get this fried or grilled - this grilled one was amazing. $13 for two, but ours was plated separately). Is this not the most beautifully plated taco you've seen?

The taco was actually really good, better than what I had expected, from the tortilla to the texture of the yellowtail and the flavors.

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Where to Drink Cocktails in Long Beach: The Ordinarie

Long Beach was never a cocktail destination for me and I didn't know of good places for cocktails down in Long Beach. But recently I see that starting to change with my visit to The Ordinarie, a new-ish tavern in downtown LB.

I didn't try the food there (though they have a late night menu until 12:30 am) but we tried some of the cocktails, starting with The Pendennis (Botanist gin, Bitter Truth apricot liqueur, Peychaud's bitters, lime - $12)

This was a pretty nice, dry gin cocktail.

The dimly lit bar was pretty quiet on a Thursday night. They had live acoustic music, and overall it was a pretty chill place to hang out.

Lavender milk punch (clarified milk punch with Bols Genever, honey, lavender - $12)

This was our favorite drink of the night, but I've been known to love milk punches.

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Seasonal California Fare and House-milled Sourdough at Coin & Candor (Westlake Village, CA)

The Four Seasons hotel at Westlake Village redid their restaurant and recently opened Coin and Candor. It's a place that you'd likely find me going back to after work for dinner or drinks (on a bit of a splurge). Coin and Candor is a "California brasserie" with executive chef Jose Fernandez, a Barcelona native who's been with the Four Seasons since 2017 (and previously worked for The Peninsula hotels), and executive pastry chef Patrick Fahy, who was head pastry chef at The French Laundry.

The round bar at the center of the dining room looks like a great place to drink, but for my visit I opted to sit outside since it was a beautiful day.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the cocktail menu (sorry), but our cocktails were pretty good.

We started off with some house-milled red fife sourdough that they bake daily, served with organic Strauss creamery butter ($5)

So I didn't really know what the deal was with red fife sourdough, but I had to look it up after because I fell in love with this bread. If I could just come here and eat this bread, I would (I think I could, yes?). So anyway, red fife wheat was the first heritage wheat that was put on the Slow Food Ark of Taste, back in 2003. It was the industry standard in Canada back in the late 19th century. Apparently it pretty much disappeared after the Great Depression but artisan bakers are starting to use it more and more now. Anyway, this bread that's milled in-house and baked fresh daily is amazing.

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Delicious Little Tokyo Showcases the Neighborhood on July 19-20

This coming weekend on July 19-20, Go Little Tokyo will be showcasing the food and drink offerings (and beyond) of the neighborhood with Delicious Little Tokyo. There will be a variety of special workshops, demos, and tastings at different Little Tokyo businesses over the two days. Some of the events include:

A takoyaki making demo with Takoyaki Tanota, taking place on the Japanese Village Food Stage and is free to attend.

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Cocktails and Izakaya Fare at HATCH Yakitori + Bar (Downtown LA)

I recently visited HATCH Yakitori + Bar, which is located inside the new retail and restaurant space in downtown LA, The Bloc. In addition to checking out this restaurant for the first time, it was also my first time visiting The Bloc, which is a pretty cool open-air plaza with more restaurants coming. The Bloc has pretty cheap parking up to 3 hours with validation, which is really nice for downtown! For 3 hours parking is $4 with validation. The parking alone would entice me to go back to HATCH, but let's get on with the food.

HATCH obviously serves yakitori, but they also have other izakaya style food and a seasonal specials menu. They had a seared wagyu nigiri special which I just had to get.

They seared it tableside and it was so good, our favorite of the night, for sure.

Among the other specials that was another luxurious item: Alaskan king crab legs!

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FREE Hot Flamin Cheetos Pork Belly at EIGHT Korean BBQ

Remember the eight flavors of pork belly at EIGHT Korean BBQ I wrote about here? Well, they've added a ninth flavor: Flamin' Hot Cheetos! And guess what, it's free with a purchase of the eight flavors of pork belly!

For the Flamin' Hot Cheetos pork belly, they marinate the pork belly in a spicy sauce, then after grilling top it some cheese and cheetos. When I went they were using Cheetos pieces, although I told them I think it would be better if they grind it to make a Cheetos powder so it can spread more evenly!

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Alice Eatery at 1 Hotel West Hollywood

The 1 Hotel West Hollywood is now open on Sunset Blvd, a rebrand of the previous Jeremy Hotel, and with it comes new restaurants! Alice Eatery is an all-day restaurant and marketplace concept run by The h.wood Group at the 1 Hotel.

The food and cocktails at Alice Eatery are from Chef Lord Maynard Llera and bar director Justin Campbell from The h.wood Group while the chef de cuisine overseeing the day to day operation is Broken Spanish alum, Geter Atienza.

The menu is French American. Since 1 Hotel is an eco-friendly luxury hotel brand, the restaurants of course also use locally-sourced, seasonal ingredients. During my recent visit I tried the Grilled calamari, cucumber, green apple, red bell pepper, green papaya ($17)

This was a nice appetizer on the lighter salad - basically a salad with grilled calamari which had a great texture.

On the heavier end of the appetizer is the Beef tartare with smoked egg yolk, violet mustard, tomato ($24)

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LQ Foodings Supper Club Still Serve Some of LA's Best French Food

Some of LA's best French food can be had at LQ Foodings, a supper club by Laurent Quenioux who owned Bistro LQ a few years ago in LA. He holds this multi-course supper club dinners at a private home in Highland Park or other locations throughout the city.

I haven't had LQ's food in a while but I regularly get the news about the supper club. I finally decided to go recently, swayed by the possibility of an uni sausage (which didn't happen as the menu changes all the time, but the dinner was still great!) and convinced estarLA to go with me. It's a six course menu for $74 (wine and cheese is extra and a 20% service charge is due at the night of the event), which is pretty good for a tasting menu in LA. We all sat at a large dining table, a communal dining experience filled with food lovers, both new and long-time fans of Laurent.

We went for the spring dinner series and started with a Wild troll salmon sausage, fennel pollen emulsion, English peas, Timut peppercorn meringue, fennel

A great, light start to the meal - I loved the texture of the salmon sausage.

Devil's Gulch Ranch rabbit "carnitas rillette" roll, yellow beet, apple vinegar gelee, arthicoke "a la grecque", black trumpet mushrooms

Yes, it's rabbit meat that's been braised "carnitas" style!

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Woon Kitchen: A Family Affair in Historic Filipinotown

Woon Kitchen recently opened in Historic Filipinotown (a.k.a. HiFi), adding another reason that HiFi is one of LA's latest food hotspots. Woon Kitchen started as a pop-up, building a loyal fan base by showcasing their mother's (Julie Fong, aka. Mama Fong) homestyle Chinese cooking around town. The new HiFi shop is small but cute and has some patio seating. There's a small but affordable menu plus a few specials, as well as beer and wine

To start: each table gets a bowl of peanuts roasted with sea moss (that apparently they get from a special dealer in SGV)

One of their best known dishes is the beef noodle, which is what they're known for from their pop-up days. It's a stir fried chewy noodles with marinated flank steak, bok choy and shiitake mushrooms ($11).

The stir fried noodles have a sweeter sauce and the texture of the noodles is nice and chewy, the beef slightly charred. For me, while I didn't eat these flavors exactly as a kid, the taste certainly reminds me of homeocoking.

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The Veranda at The Georgian Hotel (Santa Monica, CA)

There are many restaurants from casual to fine dining in Santa Monica, so The Veranda at The Georgian Hotel may be often overlooked. When it's a beautiful day, though, dining out on the veranda is great since the hotel sits on Ocean Ave. Also, valet parking is complimentary up to 2 hours while dining at The Veranda. Parking in that part of Santa Monica can be a pain, so this is a nice perk! You can also leave it there for 4 hours (if you dine there) for $10 in case you want to wander around afterwards.
Unfortunately it was too cold that night to sit out on the actual veranda, so we sat inside. The dining area inside is pretty small and flanks the lobby walkway.

We started with the cheese and charcuterie board ($29) that's great for sharing.

Crispy Chicken Sandwich (buttermilk marinated Mary's chicken, aged cheddar, cabbage slaw, cilantro-ranch, house pickles, red onion, beefsteak tomatoes, potato bun - $14).

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LA's Cochon 555 Moves to Downtown on June 2, 2019

If you're unfamiliar with Cochon 555, this event is an annual staple in multiple cities around the country. Cochon 555 is a food event and competition meant to highlight heritage pigs. In each city, 5 chefs partner up with 5 pig farmers and prepare some nose-to-tail pork dishes. The winner from each city is crowned Prince of Porc and will move on to compete in the big finale. What that means for us is an afternoon filled with pork (and booze). For this year, the Los Angeles event will take place on Sunday, June 2 at City Market Social House.

This year's participating chefs include Kat Hu and Justin Yi (Hock+Hoof) with Marin Sun Farms, David Johns (Mason) with Rancho Llano Seco, Jason Mattick and Ivan Marquez (Broken Spanish) with Marin Sun Farm, Ben Diaz (Nixo Lounge) with Peads and Barnetts. Brian Redzikowski from Kettner Exchange who made this (adorable!) pork bun (Pic Mac Bao) last year will also be returning to compete, this time partnering with Cook Pigs Ranch.

There'll be a lot of more food than from the competing chefs, though. There'll be a tartare bar, cheese bar, oyster bar, and even a veggie bar. Some of my favorite bites last year besides than the Pic Mac Bao is this lechon kawali from Maynard Llera (H.wood Group)

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