GIVEAWAY: Santa Barbara Culinary Experience (March 13-15)

If you've been thinking about heading up to Santa Barbara (or perhaps you live there already), March 13 weekend is the perfect time. The 3-day food festival in Central California, the Santa Barbara Culinary Experience, is coming on March 13-15, and I have a GIVEAWAY for you all!

The weekend will be filled with special dinners, workshops and seminars, cocktail crawls, farm tours and much more. There are also a number of events paying ode to Julia Child, given that The Santa Barbara Culinary Experience benefits the The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and Culinary Arts. The events will feature chefs and restaurants from Santa Barbara down to Los Angeles, including Chef Ludo Lefebvre from Trois Mec and Chefs Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken from Border Grill. 

Photo credit: SBCE

Speaking of Border Grill ... I'm giving away 2 pairs of tickets to Border Grill on the Beach, valued at $125 each!

Photo credit: SBCE

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Pulutan, A Filipino Happy Hour at Sari Sari Store (Downtown LA)

"Pulutan" refers to Filipino finger food that is typically eaten while drinking - basically Filipino bar snacks - and the name is perfect for Sari Sari Store's happy hour menu. Yep, Margarita Manzke's Filipino place inside Grand Central Market has a happy hour with $3 San Miguel beers on draft (San Miguel is a popular Filipino beer) and cheap (but delicious) bar snacks!

Here are what you can find on the pulutan menu:
BBQ pork belly skewers ($7)

The pork belly may be our favorite thing on the pulutan menu (it certainly was my mom's favorite). It was nicely caramelized yet so tender.
On the back there you can also see the Adobo Shishito Peppers, available for $5.

Pinoy BBQ ribs ($7)

The ribs are also a great one to order, and pretty generous for $7. The meat just falls off the bone and the BBQ sauce is nice and sweet.

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Steak Flight with a View at Castaway in Burbank

I figured for Valentine's weekend, it's good to post about this restaurant with a view, right? Castaway in Burbank has quite the romantic setting, especially around sunset time.

Castaway has been around for years but they had a major remodeling in 2018.

The cocktail menu was more interesting than what I had expected. I started with a Don Pedro Old Fashioned (Ilegal mezcal, spiced bourbon reduction, PX nectar - $15). It was a nice mezcal Old Fashioned, and look at that view!

Castaway has hired Perry Pollaci as executive chef .Chef Pollaci previously worked with the Patina Group and at The Royce at the Langham in Pasadena.

I'm behind on blogging, so some of the menu has changed since the time I went but at the time I had some heirloom tomato and burrata with watermelon, yuzu, white balsamic, black pepper, mache, basil, chia seeds  ($17)

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Crustacean Beverly Hills, Beyond the Garlic Noodles

Even though I've been in LA for a while and have even had the An family's food at AnQi in Costa Mesa and even the famous garlic crab at the original Thanh Long in San Francisco, I actually have not made it to Crustacean until recently. Sure, I've had the garlic noodles at food festivals, but that's not quite the same.

Luckily, I was recently invited for a tasting menu so I made my way there for the first time. It was the middle of the week but the Beverly Hills restaurant was hopping. It was quite crowded both with dinner guests and people drinking at the bar (after-work drink crowd, I presume). There was a live music performance going on, which takes place on Wednesdays from 4-7pm.

Our tasting menu for two started with these tuna cigars, with quite the eye catching presentation. A cigar box was presented to us and smoke wafted out upon opening.

The tuna cigars were made of feuille de brick, tuna, avocado silk, Vidalia onion, and tobiko caviar.


The smoky presentation continued on with the cocktail I ordered, the Hightea Penicillin. The Penicillin traditionally consisted of scotch, ginger, honey, and lemon juice and here it's topped off with black tea and lavender cloud.

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Ktown's Caffe Concerto Gets New Chef and Tasting Menu

Caffe Concerto in Koreatown has been around for a while, serving Italian food with Korean inflections (you can read my previous review here of their pasta including a kimchi carbonara).
They recently hired a new head chef, Terry Kim, and have added a tasting menu component (the rest of the a la carte menu remains the same).

After the amuse bouche we started off with some beautifully plated Tuna tartar and Granny Smith apples

This was a good rendition of a classic, with the sweet apples juxtaposing the fatty tuna nicely.

The tuna was followed by a Tomato salad, persimon dressing, cherry tomatoes, tomato sorbet, parsley oil, olive crumbs

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Bar Avalon Brings Cozy Wine Bar and Dinner Spot to Echo Park

Echo Park got a new wine bar back in October with Bar Avalon, which came by way of Revelator Coffee. This intimate spot offers interesting wines and a small but solid dinner menu.

The wines here are listed by order of latitude and the list offers both old world and new world wines. The sommelier is always on hand to tell you about their more interesting offerings like Unti Segromigno from Dry Creek Valley.

The menu is divided into four sections including small plates, little bites like deviled eggs, and bigger entrees. We tried the Plancha Blue prawns, n'duja, preserved lemons ($14). Can never go wrong with blue prawns!


Pork Rillette ($14) from the "tasty bits" section

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Taco Omakase at Bee Taqueria (West Adams, Los Angeles)

West Adams seems to be the upcoming food hot spot, and Bee Taqueria is certainly adding to that reputation. Bee Taqueria is opened by chef Alex Carrasco, who has worked at places like Scratch Bar, Osteria Mozza, etc. It's not a fine dining place, but rather a colorful tin shack with outdoor seating only.

That doesn't mean the food is low-brow. While Bee Taqueria has a casual a la carte taco menu, Carrasco also offers a taco omakase by reservation only, and it's one worth trying. There's a table of four in the corner that's set aside for the omakase.

We started with taco placero (market taco). For this one Carrasco uses a white heirloom corn tortilla and tops it with roasted pork belly, tomatillo salsa, and herbs including papalo and chives.


Next: squid ink tortilla topped with quesillo, huitlacoche, black truffles, bottarga, and tomato.

A great combination for someone (like me) who loves the black fungi like huitlacoche and truffles!

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A Konnyaku Tasting at INN ANN (Japan House LA)

INN ANN was the Japanese restaurant run by Japan House at Hollywood and Highland with acclaimed sushi chef Mori Onodera. INN ANN closed on December 31 to be reconfigured into a culinary incubator of sorts, so that reminded me to catch up on my posts ... A while back (because I'm so behind) I attended a special lunch featuring konjac or konnyaku.

Konnyaku is a chewy "cake" made from konjac yam. It has a texture like gelatin and has made a name in the Western world for being a zero-calorie food. The lunch gathered three chefs from the LA area to showcase the different ways konnyaku can be prepared.

We started with a Konjac and mushroom shabu shabu from INN ANN's chef Mori Onodera.

We started with the shabu shabu to showcase the konnyaku in its pure form.

Next up: "Spring tidal pool" with uni and coastal herbs from Joseph Geiskopf (he was at Triniti at the time) with konnyaku and vegetables.

This was a beautiful bowl, both in appearance and taste. The broth was flavorful yet clean.

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Relentless Brewing Brings Sour Beers, Pub Grub and Eagle Rock's First Distillery

Relentless Brewing as a brewery has been open in Temecula for a few years now, and they're known for their sour beers. Now, they've opened a pub in Eagle Rock and completed it with a distillery. The spirits are still in the works (with vodka coming out earliest, of course), but in the meantime the locals are already coming for the beers and casual food.

Relentless Brewing in Eagle Rock offers more than just their own beers, they carry a pretty extensive lineup from other craft breweries from California. I ended up trying their own Farm of the Rising Sun, a farmhouse ale.


The kitchen serves up pub grub, from appetizers to salads and burgers / sandwiches.
We started with (a large portion of) Smokey Poutine (french fries topped with a smokey bacon beef and beer gravy, white cheddar cheese curds, crispy bacon, pickled jalapenos and chives - $10)

I liked the fries here, the seasoning and texture reminds me of curly fries.

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Tasting Hakkaisan Sake at Faith and Flower

A while back I went to a dinner at Faith and Flower hosted by Hakkaisan sake to try their lineup. Hakkaisan is a brewery in Niigata Prefecture, at the bottom of Mount Hakkaisan, a sacred mountain with a name that means "eight peaked mountain".

We started with the Hakkaisan "AWA" sparkling sake. Awa means "bubbles" in Japanese, and the sparkling sake here is produced using secondary fermentation in the bottle, similar to the traditional champagne method. It's a very clean tasting sparkling sake, with just a touch of sweetness.


For the Awa, they paired with a silken tofu mousse, fresh wasabi and miyoga ginger, bonito dashi

We loved the texture of this tofu mousse.

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Mister O's Should Be on Your Studio City Rotation

Since moving to Woodland Hills, I get excited when I get to check out restaurants in the San Fernando Valley. A few months ago I went to try out Mister O's, a sort-of-new place in Studio City (it opened in August 2018).

Chef Mario Alberto is doing some good things in the kitchen here. I started with some beautifully plated Yellowtail crudo with fried yucca, pretty lady melon, Anaheim chile oil, apricot, hemp seed ($18)


The cocktails from Rafael Barba are also worth trying. The San Fernando Valley still doesn't have that many good cocktail bars but Mister O's is a strong contender. I'm not normally a big vodka cocktail drinker, but I thoroughly enjoyed Silly Rabbit (Reyka vodka, yellow chartreuse, carrot, ginger, orgeat, lemon, bitters, $15)

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Happy Hour at Blackship (West Hollywood)

Blackship in West Hollywood is named after the fleet of black ships that the United States sent to Japan in the 1850s, opening trade between US and Japan. The name is appropriate for the Japanese-Italian cuisine at the restaurant, headed by chef Keiichi Kurobe, who previously worked at Hinoki & The Bird.

A while back I went for their happy hour, which is one of the best happy hour in town for food, especially considering they have happy hour on Saturdays also. Happy hour is from 6-7pm on Tuesday-Saturday.  The deal is you can get 3 items for $21, from the special food and drink list.

The best thing to get in my opinion is the amberjack crudo with basil, radish, and green goddess dressing. Where else can you get amberjack crudo for $7?

The portion was pretty generous and the radish and green goddess complemented the fattiness of the amberjack.

There are seven options from the food menu, including this Momotaro Tomatoes, house-made ricotta, balsamic soy, toasted country loaf

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Don't Skip the Food at Employees Only LA

We all expect the drinks at Employees Only to be good. After all, that was the reason the original NYC location was so popular. But at the West Hollywood location, you shouldn't miss the food! You may have had the food here before, but if you came before this summer, you might want to take another look. Chef Brian Bornemann redid the menu at Employees Only earlier this year and it is above and beyond what you'd expect from a cocktail bar (Bornemann has taken the helm at Michael's Santa Monica but he's still helping out with the menu at EO).

To start:
Uni, nori, masago, smoked oil, sliced serrano. Drizzle the smoked oil over the uni and eat it like a taco.

If you're an uni lover like me, you can't go wrong with this dish. It had a slight kick but didn't overwhelm the sweet uni.

The next dish of halibut tartar is unusually beautiful. Halibut, preserved citrus, Arbequina olive oil, sunflower petals


We had to get some cocktails with our dinner, of course. My favorite ended up being this one that my friend ordered: The Colonial (Aperol, Plymouth gin, fresh lemon juice, home-made rhubarb syrup & Himalayan pink salt, finished with rosé prosecco)

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IAMLA's Taste of Italy 2019 Preview at Sosta Cucina

by Bryan Tsunoda @discovering_LA

The Taste of Italy is a sumptuous food and wine event that takes place on Sat. Oct 12. It features some of the best regional Italian cuisine, food products, and wine LA has to offer. In addition, attendees can watch live demonstrations and enjoy the on-site entertainment. 

This year is the 11th annual event and I had an opportunity to preview food prepared by Sosta Cucina in Hermosa Beach.

Sosta means “resting place” in Italian. Sosta Cucina opened a year ago and is owned by chef Luca Manderino. They serve Venetian style Italian food, focusing on smaller-sized portions, encouraging patrons to share their meals family-style. Manderino isn’t new to the area. He has been preparing Italian food in the South Bay since 2005 with Sosta Enoteca.

The first dish was a charcuterie plate featuring cured European meat. 

The platter was filled with thinly sliced prosciutto, soppressata, and specht. The delicious cured meats paired quite nicely with the Custodi Belloro Orvieto Classico, a slightly acidic white wine with notes of fresh apple.

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Board the Flight Around the World at Gate Bar Centro

Bar Centro at the SLS Beverly Hills has always had fun cocktails with molecular mixology components. Last year, they had a cocktail tasting menu of 5 drinks. Now, they've really upped the game. Bar Centro has taken over a new corner at the hotel and built a small new bar dubbed Gate Bar Centro. Gate Bar Centro is serving a reservation-only, 12-course cocktail tasting (don't worry, they're not all full sized cocktails) that takes guests around the world in cocktails. The tasting also includes a few tapas from The Bazaar - not quite dinner but enough bites to soak up the alcohol.

Here are some of the drink we had during our flight:
We started with Italy. Ciao Bella is a take on Aperol Spritz with fresh pineapple juice, yuzu, Aperol that's been carbonated in house.

The next course is Spain with Spanish Gin & Tonic, made right in front of you using a vacuum siphon (I previously wrote about this for The Bazaar's G&T Festival)

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Dandi Pop-Up Brings Modern Korean Dining to LA

Los Angeles may be home to a lot of great Korean food, but they're mostly "old school" restaurants and we don't have too much by way of modern Korean cuisine. That is changing with Dandi, a Korean-Southern Californian pop-up from Joshua Pressman and Jihee Kim, which is popping up for dinner at Hotel Normandie (and other future locations). The two chefs met while working at Rustic Canyon.

Dandi offers two tasting menus, an abbreviated and an extended one. I recently tried the extended tasting and started with this trio of appetizers:

Corn silken tofu, dungeness crab, brown butter.
Squash wafer, chicken liver mousse, apple cider jam
Jokbal (pig trotter) croquette, hot peanut sauce, perilla

The corn silken tofu with dungeness crab was our favorite, not just of the plate but of the entire meal! Needless to say, the meal started off strong. The silken tofu was a little sweet thanks to the corn but it worked wonderfully with the brown butter and the sweet crab meat.

Pressman pairs the tasting with mostly natural wines (as much as he can), like this Hasta la Vizsla, a pet nat (petillant naturel) wine from the Loire Valley.

There are also some beer and wine available a la carte if a pairing seems like too much for you.

Next course: Cold soup of peaches, pork belly, flowering coriander

Yes, there are pork belly bits under those peach slices!

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Mark Your Calendars for LA Loves Alex's Lemonade's 10th Anniversary On Sept 14, 2019!

It's almost time for one of my favorite food events of the year: LA Loves Alex's Lemonade! They're celebrating their 10th anniversary this year. That's right, 10 years of raising money to end childhood cancer along with great food and drinks. Hosted by Suzanne Goin and Caroline Styne from the Lucques Group and Chef David Lentz (The Hungry Cat), they've raised over $7.3 million since they started - an amazing feat.

This year's event will be on Saturday, September 14, 2019 at UCLA's Royce Quad. I love that LA Loves Alex's Lemonade not only showcases some of LA's best chefs but also bring in great chefs from outside of LA.
This year's LA lineup includes Josef Centeno (Orsa & Winston), Michael Cimarusti (Providence), Ori Menashe (Bavel), Lufo Lefebvre (Trois Mec), and many more. Some of the chefs coming from out of town include Marc Vetri (Vetri, Philadelphia), Gabriela Camara (Contramar, Mexico City), Frank Ibarra (Bibi Ji, Santa Barbara), Perry Hendrix (Avec, Chicago) and Donald Link (Peche, New Orleans).

There's never a shortage of great food and drinks (cocktails or wine) here. I wasn't able to go for a while when I lived in Boston, but I'm excited to return this year!

Photo: Becky Sapp

General admission tickets are $225 and VIP tickets are $500. Tickets are partially tax deductible and can be purchased here. Be sure to check out the great silent and live auction items while you're there, too. It's all for a good cause! Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation supports various programs from data lab and research initiatives to find cures to providing resources for families to travel to get treatment.

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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