The Georgian Hotel Celebrates 80th Anniversary With 1930s Retro Menu

The Georgian Hotel in Santa Monica is a symbol of old Hollywood glamour and the hotel recently celebrated their 80th anniversary with the launch of a 1930s retro dining menu and a prohibition cocktail menu, available at The Veranda Restaurant. The Veranda Restaurant is literally on the front veranda of the hotel, overlooking Ocean Avenue.

The retro menu includes items like Grilled Chicken Waldorf Salad (grilled chicken breast, arugula, chopped apples, diced celery, candied walnuts, grapes and orange infused cranberries tossed with apple-orange infused mayo dressing - $13.95)

One of my favorites was the Mini Monte Cristo sandwich (black forest ham, roasted turkey breast, Gruyere; egg battered and deep fried, served with a blackberry jam dipping sauce - $9.75)

This was actually one of the best Monte Cristo sandwiches I've had since it wasn't overly eggy or sweet but still indulgent.

Vegetarians need not shy away from The Georgian since they have an awesome Veggie Meatloaf (made with fire roasted tomatoes, toasted walnuts, diced celery, yellow onion, fresh garlic, parsley, and green bell pepper blended together and baked. Topped with chunky fire roasted "ketchup", served with green beans in hazelnut gremolata - $12.75)

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1886 Bar Goes Tiki and Divey This Summer

Every season, 1886 does something different with their cocktail menu, and this summer they're turning into a tiki and dive bar complete with fun tiki decorations (complete with the bartender Peter Lloyd-Jones wearing a Hawaiian shirt!)

Per usual, their menu is divided into four sections. The first features fun interpretations of classic tiki cocktails.
The Strawberry Pina Colada on Fire is an ode to the recently closed Bahooka. There's also the classic Zombie, and the one thing I still haven't tried is the Scorpion Bowl for 4, since they were still waiting for the bowl to come in.

The next section is the dive bar drinks they labeled "Dirty Pretty Things", including a "molecular" approach to shots. There's a Mojito Jello Shot made with Flor de Cana rum. Ever had a pickleback? That's a shot of whisky with a chaser of pickle juice. Here, the pickleback is pickle brine from Langer's Deli enclosed in a sphere inside a shot of Powers Irish whisky.

On a similar line, there's also a sangrita sphere served in a shot of tequila.

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Decorating Cakes with Duff Goldman for LA Food & Wine

The LA Food and Wine Festival brings back a series of food events over four days on August 22-25, from Italian festival with Giada De Laurentiis, Asian Night Market with Iron Chef Morimoto, lunches at restaurants around town, to the Lexus Grand Tasting on the last day.

The last event of the series is a cooking demo with Duff Goldman. As a preview for the festival, I got to go to Duff's Cake Mix on Melrose to decorate a cake. Duff Goldman was also in attendance. Before getting down to decorating we mingled with some wine and Chef Eric Greenspan's grilled cheese sandwiches. 
We started with a white cake, just like a white canvas for painting.

The theme was California cuisine so we decided to make a "kale salad" and started rolling out the green fondant. I used a leaf mold to make the "kale", made red fondant balls for cherry tomatoes. We made sliced carrots and avocadoes, copying LA OC Foodie and Shop Eat Sleep's cake of avocado, sushi, and taco.
Voila! Our kale salad cake!

The other attendees' cakes were pretty impressive.

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