Wednesday, July 31, 2019

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!
Concerto
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.
DSC02070

Saturday, July 27, 2019

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
Corner Door

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

Monday, July 22, 2019

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)
The Ordinarie
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.
The Ordinarie
Lavender milk punch (clarified milk punch with Bols Genever, honey, lavender - $12)
The Ordinarie
This was our favorite drink of the night, but I've been known to love milk punches.

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