Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Help me find my love!


While in Peru I met a tall, dark and handsome man.
Cold, and slightly sweet, full bodied, and absolutely smooth - not to mention rich.
But, alas, now I am back in LA just pining away.
So, someone help me find him again! My beloved Cusquena Negra ... is it anywhere in LA?
If anyone knows where I can go, we won't forget your kindness ...

Friday, July 18, 2008

Corn Pizza, Twice Over.

Zelo was recommended by a friend of mine as "the best pizza in town" so obviously I had to check it out. I suggested it to a group of friends when we were meeting up - funny, we seemed to have pizza everytime we meet up ...

What's so unique about Zelo is their cornmeal crust, and their signature pizza is their Corn pizza:
This consisted of the cornmeal crust+white corn+marinated onions+mozzarela+chives. Being a corn lover, this pizza was totally awesome! The cornmeal crust is definitely different, and unlike regular dough, actually has flavor and (when done right) enhances the whole pizza.

You can order by the slice ($3.50), half ($10.00), or a whole pizza ($18.00). They're normally cut up into six slices but since there were four of us, the workers were nice enough to cut them into fours for us :) extra points for service ;)

Below is the the corn pizza and the mushroom pizza (from the specials):
The corn, like I said, was *amazing*. The mushroom pizza was also good. The basil and sundried tomatoes were a really nice touch, but it still can't compare to the corn one.

We also got another of the specials, the spinach pesto. It's apparently very popular so it shows up on the specials a lot.
I think pesto makes everything that much better, so naturally I like this one a lot! They put a lot of pesto sauce. Spinach, pesto, and basil? How can you go wrong? The corn is still our favorite though (A friend of mine told the waiter that he should've told us to just order the corn pizza and nothing else :P But I'm glad I got the spinach pesto too!).

We ordered three slices for each person, which ended up being A LOT, since the cornmeal crust made the pizza very dense and very, very filling.


Zelo

328 E. Foothill Blvd

Arcadia, CA 91006

www.zelo.us


Zelo on Urbanspoon

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Finally, a bit of yumminess on the Promenade

There was never much on Third Street Promenade as far as food goes. A couple of edible choices here and there, but no "destination" places. In fact, I haven't been back to 3rd street promenade in a couple of years. But when Anisette Brasserie opened its doors a few weeks ago, that all changed.

We were seated on the second floor, where we got a nice view of the the first floor.
Our waiter was young and seemed to be new at the job - there were awkward moments when he was taking our orders etc. But he was really nice so, oh well, on to the food.

The hostess recommended the peas gazpacho, so I ordered it.There's a touch of mint that really made the soup that much better, but I realized I'm still not that big on gazpacho. Trying to eat this whole bowl was too much for me.

I actually ordered the croque madame, but they brought me the croque monsieur instead :/
The waiter apologized and then brought an egg on the side. He was a cute frenchie so I guess I'll forgive him ...
Here's the gruyere-cheese-goodness:
Delicious - and better with the egg! That melted gruyere cheese on top of the bread really made my day. It came with the "chef's fries" which I thought were just like regular fries. I was never big on fries though so I'm not one to judge ...

Someone else got the brasserie burger, cooked medium rare.
Avocado, tomatoes, ... and brie! Who would've thought of putting brie in a burger? Awesome! The bread was great and -of course- I loved the cheese :D
Overall a really good burger ... hm I think I still like the Grace burger with truffle cheese... I'm gonna have to do a double take on this one!

Desserts were $8 and based on what we got that seemed a little steep. I don't remember what this one was called - but it's the one with strawberries and lavender ice cream (when they put up their menu online I'll let u know what it is ...):A bit too much whipped cream and meringue for me personally. I really liked the lavender ice cream, though.

We also got the chocolate mousse:
Now this was a delicious chocolate mousse! And the toast was also a nice touch. It seemed a bit like eating toast with nutella (which, who can argue, is awesome? ;> )

Thanks to Anisette, I've been to the Promenade twice in the last two weeks. That's more than I've gone in the year before that! :D
Since it's new and has a nice atmosphere, and plenty more dishes to try out (such as the Feuillete of Scrambled Eggs with White Crab Claw Meat that's supposed to be *amazing*), I'll be back some more and recommending it to people.

Anisette Brasserie
225 Santa Monica Blvd
Santa Monica, CA
(310) 395-3200

Anisette on Urbanspoon

Monday, July 14, 2008

Pizzeria Mozza: Pizzas and Hypes

With all the hype surrounding pizzeria mozza, I got curious and decided to walk in and try it one night. I called the day before and couldn't get reservations, but there was only two of us and we got seated at the bar immediately. Lucky :)

As with other hip restaurants, the place is loud and it's hard to hold conversations unless you're sitting right next to each other so the bar actually ended up working out just fine.

We placed our order and waited. It took a while to get served - we were starving so it might have seemed longer than it really was. We saw a bunch of salad dishes going by and they all looked really great. Too bad we didn't order any this time around but next time we definitely have to try one.

We got the mussels for appetizer:
I really liked the bread and the broth, but I didn't really dig the yellow sauce. It was a slightly spicy mustard-based sauce and I thought it overwhelmed the mussels! I would've been much happier with just the mussels and that yummy broth :(
I've definitely had better mussels elsewhere.

For our first pizza we had: Prosciutto Di Parma, Rucola, Tomato & Mozzarella
It was definitely good prosciutto, and the rucola is a great touch. Personally though I'd like more tomato and cheese. You might say that that's just because I'm used to the normal pizza and want something similar, but I still think that this pizza is a little bit on the dry side. But again, though, the prosciutto is definitely good.

The dough is good and as you can see their crust rose more than normal pizza crusts and is "puffier" which is also a plus. It's not as dense and filling.

On average the pizzas are $15 and each one is little more than an individual serving. In our mind this was definitely expensive for pizza, although it is better than most (but is it a better deal than, say, Zelo?).

For the second pizza we got: Wild Spinach, Finocchiona & Cacio Di Roma
The spinach was crispy and there was a little spicy kick to it. Overall it was closer than a "normal" pizza, although with much better cheese and dough. The prosciutto was tastier and more interesting.

I also saw them making this one pizza and put a raw egg right in the middle:
I didn't remember from the menu which pizza this could be, but it looked really interesting - I'll have to find it and try it next time.

All in all I thought the pizzas were pretty good. I wouldn't mind coming back, although it is expensive at $15 per pizza. On the other hand, it wasn't so spectacular that I would be craving to come back anytime soon ...
I do want to try those huge salads that looked really yummy, though.

Pizzeria Mozza
641 N Highland Ave

Los Angeles, CA

(323) 297-0101

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Omurice! Finally!

Not too long ago I was running around town trying to find a decent omu-rice. For those of you who don't know, omu-rice is a japan-ized western dish consisting of a chicken fried rice (in ketchup sauce) wrapped in an omelette. Typically it is then garnished with more ketchup, but I've been searching for a place that serves it with demi glace sauce instead.

Why? It's all because of this dorama I watched a couple years ago. The first minute of this video says it all.

At any rate, I went to multiple Mitsuwa food courts with no luck. Tried an omelette spaghetti at Spoon House, and so on. But it's just not the same. A fellow Chowhounder told me that Blue Marlin had good seafood omurice. Hmm ... seafood omurice was not exactly what I was looking for, but eventually I went there anyway.

And what did I find??

The original omurice, with demi glace sauce!!! It was not the perfect omurice - the chicken pieces were scarce and rather big, and I would have liked the eggs to not be so well done (I want the omelette to 'melt down' when I cut it ... like in the last minute of the video!) - but otherwise it was everything I wanted!

Blue Marlin uses free range eggs which really enhanced the flavor of the omurices they served (yes, I am convinced free range eggs are tastier, and that it shows in these omurice dishes). And they have various, creative omurice dishes, such as the seafood omurice:

The inside of the omurice is the same as the original - ketchup chicken fried rice. Eating that with cream sauce may seem weird but the whole dish actually worked very well and was delish~

They also have omurice napolitano, etc which I have not tried. Again, it was not perfect but the omurice at Blue Marlin is really pretty good. The service sucks - I asked for a refill for my tea three times and still did not get any until after I paid my bill - but I would still come back whenever I get that craving for an omurice ...

Blue Marlin
2121 Sawtelle Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025-6200
Phone: (310) 445-2522

Blue Marlin on Urbanspoon

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