The ABC's of Cecconi's: Aperitivo, Bone Marrow, and Ciccheti

I hadn't been back to Cecconi's since my brunch two years ago, but after a recent visit to try out their new aperitivo and ciccheti menu (and a feast of everything else), I wondered why. Oh, right, it is on the pricey side, but the recently launched Ciccheti menu (small plates/appetizers) you can dine here for less. (On another note, on Sundays Cecconi's have quite a deal: family style dinner for $50, up to 4 people. That's less than $13 per person!)

Scallop, pancetta, rosemary ($15)

They recently invited a number of bloggers for some ciccheti, aperitivos, and dinner. We started the night at the bar, where Creative Bar Director Chris Ojeda made some aperitivos and cocktails for us.

Since we're talking Italian aperitivos, there were naturally a lot of Aperol, which is an Italian aperitif similar to Campari (in fact, it is now produced by the Campari company). Cecconi's was never on my radar for cocktails, but the drinks Chris had made were surprisingly good.

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August is Garlic Galore at Chaya Venice

Garlic lovers, did you miss Gilroy Garlic Fest this year? If you did, you can still go a little garlic crazy at Chaya Venice this August, where they're offering special garlic dishes during their month-long Garlic Fair.

They have about ten garlic dishes, most of them not overly garlicky (except for the rib eye steak with 40-clove garlic sauce, or so our server told us. Mmm 40 garlic cloves ...)

After an amuse bouche of beets with orange and arugula, we started our garlic feast with Heirloom Tomato with Garlic Ice Cream and Fourme d’Ambert cheese ($13)

Overall good, but the heirloom tomatoes were overshadowed somewhat by the smaller, sweeter tomatoes. I liked the garlic ice cream with the tomatoes, but the possibly even stinkier blue cheese masks the garlic a bit.

Next: Grilled Shrimp, country bread ($12)

It's a simple dish, with crisp shrimp. After you finish the shrimp, soak the bread in the garlic butter.

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Savory (Malibu, CA)

In Malibu, there are the ocean-view restaurants that tourists go to, and then there are the locals’ hangouts. Savory seems to be the latter, tucked in the corner of a strip mall. The kitchen is headed by Bastide-alum Paul Shoemaker. That was enough to put Savory on my radar, but it took receiving a gift certificate as a present to make the drive (it's pretty far down on PCH, past Malibu Seafood and Pepperdine).

We had a reservation, but even after waiting 15 minutes our table wasn't ready. On the other hand, a couple with an earlier reservation who was 30 minutes late got seated. Punctuality is not rewarded in this town. Well, anyway, we got seats a bar and decided to have our dinner there.

We started with some housemade pasta, beef tongue, marinara sauce, parmesan cheese ($12)

We loved the pasta, and the thick cuts of very tender beef tongue - as tender as I remember them being in the beef tongue stew (semur lidah) I ate as a kid in Indonesia. I would definitely order this again.

Next was the Dungeness Crab Cake, remoulade, fine herbs ($17)

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