Monday, July 30, 2012

Soleto: Solid Italian and Housemade Limoncello in Downtown LA

The South Park district in downtown Los Angeles is getting more and more exciting with two new restaurant openings. One of them is Soleto, an upscale Italian restaurant from the IDG Restaurant Group which took over the old Zucca space. Soleto is run by Executive Chef Sascha Lyon who is also in charge of the kitchen at Delphine.

I say it's upscale, but Soleto has a pretty great happy hour (M-F, 3-7pm), especially where the food is concerned. There were quite a few items that were all really cheap and good! The portion sizes are quite good as well. Here are some of the happy hour items we tried:

Shrimp Oreganato ($5)

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This whole pot of shrimp for $5? You can come here for an early dinner during happy hour and have a feast!

This Sauteed Calamari with Anaheim chili and tomatoes is also only $5!
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Much more interesting and better than the typical fried calamari.

I also recommend the Charred Cauliflower, Grana Padano, parsley ($3)
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Grana Padano is a hard Italian cheese, similar in texture to parmesan cheese but milder. You'll see this cheese in many of Soleto's dishes. 

For drinks, there are sangria and "cello spritzer" (one of their housemade limoncellos/orange-cellos with soda) for $3.
OK, so that's happy hour. Now, on to dinner.

You won't really find duplicates from the happy hour menu here. The popular appetizers include Grilled Oyster Mushrooms, grana padano, white truffle lemon vinaigrette ($12)
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These earthy mushrooms were made even better with the sprinkling of grana padano cheese. I can definitely eat these all day.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Giveaway: Robert Mondavi Wants to Give You FREE GAS!

Robert Mondavi Private Selection Wines wants you to explore the beauties of the California Central Coast, where their Private Selection wines are made. You can take a virtual tour of the Central Coast by following their Facebook page, where they will showcase the best of Central Coast - food, views, and everything else. But why not take a trip and discover the region (or a place like the Central Coast closer to you) on your own? 

Robert Mondavi  wants you to! So, they want to give you a $25 gas card, which you can use to take a road trip to you nearest wine country. If you live in Southern California, that would be the Central Coast, but if you live in another state, just use to visit the equivalent of the Central Coast!


Oh, and I'm trying out this new widget for you to enter giveaways, so try it out below and let me know how that works out! Good luck!


*UPDATE: I realize that with the Punchtab giveaway widget, a lot of people were getting comment entries without actually commenting on the post. If your comment entry is picked but you didn't actually comment, I will redraw the winner. And I probably won't be using the punchtab widget again ..




Thursday, July 26, 2012

The 4-Day LA Food and Wine Festival Returns Aug 9-12, Recap of 2011 Lexus Grand Tasting

The LA Food and Wine Festival is a four-day extravaganza with various lunches and dinners around town featuring celebrity chefs, with two days of a grand tasting event on Saturday and Sunday. This year's events include an Italian fiesta with Giada, an Asian Night Market with Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern, a champagne and caviar night, and dinners with Graham Elliott, Ming Tsai, the Voltaggio brothers, Michael Chiarello, etc.The full event listing can be seen here, and you can buy tickets for each event separately.

Oh, let's not forget the most important part. These events benefit St. Vincent's Meals on Wheels. They provide about 3000 meals a day for seniors!

Last year, thanks to Lexus, I was lucky enough to attend a lunch featuring the Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto at WP24, and one of the Lexus Grand Tasting Event. While most of the food festivals in LA features LA's best chefs and restaurants, the Lexus Grand Tasting Event brings some from out of town, so we get to try food from some of the best in the country. This year's out-of-town list includes Gale Gand from Tru (Chicago), Francois Payard, and Stephan Pyles.

Here are some photos from last year's Lexus Grand Tasting:

Duroc Pork Tenderloin, corn pudding, gremolata or bacon and corn, blackberry cipollini by Bradley Ogden's root 246.





The Lexus lounge is definitely worth a visit, offering some of the more luxurious items like foie gras (well, I guess not this year...), lobster, and truffles.

Foie gras lollipops, almonds, cocoa nibs, banana cotton candy

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