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Archive for Italian Food

Close Eats – Cinque Terre

Jan31

Restaurant: Cinque Terre West Osteria

Location: 970 Monument St #110, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272. (310) 454-0709

Date: December 7, 2019

Cuisine: Italian

Rating: Solid neighborhood Italian

_

There are so few places to eat in Pacific Palisades and almost all of them are part of the Caruso mall with it’s terrible least common denominator food style.
IMG_0571
This isn’t, and is off to the side in a mini-mall with my “favorite” local place, Sasebune express.
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The interior is tiny but cute enough. A little casual for my taste.
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The menu.
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Bread.
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Cinque Terre Salad. Baby mixed greens, taggiasche olives, tomatoes, grapes, figs, pecorino, fig vinaigrette.
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Melanzane alla Disaia. Eggplant, marinara, Parmigiano, basil, mozzarella. Hard to not like baked eggplant with marinara and cheese. Hot and delicious.
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Tartufo pizza. Mozzarellaa, goat cheese, black truffle. Not really much (if any) real truffle. Ok though. Not as good as the truffle pizza at Toscana.
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Basic pasta for the boy.
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Gluten free penne pomodoro. Because some people in my family (and not the boy) like really really boring food.
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Pappardelle alla Bolognese. Very solid version of the classic. Nice thick fresh pasta.
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Mezzelune alla Zucca. Butternut squash ravioli, brown butter, sage, Amaretto. Nice to see they included the Amaretto — makes it real Northern Italian style.
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Grilled Branzino.
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Macchiato.

Overall, not bad at all for the Palisades. Certainly the best Italian in the village. Of course that isn’t saying much as there are some real stinkers and the village has terrible food. Still, I’ll have to come back and see how it holds up and try more dishes.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Eating Cinque Terre – Gianni Franzi
  2. Quick Eats – Palmeri
  3. Quick Eats: Piccolo
  4. Quick Eats: Divino
  5. Quick Eats – Obica SM
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Cinque Terre West, Italian cuisine, Italian Food, Pacific Palisades, pasta

Obika Mozzarella Bar – Mall Good

Jun06

Restaurant: Obika Mozzarella Bar

Location: 10250 Santa Monica Boulevard, Upper Level, Los Angeles, CA 90067

Date: March 3, 2012

Cuisine: Italian

Rating: It’s in a mall, but it’s actually pretty darn good

_

The day I took my Italian Wine Specialization exam a bunch of us went to lunch. I passed the test, but I didn’t know it then so was both stressed and in serious pain from my recently broken wrist.


One of the instructors, Diego (he’s not pictured, above is Stefano), took us to Obika Mozzarella bar in the Century City mall. I usually loathe mall restaurants, and I detest the parking at CC for sure, but this place turned out to be a surprise.


The inside is clean and modern, fairly small.


People brought wine. Big surprise! I wasn’t in the know before hand so didn’t have a chance to divest myself of some of my oversupply. These were all Italian, of course, and generally fall into the camp of really good terrior focused inexpensive wines. A few of these whites were really interesting. “The San Vincenzo is a fat, generous white with plenty of ripe apricots and peaches. The soft, caressing style flows through to the long, pretty finish.” It blew away your boring Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio.


This one is from Basilcata, a province in the insole of Italy I didn’t even know about before taking my class, but have recently become very fond of.


We began the meal with traditional meats and cheeses. Above is salami, proscuiotto, and mortadella di Bologna.


And the cheese, left to right, Burrata from Apulia, Buffalo Mozzarella from Campania, and smoked Mozzarella.


My plate. Good stuff. I love me some proscuiotto wrapped mozzarella (which I often had in Napoli), but truth be told, Burrata is best.


This Alto-Aldige white is pretty much in the Austrian style, but perhaps with a bit more Italian flair.


Because straight up mozzarella isn’t enough, we had both kinds fried with some fried artichokes as well. The smoked in particular was very yummy.


And this salad, a salmon, mozzarella, avocado, arugala salad. You’d NEVER see this in Italy, but it was surprisingly delicious.


You wouldn’t really see this either, burrata with beets, pine nuts, spinach, and balsamic dressing. It was great too, and you do find variants of these combinations all over LA. It’s typical that we American’s reinvent with Italian ingredients but without regard to their traditional pairings and forms.


A vegetable pizza. The crust was good. I would have liked to taste the sausage pizza, but such was not to be.


Diego was very excited for this buttery Risotto Milanese. Just straight saffron, good rice, butter, and cheese. Very rice and tasty.


Primitivo is also a rarely seen wine here in the states. It’s a relative of Zinfandel (the red, not the white), and has an incredibly fruity/spicy lushness. Very typical of Apulia, on the heel of Italy.


And finally, this Barbera D’Alba. “The Barbera d’Alba Superiore offers up dark cherries, flowers and licorice. The Superiore has a little bit more mid-palate juiciness and presence than the straight Barbera, but remains very much a classically built wine. I especially like the plush finish for its sheer sexiness.”


Out front they show off the meats. Only a few compared to some places in Emilia-Romagna which are graced with about 20 pigs worth.


And tubs of mozzarella (smoked).


And “plain.”

We didn’t really try and entrees. This was a “light lunch” and the meat, cheese, and simple risotto were more tuned to show off the wines, but if you’re catching a movie in Century City you could do far far worse than catching a bite here.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Quick Eats: Pizzeria Mozza
  2. Quick Eats: Divino
  3. Sfixio – Strong out of the gate
  4. In between Pizza, there is Burrata
  5. Ozumo – Japan invades the Mall
By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Apulia, Buffalo mozzarella, Burrata, Italian cuisine, Italian Food, Italy, Los Angeles, Mozzarella, Obika, Obika Mozzarella Bar, Olive oil, Wine

Drago New Years

Jan26

Restaurant: Drago [1, 2]

Location: 2628 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90403. T: 310/828-1585

Date: December 31, 2011

Cuisine: Italian

Rating: One of LA’s top Italians – but closing 🙁

_

Celestino Drago and his brothers have a bit of a mini Italian culinary empire here in LA with a number of different restaurants and concepts. These include the flagship Drago, a branch in Pasadena, Il Pastiao, Enoteco Drago and Piccolo Paradiso in Beverly Hills, Drago Centro downtown, Panzanella in the valley, a bakery, catering, and probably something I missed. All of these places are top notch and despite the expansion there is a real attention to quality.

Originally from Sicily the family blends tradition with the modern to make some of LA’s best Italian. Having eaten all over Italy I have to say that the two areas with the best food are in my mind the Piedimonte/Venato and Sicily. And the later wins hands down for desserts. Celistino doesn’t purely stick with Sicilian cuisine anyway, but very much pulls in the latest Italian culinary trends. In particular, the pastas, usually homemade, are phenomenal.

He’s also incredibly creative and adaptable. He’s catered about 8 or so of our events and that includes some whacky stuff. In 2006 we even did a party themed after the Ancient World where all of the dishes were based on the ancient Roman cookbook by Apicius. I just gave Celistino a copy with circled dishes and he adapted these VERY OLD (1900 years old!) recipes and brought them to life. Very interesting.

Anyway, Drago is the flagship restaurant of the empire, and its most formal. They have a big Menu well represented in every category, including good hearty meaty dishes. Certain favorites persist, but it’s always being adapted and changed (something I like), and includes seasonal stuff.

We went here for our last meal of 2011 and they had New Year’s supplements in addition to the normal menu.

Unfortunately, despite the food quality remaining high, business has slipped off at this particular branch of the empire and so it is rumored to be closing soon.


Being New Years, I brought some excellent (even by my standards) wines. Parker gives this 98 points. “The dense ruby/purple-colored 1997 Percarlo is compelling. Enormous in aromas, flavors, and persistence on the palate, it exhibits profound levels of concentration as well as unbelievably dense, black currant, blackberry liqueur notes infused with new saddle leather, licorice, truffles, and toasty oak. Enormously thick and viscous, with low acidity, and mouthcoating levels of extract, this wine’s tannin level is high, but largely obscured by the wealth of fruit, glycerin, and extract. It is an amazing accomplishment! Anticipated maturity: now-2020.”


“INSALATA DI BARBABIETOLE E BURRATA. Burrata, market beets, arugula, pistachio, fried shallots, white balsamic vinegar.” Most Italians have a beets and burrata these days, but this way a particularly good one with a very interesting sweet dressing.


“Angelhair pasta with tomato sauce.” For my three year-old.

“TORTELLONI DI ZUCCA. Mussels, clams, bay scallop, shrimp, squid, tomato sauce.” Another favorite and a Celestino classic. This is pumpkin ravioli in a parmesan cream sauce. Inside is a pure of pumpkin, slightly spiced. A homemade spinach pasta, and then a rich cream and cheese sauce. This is a varient on the truly tradition tortellini de zucca where a slightly smaller normal fresh pasta is used, and the stuffing mixes pumpkin and amaretti cookies, and then the sauce is just butter and sage. This version is richer obviously.


““Cavatelli al ragout di capriolo, venison and chanterelle ragout, chestnut.” This is one of the reasons I come here: for dishes like this. While this is a special, there are always many great pastas, and this is a level of pasta perfection that you WILL NOT find at 95% of LA’s Italians. This particular dish is a homemade larvae shaped Cavatelli (pasta perfection) coupled with this incredibly rich winter ragout. The chestnut adds a little crunch and further winter cheer — chestnuts being very popular/traditional in Italy in Dec/Jan. Stylistically I would have to say this is more a Roman or maybe mountains near Rome kind of dish than explicitly Sicilian, but I could be wrong. Doesn’t matter, it’s great.


“The 1989 Barolos include the 1989 Bussia Soprano, a huge, full-bodied, super-concentrated, powerhouse of a wine that exudes aromas of sweet black-cherries, truffles, spices, and some intriguing spring flower blossom scents. Extremely intense, full-bodied, and spicy, with oodles of rich, fleshy fruit, this profound wine possesses high tannin which is sweet rather than astringent, and a mindboggling finish. This awesome Barolo can be drunk at an early age, but it should keep for 25-30 or more years.
Every Italian wine authority, from the late Sheldon Wasserman, to Burton Anderson, to Victor Hazan, to Roberto Parkero, considers Aldo Conterno to be one of the great masters of his craft. The staggering display of wines he produced in 1989 and 1990 confirmed that no one in Piedmont is making greater Barolo than Aldo Conterno and his sons. If you love great wine, these are must purchases; if you love Barolo, a pilgrimage to your favorite Italian wine shop is in order!
It is virtually impossible to pick a favorite among Conterno’s 1989s and 1990s. However, the 1990s, which are not yet bottled, appear even more massive, structured, and tannic than the flamboyant, super-concentrated, flashy 1989s. Readers should keep in mind that the Barolo-Riserva Gran Bussia is released a year later than the other Barolos, so the 1989 will not appear in the marketplace until spring, 1995, and the 1990 a year later.
Wine enthusiasts throughout the world should be beating a path to their retailers to buy the 1989s and to reserve the 1990s when they arrive next year. By the way, Aldo Conterno is one of Piedmont’s sweetest people, proving that sometimes nice guys do finish first!”


“BRANZINO ARROSTO. Mediterrenean seabass, gremolata, parnship, potato, endive.”


“Salmon with stewed tomatoes.”


“PETTO DI POLLO. Porcini prosciutto crust, potato pancake, prosciutto parmesan cheese cream, king trumpets mushrooms, pearl onion.” I don’t normally order chicken, but this one called out to me for some reason. The breast was perfectly cooked with a nice textural quality to the crust. I didn’t really detect the prosciutto, so I would have liked a bit more of a statement there, but it was very tasty.

This is only a small selection of what Drago can do and they have excellent deserts as well. But we had some at home for New Years and old three year-old was getting restless.

Click here to see Eating Italy posts.
Or for more LA Restaurants.

Related posts:

  1. Sicilian Style – Drago
  2. More Drago – Via Alloro
  3. Ultimate Pizza – New Years
  4. Quick Eats: Piccolo
  5. Naughty Dog – 25 Years!
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Burrata, Celestino Drago, Drago, Drago Santa Monica, Italian cuisine, Italian Food, New Year, Panzanella, Santa Monica, Santa Monica California, Sicily

Sfixio – Strong out of the gate

Nov20

Restaurant: Sfixio

Location: 9737 Santa Monica Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA.90210. 1 (310) 385-1800

Date: November 13, 2011

Cuisine: Italian

Rating: Excellent new Italian

_

Sfixio is a brand new Italian in downtown Beverly Hills with a modern Tuscan slant. It’s owned and by a husband and wife pair: Chef Massimo Denaro in the kitchen and his wife managing the front.


The location has received a chic modern update too (it used to be Da Vinci for the last 30 years).


The brushed aluminum bar.


I brought this wine from the vineyard in Tuscany. Parker 93. “The 2006 Brunello di Montalcino is a beguiling wine laced with all sorts of black cherries, minerals, spices, licorice and menthol. All of the aromas and flavors are layered together through to the exquisite, refined finish. The 2006 shows a level of richness and density this bottling has lacked in some previous vintages. Today the tannins remain a touch austere, but another few years in bottle should do the trick. Anticipated maturity: 2014-2026.”


They had good bread, particularly the raison.


An extensive menu.


And a live jazz band (who were quite good)!


“Insalata di Spinaci (Fresh baby Spinach with Walnuts, soft Tuscan Pecorino cheese, pears olive oil and balsamic Vinaigrette Reduction).”


“Burrata con Pomodorini (Imported fresh Burrata caprese with organic heirlooms tomatoes).”


“Tartara di Branzino. Fresh wild Seabass from Greece Tartare dressed with a fresh grapefruit orange, lemon sauce, topped with tiny diced veggies.” Very nice, a bit like a cerviche.


“Pappardelle al Cinghiale (Homemade Pappardelle pasta with Braised wild boar in Chianti wine flavored with Juniper berries).” I had this dish all over Tuscany this year. This one was good, probably in the top 75% of those I had. Not as great as this one say, but very good.


“Crespelle alla Fiorentina (Homemade Crepes with Ricotta Cheese and Spinach topped with Tomato Sauce and Melted Reggiano Parmesan).”


“Branzino e Verdurine (Fresh Wild Seabass from Greece cooked on Flat Iron with sautee seasonal veggies).”


An osso buco special on mashed potatoes. Certainly an excellent meaty rendition of this dish. The meat was not only tender, but very flavorful.


The dessert menu.


“Tortino al cioccolato con Fragoline (Chocolate cake with strawberries).” Very very “dark” and chocolaty. A little too dark and dense for my taste, I prefer creamier and sweeter, but it was certainly well done.

Overall, Sfixio was very good. LA is full of Italian restaurants, and there wasn’t anything radical here, but this is certainly a chef operating at a high level, with a good palette, excellent ingredients, and really solid execution. So I recommend, and we’ll go again.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Comparison with real Tuscan joints here.

Related posts:

  1. Sicilian Style – Drago
  2. Eating Staggia – Pozzo dei Desideri
  3. Eating Montalcino – Le Potazzine
  4. Piccolo – A little Italian
  5. Fraiche Santa Monica
By: agavin
Comments (4)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Beverly Hills, Beverly Hills California, Brunello di Montalcino, Burrata, Dessert, italian, Italian cuisine, Italian Food, Italy, Los Angeles, osso buco, Restaraunt, Restaurant Review, Santa Monica Boulevard, Tuscany, vegetarian, Wine

Sicilian Style – Drago

Feb18

Restaurant: Drago [1, 2]

Location: 2628 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90403. T: 310/828-1585

Date: February 5 & October 15, 2011

Cuisine: Italian

Rating: One of LA’s top Italians!

_

Celestino Drago and his brothers have a bit of a mini Italian culinary empire here in LA with a number of different restaurants and concepts. These include the flagship Drago, a branch in Pasadena, Il Pastiao, Enoteco Drago and Piccolo Paradiso in Beverly Hills, Drago Centro downtown, Panzanella in the valley, a bakery, catering, and probably something I missed. All of these places are top notch and despite the expansion there is a real attention to quality.

Originally from Sicily the family blends tradition with the modern to make some of LA’s best Italian. Having eaten all over Italy I have to say that the two areas with the best food are in my mind the Piedimonte/Venato and Sicily. And the later wins hands down for desserts. Celistino doesn’t purely stick with Sicilian cuisine anyway, but very much pulls in the latest Italian culinary trends. In particular, the pastas, usually homemade, are phenomenal.

He’s also incredibly creative and adaptable. He’s catered about 8 or so of our events and that includes some whacky stuff. In 2006 we even did a party themed after the Ancient World where all of the dishes were based on the ancient Roman cookbook by Apicius. I just gave Celistino a copy with circled dishes and he adapted these VERY OLD (1900 years old!) recipes and brought them to life. Very interesting.

Anyway, Drago is the flagship restaurant of the empire, and its most formal. They have a big Menu well represented in every category, including good hearty meaty dishes. Certain favorites persist, but it’s always being adapted and changed (something I like), and includes seasonal stuff.

As usual I brought wine. Parker gives this 92 points, “The 1999 Brunello di Montalcino Tenuta Nuova, from newer vineyards near Castelnuovo dell-Abate in the southern part of Montalcino, is sweet, spicy, and weighty on the nose, with the aromas given additional push and penetration from the alcohol. The important volume and length, the solidity of the structure, and dense, liquorice-laden finish are those of a wine destined for long life. Drink: 2005-2018.”

For January, the theme is game! We don’t see it as much here in America, but Italians love meat and game, and no one in LA does it as well as Celistino and crew.

Because the group owns its own bakery, they always have really good bread. This is just a small selection, at the bakery or catered events they can go nuts with grain.

An amuse. Arincini, which is basically a friend risotto. In this case one with a bit of cheese, tomato, and ground beef. Inside it retains the creamy cheesy quality of the risotto, paired with a hot crunchy outside. Now I prefer my risotto in normal form, but these certainly are tasty.

A vegetarian squash soup.

“Elk carpaccio, candied walnuts, mache, spiced pear chutney.” You can see a dusting of fresh pepper. This was a wonderful and different carpaccio. The elk meat had almost a spicy quality to it, certainly more gamey, and the sweetness and crunch of the walnuts paired perfectly.

Panzenella. My wife loves this salad. It isn’t on the dinner menu and they made it up for us on the fly, so it actually doesn’t look like it usually does. At lunch the “normal” version can be had, and several of the other Drago Group places have it all the time. Its crunchy bread, tossed with tomatoes, mozzarella, cucumbers, etc.


A mixed tri-color salad of greens with goat cheese.


“Burrata, market beets, arugula, pistachio, fried shallot.” Most Italians have a beets and burrata these days, but this way a particularly good one with a very interesting sweet dressing.

Another favorite and a Celestino classic. This is pumpkin ravioli in a parmesan cream sauce. Inside is a pure of pumpkin, slightly spiced. A homemade spinach pasta, and then a rich cream and cheese sauce. This is a varient on the truly tradition tortellini de zucca where a slightly smaller normal fresh pasta is used, and the stuffing mixes pumpkin and amaretti cookies, and then the sauce is just butter and sage. This version is richer obviously.


“PAPPARDELLE AL FAGIANO. Pappardelle, roasted pheasant, morel mushroom.” This is one of my favorite Drago pastas. A rich winter dish of hearty fresh pappardelle, chunky pheasant, and morel mushrooms.

“Cavatelli al ragout di capriolo, venison and porcini ragout, chestnut.” This is one of the reasons I come here: for dishes like this. While this is a special, there are always many great pastas, and this is a level of pasta perfection that you WILL NOT find at 95% of LA’s Italians (although we certainly do have some other great ones: Angelini Osteria, Capo, Georgio Baldi, and many more). This particular dish is a homemade larvae shaped Cavatelli (pasta perfection) coupled with this incredibly rich winter ragout. The chestnut adds a little crunch and further winter cheer — chestnuts being very popular/traditional in Italy in Dec/Jan. Stylistically I would have to say this is more a Roman or maybe mountains near Rome kind of dish than explicitly Sicilian, but I could be wrong. Doesn’t matter, it’s great.

“Risotto alla quaglia, foie gras stuffed quail, pearl onion, port reduction.” Pink Risotto! This was a slightly weird dish. Good, but unusual. The quail was great, perfectly tender and who can fault a little fois gras thrown in? The risotto itself had a kind of tart sweetness too it, and the onions added even a bit more sweetness. It was also perfectly cooked, and overall a very pleasant dish, just not as orgasmic as the cavatelli — and the color is amusing, like the weird pink pizza one of my friends made the other week.

In keeping with being Sicilian, Drago always has fantastic desserts.

Gelato, chocolate and maple sugar. Really very fine gelato, I’m sure made on premises. It’s hard to find good gelato in LA, but this is.

“Dolci di nocciole, hazelnut brown butter cake, praline crunch, salted caramel gelato, apple rum puree.” This is perhaps a deconstructed version of a more traditional Italian dessert, not Sicilian perse as most of those use fresh Ricotta and almonds (yum yum yum!). This was nice, but a tad dry. When all the flavors combined they did so excellently, but I would have loved more gelato as it was SUPERB. Hell, just the gelato and some candied hazelnuts would have been incredible. The ice cream itself tasted a bit like the incredible Gjelina butterscotch budino. So while really good, I think this dish could perhaps be better served by a slight format change.  Perhaps piling the cake into layer separated or covered by gelato. Or maybe just more gelato would solve it :-).

This was just a simple little meal (for Drago) with only the family, so we never even really made it to the excellent meat courses. Rest assured, you can’t go wrong here (or at any of the groups places). Sometimes I’ll come here with a really big party and get tons of stuff, so I’ll have to document that next time I do.

Click here to see Eating Italy posts.

Or for more LA Restaurants.

Related posts:

  1. Food as Art: Chanukah in Style
  2. Quick Eats: Osteria Latini 2
  3. Quick Eats: Piccolo
  4. The New Cal Cuisine: Rustic Canyon
  5. Food as Art – Takao
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Brunello di Montalcino, Celestino Drago, Cooking, Dessert, Drago, Food, Home, italian, Italian cuisine, Italian Food, Italy, Los Angeles, Montalcino, Panzanella, pasta, Restaurant, Santa Monica California, Sicilian cuisine, Sicily, side dishes, vegetarian
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