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Close Eats – Cinque Terre

Jan31

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.

This isn’t, and is off to the side in a mini-mall with my “favorite” local place, Sasebune express.

The interior is tiny but cute enough. A little casual for my taste.

The menu.

Bread.

Cinque Terre Salad. Baby mixed greens, taggiasche olives, tomatoes, grapes, figs, pecorino, fig vinaigrette.

Melanzane alla Disaia. Eggplant, marinara, Parmigiano, basil, mozzarella. Hard to not like baked eggplant with marinara and cheese. Hot and delicious.

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.

Basic pasta for the boy.

Gluten free penne pomodoro. Because some people in my family (and not the boy) like really really boring food.

Pappardelle alla Bolognese. Very solid version of the classic. Nice thick fresh pasta.

Mezzelune alla Zucca. Butternut squash ravioli, brown butter, sage, Amaretto. Nice to see they included the Amaretto — makes it real Northern Italian style.

Grilled Branzino.

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.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Cinque Terre West, Italian cuisine, Italian Food, Pacific Palisades, pasta

London in the Palisades

Dec31

Restaurant: The Draycott

Location: 15255 Palisades Village Lane, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272. (310) 573-8938

Date: November 28, 2018

Cuisine: British?

Rating: Nice decor, menu too small

The Draycott is the last of the four “sit down” Palisades Village restaurants I’ve tried.

The Draycott is a California-inspired family-friendly Brasserie, created by Matt and Marissa Hermer. Named as an homage to London’s Draycott Avenue, where the husband-and-wife restaurateur duo first met, The Draycott features wholesome and classic dishes using locally sourced ingredients.

The restaurant-café melds the ambiance of Europe with a convivial all-day environment, featuring seasonal lunch and dinner menus served with a British twist, along with extensive breakfast and brunch menus and a daily afternoon tea service.

After moving from London – where Matt and Marissa own and operate award- winning bars and restaurants – to Pacific Palisades, they wanted to create a place that married all the things they love about Southern California and all the things they miss about London.
The build out is lovely with a big patio and a gorgeous clubby interior (I’ll have to photo it next time I go, forgot last time).

The have a big cocktail program and attractive bar — too bad I don’t really drink cocktails.

The menu is the biggest problem. It’s tiny. Very few items, and most are boring. There are no mains that I would generally be excited about. They are all just too boring. Moules Frites are okay, but I think of that more as an appetizer.

Kabocha Squash. Market Squash, sauteed forbidden rice, hearty greens, harissa vinaigrette, pomegranate seeds, torn mint.

Winter squash soup. Marcona almond, pomegranate seeds, baharat.

This was a special. Burrata, prosciutto, and pear salad. Decent although needed more burrata.

French fries.

Pan roasted trout. Fishmonger’s trout, sprouted almond, charred lemon, crispy capers, rice pilaf.

Another special — and actually gave me an entree to order. Lamb chops. Solid, but very expensive.

The lamb chops came with two sides of your choice so fries and Brussels sprouts. The sprouts were good, salty and cooked with bacon.

Service here was confused. They brought both our courses simultaneously! The execution on the food was decent. Was better than Porta Via. Problem is the menu is so boring and so small. Particularly on the main side, they seemed to want to keep it small, yet to appeal broadly across all demographics: vegetarian, fish, different proteins, burger etc. The net net is that when you like one thing or another you only have one or two choices. And nothing has any style or innovation to it.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: British Food, lamb, London, Pacific Palisades, Palisades Village, The Draycott

Hank’s Palisades

Dec19

Restaurant: Hank’s Pacific Palisades

Location: 1033 N Swarthmore Ave, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272. (310) 427-3077

Date: November 3 & December 26, 2018

Cuisine: Burger joint

Rating: Good burger, but narrow menu and expensive

I’m slowly working through all the places in the new Palisades Village.

Hank’s is right on Swarthmore, just a bit down from where the old Mort’s Deli (much missed) was. They have a nice patio. Hank’s is VERY crowded. Lines at almost all times. Probably Hank’s is the most popular because it’s the most approachable.

The build out is a bit pubby.

The menu. Sadly it’s pretty much all burgers / sandwiches. I’m okay with burgers, but I can’t eat them all that often. There is a lingering Mort’s item in the form of a Reuben.

Buffalo Cauliflower (deconstructed) (12/26/18). This is normally fried and coated with the hot sauce and blue cheese dressing but I was trying to go “low carb” and got it steamed with the sauces on the side. Pretty decent when you drenched it in sauce — although not that much cauliflower for $14.50.

Cheese Burger with bacon, sautéed onions, and American cheese. It was a good burger. Not huge though (although certainly big enough). Heavy like burger’s always are. I wasn’t totally sure if they forgot the bacon which makes me think maybe they did because I should have noticed it. Empty cheese burgers start at $15.50 and don’t include fries!

Burger Bowl with kale Caesar and added bacon and sautéed onions (12/26/18). You can get the burger on a salad instead of a bun — but as I discovered it’s only one patty instead of the two that come on the normal burger (I guess they expect women to order this) and so it ends up a bit “where’s the beef.” Pretty small patty, 1/4 pounder (uncooked). The salad was good but I did have to pile on the stuff so this was $14.50+$2+$2+$1.50 = $20 (before tax and tip). I had ordered cheese but they forgot it. They did bring it later but it was like half a slice of Craft American on plate. They could have put 2 slices on at least. Haha.

Impossible Burger and fries. My wife loves this because as a vegetarian she doesn’t get burgers out often. Fries don’t come with — but are $6.

Onion Rings ($8!!). Good rings. But $8?

Mac & Cheese. Simple and pretty good. But also $8.

The nearby Bay Theater and it’s very short very retro sign.

So far, having tried all the places in the village (even if I haven’t posted all of them as of this posting), Hank’s actually has the best execution. It’s a burger place and the burgers are really good. I’ll have to try a shake too at some point. Problem I have is that it’s pretty much all burgers and I can only eat them every so often. And it’s crowded so it takes a bit of time. I often like burgers fast casual. And prices are quite high. A burger with stuff — and that’s the only way I eat them — will easily bust $20 and that doesn’t include fries. A burger, fries, and a shake would be around $40! Yeah, that’s right!

Still, because the food is good (for what it is), I feel this is the most successful of the rather dull collection of offerings at the village. Blue Ribbon is okay too, but a touch boring. Porta Via is downright badly executed, although I have to try it again now that they’ve been running for awhile.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: burger, Hamburgers, Hank's, mac & cheese, Pacific Palisades, Palisades Village

Quick Eats – Tratto

Dec12

Restaurant: Tratto

Location: 15306 Sunset Blvd, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272. (424) 581-4000

Date: October 21, 2018

Cuisine: Italian

Rating: Good for the palisades

The Village development isn’t the only thing opening recent in Pacific Palisades, we have a new Italian — in a town that is over-swamped (percentage wise) with (mediocre) Italian offerings.

It’s located in the old Tivioli space right across from the village.

Has a large outside patio.

The menu has lots of tasty sounding options.

Interior has been nicely redone.

They have grisini — although not the best brand ever.

Insalatina. Mixed greens, arugula, hearts of palm, cherry tomatoes, avocado, toasted almonds, balsamic.

Penne pomodoro.

Special pumpkin ravioli in a butter sage sauce. Classic.

Boscaiola. Rigatoni, Italian sausage, mushrooms, peas, tomatoes, cream. An unusual slightly red Boscaiola.

Overall, while the menu looked good, this was a slightly disappointing meal. Mostly because the service was abysmal. We had a reservation, but had to wait 30-40 minutes. Then were ignored and spent an easy extra 40 minutes more at the table than we really needed to. Even at the end I had to go inside and force the bill out of them — in response to which they were defensive.

Food itself was ok. Good for the Palisades — where food quality is horrible on average — but not that great by city-wide standards.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Italian cuisine, Pacific Palisades, pasta, Tratto

Blue Ribbon Sushi

Nov25

Restaurant: Blue Ribbon Sushi

Location: 1079-1001 Monument St, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272. (310) 907-9899

Date: October 2 & December 5 & 23, 2018 and August 10, 2018

Cuisine: Japanese / Sushi

Rating: Solid sushi, if a touch “typical” and American mainstream

Blue Ribbon Sushi is the only “exotic” place (and not really that exotic) in the new Palisades Village Complex.

The space is small but very cute with a big patio facing on the green.

The menu looks pretty decent.

Shishito peppers with miso sauce and bonito flakes (12/5/18). Not bad. A bit sweet and spicy.

House salad (8/10/19) was pretty good.

Miso Eggplant (8/10/19) was very (temperature hot), slightly sweet and salty and not bad.

Tiger Shrimp. Wasabi Mayo. Good, but a touch over fried and quite salty.

Hamachi Uzuukuri. Thin sliced hamachi. Ponzu sauce, Jalapeno, Togarashi, micro cilantro. Classic. Sauce was a bit too soy sauce.

Kanpachi (I think) with yuzu kosho (12/5/18). Better than the soy sauce above.

Scallop sashimi (12/5/18). Scallops were good but I didn’t like the pairing of the chili paste. Would have preferred yuzu and salt.

And low and behold, ordering it a year later (8/10/19) it had yuzu koshu and salt. Better, still very salty, and would be better with just fresh yuzu and sea salt.

Live Santa Barbara Spot Prawn Sashimi (8/10/19). Tender and tasty.

The heads came back deep fried. Ate everything but the eyeballs!

Lobster Sashimi (8/10/19). Slices in the back might be a fish, not sure. The back right is the lobster itself — excellent. Then in the front they turned the claws into lobster nigiri (nice) and those interesting shredded cooked lobster rolls.

Black Snapper Carpaccio. Black snapper sashimi, yuzu, kosher truffle oil, salt. Tasted too much like truffle oil. Sauce was very similar to the first one, masked the fish. So wasn’t really a success.

Salmon Carpaccio. Sliced salmon, Tomato Asian Mix, Ponzu sauce, truffle oil, olive oil and sea salt. Despite the slightly different sounding difference the sauce basically tasted the same. Didn’t really really properly tailored for the fish.

Mango Salmon Sashimi (8/10/19). Not ground breaking, but fine.

Toro Tartare. Tuna Belly, caviar & quail egg. The best dish of the night, probably. Solid enough for what it was.

Sushi. Salmon. Tuna. O-toro. Fine, but boring. The toro was sold as O-toro but tasted like chu-toro to me.

A sashimi plate (12/5/18) ordered at lunch. Not bad, but small and a touch “boring.”

A similar sushi plate (8/10/19).

On my third visit, at dinner with my son, I ordered some nigiri. Various white fish nigiri here (12/23/18). These weren’t bad, although leaning heavily on the yuzu kosho. I again didn’t like the scallop with the chili, although the scallop quality itself was quite good.

Lobster egg battleship and Dungeness crab battleship (12/23/18). Good quantity of shellfish.

Fresh water eel, uni, and ikura (12/23/18). All pretty good. Nigiri was moderately expensive, but pretty good.

I wasn’t super impressed with Blue Ribbon Sushi. Service was slightly green — but that’s fine as they are very new. The menu is okay, but execution is a little boring, heavy handed, or “white.” It’s like Nobu but a bit cheaper and considerably less interesting — and I’m not even that big a fan of the Nobu style of sushi. I like a more refined Japanese sensibility. I’ll go back to Blue Ribbon to see how it is on repeated visits, but I’m skeptical as if I would go repeatedly with so much other great sushi in LA.

My second visit (12/5/18) for lunch was better, as 3/4 sashimi dishes I ordered were solid, if not super exciting.

My fourth visit (8/10/19) was much better. Maybe I ordered better, maybe they have come into their own a bit, and I spent at least $150 just on myself as I ordered entirely sashimi — but it felt a bit more interesting and the fish was certainly good. They still lean a bit heavily on salt and the ultra salty yuzu koshu, but I’m upgrading my opinion to “good, if not super unique.”

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Blue Ribbon Sushi, Pacific Palisades, Palisades Village, Sashimi, Sushi

Quick Eats – Porta Via

Nov09

Restaurant: Porta Via

Location: 63 N Swarthmore Ave, Pacific Palisades, CA 9027. (310) 499-2989

Date: September 24, 2018

Cuisine: Hint of Italian

Rating: New, nice ambiance, and solidly mediocre food

Rich Caruso, billionaire developer, has recently redeveloped the Palisades Village area just 2 minutes from my house. After years of no restaurants at all we were excited to get a raft of new ones and so I have been systematically trying them. Do bear in mind that this place was about 3 days old when I first did.

Porta Via is a clone of a Beverly Hills restaurant. And while the name might lead you to the conclusion that it’s Italian, or maybe Spanish, it’s really just American lunch food. Maybe someone ran an Italian flag through the kitchen. It’s not even slightly, marginally European.

The build out for the whole village is lovely with a great outside patio.

And a stylish interior.

The menu is flat out boring by my standards.

Gazpacho. I love the authentic Andalusian style of liquid salad. I even make a great one myself. This is the sort of Tomato juice style of Gazpacho. It’s not bad — but not really good either and doesn’t have that nice whipped consistency or sharp vinegar tang.

Chopped Salad. Organic chopped lettuces, beets, garbanzo beans, green beans, tomato & Feta. Champagne shallot vinaigrette. It’s a little baby salad. Doesn’t look that interesting or dressed either.

Cobb Salad. Organic chopped lettuces, grilled chicken, bacon, tomato, celery, avocado, egg & blue cheese.Red wine mustard vinaigrette. This was a pretty lame cobb salad and tiny to boot. It wasn’t horrible or anything, but was underdressed, small, and just not very exciting.

‘Impossible’ Burger. Plant-based vegan burger, lettuce, tomato & avocado. Brioche sesame bun. pommes frites. Good for a vegan burger, fairly meaty, if a bit dry. Could have used an aioli or something. Everything here is bland and dry.

Prosciutto Sandwich. prosciutto di parma, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, lettuce & black olive tapenade on grilled ciabatta.

I won’t pass final judgement on Porta Via yet until I go a couple of times, and they were about 48-72 hours into service and had absolutely zero training prior to opening. I forgive them all that. What I don’t currently forgive them is the inexcusably boring menu. I mean I fell asleep reading it. Nothing is original. And even worse than that rather grievous sin is not even executing very well on the classics. It’s possible to do a great cobb, a great caesar, great gazpacho etc. And if you are going to be so predictable and trite (not to mention fairly pricey) you damn well out to execute superlatively. Now I wouldn’t expect a crazy level this early in their life cycle, but I can tell from the plating, style, etc, that the don’t even aspire to it.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Pacific Palisades, Palisades Village, Porta Via, Rick Caruso

Sundae School at Toppings

Oct10

Restaurant: Toppings

Location: 872 Via De La Paz. Los Angeles, CA 90272. (310) 454-8228

Date: September 14, 2012

Cuisine: Frozen Yogurt

Rating: Diabetics beware!

ANY CHARACTER HERE

A while back I review the new frozen yogurt place in the heart of the Pacific Palisades Village, now apparently it was so popular that someone decided to build a second one just a block away! The newcomer, Toppings, appears to be part of a two joint chain and its claim to fame is more toppings. A lot more toppings!

The yogurt part itself is similar. You choose a cup, and then fill it up yourself from any combination of the ten soft-serve machines. The flavors don’t seem to change too dramatically or often, but I have on occasion noticed a few switch-ups.

Here begins the toppings buffet. Not only is the selection enormous, but they are very neatly kept and organized thematically! This is the “sugar candy section.” I adore sugar candy, and its one of my secret weaknesses, but actually they don’t work so great in FroYo because they instantly grow hard as rocks in the cold.

Nuts!

Cereals, sugar and not so sugar. Plus a few misc things like coconut and yogurt coated pretzels.

Cookie bits have they own section! Look at all those types, including “Mom’s Animal Cookeis” Yum!

Then chocolate bits, sprinkles, and chocolate covered candies!

And a whole section with “real” candy bars like Snickers, Butterfingers, Milky Ways, Heath Bar, etc. No major american candy is left out here — except I’m not sure I saw peppermint patty (which I actually like on a sundae).

Then fruit. We have both the natural versions and on this side a host of funny mochi and flavor ball types. There are even pickles in the corner for desperate pregnant women.

A closer look at the real fruit.

Then the sauces. Cold chocolate, hot chocolate, caramel, butterscotch, marshmallow, all that good stuff.

A full view of most of the toppings bar. It curves around like an L in the back and over to the far side. Very neat and modern too.

My masterpiece, which is pretty much drenched in caramel and marshmallow sauce. Underneath are all sorts of the heavy candy bars like Snickers and Butterfingers. This is about as remote from the “healthy” FroYo with tart unsweetened yogurt and a little fruit as you can get! So, which of our two yogurt joints is better? Hard to say. Clearly there are more and better toppings here at toppings but many people think the yogurt itself is better at The Yogurt Shoppe. Really, I seem to end up with something very similar at both. Sweet as bejesus!

For more high quality Westside dessert, check out Sweet Rose Creamery.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Candy, Chocolate bar, Frozen yogurt, Heath Bar, Pacific Palisades, Pacific Palisades Los Angeles, Snickers, Soft serve, Toppings, Yoghurt

Maison Giraud

Dec15

Restaurant: Maison Giraud [1, 2, 3]

Location: 1032 Swarthmore Ave, Pacific Palisades, Ca 90272. 310-459-7562

Date: December 5 & 10, 2011

Cuisine: French

Rating: French “home” cooking at it’s best

I’ve been waiting for Maison Giraud, the new local (just blocks away!) Pacific Palisades restaurant/bakery from acclaimed LA French chef Alain Giraud to open for what seems like forever. The day it did I was there for some pastries. Then we kept trying to get in for dinner. We had to come on a monday at like 5:30!

The Swathmore Ave frontage has been revealing itself in stages since at least the 4th of July.

Inside the chef peers down at your from the French-style board.

Today’s menu.

A pair of nice French whites, one a Sancerre, the other a Viognier.

House baked bread.

They call this a tart, but it’s really a flatbread (aka pizza). “Camille’s Potato and Rosemary Flat Tart. Creme Fraiche, Gruyere.” Pretty yummy.

And another. “Crispy Tomato and Basil Flat Tart. Roasted onions, parmesan.”

“Seared Scallops, leek fondue, meyer lemon & pistachio sauce.” This was one of the best seared scallop appetizers I’ve had — and I normally prefer my scallops raw.

“Arborio Risotto, mushrooms, aged parmesan, fresh herbs.” A lovely mushroom risotto. The weather was cold and dreary (in relative LA terms), so this was perfect.

“Seared Atlantic Salmon. Garlic potatoes, cipollini, bacon, red onion sauce.”

“Cocotte. Beef Bourguignon.” Basically beef stew with the classic additives: potato, carrots, onions, etc. But this was one damn fine beef stew.

Bread dipping good!

We had to get back in a hurry, so we didn’t have time for dessert, but I had that Vacherin Glace one time when the chef was cooking at Bastide (in 2004) and it was one of the best desserts of my life.

I liked the Maison so much that I brought my son back for breakfast on Saturday. This is from the bakery, a fresh apple turnover. Yum!

And fresh OJ.

A decent, if slightly foamy cappuccino.

French toast. Very nice typical variant. My favorite part was the fresh Chantilly cream which was incredible. I’m a big sucker for whipped cream.

Classic Eggs Benedict.

Some more baked goods. Muffins.

And the ultimate pain aux chocolate. This is the only place in LA I’ve tasted where the croissant type pastry actually tastes like it does in France.

So far, I’m very pleased with Maison Giraud. The food is essentially French comfort food with a bit of international adaption, but everything has been spot on fresh and well done so far, and the bakery is outrageously good. Given how incredibly lame most of the Pacific Palisades food offerings are this is all incredibly welcome.

For my early preview, see here.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Atlantic Salmon, Beef Bourguignon, Brunch, Creme Fraiche, dessert menu, Dinner, Eggs Benedict, French Toast, Maison Giraud, Pacific Palisades, Potato, Restaraunt, Restaurant Review, Sancerre, Stew, Viognier

Maison Giraud at Last

Nov16

Restaurant: Maison Giraud [1, 2, 3]

Location: 1032 Swarthmore Ave, Pacific Palisades, Ca 90272. 310-459-7562

Date: November 16, 2011

Cuisine: French

Rating: Awesome French baked goods

I’ve been waiting for Maison Giraud, the new local (just blocks away!) Pacific Palisades restaurant bakery from acclaimed LA French chef Alain Giraud to open for what seems like forever. Finally, the day has happened. Today is the first time they are serving at all, bakery and breakfast. By next monday they plan to be open from breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

The Swathmore Ave frontage has been revealing itself in stages since at least the 4th of July.

The menu is out front. We didn’t have time to actually sit down. You can find the full menu on the website. Soon…

Clean inside. We proceeded straight to the bakery counter to find that it had already been picked fairly clean :-).

These gorgeous (I only had my iPhone for photos, sorry) pane raison.

On the left a single chocolate croissant and on the right a croissant batter thing with tiny blueberries and bakeries custard. We tried both of these. Stellar! Much better I thought than Bouchon Bakery. The pastry had that crunch/chewy mouth feel that is intensely Parisian, but very rare in the states. Must be the butter from Normandy!

We’ll be back as soon as we can (perhaps not until after the holidays) to try it out for dinner. The menu, at a glance, looked a lot like Annisette’s minus the raw bar. There was a lot of good stuff though. I didn’t see a Croque Madame though. I may have to ask for it special.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Alain Giraud, Bakery, chocolate croissant, croissant, Croque Madame, French Restaraunt, Maison Giraud, Pacific Palisades, pane raison, Restaraunt, Restaurant Review