Monday, September 18, 2006

Venice and close to Overland

The variety in food in the Los Angeles area can't be surpassed. I've been to so many different kinds of places that serve an amazing variety of food from all over the world. Cafe Brasil is a personal favorite during weekday lunches, because of their proximity and their famous executive lunch. Roll up to the cashier, past mismatched tables and chairs with big cheery bowls of lemons, apples or tomatoes in them (real, not fake!) I usually don't order anything but the Executive Lunch, which is only available for a small narrow frame of time during lunch-hour. It's a perfect plate of steak, or chicken, with rice, plantains, beans and pico de gallo. Not too much of anything, not too little. Very steaky - notice the lack of onions on the steak, because Amber hates onions. So I took 'em! One person's trash is another person's treasure - in this case, her onion hatred becomes my onion, er, treasure? Anyways, I nabbed her onions. Check out those big delicious plantains on the rice...cooked so slow, sometimes with a little carmelized crust to the edge of the soft, melt in your mouth banana-y but not quite center. Here's my chicken plate, delicious dark meat (my favorite) with an abundance of onions. The pico de gallo is really good here too, with a bit of mustard to mello out the flavors. The tomatoes are very freshly chopped and not overly ripe, the cilantro and onion bits make this pico de gallo one of my favorites.

Let's not forget the beans...their beans are served separately, in a little bowl, which you can then spoon over your rice. I think the consideration of letting you do this step is key, I've had mushy rice from the bean-soup soaking it too long and it's not pleasant.

This is a really chill place to eat and a nice escape from the usual bustle of LA. I've had their sandwich too, that was good but the executive lunch is the best, because of the mix of flavors. Also, try one of their little appetizers, like the cohixina (I think that's how it's spelled, but I'm not sure.) It's a cute little teardrop shaped fried dumpling looking thing, with chicken leg meat inside. It's a great appetizer to the equally great food.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

We have a cafe brazil in santa cruz except it's only open for breakfast and lunch. das it

heysandra said...

Yeah, I think this one is open for lunch and dinner, I don't think breakfast though.