Cafe Paradiso

Way too much catching up to do, I know. I'm doing my best...I have so much to share still!

Daphne and I went on another food adventure, using another Restaurant.com certificate. Cafe Paradiso was fairly close to her place, but was a bit hard to park around that area. We managed to find metered street parking, which I am always paranoid about. Ah, well, we found it okay.

We walked into an empty restaurant...which was a little worrisome, this was during major lunch rush hours. Our server was very friendly though, and was quite attentive. Daphne was STARVING that day, so she was ready to chow down.

I got an arnold palmer, my usual drink order. It was presented in a vibrant pink grapefruit cup, which is kind of misleading, but almost made my drink taste better - I love the design on it, makes me want to drink pink grapefruit juice!

A bottle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar was placed on the table, this was some decent balsamic, very flavorful. This would be great on a salad.

Fresh bread, placed at the table. The bread was pretty fresh, chopped focaccia, the same kind that would later be on my sandwich.

Daphne ordered a minestrone soup to start, I had a small taste and thought it was decently tasty, veggies were well cooked, and good deep veggie flavor. The serving size was just right, I think - not too much where it's an overload and not too little to make you feel like you only got a taste.

Daph got the catch of the day - I think it was red snapper - which came with some simple pasta with butter sauce, topped with red pepper flakes. The fish was really good - cooked just right, moist, topped with fresh veggies. She cleaned off this whole plate.

I got a steak panini, and honestly, I wasn't digging on this sandwich. The steak was overloaded with balsamic flavor, and I think the problem was that it WAS just steak, pretty much. I think a slice of tomato was in there. I just wouldn't order this again, I only ate half and I wasn't looking forward to eating the other half. The caesar salad was good, standard caesar salad, heavy on the parmesan cheese which I liked.

Close up of the half of panini sandwich I ate...see...just meat stuff and tomato. I need a little more variety, maybe some greenery?


For dessert, Daph and I shared a lemony tart thing. The texture was nice, it was drier than I thought it should taste, but sufficient as a dessert. I like the raspberry sauce, which tasted fresh.

Overall, it was an ok lunch but I think they overcharged us (as in, they didn't apply the restaurant.com coupon properly or something). I don't think I'll go out of my way to come here, but it might be better for dinner, and Daph's meal looked good, so maybe I'd give it another chance.

Cafe Paradiso
2408 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90403
(310) 828-0218

Getty Villa Cafe (revisit)

A couple of weeks back, Daphne had mentioned that she had never been to the Getty Villa, and I was hankering to do a drive next to the ocean, so we made our reservations and headed on down the PCH to the Villa. I usually never head this way in general, so it was a treat to go. After taking some fun pictures, admiring the handiwork of artisans of many different eras, and stopping at the gift shop to yearn over some books, we headed to the Getty Cafe.

I had been here before, but wanted to try something new. I went with...

..a Greek chicken wrap. This was quite delicious, a lot of fresh veggies (I mostly remember the bell peppers, onions and spinach), feta cheese and moist roasted chicken. The garlic fries were good too. I ended up eating half of the wrap and giving the rest to Daphne, because this is what she ordered:



A penne pasta with butternut squash. Fail fail fail on this. These noodles were way overcooked, and the 'sauce' was nonexistent. The butternut squash itself was okay though, Daphne did her best to pick all of those pieces out and eat them, but that was really the only thing worth eating on this plate. It was gross, do not order this if you go. Also, this dish took an extremely long time to arrive to the table, I was slowly eating my food and offered Daphne my fries to satiate her hunger as we watched the servers serve everyone else around us.


Luckily, to make up for her pasta, Daphne had shrewdly ordered dessert beforehand, which was a pumpkin flan, with a bit of caramel sauce, and came with two brownie bites. This made up for the lack of edible matter in Daphne's pasta dish. The flan was excellent, really tasty, and had a great texture which I attribute to the pumpkin flavored puree. The brownie bites were an odd choice to be paired with this, I thought - texture and flavor wise, completely contrasted with each other, but they were good on their own.

I think for the amount of volume this cafe has to run through, they are doing a decent job, but that pasta dish was a travesty. Perhaps just a fluke in the otherwise solid Getty Cafe.

Getty Villa Cafe
17985 Pacific Coast Hwy
Malibu, CA