RM Seafood

These are extremely old photos, but I wanted to post them to show some of the reason why I had been away for so long from the blog...well, the reason I had a few years ago anyways. (after that, it was work, laziness, lack of motivation - I am probably going to beat myself up for awhile in the next few weeks of posting, it is part of the process, heh.)   

I had been planning my wedding in Vegas for ages - it was somewhat stressful, as I am a person who likes planning things out a lot.  My wedding venue was at Mandalay Bay Casino Hotel Resort.  Owen and I loved the chapel's simple and contemporary design. Once location was set, we had to decide on the food.  I had booked RM Seafood initially, just based on what they had on the menu - my parents and I had discussed how important it was to be able to offer wedding guests delicious seafood options.  

My parents and I ended up visiting Vegas on our own around the new year, staying at Encore through a special deal (in a beautiful suite room, so amazing!) We decided to try out RM Seafood to see what kind of food offerings they had.  

The outside of the restaurant.  A very neat water running over glass effect is seen as you enter, if you look up.  Also, my parents are in this shot! Hey mom and dad!  :D

Upon entering, I talked to our waiter and explained that we were trying different dishes to determine what we were going to serve our guests at the wedding.  He tried to point out different dishes that were on the separate catering menu.  

We ordered the clam chowder to start.  Creamy, however I remember thinking it could have been more flavorful.

Steak, eggs and fries.  A pretty great offering of the three.  I loved how the egg was presented in a little cast iron dish, separate from everything else - perfect to keep the deliciously runny eggs in their place.  Crispy light fries, great to dip into the broken egg yolk. I expected the cut of the steak to be tough but it was actually quite tender and nice!

Burger and fries.  Good and satisfying.  More fries.  My weakness. 

Crab cake, the thing that we definitely needed to try, as it would have been the main thing to serve to wedding guests.  I remember it not being very hot when it arrived to the table though. The crab cake itself was decent, not very much filler. The slaw was a nice contrast.  

Okay, so we tried some dishes, but this ended up NOT being the location of our lunch wedding reception for a couple of reasons...please remember that I was figuring out wedding event reception details and this is not normally how I would judge a restaurant.  

1.  The tepid reception of the waiter and manager when telling them that I was trying out dishes for my wedding reception.  

I was treated pleasantly, but no special treatment or separate presentation of each dish.  I didn't expect a red carpet reception but the general attitude was cold towards me and my parents.  I asked to see the area where the reception was going to be held and they pointed to an area behind a curtain.  They didn't show me around or give me a tour.

2.  The distance of RM Seafood from the chapel

People were probably going to get lost in the casino on the way there.  It was a little confusing to find for the older folks (It was hard for me to find at first!) 

3.  The AMAZING reception I got from Border Grill.  That will be an upcoming post.  But it was everything I wanted it to be.  

Based on the food itself, RM Seafood was very tasty, and I would gladly go again for a special occasion lunch or dinner with friends or just me and Owen. However, for our reception, it just didn't make the cut.      

Five Guys Burgers and Fries

I like burgers a lot, as you can tell. When I heard about Five Guys trying to battle the In N Out market out here, I was intrigued - I needed to try these burgers to compare!

Drinks after we ordered. I like that I can have unsweetened ice tea (sweetened is too sweet!)

Their seasoned fries.  To be honest, as much as I like seasoned fries I think these were too seasoned/salty and could have been crispier.  Next time I will probably stick to just the burger.  I'm amazed at how my palate has been changing as I am edging closer to the age of 30!

Owen's burger.  One patty, bacon and cheese.

My burger.  I think I just got cheese.

My opinion - I still like In n out better.  I liked the customization (mushrooms!  swiss cheese!) and the size of the burger (not too big, not too small) but I honestly did not like the taste as much as I thought I would.  If I closed my eyes I would have thought it was a Carl's Jr. burger.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but this does not defeat In n Out as my favorite fast food burger.  Maybe I should try it again to reassess.  

Vegas getaway

A mini trip to Vegas! Literally, we went here just to go to a room, sleep all day, and then sleep some more. Is that weird? A vacation to sleep? Considering we live behind a car lot, and a really busy street, I don’t really get to experience pure silence very often, and better yet, air conditioning on a hot day. A hotel provides all these things, and I found a great deal to stay at Caesar’s Palace, so we booked a few days here.

We got off our flight extremely early (well, extremely early, relative to me and Owen) – our flight was annoyingly scheduled for 7 in the morning or something – by the time we rolled into Payard Patisserie, we were ready for a good meal to start us off on a better foot for the rest of our mini-break.

The seating is very interesting here – the cook is in the middle, where he makes everything to order, and the patrons are all seated around him in a circular design. It’s a very different kind of setup, but I found it was fascinating watching the cook make everything, (picking up some cooking tips, hah.) Our waiter was very good, very attentive but not too bothersome. We both ordered a glass of orange juice to start.



I really liked this juice! It tasted fresh squeezed, I think Owen mentioned it was the “best fresh squeezed orange juice he’s had”. It was a really tall glass, as well…I guess in Vegas, go big or go home, right?



Owen and I decided to get two plates, and halfway through, to switch and share. He ordered the French toast with Berry compote. This was amazing, this dish managed to be rich, yet light at the same time. The berries were my favorite kinds – raspberry, blueberry and blackberry, in their own juices, were not sweetened, so it didn’t feel like a over-sugared mess we usually get for something like this. This dish was overall NOT sweet, which I actually loved! And I USUALLY hate French toast, (weird hang-up, I know.), but I liked this a lot – the bread was almost custardy in the middle, the whipped cream was really freshly whipped cream, and not just sugary junk. If there was ever a perfect French toast plate, this would be it for me.



I ordered a croque madame – a ham and swiss sandwich, toasted, topped with béchamel sauce and a sunny side up egg. The plate was rounded out with a stuffed tomato, and mixed baby greens with a vinaigrette. I only had half of this and secretly wished I could have eaten the whole thing, heh. Again, the richness was not too rich, balanced by the tartness of the vinaigrette on the greens, and the tomato, and the bechamel was not globbed on, like other places I've had this before - this was almost toasted into the sandwich already, so it was more a flavorful crunch on the outside of the bread. Excellent meal, and we will definitely be back.

We also picked up some croissants - Owen got a chocolate croissant, and I got a regular plain one. I didn't take a picture of these, but I SWEAR they were some of the best croissants I've ever eaten.

A bit later, while Owen was asleep (I had napped earlier, as I slept much less than him the night before), I went off on my own and walked around the Caesar's Palace gambling area on my own. I was pretty hungry (this was around dinnertime, and I didn't eat since around 10am at Payard), so I grabbed something at the food court. This is what I got...



A Lobster roll with fries. Uh...well, I guess I can't say that my expectations were extremely high, but the bread was extremely burnt, which was a shame because it was a nice amount of buttered brioche. The lobster itself..a cold mash of seafood tasting stuff, but lobster meat was definitely lacking. I don't know if it WAS actually lobster, but...what should I expect from a food court, right? The fries were addicting, but I made an effort to only eat a few, because I knew Owen would be hungry later that night. I also got an iced tea, which was not pictured. I got a lot of mileage out of that iced tea, as you could refill your drinks from the soft serve machine yourself, so during the whole of our stay, I would go back to refill the drink with the same cup...awesome!

After a few games of Monopoly Penny Slots (ahhh, so mindless, those slot machines), a bit of shopping (the Forum shops are MASSIVE!), I went back to check on Owen, who I think, could have slept the whole night if I hadn't had walked back in the room. At that point, it was pretty late, but I knew there was a 24 hour restaurant at Caesar's, and I had gotten a 20 dollar food coupon for the cafe, because I had signed up for their rewards club (might as well, it's free, right?)

At the Augustus Cafe, I felt like it took forever to get our food...a lot of waiting, and then everything came at once. We weren't in a hurry but it really took an abnormal amount of time to get what we ordered.



First off, onion rings. These were really tasty, actually - beer battered, thick, dusted with parmesan cheese, and two dipping sauces (red pepper aioli and ranch). Addicting, and a huge amount of them, we wanted to finish these off because we couldn't save them for later.



Whenever there's a club sandwich available on the menu, Owen will almost always order it. This was pretty standard, oddly with the addition of roast beef, but they were heavy on the bacon (awesome!). These fries were very fresh, oddly better than the other fries with the other sandwich (which came later than this one.) We saved half of this sandwich for later, which was happily devoured by us in our hotel room the next morning.



I had a hankering for french onion soup, which made this an onion heavy meal. This was mouthwatering when they set it down - melty gruyere cheese, on top of a french bread piece, with savory beef broth, and tons of carmelized onions. A huge amount of soup, again, Vegas does not skimp on quantity. I made an extra effort to finish this because there's no way to save this soup for later.



Last thing we ordered (we definitely ordered too much) was a prime rib dip sandwich, which was piled high with quality beef, a little saucer of au-jus, and fries. Oddly, these fries were not the seasoned ones, pretty much the same fries from the food court that I had had earlier. We only managed a quarter of this sandwich, and saved the rest.

We had a few other meals in Vegas but it had been places we had been to before (Bouchon, although it was a dinner instead of the brunch we usually have, I remember sharing a roasted chicken, mixed green salad and creme brulee, all delicious of course). It was a pretty successful trip, I'd say, aside from the horrible early plane flights. Of course, another trip to Vegas will be in the future, so stay tuned!


Payard Patisserie, Caesar's Palace Food Court, Augustus Cafe, all at:
Caesar's Palace
E Flamingo Rd & Las Vegas Blvd South
Las Vegas, NV 89109

Bouchon is at Venetian Hotel
Spring Mountain Rd & Las Vegas Blvd South
Las Vegas, NV 89109

Hungry Fox

A visit to my friend Mike in the valley, and I took him out to breakfast to escape his house. We went around the corner to his neighborhood breakfast place, Hungry Fox. I remember coming here during the first year of college, when I was around the valley a fair amount of time. Since then, I've usually avoided going over the hill, thusly, haven't visited Hungry Fox in ages. The place is really welcoming, more of a mom and pop diner style, with mini booths and chairs. A lot of locals come here, and they tout their "homemade jam". This is what we got...

A glass of orange juice. Nothing special, I doubt it was fresh squeezed, but did the job.


Mike ordered pigs in a blanket, three pancakes with sausage rolled in the middle. He scarfed them down pretty quick so I guess they were good, I don't care for pancakes much so I didn't have a taste.

And here's the inside shot of the "pig" in the blanket. They used sausage patty instead of the usual sausage, interesting choice, I don't think it deterred much from the flavor or anything, it just makes it harder to roll up.

I felt like lunch at that point so I ordered me a gyro with fries. This was actually pretty tasty, the yogurt sauce was tasty, the gyro meat grilled again after sliced off the meat cone. Fries were crinkle cut, a fry style I enjoy. Overall, a solid lunch.

Hungry Fox is a cute little place with nice friendly folks. If anything, I'll be back for a breakfast-for-lunch if I'm in the area.

Hungry Fox
13359 Sherman Way
North Hollywood, CA 91605-4442
(818) 765-7111

Lemon Moon

Restaurants that are only open on weekdays are so frustrating, especially on my schedule. Even worse, is when they're only open for breakfast and lunch. Why should I ever need to jump through both of those hoops to get a meal? Well, I made the hoop jump one of those days to go to Lemon Moon. The place is almost a secret, residing at the bottom of an office complex, only open during the exclusive hours of breakfast and lunch on weekdays only. Really dang tough to get to, but I think it's worth the effort once in awhile...

It's one of those places where you order, get your number and sit down, and then they bring the food out to you. We snagged a seat outdoors (I love outdoor seating!), in their secluded patio area. Chatting for awhile, our food arrived - it looked really tasty and we dug right in...

Daphne got a Pulled Pork sandwich, with cole slaw, and a side of mushroom polenta. The mushroom polenta was super rich, each bite was like eating savory cheesecake. So good. She was fairly pleased with the pulled pork, although probably there's places that taste better, this was quite serviceable, and she finished off the whole thing.



I got a turkey burger, with teriyaki sauce, and french fries. This was pretty tasty, actually! The turkey burger was moist, flavorful (especially with the teriyaki sauce), and the bread to meat ratio was pretty good, usually there's too much bread. Fries were decent. This was overall a decent plate o' food.

Not saying this place merits a "skip work to try this restaurant" kind of aura, but it's definitely a "I wish this place was closer to my workplace so I could eat here more often" kind of vibe. 

Fords Filling Station -DINELA lunch

Another DINELA lunch, this time with Amber at Ford's Filling Station, as she had never been there before and wanted to use this chance to try some of the things I've been raving about to her about this place. I got there a bit early, and had to wait till Amber got there before being seated - it was quite busy inside. We were immediately handed the cool die cut menus, which prominently displayed the DINE LA lunch menu option.

Amber chose the Sturgeon Confit - thyme, lemon and country bread as her appetizer. She enjoyed this a lot, I think the bread was nicely toasted, and the sturgeon was perfectly salted and cooked, not overdone. Nice.

I went for the Goose Rillette - with micro rocket greens and whole grain mustard. A small smear of the goose rillette (kind of like a goose flavored mash of meatiness, with a touch of liver flavor) on one of those little toasts, and a small bit of mustard....quite excellent. Pretty rich, though, maybe I shouldn't have started with this considering what was to come...


...as Amber and I both got the Fish and Chips - beer battered cod with all the fixins, pickled carrots, and "ooo-eee" sauce. Man, what a fry bucket this was. I loved the way they fried the fish, which was nice and flaky, not overdone at all - tempura batter, and generous portions. I love their onion rings here, but this was almost overload. The salad was nice to eat, basically because it was one of the few not fried things on the plate. Heh.


Now for desserts - Amber got the Profiteroles with in house made nutella ice cream. The nutella ice cream was the star of this plate, a rich deep chocolatey hazelnutty flavor, really well balanced.


I couldn't help myself, I got the Butterscotch Pudding with a bit of mascarpone cream on top. This was heavenly. I love butterscotch pudding and this was really the pinnacle of butterscotch. I loved the chopped nuts on top, it gave a nice contrast to the pudding.

Chef Ben Ford happened to be walking around asking each table what they thought of the meal, and I couldn't help but gush to him about how much I enjoyed everything. I'll definitely be back.

Ford's Filling Station
9531 Culver Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232
(310) 202-1470

Chaya Venice - DINELA lunch

Finally, catching up to some old posts - a little late for posts on DINE LA, but wanted to share anyways. I wanted to really try some new restaurants, with a discounted price tag, and I had heard good things about Chaya Venice - well, the place looks dang nice from the outside, in any case.

Service was brisk and pleasant. I think I stuck with water but Owen got some iced tea.

Bread basket landed first to the table. A good crusty white bread, and oddly enough, a raisin bread. These were both amazing in their olive oil/finely minced olive dip. The raisins really shone through!

Owen kicked my ass in the healthy department that day, he ordered the
Wakame Seaweed and Organic Green Salad with Ginger Vinaigrette as his starter. I didn't think there was anything particularly special about this salad, honestly, I can eat this at home from a bag of organic salad from Trader Joe's. Owen's not really a fan of seaweed in this fashion so I took advantage of that by sneaking as much as I could on my plate, heh.


So of course, I order the most unhealthiest thing you can order from the appetizer list, the Fried Calamari with Cajun Spice and Spicy Marinara, with Curry dipping sauce. The batter was nice and light, very Japanese tempura style. The squid was nice and supple, not overcooked, this is actually one of the best preparations of calamari I can remember in recent days. The curry dipping sauce is what catapulted this to another level - a bit of a kick, and a different flavor that I'm used to having with calamari. I really enjoyed the combination.

Owen's main course was the Spicy Lobster Roll - Lobster, Shrimp, Smelt Egg, Cucumber, Avocado, which came with more of that salad. If he had known, he would have gotten the soup of the day for an appetizer instead! On to the rolls themselves...

...here's a blurry closeup. I tried one, and I didn't think it was any kind of special at all. I didn't really taste anything that resembled lobster, the roll was pretty dry and uninspired. I doubt I would ever get sushi here if I came back.

However, my meal was much more to my liking - a Kobe Beef Burger - Grilled Kobe Beef with Lettuce, Tomato, Grilled Onion, Aged White Cheddar, Mango Chutney, Spicy Mayonnaise and served with Beer Battered French Fries. This is serious stuff. First off, LOVED the fries. Why aren't all fries beer battered ones? The crispy flavorful texture on the outside, and the warm soft potatoey insides. The person manning the fryer here is a masterful one.


Here's a close up on that burger. It's a decent one, the meat was great quality (although, was it really Kobe? Will I really know?) It was a lot more done than I had asked for (medium), but it didn't detract from the juiciness and the overall satisfuying experience of the burger as a whole. The bun held up well against all the burger ingredients. A solid, filling burger, I only ate half and let Owen eat the rest of it later, which he throughly enjoyed.

Dessert! Owen's favorite part of the meal, he ordered the Profiteroles with Candied Pecan Ice Cream and Hot Fudge. He absolutely loved this. The creamy ice cream was distinctly pecan flavored, but had a subtle burnt sugar taste in the background. The hot fudge was just the right amount, and aided in the melting of the ice cream, which brought it to just the right temperature, soft enough to cut through with a spoon but still frozen enough to let you know it's still ice cream. I think Owen would order this again, definitely.

I decided to get SOME sort of healthy nutrition in me, so I opted for the Fresh Fruit with Green Tea Ice Cream. Nothing special, some of the fruit was off season and tongue punishingly tart, but the green tea ice cream healed all wounds. A welcome light finish to a heavy meal.

I would definitely come here again, even without the special DineLA menu, but I think it's best to stay away from the sushi here. This might be an asian food inspired place but it's no sushi bar.

Chaya Venice
110 Navy St
Venice, CA 90291
thechaya.com

Chicago for Ribs

I've been trying to tone down some of the spending recently, as times are tough, and one of my methods to save some cash is to buy gift certificates from restaurant.com to restaurants around my area. They were having a killer deal on gift certificates during the holiday season (80% off their regular prices...I think I paid maybe 2 dollars for each 25 dollar gift certificate), so I bought a bunch of them, in the hopes I will use them to get some deals. It might not be the most frugal thing I've done but at the same time, I gotta have some vices in my life right?

Well anyways, I used a gift certificate the other day to go to Chicago for Ribs, which I had only been to a long time ago (during college, this place was down the street from us.) It's a chain, which I usually stay away from, but desperate financial times call for desperate measures!! Bryan and I went here for a lunch, while he had jury duty. Seated in a booth, I had to get my usual drink...

...an arnold palmer. The glass screamed out the logo for Chicago for Ribs, I guess it's justifiable, since we're eating there. A decent arnold palmer.

Bryan got the cheeseburger, well done (his usual lunch order at a place like this.) It came with waffle fries, coleslaw, and a wedge of pickle. He managed to finish this (it was like a mission, the determination was in his eyes!), no small feat because this burger was I think a full half of a pound before cooking. I particularly like the waffle fries here, but then again, I just generally like waffle fries. I'm sure the burger was decent, again, Bryan didn't leave a bit of burger at all.

Here's some cornbread that came with my meal. I didn't really eat it, as I'm not really the biggest cornbread fan, so I took it home and it got stuck in the back of the fridge, and by the time I unearthed it, it was a pale, mummified and hard as a rock. Sorry poor cornbread, for your untimely waste.

I got the chicken fingers plate, with waffle fries and baked potato. I know, heavy on the carbs, but I only ate half of this meal, as I was feeling a little too full from some soup I had earlier in the day. The waffle fries - again, awesome. The amount of chicken on this plate was way more than I was expecting, so that was nice. A few dipping sauces came along with this - ranch and bbq, and I asked for some honey mustard, which they were really cool about. If I'm going to eat like a kid, I might as well have some fun with it, right? I was getting flashbacks of grade school, dipping my chicken nuggets in all those sauces, which was fun! The baked potato was alright, just a baked potato.

So another chain restaurant under my belt, and really, not so bad. I mean, you probably still won't see me at an Applebees' (will. not. go.) but for a quick lunch with no fuss, I'd go again.

Chicago for Ribs
8311 Lincoln Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90045
(310) 670-7427

www.chicagoforribs.com

Islands

After a trip to see Tropic Thunder (funny, if not something I completely remember all the jokes for right now - I guess in the scheme of directed/written by Ben Stiller movies: Better than Cable Guy, worse than Zoolander) at the Bridge, we resigned ourselves to go to Islands (mainly because they were the only restaurant still open.) I say resigned ourselves because this isn't my favorite place for a number of reasons, mainly, their just okay burgers for not so okay prices, the constant loop of skateboarding/snowboarding/extreme-sports-porn playing on their television monitors all the time, the misuse of the theme of Islands (what do Islands and extreme sports have to do with each other, and burgers?)...well, the list goes on. But we went anyways, and here's my rundown.

After being seated in a booth, where the surface of the table was supposed to resemble a shiny waxed surfboard...because when I think of eating off of any kind of surface, I hope it's someone's surfboard! ha!...we were asked for our drink orders. Drinks are ridiculously expensive here for some reason, but I was willing to get...
...a strawberry lemonade, which I remembered being decent to drink in former visits to Islands, but this sucked. Way too sweet - it was like drinking pure strawberry flavored concentrate. I asked for an ice water, which I mixed with this to make it somewhat drinkable.

These little pop up flier ads to promote the fact that Islands burgers FINALLY COME WITH FRIES. I like how they make it seem like they're "free"...I'm sure the marketing team was patting themselves on the back for that one. Just to explain - every other time I've gone to Islands, their burgers do NOT come with fries. The extremely expensive price for each item includes ONLY the burger, and you can choose to get a "basket of fries" for "an extra price" to share with the group. Note on those baskets of fries - I never really liked the fries much at Islands, making it even more futile of an investment. The fries had a ton of skin on them (the every fry I ate there before has been abnormally large amount of peel on them, while I don't usually mind there just seemed to be just extra skins. Almost like they were adding EXTRA skin for my displeasure.) Well, I guess they finally gave in, and switched to "free fries".

This is the half order of caesar salad I got, with the addition of chicken breast slices. I thought it was just okay but Owen really liked it a lot - he ate every last bit. The chicken was real chicken breast, and not that processed nasty preformed chicken, so that was a huge plus. I also like the addition of the extra shredded cheese that adorns the greenery, a nice touch.

This is their Maui Burger - a beef burger with guacamole, bacon, swiss, mayo, lettuce, tomato on a whole wheat bun, with their now "free" fries. This is actually the best burger I've ever had here at Islands - a good mix of toppings, good and griddled burger patty. Perhaps I've been too harsh on this place - they have made changes for the better. The fries were actually good this time around too, with a good crunchy bite to them.

Bryan got a "Kaanapali Kobb" salad, which contained: Grilled & chilled chicken breast, crumbled bacon, fresh avocado, tomatoes, chopped hard cooked egg, scallions, bleu cheese crumbles & lettuce. This usually comes already tossed with dressing but Bryan asked for no dressing. He finished this so I assume it was good, it looks basic and decent,with fresh ingredients (that avocado looks especially appetizing).

So maybe I was wrong about Islands, maybe I can deal with their burger flipping existence a bit longer. A lot of good points on this trip - they were open later, burger and fries were good, salad was decent. Thumbs down on the strawberry lemonade though.

Islands (various locations around the west coast, I went to the West LA locatio at:)
6081 Center Drive, Unit 104
Los Angeles, CA
(310) 670-8580

Three Square Cafe

Owen and I met up for lunch around his workplace, and we decided to try out Three Square Cafe. I had been to Three Square bakery a bunch of times (their jalapeno cheese pretzel comes to mind) but wanted to try their cafe fare. After a short wait, we were seated in their outdoor patio area. I was pretty hungry, but our waitress didn't seem to be too concerned about taking our order or being around much. Anyways, she did end up coming around (finally), and this is what we got:
Our usual Arnold Palmer order. This was really light on the lemonade, and came already mixed, which is fine. A really light flavor on this one, plus no refills made by our waitress (again, we were lucky to make our orders within, oh, 20 minutes after sitting down. And this place isn't very big...but enough about our lacking waitress)...

This is Owen's order of the mini sandwich sampler, which gives you a choice of 3 sandwiches to try. I saw it on the menu and instantly I knew he was going to order it - he loves having a meal where you can try a bunch of stuff all at the same time. The presentation of this dish is really nice, everything has its' own little container/plate. Let's focus on the sandwiches...

Starting with the sandwich on the right side - this is a shrimp grilled cheese sandwich. I like how they cut the top of the little bun so they could grill it, to give it some texture. The filling to this was tasty, the combo of shrimp and cheese was pretty good, and the bread was delicious.

The middle sandwich was the Bavarian meatloaf on pretzel roll with sweet mustard. The taste ofo the meatloaf is exactly like eating a slice of SPAM. So Owen hated it. I liked it, as I can eat Spam and not feel bad about myself (well, most of the time...) The roll was really tasty, and I enjoyed eating what Owen didn't want to eat, but at the same time, I don't know if I would choose to order this, now that I know what it tastes like.

The last mini sandwich was a Tuna salad with avocado and red onions on brioche roll. This was Owen's favorite mini sandwich, all the flavors mixed really well with every bite, and his love for avocado knows no boundaries. Maybe he should have gotten tuna for all three of his choices...

A good barometer to any restaurant is how good their burger is, so I got their Pretzel burger with Swiss cheese, caramelized onions and French fries. This was a little overwhelming - the pretzel bread is very good on its' own, but paired with a burger patty, it ends up being a bit much. The burger itself - decent, but not memorable. Fries were okay but a bit more boring than my expectations, I guess I expect more...zing, or something, when I'm getting fries with a burger at an establishment like this. The caramelized onions were a good touch though.

It's cool that dog owners get to bring their furry friends to sit outside with them on the patio, and the cool breeze from the ocean adds to the pleasant outdoor seating, but this place was a bit too trendy for me, and maybe if we had gotten better service I'd want to go back more often. As it stands now, it was good to try but I'm sticking to the bakery next door to get my pretzel bread fix.

Three Square Cafe
1121 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice CA