Tudor House Restaurant

I took Owen's grandma, Nannie, here, because she loves her British food and she can't cook, and this is one of the better places to go (along with enjoying a nice sunny day close to the ocean). We were one of two occupied tables at this place, on a weekday early afternoon, but I think this place gets pretty crowded on the weekends, for people wanting afternoon tea. The one waitress was extremely British, and nice, but it was a lot for her to handle when other people started arriving to eat. Nannie, of course, has to have:

...her tea, she always has to have tea or coffee. I snapped this because of the nice tea set that came with her tea, that creamer is just too awesome.

And here's a cup of Nannie's tea (no sugar, only cream), she chose orange pekoe. After checking out the extensive menu (everything looked so tempting! Fish and chips were strongly calling my name...) I decided upon something I've never had before.

I got bangers and mash, with a choice of beans as my side. This was so delicious - I have never had sausages like this - all perfectly burnished on the outside, the grind of meat on the inside was very smooth, no nubbins of fat (yeah I know, gross, but that's sausage for you), it was just all around tasty. The mash was really nice as well, and the gravy was something to behold. The British definitely know their gravy. Beans were nothing to scream home about but added a nice flavor contrast to the meat and potatoes.

Nannie got the same thing, bangers and mash, but wanted mushy peas as her side. I just think the name is hilarious - "mushy peas"? I think mushy peas need to talk to their marketing department, maybe they can jazz their name up to something less...baby food sounding. Well, mushy peas are very descriptive of what they are - when I saw them on Nannie's plate it was pretty much what I expected. Didn't try them, but didn't really want to try them either. Nannie was quite content with her food, (which was great because she otherwise, I've only seen her eat grilled cheese sandwiches and quesadillas...seriously.)

Tudor House is pretty cool because there's also a store attached to the restaurant, where you can buy British goods, plus they sell pastries and pies, which are awesome to get for later. British candy is also awesome (Cadbury's makes some decent stuff, try a "Flake" bar!)

Tudor House Restaurant (and store)
1403 2nd St
Santa Monica, CA 90401-2301
(310) 451-4107
www.thetudorhouse.com

Smokehouse Restaurant

So, I work next to this old timey restaurant called the Smokehouse, which is supposedly one of George Clooney's haunts. Can't say I've seen him there (but when I do, I will give him a piece of my mind! One of my first questions - "How do you get your eyelashes to be so amazing?"), but Louisa and I have stopped in on numerous occasions now, mainly to take advantage of their $12.99 Prime rib Monday special. Yes, folks, you read it right - 13 dollas' for a sweet slice of prime rib, complete with 2 sides. If that isn't recession friendly, I don't know what is.

But they gotta make their money's worth as well, right? They're known for their famous garlic bread, as shown by their take out aluminum foil bread loaf bag...(this is another time, when I got take out garlic bread by itself...)

"Worlds Greatest Garlic bread" huh? We'll see about that...

And this is what a half order looks like. Old school artery clogging goodness. The topping, Owen has noted, looks and tastes like contents of those Kraft Macaroni and Cheese sauce packets. Processed, powderized cheese and garlic bits. Well, I guess they USED to be garlic and cheese at some point...right? Well, it's all pretty damn tasty still (again, my love for fake nacho cheese probably helps with this). This is where they get yer money's worth out of you, bread isn't free at Smokehouse, half order is like 4 bucks, and full order is like 6 bucks. Hrm, digging into the pockets now for that extra change...okay, back to the rest of the meal...


Here's my Prime rib special, (cooked to my specifications, medium) with my two chosen sides of creamed spinach and mashed potatoes. They have those little extras that are always nice with a prime rib - horseradish sauce, and a little gravy boat of au jus. Tasty...very tasty. This is a usual item on the menu, that costs, oh, 23 dollars? So this isn't that gross cheap 2 dollar prime rib from a shady casino in Vegas (oh so suspicious! why does it cost 2 dollars?!) I'd also like to mention that the service is LIGHTING FAST here. Once you order, I say it takes about 5 minutes for them to deliver your meal to the table. But I guess I'm speaking for myself, since I usually only go on Mondays, when there's less people. But every single time - super fast service.

Louisa's plate looks pretty similar to mine, except she chose the asparagus spears and the rice pilaf. She raves about their rice pilaf, someday I will get it instead of my power combo above.

Smokehouse feels fancy, like taking your grandparents out to a nice birthday meal, but with a deal like that, the fanciness is just the icing on the cake to a great meal. Clooney, I'll meet you there, when, next Monday? Yeah, prime rib's on me, hah.

Smokehouse Restaurant
4420 West Lakeside Drive
Burbank, California 91505
(818) 845-3731

Stinking Rose

Stacey had never tried the Stinking Rose, and had been curious, so I made reservations for a few of us to go. Last time we had been there, it was for my 23rd (?? something like that, the years start melding together) birthday, so it had been a few years since we had been here last. We were all willing to go again, so I made some reservations and we headed over after work, which is a hop skip and a jump from where we work on Miracle Mile.

Stinking Rose has a bunch of memorabilia on the walls, a la Buca di Beppo style (although I think Buca di Beppo ripped this place off). We were lead to our booth, in the middle of a faux patio area, and settled in.

They delivered a set of bread rolls to our table, which we dug into. I remember last time I was here, they had a separate container with this garlic parsley mix which we could spoon over our bread, but this time, they had baked it right onto the bread. I actually preferred the other version, where I could spoon my own amount on top of the bread (because I would have smothered it with garlic, hah!) but the baking of the garlic mellowed it out a bit, so I wasn't horribly upset.

Owen and I ordered the Bagna Calda for the table. "garlic cloves, oven-roasted in extra virgin olive oil and butter with a hint of anchovy. "...This is a pretty neat dish... you take one of these cloves, mash it with some bread, and you've got an amazing flavor/texture combo going on. I think I ate a bunch of these on their own too...I love garlic.

Now, the main courses...Owen got the Garlic Braised Boneless Short Rib, which comes with, of course, garlic mashed potatoes. I tried a bite of this, and agreed with him - it tasted like my version of pot roast that I'd make sometimes, and that's not a bad thing. The meat was soft, easily cut with a fork, and the gravy was spot on, not too salty.

I chose the Forty Clove Garlic Chicken - roasted chicken, with a ton of garlic cloves (were there really 40 of them? I didn't count), and those garlic mashed potatoes. This was pretty decent, the white meat was still moist and not overcooked like I sadly get most of the time whenever I order chicken from a restaurant. The skin was a good golden color, and the mashed potatoes were great. I enjoyed this dish for what it was, a good roasted chicken dish.

Stacey got the Italian Garlic Meat Loaf, the other dish was mulling over to get. What a HUGE chunk of meatloaf - this was the size of half a brick, literally. I tried a taste of it, and it was pretty good, very garlic infused. More of those garlic mashed potatoes again...and...spinach? What is that? I actually don't know what that green mass is on the plate...

Bryan got the salmon and veggies as a side - so healthy! I didn't try any but he finished it all so I'm assuming it was decent.

I've had it before, but everyone has to try the Gilroy's Famous Garlic Ice Cream with caramel mole sauce. If you notice, the dish itself is frozen as well - I guess they pre-scoop these, and freeze everything, dish and all. The ice cream was EXTREMELY hard, very difficult to even try to liberate a small bite out of the garlic ice cream scoop. We had to let it thaw out a bit. It was actually very good, more of a sweet creamy mellow garlic flavor and not at all gross like most people would think garlic ice cream tastes. The caramel sauce also elevated the ice cream's flavor.

The Stinking Rose was pretty good, especially for a chain and a hyped special occasion dinner place on Restaurant Row. I admit though, my stomach hurt a bit afterwards..was it all the garlic? Maybe we're not meant to eat that many garlic cloves...but it was worth it either way.

The Stinking Rose
55 N. La Cienega Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA