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

Tofu Villa

Owen and I went to an art show opening at GR2 a few weeks back - for an artist I really like (BoyGirlParty). So cute! I love her stuff. Anyways, afterwards, we wanted to get a quick bite to eat, around Sawtelle. A new place, called Tofu Villa, (which had taken the place of a boba shop that used to be there) had opened up near Beard Papa, so I decided to give it a shot. Owen was a bit skeptical, as he thought it was only going to be tofu, but I assured him it was not. We were quickly seated inside, made our decisions quickly and made our order, and instantly, this arrived at the table...

Amazing Korean Pancakes and a sort of salad with tasty dressing. I say amazing, because these pancakes were perfectly crispy but soft and gooey in the middle, and freshly served off the grill (they were pretty hot when they got to our table.) They were the right size, the big ones get a little too undercooked and flabby, whereas these had that extra crunch from being small enough to be cooked to a crisp exterior. Owen and I loved these, I could say that these are the best Korean pancakes I've had yet.

Tons of banchan arrived, enough to cover almost every bit of retail space we had on our small 2 person table. There's pleny to see here, but Owen especially seemed to like the black beans (not pictured), and the tofu spinach (upper left), I liked the japchae (middle), but really we liked everything and getting to try a variety of little dishes.

I got the Korean bbq rib bimibap, a simple platter with two pieces of Korean style rib meat, different kinds of chopped veggies, two pieces of tofu and a perfect sunny side up egg. I prefer the bimibap where it's mixed in a hot stone, so the rice gets a bit crispy, but this version wasn't bad either. I wish there had been more of the spicy red paste to mix everything together (I like my bimibap SPICY) but everything was fresh, so I couldn't complain too much.

Owen got a sizzling platter of bulgolgi. It was basically Korean style fajitas, and you can't go wrong with fajitas, heh. This also came with a small metal bowl of white rice. This was pretty tasty, as marinated meat goes, but not the best bulgolgi I've ever had. Still good though.

When we finished and asked for the check, we were each given one of these - a small looking, but deceptively large amount of frozen yogurt (pinkberry style, "natural" yogurt) in a sampler cup. I actually liked this yogurt better than pinkberry! The yogurt, when eaten, had the first taste of the sourish yogurt, but then sweetened to a honey aftertaste. Owen loved this, and I agreed, it was a very nice surprise ending to our meal.

The service was really good, but I wish they had refilled our waters at least once. They were attentive otherwise. I think we'll be back, as this is a much more convenient place to get our Korean food fix on, instead of Koreatown.

Tofu Villa
2130 Sawtelle Blvd
Ste 112A
Los Angeles, CA 90025

Korean Food Mart (Koreatown Plaza)

Our lunchtime adventures at work have expanded their radius all the way to Korea town! One of our favorite places to go for lunch is in this Korean food mall, within Koreatown Plaza, because of the variety and quality...I'll just go over some of the usual things everyone gets...

This is the dumpling and soup combination at Chew Young Roo. They make fresh dumplings/baos here, right in front of your eyes. From the left - King Dumpling, Red Bean dumpling, and then 2 shrimp dumplings (warning: they're pretty spicy!) This combo also comes with a brothy soup. I've never gotten this combo so I can't tell you what the soup tastes like but it looks like miso soup.

The King Dumplings (in one order, you get 4 of them for 6 dollars) is something that we usually order then share as a group. They're really good- fresh, bursting with meat and veggies, and great with a little bit of soy sauce drizzled in over them before taking a big bite.

Here's what I've gotten a few times - cold noodles and kalbi ribs combo. This is a combination that is the best of all worlds - delicious meat and onions on a sizzling plate, contrasted with cold noodles, which are extremely refreshing. I like the addition of the half egg as well. With a side of kimchi and sliced radish, this is a filling meal but the noodles are pretty light. Highly recommended.

Right outside the foodcourt, there's a Kyedong Fried Chicken. This is a box containing a "whole fried chicken", chopped up into pieces.

I just like the picture of Chef Kyedong...he seems so proud of his chicken.

And here it is, the reveal of what's inside the box...they really chopped up the whole chicken, into little bits even. It also comes with radishes, a common accompaniment to Korean Fried chicken.

Here's the delicious close up. The taste of the fried chicken is surprisingly sweet - after frying, they poured some sort of glaze on it, which was an interesting taste combination. It was like eating candied fried chicken. Pleasant, but not necessarily my bag. I think I prefer a spicier coating or plain, but this was still pretty tasty. My favorite pieces were the drumsticks, of course.

Koreatown Plaza really feels like a transplanted part of Korea in LA. They even have a grocery store, selling meats of all kinds that I will indulge in someday. Oh, they also have really good melon and mango popsicles - I can find them nowhere else.

Koreatown Plaza
928 S. Western Avenue
Los Angeles, CA

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

Royal T Maid Cafe

Amber mentioned that there was a special event going on at the Royal T Maid cafe coming up, and was thinking about going. Since I had never been to the famed "first Maid cafe in the US" dealio, I agreed to go (I guess you gotta embrace your girly side every so often, right?) She made reservations for us at at 3:30pm.

The place was abuzz with activity as we walked into the main restaurant space. The gallery had an impressive collection of a lot of cool Japanese artists, and a section of the gallery was set up for people who had arrived to the event in their finest maid/lolicon/gothic lolita outfits - a photographer would shoot some pictures of you in this cutesy environment they had set up. A lot of people were dressed up - it was nice to see that people had a gathering place to show off their hard work/frilly costumes. But enough about the space, we were there to have high tea....

Even though we had made reservations, we were told we still had to put our names on a list and wait...which we complied to, even though Wonder was pretty hungry. When I saw that another party got immediately seated when they pushed the fact that they had reservations, I had to step up and make a bit of a stink - we had been waiting for at least 40 minutes! A table cleared up after that, so we were finally seated, but it was not a good start to our high tea...

After glancing at the menu, we all decided upon the special high tea set of the day, which was the most expensive thing they had...ah, well, sometimes you have to splurge, right? We were given amazingly pretty cups to drink water out of (those awesome bodum cups - two layered, so drinks would stay really cold/really hot.) The team of three waitress "maids" were really working hard during this event (one of them in high heels, no less!) so we were trying our best to be understanding of their situation.

Our teas arrived first - I ordered some sort of white tea. Each tea came in its' own bodum tea infuser, which is very elegant in presentation. Since it was burning hot outside, I requested some ice and poured my tea over it to make iced tea...which was refreshing.
And then they finally brought out our high tea sets...I admit, they're very pretty...

They're even prettier when they're next to each other.


I always start high tea sets from the bottom, so my descriptions will go the same way...the bottom of the tier started with mini tea sandwiches, and when I say mini, I really mean MINI...from the left...egg salad, tuna salad and avocado, spicy tuna and avocado, and cucumber. I remember the spicy tuna being my favorite, mainly because it was a nice Japanese twist to the usual high tea sandwich. These tiny sandwiches were basically two bites each, tops, so they were pretty much gone in a second.


I then oddly went to the top tier, because quiche is always best eaten before dessert, and before it got cold. It was a mushroom cheese quiche, and to be honest, it kinda sucked. It wasn't very flavorful, the taste was very bland. The crust wasn't rich or flaky, it was just..eh. Probably the weakest thing on the tier, which was unfortunate because I love quiche. Well, briskly moving on to dessert...

From the front center, we have: a pistachio macaron, a black sesame layer cake, a fruit tart, and a chocolate cake. The macaron was okay, I've had better but I don't have them very often so it was a treat, the sesame layer cake was the surprise delight of the desserts - moist, tasty, loved the top layer of...jam? I dunno, but whatever it was, it was delicious. The fruit tart was decent, I always like fruit tarts for the fruit and less for the shell. The chocolate cake was too rich and sweet for my tastes, and I couldn't finish all of it.

All in all, the maid cafe was definitely playing up the ambience level of the tea experience and not really the food. The price was a little too steep for me to come back very often, but they nicely gave us each a gift bag, which contained a "free coffee or tea" coupon. I used it that day to get Owen an iced latte, which he really liked (I think it was made with organic beans), so maybe I'll come back for the coffee bar and not so much the food.

Royal T Maid Cafe
8910 Washington Blvd Culver City, CA 90232

Pizzeria Mozza

Every foodblogger in LA seems to need a Pizzeria Mozza post. I was certainly excited the first time I went, and even the second and third time I went, it still felt like a special occasion. However, every single time, I had been really nervous to take pictures, as we were sitting so close to the people next to us (they really pack us in there, like sardines), and I would feel too self concious to start snapping away. However, finally, during this last trip to Mozza, we were seated way in the back, me next to a wall, and I finally felt comfortable enough to take out the camera and snap a few shots, so my Mozza post can finally be written...it was fate.

This time around, I had gotten street parking, but other times I had been running late, and had to use their extremely ridiculously priced valet parking (I think 8 dollars is the service charge?!!) I mean, yeah, it's LA, yeah, parking is hell, but yipes. Just yipes. That's like...a price of a lunch already, and that's before you even walk through the door...

Walking into Mozza, everything feels so...cozy. Good and bad way to describe it. It's a tiny space, so, as I mentioned before, they really have to pack in the tables and chairs, and why it's so dang hard to get a reservation here. The coziness factor is heightened by the color of the walls, a dark orange, which is easy on the eyes. Wine bottles crowd the walls, people crowd the floor, it's all a jumble, and usually hopping.

Once seated at the table, a few breadsticks are always placed in front of us. They kinda stave off the hunger but what I really want is a big old slab of bread...but I guess we should wait for the pizza. They also ask if you want sparkling, still or filtered tap, and we usually go for the tap. They fill a bottle of it and leave it at the table, which you can use to fill your own glass (if the waiter doesn't get to it first to fill your glasses for you.)

The first of our appetizers - shrimp and melon. Owen really likes this one, as we had it the first time we went to Mozza. The flavors are really punchy and fresh, and everything works harmoniously together. You really feel the mastery of Batali here - his detail in mixing things together, things I wouldn't necessarily eat in the same dish - shrimp, melon, red onion, basil, mint, red pepper flakes. It's so simple, yet kicks you in the pants when you first take a bite. The shrimp is perfectly steamed here - nothing is worse than overcooked shrimp - and soaks up all those sweet and tangy melon-y juices. Really good, a must try.

A favorite of mine, probably not so much Owen's, is bone marrow. Three big honkin' pieces of cow bones, roasted, with the marrow warm and gooey, with softened garlic, salt, and two pieces of grilled toast. This so fun to construct - using the little fork, scraping some marrow onto the toast, mashing a garlic clove into it, maybe a little of the parsley salad, a sprinkle of salt and then the bite into the toast...just...essence of meat, great flavors and textures. It's no wonder most cooks love this stuff. I admit though, I liked this better when I had it with Jay, as one of the marrow pieces had a HUGE glob of fat in it (kinda gross when I bit into some, ugh, and worse when I scraped it out, and it congealed into fatty nastiness on my plate), and Jay was eating his full share of his half. Owen mostly only ate a bit of the marrow, but ate his full slice of toast, thusly I had way too much marrow and not enough toast to spread it on. And when there's TOO much of a good thing...well, it's just not as good. In any case, if you've never tried bone marrow, I highly suggest it.

Finally our pizzas arrived at the table. This one has Prosciutto, basil, fresh mozzarella, and olive tapenade. I thought this would be the winner, initially, but it was an odd mix of flavors. When Owen was eating it, he mentioned that he got a sudden reminder of eating bubble gum. And it WAS kind of like eating bubble gum - the fresh mozzarella added that chewy texture - I think what it was is that the toppings weren't really baked on here, they seemed to have baked the crust and then added the fresh toppings on top, so there was an odd temperature difference, and no crisp to the prosciutto. The tapenade was a huge mistake here, I thought, it really didn't add to any of the meaty flavors of the rest of the pizza. I mean, bad pizza is still pizza (as I was discussing with an afficionado of pizza,) but it was just a bit of a letdown. The crust was still good as usual, that billowy texture, the crunch on the outside, pleasing and yielding insides.

This pizza fared much better, it was a bacon, goat cheese and leeks pizza. This is what I'm talking about, all the ingredients BAKED in the OVEN, so it's melty and hot and mingles with the crust. It was a good salty mix of flavors, with the leeks that helped mellow out the rest of the punchy flavors of goat cheese and bacon. This was definitely a winner.

The most amazing thing is this butterscotch budino, what can I say that hasn't been said before? Even though I am not the biggest butterscotch fan, this dessert, I sometimes long for this dessert. It almost feels light, even though it's super decadent. Flecks of maldon sea salt dot the top, which add depth to what otherwise would probably be too sweet. The top caramel layer is the sweetest part, but the budino itself is just pure creamy goodness. The little pine nut rosmary cookies on the side are a decent accompaniment, but it pales in comparison to the overwhelming awesomeness of the budino.

I like this place lots, and it's quite a treat, but I admit the prices are a little steep for pizza, not to mention PARKING. But it is noteworthy, and an LA experience. Do yourself a favor and go if you haven't already.

Fraiche

More friends coming into town (it's summer, what can I say?...well, WAS summer), and I wanted to take them somewhere special. Downtown Culver City is now officially a hot spot for restaurants (considering the lack of parking that I usually encounter there on a Friday night) so I figured, somewhere around there. I had been wanting to try Fraiche for awhile, so I took Brian, Goldie and Leonard here.

The place felt a bit trendy and I was admittedly a bit under-dressed (I'm just not a "dressed up" person, I suppose), but I felt glaringly so this time around. We were seated outdoors, which was nice. I have to admit, service was pretty spotty. Our waitress pretty much ignored us. I know we're not the "high rollers" or anything, but Goldie wanted sugar for her iced tea...is that too much to ask?

The cloudier shade of brown liquid was my Arnold palmer, and in the background, Goldie's unrequited non-sugared iced tea. Also, bread and olive oil were placed on the table - I remember the bread being not so special (kinda like biting into a weird sponge) but the olive oil was something special - really flavorful and robust.


Leonard and I got the Royale with Cheese - a burger topped with Gruyere, with a different kind of bun - basically, a circular croissant. On the side, it came with mayo (no ketchup, after all, this is a french restaurant!), iceburg lettuce and tomatoes, and fries, all arranged on what I could only describe as a 80's yuppie's glass tv dinner tray. The bun was very different, I liked it, but the patty was not really anything special, sadly. I don't remember it being cooked to my specifications - more of a well done than a medium rare. The cheese helped this burger a lot - the tasty melted gruyere is always welcome on my burgers. And disaapointing iceburg lettuce?? Iceburg is totally acceptable at Apple Pan (mainly because of the nostalgia) but here, at Fraiche? I was a bit disappointed, actually. Fries were alright. Dipping them in mayo is still weird to me.

Brian got the chicken pita, again served on a bubbled glass yuppie tray. Doesn't it kind of look like this pita threw up what it ate all over itself?!! Okay, that's not the most appetizing thing to think of. Concentrating on the food...I tried a bit, it was alright, Brian liked it (but mainly because I think he is an eternal carb hater, and this seemed to have little in the carb department.) I dislike huge wedges of cucumber (thinly sliced cucumber is my preference) so I probably would have been a bit disappointed with this had I ordered it.

Goldie was in a pasta ravioli kinda mood, so she got these cute mint pea ravoilis. This was a deceptively small serving, I tried half a ravioli and was overwhelmed by how dense each one of these is. This ends up being a pretty heavy plate. The intense flavor when biting into a piece of one of these was surprising, as was the combination of mint and pea. I almost felt refreshed after biting into one.

Honestly, I was a bit let down by Fraiche, after reading so many good reviews about this place. Perhaps I will give it another try, during dinner. And if Goldie comes along, I'll try to remember to bring some extra sugar for her iced tea.

Fraiche
9411 Culver Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232
(310) 839-6800

Cafe 50's

Judy and Kelvin came into town for a wedding, and was staying over for the weekend. Kelvin had a huge craving for cherry coke, at 11pm at night, so we headed over to Cafe 50's (the Santa Monica location). I admit, I hadn't been here since the beginning of college, so my vague memories of their food were a bit...foggy. But I knew, for sure, that they would have cherry coke, and their varieties of shakes were extensive enough to please Owen.

Walking into Cafe 50's hits all those kitch-y notes - the neon signage, the posters plastering every inch of the wall (even the ceiling), collectibles and stuff basically everywhere. There were even board games available for people to play (Judy longed to play Connect Four or Battleship) but we ended up just chatting away after we were seated in our red vinyl seat booth.

Our waitress insisted on us joining their birthday club (only Owen joined, but it did pay off - he got a "free entree coupon" in the mail this past month!). Our busboy was kind of...weird. I think I told him what we wanted for drinks, and he clearly said, "Sorry", instead of "Thank you". Weird. What is he sorry about? Should we have been worried about what we were about to eat?!!...maybe he was sorry because this showed up at the table after sitting around for a spell...

A HUGE saucer of clam chowder, with a healthy skin formed on top. If you jiggle this bowl, you can recreate the Earthquake of '89 all in the confines of this vessel! This is the bowl version, and not the cup version. I can only imagine what size the cup version is! Although weary, we still tried some, which was not too bad, but the skin really turned me off of eating in general. Maybe this soup was really from the 50's, thusly, Cafe 50's lives up to its' name!

Don't let this angle of the camera fool you: these plates of garlic cheese fries (in the foreground) and chili cheese fries were HUGE. The amount piled high on Judy's Chili cheese plate could easily take up the space of a whole roasted chicken - imagine how much chili and cheese that is for a second - okay - now think about trying to EAT all that grease and meat product and whatever. And every second that goes by, the fries are turning into one giant mass of potato mush. Kelvin hardly ate any, Judy tried her best but I estimate she ate about 1/8th of the amount on her plate.

I got the special of the day, Fish and chips. Pretty pitiful plate of fish and chips, but satiated my cravings for a fry up. The fish wasn't exactly "line caught, fresh from the sea"...but what did I expect after having the clam chowder. Fries were okay.

Owen got an avocado bacon cheeseburger, with sweet potato fries instead of regular fries. You can't really see the burger under the mess of fries and rabbit food, but I had a bite and it was decent. I probably should have stuck to something like this but I didn't feel like having a whole burger. The fries were very tasty though, I especially like the cut of the fries, good amount of fry on the outside and soft potato on the inside.

Since they're open late and have a decent amount of diner type things on the menu, I think I'd go again to have more land animals and not seafood (what I was thinking, I have no idea), but I'd say watch out for the soup and portions - unless you're starving.

http://www.cafe50s.com/
11623 Santa Monica Blvd, LA
310-479-1955

The Del

In the interest of wanting to try a new place, I had heard that The Del, a bar type restaurant in Playa del Rey, was worth checking out. I made reservations on Opentable.com (One of the handiest sites I've ever used) about an hour before we left, and it was not a problem. The place was really close to The Shack, a burger place we used to frequent during school. The nice ocean breeze welcomed us as we left our parked car.

The place was pretty bustling, even though it was pretty small. The decor was kind of - weird. Almost...off. It seemed like we were on a movie set, of what a movie director thinks a bar should look like. The walls were black, with accents of gothic type wallpaper. Flatscreens were everywhere. There was a pool table and an extensive bar area. We were seated in a booth with spotlights on us. It was a little...uncomfortable. I felt like any minute, a director would come in and tell us that we were eating incorrectly. Kind of weird.

But, we were here for the food, so here it goes...

Pat of butter, with black salt sprinkled on top. Nice little touch, the salt was very flavorful and crunchy. This was spread upon...

One lone piece of bread each. A bit frugal to me, but it's better that I not fill myself up on bread.

My sparkling water - I dunno, something special and expensive. It was okay. Probably could have been more fizzy, I prefer that.

A plate of calamari. Pretty well done, a bit greasy but not too bad, but a little more salty than I usually prefer. I liked the squiddy parts more than just the rings. The bit of salad was a nice touch, but it got all oily from touching the calamari pieces. The dipping sauce was nothing to write home about - no distinct flavor detected.

Owen's slab of New York Steak, upon two, count em, two colors of string beans, on an island of mashed potatoes, in a sea of au jus. Owen absolutely loved this. The taste I got was really tasty. It was perfectly cooked, pink in the middle, seasoned well, with a good crust on the outside. These people know how to cook meats.

I got a burger, which was cooked perfectly as well - pink in the middle, burger juices running into the bun (okay this will sounds gross, but I took a bite of this burger, and there were so many juices that I literally got a mouthful of juice that squirted down my throat. Yeah. Get your mind out of the gutters now. Focus on the food. Okay.) The fries were nice, good amount of seaasoning. The bun to this burger was a great cradle to the meat patty. Condiments were thinly sliced, everything was playing to the strength of the burger patty.

It was a nice dinner, but Owen really doesn't want to come back here again because of the ambience and decor. I could hardly hear myself talk, everything was so loud. It's a shame, because the cook here really knows his way around meats (you are welcome to think whatever dirty thoughts you want with that comment. You're welcome.)

thedelrestaurant.com
119 Culver Blvd
Playa Del Rey, CA 90293
(310) 823-6800

Callendars

After escaping to Howard Hughes Center one hot summer evening, we decided to watch a movie to soak up some delicious A/C. The movie was pretty mediocre (Get Smart. Why. My quick review, probably a 4 out of 10. But I had pretty low expectations for the movie...even so. Don't watch this movie if you were a fan of the original series. But I digress), but we wanted to stay out of the apartment a little longer, to wait for it to cool down a bit more, so we stopped into Callendars for some dinner.

Callendars is an updated, "higher end" Marie Callendars. I only know Marie Callendars for their pies and horrible mediocre premade plastic food, but Callendars is actually alright. Service was quick, albeit awkward (our waitress was a bit new I think, and kept checking in with us...too much coddling makes me feel they want us to leave ASAP.)

To start, we ordered spinach and artichoke dip, which came with really thin and flimsy tortilla chips, and pico de gallo. This plate was HUGE. I mean seriously, I think I could have used this plate to fit 3 meals on it. The dip itself is pretty decent, cheesy and hot, but as I mentioned before, these chips are so thin, if you try to dip with them, the chip cracks with the effort and the result is half a chip in your hand, and half a chip embedded in the dip. That was a bit annoying, but again, the dip was still tasty, as was the pico de gallo.


Complimentary cornbread, brought to the table, with whipped butter. Crumbly, dry, I dunno, maybe cornbread is just not my thing. We didn't eat that much of it.

Owen's favorite kind of sandwich combination: turkey, avocado, bacon club on a croissant. The thick steak fries are the star of this plate, personally, but the sandwich is pretty darn tasty too. The turkey isn't fake, it tastes like it actually came from a bird carcass. The bacon is decent, probably could be crispier but that's my own preference. The croissant as the bread product that binds everything together, just a stroke of genius. The outside of the croissant is crisp, the insides fluffy. And it randomly comes with a small red delicious apple. Why not?


Here's what I got, a cobb salad. Way too drenched in the dressing. Shredded lettuce, I think mostly iceburg. Blah. Chicken was okay, just kinda bland and dry. They weren't skimpy with the avocado, at least. This was definitely...eh. Okay. Nothing I'd get again.

Owen ended up getting a piece of pecan pie to go, but I never even got a bite of it..he ate it while I was asleep. He owes me pie. That's all I have to say about that.

Again, Callendar's is alright, definitely better than the Marie Callendar's usual restaurant fare.