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

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

VIP Harbor Seafood Restaurant

I had thought dimsum on the westside was almost completely nonexistent, but then I was taken to VIP Harbor Seafood by my coworker Kevin a few years back. I was pleasantly surprised - cart service, Cantonese speakers and lots and lots of shrimp...and it took me this long to go back and do a proper review of the place! A dimsum craving hit both me and Daphne, and we headed there to use a restaurant.com coupon. Here's some of the stuff we got:

My best guess was that these were supposed to be Xiao long baos, but these dumplings pretty much had no soup in them, so I'm just going to say these were pork dumplings. They were alright, but everything was pretty soggy. The filling wasn't horribly memorable but filled a dumpling craving.

Next up, Pork siu mai, one of my "must haves" when I have dim sum. These were not too shabby at all. Good sized, lots of meaty filling, these fared much better than the fake xiao long baos.

The other must have in my dimsum meal, Shrimp dumplings - har gao. These were good! The translucent wrapper was not too thick, which, I was told by my grandpa, is an indication of a "skilled dumpling maker". A dunk in some chinese hot mustard, a bit of soy sauce, and I'm tasting a bit of my childhood.

And what's dimsum without a bit of fried stuff? On one of the carts, there was a plate of Wu gok- fried taro crispy dumplings. I love how the fried outside is wafer thin crispy, nestling the bit of taro meat filling on the inside. This fried dumpling is all about the fried texture...how do they fry these? What are they made of? I have no idea but I'm happy to eat them.

This is my dessert of choice, Dan Taat-Egg tarts, but we got these before the end of our meal anyway. These could have been better - a bit overcooked, I like the eggy part to be almost a bit underdone, so when I bite into the delicate tart part, the insides spill out...this was definitely not the case here. It filled a craving but I've definitely had better.

Turnip pancakes were next. I think these are quite filling (the turnip paste is heavy!), but Daphne was curious about them. They weren't bad, but I like these to be really hot and crisp, which these were not. A lot of other dimsum places I've been to serve this dish from a specialized cart, that fries them to hot crispy perfection, tableside. Not the case here, they just came on a plate, amongst other choices on a cart. Eh.

Sticky rice in lotus leaf. I think Daphne and I were really gunning for these, and were really glad to find they had them. Really comforting dimsum food, the sticky rice encases a meaty mushroomy filling, with one duck egg yolk inside. So very good.

Another favorite - Rice noodle, with shrimp. The sweet soy mixture that they pour over the rolled noodles is what really makes this dish, although the slippery thin rice noodle is just a joy to eat. More shrimp, which I was a fan of. I'd get this over and over again.

We ordered a few more things that weren't pictured, to go - I got some sesame balls for Owen, which one of the cart ladies was nice enough to go to the kitchen to get for me, when I asked her if they had any. Nice and freshly fried, the insides were filled with sweet white bean paste that Owen was happy to eat later.

The service was actually very good, parking was forced valet but the lot was small so I was glad to not have to fight for a spot. A great option for dimsum on the westside, which is so very lacking in good Chinese food.

Huntington Gardens Tea Room

Daphne and I were planning to go to Huntington Gardens (she's a member!) and I had heard of their amazing tea room. Daphne insisted we needed reservations way in advance, but I checked their website the night before and snagged a 1:45pm seating for the next day! Whoo! What luck! (by the way, the reservation system is really a crapshoot...I would have to enter a time in, and it would look up in the system if it was available, and if it wasn't, it would say, sorry, not available, but not give you other times when they DID have availability. So you'd have to just keep trying different times till you got something that was free. DIFFICULT system, guys. Although a plus for having online reservations.)

After wandering around bonsai trees, Chinese gardens, sakura blossoms and fields of greenery, we were starving by the time we got to the tea room. We were immediately seated, and our server was very nice, and mentioned the special tea of the month was a raspberry tea. We both chose that to drink. This was what was here when we were seated...

Cream, jams and marmalade, and butter for the scones. Nice that they had freshly whipped cream, and I really liked the blackberry jam that we opened in the little mini jar.

The scones...these were fresh and warm from the kitchen, nestled in a cloth napkin. Ooo, these were tasty, and of different variety. Some were cranberry, some had bits of orange, one I had was studded with chocolate chips! These were some of the best scones I've had, and I've had my share of scones. Yummy, and not too big and filling, so I didn't feel too guilty having...I think 3...um...maybe I feel guilty now. With the blackberry jam, a quick smear of whipped cream, this was a taste of heaven.

My first plate from their high tea buffet. Yes. This high tea is a buffet, any kind of sandwiches, cheeses, pastries, salads...whatever you liked, and as much as you liked. A great set up. For some reason, I usually worry about getting full during high tea, but whenever I have had high tea, I always leave way too full. I think it's the high ingestion of liquids, perhaps? Okay, I'm feeling guilty again. Let's focus on the food...this plate had water table crackers, a smoked salmon finger sandwich, and various cheeses (blue cheese, smoked gouda, muenster, from what I remember.) I loved everything on this plate, but the smoked salmon was exquisite, and the smoked gouda I remember being especially memorable.

Second plate of sandwiches - from the front, a cucumber mint sandwich atop of some pasta salad, then a chicken salad sandwich, then a watercress sandwich, and way in the back, a prosciutto sandwich. I wanted to try every kind of sandwich they had, even though at this point I was starting to get a bit full, even from these little sandwiches. Everything was tasty, but I think out of this bunch, I especially liked the cucumber mint sandwich, which surprised myself. The bright flavors of the mint shone against the cucumber, and the bread was soft and delicate.

Last plate of savories. Some spinach salad, and cracker and pita, with some caviar. The salty caviar was REALLY salty, the cracker barely cut the intensity of the salt. Eating the salad helped though - the salad was pretty good. I felt bad leaving any caviar (cuz...it's caviar...I mean, I doubt this was the expensive kind but caviar sure is expensive) so I managed to eat most of it, even though I could have probably been good with a quarter of what I put on this plate. Argh, I can't waste anything...

A shot of our raspberry tea, with a bit of milk and sugar in it. Delicious and warming, I noted that this tea was at the PERFECT sipping temperature, not too hot or too cold. I was quite impressed!

Okay, the last plate. At this point I was pretty full but I HAD to get some dessert. On this plate, starting from the left going clockwise, I got: one more smoked salmon finger sandwich, a fruit tart with mandarin orange, raspberry and a blueberry, one more piece of smoked gouda, strawberry and watermelon. The fruit tart was really tasty, a perfect bite of sweet, fruit and custard. The strawberry was perfectly The strawberry was ripe, maybe not as sweet as the sweetest strawberry I've ever had but not too bad, and watermelon was good. A nice ending to a pleasant meal.

I think this high tea experience was really nice, and seeing the perfectly manicured roses outside the window was a nice touch. When I get the chance, I think I'll be making another reservation for this place!

Huntington Gardens Rose Garden Tea Room
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
(626) 405-2100

Wakasan

One late evening, I wanted to give Owen and his mom some time to hang out, so I went out to dinner with Scott to catch up. He had mentioned how he had indulged at Wakasan a few weeks earlier, and I had been hearing about their stellar budget omakase dinner, so I leaped at the chance to go.

The restaurant was pretty full, but I also noted that there weren't very many seats...which would be difficult during busier hours, but the nice part was that the restaurant was open a bit later than I'm used to, (which is one of the reasons why we went here.) As we were being seated, we were handed a drink menu, but I just wanted water. The only thing to order here is the omakase, so we chatted and waited for our meal to arrive...

Part 1 of Wakasan's Omakase - a bit of cooked veggies (mushrooms, spinach, carrot shreds), and some dried bonito flakes on top, in a light clear sauce. Yummy and light, this was a nice start to our dinner. The veggies weren't overcooked to mush and it was just fun to eat.


Part 2 of Wakasan's Omakase - shaved pickled slices of carrot and daikon, in a tangy vinagrette with some sesame seeds on top. This was just okay to me, pickled stuff is pickled stuff, and I wouldn't necessarily order this anywhere. A filler dish.

Part 3 of Wakasan's Omakase - Mini spaghetti "mac salad" - spaghetti noodles made into a cold noodle salad, with mayo and seasoned up mac salad style. Spaghetti mac salad? Well, why not - I think it was actually pretty tasty. The mayo wasn't too thick and it coated the noodles well. I finished this off pretty quick...what's next?


Part 4 of Wakasan's Omakase - Sashimi selection. From the left - scallop, medium tuna, and some sort of white fish (I forgot what it was.) Out of all of these, the scallop was the best, as the others had a lot of tendon going through them, which made eating them not as good. I had to pick out the tendon membrane from my teeth. Gross...but...well, since this is part of a omakase, leaving stuff on the plate is pretty insulting...so I ate what I could eat of the sashimi, but really, in any other case, I would have left the fish on this plate right where it was. Ah, well. Not every plate has to be a winner.


Part 5 of Wakasan's Omakase - Salmon, and a bit of bean sprout stirfry. Pretty tasty, nice grill on the salmon, didn't know what that gourd looking thing was but ate it anyways, bean stirfy was nice.


Part 6 of Wakasan's Omakase - Legs and part of the body part of a crab, the ponzu sauce was on the bottom of this dish. Yum, crab was quite a surprise, when it was brought to the table. The ponzu sauce was great to dip the crab meat in, a fun little interactive dish.


Part 7 of Wakasan's Omakase - Fishcakes and tofu in an oden stew. A little bundle of noodles, tied up, can be seen in the upper left corner. A smear of hot mustard adornes the lower left of this dish. I'm not really a fan of oden but I like tofu and fishcakes enough to ignore any misgivings I had about oden stew. I loved the little bundle of noodles, although maybe I should have untied them before eating? I just popped the whole thing in my mouth and it was gone in a second...drat, is there a knot of noodles in my stomach?? Also, hot mustard makes EVERYTHING better. (this is coming from someone who can eat wasabi by the spoonful though...)


Part 8 of Wakasan's Omakase - Tempura. Assorted tempura, nice that they included two shrimp tempura! Freshly fried, not greasy, and completely delicious! Yay!


Part 9 of Wakasan's Omakase - Chanwanmushi. Savory steamed egg, with special stuff at the bottom, like fishcake. The top is adorned with cilantro, which is not my favorite but I ate around it. Savory egg custard, I love it. It was such a nice flavor and delicately steamed, the consistency was like soft silken tofu. Awesome!


Part 10 of Wakasan's Omakase - miso soup with clams in it, the clams gave the miso soup broth a nice rich flavor. A nice little surprise and treat.


This is the last savory dish...by this time, I was pretty full...Part 11 of Wakasan's Omakase - Mini Beef shortrib bowl. The sauce really made this dish, as it flavored the rice underneat the meat. The ribs were good, a little fatty but the sauce made up for it. Nice way to end the savories.


Dessert! Part 12 of Wakasan's Omakase - one cute scoop of red bean ice cream. Love the dish that this was in, and love the adorable little scoop which matched the sakura blossom design in the bowl. Sweet, but not too sweet, I was DONE after eating this.

What a fun little place...I felt like I was eating at someone's house, with dish after dish arriving from the kitchen. On top of that, a pretty good deal, 35 dollars each. I'll be back!

Wakasan
1929 Westwood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 446-5241