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Some friends suggested that we meet for dinner at Hal’s Bar and Grill on Abbot Kinney before heading over to a photographer’s showing down the street. Always eager to try a new place, we agreed.

By the time we arrived, our friends were already at the bar enjoying a cocktail and a glass of rose. The long bar rides the entire length of the south wall and there is a small area with tall tables near the hostess stand. I’m not sure if Hal’s serves the full dinner menu at the bar, or just their bar menu, but I did see a number of people eating at the tables.

Our 7:30 reservation was waiting for us when we arrived. Apparently, the main dining room was full until 9:00 so we were seated upstairs. Both seating areas are nice, but very different. The main dining room has very high ceilings and is well decorated, but was very crowded and very loud. The upstairs area was a bit more minimal in design, but much quieter; not in a somber way, I actually liked that we didn’t have to yell across the table to be heard.

On to the food.

The menu isn’t huge, but it took us a very long time to narrow down the choices. The menu wasn’t small either, in fact Hal’s has two sides to its menu. The left side was the “Seasonal Menu” (which was still the summer menu) and the right side is the Standards menu.

Our dining companions started with the “soup of the week”, which was onion, and the crabcakes ($14). My wife and I split the large House Greens salad ($8). I expect a house greens salad to be a light mixture of, well, greens, and maybe a tomato or two thrown in for color and some croutons if you’re lucky. Hal’s House Greens pushed the definition of a simple green salad. Theirs includes artichokes, vine-ripe tomato, haricot verts and herbs, tossed in champagne vinaigrette. My wife and I split the salad and kudos to the wiatress for plating the halves seperately, in fact, we didn’t even explicitly tell her we were sharing.

One quick note. My glass of zinfandel had lipstick on it so I sent it back. I saw the waitress pour the wine out of the tainted glass into the new one and then give the new glass a detailed inspection. What is the normal protocol for lipstick on the glass? Do you just get a new glass, or should you get a fresh pour too? To be clear, I’m completely fine with just a new glass, but I’m not sure what the normal way of dealing with a dirty glass is.

And back to the main dishes.

I ordered the Garganelli. To be truthful, I had no idea that garganelli was pasta until the dish was placed in front of me. The menu described the dish as “sauteed Mexican scallops, squash blossoms, sweet tomatoes, smoked paprika , jalapeno, pumpkin seed cream sauce”. None of my dining companions realized that it was a pasta dish either; I did enjoy the dish, I just wasn’t expecting something as heavy as pasta. The chef did an excellent job of searing the Mexican scallops, which are on the small size of medium. The sauce had a nice blend of spice from the paprika and sweetness from the pumpkin, there was almost an Oxoacan flair to the dish.

The ladies split the Grilled Ribeye ($34), a generous cut of Sterling Prime Beef topped with a red ruby port glaze. Thin sliced onion rings were served on the side and reportedly were excellent. The ribeye was served bone-in and medium rare. At the end of the meal, the only thing left for the doggie bag was the bone. The portion size was plenty big enough to split.
The last dish was the Pan Roasted Salmon ($27) topped with red wine, balsamic sauce and normally served with heirloom tomato risotto, however mashed potatoes were requested as a substitute for the risotto (what a crime!).

Even with all of that food, we found room for dessert. The table split the berry crisp and the chocolate mousse cake ($7.50/ea). The desserts were tasty, but not anything to rave about. On the other hand, I found the cappuccino to be outstanding. I am hesitant to order foo-foo coffee drinks in restaurants because often they come out flat and flavorless. In Hal’s case, the caps looked and tasted wonderful, a terrific cap to a terrific meal.

For the four of us to leave stuffed by three starters, three mains, two desserts, three glasses of wine, a cocktail and three cappuccinos the bill was just under $200 before tip.

I put Hal’s on my highly recommend list and am looking forward to going back.
Hal’s Bar & Grill

1349 Abbot Kinney Blvd (Cross Street: California Avenue)
Venice, CA 90291
(310) 396-3105

By Jonah (see more of his posts). Jonah is the founder of la.foodblogging and also created Digesty, a food blog aggregator and Cheww.com, a spam free foodblog search engine.