la.foodblogging

There are a plethora of reviews swirling in my head, unfortunately I haven’t taken the time to pour them onto the web. That said, here are some Quick Bite Reviews of places I have dropped into lately.

Joan’s on Third
It’s shameful how long I waited to stop into Joan’s. My wife and I were at Flight 001 and took a look down the street, there was Joan’s! It was early afternoon and we were full from lunch, but found some room for cupcakes. Stepping into Joan’s, my senses are blasted with culinary offerings. Cupcakes are but a blip on the screen. There’s a cheese counter with a frommagier generously handing out samples, gourmet candies and sweets, delicious iced tea and a scrumptious display of prepared food, not to mention a tempting lunch menu.

The cupcakes are, in fact delicious. Not as overwhelmingly sweet as Sprinkles, less expensive and also smaller sized, which I like. Bottom line, if you have waited this long to go to Joan’s, you need to remedy that situation ASAP.

8350 West Third Street
Los Angeles 323.655.2285

La Bottega Marino
This small Italian diner could be called quaint or cozy. The secret is that it shares its kitchen with high end restaurant Il Grano. Dishes are simple and flavorful with standard Italian offerings. A great place to get lunches to go, I like the Italian Tuna (Tonno) sandwich.

One note: Usually the service is fantastic, particularly if you have the gentleman who has the booming operatic voice. The other night our service was not so hot. The waiter (not the one mentioned previously) insisted on trying to memorize our orders. In the first place, this never impresses me. In the second place, if the waiter screws up the order because he doesn’t write it down, I am doubly unimpressed. In this case, the waiter mixed up two orders immediately after taking them and still ended up bringing one more wrong dish in the end. For those keeping stats, that was a 25% success rate.

That one experience aside, I still recommend stopping in for a little meal Italiano. They have racks of imported groceries as well.

11363 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 477-7777

Fritto Misto
Another Italian Westside find. Fritto Misto is fairly well known, as can be seen by the wait outside. We showed up on a Friday night around 7:00 and only had to wait about a half hour for a table of four. The host is friendly and updates you frequently on your table status. The menu ranges from standards to specialties of the house such as Spicy Shrimp Ravioli and Artichoke Shrimp and Mascarpone Cheese Gnocchi.

Affordable dining with a homey atmosphere, give yourself some time to wait and it will be an enjoyable evening.

601 Colorado Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 458-2829

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.