American

DineLA Restaurant Week Report: GRACE

Normally, a place like Grace would be a very special occasion dining choice for me, so restaurant week seemed like the perfect time to try it. I have walked by Grace often enough gazing longingly at the low light and neutral tones of the interior, and the trio of soups and homemade donuts on the menu. Come to think of it … I could afford to go there just for a trio of soups and some homemade donuts. I’ll have to remember that.

The first thing I have to say is to sneakypeteiii who asked me to inquire about the “Close to Home” menu. I asked my server whether they were still doing it, and he said that they were, but it has been suspended temporarily for restaurant week.

The second is that one thing we did not get even a hint of, was any attitude about being there for restaurant week. The service was as friendly and attentive as if we had been any other diner. Also, we were not made to ask for a separate menu, as the DineLA meal was included within the regular menu. I didn’t feel that we were treated differently than any other customer.

It may be because it’s almost impossible to get away with simply sticking to the $34 set menu, because the people at Grace are wicked, naughty seducers that supplement the menu with bonus choices that are enticingly delicious sounding. I think we went at the height of temptation, also, because one of our table members was accidentally given a menu from the night before and there weren’t nearly as many special supplements.

The first thing that you can’t help but add on is drinks. I suppose you could stick with the water, but that’s boring. We all ordered Grace Gimlets rather than choosing the $30 wine pairing option. The Grace Gimlet was $10 and consisted of gin, blood orange juice, and a rosemary simple syrup. The simple syrup really made this drink. The rosemary scent and flavor was strong and it took the drink from a standard cocktail to something really special. A poster on Chowhound described it as just okay and I am wondering if it is better in the form we ordered it. Our server told us they usually serve it on the rocks, but we all ordered ours up, and they were fantastic.

For starters, three of us ordered the vegan coconut scented winter squash Soup, and the other ordered the shrimp cavatelli with Peas and Chanterelle Mushrooms, both of which were part of the DineLA standard menu choices. The soup was really nice. It was thick, but not too hearty and suited the cold weather that night perfectly. I didn’t really get the “coconut scent,” it must have been very subtle, but I ate all of the soup in about two seconds so maybe I just missed it, I was going so fast! The shrimp cavatelli got good marks as well.

For our main courses, only one of our party ordered off of the DineLA menu, getting the king salmon with quinoa, artichokes, and lobster nage, although without the lobster nage (due to shellfish allergy). The kitchen happily left off the lobster nage and even replaced it with a red wine nage. I tried a bit of the salmon and I have to say it’s the best salmon I ever had. Maybe it was because many salmon I have had are heavily sauced, I am not sure, but this fish tasted so clean and fresh, like it just came out of some really nice seawater. I loved it.

I ordered one of the supplemental dishes that came with a supplemental price. I ordered a Morro Bay Petrale Sole in a lemon butter sauce with endive and potatoes. First, I had to support the fishermen of my homeland. Second, petrale sole is something you don’t see everywhere, but is a very good fish. It is actually a flounder, and it is lean with a mild, sweet flavor. Petrale sole is also classified as an environmentally sound choice of fish, if you care about that kind of thing. My sole came in several pieces, and was crispy, brown, and buttery on the outside, and tender, white, and flaky on the inside. I loved the soft potatoes as well, but the endive was difficult texturally for me. I left most of it on the plate, sadly. The sole was $10 extra.

The third entree was a sauteed John Dory with chervil gnocchi, salsify, wild mushrooms and red wine nage. The fish was good, but I think the best part about this was the gnocchi. The por guy who ordered didn’t get to eat to many of them because they kept getting stolen.

The final entree was another supplemental dish - bay scallops. I’m not much of a scallop fan, but I had a bite and they seemed nice, buttery and evenly cooked.

Dessert was the famous homemade donuts. I am a fan of cake-y donuts. I don’t really like Krispy Creme or donuts with lots of air. I like donuts that are all fried and crunchy on the outside and really soft and fluffy and caky on the inside. As such, these donuts weren’t my optimal, because they were too small to be really soft inside, so they were a little crispier than my ideal. I liked the cinnamon glaze on the top, though. That was yummy. The donuts came with a hot chocolate and “toasted orange marshmallow,” which was more like a gooey whipped cream. The chocolate itself was not very sweet, while the marshmallow part was, so I ended up mixing the two together to make sort of a thick warm pudding, but that was way to rich for me. I couldn’t finish.

All in all, our bill came out to much more than the $34 per person that sticking strictly to the restaurant week menu would have netted us, but at the same time, I would say that on a regular night, a dinner for two with all of the trappings might cost almost as much as our dinner for four last week, so I still feel that it was a bargain.

EDIT: People may like to know, for comparison’s sake. I can’t remember the exact total of our bill, but it was around $250 for four people not including tip. That included two cocktails apiece (we walked! don’t lecture me!), so drinks made up about 1/3 of the bill. So even with the supplements, the food bill came out to an average of around $42.50/person. Not a bad deal for a three course meal.

Grace
7360 Beverly Blvd.
323-934-4400

By KT (see more of her posts). You can find more of KT's writing at her own website Gastronomy 101.

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