la.foodblogging

I’ve noticed the last few months there are quite a few new joints opening all up and down Ventura Blvd.  I’m officially excited. 

That’s the good news.  Here’s the bad news - or part of it:  you have to look really hard and keep that head on a swivel ’cause they open - then it seems they close the very next week.  Add to that, they are often next to some really obscure places, um, like We The People.  I won’t go into why I had to visit the venerable WTP several times over the last few months - but suffice it to say when I did I noticed a new joint - Vino Wine and Tapas Room.

Wine?  Small bites?  Hello! This is the kind of thing I can really get all worked up over.  Let’s just say I walked into this place wanting to love it.  They were going to have to work really hard to make me hate them.

I’ve been to Vino a few times since its soft opening and each time I’ve walked through the door I’ve thought - “almost.”   The mood is all dark woods, plush leather and candlelight and they always seem super happy to see you.  One time we sat at the bar towards the back, another at one of  their tables for two and last time we sunk into one of the comfy leather couches at the front.   

Each time we were given a wine and tapas menus immediately although once we waited close to ten minutes for our first wine order to be taken – what??  Really?  The server did apologize profusely and was extra attentive after that.   I’ll cut her some slack.

We started off with a glass of the J. Lohr Cabernet and the EOS zinfandel both decent glasses of wine but nothing to write home about.

For food we had the Roasted Almonds and Marinated Olives and the Calamari The almonds were nice and warm and the olive selection was pretty good.  The calamari was great – although you gotta really try hard to screw up something deep fried right?  It came with two dipping sauces – an aioli and a marinara sauce.  The sauces were respectable if not mind blowing but the plating was really lovely.

From there we tried the Chicken and Potato Croquette.  Why, why, why do people put these kind of dishes on the menu?  Why?  I don’t think I’ve ever had this kind of dish taste as good as it sounds and shocker of all shockers, this was no exception.  The chicken and the potato were dried out, the breading a bit thick and the cheese fell flat. 

To go with the croquette (or rather to wash it down) we had a couple glasses of white wine - an Albarino by Vionta – from Spain and a Frei Brothers Chardonnay.

Here is where my biggest disappointment with Vino Wine and Tapas Room rears it’s ugly head. Hey, I am by no means a wine “aficionado”  AT ALL! But I do like to try new wines and was excited by the prospect of having a local place that could introduce me to things I couldn’t get off the shelf at Bev Mo. 

I actually cut and paste every wine off their list onto the Bev Mo site (yes, I have too much time on my hands. I know.)   Guess what?  I’d say 95% were available there.  C’mon people!    I get that they have to have a stable of wines for their day to day menu – but how about a revolving list (on a chalkboard behind the bar perhaps?) that has little heard of wineries or vintages you can’t get every day.  If you are going to call yourself a “wine room” then be a wine room dammit. 

Okay….getting down from my soap box.  

Our next culinaryorder was the Filet Mignon.  This was seriously delicious.  The steak was cooked perfectly  (medium rare) and the baby vegetables were tender yet toothy (isn’t “toothy” just a fun word to say?) The sherry sauce was so yummy we wished we’d had a giant baguette to sop it all up.    We also tried the mini burgers. In a word - tasty.    Instead of French fries the chef sauteed thin slices of potato and served them as “chips.” Yummy. 

Over all, the multiple experiences at Vino were never 100%.  Potential?  Yes.  The mood was great, the service was warm and very well meaning – if a little disorganized - and the food was over all pretty good - showing lots of promise.  If they can get their act together concerning their wine list, I think Vino Wine and Tapas Room could be a place I’d go to often - and take my friends to.  Crossing my fingers….

Vino Wine and Tapas Room:  18046 Ventura Blvd.  Encino, CA 91316.  818.342.2525 

By Erinn (see more of her posts). You can find more of Erinn's writing at her own website Sunday Dish.

Because I don’t have enough to keep me busy these days, I’m launching a redesign of la.foodblogging, and we have also moved servers!

We have been hosted at MediaTemple for a while now. They are a decent host, but the limitations they put on their gridserver accounts are confusing and their support response times were pretty terrible for me. We’re talking more than a day to respond to issues about not being able to connect to their database server.

Our new home for this site is over at WiredTree. I have been hosting Digesty and Cheww over there and couldn’t be happier with their performance and support. I don’t get any kickback or discount for recommending them, you really should check them out if you are in the market for a webhost.

The new look is built on the awesome template “The Morning After” from The Master Plan, with a few tweaks and a few more to come. Let me know if anything looks broken.

Finally, we are adding new contributors. We added one this week and I am looking for a few more people who are passionate about sharing their food finds around Los Angeles. If you think you are interested, please read the About Page and email me at foodblogging [at] gmail to discuss further.

Enjoy the new look and the new zippy server.

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.

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to become a baby blog. Obviously, my life is consumed with the little one right now, so that’s what is on my mind.

We actually haven’t made it out to a restaurant yet with the baby, but we do have plans to make a sushi run this week.

We have had some great meals provided by family and friends, both home made and taken out.

Since we delivered at Santa Monica UCLA, we had some food from some of the Westside spots, including at least one place that I hadn’t tried yet — Izzy’s Deli. Izzy’s is a convenient spot when you’re at SM UCLA, it’s right across the street, has an enormous menu, and is open 24 hours. I had a chicken caeser salad delivered by my parents. It was huge and the ingredients were fresh.

My wife was able to order room service all day, anytime she wanted. The food was actually pretty good, plenty of options and enough variety to keep her interested.

I ate most of my breakfasts from the cafeteria. It’s probably the best meal available there. The cook makes up breakfast burritos and breakfast quesadillas to order. I have been long searching for a good source for breakfast burritos, and I may have found the spot in the SM UCLA cafeteria. Made with fresh scrambled eggs, cheese, onions, potatoes and wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla, a great way to start the day.

In the hospital we had two meals delivered by family from Jinky’s. I had a really good southwest chicken salad and my wife had her favorite: the chopped salad with turkey.

One night friends brought over Hawaiian BBQ Chicken from L&L Barbecue. The chicken, rice and macaroni salad was the perfect comfort food and after finishing dinner, I had enough left over for lunch the next day.

After we made it home, we had cooking support from my wife’s mom who did some shopping around for some special ingredients. Some of our treats:

• Burrata and Fresh Baked Bread from Bay Cities Deli, topped with basil pesto and tomatoes from Wednesday’s farmer’s market
• Cupcakes from Yummy Cupcakes
• Baked goodies from Amandine
• Chicken, hummous, garlic sauce (of course) and tabbouleh from Zankou — Twice!
• Fresh beef medallions from a vendor at Wednesday’s Farmer’s Market
• A full fridge from Trader Joe’s

The guard has changed and my mom is here now to take care of us for a bit. Chicken romano last night and french toast this morning to kick things off.

We’re a lucky family to have such great support and food. I’m lucky to be able to take a fair amount of time off of work, for all those new and soon to become dad’s, don’t miss out on California’s Paid Family Bonding Time.

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.

The best thing we ever cooked up, baby Simon:

Born April 19th, he was a big boy, well fed from our pre-infant dining tour for sure. Just look at all that hair!

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.

Hatfields was incredible.
Just incredible.
I mean, I went with really high expectations and not only were they met, but exceeded.

Backstory: Hatfields has been high on my hit list for well over a year. We just hadn’t made it until now (we’re not eating out as often as we used to or as much as we’d like to) I decided it was the place I wanted to try for my birthday dinner out, which was last night.

Three of us went after a movie last night (Forgetting Sarah Marshall - it was quite funny), so we didn’t go for the whole three courses or drink very much as it was late when we got there (after 9.30pm).

We each had one entree and a dessert (but I was given a free dessert because I’d told them it was my birthday and sensibly opted not to order one - I’m no dummy!)

Also we each had one drink, namely beer, a glass of prosecco ($11) and a very nice Cotes de Rhone ($11) with my perfectly pink, date & mint crusted lamb cutlets ($38). My guy raved that his slow cooked beef ($33) was the most incredible thing he’d eaten since a highly memorable Christmas Eve dinner at a fancy place in Paris (Le Carre des Feuillants) where we were served rare lamb that you could virtually cut with a spoon.

Our friend had the Olive oil poached halibut which was truly sensational. This is something I’ve seen a lot on Iron Chef but have never made myself. It had a fresh sheen of citrus on it, which was yet another example of this fantastic chef’s restraint (Quinn Hatfield; Karen Hatfield is the pastry chef and I believe often runs front of house). Also our friend was going to ask for the mushrooms to be omitted, because he never eats them, but I urged him to try them and it turned out he really liked them!! None of us had heard of shimeji mushrooms, but I assumed they were a japanese variety.

I think it worked out to approx $60 pp
Not bad for such high quality fare.
Everything — I mean everything – was outstanding, from the amuse (a shot glass of warm celeriac soup plus a devilled quail egg with smoked trout on a tiny spoon) to the best little bread rolls EVER to the magnificently prepared, presented and perfectly cooked meals. The desserts were great - I loved the crispy napoleon.

Just WOW.

Oh, here’s the other thing - I am not a huge eater and generally take food home. The portions (also our ordering) were so spot on that we all cleaned our plates. The only thing that wasn’t consumed was one of the little petit four that we were given with our bill. One tiny cake. Every dish went back empty. If I were a chef, that would be proof positive I was doing something right, right?

But I don’t know if this is just a special occasion, birthday place.
The place seemed very small (we were seated right in a front window and I didn’t go exploring, but I believe they have a patio) There was nothing remarkable about the decore or ambience.

It’s more like a really great and unpretentious place to dine out every once in a while.

The thing about Hatfields was, yes $32-38 entrees…
With three courses and ample drinks, you could rack up quite a bill…
So I thought it was fairly reasonable and comparable in price to (one of our favourite places) Lucques, I would say, and slightly more impressive in result.
Loved it!

Open 6pm till 10pm or 10.30pm Fris and Sats
Closed Sundays

Hatfields
7458 Beverly Blvd, between La Brea and Fairfax (actually between Vista and Gardener, on the sth side)
(photos via Hatfields’ website)
tel — 323 935 2977

By MaxMillion (see more of her posts). Max Million is the nom de 'net of Pauline Adamek. Born in Sydney, Australia, Pauline has lived in Los Angeles for the past ten years and finds it agrees with her. She has been reviewing films and filing celebrity-based interview articles since 1991, and has filed stories from various international film festivals, including Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Toronto and Sundance. She is completing a family cookbook and has also written novels for 8-12 year olds. She is currently writing two screenplays.

It’s getting warmer, the days are getting longer, and my allergies are starting to act up. That can mean only one thing: asparagus season!

Why do I love asparagus? Nothing else tastes quite like it, for starters. It’s sweet, it’s tangy, it’s pungent, it’s fresh, it’s savory, all in one vegetable! It’s like a complete food that way, needing little more than salt and pepper to enliven the senses. Sure, it has its classic pairings, such as hollandaise sauce, morels, or bacon, but for this grad-student epicure, usually just a quick steam, boil, or saute is enough to bring out their full glory.

This season I have been eating a lot of Zuckerman Farms’ jumbo asparagus (South Pasadena farmer’s market, Hollywood farmer’s market) — I would recommend buying the thickest stalks you can afford, and maximize that volume-to-surface area ratio. Here’s why: skins just don’t have that much flavor. So while the thin asparagus may be more tender, resulting in less trim loss, there is no way they can compare with the jumbos in flavor. Jumbos are also a lot more convenient to clean and prep, because there are fewer of them in a batch, and because they keep well in some water. Avoid being suckered into paying more for asparagus “tips”? too — usually they are just old tips trimmed off of woody stems (you can tell by examining the tips for dried out “leaves”), and not at all a premium product.

So here I offer you my modular technique for making boiled asparagus, sauteed asparagus, and asparagus soup. I love this method because each technique builds on the last, so they’re easier to remember. You only need a couple things, though to enjoy this spring bounty: a knife, a cutting board, a fruit/vegetable peeler, some pots and pans, kitchen tongs, and a blender if you’re making soup. As for other ingredients, this calls only for salt, pepper, olive oil, butter, cream and vegetable/chicken stock — homemade is best, but try to get the no-sodium stuff so you can adjust the seasoning to your taste.
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sneakypeteiii is a doctoral student in Chemistry at Caltech. He has been eating since he was a child, and reckons himself quite good at it. (see more of his posts).

My husband and I managed to survive being married for six years recently, and we decided to celebrate that momentous occasion by going to Providence and feasting like kings and queens. This was the second time we had been to Providence and so far both meals have been some of the best I have ever had.

Both times we sat out on the patio area. The patio does not feel like an outdoor area, since it is surrounded by a high stone wall and covered by a canvas roof. The weather, however, feels like outside. We were nice and cozy next to the inside wall with a heater, but two parties seated near the outside wall requested to be moved inside due to being chilly, so something to remember when making reservations in winter.

We reluctantly had to set aside the cocktail menu, as we knew we were going to be getting the tasting menu with wine, but the cocktails looked excellent. On one page was classic cocktails, along with a credit to the inventor. On the other page were house cocktails. All looked delicious and the house cocktails looked very unique. I would have had a hard time deciding between old favorites and trying something new.

But we steeled our will-power and set it aside so that we could order the nine course full tasting menu with wine pairings, and then we commenced to eating. The meal was well-paced so that I never felt full or overwhelmed. However, it also took over three hours, so make sure you have time to spare if you do this!

The meal started with an amuse bouche that lived up to its name by being very entertaining. It was our substitute for cocktails - there were three small bites. One was a gin and tonic gelee candy, then a “mojito”, which was a sphere with a rush of minty, rummy liquid in the center. Finally, there was a fennel and saffron soup with the fennel bisque on top of a saffron syrup underneath. You were to eat it by downing it like a shot, so that the flavors mingled. The saffron was a little much, but other than that the amuse was very fun.
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By KT (see more of her posts). You can find more of KT's writing at her own website Gastronomy 101.

Part I and Part II of the Pre-Infant Dining report covered a range of spots. This report concentrates on some of the more casual spots we hit Pre-Infant. We are more likely to hit these spots with the baby, for comfort and budget reasons.

Asahi Ramen
I like the curry ramen, she likes the wonton ramen. For about $20, the both of us can leave satisfied. The space is tight, but I think that we can bring an infant or baby here for sure. It’s an easy exit if he gets whiny, plus - what kid doesn’t like noodles? (hopefully ours likes them)

Chabuya Ramen
A bit more expensive than Asahi Ramen, but offering a little bit higher quality ramen and broth, Chabuya is sort of a “grown up” ramen restaurant. Chabuya satisfied some salty cravings during pregnancy, I’m not sure how kid friendly it is though. One tip, the Chabuya green salad is about the best house salad in town. Filled with fresh greens and topped with some blanched veggies like asparagus, and accompanied by perfect ginger dressing. I can’t remember the exact price, but I think that it’s under $4.

California Chicken Cafe
I like California Chicken Cafe for the sides. the chicken is certainly good, and I loooove rotisserie chicken in almost any form. We stopped here when it was a little but cooler and I enjoyed their soup with my dinner. Odds that we will come here with the infant? Almost guranteed for the simple fact that it is a couple doors down from the Pump Station.

Zankou Chicken
Zankou also fulfilled some cravings, specifically for the garlic sauce. We actually went here less than I would have guessed during the pregnancy. I predict that I will be stopping to pick up Zankou to go more than dining in the restaurant. The restaurant is plenty kid friendly though and I assume that hummous can be used as baby food? Garlic sauce, however, may result in terrible diaper blowouts (but will they smell like garlic?)

Bergamot Cafe
The Bergamot Station Cafe is a great option for lunch on a nice day. The expansive patio and comforting food will provide a santuary for us. Plus, we can walk around the galleries and stores in Bergamot Station to provide the little one some visual stimulus. We actually didn’t make it to Bergamot Cafe together during the pregnancy, but I did go solo and had a nice lunch with my mom there.

Third and Fairfax Farmer’s Market
Some of the spots we hit during pregnancy: Loteria Grill, Moishes, The Banana Leaf, Gumbo Pot, and Bennett’s Bennett’s Bennett’s! This place is a slam dunk with kids. Plenty of room, good food at reasonable prices, a fun atmosphere (ok, a little touristy, but that’s alright). Danger factors are the stores at the Grove, including Pottery Barn Kids and The Children’s Place.

Costco
Yes, we eat Costco hot dogs. get over it.

Veggie Grill
The closest location for most of you will be across from the (massive) Whole Foods in El Segundo. It’s almost worth a special trip to eat here. Veggie Grill serves faux meat meals (tempeh, soy, tofu, etc) which are incredibly flavorful and filling. The buns on their burgers are some of the best wheat buns I have had. Also, try the sweet potato fries some time. I’m not sure that we will make a trip down there to eat, but if we’re in the area, it’s definitely a place you can eat with kids.

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.