Crazy Busy

So I have been ridiculously busy now that my officemate Hector is gone and I have taken over his workload. I have also been sick with a little viral throat thing and crippled with a sprained ACL. All of these things have resulted in no posts in almost a week. My apologies.
Anyway, I spent the three day weekend (I called in sick on Friday) making pasta sauce and watching bad movies. The pasta sauce came out tasty, and the movies were awful. Here are three quick reviews of my Saturday night viewing:

New York, I Love You - Possibly the worst movie I have seen that I can remember, this is an art house effort with an ensemble cast. It is assembled like all of those bad Valentine's Day type movies but goes absolutely nowhere. The characters have no backstory so you don't care where they are going, and well, they don't go anywhere anyways. An example - Bradley Cooper climbs into not one but two cabs with other random characters in the movie. They are all affable enough to share the cabs. End scene. Great, they share cabs. The characters do not reconnect. His whole story arc is that he had a one night stand with Drea de Matteo (from the Soprano's) and felt some sort of connection. Queue the steamy sex scene. He waits for her at a bar, she appears to be hours late, he gets up to leave and hails a cab as she walks up. They hop in and go off together all smiles. So we establish they have a physical connection but since we never see them again we have no idea where it goes. And frankly, who cares. This movie was awful. I couldn't even watch the last 15 minutes after investing an hour and a half, so maybe it all came together in the end, but I doubt it.

Mean Girls - Tina Fey and Lindsey Lohan at the height of their powers; we didn't watch the whole movie since Ariel and I have both seen it, but this movie is hilarious. I will typically not get suckered into high school girl movies, but this stays witty and creative enough to hold up to multiple viewings. For some reason it is okay for a guy to like this movie. Maybe that is a testament to Tina Fey's writing and how attractive a young Lindsey Lohan was.

The Ugly Truth - This movie has me absolutely convinced that I could write a screenplay. I actually found some of the dialogue refreshing (the writers are all women, but wrote the male character's part with a decent edge) but for the most part this story was as formulaic as they come. You knew how this would end before it started but the movie did not deviate from standard Hollywood cliches throughout. I would say the low-light was the scene where Gerard Butler gives Katherine Heigl vibrating panties before a business meeting. Obviously she puts them on right before the meeting (who wouldn't?) and obviously the controller ends up in the hands of a curious 8 year old and (obviously) she proceeds to have an orgasm during an important meeting. WHO WRITES THIS SHIT?! I am going to go ahead and say you can skip this one.

Friday Night

My officemate Hector is headed off to our Cedars-Sinai project by the Beverly Center. In honor of his departure we spent last Friday evening downtown (where he lives) bowling and drinking. We started at the new Lucky Strike Bowling Alley at the city center. They sell themselves as "upscale bowling." The alley was relatively clean and nice but since most bowling alleys look like giant ashtrays that isn't saying much. The happy hour was the highlight with $3 pints. I asked the waitress for a pint of Newcastle to which she responded that they didn't have "pints" but they did have plastic 16 oz cups. I informed her that 16 oz's is a pint. Not sure if an upscale joint should have waitresses who know what a pint is, but the beer was delicious none the less. We also ordered pizza (decent), fries (very crispy and salty), and artichoke dip (repulsive). The dip came with half as many pita chips as you needed and for some reason was covered in disgusting cheese. Also the food was not priced like the drinks so 8 bucks for crappy dip was a rip off. Come for the drinks and $5 dollar rounds (before) and don't stay for anything else.

From there we went to Lawry's Carvery next to Staple's. I was going to order the turkey club but the consensus of everyone who worked there was that the Prime Rib Bleu was the dish to order. The prime rib was perfectly cooked and melted in my mouth. It tasted a little like butter and didn't taste at all like steak. Somehow the perfectly red, tender and fatty meat had very little taste. For that reason I added Lawry's Seasoned Pepper and Lawry's Seasoning Salt to every bight. The Lawry's Seasoned Pepper saved the meal. It was so good I had to take it home. I casually slipped it into my jacket and now I have it for the next tasteless steak sandwich I get.

Lawry's was good enough that I would try it again, as was the Lucky Strike happy hour. Don't waste time eating at the bowling alley though. While it may be "upscale" the food is not worth the bucks and the pints are only 16 oz's.

Mmmmmmmmm, Seafood by the Airport

I picked Ariel up at the airport on Saturday after her trip to snowy New York. Thanks to Virgin America's in flight Internet she was able to send me a message with the urgent title "I am hungry." I yelped restaurants within five miles of the airport, sorted by highest rating, and narrowed the selection to a Jamaican spot and Mariscos Moni. Ariel, as usual, chose the Mexican food at Mariscos Moni (henceforth abbreviated as MM).
For anyone who is not aware mariscos (note this is wikipedia en espanol, but you get the point) is seafood of all kinds. MM's menu featured three pages of whole fish, ceviches, and standard dishes with seafood. Items like carnitas, carne asada, and pollo were relegated to the back page. This was the first time I have ever seen this. This restaurant is really dedicated to their seafood.
The meal started with chips and salsa. The salsa was a little too spicy for my tastes and did not have nearly enough substance (few tomatoes). The chips were average at best. We followed that up with a mixed seafood tostada. The mixta consisted of shrimp, octopus, imitation crab, and a few other items I couldn't identify. All of the seafood was tender. I liked the marinade and its ceviche-like acidity, Ariel did not like how tomatoey it was.
For entrees Ariel ordered the shrimp fajitas and I got the shrimp enchiladas. My little shrimp in the enchiladas were undercooked and the dish was not as hot as it should have been when it was served. The fajitas came out sizzling and were quite delicious, especially all of the onions and bell peppers which reached that smokey/carmelized perfection that make fajitas so delicious. Both dishes came with huge portions of rice, salad and beans that were cooked with ample amounts of lard.
Overall the food was just slightly above average but the cost for the three above dishes and two sodas was $40. That is too much for what we got. The best thing about this meal? Reheating my dish last night in a pan with a little olive oil was better than the original serving. All of the cheese, sauce, rice, and shrimp (now thoroughly cooked) turned into a delicious congealed mess.
If you are looking for good mariscos try Mariscos Guillen La Playita on Lincoln in Venice. This shack it like Moni only fresher, better, and cheaper.

LA 27

On Sunday Ariel and I met up with my friend Dan who writes about food. His blog, DanEats, is an entertaining look at all the restaurants and dining experiences he gets himself into. Now that he is slowly moving from New York to Los Angeles we have been getting lunch and dinner together about once a week. Since he is writing about food I figured we should try to go to different places. So far we have gone to Baby Blues BBQ, Mario's Peruvian, and a few other spots spread around town.
Having an amateur food critic in my life has compelled me to try new things. For Valentine's day Ariel got me Counter Intelligence by Jonathan Gold, the Pulitzer Prize winning food critic. For the last few years I have searched out Gold's recommendations. For the most part his tastes are a little too spicy for me but sometimes we find ourselves in complete agreement. The Donut Man is the best example of this. Gold and I have come to the mutual conclusion that the strawberry donut from here is the best in LA (my coworkers now agree as well). But lunch on Sunday wasn't going to be donuts so I had to find somewhere new between Santa Monica and Los Feliz.
After 20 minutes of research I settled on El Izalqueno and its El Salvadorian Food. It was suitably exciting and foreign and was located just north of downtown. Ariel and I arrived at the listed address first and were disappointed to find that the restaurant was either never there or had been replaced. In its place was LA27, a Nicaraugan restaurant with a live band and tables filled with families. Had it been Ariel and I the loud music probably would have turned us away; but when Dan sauntered up we determined it was worth a shot. We were quickly sat at a 4 top by the only waiter who spoke english. We asked about specialties and all of the drinks which had names we did not recognize. The waiter helped us out bigtime by bringing us samples (in little salsa cups) of ten different drinks. These ranged from rice based drinks (some with pineapple, chocoloate, and other spices) to fruit drinks (lemonade with sesame seeds, coconut). All of them were different from anything we had ever drank.
Following the drink sampling we ordered a starter of Baho, a meat stew served with perfectly sticky white rice. The stew had some potatoes, plantains, some very fatty meat, carrots and tomatoes. There was very little meat but what was there was delicious. The plantains were too hearty for me and lacked the sweetness of their fried bretheren. The potatoes were very good. Dan and I both ordered the fritanga a la 27 which had chorizo (delicious, but we hardly had any on our plates), carne asada (excellent, thick cut seasoned perfectly) and pork (great marinade but a little dry). The sides were rice mixed with pinto beans, lettuce and tomato, fried plantains, fried cheese, and tons of a vinegar based salsa consisting of baby corn, onions and carrots. The salso went with/on everything and we went through about half a container. Ariel got the shredded beef plate which was like Ropa Vieja from Cha Cha Chicken but not quite as good.
This is probably the most authentic foreign food experience I have had; meaning that I basically felt like I was in Nicaruaga while eating there. No one spoke english, the food was delicious, and the music was inappropriately loud and invasive. Flower vendors and pirated DVD sellers walked the floor looking for buyers. This was an amazing experience, not to be missed.

I Heart Meatballs

So I love me some meatballs; not as much as some people I know (wink wink), but I do love them. More generally, I love Italian food. I grew up eating the stuff basically every night but as the California culinary scene so did my tastes. I now have a much more broad palet and rarely seek out Italian restaurants.
In Ariel's and my search for a wedding caterer I must admit I was surprised when A.G. Ferrari was an option. Our venue the Brazilian Room has a list of 8 or so caterers you have to choose from and the Italian deli was one of them. I remember eating there occasionally in Corte Madera when growing up and enjoying the food, but I never imagined that they might cater the most important event of my life.
On our last trip to the Bay Ariel and I tried five different caterers. Many were good, but they lacked the oomph that we were looking for. Each caterer had as many weak dishes as good ones. The only one that really stood out was AGF. All of the appetizers were delicious, as were the entrees and desserts, and the only menu items where they came up short were the easiest to fix: the salad and the grilled veggies. We tweaked the veggie selection to our liking and added some items to the salad to make it more in line with the food we love. The salmon (with a crispy bottom) and the bruschetta appetizers were particularly excellent.
We haven't booked AGF yet (we have booked our photog, florist, and DJ) because we still want to perfect the menu, but once we get them dialed in we will be that much closer to the big day.

La Botte

My parents were in town after a desert valley road trip and requested we go to La Botte for dinner. We had eaten there on my last birthday and had an amazing culinary experience.
We went on a Tuesday night and the restaurant was mostly full. I am not sure if they expected this because we ended up with one thoroughly overworked waiter. He looked a little like Christiano Ronaldo and had the accent of an Italian characterture. After dropping off our menus we didn't see him for about 30 minutes. Our wine took an additional 30 minutes to arrive. If it wasn't for very stimulating conversation this meal would have been miserable.
For food we tried to order the Scallop salad but the waiter informed us they were out of scallops. We ended up starting with the cured duck (duck prosciutto) which was tasty and the red beet ravioli. The ravioli was absolutely amazing. The flavors burst out of the homemade shell, the presentation was perfect, and the dish tasted earthy (the beets), cheesy and a little sweet.
My entree was the pork shoulder served on chard with a kobucha squash mustard. The meat was a little undercooked (it didn't fall apart completely, just mostly, I almost had to use a knife) but the mustard was perfect. It had the consistency of sweet mashed potatoes but the spiciness of a hot ground mustard. And I love mustard.
My dad ordered the filet mignon medium rare. It came out cold so he sent it back to be reheated. When it came back it was closer to medium than medium rare. He said it was delicious but overcooking your cold meat is not acceptable.
Ariel ordered the lamb ragou which was pretty good. The homemade pasta was smooth and floury (just right). I thought the lamb flavor was overpowered by the cheese, but the dish was still quite good.
So in summary, the service was deplorable but the food was delicious. The two bottles of wine we drank were also top notch (the first was a reasonably priced Montepulciano, my dad ordered the second but it was also smooth). I still recommend this place even with the bad service.
http://www.labottesantamonica.com/

Scoops

Full disclosure: I love Baskin Robbins. I grew up eating it and have many fond childhood memories. Uncannily consistent, you can go into any BR on the planet and find staples like Gold Medal Ribbon and Mint Chip that never disappoint. They are always creamy, sweet, and delicious.

But the advent of designer ice cream has taken the frozen sweet in a totally different direction. After a friend's show at the Fake Gallery we hit up Scoops, the Hollywood hipster version of Baskin Robbins. Scoops is known for exciting flavors like Lavender, Goat Cheese, Brown Bread, and Oolong Tea. They are all amazing and made with fresh ingredients that really bring out the intricacies of the taste. The ice cream is made that morning and the flavors are served until they run out. The past few times we have been there they have run out of a few items (Banana Oreo, which is right in my wheelhouse, is frequently gone).

Ariel and I decided to split one cup (which is two scoops) for $2.75. The price is right. We ordered Blueberry Black Tea and Black Sesame. The BBT tasted like, well, tea infused with blueberries. It had the perfect balance of sweet cut with the bitterness of black tea. The Black Sesame was amazing. The ice cream was basically sesame seeds and ground sesame with a creamy base. It is hard to describe the flavor but imagine if sesame seeds tasted so good you didn't want to stop eating them - that is basically how this ice cream tasted. I don't think I would pair these two flavors again, I would pass on the BBT, but the Black Sesame was delicious.
Other Scoops thoughts - The Honey Lavender is the best flavor I have had there. It may be the best flavor of ice cream I have ever eaten (sorry BR). The flavor is complex, delicate, sweet...it is like eating heaven and potpurri all at once.
The Berkeley version of Scoops is Ici. Simply put, Scoops DESTROYS Ici. The consistency of the ice cream, the variety of flavors, and the complexity of the tastes at Scoops surpass the four flavors we tried at Ici.

Umami Burger

Ariel and I went to Umami Burger last night. I will go ahead and say it was delicious, but here is an item by item breakdown with my final opinion at the bottom:

Pickled Plate - We started with this appetizer that consisted of all things pickled: peaches (which the waitress identified as pears), cucumber (obviously), hearts of palm, fennel, and one other thing that I cannot recall. The pears stood out for their texture which was soft but interesting; the pickles were not good at all and far too sweet; and the fennel was the only thing that I would say was good.

Sweet Potato Fries - I love me some sweet potato fries. When they are on a menu I order them. This craze started a few years ago and so far the best ones are at The Counter with a close runner up at Father's Office. Umami probably delivered the best ones yet. They were perfectly fried and had a sprinkling of sugar (maybe brown sugar, not sure) that made these more sweet than they need to be. With the added garlic aioli these were excellent.

Socal Burger - This is a very basic burger with lettuce, tomato, some other spreads and carmelized onions. I did not notice the onions at all. The burger was good but a little too salty. There should have been more onions to cut the salt and balance out the flavor. The actual patty was delicious though and charred to perfection.

The Umami Burger - The eponymous menu option really brings it. Toppings include a little piece of portabello mushroom, a baked parmesan lattitce, a baked tomato, and some type of aioli. The center of this burger, where all of the toppings were located, really tasted like nothing else (Umami means "the fifth taste"). Those few bites were transcendent. The edges of the burger, like the Socal, were charred perfectly but were over seasoned and too salty.

Bottom Line - I would go back for the fries and Umami burger but mainly to try some of the other options. I like that they use creative combinations of items on their burgers. I do not like that they have no other items beyond a turkey burger. And never order the pickled plate.

T's Thai

T's Thai is my go to spot in West LA for Thai food. Aside from being located within ten blocks of my apartment (and about 3 from my old digs) they have some of the most delicious noodles and a la carte items I have ever had.
Now, typically I trust yelpers and their reviews, but I feel like people have completely missed on T's. The departure may be due to my disaffection for all things spicy but if you ever go here is what to order:
Starters - Steamed Dumplings, Egg Rolls, or Spicy Beef Sald
Soup - Wonton Soup
Entrees - Pad See-ew with pork, Green Bean with Chicken, Brown Rice
Drink - Thai Iced Tea
I really can't say enough about how delicious the two entrees above are. The Pad See-ew, which I had never eaten before T's, is the perfect balance of hearty and sweet. The meat is clean and lean. The green beans are always cooked perfectly and the chicken is always white meat. But really, get the Pad See-ew. You can thank me later.