Phototasting at Cube, July 31, 2:00 PM
Hot off the proverbial presses:
We are excited to announce that Phototasting is back!
“Phototasting–a unique food sampling and restaurant photography workshop–will be taking place at Cube Café and Marketplace on Saturday, July 31 from 2-5 pm. Participants will be able to sample Cube’s seasonal Italian cuisine while also learning restaurant and food photography tips from local food bloggers Daily Gluttony and The Kitchy Kitchen. DSLR and Point and Shoot cameras are welcome.
Reserve online for $50/pp at http://bit.ly/phototasting. Spaces are limited and the workshop did sell out last time, so be sure to reserve your space soon!
Please also visit the following links for write-ups of our first Phototasting workshop at Checkers Downtown:
Rants and Craves: http://www.rantsandcraves.com/2010/02/they-shot-they-savored-phototasting.html
Pardon My Crumbs: http://pardonmycrumbs.blogspot.com/2010/02/review-phototastings-art-of-food-porn.html
Nad’s Bakery: http://www.nadsbakery.com/2010/02/food-porn.html
Wan Life To Live: http://www.wanlifetolive.com/2010/02/learning-from-best.html
DJJewelz: http://www.djjewelz.com/2010/02/08/phototasting-lobster-bisque/
Event Tickets here: http://bit.ly/phototasting
Twitter account (to be updated?) here: http://twitter.com/phototasting
For further info, contact: info@phototasting.com”
Is it possible to express how much we luuuurv Cube? Not really.
Fido Filled Fourth: Pourtal Happy Hour, Little Dom’s killer Monday Night $15 supper
The last wine bar we visited in SaMo was so full of douchettes (hardly a douchebag, quite odd) I vowed to never return to another wine bar in the beach town again. Yet we chose Pourtal thanks to a Twitter rec on the balmy July 4th weekend. And it was super kuh-aye** !
Dogs on the patio. WHAT?!
To be frank, the happy hour items were forgotten as soon as eaten. There was some rillette, some burrata, some other what not (buffalo wings).
Pourtal is known as the one of the better known LA wine bars utilizing enomatic machines. While Ugo’s wine vending machines are holding down Culver, Pourtal has become a fixture West of 405 as the wine dispensing powerhouse of tiny proportions.
Happy hour food bites are worth every dollar ($4) and house red/white wines are $5. Really though, sitting with your pups (or geezer dogs, love ‘em all) near Santa Monica Beach, off of Ocean, sipping a glass of wine from unknown origin, munching on shreds of duck, is… relative to all of the posh food festivals this summer, simply sublime. For the dog-obsessed, the explicitly dog-friendly happy hour is a blessed time.
Pourtal Wine Bar
Pourtal on Twitter
Later on, the dinner spot proved just as equally canine-friendly as Pourtal when we leashed (ok, we tied, but I despise that word when applied to all fido) Cody to a parking sign out by Little Dom’s sidewalk seating. Holy cow, I swear our convivial neighbor was going to steal jack our geriatric pup. He came back and kept on hugging the golden retriever. All the while I was thinking: I’m sorry bro, your lotioned, manicured hands shouldn’t have to caress our wretched smelling dog.
Every week, Little Dom of Los Feliz presents a $15 3 course meal as Monday dinner. Every week, opentable.com illustrates a sold out restaurant well into the late evening. The “correct” process to secure a table prior to granny’s bed time on Mondays is to pre-book a week ahead, and hope for some animal protein on next Monday dinner menu. When the chefs feel like serving bits of haute cuisine, there might be confit of duck breast. When they want to go low-fi, they fry up some pork cheeks. This particular night presented some eggplant parm sans parmesan, a plate of South American turned faux-Italian skirt steak with “salsa verde”, and a bowl of chocolate “budino” with creme fraiche. Lil Dom apparently loves his creme fraiche because 2 weeks later, the blueberry buckle cake was also served with creme fraiche
Can one actually attach expectations to a $15 3-course meal at a hipster-filled neighborhood hot spot? The question is actually more philosophical than rhetorical. $15 stuffs a family of 4 when they’re fed Chinese bento boxes from San Gabriel Valley. But Los Feliz is in the wrong area code. Here, a remotely edible meal, no matter how many courses, is worth more than $15, especially when there are super cute inebriated rockability girl sitting next to you, smelling of floral Chanel while showing off her perfect up-do – ON A MONDAY NIGHT! Even better is the cute gay guy totally in love with our pup, nearly molesting him in public.
Just don’t get the burger so highly touted by AHT. It indeed had great char, but the bun was total hot mess.
Little Dom’s
http://www.littledoms.com/
2128 Hillhurst Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
** 可愛, kawaii, – some of us are tired of seeing the Chinese language butchered by y.t.s obsessed with Japanese culture, so we’re no longer doing the screaming in foreign tongue bit.
Pictorial: Extravaganza of the Senses for Saban Free Clinic
Summer grubbing festival #2:
200 variety of beverages, 40 food vendors, 1 VIP booth, 1 perfect dusky early evening, and 1 broken Canon prime lens translates to a picture imperfect great time!
Shockers of the evening: Far Bar Little Tokyo serves decent food! Pop-up robata at Chaya’s booth turned out superior beef kebabs than Chaya Downtown. A top chef master herself plated festival food.
Discoveries: Cafe Was’s Alex Rezick (Top Chef DC) has a killer off-camera smile. People love, LOVE! sausages served as street meet, e.g. see Brats Brother’s long line. T-Salon’s vanila oolong was perfectly complex and cleansing at the end of 30 plate tasting binge. Let Milk’s ice cream sandwiches on dry ice soften before biting & cracking a filling. Momed Market does not want you to call their duck schwarma “taco”. It is possible to be inspired by rose petal treats from Valerie’s Confections at a charity event. Rose bushes at home better watch out. You will miss people you know at a food & wine free for all.
Fave dish of the evening: Cafe Was’ fried lardon, ie, Chef Reznik: “eat it in 1 bite”. Everyone: “uhmmm.. how?”. I went top-down, followed it up by licking the plate. It worked and was sickeningly tasty for catered food.
As witnessed and testified by Stuffy Cheaks! As experienced by Noms, Not Bombs!
Linkage to write ups by DTAB, HNL to be included as published.
13th Annual Extravaganza for the Senses
Vintage Enoteca Wine Bar, West Hollywood
Vintage Enoteca is open as early as breakfast, just like cicchetti bars in Venice. Except, of course, they don’t serve sardines on crackly crostino with their Groundwork coffee. But hey! The possibility of sipping on prosecco at 9am is tantalizing enough.
This geographically lonely West Hollywood wine bar is the fruit of 2 hard working ex-advertising executives, but one would never be able to tell. There are 20 wines by the glass, 10 beers available, and the selection of the bottles tend to stray towards California. With a chef helming a simplistic menu of small bites & panini, both Danielle Francois and Jennifer Moore freely surveys the room, answering questions about the “boutique wine” selection, as well as the finer nuances within the menu items.
Think of Vintage Enoteca as WeHo’s Bacaro with lofted bare ceiling, equally adorned floors and an instant sense of familial comfort. As a new patron, the best is to visit on a relaxing, unharried, un-famished night. Devouring all sections of the menu will result in intense carbo loading fit for a triathlete, so stay focused on the cheese, meats, bruschetta, the small bitse menu and the hanging Edison bulbs.
The linguica sausage and egg bruschetta (off the regular menu, served as special) was an earlier item that started us off:
And a Spanish grilled cheese (fontina, chorizo, piquillo peppers) finished us off:
In between, the staff plied us with wine & cheese:
And life, in this unfooding stretch of Sunset (closest food alternatives are Cheebo, and.. Toi), was good, especially for the desperate gourmands in the neighborhood.
Wine & menu tasting courtesy of Vintage Enoteca & BBPR’s generosity.
Summer PSA Continued: Taste of Beverly Hills
Directly from the PR Wires:
This is a four-day food, wine, and music extravaganza taking place in Beverly Hills (near the Beverly Hilton Hotel). Chefs from around LA—and the country—are coming together in celebration of what we hope will become LA’s go-to food and wine festival. Wolfgang Puck, Michael Voltaggio, Jon and Vinny of Animal, Ludo Lefebvre, Walter Manzke, Ted Allen, Scott Conant, and many more, are confirmed to showcase at the event. KCRW’s Jason Bentley is also curating the music lineup and there are some VERY exciting bands in the works (TBD). “Good Food” Host Evan Kleiman is also participating (keep an eye out for her annual pie contest). Chef demos, wine tastings, and LG Electronics’ “Taste of Something Better” amateur chef competition happening LIVE, are just a few of the many exciting events taking place over the weekend.
The Grand Tasting event will be on Saturday, September 4th 7:00pm – 11:00pm, and is appropriately named Date Night by the organizers. This will feature “40+ hand-selected restaurants from the Los Angeles area”, as well as “beer, wine & cocktail tastings”. All the festivities will take place at 9900 Wilshire Blvd Beverly Hills 90210 during the 4 days and there is no pretense of eating for a cause, good or bad. This is just pure hedonism.
Taste of Beverly Hills
You can also follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/tasteofbh
or via Facebook at www.facebook.com/foodandwinetasteofbeverlyhills.
$9.99 AYCE KBBQ Are You Out of Your Mind: Don Day, Ktown
Happy Hour just became beefy.
Don Day instituted their $10 “happy hour” — 9pm to closing — couple of months ago. While there are a few $10 KBBQ joints in Ktown, most do not deserve coverage due to pure shittiness. They’re either filthy, suffer from dog meat syndrom, or have panchan you wouldn’t serve to a miguk saram you hate.
Offerings during happy hour:
For non-offal eaters, this translates to merely 3 cuts of meat, so the actual quality matters as there are plenty of neighboring Hangook meat shacks offering $10 AYCE. Due to previous experiences with thin beef cha dol carrying nothing but adipose tissue, I personally avoid cha dol bae gi unless advised otherwise.
Pictured above was the ambiguous “beef belly”/sirloin, sprinkled with Korean sea salt, later pan fried in its own fat (check right corner for a chunk of beef fat). Next to it shows thick cuts, though frozen, of pork belly. There’s no way to confirm veracity of the “black” pig claim, but at $10 per person, no one should care about the actual skin pigmentation. Below, is the picture that should speak to many:
Strips of “country” pork belly,topped with shin, sour, kimchi. Some folks demand dduk wrap, some really love pa moochim (shredded green onion salad) at AYCE, others will insist the absolute abundance of panchan (not Don Day’s strong suit — see scoop of potato filler shown in pictures below) is what matters between the competition. At this price point, intangibles contribute to the final score because even if the Korean restaurant executes one dish well, somebody will come back with $10.
The hostess/server at Don Day was really nice — she didn’t ignore us, she didn’t wince when myeol chi was requested among second round of panchan. The ventilation system worked well to evict both grill smoke and cig smoke; there was enjoyable hot sauce instead of plain gochujang:
Final verdict: drop the hipster/Filipino infiltrated San Ya & its 8 cuts of moshed meat, its rotten floors, dirty tables. Swing by Don Day after 9pm (the drunker the better) & keep reporting back. It’d be interesting to see how this new(ish) promotion trends in a few months.
Don Day Yi (or, per their official yellowpages entry: Don Doeji)
300 S Hobart Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90020
(213) 427-9292
The York Celebrates Third Anniversary
The York on York in Highland Park celebrated its third birthday yesterday (on the dot — it officially opened July 12th, 2007) by offering drink specials and passed apps well into the early morning of July 12th, 2010.
It’s nutty to read about this establishment’s history & and realize York’s menu actually came from Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo before they even opened Animal. Eater’s report tells us The York survived longer than Susan Tracht’s Tracht in Long Beach. And really, despite sporting the exact same ordering system as Father’s Office, everyone who visits The York enjoys its environ (though perhaps not its food) more so than FO. This is merely one of the reason why The York trudged through the economic downturn in a not-filthy-rich neighborhood, and survived. Coupled with late, and early, service from the kitchen, a healthy beer tap and industrially chic space, The York is perhaps one of the first self-proclaimed gastropubs in LA to actually serve its surroundings like a British gastropub.
With a doppelganger menu, driven by burgers downed with crafty beers, as well aforementioned half-service model, comparisons to Father’s Office are inevitable. After 3 years, it’s safe to say The York puts Father’s Office(s) to shame with its local vivaciousness, friendly bouncer, on-site bar owners/operators, and prices fit for the ‘hood. The eggs benedict at brunch may come with only 50% runny egg, the burger may be overcooked at times, but no where else are beer, well drinks (Irish car bombs, check!), wine and seasonal cocktails served with equal comfort, sans judgement, sans aloofness, sans hesitation, sans karaoke night.
This celebratory evening saw 3 cocktail specials: $5 for fresh watermelon martini, $5 watermelon tequila and $3 shot of “chocolate ecstasy” — the actual name eludes me after a 2 hour “saturnalia of beef”, shots of soju & glasses of Hite. The watermelon tequila with salted rim portrayed Asian flavor of salting juicy watermelons. This is a far better, and probably unintended, interpretation of Mexican-Asian fusion than say.. the recently minted “pho beef taco”. It’s a drink seemingly too obfuscating for the Highland Park natives who may simply clamor for a tall boy of PBR (ironically, and thankfully, not offered). Either way, The York is what every boozing food service establishment should strive to feel, with its reclaimed bar, and golden era cartoon mutely showing on the projector screen.
Happy birthday dude! (Do hipsters still use “dude”? Let us know in comments?)
The York
http://www.theyorkonyork.com/
5018 York Blvd
Highland Park, CA 90042
(323) 255-9675
Malo Brunch, in Picture Form.
Malo, a long time tequila strong hold in Silver Lake, now offers a serene environment for one to enjoy exquisite tequila cocktails. Really! Think… while the sun’s still up, with birds chirping, before the enthusiastic Thai karaoke singers stumble out of Nad Pob across the street.
Don’t believe me? Picture proof:
OK, the busy subjects can’t quite translate the tranquility instilled by Malo during the morning brunch, but just look at the happy faces at the long table! Get on that!
First, partake in a round, or two, of “la diabla”, made with Milagro silver, ginger, lime, agave nectar and splash of chambord,
After experiencing Malo’s tequila cocktails during hours when vampires can’t roam, there are non-traditional Mexican desayuno dishes to be wolfed down. [gag, sorry for the vamp / wolf theme, too many Twilight billboards on the way to work]
Chilaquiles – ok, so this is a bit traditional – & Egg scramble Tostada – see, not as traditional..
Chipotle Chicken Salad Torta
Best the best part of this experience? Dessert at dawn, and no one’s there to judge you. Bread Pudding ($7):
Tres Leches Cake ($7)
Even better flan ($7):
Thanks to Malo for hosting this gratis tasting.
Malo Restaurant
Brunch Menu
4326 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90029
(323) 664-1011
