A trip to Lomita mostly includes a stop at this Japanese Patisserie (and we needed tea to wash down those butter).
Lovely Caramel Expresso
A strawberry mousse cake I forgot the name of.
The cakes are about $3 each. They’re very delicate and pretty, but “delicate” sometimes synonyms with “tiny.” 😉 Cafe Blanc ‘s cakes are bigger in portion.
Patisserie Chantilly (310) 257-9454
2383 Lomita Blvd. Lomita, CA 90717
Tags: Cake
Haven’t been back to this Japanese Italian place for awhile. The once $8-12 lunch sets are now $13-18. Instead of getting the sets, we both got specials from the blackboard.
Uni Spaghetti (I just have to get this): so good. The uni is fresh and creamy and not mixed in some cream sauce like some places do. But the pool of oil is a bit scary.
Blue Crab Risotto: very flavorful (crab) and delicious~ Creamy but not heavy.
We arrived early and only the bar seats were available. Soon after long lines started queuing outside. Get there early!
Il Chianti
24503 Narbonne Ave. Lomita, CA 90717
A traditional Japanese noodle place that serves soba and Udon in the 2nd floor of Weller Court at Little Tokyo. It was empty when we went in, while Curry House and Orochon Ramen (which I don’t get the appeal of, but to each and his own) in the same plaza were packed. There’re not as many choices as Sanuki no Sato. Grated yam on rice and soba set.
I ordered what seems to be the most interesting one: Trio mini Soba set. It’s got 3 toppings: Fish, Spicy roe and grated yam. Both are good. Since I’ve been eating lots of heavy and greasy food lately, I felt good after eating this.
Rikyu (213) 626-0621
123 Astronaut E S Onizuka St, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Went to Long Beach few weekends ago to check out Little Cambodia. There’s still not very much there yet, only some restaurants and markets on several blocks. We settled into Siem Reap. It’s very spacious inside, suitable for wedding parties. TV monitors are everywhere playing Cambodian pop music show.
Ground pork curry, served with cucumber, Khmer eggplant, cabbage, and green beans. The waitress recommended us this. Very strong flavor, a lot of fish sauce was used. It’s tasty but I find it a little too salty for my taste, though it’s good balance with the raw vegetables and rice.
Beef Skewers. Very good! The barbarque sauce they use reminded me of Chinese’s “Char siu.”
The Fish cakes have complex flavors, it was a little difficult to pinpoint what the tastes were. I could tell lots of lemongrass were used. The texture was mushy and paste-like, and surprisingly spicy. I’m not sure I like the taste. It’s interesting nonetheless.
I’m still a newbie when comes to Cambodian food. I want to try more, especially the noodle dishes. (The Tag cloud shows that we’re big fans of noodle 🙂 )
Freda had her spectacular birthday dinner at Ortolan. I had mine at Lucques with Jon. We’ve alway wanted to try Lucques but never get around to. I love chef/owner Suzanne Goin’s other establishments A.O.C. and Hungry Cat very much. Los Angeles Magazine called Lucques the no.1 restaurant in LA recently, so we had high expectation.
It was a Tuesday night and the restaurant was full. Love the butter soaked almonds (easier for the salt to stick?) and olive. All the dishes on the menu sound interesting so it was quite difficult to choose.
We share the appetizer: colorado lamb carpaccio with fried potatoes, romesco and green garlic aioli . I’ve had beef and fish carpaccio before but never lamb. Very good! The raw lamb meat is easy to chew and not musky at all. Nice Parsley.
Jon got the Grilled liberty duck breast with black rice, blood orange and ginger-mint chutney. The technique was very good, the duck was cooked perfectly. Though Jon also found the astringentness of the blood oranges and spices weren’t adequetely offset by the black rice. He felt something like potatos or parsnips might have worked better. I thought the dish taste Thai.
I got the Braised beef short ribs with sautéed greens, cippolinis and horseradish cream. The dish is like something you might find in a quality restaurant in central Europe, it’s more traditional than haute-cuisine wild juxtapositions. The execution was nonetheless very good. We like it better than the duck. The meat was juicy, tender and came off the bone easily.
Both of us were too full to order any cake type of dessert. We should have gotten a salad for the appetizer so it’s less meat heavy. Also their gelato cost $8 which I found to be too much, so we ended the night with Scoop‘s $2 gelato. ^^;;. I enjoyed the dinner a lot but I didn’t think it was the best I’ve ever had. I want to go back to try their $35 prix-fixe 3 courses dinner on Sunday night.
Lucques
8474 Melrose Ave, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Phone: (323) 655-6277
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