Andy Gavin's Blog, page 127
March 18, 2015
Jitlada – Fire in the Hole
Location:5233 W Sunset Blvd.Los Angeles,CA90027.(323) 663-3104
Date: March12, 2015
Cuisine: Thai
Rating: Gut burning great
_Tonight’s outing is a hastily organized trip toJitlada, an outrageously authentic Southern Thai place deep in Thai-town. The joint gets 27 in Zagat! It’s run byJazz Singsanong with Chef Tui in the kitchen. The menu can be found here.
You know it’s real because they don’t skimp on either thechiliesOR the fish sauce.
2009 Fritz Haag Brauneberger...
March 16, 2015
Holy Cow!
Restaurant:Holy Cow
Location:264 26th Street.Santa Monica, CA 90402.310-883-6COW
Date: November24 and December 1, 2014
Cuisine: American BBQ
Rating:Great meats
_I’m always excited about anything new this close to my house (15 minutes), and seeing as we have absolutely no good BBQ closer than maybe Culver City, the opening of a up to date smoked meat place at the Brentwood Country Mart is great news.
The frontage is right next to The Little Door and across from Sweet Rose.
The interior is f...
March 14, 2015
Smitten by Smitten
Restaurant: Smitten Ice Cream
Location:432 Octavia Street #1a, San Francisco, CA 94102.(415) 863-1518
Date: January2015
Cuisine:Ice Cream
Rating:Deep frozen goodness
_Smitten is a new take on ice cream, cooled with liquid nitrogen instead of ice. This results in smaller ice crystals and a creamier confection.
The daily menu.
Smitten ice cream is made using a special custom nitro mixer.
Chocolate.
Salted caramel with spicy caramel. The spicy was actually genuinely spicy!
Chocolate with...
March 13, 2015
Untimed but not Unbundled
I’ve been sitting on this for a long time, but at last I can finally announce that on April 15, StoryBundle will be launching a new collection of indie Fantasy and Science Fiction titles. And what’s going to be in that bundle, you might ask? Only my time travel novel Untimed and 7 other awesome Indie SciFi/Fantasy titles that passed theImmerseOrDie Treadmill Gauntlet.
What is that?
For those who don’t know about ImmerseOrDie, it’s simple. Every morning, the host, Jefferson Smith, gets on his...
March 11, 2015
The Goblin Emperor
Title: The Goblin Emperor
Author:Katherine Addison / Sarah Monette
Genre:High Fantasy
Length: 447pages
Read: February22-4, 2015
Summary:A fabulous little jewel-box of a book
_
I found this book on a list of Hugo/Nebula award candidates and it had me at the title.
The youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor has lived his entire life in exile, distant from the Imperial Court and the deadly intrigue that suffuses it. But when his father and three sons in line for the throne are killed in an “accident,”...
March 9, 2015
Game of Thrones Season 5 – Trailer 2
The HBO part of today’s Apple event was host to yet another awesome looking S5 trailer.
Instead of being more narrative like the last one, this trailer takes a “look at all thiscool stuff and action” plus a sort of vague emotional resonance. The later is provided by by the the bits of voice over snippets (consistent in style with previous marketing). “I’m not going to stop the wheel, I’m going to break it” and “I’m a queen, not a butcher.” That kind of thing.
Certainly it looks like narratives...
Don’t Bow for Bao
Restaurant: Bao Dim Sum House
Location:8256 Beverly Blvd.Los Angeles, CA 90048.(323) 655-6556
Date: January12, 2015
Cuisine:Cantonese Dimsum
Rating: Tolerable for not being in the SGV
_
Anyone who reads my blog knows I’m a dimsum fiend. I’ve been doing a pretty good job working through the top places in the San Gabriel Valley (although I have a few new ones to try) but I had an hour or so at lunch to kill in Beverly Hills and I figured I try out Bao.
Bao is styled up for the neighborhood.
Inside it a...
March 6, 2015
Valentino – 2007 White Burgundy part 2
Restaurant: Valentino Santa Monica[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Location:3115 Pico BlvdSanta Monica, CA 90405.(310) 829-4313
Date: March4, 2015
Cuisine: Italian
Rating: Fabulous!
_
This dinner is the secondpart of the annual White Burgundy Premox test series, hosted by Burg-meister Don Cornwell. This dinner covers 2007 Batard-Montrachet, Chevalier-Montrachet, and associated BBM and CBM. Part 1, covering Chablis, Meursault and Corton can be found here.
2007 was a vintage was cool and acidic.
This particular dinner...
March 4, 2015
Forget the Duck Soup, More Meat!
Restaurant: Tasty Duck[
Location:1039 E Valley Blvd.Ste B102.San Gabriel,CA91776.(626) 572-3885
Date: February28, 2015
Cuisine: Chinese
Rating: Great Duck!
_
Tasty Duck is a regular spot with myHedonist food and wine club. Tonight is not only duck night, but “high” (or at least higher) end wine night.
The interior is jammed and the turnover is high. There isn’t even a space inch to stand while waiting for a table as the serves need what little space there is to reach the tables.
NV Charles Mi...
March 2, 2015
CR8 – Liquid Forms
Restaurant:CR8 by Roberto Cortez[1, 2, 3, 4]
Location:Seattle
Date: February25, 2015
Cuisine: Modern Art
Rating:Absolutely Amazing
_
Roberto Cortez’s CR8 is one of the most stunning dining experiences I’ve been too, and so when he invited me to a new one this year some friends and I flew up to Seattle just for this dinner!
“When it comes to taste, liquid acts differently on the palate than solid food. Chewing food becomes a process by which flavors are expelled and discovered in stages as they ar2e...
