Andy Gavin's Blog, page 45
September 26, 2022
Drago Centro Champagne
Restaurant: Drago Centro [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
Location: 525 S Flower St, Los Angeles, CA 90071. (213) 228-8998
Date: January 21, 2022
Cuisine: Italian
Rating: Great high end Italian
_Back to Drago Centro for “another” Sauvages Champagne lunch. Historically this series has been located at Chinois, but this year it has been relocated east.
Located on busy Flower in DTLA.
The reception was held around our large square table — big group this time including a separate ladies table.
Multiple buc...
September 22, 2022
Luscious Dumplings
Restaurant: Luscious Dumplings
Location: 919 W Duarte Rd, Monrovia, CA 91016. (626) 821-0518
Date: January 14, 2022
Cuisine: Chinese Dumplings
Rating: Fabulous Homestyle Dumplings
_This is the second AFF (Asian Food Friday) in a row where we set off — Omicron be damned — for some homestyle dumplings.
This time I picked Luscious Dumplings, which I had heard were very good.
The menu is pretty simple, but has nice pictures.
The decor is even simpler!
This is the full menu.
Sliced Pig Knuckl...
September 20, 2022
Quicker Crustacean
Restaurant: Crustacean Beverly Hills [1, 2, 3, 4]
Location: 468 N Bedford Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. (310) 205-8990
Date: January 11, 2022
Cuisine: Vietnamese Fusion
Rating: Awesome as always
_Crustacean is one of our regular haunts and features a great patio in these “outside is better” days. Tonight’s meal was a Hedonist wine dinner — but for some completely inexplicable reason I totally forgot to photo all of the wine. I have no idea why and I’ve never done that before. Wine was good thoug...
September 18, 2022
Chifa Rulez
Restaurant: Chifa LA
Location: 4374 Eagle Rock Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90041. (323) 561-3084
Date: January 9, 2022
Cuisine: Peruvian Chinese (Chifa)
Rating: Amazing
__Jeffrey had the hookup here at this awesome Peruvian Chinese fusion place in Eagle Rock. Yeah it’s far, but it seems to be one of the only Chifa (Peruvian Chinese) places in LA that’s middle/high end. Most just serve on styrofoam.
The jazzy interior.
A huge patio.
Our table.
The grill.
The menu.
Brûlée Char Siu . Wood fired ...
September 16, 2022
So Can Though
Location: 8450 Garvey Ave #103, Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 307-8868
Date: December 26, 2021
Cuisine: Vietnamese
Rating: Excellent (and so full)!
_Every December my Hedonist club goes to this awesome SGV Vietnamese place — which used to be named Phong Dinh and is now Sáu Can Tho. This authentic Vietnamese/Chinese continues to serve up interesting stuff — plus they’re happy to take some of Yarom’s “do it yourself” meats, like his recen...
September 14, 2022
Midnight Merois
Restaurant: Merois
Location: Pendry West Hollywood. 8430 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069. (323) 918-3410
Date: December 21, 2021
Cuisine: Modern Fusion
Rating: Excellent food
_Perched atop Pendry West Hollywood, Wolfgang Puck’s Merois is a stylish rooftop restaurant where the city’s awe-inspiring landscape is the backdrop to a sophisticated menu of global flavors and creations with a decidedly Californian point of view. A simple yet stunning raw bar and sushi menu sit alongside heartie...
September 12, 2022
Sebi Mastro’s 2021
Restaurant: Mastro’s [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
Location: 246 North Canon Dr, Beverly Hills, Ca 90210. 310-888-8782
Date: December 18, 2021
Cuisine: Steak House
Rating: Once a top LA Steak joint
_For the fifth year (sort of, ignoring pandemic years) in a row, my friend Sebastian picked Mastro’s for his birthday dinner so we all hauled out the wines and headed across town. Wine theme: First Growth Bordeaux, focusing on early 80s and Margaux.
Usually we are in the Penthouse, but this year we were on t...
September 10, 2022
Curry at Cobi’s
Restaurant: Cobi’s at Dhaba
Location: 2104 Main St, Santa Monica, CA 90405. (424) 238-5195
Date: December 14, 2021
Cuisine: Southeast Asian
Rating: Lots of great flight flavor
_Dhaba was a local Indian restaurant that was a fixture on Main St in Santa Monica for decades (50 years!). Recently it’s “rebooted” (been replaced?) by Cobi’s, a new Southeast Asian place.
It’s helmed by the team of Cobi Marsh and Lance Mueller.
The interior has been lightly updated and is rather charming.
The menu.
...
September 8, 2022
One One Dumplings
Restaurant: One One Dumplings
Location: 704 W Las Tunas Dr #4, San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 282-8695
Date: December 17, 2021
Cuisine: Northern Chinese
Rating: Solid boiled and fried dumplings
_
AFF and another Friday trip to the SGV to check out some Asian goodness. We actually intended to go to Hui Tou Xiang next door but they were only open for takeout — and since daddy don’t do takeout, we hit up one one.
Small interior.
Very casual sauce containers.
The menu is smaller than the interior ...
September 6, 2022
Melisse 2.0
Restaurant: Melisse [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 (Citrin), 14 (takeout), 15]
Location: 1104 Wilshire Blvd.Santa Monica, CA 90401. (310) 395-0881
Date: December 16, 2021
Cuisine: California French
Rating: New style lighter, but still great
_Right before the pandemic “Old Melisse” reopened split into a more casual ala carte Citrin and this new smaller tasting menu only format Melisse.
There is a new door on Wilshire.
And what used to be the slightly lower back room of “By Brazil I...
