Andy Gavin's Blog, page 48
July 11, 2022
Girl & the Goat
Restaurant: Girl & the Goat
Location: 555-3 Mateo St, Los Angeles, CA 90013. (213) 799-4628
Date: November 2, 2021
Cuisine: Modern American
Rating: Very tasty, 2 bottle limit
_Last fall (yes I’m very behind in my posts), “people” kept going on about how great this new Chicago transplant by Chef Stephanie Izard was. So off we went.
They are located in a fairly cute offshoot area of downtown I don’t think I have been to.
Swank build out, although we (fortunately) sat outside.
The menu.
M...
July 8, 2022
Happy at Happy Harbor
Restaurant: Happy Harbor
Location: 1015 Nogales St, West Covina, CA 91792. 626-965-2020
Date: October 30, 2021
Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese
Rating: Great cantonese
_Yarom discovered this place during the day (for dim sum) not too long ago and as it was really great in that mode we decided to hit it for Sunday dinner.
Happy Harbor is a medium sized Cantonese located right next to Mandarin plaza, a “far east” (Hacienda Heights ish) area we have eaten at again and again.
The interior is classic Ca...
July 2, 2022
Tiempo de Tatel
Restaurant: Tatel
Location: 453 N Canon Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. (310) 651-8553
Date: October 26, 2021
Cuisine: About half Spanish
Rating: Tasty, great service, loud
_This Vega Sicilia Unico dinner moved around a little bit but eventually settled on the new (for LA) Tatel in Beverly Hills.
Tatel is a Spanish restaurant with locations in Madrid and Ibiza that recently opened here in Beverly Hills in the classic Nic’s Martini bar in Beverly Hills.
The interior is updated a bit but still fi...
June 28, 2022
June 20, 2022
Rockin’ Ten Raku
Restaurant: Ten Raku
Location: 4177 W 3rd St, Los Angeles, CA 90020. (213) 380-8382
Date: Oct 21, 2021
Cuisine: KBBQ
Rating: Solid old school KBBQ
_Chevy setup tonight’s dinner and he chose KBBQ because he loves meat and any excuse for big red wines. Not that I’m complaining too much.
Ten Raku is a classic KTown KBBQ place place.
It’s kinda old school, and given the state of the pandemic was fairly quiet.
The menu has a decent number of options. This is good, sometimes I feel that ...
June 16, 2022
Shunji Second Stage
Restaurant: Shunji [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
Location: 3003 Ocean Park Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90405. (310) 826-4737
Date: October 19, 2021
Cuisine: Japanese Sushi
Rating: First rate omakase
_I’ve been going to Shunji for years in its Pico Blvd location but very recently, during the pandemic in fact, he’s moved to a new space over on Ocean Park. So of course we had to go and include him in our Sushi Series of top LA sushi places.
The outside is nearly anonymous.
But inside the whole format and layou...
June 12, 2022
Awesome Asuka
Restaurant: Asuka
Location: 1553 Westwood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90024. (424) 832-7284
Date: October 16, 2021
Cuisine: Japanese / Sushi
Rating: Great neighborhood sushi
_At one of our endless expensive sushi places Joe and Bonnie insisted that we try Asuka, which is a Westwood “local” or neighborhood sushi place they feel has really good quality. So of course we took them up on the offer.
The menu.
2002 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut. VM 99. The 2002 Cristal is now entering its first...
June 8, 2022
Sauvages Bordeaux
Restaurant: Private Chef, David Slatkin
Location: Bel Air
Date: October 15, 2021
Cuisine: American
_This particular entry in my series of Friday afternoon wine themed Sauvages lunches was set at…
Member Jeff’s lovely backyard and features food by private chef David Slatkin.
We dined at this lovely table — it would be romantic except this is about a dozen old winos :-).
Getting the wine going.
1808 Henriot Champagne Brut Millésimé Rosé.
Salmon from Jose. Great, but very salty.
Korean Shor...
June 4, 2022
Old California at 71Above
Restaurant: 71Above [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]
Location: 633 W 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Date: October 12, 2021
Cuisine: New American
Rating: Awesome in all ways
_71Above is one of my favorite LA restaurants and I’ve been many times. In fact there are 10 previous write ups! Original Chef Vartan Abgaryan has moved on to his own new place, Yours Truly (which the pandemic has sadly done in), and 71Above is now seamlessly helmed by his disciple, Chef Javier Lopez. Today the location p...
May 31, 2022
Mucho Matu
Restaurant: Matu
Location: 239 S Beverly Dr Suite 100, Beverly Hills, CA 90212. (424) 317-5031
Date: October 5, 2021
Cuisine: Wagyu Steakhouse
Rating: Tasty and share-plates format an upgrade over steakhouse
_Matu is one of the first “new” (aka post lockdown) restaurants I’ve tried since the “before days.”
They describe themselves as a “different take on what a steak restaurant can be” which is pretty fair.
It’s located in the heart of Beverly Hills, on Beverly.
The buildout is very contempor...
