Andy Gavin's Blog, page 72
April 10, 2019
Montrachet Central
Restaurant: Drago Centro [1, 2, 3, 4]
Location: 525 S Flower St, Los Angeles, CA 90071. (213) 228-8998
Date: March 14, 2019
Cuisine: Italian
Rating: Great high end Italian
_This dinner is the second part of the annual White Burgundy Premox test series, hosted by Burg-meister Don Cornwell. This dinner covers 2011 Bienvenues-Bâtard, Criots-Bâtard,Bâtard-Montrachet, and Chevalier-Montrachet.
This particular dinner is at Drago Centro, which is the new home for these big dinners after the closing...
April 5, 2019
On Fire at Charcoal
Restaurant: Charcoal Venice
Location: 425 Washington Blvd, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292. (310) 751-6794
Date: March 3, 2019
Cuisine: New American Grill
Rating: Some great meats
_Josiah Citrin’s (owner/chef of Melisse) newish more casual eatery has been open for a while — and although I bike past it weekly and went once for brunch, this is my first official dinner visit — and it’s a doozy having been invited by one of the owners for a blow out wine fest.
It’s located on Washington Blvd about 2 b...
April 1, 2019
Molten Lava Goodness
Restaurant: Shancheng Lameizi
Location: Mandarin Plaza. 18932 Gale Ave, Rowland Heights, CA 91748. (626) 581-8808
and 1530 S San Gabriel Blvd, San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 766-1700
Date: March 7 and March 26, 2019
Cuisine: Szechuan Hot Pot
Rating: Best Hot Pot restaurant I’ve been to
_On the middle night of my 3 day class trip to the SGV Yarom made the trek out east to join me for what Erick and Skylar said is the best new Chongqing style hot pot.
They describe themselves on their website t...
March 29, 2019
Quick Eats – Earthen
Restaurant: Earthen Restaurant
Location: 1639 S Azusa Ave. Hacienda Heights, CA 91745. (626) 964-1570
Date: March 6, 2019
Cuisine: Taiwanese Chinese
Rating: Solid goodness
_This week I had a 2 day gelato making course in Walnut, right in the heart of the eastern SGV (Hacienda Heights) and since I was staying over of course I took the opportunity to hit up some extra great Chinese.
Earthen is in the same mini-mall as the awesome Shanghailander Palace.
The inside is typical of these newer ca...
March 27, 2019
Date Night at Madeo
Restaurant: Madeo
Location: 362 N Camden Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. (310) 859-4903
Date: March 1, 2019
Cuisine: Italian
Rating: Good, and a scene, but pricey
_My wife and I are always casting out for the intersection of our tastes on our date nights and it had been forever (at least a decade, probably more) since I was at:
Madeo — which has (I think temporarily) moved to Camden from their longstanding location. This is an LA mainstay medium old school Italian. The menu is fairly 80-90s hi...
March 22, 2019
Thirds at Majordomo
Restaurant: Majordomo [1, 2, 3]
Location: 1725 Naud St, Los Angeles, CA 90012 (323) 545-4880
Date: February 28, 2019
Cuisine: Korean Fusion
Rating: Big dishes amazing
_It’s with gigantic expectation that NY restaurateur David Chang opened his first LA outpost last year and since then it’s become a regular foodie and wine destination among my friends. Tonight 6 of us core Foodie Club guys head on out for another great evening.
Looking on the map, I was pretty skeptical of the weird between C...
March 20, 2019
Game of Thrones 1-7 Rewatch
I just finished my full binge rewatch of all seven existing seasons of Game of Thrones — in preparation, of course, for the April debut of the final season. I wanted to offer some thoughts on the show as a whole, instead of the detailed episode by episode analysis I usually do. Bear in mind that I’ve watched many of these episodes 6-8 times (particularly the first 2-3 seasons) and read the books 3 times. However, it’s been 3 or 4 years since I did a big watch on the show, maybe a bit more, so...
March 18, 2019
Bad Boys at Michael’s
Restaurant: Michael’s on Naples [1, 2, 3, 4]
Location: 5620 E 2nd St. Long Beach, CA 90803. (562) 439-7080
Date: February 21, 2019
Cuisine: Italian
Rating: A top LA Italian
_A couple years ago, we organized some Hedonist outings to Michael’s on Naples, rated on the Zagat list as #2 best restaurant in all Los Angeles. I co-organized this one with our fearless leader Yarom, myself, coordinating and designing the menu as well as ordering the wines. So many things sounded good that I came up wi...
March 13, 2019
Coche vs d’Auvenay at Melisse
Restaurant: Melisse [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]
Location: 1104 Wilshire Blvd.Santa Monica, CA 90401. (310) 395-0881
Date: February 20, 2019
Cuisine: California French
Rating: Great finish
_With Foodie Club champ Fred in town the core gang of Erick, myself, Fred got together with Liz for a final meal at Melisse, one of LA’s too remaining Michelin type restaurants — closing any day now sadly and reinventing itself. Liz “twisted our arms” to step up to the rather heroic standard of...
March 11, 2019
Sri Siam
Restaurant: Sri Siam Cafe
Location: 12843 Vanowen St, North Hollywood, CA 91605. (818) 982-6262
Date: February 11, 2019
Cuisine: Thai
Rating: First rate Thai
_Yarom has been scheduling a whole long series of Thai Mondays this spring — and you all know how much I love Thai food. I unfortunately couldn’t make the first one at Sapp, but I slogged out to North Hollywood for Sri Siam (which I had tried to go to before but failed).
Very casual storefront.
This is not exactly the loveliest neighb...
