Andy Gavin's Blog, page 8
June 14, 2025
Soy Sauce Mexican Chilies
Restaurant: Carmen’s con sabor mexicano
Location: 78010 Country Club Dr Ste 400 Palm Desert, CA 92211. (760) 360-4242
Date: September 24, 2024
Cuisine: Mexican
Chef: Carmen Hernández
Rating: Tasty
_We stopped here on our way east.
A random Mexican Di selected on our drive to Palm Desert. Turned out to be pretty decent.
Minimalist interior.
Chips.
Salsa.
Pan Fried Chilis Stuffed with Shrimp. Unusually, these were eaten covered in soy sauce, fresh lemon, and mayo — which was pretty awesome. ...
June 12, 2025
Big Boys at Crustacean
Restaurant: Crustacean Beverly Hills [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
Location: 468 N Bedford Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. (310) 205-8990
Date: September 17, 2024
Cuisine: Vietnamese
Chef: Tony Nguyen
Rating: Amazing again
_
Tonight I returned again to Crustacean for the I-don’t-know-how-many-th time.
Crustacean Beverly Hills opened its doors on South Santa Monica Boulevard in 1997, the Southern California outpost of Chef Helene An and the An family’s “House of An” restaurant group that began ...
June 10, 2025
Too Much of a Not So Good Thing
Restaurant: Chubby Cattle
Location: 127 W Main St, Alhambra, CA 91801. (626) 872-0616
Date: August 25, 2024
Cuisine: Fake Yakiniku
Rating: Fun, but bland and meh quality
_Chubby Cattle’s Alhambra branch opened in 2018 on Valley Boulevard, becoming the first California outpost for Chubby Cattle International, the hospitality group founded by Chinese-American entrepreneur David Zhao and partner Haibin Yang. The pair had launched the original Chubby Cattle in Las Vegas two years earlier with the g...
June 8, 2025
Na So Fast With the Duck
Restaurant: Bistro Na’s [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Location: 9055 Las Tunas Dr, Temple City, CA 91780. (626) 286-1999
Date: September 15, 2024
Cuisine: Chinese
Chef: Tian Yong
Rating: Still very good, but bring back the duck!
_Bistro Na’s slipped into a modest Temple City strip mall in the spring of 2016, but the project was anything but modest. It is the first U.S. outpost of Beijing’s celebrated Najia Xiaoguan group, owned by the Na family, whose ancestors once served as imperial physicians to the Qing ...
June 6, 2025
Too Much Bland Beef
Location: 900 Wilshire Blvd Suite 212, Los Angeles, CA 90017. (213) 296-8783
Date: September 13, 2024
Cuisine: Japanese
Chef: Shin Thompson
Rating: I don’t really like Buffets
_Niku X made its debut in January 2023, high above the bustle of Downtown Los Angeles on the ninth floor of the Wilshire Grand Center. The project is the first Los Angeles venture from Orange County–based restaurateur Dario Liu and Michelin-recognized chef Shin Thompson, operating under Liu’s ...
June 4, 2025
LQ House Party
Location: Villa Malka
Date: September 7, 2024
Cuisine: French
Chef: Laurent Quenioux
_
We hosted a private dinner at home for some friends and so of course we brought back in our favorite private chef: Laurent Quenioux.
French-born chef Laurent Quenioux grew up in France’s Sologne Valley, apprenticing at age sixteen at the legendary Troisgros in Roanne before polishing his classical chops at institutions such as Jacques Cagna in Paris and Relais & Châteaux properties throughout the Loire. He ...
June 1, 2025
Republique of Tomatoes
Restaurant: République [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14]
Location: 624 S La Brea Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90036. (310) 362-6115
Date: September 29, 2024
Cuisine: French
Chef: Walter Manzke
Rating: Very solid as always
_République opened in late 2013, breathing new life into the storied 1929 Spanish-Revival structure on South La Brea once built for Charlie Chaplin and later occupied by Campanile and La Brea Bakery. Husband-and-wife chefs Walter and Margarita Manzke—backed at launch by...
May 30, 2025
Stellar Stella
Restaurant: Stella
Location: 8899 Beverly Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90048
Date: August 28, 2024
Cuisine: Italian
Chef: Javier Cárdenas
Rating: Really tasty
_A work dinner gave me an excuse to try new “hoity toity” Italian, Stella.
Stella swung open its brass-framed doors in late 2022, becoming the first marquee tenant at the newly reimagined mid-century tower at 8899 Beverly Boulevard. The restaurant is the passion project of hospitality veteran Claire Foster and her partner, chef-owner Javier ...
May 28, 2025
Si Mon!
Restaurant: Si! Mon
Location: 542 Rose Ave, Venice, CA 90291, United States. +1 424-500-0011
Date: August 22, 2024
Cuisine: Latin American
Chef: Sebastián Pérez
Rating: One of the best new places in town
_Si! Mon flung open its doors in the summer of 2022 in a low-slung corner building on Abbot Kinney Boulevard, instantly recognizable by its sun-washed terracotta exterior and a neon script that reads, simply, “¡Sí Mon!”—West-coast Spanglish for an emphatic “hell yes.” The project is owned by lo...
May 26, 2025
Tomato Wednesday!
Restaurant: Marino Ristorante [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
Location: 6001 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90038. (323) 466-8812
Date: August 21, 2024
Cuisine: Italian
Chef: Salvatore “Sal” Marino
Rating: On of the best
_Marino Ristorante is one of Los Angeles’s quiet legends, a family-run Italian dining room whose story stretches back to 1952, when Neapolitan émigré Ciro Marino opened his first trattoria for studio executives and movie stars hungry for a taste of home. After two earlier locations,...
