Category Archives: California

Road To Seoul

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Interior

Table setting

**** (4 stars)

This was a great place for a Korean BBQ lunch extravaganza. For one price you can have all you can eat from an entire page of protein choices. Items are delivered to your table in generous proportions where you, of course, grill them yourself.

We tried quite a few of the meats and our two favorites were the beef bulgogi and the pork spare ribs.

Also included are a bowl of nicely dressed salad, an assortment of kimchi and other sides, and some terrific pancakes.

The place is spacious, and servers keep a careful eye on the temperature of your grill… and your need for more meat!

Road To Seoul
1230 S Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90006
(323) 731-9292
https://www.yelp.com/biz/road-to-seoul-los-angeles

Sotto

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Interior

Exterior

Bread with garlic anchovy butter

Funghi pizza

*** (3 stars)

Excellent service here is the highlight, and the decor is intimate while at the same time being bustling. The food doesn’t quite live up to the resulting expectations.

Housemade bread was delicious, and worth the extra charge. The funghi pizza was flavorful, but the crust was more like naan bread, with no crispness at all. We ate the toppings off.

Rigatoni was nicely al dente, but this dish should only be ordered if you absolutely LOVE chicken livers, and they weren’t just the prime flavor component, they were the only flavor component.

I give them points for doing something different with the wine list, but it may not be what you’re looking for. ALL of the wines are from lesser known Italian appellations, so you’re not going to find any varietals you’ve likely heard of. This encourages exploration, but also invites disappointment.

Sotto
9575 W Pico Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90035
(310) 277-0210
https://www.yelp.com/biz/sotto-los-angeles

Sealegs Wine Bar

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Interior

Chilequilles

Ceviche

***** (5 stars)

This is a pretty darn good place, especially for an airport lounge. There’s a nice selection of wines by the glass and bottle, at fairly reasonable prices for an airport. There’s also a great menu off well thought-out, atypical food. Service was a bit slow, but when you’re trying to kill time during a layover and have a nice bottle of wine, that’s fine.

Sealegs Wine Bar
200 World Way
Los Angeles, CA 90045
(424) 227-8295
https://www.yelp.com/biz/sealegs-wine-bar-los-angeles

Carl’s Jr Restaurants

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Interior

Exterior

Western bacon cheeseburgers and sides

*** (3 stars)

Carl’s junior offers a nice variety of pretty typical fast food. Unlike at most of the competitors you can get a BBQ bacon cheeseburger and onion rings, which are my favorites.

The food at this Carl’s is good, but it is quite slow, even when uncrowded, so don’t visit if you’re in a hurry.

The place is clean and the staff seems nice.

Carl’s Jr Restaurants
1611 S Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90006
(323) 731-0384
https://www.yelp.com/biz/carls-jr-restaurants-los-angeles-3

Taix French Restaurant

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Interior

Ceasar salad

Escolar

***** (5 stars)

It’s sad that so few of the old school restaurants are left in Los Angeles. Taix is one of those great holdouts that harken back to the days of traditional French recipes in comfortably posh surroundings.

The restaurant is divided into a number of rooms, from a dark, clubby bar to an elegant high-ceilinged dining room.

Recipes are traditional and represent excellent examples of classic French cuisine: country style pate, escargot, tarragon cream sauce on your fish.

The highlight for me is the wine list, which offers a nice selection of domestic and international wines at the lowest prices in town. Most are at or near retail. What other restaurant offers a half bottle for $14? That’s less than the price of a glass at most places. If for nothing else this is a great reason to visit Taix!

Taix French Restaurant
1911 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
(213) 484-1265
https://www.yelp.com/biz/taix-french-country-cuisine-los-angeles

Pizza Hut

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Interior at peak lunch hour

Personal pan pizza

*** (3 stars)

People seem to dislike this Pizza Hut, but I thought it was fine. At the middle of lunch time it was deserted and we thought it might be closed. But someone appeared and took our order, and the food was Pizza Hut standard, so I wouldn’t hesitate to go back.

Pizza Hut
1555 S Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90006
(323) 734-7713
https://www.yelp.com/biz/pizza-hut-los-angeles-11

Locanda Veneta

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Interior

Exterior

Salad Insalata di “Locanda”

Carpaccio

Branzino special

Squid ink pasta

Affogato al Café

Tiramisu

***** (5 stars)

This is everything you’d want in a neighborhood Italian place: intimate, great ambiance, good food, nice wine list, friendly service.

Beef carpaccio was a nice starter, and I really enjoyed their unique Ceasar salad, which uses radicchio rather than romaine. It was a non-bitter variety of radicchio I hadn’t had before.

Their tiramisu is also unconventional, served in a bowl; it lacked the boozy ladyfingers in my favorite versions. But the affogato was excellent.

Locanda Veneta
8638 W 3rd St
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(310) 274-1893
https://www.yelp.com/biz/locanda-veneta-los-angeles

The Stinking Rose

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Interior

Combo mussels shrimp crab

40 clove chicken

Prime rib

Garlic ice cream with caramel mole sauce

**** (4 stars)

I’ve been wanting to go to a Stinking Rose since I first saw one many, many years ago in San Francisco. I was expecting it to smell of garlic and for every dish to have an overwhelming taste of garlic, but that was far from the case. Garlic was very judiciously used to enhance each dish without being the focus.

By far the best thing we had was the seafood skillet, particularly the mussels. This was the best mussel preparation I’ve ever had.

Prime rib and the 40 clove chicken were good but not remarkable.

Garlic cream is an interesting experience you probably will only want to try once!

The Stinking Rose
55 N La Cienega Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
(310) 652-7673
https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-stinking-rose-beverly-hills-4

The Ivy

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Interior

Patio

Interior

Complimentary garlic toast

The Ivy Sundae

*** (3 stars)

This is a really charming restaurant, from its lovely outdoor patio to the beautifully decorated and intimate dining rooms. Each table is adorned with a vase bursting with fresh roses.

Your experience begins with complimentary glasses of Champagne, and your meal begins with complimentary garlic cheese toast. Both were wonderful, and were actually the two best things we had.

Ceasar salad and tuna tartare were very good starters. The entrees were less impressive. There was nothing noteworthy about the grilled swordfish, and my companion’s steak, ordered medium rare, was cooked far beyond well done, to medium cremated. We never send anything back to the kitchen, but we had to send this back. To their credit, it was swiftly whisked away and removed from the bill.

The sundae was a very nice dessert, served deconstructed, with two excellent sauces.

The service was pleasant and responsive, but not necessarily attentive.

There are some decent wines by the glass and a few lesser wines with reasonable prices, but the good wines on the list are steeply marked up, which is opposite the usual strategy. As a result we settled for one that was only adequate.

The Ivy
113 N Robertson Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(310) 274-8303
https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-ivy-los-angeles