Recently in Food Category

A lot of LA restaurant news that you need to know:

Just ate at "The Hall" at the PaliHouse Hotel on Holloway just east of La Cienega (where the Nike Store once stood). Very cool. Reasonably priced -- bistro fare plus... So they have mussels, steak frites, a delicious roast chicken, but the setting is what grabs you, basically most of the restaurant is in a courtyard adjacent to the lobby of this extended stay hotel (minimum booking a week, with condos to go on sale soon).

Anisette is about to about (they are already serving breakfast and lunch, dinner comes next week. Right off the 3rd Street Promenade, in the clock tower building, where I once had an office, Anisette is designed to look like a classic bistro down to the zinc bar. The menu is also classic, onion soup, croque monsieur, salade nicoise, towers of seafood, daube de bouef and so on. Alan Giraud, the chef was at Bastide,and Lavande -- . They will serve Brunch on weekends and be open to 12-1Am most nights. With valet parking. I am very much looking forward to trying this out.

The folks behind A.O.C., Lucques, and the Hungry Cat, are opening a restaurant in Brentwood at the site of the former Hamburger Hamlet. It will also be bistro fare, but a California local produce version of bistro. There will be a cafe with their own baked goods open all day, and also serving prepared dishes to take home (such as Lucques short ribs). The bar will remain a bar area and the bakc area will be a restaurant. look for this as-yet-unnamed restaurant to open next January.

Santa Monica Seafood is also on the move. They will be giving up their current location on  Colorado  to move to  Wilshire and 10th. At the new location, I hear, they will have a little restaurant cafe and raw bar.

All good news for the hood.....

Another one bites the dust.

Florent, a French bistro in a diner in what was once the meat-packing district is closing its doors June 29. There was an oral history of sorts in the NYTimes this Wed to bid Florent "Au Revoir".

Florent was open 24/7 which was a plus in the clubbing days but more recently it was also a good place to go when, arriving in New York from LA around midnight, I wanted to have dinner and the whole Upper East Side was shut down.

Actually, one funny visit occured last year when we arrived in the City around 11, and my daughter was starving -- every place was closed so we hit upon going to Florent -- where despite it being midnight and some of the pre- and non breeders gave us the hairy the staff treated her with delight, serving pasta, french bread and a glass of milk.

One day hence, somehow will be talking about the Florent that was, or she will read about in a book, and say, "My parents took me there when I was a child."

Saturday night found all of us wandering around Frenchmen Street, visiting the clubs there, from the Dragon's Den where a combo of guy on mac, guy on drums and guy on turntable jammed together.

Over at the Blue Nile there was a great band called Toubab Krewe -- a bunch of white guys playing exotic African instruments -- it was sort of the David Byrne / Talking Heads / Fela Kuti influenced "remain in light" sound taken to a trance level.





Sunday I worked in one more outrageous meal at Commander's Palace. Commander's reopned after 18 months with a multi-million dollar renovation to make it look like it always did --  Easter brunch year round. the Blood marys were reportedly excellent, I had perhaps the best cosmopolitan I've had in New Orleans, I had an incredible chicken and andouille sausage soup, --the famous turtle soup was terrific, the eggs sardou remain true to classic, but a steak and eggs was off the charts --- but all is prelude to the bread pudding. Such was a perfect ending to a classic meal.

PS. Harry Shearer and Judith Owen were at the next table

A couple of quick food notes:

John Besh (August) new restaurant Luke (with an umlaut over the u) is an Alsatian French restaurant where I had the best raw oysters thus far in New Orleans -- with Ueglesich's no longer in business -- Lukes makes an impressive showing. The food was really good -- there was a fried oyster and lardons salad with a green goddess type dressing and an onion tart --we ordered another round they were so good their choucrote filled with various sausages and meats was the winner of the evening (The schnitzle was too heavy). They had redfish as well, but thus far the best redfish is at Vizard's

Last night we went to NOLA emeril's restaurant, which had now has three floors going and here's the thing: the appetizers were all excellent -- and roasted oysters were done escargot style and there was a duck confit pizza with an egg on it but the main courses were good but not exceptional.

The most caloric meal that I ever had -- and that I continue to have -- is at the famous Camellia Grill. Katrina closed the Camellia Grill for 18 months -- but The Camellia Grill is back -- as good as ever. 

Now you might wonder what is so special about the Camellia Grill, and what could one possibly eat there?

I'm glad you asked.

How about a Chili Cheese Omellette -- where the eggs are whipped to airy fluffly delight in a blender normally used for milk shakes.



Would you like a closer look at the omelette?


Or would like you to hear about the pecan waffles cooked on a special grill?

Or how about the pecan pie cooked on the grill and served a la mode?



And that's just my meal.... there are some awesome bacon cheeseburgers fully dressed (i.e., with the works) and club sandwiches and many other wonders to savor.

Kind of makes you want to head to New Orleans?

    As I was checking in to the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley with my family this weekend, I saw a familiar face sitting in the lobby -- Michael Pollan, the now well known author of such books as "The Omnivore's Dilemma."
    I haven't seen Michael in several years (I still think of him as "Mike Pollan" from high school) -- I had heard from a mutual friend that he was living in Berkeley and teaching at the University there -- and of course, I'd seen the great reviews he had been getting for his new book "In Defense of Food" usually accompanied by a picture -- so I knew what he looked like.    
    Still, I wasn't sure it was him. So I looked once and looked twice and finally had to walk over -- As I did he had that look that combines two questions: Do I know this person or is this person going to harass me? -- but as soon as I held out my hand and started to say my name -- well, suddenly we were back on familiar footing.
    My Hungarican Soul Brother Lawrence Karman ("Doc" to everyone in the film biz; Latzi to me) coined the expression "The Teicholz effect" for his conviction that no matter where I land, I will run into someone I know within two hours of arrival. So having run into Pollan I could rest easy on that front.
    Pollan mentioned that he was going to be down in LA this Monday night (tonight) to speak as part of the Aloud series at the LA Public Central Library. We both immediately said nice things about Louise Steinman who runs the program (I profiled Steinman in my column "The Salonistas of LA" -- by the way, the interview I did for ALOUD with Nathan Englander is available on www.LA36.org here).
    When I went to the Aloud series website I learned that Pollan was in conversation with Barry Glassner, a good choice, given his own book on food (My column on Glassner can be read here). I also learned that the evening was already practically sold out, with only standby room available.
    STOP THE BLOG-- I was about to launch into a whole discussion of the Pollan oeuvre and why he is respected, admired and yes, envied by his fellow writers -- but I am sensing a potential Tommywood column in all this. So I will hold off, and in the event that a column is not forthcoming, I will return to blogging about him later on.....




   

Oichi mean delicious in Japanese and that's my review of Robata Bar, 1401 Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica, 310- 458-4771) the new Japanese tapas bar next to Sushi Roku in Santa Monica (the entrance is actually on Santa Monica Blvd).  The decor is Dodd Mitchell cool, with a dark wood bar and the feel of a Japanese pub with fixtures hanging from the ceiling that look like the end of Japanese brooms.

We went early with kids and the staff could not be more accommodating. There were great handrolls, special sushi on crunchy rice, a trio of handrolls (lobster, spicy tuna and a third that seems to have slipped my mind). And that was all before the grilled skewers -- standouts include the shitake mushroom, the chicken meatballs, and cherry tomatoes wrapped in bacon.

Can't wait to go back and try more. A definite great addition to the Santa Monica dining scene.