dineLA Feburary 2011

dineLA happened again right around my birthday!  This round I visited two new places and revisited a favourite with a new chef and menu.

The first new place is Cleo at the Redbury Hotel.  This is another SBE property.  The hotel is located at Hollywood and Vine, in an area that doesn't look like a promising spot for a hip hotel.  The building is a red painted brick building.  The restaurant is on the street level.  The food is Mediterranean and the decor is very dramatic. The dineLA menu starts with your choice of 2 mezzes, including dips, veggies roasted in their wood burning oven or what they call 'delicacies'. We tried the babaganoush and muhammara dips, roasted cauliflower with vadouvan spice and cashews, and shrimp briouats (like spanikopita but with shrimp filling).  Warm toasty flatbread comes with the mezzes. The babaganoush was some of the best I've had, with a smoky flavour. Muhammara is a red bell pepper dip with pomegranate and was also delicious. I'm not a big bell pepper fan, but the combination worked. Vadouvan is a french version of curry, and it added a wonderful spice flavour to the roasted cauliflower and cashews. The briouats were delicious with its flaky filo crust and wonderful shrimp filling. My main dish was a daurade(black cod) with cumin. The fish was broiled with the skin on so that it was flaky and crisp. We tried two desserts, the sticky toffee pudding and a milk chocolate bar with orangesicle cream.  While the toffee pudding was good, the chocolate-orangesicle cream was unusual and delicious. Cocktails are expensive here, as they are at all SBE properties, but they are fresh and unique and you can taste the quality of the ingredients. By the time we left, the small bar was packed and the restaurant had a noisy buzz. I'd definitely come here again and it would be fun with a big group of people to share a bunch of mezzes.

The second restaurant was First & Hope, which I have been to twice before, but they have just got a new chef and a retooled menu. Some of the southern influenced dishes remain, but the menu is now organized more traditionally and there are some lighter fare. I had the oyster-brie soup to start. The soup comes with a poached egg in the middle and the soup was creamy and deeply flavourful (how could it not with both oyster and brie!) and the egg added a wonderful texture. My main was trout, which came whole (yay! really the only way to eat a small fish) and butterflied. It was done to perfection, just cooked through and almost melt in your mouth tender. It came with a topping of cranberry, pine-nuts and spinach (or it could be another similar green, I don't really eat those much). The sourness of the cranberry was a perfect foil to the tender fish and made the spinach go down much easier. We tried all three of the desserts. My dining companions loved the apple crisp but I preferred the chocolate bread pudding which was paired with a bourbon sauce. Overall I'd say the desserts were the weakest part of this meal. The ambiance at this restaurant is very elegant with a 30's or 40's feel and the service staff are all dressed to match. The location is perfect for dinner before or after a show at Walt Disney Concert Hall or any of the venues at the Music Center.

My third restaurant was XIV on Sunset. I'd been here for happy hour on their outdoor deck but hadn't been for dinner. This was the highest end of the restaurants I visited this week. The decor is French-ish but in a very eclectic way, with mismatched chairs, chandeliers and sheer drapes. The service, as at most of the SBE venues, is very well-trained, friendly and knowledgeable. I started with the butternut squash soup. Wow, so good! The plate comes with spiced marshmallow, peanuts and apples on the plate and the waiter pours the soup in from a small carafe. The add-ins really add a wonderful texture to the creamy sweet soup. My main was king crab risotto. It came with a whole half of the crab leg and a foamy lemon emulsion with fresh pea pods and herbs adding a wonderful fresh bite. This was probably my favourite dish of the week, the flavours were so wonderful and surprising together. My dessert was bourbon donuts with banana ice cream. The donuts came as small donut holes with a glaze, and they were delicious with the ice cream. This is an expensive restaurant and I'm not sure I would be able to come here on my own dime much, but that's the beauty of dineLA.