Taste of LA Pt. 6

I know I haven't updated the site for a long time, but I promise to post a lot more during the holidays! :) 

My first Wolfgang experience. For those who are not familiar, Wolfgang Puck is a California based chef and he's been given the title as "The Greatest Chef in the World." So of course, I had to go to one of his restaurants when I was in LA. His cooking style is a fusion of Cali and French cuisine.

The whole restaurant is decorated with his photos.

Complimentary bread.

Complimentary cream of mushroom soup.

Our crab cakes appetizer. The hot crab cakes and the chilled tomatoes and onions is the perfect match. The zesty toppings perfectly neutralizes the basic-ness of the crab cakes and the spicy cream sauce at the bottom just gives the dish this extra kick.

Very underwhelming entrée. After a spectacular appetizer, I expected the entrée to be the same quality, especially because this dish is recommended by the waiter. I just don't know what to say about this salmon, it just feels like I can have this dish in any restaurant.

Three cheese ravioli. I only had a bite of this, but I remember really liking it. It is rich and creamy; everything a cheese ravioli dish should be plus that special kick of flavour. Definitely up to par.

Overall Review:
Food: 8/10
Lost points for that generic salmon entrée.

Ambiance: 7.5/10
It's comfortable and clean, yet a bit generic for my taste.

Service: 8.5/10
I liked how they gave us complimentary soup, most restaurants don't do that. The food came at a relatively good speed and the waiter is almost always there when we need him.

Price: 8/10
Pretty good since it's a Wolfgang restaurant. ~$25/person.

Final Verdict: 8.5/10
Is this restaurant worth a try when you're around the area? Yes. Would I come back to this restaurant? Probably not, I feel that we've gotten a taste of what it has to offer already. Would I try another Wolfgang restaurant? Definitely.

Address:

1000 Universal Studios Blvd
Universal Cty, CA 91608
Neighborhood: Universal City

(818) 985-9653

www.wolfgangpuck.com/bistro

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Terroni; Terribly Terrific.

After a very stressful midterm period, my friend and I decided to rewind by having some nice food and a do some catching up. I've heard really great reviews for Terroni, some said it's up to par with food in Italy, so of course we had to try it out!

It's within walking distance from Eaton Centre, so it's very convenient and easy to find.

I was also pleasantly surprised by how fast we were seated (it's a big restaurant) despite the fact that we arrived right during lunch time. 

I'm so sorry I didn't get the name of this appetizer. There were too many choices so we simply asked the waitress for recommendations and went with those. This dish is on the daily menu, so I couldn't find the name afterwards.

Anyways, the white chunk is fresh cheese made from cow's milk, poached cherry tomatoes with basil and bread in olive oil.

The cheese is very light yet the richness of the milk flavour is retained. It's a good dish even for those non-cheese-lovers (I know you're out there!). The acidity of the cherry tomatoes brought a nice balance to the creaminess of the cheese and bread and the basil is just that nice cherry on top of a perfect sundae.

Ravioli di Zio Paperone (Homemade Ravioli Stuffed with Duck Confit, Fig, Roasted Butternut Squash, Sauteed with Oyster Mushrooms & Parmigiano Cheese). After a nice refreshing appetizer, this is a very satisfying, rich, explosion of flavours that signals "let's get the party started!" Everything was seasoned to perfection, and it's amazing how I can still taste each component listed on the menu very clearly (except for the fig). The ravioli was well made, and when you bite into it, the duck flavours flow into your mouth. It's quite a bold dish because the taste of duck is not everyone's cup of tea, but I like an edgy dish. :)  

Pizza Cosi (Tomato, Fresh Porcini Mushrooms, Mozzarella, Fontina & Prosciutto di Parma). Flat out disappointed. For those who like prosciutto, this may be the pizza for you. But I didn't like this prosciutto. Why? It tastes like rotten eggs to me for some reason. So I tried eating the pizza without the prosciutto, and for those who were wondering, no, the pizza is not up to par with the ones in Italy. Trust me, I know. The pizza dough is not thin enough to be a flatbread pizza, and not fluffy enough to be fluffy. Without the prosciuttos, although it tastes better than Pizza Pizza pizza (lols for pizza x3!), but the amount of ingredients put in is the same. 


Overall Review: 
Food: 9.5/10
All the dishes were delicious except for the pizza. Terroni probably would've gotten a perfect score if it weren't for the pizza. Despite popular beliefs, pizzas in Italy definitely tastes a lot better. And I'm not just basing this on the prosciutto that I didn't like, but they called it a thin-crust pizza, but it wasn't! The pizza was also a bit burnt. However, I DID see people order more appealing pizzas next to us, so I think I have to go back and try another type of pizza. 


Ambiance: 8/10
Located in the heart of the business district, the ambiance is very business chic with an Italian accent to the overall design. They had Italian street signs hanging on the wall etc. I loved the high ceiling of the main room, and the foyer. It's kinda like an amalgamation of baroque designs with a modern elements. 


Service: 7/10
Up to par, but nothing really stood out. But I think the staff and table ratio is a bit off balanced. I also find that before we order, she's always around, but after our food came, it's so much harder to find her. The restaurant is quite big, so we did not have to wait in line much even though we arrived at lunch time (12 o'clock). For some reason, they get really packed around 1 though, so don't go there at 1 if you want to be seated immediately. 


Price: 7.5/10
The price of the main dishes were quite good, ~$15, but what threw us off was that the appetizer we had was around the same price as the main dishes $13 (I believe). I mean, the appetizer was delicious, but I still think it's a bit steep. But other items on the menu were reasonably priced, ~$15-$18 for pastas. 


Final Verdict: 9/10
I would definitely go back and bring my family along. It's a very nice place to eat. Besides, I've been craving for that cheese ever since I finished eating it! 


Address: 

57 Adelaide St E
Toronto, ON M5C 1K6
Neighbourhood: Downtown Core

(416) 203-3093

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Taste of LA Pt. 5

After a long day in Disneyland, all the restaurants near our hotel is closed, so we ordered room service. On the menu, they had "Peking Duck" under pizza, so I though oh, it's probably because they have no category for it and the bread accompanying Peking Duck looks kinda like pizza dough. But NO, they delivered THIS! Literally duck mixed with plum sauce and cheese. And so, I was laughed at for the rest of the trip for ordering this. It's a really weird combination, and the duck is all dried. So if you decide to order room service from Hilton hotels, do yourselves a flavour and don't order this lol.

And of course, I had to have my daily intake of veggies. :) This was also the first time I've had pattypan squash (the tiny, fat yellow ones), and they're sooo good... mmm...

Some crazy woman (my friend) was craving for rice while we were at Hollywood Blvd, so we went to this Japanese restaurant in Hollywood Highland Centre (shopping mall there).

The sauce on the left side is "soy sauce" and I don't even know what the one on the right is. It tastes like horseradish, sesame, mustard mixed together. Not a very good combination. :/

Condiments.

My meal; everything tastes VERY Americanized (not in a good way). If I ever return to LA, I don't think I will visit this place again.

Taste of LA Pt. 4

So the next morning, we were walking around our hotel trying to find a sit-down place for breakfast and we stumbled upon this place. It wasn't until we were seated that we found out that this restaurant belong to the same franchise as the one we had in Beverly Hills.

I wish we have this in Toronto. If any of you have seen it, pleaseee tell me where I can buy it! I would really appreciate it!

Best earl grey tea ever! And they give you honey instead of sugar; a very nice touch.

My chicken panini; ~$6 only. It's very good and they managed to keep it nice and light suitable for a breakfast and toned down the Mediterranean flavours. This is a bit smaller than their ginormous breakfasts, but it's more than enough for me.

The $6 ginormous breakfast.

Do we have this in Toronto?

Inside Universal Studios LA, this is where we ate our dinner. They have a bunch of themed "restaurants" i.e. Parisian.

 I love the retro diner feel.

Our "angus burgers" and chilli fries. I mean, theme parks are theme parks; their food is theme park quality.

Restaurant inside Disneyland.

I love how healthy this looks and tastes. Surprising from a theme park.

Taste of LA Pt. 3

Situated in the heart of LA's financial district is this Italian patisserie/bistro/bar in one. You could literally go on any website such as yelp and urbanspoon and check it out for yourself the sheer quantity of excellent feedbacks. It just happened that we stumbled upon a Starbucks and decided to browse through what there is to eat around our hotel when we found this restaurant. All I have to say is, THANK YOU INTERNET! This is by far the best meal I've had in Los Angeles. 

(From left to right) Purple hibiscus, vanilla, raspberry, rose macarons. This is only one of the four sections of their macaron display. They also have earl grey (heavenly!), lemon etc.

If you didn't want to have a sit down meal here (though I cannot imagine why you wouldn't), you could just buy these pastries (along with others not shown in these photos) and go. The prices of these pastries are comparable to prices in Europe (~$5 per piece), but let me tell you, they are well worth the price!

Our appetizer; fried mozzarella. On top is an olive with a  spicy salsa-esque sauce. The amazing thing is, even though it's fried and it's cheese, it does not taste oily!

Hallelujah~

Our cute bread with frozen butter; kinda disappointed about the bread though; a little bit too hard and it literally scrapes the inside of my mouth.

Short ribs (braised beef short ribs served with lardon ragù, white polenta, sage & ricotta). The beef is surprisingly tender and seasoned to perfection. I don't know what sauce they used, but this tastes very Asian. It reminds me of a sweet version of soy sauce and well, the ricotta is like congee kinda. 

My yummy entrée: clam linguini (surf clams, roasted garlic, garden herbs, Italian parsley & white wine broth). A-ma-ZING! The broth and spices are not overpowering and actually works with the seafood to bring out it's freshness (although the broth is a bit too spicy, more wine, less Tobasco taste would be perfect). The different types of clams were so fresh, so tasty! 

Open kitchen right in front of us.

Berries crème brulée. Up to Parisian standards. Enough said.

Nectarine Cobbler (poached nectarines, aromatic spices, raspberries, crumble & crème fraîche) made with fresh vanilla beans. It's quite sour, especially the raspberry jam at the bottom, but it mesh well with the sugary & heavy crème fraîche and vanilla ice cream. There sure were a lotta different flavours, but I wish it would have different texture to it; it would just be that much more interesting. 

Chocolate soufflé with a vanilla sauce. For those who have never had a soufflé, it's a dessert that rises like a mushroom in the oven and it slowly shrinks when it's out of the heat. You usually eat it by poking a hole in the middle and pouring a sauce of some sort (vanilla in this case) into the hole and start eating from the middle. A good soufflé is very fluffy, warm and still moist inside.

I'm not a chocolate person, and I still find this soufflé AMAZING! It's very light, unlike a browny, but they were able to retain the richness of the chocolate flavours. I don't know how they do it, but I would definitely have this again!

Yes, we eat 3 desserts in one dinner. We're just cool like that.

The shrunken soufflé; kinda like popping a balloon.

So we decided to buy ourselves some souvenirs since we don't know when we'll be back again :'( These are macarons (that we ended up eating). The earl grey and rose macaron are my favourite! Earl grey macaron sounds like an odd combination, but they made it work! They infused the flowery scent of earl grey but left out the tea after taste. I still crave for this today. I just wish they have something like this in Toronto. :'(

There's conventional and unconventional flavours (i.e. hibiscus). Perfect for a souvenir!

Overall Review:
Food: 9.75/10
I've never given any restaurant this high of a rating (I think), so that tells you about the quality of the food. Even though the bread is complimentary, I'm still quite disappointed. But I mean, there's always room for improvement.

Ambiance: 8/10
It has a very slick modern-chic feel to the restaurant with lots of windows and a high ceiling. A very enjoyable place to eat. The only complain is that we were seated right in front of the kitchen and since it's not enclosed, our clothes and hair smelled like food by the end of the dinner. Also, the restaurant is VERY loud. On top of the rowdiness of people, they try to use hardcore rock music to drown the noise (unfitting for the atmosphere and crowd that dines there). This is probably the only major criticism I have for the restaurant.

Service: 8.5/10
I always love a friendly waiter, but ours was the cool, badass type. We can never find him when we need him and he's always there asking if we need anything else (a polite way of trying to get us to pay when we didn't even finish our food). But the service IS up to par in the mechanical sense and the food came in reasonable time.

Price: 10/10
Typically, I would expect restaurants like this to be in the $30-$40 range, but their entrées are surprisingly cheap for the quality and the ambiance! Pastas ~$15 (mine's $16), and meat entrées are all $20! This dinner with 1 appetizer, 2 entrées, 3 desserts cost ~$35 per person! I mean, where can you find this in Toronto?!

Final Verdict: 9.5/10
Dear owner of Bottega Louie, PLEASE come to Toronto! I'll eat here at least 3 nights a week! But please cut back on the rock music. Thanks.

Address (for those lucky ones in LA atm):
700 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90017, United States
(213) 802-1470




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