Picca Peru Freshens Up with Carrot Habanero Air, Peruvian Fish 'n Chips

Making a Dante Bellpepper cocktail at Picca Peru

So many restaurants forget that it might be a good idea to freshen up the menu every so often. Not so at Ricardo Zarate's Picca Peru, which adds new dishes and even more imaginative cocktails several times a year so its still-enthusiastic diners won't get bored.

New look:

The upstairs mezzanine area has been bedazzled with a gold tile ceiling and twinkly lights. It's still a bit cramped up there, but the tiny bar and seating area are handy for private events or when it's even more crowded downstairs.

Among the new dishes: 

Fish 'n chips, Peruvian style: Tender filets of the giant Peruvian Paiche fish are fried up with a savory dipping sauce and served with homemade sweet potato chips.
Paiche with dried potatoes: pan roasted paiche, papa seca risotto, aji panca tomato sauce  (unusual and delicicious!)
Glazed lamb chops: gochuchang marinade and aji amarillo miso give them an Asian-meets-Peruvian vibe

new tuna causa

Spicy tuna causa: A pretty and delicious bite of tuna on a smooth potato bed
Ceviche: There's already plenty of variations on ceviche, but Zarate is always trying out new combos, with paiche, salmon, tuna and Madagascar prawn joining the various raw preparations.
Papa rellena: Potato stuffed with truffle-braised chicken
Alfajores: We didn't get to try

these but I love these Peruvian shortbread cookies sandwiched with dulce de leche so I'm going to have to go back and try them.

New cocktails include:

The Dante Bellpepper cocktail: If you've become jaded from too many sweet or boring drinks, here's something a little different: vegetal, spicy, and rather challenging in a gazpacho-meets-booze kind of way, it includes Mezcal, lemon, red bell pepper, agave, carrot habanero air and cracked pepper.
Sherry Manilow: Oloroso sherry, pomegranate molasses, cinnamon syrup, lemon, brandy. A cocktail for a proper lady who gets a little crazy now and then. My favorite of the bunch
Fig old-fashioned: A stiff, autumnal, well-balanced drink.

Quick Bites: Yujean Kang Re-Appears at Chi Lin Under a Flock of Butterflies

a striking red door marks the entrance

What: Chi Lin

Where: 9201 Sunset Blvd., 310-278-2068
Why: You've run out of places to take your agent or you got kicked out of Soho House for talking on your phone at dinner. 

the walls are covered in reflective glass butterfly tableaux

The goods:  Yujean Kang, whose Pasadena restaurant was one of the area's only upscale/fusion Chinese restaurants for nearly 20 years, has landed as executive chef at Chi Lin, an upscale fusion Chinese spot on the Sunset Strip. Adjacent to RivaBella, they're both owned by IDG.

shrimp toast

The look: The spiritual heir to previous celeb-infused Strip spots like Roy's, Chi Lin has a stunning design of reflective butterfly tableaux enclosed in glass walls surrounded by lots of black lacquer, with servers in long columns of gold gowns. It's a pretty glitzy scene, with a menu that hits current crazes like kale salad, old-school Chinese dishes like Hong Kong Pineapple Rice and and dishes that might be found in the SGV like minced lamb with pickled mustard greens.

Peking duck

What to order: Peking Duck is classic and crispy; shrimp toast is a fun appetizer; there's plenty of vegetable choices like wok-charred green beans, kale and mushroom salad and garlic chile Brussels sprouts.



(I attended a press preview for this restaurant.)

Picca's new fall menu: Why you should put aside prejudice and order a sweet potato cocktail right now

Caigua (Peruvian cucumber), stuffed with beef, raisins and feta

Picca chef Ricardo Zarate has come up with a swath of new menu items, despite being busy with the more-recently opened Mo-Chica downtown and plans for a new restaurant, Paiche, in Marina del Rey. Even though Picca is nearly always buzzy and full, it seems like a fine idea to freshen up the menu at the year-and-a-half old Pico Ave. Peruvian spot.

Sweet potato sour

When a restaurant opens or debuts new menu items, the food blogger scrum at the table can get a bit ridiculous. The food cools, enormous lenses swing around the table, iPhones lights are deployed in low-light situations. And then the L.A. food blogosphere reverberates with the sound of many similar meals. Here's Caroline on Crack's photo-intensive tour of our dinner. We can only be grateful her camera was pointed at the guy in the cap instead of the frowsy blogger next to him.

lobster tartare, mango, yuca chips

But since Picca opened, it's been the kind of restaurant where you make a point of getting there even when you or a friend are actually paying for your own meal, so I feel justified in recommending you stop by for a cocktail with a breath of fall and some causas, ceviches and anticuchos (grilled skewered meats).
The cocktails, as always, are stand-outs. Picca's Pisco Sour is always excellent, but it's fall, and I recommend putting aside fears of sweet or murky cocktails and ordering the Sweet Potato Sour. I know, potatoes in cocktails, ew, right? Nope, this one is perfectly balanced, with aged rum, brown sugar, honey, egg white, and just enough sweet potato to clue you in to what you're drinking without going anywhere near the liquified-pie aspect you might suspect.

Causas of spicy albacore, lobster and tricolore with burrata and tomato

I loved the other two we tried almost as much: Pants Down incorporated one of my favorite flavors, apricot, melding apricot brandy, lemon, Aperol, soda water and Cochi Americano aperitif into a refreshing Indian summer cooler. And Cold War Kids is the ideal fall cocktail for those who are still dubious of sweet potato: cognac, sherry, lime and Pisco brandy meet Vietnamese cinnamon syrup for a restrained yet potent holiday feeling.

Lengua with red potato crisps

Don't worry, much of the old menu remains intact. But the new items provide even more reason to go back to Picca if you haven't been there for a while. I usually concentrate mostly on the seafood items - I love the Peruvian style of ceviche, and the scallops with uni were a sensual pleasure. The half lobster with garlic bechamel, paiche fish teriyaki, branzino with huacatay butter and octopus with twice-cooked potato were all worth checking out. I wasn't as taken with the insistently chewy skewered gizzard as some people were, but the tender braised ox tongue (Anticucho lengua) would be enough to change any tonguephobic's mind. Caigua was similar to a stuffed Mexican chili dish but made with the unusual Peruvian vegetable from the cucumber family. Here's to freshening up the menu -- let's toast with a sweet potato cocktail!
Picca Peru
9575 W. Pico Blvd.
Beverly Hills
310-277-0133

Red Medicine: Lunch is over, how about dinner?

"Red Medicine. There's just so much...baggage," sighed one man about town when I mentioned lunching there recently with another food writer. And it's true, more people wanted to know if we were photographed and booted out of the restaurant like L.A. Times restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila when she tried to eat there. But no, in the waning days of lunch service, they seemed happy to have customers. The restaurant is now open for dinner and drinks only, starting at 6 p.m. Though it's gotten a near-rave from Jonathan Gold and glowing mentions of the desserts elsewhere, it seems many people still haven't been to Red Medicine, which is turning out some very creative interpretations of Vietnamese dishes.

I was more interested in the food than the reputation, but the now-departed lunch menu only gave me a tantalizing preview of what might be in store on the much more ambitious dinner menu. Fried sweet potatoes sounded like a fun small bite, but turned out to be a massive bolster of shredded sweet potatoes meant to be torn apart, wrapped in lettuce leaves and dipped in sauce. It's similar to the Vietnamese dish banh tom, but without the shrimp. Great presentation, but this would serve about six people as an appetizer and the two of us were a bit overwhelmed.
Chicken dumplings are nem in Vietnamese, more like little chicken meatballs than a wrapped dumpling. Served on a multi-sectioned plate with an array of dipping sauces, they're tasty little bites, but not startlingly flavorful. The pork belly banh mi with pate would be better shared among several people, so rich were its fillings.
But the dinner choices sound fascinating, with dishes like Roasted brassicas with Chinese sausage, smoked date and maitake mushrooms, or Lamb belly with salsify and hibiscus-onion.
Red Medicine picked a Wilshire Blvd. location that some people view as a no man's land, but the interior design has an industrial chic that begs you to come dressed in, for example, a severe grey silk sheath with large architectural eyeglasses. Pull on something black or grey and go now, before something else changes, and let me know how the dinner menu is faring.
Red Medicine
8400 Wilshire Blvd.
Beverly Hills
323-651-5500

Let Jose Andres take you to Spain: The Luxury Collection Destination Guide

I wouldn't mind having Bazaar chef Jose Andres as my tour guide in Spain. Unfortunately, he hasn't invited me. But I was invited to the SLS rooftop party and Bazaar dinner for the Luxury Collection hotels Spain guidebook of art, culture and food from Assouline publishing, with recommendations from Andres. Each of Assouline's destination guides has an expert host, like Mario Batali for Italy, as well as an enticing list of all the Luxury Collection hotels from Phuket to Peru.
Also included are cocktails themed to various locations from Greg Seider, the farm-to-glass mixologist who runs Summit in New York. Seider knows how to have a good time, to say the least, so our end of the table was infused with a non-stop parade of jamon iberico and a double dose of New York suggestively snarky banter. We talked with Seider about cinnamon-infused agave, the best bourbons, and cocktails with sun-dried tomatoes while 20 or so wonderful tastes unfurled from Andres' kitchen. Among the highlights:

• A delicate eel taco enfolded in a tortilla-thin cucumber slice garnished with chicharron



Not Your Everyday Caprese flavors popped with liquid mozzarella

• tuna ceviche and avocado roll with coconut dressing -- it sounds like something nearly any restaurant would offer, but the silky slices of avocado wrapped around top-quality tuna elevated the roll way above the usual sushi bar fare



salt-crusted papas canarias

• Norwegian lobster - a rectangle of perfectly-cooked lobster on a bed of briny seaweed, paired with a shooter of creamy, deeply ocean-flavored lobster essence; and
• Papas canarias -- a favorite nearly everyone at the dinner, the pequeno potatoes are cooked until a salt crust forms on their skins, then dipped into a tart mojo verde sauce. I'm going to try the recipe for these in Jose Andres great-looking "Made in Spain" cookbook which is almost all real, hearty Spanish food with nary a glimpse of lemon air.

If a trip to Spain isn't in the cards, an evening with Bazaar's jamon and baby squid in its own ink is certainly a good substitute -- or at my house, maybe an evening from the Made in Spain cookbook combined with cocktails from Seider's globe-trotting Cocktail Collection booklet.

Bouchon Beverly Hills hits the bistro benchmarks

To really get the benefit of the pretty, faithfully French bistro Bouchon, try to arrange for a new lover to have recently entered your life. Preferably, he's adept at ordering wine in French and knows the difference between an Umami and a Kumamoto oyster. If he's a little late, go ahead and order a flute of champagne and sit at the bar flashing a bit of leg and leafing through Le Figaro. Flirt with the bartender until he arrives and the waiter leads the two of you to a secluded table, where you'll share tastes of shellfish, charcuterie and bites of steak and frites before ending with a sensuously oozing cheese plate, and maybe hopping over to the Montage Hotel for the rest of the afternoon. OK, now that I've got that over with, here's what my meal was actually like. I was looking forward to a birthday lunch at Bouchon, especially after I was lucky enough to be invited to the lavish opening party where I sampled oysters and foie gras, hung out in the kitchen with the head pastry chef and baked my own baguette. Of course, it's a whole different kettle of mussels when it's on your own dime (or even your friends' dime.) Kathy took some time to look over the brief wine list, and we chose a French rose for a rare boozy lunch. It was rainy and I was threatening to come down with a cold, so we started with carrot ginger soup. The thick soup was perfectly smooth and buttery, but lacked any discernable ginger taste and could have maybe used an acidic note to elevate it beyond haute baby food. A simple salad with warm goat cheese was correct, as they say in France, with fresh, flavorful lettuce and a perfectly salted viniagrette. Usually we tend to order fish to share, but trout with almonds sounded too old-school, tuna nicoise sounded too cold on a damp day and Kathy had eaten salmon the night before, so we ended up choosing poulet a la grand-mere. Half of a good quality, teen-ager sized chicken was plenty to share, with purple potatoes and lardons upping the ante in the savory jus that was just a touch undersalted (other bloggers have called it totally oversalted -- guess they're working to get it just right). My favorite part of the meal was actually a side dish of Brussels sprouts with bacon and salted capers, which packed a great contrast of lightly bitter roasted sprouts with salty bacon and capers, all happily swimming in a small pool of beurre noisette. Actually, I'd like a small pool of beurre noisette to swim in instead of a jacuzzi, if that could be arranged.
This was a pretty modest lunch, but still ran to $100. Service was extremely attentive and professional, which is really refreshing. The bistro cooking at Bouchon is competent and satisfying, but the menu isn't all that exciting. It's a lovely, airy fin de siecle room, but with paper tablecloths, bread placed right on the table, brown paper menus and chunky carafes of wine, it's not a fine dining place, despite the prices.
None of this will be news to people who have eaten at Thomas Keller's other Bouchons, and the ladies of Beverly Hills can always use a new lunch spot. It's a pleasant spot if you've got the blé...now if they'd only finalize plans for the bakery. In the meantime, the downstairs bar should be open very soon if you just want to pop in for that flute of champagne and a few nibbles.

Bouchon Bistro Beverly Hills: Scenes from a delicious opening evening

The produce storage closet is ready for Wednesday's opening.

Did Beverly Hills need a lavish new brasserie complete with bar a huitres, a bread room and an entire pastry kitchen? Sure, why not? Overlooking the French-style gardens of the still-new Montage Hotel, Bouchon actually looks like it belongs on Canon Drive across from Spago and Mastros despite being shiny and new. Tonight's opening party (a follow-up to last week's chefs party) drew bloggers, writers, a motley assortment of celebs including Star Jones, Jay Leno, Larry King and Pierce Brosnan and lots of laquered and lifted BevHills ladies and gents. Guests got full run of the spacious, gleaming kitchen and pastry and bread areas as well as the large bar, dining room and balcony. Here's a few of the areas we checked out.

Mini BLTs with pork belly and pesto were extremely satisfying.

Sebastian Rouxel, originally from Nantes, is executive pastry chef for all of Thomas Keller's restaurants. He's been in Beverly Hills for a week prepping the opening of Bouchon. He says Americans are mad for macarons.

Prepping the cheese service. Red Hawk was rather pungent, but Fourme d'Ambert was luscious.

Hot hors d'oeuvres including mini croque monsieurs, BLTs, squash soup cups, lamb toasts and short ribs were served in the main kitchen.

The gift bag included a mix and silicone baking pans for the signature chocolate bouchons.

The full menu is now available on Bouchon's website. I'm glad I've got a reservation for my birthday next month!
Tomorrow, I'll announce the winner of Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc cookbook.

Tobey Maguire goes to Bouchon; the rest of us will have to wait

Last night while I was tasting the East Meets West menu at XIV, Tobey Maguire was hosting pre-opening dinner at Thomas Keller's Bouchon. Of course, the restaurant doesn't open until Nov. 18, but the evening was a benefit for LACMA's film and architecture programs. According to the release, Gwen Stefani, Wolfgang Puck and Paramount's John Lesher were among those showing up in support of the museum. Guess they're getting serious about maintaining that film program. The third Bouchon (after Las Vegas and Napa Valley), at 235 N. Canon Dr. in BevHills is now taking reservations, but only for a month ahead. The wine bar portion, Bar Bouchon, will open in mid-December.
...Strangely enough, Blackbook seems to have already been to Bar Bouchon, even though it won't open for a month.

Gonpachi: Take your mini-trip to Japan while you can

Gonpachi's patio overlooks a stream and Japanese garden

I love a restaurant with a lagoon, a pond or a stream. It must be a result of spending much of my childhood toggling between the Luau and Trader Vic's, but in any case I love a good theme restaurant. Add the koi pond and babbling brook to an immense ode to a Japanese temple, and you've got one of the coolest looking restaurants in town. But most theme restaurants feature sky-high prices for forgettable food. Gonapachi is L.A.'s rare exception to that rule, where prices are quite reasonable for good if not awe-inspiring sushi, soba and skewers. My friend Charles always has his birthday in the best places -- once he took over the top floor of Clifton's Cafeteria. Gonpachi has zillions of private rooms -- the place is way too vast to fill most nights, and I hope they're going to be able to stay open. There's happy hour deals like $3 beer and good fried chicken snacks, and healthy portion of $5 sake. We all decided to get the $24 set meal, which turned out to be a ton of food. The first course was five appetizers, including seaweed salad and a spiky fried shrimp dumpling. Then there were skewers of ground chicken and eggplant, tuna and California rolls, a bowl of warm housemade soba in broth and dessert of pleasantly honeyish ice cream with green tea mochi squares. Plus we raised around $60 for Project Angel Food, since it was Dining Out for Life Night. If you haven't been to Gonpachi, it's like a little vacation in Japan, and a whole lot less expensive. Get there now before all the half-empty restaurants of La Cienega sink into the giant recession vortex.

Cow Jumped Over the Moon takes over Prime Grill spot

A couple of years ago we were pleasantly surprised to find an authentic French cafe that just happened to be fully kosher underground in a Rodeo Drive parking garage. A Cow Jumped Over the Moon's new full-service restaurant is now open in the former location of the short-lived kosher steakhouse the Prime Grill in the Rodeo Collection. I haven't tried it, and from the rather formal photos, it seems to specialize in kosher wedding receptions offering enormous pastry shell alligators, but I just thought I'd point out that it might be a good bet for those readers who need to find a kosher restaurant. It's dairy, which means there's no meat, but there's kosher sushi, pizzas and seafood entrees, as well as wine and beer. And the original cafe with crepes, salade nicoise and great French bread is still open in the parking garage.

Bev Hills goes green

Over on the near-Eastside, we have pizza coming out of our ears. The Westsiders, they get nice healthy salads. In Culver City alone, they've got Tender Greens, Leaf and the Point. Clearly the perennial lines out the door at Tender Greens were not lost on restaurateurs, and now Greenleaf has opened in Beverly Hills. I wasn't able to get to the opening but I plan to stop by soon at lunchtime for a steak sandwich salad, antioxidant orchard salad or lemongrass chicken salad, which sounds sweet and summery with lychee vinaigrette, grilled citrus chicken with toasted coconut, jicama and mango.

Greenleaf Gourmet Chopshop

9671 Wilshire Blvd.

Beverly Hills

(open 11-4 Monday through Saturday)

Paperfish debuts in BevHills

Miso-marinated black cod with yuzu-miso aioli

Joachim Splichal's newest baby Paperfish recently opened in the old Maple Drive space in Beverly Hills, with a seafood-intensive menu and modern red and white decor. Here's EaterLA's posting of an early menu.

Jazzy red bathrooms with white title floors

We also tried an excellent Maryland blue crab cake and some creative seafood flatbread/pizzas, like salmon pastrami and tuna carpaccio, and a really different unfiltered pinot noir from Daniel Schuster which worked well with the salmon pastrami.
Office buildings aren't normally my favorite locations for restaurants, but if someone wants to take me to lunch in Beverly Hills, Paperfish looks like a fun departure from the usual industry lunch spots.

Taste test: Tokyo Table -- Towering Pile 'o Toast!

yum, honey toast...

It was a mini-reunion of ex-colleagues and even though one was enceinte, I chose Tokyo Table since besides sushi, there's plenty of cooked items on the vast menu. When this place opened, I dubbed it "the Japanese Denny's" judging solely by the laminated menu full of color photos. Apparently the restaurant agreed the menu gave a Dennys-ish impression, and they're working on a more subdued presentation. The space isn't at all reminiscent of a coffee shop though -- on the bottom floor of a La Cienega office building near the new Tanzore, it's sleek and elegant enough for a business lunch or party, if a bit impersonal.
This review is going to have to go in reverse order, because it's time to get to the toast. I had never had Japanese honey toast before, and I was a little skeptical because it sounds so darn sweet, but Ramin and Chris insisted. After our mains, we chose the caramel variety, and soon a tower of extra thick brioche-style bread arrived drizzled with what tasted like Lyle's Golden Syrup. The thick pieces were deceiving, though -- they had been hollowed out with the bread cut into cubes and possibly deep-fried? I don't know what they do to it, but the stuff is insanely delicious in a very over-the-top way. You can keep your deep-fried Oreos and such, I'll stick to caramel honey toast.
Annnyway. Shaved ice with a scoop of red beans and a scoop of ice cream can be had in a pleasant green tea/lychee combo, and is a refreshing counterpoint to the honey toast orgy.
Tokyo Table's food comes from the "if it isn't usually served with mayonaise, let's add some anyway" school of Japanese food, so it's not exactly your healthful light lunch, but it's pretty tasty stuff. We started with a sushi pizza (above), which thank god doesn't involve cheese or tomatoes: rather it's a slab of sushi rice, with seaweed standing in for crust, cooked bits of seafood topping, jalapeno and what else but grilled mayo instead of cheese. Evy's unagi bowl had a lovely presentation in a giant black bowl. Ramin's stacked seafood salad looked light, but managed to squeeze in some mayo both on the side and zigzagging over the top.
Our accomodating server held up the dishes so I could get a good shot -- Japanese restaurants are used to customers taking photos. Tokyo Table is no Urusawa, but it's a fun place for groups and much more reasonably priced than most of the La Cienega tourist traps. There's also an array of fruity cocktails (not sure if they're made with soju or actual vodka) and a good sake list.
... just don't forget to try the toast.
Tokyo Table
50 N. La Cienega Blvd.
Beverly Hills
(310) 657-9500
(Also, they deliver at lunch and dinner and are open until 1 am every night)

Doughnut time with Kevin Smith!

Update as of 1/09: Fritelli's is now closed.

I stopped in at Fritelli's in Beverly Hills on Saturday just as director Kevin Smith was picking up several dozen peanut butter 'n jelly filled doughnuts. The display case was picked pretty clean after the carb-loving helmer left with his daughter, so I chose an espresso doughnut (far left), a Vermont maple cake doughnut, a chocolate with white chocolate curls ("like a normal chocolate doughnut, but classy," said Sophie) and a maple cruller. I'm not really a big doughnut person, but I liked how the espresso doughnut wasn't too sweet -- it's a very grown-up doughnut. They also pulled an excellent espresso made with a custom blend from Groundworks coffee, a nice complement to the espresso doughnut. (Yes, actually I prefer coffee to sweets.) I'm sure it wasn't all Kevin's fault, but I didn't see any sign of some of the more exotic flavors -- apricot-filled, green apple fritter, Meyer lemon zest glaze -- so I guess it had been a busy morning. This is the place if you like your sinkers not-too-sweet with no trans fats and ingredients like Callebaut chocolate. But if you're just looking for that pure sweet doughnut rush, you might be better off at Primo's or Stan's.

Chakra: Putting the spice in Beverly Hills

I was invited to try Chakra, a new Indian restaurant in the same spot as former Indian restaurant Maurya, and before that, the Manhattan Wonton Co. The Doheny Blvd. location is great if you're going to a screening at the Writers Guild or the Academy, but it seems to be a hard location for people to wrap their minds around otherwise since there's not much else on that block.
Design score: Chakra has added a room full of curtained booths and two private party rooms, so between the bar, the main dining room, the patio and the other spaces, there's plenty of room for parties and events. Decor is exotic sans the kitsch.
Unusual martinis aren't exactly indigenous to the Drinkability: Indian sub-continent, but it was fun trying the Fire on Doheny chili-infused martini and the lassi and watermelon martini. Now, the food: The dishes are Indian fusion or modernized Indian -- we tried tandooori-cooked mushrooms stuffed with paneer cheese (pictured), scallops masala and tandoori chicken in puff pastry. My favorite dish was called Dal Sorba, a perfectly spiced creamy lentil soup with crabmeat.
Who it's good for: It's not for the Chowhound crowd looking for a dirt-cheap Indian dive with fiery food, but if you're looking for a relaxing restaurant in the Beverly Hills area, some exotic cocktails, and possible a sexy curtained booth, Chakra could be the spot.

Taste test: A Cow Jumped Over the Moon

smoked salmon crepe and mesclun salad

A Cow Jumped Over the Moon is an unlikely delight: a completely kosher cheese shop and French cafe hidden in the bowels of a Rodeo Drive shopping complex. It's on the lower level of the Rodeo Collection, adjacent to the valet parking stand. With construction on the collection (a new restaurant is going in) and some of the escalators under repair, it's tricky to find, but worth the search. The modern orange and chrome cafe with tables outside reminds me of eating at the cafes in Les Halles shopping center in Paris -- not much of a view, but authentic nonetheless. There's a small but judicious selection of kosher French cheeses, kosher chocolates, wines and of course, He' Brew gourmet kosher beer. The cafe menu is the real treat though -- everything from salade nicoise to a raclette plate, fondue, smoked salmon salad and pan bagnat. I tried a crepe with raclette cheese, pickles, potatoes and smoked salmon. For just $8, I got a nice sized crepe made with hearty buckwheat, a big mesclun salad and half a just-baked yeasty baguette. Such a deal!
The patrons provide some choice people-watching too: a man whose head is covered in hairdye wanders in wearing a robe, asking for his usual smoked salmon sandwich to be delivered to the hair salon; a group of young Orthodox college men wonders whether smoked salmon is the same thing as lox and orders a cheese plate; a French lady doctor who works upstairs tells me she's thrilled to find a healthy cafe nearby with good food. Indeed, anyone looking for a reasonably-priced quick lunch in Beverly Hills should be happy with A Cow -- you don't have to keep kosher to like it.
A Cow Jumped Over the Moon
421 N. Rodeo Dr. (in the Rodeo Collection)
Beverly Hills
(310) 274-4269

Taste test: a Magic Carpet ride

Magic Carpet seems to be one of those reliable ethnic adventures like Marouch and Guelaguetza that Angelenos keep in their mental databases for those occasions when a little exotica is in order. Somehow all these years the Yemenite Jewish spot had escaped my notice, but in my perennial quest for new eggplant discoveries, Amy and I tried it for lunch on a quiet Friday. Since they were just about to close down for Shabbat, only one other table was occupied, and we had the handsome young Moroccan-Israeli waiter all to ourselves. First we got a basket of fluffy pita bread and some delicious beets in vinegar. There's a surfeit of eggplant dishes, and I brushed off the waiter's suggestion of the familiar babaghanouj in favor of marinated eggplant with mushrooms (above left). Remembering her grandmother's rendition of the dish, Amy ordered the stuffed cabbage (below right). I scooped up one mouthful of eggplant after another, happy to finally be somewhere where all my eggplant dreams could be realized.
Alas, there weren't enough of us to try the 8-salad eggplant sampler. The stuffed cabbage was kind of a small portion, but tasty if you like that sort of thing, and it came with plenty of couscous and steamed vegetables. I was also intrigued by the Iraqi sandwich with sauteed eggplant and the Iraqi, Tunisian, Moroccan and Egpytian breakfast plates. Next time, we'll have to take more people and try the melawach flatbread. I hear that the meat dishes aren't that special at Magic Carpet, but there's enough salads and other unusual dishes to keep anyone busy for a long time. Since Magic Carpet is kosher, it's closed Friday night and all day Saturday.
Magic Carpet
8566 W. Pico Blvd.
310-652-8507

Nate 'n Al's: You CAN go home again

It's hard to believe that it's been over 25 years since I last set foot in Nate 'n Al's. When my parents were still married, my mom would take me to Sunday school at Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church with Jimmy Stewart's kids, and then afterwards, we'd go to Nate 'n Al's for French toast or blintzes or lox, eggs and onions. When I was older, my dad took me for lunch there with his girlfriend of the moment, and around the age of eight, I fixated on the brisket sandwiches and never ordered anything else again.

Here's a poem about Nate n' Als I wrote several years ago. I must have been missing it.

corned beef? no, brisket
scrambled eggs and onions
chocolate milk with a rusty screw
french toast after sunday school
orange chocolate gels
scary yellow sturgeon's eye

When Kathy and Evy proposed having lunch there the other day, I slid into the booth, quickly noting that the room seemed to be identical to the last time I ate there, circa 1980 or so. I waved away the menu while munching on the complimentary pickles, ordering a brisket on rye as if I had just been in the other day. The waitresses seemed to be of equally venerable vintage.

The brisket was flavorful, although certainly drier than a Langer's pastrami. A schmear of brown mustard quickly remedied that problem. The pillowy, warm rye bread was soft in the middle, crunchy on the outside. The coleslaw was a fine accompaniment, not too sweet or saucy.
I had to buy a Joya raspberry joy bar at the checkstand, just to complete the experience. I felt instantly reduced to three feet tall, begging for a candy while my dad charged the bill to his account.
They're all wrong. You can definitely go home again, if home was Nate 'n Al's.

Nate 'n Al Deli
414 N. Beverly Dr.
Beverly Hills
(310) 274-0101