Dine Out LA: Bonaventure Brewing Company

There are lots of restaurants in downtown Los Angeles, but only two of them participated in this year's Dine Out Los Angeles. I'm not going to judge the other restos on why they wouldn't want to donate 20% of their day's receipts to AIDS charities; after all, the restaurant business is a tough one, and I would imagine a 20% take - even for one day - could be the difference between fresh spring greens or Iceberg lettuce for some kitchens.

I was just happy that one of the participants - the Bonaventure Brewing Company - is only one block away from my office. I'd never heard of the place or seen it; it's located in the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, which is a place I rarely venture into.

So coworker Joey and I set out on our Dine Out LA adventure, walking against the sideways rain sans umbrellas (neither of us had one) and detouring through the "pit" at the base of the CityCorp building to try and avoid getting soaked all the way over there. Once we made it into the hotel, we had to figure out how to get to the restaurant through the round maze that is the Bonaventure. Cool design, but definitely not user-friendly. Finally, after asking a friendly staffer and walking up and down various stairwells, we found the Brewery.

Dine Out signage on the tables

The atmosphere was very welcoming and comforting - dark woods, plush chairs and a beautiful view of their rain-soaked patio. It was a nice discovery, and no doubt happened only because of the restaurant's participation in this charity event. We were served some nice, chewy bread with butter, then ordered our lunches.

For Joey, it was the Jerk Shrimp with Jasmine Rice and a mango salsa. He said everything tasted wonderful and that he very much enjoyed his lunch.

For me, it was the Cesar salad with grilled shrimp - easy on the dressing - and lots of crunchy croutons. The romaine lettuce was crisp and held up nicely to the shrimp and croutons. Great flavor and dressed just perfectly.

Our total donation to the AIDS charities? A mere $9.13, which was 20% of our bill. But, considering the restaurant had a good number of diners and they still had a dinner shift coming up, I'm going to assume their total donation for the day probably exceeded a few hundred dollars. Multiply that by all of the restaurants in Los Angeles taking part in Dine Out and you're talking tens of thousands of dollars.

And all we had to do was eat. How hard is that?

Review: Blue Velvet, Downtown Los Angeles

Since I live in Pasadena, I'm always looking for new restaurants within a 5-7 mile radius. I spend time some time each week on the west side for work, so when it comes to the weekends, the closer the better.

So when Steve and Tawny (childhood friends, pictured above) and I decided to go out for dinner on Saturday, we chose Blue Velvet. Though we decided before last week's LA Times review came out, the positive comments of Irene only made us more excited to go.

The first thing that strikes you about Blue Velvet is how absolutely gorgeous it is. The interior is split into two rooms: a large lounge area complete with a sunken seat communal table and lots of sleek couches to sit on; and a dining area with frosted glass tables and comfortable dark wood chairs. The outside is even more stunning with a open patio and pool area with a fire pit, all overlooking the city lights of LA.

But on to the food: Our amuse was some glass noodles with a golden beet puree and some red pepper flakes. Not the most attractive amuse I've ever seen, but the combination of flavors was surprisingly good.

For the wine, we chose a Cotes du Rhone, but the sommelier informed us they were out of the one we chose and offered another pricier selection but at the same price of the bottle we wanted. Music to our ears! He chose the Domaine de Ferrand Cotes du Rhone which was, at first, spicy but opened up nicely after 20 minutes to reveal a slight touch of fruit - we loved it.

We decided to split three appetizers, since they were all relatively small in size. I chose the seared foie gras with sweet & spicy tapioca. This fresh foie gras was excellent and melted in my mouth, and the tapioca cake was a pleasant accompaniment to the dish. Everyone gave it a thumbs-up.

Steve chose the spring vegetable (I believe that's what was inside) tortellini in some sort of broth. It was very good, though not spectacular.

Tawny chose the real winner: Lobster cassoulet with flageolet beans, boudin noir bread pudding and herbs. The lobster meat was succulent and rich, and nicely balanced by the beans (which had more lobster in it!) and bread pudding.

For my entree, I chose the squab with some sort of puree (sorry, this one's not on the website). The squab was incredibly juicy and rich and perfectly cooked, and the slightly sweet puree and crispy onions that came with it made each bite perfection indeed.

Steve opted for the free range chicken breast with duck fat potatoes. I know...duck fat potatoes! The chicken was moist and succulent, and those potatoes...I'm sure you can just imagine how nicely crisp they were on the outside and hot and tender they were on the inside.

Tawny went for the filet mignon with a beet hash, oxtail and some sort of beet puree. Not only did the beets offer a flash of beautiful color, it also added great flavor to this dish. The hash was an eye-opener...I would have never thought of making hash out of beets, but I will most definitely try this at home now.

If you're asking me if we had room for dessert after all this, the answer is a resounding "YES!" The great thing about restaurants like Blue Velvet is that you get a decent taste of great food without the huge portions. If I wanted monster-sized platters, I'd go to the Cheesecake Factory. OK, who am I kidding? I would never go the Cheesecake Factory, a prime example of everything wrong with American food today, but you catch my drift.

For dessert we shared two things: The fried banana with some sort of chocolate ice cream and I think some amaretto shake type dealio. Sorry, this isn't on the online menu either, and I think Steve chose it so I can't remember exactly what it was. It was very good, though none of the flavors popped for me. The ice cream was slightly bland, and the banana didn't taste sweet enough for my flava.

Our second pick was the creme caramel with caramel corn. This was excellent. Who would have thunk to put a flan and caramel corn together? The flavors and textures really worked well with this.

All in all, we loved Blue Velvet. It's great to see these types of places springing up in downtown LA. You can get fabulous food, service and atmosphere somewhere other than the west side, so check this place out if you get a chance. I imagine it'd be a great place to go for drinks and appetizers after work as well.

Review: Engine Co. 28

Working in downtown LA, there are many choices for food when it comes to eating out for lunch. Since our company has only been in the area for about three months, we're still eating our way through the hundreds of options available to us.

For the most part, I bring my lunch, but we recently hired a new employee and decided to take her out for a "welcome to the team" meal. I chose Engine Co. 28, because none of us had ever tried it and I'd heard mainly good things about this comfort-food hangout.

The first thing I noticed was how nice the atmosphere was: High ceilings, comfy booths and chairs, a little fancy but not over-the-top. We were seated promptly (I made reservations through Open Table) to a nice table toward the back of the house. The hostess wished us well in our lunch endeavor, and we had good expectations for this new-to-us resto.

The bread cylinder

The bread "basket" was more like a cylinder, with one medium-sized baguette tucked inside. The bread was warm, and crusty in and chewy in all the right places. However, I think it's a bit odd to serve it like this...it forces people to take the whole baguette in their hand and rip pieces off for themselves. Luckily none of us are germaphobes, but I still found it a bit unsettling. Either serve the baguette sliced or serve a bread basket with rolls, I say.

I started with the beef carpaccio, which is one of my favorite dishes. According to the menu, it would be served with a "truffle oil-creole mustard sauce." What I got didn't fit the description. The beef itself was okay, though it was clearly frozen at one point as it tasted a bit, well, waterlogged. And the sauce was more like plain mayonnaise, which I'm not really a fan of. There was no hint of mustard or truffle in this eggy, white sauce, and there was way too much of it on the beef. The Parmesan came in thick shards, not thin shavings like I expected. The combo of the cheese and the mayo-like sauce was utterly inedible; my first bite tasted like Parmesan-flavored wax with salty cream and almost creamy beef. Blech. I scraped off all the toppings and managed to eat most of the beef, but not happily.

Carpaccio disaster

For my meal, I ordered the Grilled Ahi Tuna Salad. I got about four, finger-sized slices of tuna, which had way too many sesame seeds and peppercorns on the crust. I've never understood why restaurants coat fish with broken pieces of peppercorns - you get a shock with every bite, and you'll be picking flecks of peppercorn out of your teeth for years after. The greens were fine and well dressed in balsamic, but I was very disappointed with the dish overall. The fried ginger that came on top tasted more like ginger candy. Not a great addition.

My coworker Joey ordered the Braised Lamb Shank with parpadelle noodles. It was a huge portion, and looked quite tasty. Joey liked his dish a lot, and gave it a 7 out of 10. I had a bite of the lamb, which was tender and lovely, though I did have to cut a huge piece of fat off of my bite before eating.

Meat and bones...yum

Lily opted for the Rigatoni with grilled chicken, peppers and cream. She also gave hers a 7 out of 10, noting that there was way more chicken than pasta (strange since it's a pasta dish). She said she wished there was more carby pasta goodness, but otherwise liked her choice.

Creamy chicken rigatoni

I think the lesson learned is that, if you're going to go to a comfort food restaurant, stick to the comfort food. Clearly they do the cream sauces and braised meats and home-cooking stuff decently while they cut corners on the healthier options. That said, I probably wouldn't go back because I rarely feel like loading up on such heavy food at lunch, but that's just me. If mac & cheese is your thang, then you'll probably like Engine Co. 28.