Hungry Pocket

Hungry Pocket
1715 Pico Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90405

Or the Happy Pocket as I always incorrectly refer to it. This was Jessica's dinner favorite during her stint at Santa Monica College, and it's the best greek cheap eats I've had, including my stint in Syracuse and perennial drive to Vegas standby the Mad Greek.

My gyro was excellent, Jessica swears by the falafel. I've never been super keen on falafel, but I had a couple of falafel balls and may have changed my ways. Stuffed grape leaves were also a new and tasty twist. And Baba Ganoush has been my obsessive snack of choice for the past year and didn't disappoint.

Dinner:
-Chicken Gyro
-Falafel Sandwich
-Stuffed Grape Leaves
-Baba Ganoush

Drinks:
-Iced Tea
-Fresh Squeezed Carrot Juice

Dessert:
-Baklava (mmmmm...)


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Border Grill

Border Grill
1445 4th St
Santa Monica, CA 90401

We're running behind. Review coming soon...

Dinner:
-Carnitas Norteñas
-?????

Drinks:
-Añejo Margaritas


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Fassica

Fassica
10401 Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232

Jessica was going to take me to Nyala, but thought that was cheating since we've been there before (though not for a SFR) so we ended up at this tiny Ethiopian place across from Sony instead. We had noticed it a few weeks before, and decided it was worth a shot since it was Ethiopian, close, new, and had a name that rhymed with Jessica. Very unassuming when we walked in, with a friendly staff showing off their "best cheap eats" review in a magazine while promptly attending to our every need. I sort of felt like I was in that Seinfeld episode where he goes to the new Indian place that nobody else goes to and ends up making a suggestion that puts them out of business. "You very bad man!"

That feeling was unfounded, as a few other diners entered shortly after our arrival, and the food was excellent with no need for suggestions from the likes of us. We ordered the full shared dinner platter with a little bit of everything on it. The injera was the best I've ever had, with an almost sourdough taste to it.

I can't quite remember everything on the plate, but I'll try: Spicy doro wot chicken, suprisingly good collared greens (gomen), fresh made cottage cheese (not my thing, but Jessica liked it), yellow peas (yum), lentils, lamb, and various other vegetables. We licked the platter clean, including the leftover injera that gains flavor after soaking up the juices from everything else over the course of the meal.

Only downside was at the very end, when we hoped for the fancy Ethiopian coffee but instead got regular old percalated joe. But it wasn't bad, and how much can you really complain of a place that encourages you to eat with your hands? I'm sure this will hit the weekend lunch rotation in the near future.


Dinner:
-Dinner Platter with Everything On It (the best way to have Ethiopian food)

Drinks:
-Bottle of Red Wine
-Regular Coffee


Details

La Dijonaise

La Dijonaise
8703 Washington Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90232

There's really no other place I'd rather be in the summertime than Europe. Since that's not a possibility for me right now, I have to make do with my favorite European foods instead. This, in part, explains why I have been quite the fanatic pouring over my French cookbooks lately. Jacob obviously took notice and chose this newish French cafe that I had never seen before.

The food really was very good. The reasonable priced Bordeaux we had brought back a lot of memories for me. I really hadn't been purchasing any French wine since I'm been back stateside. One, it is so nice to have access to many local Californian wines, and two, the absured luxury tax on French wines is a deterrent.

For food, we started with bowls of steaming hot French onion soup. Yum. Life really doesn't get much better than that.

I followed with a tasty, reasonably-sized portion of vegetable quiche. It didn't earn any points for tradition, but instead had a wonderful, light (possibly healthier??!!??) crust. 60% of the reason I love quiche so much is the crust, but sometimes I feel a little guilty eating eat because I am very aware of the massive quantity of butter...

I don't remember what Jacob ordered, only that it was some sort of meaty, stewy dish that may not be on the regular menu. Jacob thought he had the coq au vin, but I certainly would have remembered him ordering that as his pronunciation is something like "cock a van."

Dessert at La Dijionaise is not to be missed. It was delicious. I was torn between the raspberry tart and the chocolate opera cake. The chocolate won and was heavenly. Jacob had something with chocolate mousse which he didn't rave about quite as much as I raved about mine.

Apologies for waiting so long to write this and can't remember the specifics. Definitely recommend the food at this place. Decor I wasn't too crazy about. I think they could have done a lot better. It just seemed too much like a chain (Starbucks comes ti mind). I can't put my finger on it, it just didn't seem original or something like that.


Appetizer:
-French Onion Soup

Dinner:
-Vegetable Quiche
-some meat thing

Drinks:
-Bottle of Bordeaux

Dessert:
-Opera Cake
-Chocolate Mousse thing

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Pizano's

Pizano's Pizza and Pasta
3466 N Clark St
Chicago, IL 60657

First let's get this out of the way: Wrigley Field was awesome, except for the whooping the Sox got in game one. Polish style dogs from the upper deck stand behind home plate are recommended; regular dogs sold by vendors not so much. And Old Style beer is not as bad as one might think.

On to the SFR. Not really following the traditional rules. It was the day after Jessica's birthday and we took the redeye Thurs to get here, so I asked a friend in Chicago to pick a non-chain Chicago style pizza place for dinner after the game. She's lived in Chicago for about 9 months and had only been to a few, with Pizano's being her fave.

There were 6 of us; we had a deep dish and a thin crust. Lots of food, good but not great, but at least it wasn't Unos.

Appetizer:
-Cheesy Garlic Bread

Dinner:
-Thin Crust Veggie
-Deep Dish Meat

Drinks: (apologies for the lack of specificity; it was a long day)
-Water
-Beer
-Soda

EXTRA: Breaking from the "rules" of the SFR blog, here are a couple of shoutouts of other Chicago locales:

Kinzie Chophouse was amazing! On the other hand, The Artist's Cafe had horrible service (including the owner publicly barking orders and disrespecting patrons waiting to eat) to go with mediocre food.

Pizano's Details

Bombay Cafe

Bombay Cafe
12021 W Pico Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90064

(Warning: Restaurant Rocks, but their website sucks)

Unsuspecting little place we've probably driven by a million times. Jessica scored well on this pick. Nearby, cozy, and some great indian food. Samosas were amongst the best we've ever had. She went for the dosa after hearing great things about it on KCRW's "Good Food" and it didn't disappoint. I wavered on a few choices, and ended on a tomato stew style Tikka that was also excellent.

This review has been delayed so long due to a busy week that I can't think of much more to say here. I suppose this makes it the proper time to acknowledge that I usually fudge the timestamps on the SFR blog posts to reflect the time we were at the restaurant rather than the time we got around to writing about it.

Next weekend we're off to Chicago to take in the Red Sox/Cubs series at Wrigley; Jessica has made me promise that we won't be writing about hot dogs on SFR. (Or at least something else in addition to hot dogs...)

Appetizer:
-Samosas (The Best!)
-Garlic Naan

Dinner:
-Masala Dosa (deceivingly large, but very good)
-Makhni Tikka

Drinks:
-Glass of Cabernet
-Big Bottle of Taj Mahal Beer

Details

Chloe

Chloe
333 Culver Blvd
Playa del Rey, CA 90293

This restaurant caught my eye when we were housesitting in Manhattan Beach at the end of December. I'm not sure quite what it was, maybe the lighting and the fact that it looked European. That will do it for me. We tried to go here one night after we saw a movie but they were booked for several hours. After we noticed that people were dressed far better than we were, we decided to come back another time.

Jacob has been trying to get reservations here for weeks for the SFR and by the time he thinks to make them, there isn't a table available until after 9pm. This week, though, he booked early enough and we got a table. I figured out where we were going fairly early on in the drive over since we rarely head in this particular direction. I was very excited at his choice even though I didn't know much about the menu. I thought it was French (which it wasn't although there were some definite European influences).

Dinner was superb. Jacob probably didn't like the table set-up as it was similar to Madeo last week, but it has a European feel and I like it. We did have an interesting couple sitting next to us. The man was wasted and it didn't sound like he knew the woman very well... great impression. Why waste an experience at a restaurant this nice hammered?

Back to dinner... As it turns out the reason it's so hard to get a reservation at Chloe is because their menu is seasonal and changes monthly. Looking at their menu got me all excited for my Saturday morning trip to the farmer's market since it was all things that I have seen in season. I ordered the albacore, the majority of the dishes were game-based and I wasn't in the mood for meat. I've been trying to get more into fish lately and I opted to give it another try. The tuna was excellent, even Jacob liked it and that's saying something when it comes to seafood. It was coated with salt and pepper and seared just ever so perfectly. Served on a bed of asparagus risotto and roasted shallots (which were an eye-opening experience!!!). It was divine, I don't think I left a speck of food on my plate.

We had a fair bit of wine leftover once our main courses were done and decided to go with a selection of cheeses. We let the kitchen pick them out for us, but then I added on a blue goat cheese at the end since I was curious. There was a nice assortment. I can't remember what they were exactly, but we had the blue goat cheese, a manchego, a triple cream cheese, and one more that was another hard cheese. All that accompanied by thin slices of a heavy dark bread studded with dry fruit has made me a huge fan. I hope we go there at least every other month, if not every month.


Appetizer:
-Green Salad

Dinner:
-Albacore, Asparagus Risotto, Roasted Shallot, Tarragon
-Guinea Hen, Fava Beans, Baby Potatoes, Leeks

Dessert:
-4 selections of cheese

Drinks:
-A bottle of Cabernet. I can't remember the name, only that it was a French table wine and on the lower end of the price scale.

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