DineLA - Valentino

Last Friday I had my first Restaurant Week/DineLA experience at Valentino in West LA. I have always heard good things about Valentino and it is a 1-star Michelin rated restaurant so we thought this would be a good occasion for a Friday night date.



My first impression of the place was that it looked like a night club. I had no idea this restaurant existed on Pico. Once you pull into the driveway, past the wall, you get the grandiose feeling of a Vegas restaurant.

The place was packed. It seemed that the restaurant put out extra tables to accommodate DineLA patrons and they even filled the bar with two-tops -- not my choice of seating for dinner. We waited for about 10 minutes to get a table in the "dining room" and we were seated in the corner of an over-populated room off to the side.

The DineLA is a fixed price, 3-course menu. For $44 each, I had:
Le Crespelle - Ducking and Tomato Ragu Filled Crespelle, Mostarda di
Branzino Con Carciofi - Grilled Sea Bass, Artichoke Sauce
Sicilian Cannoli

And Max had:
Tortini Funghi
Vitello All 'Uccelletto - Ligurian Style Veal Casserole
Chocolate, Walnut and Espresso Mousse

We paired our dinners with a glass of wine each. (Max had the house Chianti and I had a house Pinot Noir, Mark West) The meal itself was pretty good -- I especially liked my duckling crepe appetizer, though my entree was pretty average for sea bass. I'd have to say the experience might have been a little bit rushed and "generic" because the restaurant was so crowded. It took a while for our waiter to finally make it to our table to take our order. The waiter (or was it the sommelier?) seemed displeased to offer any type of wine recommendations. I felt like we were bothering the wait staff whenever we asked for anything -- not what you would expect in this type of ambiance.

All in all, DineLA *is* a great way to try out new restaurants, as long as you keep a few things in mind. Remember the rest of LA is testing these restaurants too, so you will encounter overworked wait staff with impatience for new diners. Also remember that the kitchen is repeatedly cooking the same dishes over and over again that night so the extra care you get when you perform varied tasks vs. repeating an onerous task will be missing.

Daily Lulu

Thinking of starting a blog called Daily Lulu where I can post a cute picture of Lulu everyday. So hypothetically, if this were the blog called Daily Lulu, this is where I would describe the picture above:

Lulu hearts pillows. Here is Lulu knocked out, perfectly balanced on top of a pillow, after a quick run around the country club.

Eeeep~

Why does it still feel like Christmas?

Quality Seafood

On Saturday we finally made it to Redondo Beach for our crab fest/Yona's bday celebration. We waited for Vina to drive up from San Diego in the morning so didn't leave West LA until 1pm. The traffic was a little painful to get through but as soon as we saw the water we were getting pretty excited.



We decided to try out a new place called Quality Seafood. Well, the place itself is over 40 years old, it was just new to us since we normally go to Captain Kidd's for fresh crab.



The market/eating area was situated at the end of the dock and was a lot larger than I expected. There were so many seafood choices spread out into 4-5 stations. We all split up to make the best use of our time: Max went for the crab, I was in charge of clams, Vina went straight to the uni and Yona and Aai bought cooked food.


There were so many choices of clams I just asked the guy to recommend me some. We ended up with little neck or long neck or something or the other and it only took 5 minutes to steam. They were so good! So plump, fresh and I love the wine sauce they used.


I'm not sure if Vina was delighted or shocked to find that they, indeed, would be serving us live/fresh uni. Here she is peering into the uni tank choosing her lunch targets.


I was surprised to find that they are a little purple in color and really don't move all too much. (Which is probably a good thing -- didn't want to get sick BEFORE the meal)


The two victims Vina picked out went immediately to the chopping board. The guy pounded on the poor sea urchin a few times, cut out and ripped off it's "face" then drained a clear, red liquid. It was pretty gross.


But the end result was pretty tasty...




It was kind of weird scraping the sides for the sea urchin meat. I felt like I could have done better with chopsticks, and that it would have tasted more "normal". It was sweet and mushy but wasn't as thick and rich as other premium uni I've had. It was still really good and definitely fresh.


Max was in charge of picking the oysters... there were at least 12 different kinds and they all looked the same to me. We ended up letting the master oyster shucker choose our platter.




We ended up with 5 different types: Fanny Bay, Sunset, Hamma Hamma, Blue Point and Kumamoto. (I think) The larger ones were tastier than the smaller ones but they were tough to swallow. I think the oysters would have tasted much better if they served better condiments with it -- we were stuck with lemon, ketchup, horseradish and Tapatio and that mixture overwhelmed the oysters.


There were a lot of different types of crabs. Pictured here are the Santa Barbara crabs. In addition to these, there were local crabs, live blue crabs (most expensive per pound), spider crabs (these were huge!) and dungeness crab which is what Max ended up choosing. We each got a 2-pounder, they were huge!




The crab was so good, undoubtedly the best steamed crab I've ever had. They were sweet, juicy and had large chunks of meat falling out of everywhere. Even though I didn't get my original request of finding female crabs with lots of eggs, these were oozing with goodness and I found myself licking my fingers throughout the entire meal.


Aai was so excited to be taking a picture of all the food. =)


After a solid half-hour of eating nonstop, these two were still going at it, picking apart the last of the crab legs. Well, at least Max was. Aai was downing her beer. :(


We left quite a scene when we were done. Pictured here is solely Vina's carnage... oysters, what's left of her crab and her uni.


All in all it was a great meal. The weather was perfect for a walk on the pier, the seafood was fresh and tasty and we somehow made it back to West LA at exactly 4PM, in time to pick up Lulu from the groomer.

Lulu's Naked Dog Haircut