Scarpetta in Beverly Hills is located in the Montage Hotel right off Wilshire and Canon, across an open courtyard from Bouchon (with which I was not very impressed).  I think the hotel is probably typically beautiful (the bathrooms were amazing!) the way you would think of most stereotypical Beverly Hills establishments.  Three course lunch for $28 per person.  I planned this for my Friday off and got Tom to come with me.  The weather was gorgeous and we sat on the patio.

One of the better bread baskets I’ve had with three spreads: eggplant caponata, mascarpone butter, and herb infused olive oil.  One of the breads was rolled with smoked mozzarella and prosciutto, and another was like a gigantic soft crouton.

Okay, yes, I got short ribs.  Whatever.  They were delicious and served on top of a bed of farro.  Tom got the creamiest polenta I’ve ever had in my life with a dish of mushrooms on the side.

Scarpetta’s famous spaghetti.  I think the pasta is handmade, with a tomato basil sauce.  It was a bit bland–the beauty is supposed to be in its simplicity, but I added a scoop of the eggplant caponata and it perked up.  The texture and chewiness of the noodles was absolutely perfect though.  Tom got these ravioli type pasta with a beet filling that he really liked, but I didn’t because it was sprinkled with pistachios.

Don’t care much for desserts, but I think I liked this caramel budino with chocolate sable cookies because it was a mix of salty and sweet, and at times, more salty than sweet.  It had these little crunchy cookie bits under the cream that reminded me of the buttery sugar crumble topping of coffee cake.

This was probably the nicest restaurant we’ve been to with Dine LA, and I could tell because the quality of service and food was top notch.  Tom usually doesn’t really buy into Dine LA because he feels that it’s just normal stuff you could get at practically the same price when it isn’t Dine LA.  For the most part, I agree with him, but that’s why I compare the Dine LA menus with the regular menus and only bother going to the ones that I think are worth it.  We went to Waterloo & City a couple nights before, and while the food was really good, the value was not.  Apparently, they do an even cheaper three-course menu on Sundays and Mondays.  It would be a great restaurant to go to on any random day, but it’s not a must for Dine LA.  Scarpetta, on the other hand, was a much more exemplary experience.

For “before” photos, see Apartment 2.0.  Sold the couch & having guests over, so doing some rearranging and long overdue hanging of pictures.

The “bar” mantel used to be a catch-all for random photos.  I’m trying to minimize stuff in the apartment, so I tried to create a more literary display by using two big candles as bookends (the one on the right is this library collection Charles Dickens candle) and selecting some of my favorite books that I have on hand.

I got Tom another Eames lounge chair for Christmas.  Since the couch is gone, it now takes place front and center in the living room.

Fuji isn’t too pleased that the couch is gone, though.

I had this bowl/vase thing left over from some flowers Tom got when I was doing my finals, and I turned it into a jewelry terranium on display in the bathroom.

And rehung some photos in the bathroom.

Haven’t tried to find non-Korean BBQ in Los Angeles yet.

“Swiss mac and cheese.”  Ground beef and a layer of delicious Swiss cheese underneath, atop a bed of tender, fat, egg elbow noodles.  Very plain and simple, yet weirdly good.  Tom, who got the sauerbraten, had an order to go to eat for when I’m out of town this week.

$6 beer sampler.  Yum.

The appetizer: beer cheese soup with ham.  The beer was a little too sweet and overpowered any cheese flavor, but it was pretty good.

Bonus:

Dim sum with the family.

So, adapted from the above-linked Gastronomy blog (I think if you follow that one, it would be best plus the photos are much prettier, but even using my shortcuts, it was still really good), the recipe:

pinch of saffron, crushed, soaked 15 min. in 1/4 cup hot water or chicken broth/stock
5-10 large shrimp, deveined, tail-on, peeled (I actually peeled one as a test and left the others intact, and I felt that the peeled one had much more flavor)
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tb. tomato paste (original recipe calls for tomatoes, I didn’t have any)
1/2 large red bell pepper, diced
1 Tb. paprika plus more for the shrimp
4 cups chicken broth/stock (other recipes use fish or seafood stock)
2 cups short or medium grain rice (I used Calrose medium grain)
handful of frozen or canned green beans
handful of frozen or canned peas
olive oil, oregano, salt & pepper
lemon, cut in wedges
*OPTIONAL: chorizo, cut in bite size pieces (I used vegetarian Italian sausage because I need to get rid of it, so I heated it in the microwave and added when the paella was almost done; if you use real chorizo, saute it right after the shrimp and leave in the pan when you add the onions, pepper, etc.)

Pat shrimp dry, coat with a little olive oil and season with paprika and oregano.  Heat olive oil in a wide pan over high heat.  Saute shrimp for 5 minutes.  Set aside.  Add some more oil if the pan is a little dry.  Add onion, garlic, scallops or whatever other seafood/meat you might want to use, tomato paste, bell pepper, and 1 Tb. paprika.  Saute until onions are soft.  Add saffron water and stock, bring to a boil, then distribute uncooked rice into the pan evenly.  Let it cook over high or medium high for 10-12 minutes until most of the liquid is absorbed.  The rice is done cooking when it is al dente, although I prefer a little softer.  With about five minutes left, I add the frozen green beans and peas to cook.  To finish, top with shrimp and lemon wedges, make it pretty, take a picture, then ruin the whole thing by digging in and serving.

Drink with wine!  Or sangria!  I didn’t have either of those, so I made do with some whisky and coconut water (not mixed together).

Ooh, next I should try squid ink paella!  So yum.  This dish was really easy to make and I used up a lot of rice that was sitting around for a while.  Yes, I’m Asian, and I rarely eat rice.  It’s very strange.

Anyway, I saw an ad for a free scotch tasting at Oldfield’s, this cool vintage-styled bar close to my apartment, and immediately signed up.  Seriously, I was the very first person on the list trying very hard not to appear like an alcoholic.  It included a plus one, but Tom was going out of town for a business trip, so I went with a friend of mine whom I’ve known since I was in middle school.  Growing up proper!  He appreciates good beer and liquor, so I figured he would enjoy the event, especially because it was free.  Lately, I’ve made a personal effort to stop buying alcohol thereby reducing the amount that I drink, but no one says no to free liquor.

The whiskies were all single malt scotches (so, from Scotland) distributed by Skyy Spirits, and if I recall correctly, there was Glen Grant, Glenrothes and Bowmore in a variety of ages and years that I’m not sophisticated enough to remember.  All I remember is that they ranged from sweet and mild tasting to holy-cow-smoky peaty smooth in the mouth.  Oh, and we had about six or seven of those same-sized “tastes” in the span of an hour.  Our host was Skyy Spirits whisky brand ambassador Johnnie the Scot who talked about where the scotches came from, how they’re made, how to drink it, etc.  There were about 15 of us in this private back room of Oldfield’s.

The one downside was a lack of snacks.  It’s tough for me to drink a lot without eating, so I snacked on this malted barley instead.  Yum.  I asked Johnnie what the best food to eat with scotch is, and he gave the surprising answer of Asian food, something about the mixture of sweet and salty flavors in a lot of different Asian cuisines.

I took a bit of a shortcut by using a rotisserie chicken from the grocery instead of stewing a raw chicken.  The best rotisserie chicken I’ve had was from a Mexican grocery near our old apartment in San Jose… it was so popular that fresh chickens would sell out almost immediately, and I would have to check back two or three times later in the day.  For the soup, I used a 2 lb. rotisserie chicken, cleaned off most of the meat to reserve for later, and stuck the bones, tendons, and fattier bits in a Dutch oven.  I was impressed at how flavorful the broth was, because after all the meat was taken off, there wasn’t much chicken left.  A little goes a long way!

1 rotisserie chicken, meat removed and set aside
1 cup baby carrots
3 stalks of celery, chopped in large pieces
1 leek, chopped in large pieces
1 onion, cut in half
3 peppercorns, some allspice, dill (better fresh, but I couldn’t find any)
8 oz. angel hair pasta, broken in half or in smaller pieces

Put the chicken carcass in a large pot and cover with cold water.  Bring to a slow boil and turn down to simmer.  Add veggies and spices.  Simmer for at least an hour, occasionally skimming the surface.

After an hour or two (I waited until I was tired of waiting), strain the veggies and chicken bits.  I strained and pressed all the bits to get the juices out.  I reserved some carrots, diced them, then added back to the broth.  I cooked the pasta separately, put the pasta and some of the reserved chicken in bowls, and ladled the broth over it.  Oh yeah, and salt to taste whenever.

Yum.  I forgot to add parsley.  Oh well.  Some dumplings would’ve been awesome in this.  Or a side of roasted potatoes.  Things to think about for next time.

Potato vodka martinis, one with olives and one with onions.

It was a toss up between neighborhood favorite Warszawa and vegan restaurant Real Food Daily.  It’s not hard to see what won out.  Following a brief German food phase that encompassed such restaurants as Suppenkuche (SF), Walzwerk (SF), Teske’s (SJ), Gunther’s (SJ), and Red Lion Tavern (LA), we moved east in search of comfort foods that Tom grew up with, like stuffed cabbage and pierogi (which apparently, like blini, are the plural form of the word).  Eating at Warszawa is like hanging out at someone’s grandma’s house; the building looks like a converted house with beautiful Polish opera posters on the walls and fresh cut flowers on every table.

They are really well known for their pierogi and there’s the option for a number of different fillings, but my favorite is always potato and cheese.  What can I say, I’m a woman of simple tastes.  The wild mushroom is pretty damn good, too.  The herring and steak tartare are also deliciously old school.

Bigos (hunter’s stew).  So good on a chilly night.  I’ve also had their veal paprikash and beef stroganoff, which I think is my favorite, but I just can’t pass up egg dumplings.