Around Town - A Small Birthday Bash At La Sandia

My girlfriends and I have a tradition of celebrating each other's birthdays by going out to dinner.  Last night we had a great dinner party for my glamorous friend Lillian at La Sandia restaurant located upstairs at the new and improved Santa Monica Place.
You can't be a native southern Californian and not have an appreciation for fine Mexican food. It's nurture food for me because I've been noshing on it my entire life.  But strangely, here in Mexico Norte, or rather Los Angeles, great Mexican cuisine is actually difficult to find.  Mostly we have chain restaurants and taco stands. Fortunately, with Mexico City raised and Culinary Institute trained uber chef Richard Sandoval, we now have La Sandia.

Margarita's and freshly made guacamole were the first course....naturally. Followed by  shrimp ceviche and quesadillas and then entrees of traditional dishes of chile relleno, carnitas, soft tacos, etc.,
and of course more margaritas.

Dessert was a delicious trio of traditional Mexican sweets stepped up a notch with a sparkler.

La Sandia is now my local go to place for margaritas and quality Mexican food.

Hopefully, the next Richard Sandoval restaurant that I try will be Ketsi at the Four Seasons Hotel in Punta Mita.

I can dream...

While the Trainer's Away or Dinner At Ten

Last night I decided to take advantage of the fact that my trainer was getting ready to show off her magnificent muscularity at some major national competition and my 8:00 gym appointment was cancelled.
Oh yeah I know, I could have gone to the gym anyway and given my all to the treadmill, but I just said no.
Instead, I decided to cook.

Our favorite Aussi domestic goddess Faux Fuchsia has posted about how cooking can be a de-stresser after a long day at work.  And, of course she was correct.  There is something therapeutic in the act of chopping and cooking and serving and eating that makes you forget about your daily issues.
And cooking raises your serotonin and dopamine levels....or so I tell myself.

Of course all this took time, and after getting home late from the office, then deciding on what to make, then going to the market for last minute ingredients the actual cooking process didn't get started until 8:30 last night.

Maybe it was because of Jill's current Ina Garten obsession or maybe it was because I had leftover roasted chicken the fridge, I decided to cook chicken pot pie using Garten's vegetable pot pie recipe
...with slight alterations.
I used way less butter, I left out the saffron and instead of making pastry crust, I used bisquick for the topping.
The kicker in the recipe was the chopped fennel and the pastis.

Behold the magnificence!

Yes, maybe it was 10:00 before dinner was served but it was worth it.

...but tonight it's back to the gym...

And on a different topic altogether

Faux Fuchsia, who's been traveling around England, the Isle of Jersey and Brittany has been bragging on her blog about the cuteness of Jersey cows. Sorry FF, you may be a domestic goddess and you certainly know your bromeliads from your begonias, but in terms of animal appreciation, those Jersey cows have nothing on the beautiful bovines of Switzerland and Austria. 

Voila, Austrian heifers in their Alpine floral spender.

Pictures snagged from Paradis Express, a pretty blog by a gardener from the suburbs of Paris. 

If you like landscape and floral design, check out her blog

and don't worry, it's not about cows.

Showing The Love - Holiday Baking - Making Everything Better With Chocolate

I've never been a fan of pecan pie, having been served it for virtually every Thanksgiving of my entire life.
But now that I've seen Marcel Cocit's version with chocolate I'm thinking about baking one for Thanksgiving.
Marcel is my friend Jeannie's boyfriend so be sure to check him out on goodbite.com and send him a little facebook love too.

Around Town - The Taste of Beverly Hills

So many restaurants....so little time...

The event schedule
The restaurants
The wineries

Since I tweaked my back in Mexico (don't ask) and have now had to cancel my weekly training sessions at the gym, there will be no superfluous wining and dining for me.
But for everyone else
Bon Appetit!

The View From Vegas

It is so good to finally be home after the Las Vegas show.
Like any trade show, from any industry,
it all tends to get a bit tedious after a few days. But I must admit that I did enjoy staying at the Bellagio because the view is so expansive that it was relaxing just to look out the window

especially after spending all day long looking at cases like thisand this

where you must look with a very critical eye in order to hone in on exactly what you are seeking to buy.

After studying row after row of cases holding individual items of some exquisite and not so exquisite estate jewelry...you can be visually overwhelmed.

Happily it was all worth it because Beladora.com bought some beautiful estate jewelry.

You will be wanting to check out the What's New and the Signed Designer Jewelry pages on Beladora in the next couple of weeks as we upload our new Buccellati, Chanel, Cartier, Van Cleef, David Webb, Oscar Heyman and Cathy Waterman jewelry.

Then after standing up all day and schmoozing with the dealers...and then waiting for a cab in the 110 degree heat, it was nice to get back to the Bellagio and to sit down at Petrossian for a little aperitif.

And dinner at Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Prime Steakhouse, which was waaaay better than Michael Mina. I can even overlook the fact that they served almost raw foie gras, then proceeded to explain to me how foie gras was supposed to be cooked, as if I didn't know. But overall the meal was delicious and the restaurant was full, because apparently there is no recession when you are in Las Vegas.

BTW, Jean-Georges Vongerichten has a blog. That chef is busy!

After dinner it was the Fontana Patio for cognac & cigars. The Bellagio pond looks peaceful in this photo but it was actually really raucous because the famous fountain show goes off about every 10 minutes and lasts for something like 10 minutes. Still, it was so nice after being indoors all day long to sit outside and thanks to Fontana hostess Jing, we got great table every night.

(Can I just say that after staying at the Bellagio for 5 years in a row, the service is excellent. There are employees that recognize me, even though I'm only there for a few days each year, like John at Sensei. Seriously, how amazing is that with all of the thousands of people who stay at that hotel?)

Finally, after being surrounded by crowds all day long it was just so nice to get back to my room and to appreciate the view of Las Vegas but without all the people and noise.

Around Town - Slumming It At The SLS

After hearing for months about the SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills
I finally got around to seeing what all the buzz is about

It was indeed way hip

and the public/private division gave it that one extra level of exclusivity

The decor was exceptional with calculated coolness by designer Philippe Starck

I had dinner in one of the private dinning rooms

which was just a little too starkly Starck for my taste

Fortunately, it was vastly improved by the color, the candlelight and the company

The food at Tres which I had heard so much about was what I would have expected,

good but not exceptional

Next time, I would like to try the main restaurant Bazaar

Or, instead of waiting in a long line for my car with the usual actors and other industry types, get to the SLS early in the evening and have dinner at Altitude on rooftop pool deck and enjoy the view.

If you haven't already tried the SLS I recommend that you do, if only just to have a drink and to bask in the vibe.

Around Town - Another Week Of Dine LA

Bad economic news, continued recession, growing unemployment
how does the restaurant business in Los Angeles deal with all of this?
Dine La restaurant week, of course.

What's the idea behind dineLA Restaurant Week?
dineLA and dineLA Restaurant Week were created with two goals in mind-driving business for our local restaurant community; and building awareness for Los Angeles as one of the premier dining cities in the world.

and

What are restaurants offering during dineLA Restaurant Week?
Participating restaurants will opt into one of three dining categories and present a specially priced three-course meal for lunch and/or dinner. Diners will be able to choose from three choices for each course including appetizer, entrée and dessert.

So last week's dine LA event, with special prices, was an opportunity for me to try two new restaurants, and so I did.
Both were full, obviously the dineLA concept was working.

Wolfgang's Steakhouse in Beverly Hills

I liked both my dinner and the ambiance at Wolfgang's steakhouse, with no nonsense food and a chi-chi Beverly Hills crowd....was that Mickey Rourke in the hat? Perhaps the best thing about Wolfgang's was the fact that it was on Canon Drive, an easy 2 block walk from my office.

Upstairs 2 in West Los Angeles

Upstairs 2, was the opposite of the platinum triangle located Wolfgang's.

A wine bar situated above a warehouse wine business, The Wine House, located in an industrial area next to the 405 freeway, it was a foodie retreat with delicious food and an incredible wine by the glass menu. It may just become my new favorite hang out.

The restaurant business is huge in Los Angeles, and it employs a lot of people...yes, many of them wanna be actors. I'm very glad to see that DineLA is having a positive influence on local business.

This city has weathered the recession fairly well in spite of the real estate meltdown and all of the economic problems with the State of California. It makes me happy to know that LA isn't going the way of Detroit.