Rosewood Tavern Now Open
Rosewood Tavern opened a couple of weeks ago, giving Animal some competition on Fairfax. My friends and I talked about how this area needed another bar– no, really! A bar that served lots of whiskeys, in particular Scotch. There was also an edited list of Irish Whiskey as well. I started off with a Powers Irish Whiskey on the rocks.
Old Fashioned
Then I moved onto an Old Fashioned except I’ve never seen an Old Fashioned with muddled orange in it. Sure, maybe an orange peel. And a cherry? I guess it’s festive. Oh, it tasted good but I wouldn’t call this an Old Fashioned.
deviled eggs
How does someone who doesn’t really like eggs really like deviled eggs? Don’t question my finicky ways! I had to have ’em and they were a’ight. I prefer my deviled eggs with a bit of crunch- where’s the relish?
chicken liver
I had heard the thing to get were the chicken liver crostini. Yeah, this is definitely one of my favorites of the night.
farro salad
I was a bit confused about the farro salad. I expected, you know, a mound of farro. Instead, it was a mixed greens salad with farro sprinkled on top. It was certainly good but not quite what I expected.
steak and ale pie
The steak and ale pie was addicting. It was a tiny bit sweet but otherwise it was perfect. The pastry top was light as air.
rib eye with brussel sprouts
All the sides are ordered separately but Rosewood Tavern plated it with our steaks. While rib eye is my favorite cut, this wasn’t my favorite tonight. We asked for it to be cooked medium rare but it was so obviously medium, on the verge of medium well.
New York Strip
On the other hand, the New York strip was cooked medium rare and was bursting with meaty juices. It was my favorite of the night. We got creamed spinach with it.
creamed spinach
baked potato
I wasn’t too into the creamed spinach. First off, the portion was eensy weenie and it was a bit clumpy. Definitely not creamed. However, the baked potato was great. Simple, delightful.
Overall, I feel Rosewood Tavern has a lot of potential. Keep in mind, we were there a week into the opening. Our server even joked it’s good we waited a week because they just worked out some kinks (he said it as he was opening the wrong bottle of wine for us). If I were to give grades, I give B- for effort.
448 N Fairfax Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 944-0980
I agree, there should be more bars in that area. I’ll never forget drinking martinis at magianos at the grove on x-mas eve before dinner at animal due to a lack of open non divey bars. Nice to have a pre dinner drink before those wonderful bottles of house wine at animal.
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drinks at maggianos? oh wow. Ha, yeah, you can’t beat the $20 house white at Animal.
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Your Old-Fashioned comments cracked me up! Old-Fashioned’s have been traditionally made with muddled orange and cherry since Prohibition era. I’ve never seen an Old-Fashioned recipe that doesn’t call for muddled orange and cherry. When bourbon-based drinks came back in vogue these last few years, the traditional orange and cherry didn’t make it. Most trendy places serve up bourbon (or rye), bitters and club soda with possibly a lemon peel as garnish. Even the sugar has been left out at this point (which makes it merely a bourbon and soda with bitters!).
/EndDiatribe
(I should add that if you go really far back, there are turn of the century recipes that don’t have cherry or orange {orange bitters were popular at the time though}. However, they were still made with a sugar cube that is now commonly neglected.)
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Nope, the old fashioneds I’ve ever had are bourbon (usually), sugar, bitters, twist (usually orange but lemon is fine). If it came with soda, I’d send it back. See this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Fashioned
There is no mention of a cherry except to “omit” in modern old fashioneds. And muddled orange? Eek! The wiki says people probably did the muddled orange to replace the bitters, in places especially Cali. Yes, that is a modification from the Prohibition era but a proper Old Fashioned pre-dates that time and did not have this muddled fruit business.
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