DineLA Begins Today, July 15 until July 26

 

One of the largest restaurant weeks in the nation, dineLA, begins today July 15 and runs until July 26. I was invited to preview a couple of menus and Scarpetta and Bouchon are high on my list. Patina is participating for the first time this dineLA so that would be an amazing meal as well.

Scarpetta’s dineLA dinner is $45 with optional wine flights. I enjoyedthe puree of Brentwood corn soup and pork terrine from Scarpetta. If you want to go lighter, try the salad of grilled peaches and ricotta salad. I love that you can personalize your dineLA meal there by adding roasted sea scallops for $5 or getting their famed spaghetti for an additional $12. As for the mains, we had the braied veal and bone marrow agnolotti which was just amazing. I’d go back for the octopus or there’s also roasted chicken. For those rebels who like going to dineLA restaurants but can’t resist ordering more on the menu (high five!), I’d get the sirloin of beef supplement (only $10 more). We didn’t try the dessert but I’d pick the plum crostada though the burnt honey vanilla panna cotta does sound good.

 

Simon Ford from the 86 Company was on hand and served us Chocolate Negronis and Daiquiri #4s (aka the Hemingway Daiquiri). The chocolate liqueur in the Negroni took some of the edge off but still did a whiz bang up job of keeping up our appetites up. We certainly needed it on our way to our next dineLA restaurant crawl location, Bouchon.

 

Bouchon is also doing their dinner for $45.

We were treated to a kitchen tour (more on that later in an upcoming post) and enjoyed several amuse bouches including heirloom radishes with Vermont butter and sel gris, chicken rillettes with pickled grapes but our favorite was the Tartare de Saumon. What a perfect little bite. Bouchon has a daily chilled soup that is generally vegetarian. This evening we had the truffle which was very good.

 

Chef de Cuisine Dave Hands actually had us try most of the dineLA menu. Under appetizers (or as the French call it, entrees), we had the Salade de Ble Berry. I enjoyed this toasted wheat-berry, purslane, English cucumber, green grapes salad with Marcona almonds and a touch of buttermilk dressing. The other salad, the Salade Mesclun was a simple one with young market greens with shaved vegetables and a red wine vinaigrette.

I think it’s amazing you can get a half dozen oysters as a supplement to the dineLA menu for only $5.

For the “plats principaux” or what I’d call the entree, you have a choice of fish, chicken or pasta. This sounds too plain for all the great flavors they were. If I had to choose, I’d actually go with the cavatelli made with hand-rolled pasta, yellow corn, Half Moon Bay mushrooms, arrowleaf spinach and corn pudding. But you really can’t go wrong with the chicken or fish. The rebels can order steak frites for a supplement of $10.

I am secretly glad (or bummed) I didn’t try the desserts which include a peach and almond tart, Bouchons (chocolate brownies) with vanilla bean ice cream and a lychee sorbet. Amazingly, you can add a cheese plate for $5.

Patina brought a melon dessert with St. Germain to the courtyard between Bouchon and Scarpetta making our dineLA crawl very easy. After what amounted to two back to back dineLA meals, this simple dessert was much needed.

Other dineLA picks:

Tavern, Cicada, Bashan, Abigale, Ammo, Cleo, Crossroads, Post & Beam, Circa, Paiche, Maison Giraud,  Maison Akira, mar’sel and so many more!

 

 

dineLA

Scarpetta

225 N Canon Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90210 — (310) 860-7970

Bouchon

235 N Canon Dr., Beverly Hills, California 90210  —  (310) 271-9910

Patina

141 S Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012 – (213) 972-3331

 

The 86 Company

 

© The Minty 2013