Beverly Hills: dineLA Dinner Recap at Citizen Plus Cocktails

 

Some friends and I gathered at Citizen to celebrate a birthday. Citizen was offering dineLA, the restaurant week that goes on until January 27 this year. Citizen’s $39 deal includes an appetizer, entree, side and dessert. This is pretty reasonable because you get a lot of food.

We started out with some cocktails. The drinks list is divided into categories such as champagne, boozy, citrus, tiki and day drinking. Or you can always go with bartender’s choice where they tailor a drink for you. I like how they say “we choose, you booze.”

I thought the dried pineapple garnish on the Blue Hawaiian was really pretty and this is a great way to showcase fruit that might not be around all year.

Blue Hawaiian – Citizen’s house white rum blend, blue curacao, pineapple and lime shrub

 

As mentioned we went for the dineLA deal. I ordered the lamb meatballs while another friend got the biscuits. My other friend also ordered lamb meatballs and we were surprised how generous this portion was- four for each of us! The cucumber yogurt was really great. And I liked the bit of Middle Eastern flair with the harissa.

 

The Salty Sunrise is Citizen’s Tequila Sunrise variation. We loved this drink and was the favorite among the three of us.

Salty Sunrise – blanco tequila, red wine, grapefruit, lime, black salt

My friends took one sip of this Wisconsin Old Fashioned and passed it over to me. This is my favorite kind of drink; brown, bitter, stirred. You don’t often find a Wisconsin old fashioned cocktail outside of the state (they just call them old fashioneds), and I was glad to find this elevated crafty-craft cocktail version. Some might fear the kirshwasser but it blended well with the citrus gomme and brandy.

Wisconsin Old Fashioned – brandy, kirshwasser, curacao, citrus gomme, aromatic bitters

 

The biscuits were so good. We loved the crispy edges. The chipotle maple syrup worked surprisingly well with the pimento cheese spread.

For those who miss the days of Julian Cox and Josh Goldman teaming up, you can find their tremendous drink, the Western Sour at Citizen which makes sense since Josh spearheads the drinks program here. I was looking forward to this drink. It’s quite boozy and makes a lot of sense to be under the tiki category.

Western Sour – bourbon, falernum, grapefruit, lime, petit cane syrup, grapefruit bitters

 

My friend got the mussels. I had a couple and it came with really flavorful broth.

 

The Brussels sprouts were good. Sometimes they can be too mushy or over-fried but these were perfect.

 

 

I was a little surprised by the portion size of the Jidori chicken. It was flavorful though. And the orzo mac and cheese was quite different.

 

I got the snap peas as my side. This was a huge portion! I was shocked this was for one person. Since there were only two choices of sides, we had another snap peas. We ate one and took home leftovers.

 

For my entree, I opted for the short ribs. These were tender. And I liked the bit of Swiss chard with it as well.

 

Citizen sent out a few surprises including this Grasshopper. I really do love those quirky drinks from the American bar dark ages. But of course, the “good” version of them. This was very balanced and who doesn’t love mint chocolate?

 

We ordered all three desserts from the dineLA menu. The rum cake warns it’s only for adults. It is definitely deliciously boozy.

 

The creme brulee had an amazingly thick sugar top. It was quite the thing to shatter it. It was like eating rock candy (good!).

 

One of my favorite desserts is butterscotch pudding, aka budino. I loved that Citizen took the time to stick a candle on the plate for our birthday girl.

It’s hard to pick which of the desserts was my favorite but the budino is a strong contender.

I’d love to come back to sit at the bar for more drinks and some nibbles.  The regular menu is fairly eclectic with what I’d call global cuisine. You could have soba noodles… or spaghetti. The shrimp and grits sounded great. Beverly Hills definitely needed a place like Citizen.

 

Citizen

184 N Canon Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90210  —  (310) 402-5885

© The Minty  2017