Birthday Party at The Park. Happy, Happy Day, A!

The Park
1400 Sunset Blvd
at the corner of Douglas
in Echo Park.
Tel: 213/482.920

We met friends for dinner to celebrate A's birthday Saturday night at The Park. Shame on us for not eating there sooner. It is literally 2 blocks from our front door, damn delicious and inexpensive. Shame. The good news is, now we can rectify our misdeeds often.



I like the interior. There is not glitz, no glam, just some paint and a few candles. And their lovely mascot, this gas lamp standing in the corner by the booster seats and highchairs.



The simplicity of the decor perfectly reminds you of the trees in the park down the street. Echo Park.



There are a lot of great choices on the menu. There are vegetarian options, vegan options, and plenty of everything else. The price is excellent for the quality. Appetizers are $8-9, pastas are about $12, and entrees between $12 and $16. Huzzah!



I am loving the tap water trend. Los Angeles has very decent tap water. But I am fancy enough to enjoy restaurants that dress it up a little. Thoughtfully, simply, elegant.



We started by sharing the Szechuan fried calamari salad, served atop butter lettuce. This is delicious. The sauce is light, the calamari are cooked to the prefect degree of tenderness. We ate this up fast.



We all passed around our appetizers, and everyone got a taste. Below are the mini-cornmeal pancakes topped with fresh corn, seared shrimps and chipotle butter, and some Mexican crema. Wow. These are a definite must-do next time we stop by. The pancakes themselves are wonderful, light and fluffy but with substance. And the shrimp/crema mixture on top added a little luxury...very very good.



The birthday girl ordered the heirloom tomato galette. Inside is fontina and mozzerella cheeses, atop are heirloom tomatoes with a red wine vinaigrette and some chili oil for kick. This had nice flavors, but I thought the filling was thicker and stodgier than I would have liked to taste. I'd prefer the inside of the galette a little lighter. Good though, still very good.



Onto the entrees...D ordered the linguine and clams in white wine sauce. I like something this hearty and simple in a neighborhood restaurant. Everything does not have to be revinvented to be worthy. I sampled liberally from this plate.



J ordered a burger. I was kinda dying for a bite, but a burger is so personal. You know, you get your hands and face really in there, if it is a worthy burger. J was enjoying this immensely. I did sneak more than a couple of fries from his plate. Good fries. Great aoili. Very garlicky, but you could also clearly taste some lemon, too.



Below is something that was from the specials menu. I have no recollection what it was, well it was fish. But it sounded great when it was described. I see some spinach or kale, some rice and carrots...healthy.



A different J's pulled pork. A chipotle Kurubota pulled pork with sweet corn pudding and Napa cabbage slaw. She was enjoying this..she ate every bite so it must have been good. I might try this next time.



They have a classic Ceasar on the menu. Fluffy, looked good. Didn't taste.



I ate the grilled polenta and portobella mushroom, with romesco sauce and creamed kale. This dish is a winner. I am assuming it slipped being vegan by the cream in the kale, but they kept the kale pretty light. This was hearty and generous in size, Italian comfort food.



The other L ordered the salmon from the menu. I have read raves about this from the innerwebs. It is crusted in sesame seeds, served with a soy-mirin butter, gingered asian green and radish avocado sushi. Festive!



The Park is the quintessential little neighborhood restaurant. They take limited reservations because they always try to leave room for walk ins from the 'hood. It was packed from the time we got there til the time we left. There were several large parties, and everything and everyone was well cared for the entire time. Our service was perfect, no food went back to the kitchen, and they tirelessly opened bottle after bottle of our BYOB with no corkage. I am impressed.

Disappointed at Comme Ça

I finally got to Comme Ça this weekend. I have been dying to go. DYING, I tell ya. But I was disappointed, which is unusual. I should have done better research. After failing to find out their hours on their home page:

http://www.commecarestaurant.com/

I went to Yelp for the pertinent info:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/comme-ca-los-angeles

Yup, breakfast, lunch and dinner, opening at 8 am and staying open all the way 'til midnight. Their home pages shows breakfast, lunch, dinner and brunch menus, and again I should have done my research to find out they only serve brunch until dinnertime on Saturdays. I am not a big bruncher. I don't love breakfast and most brunch menus are far more breakfasty than lunch. This was so at Comme Ça. Disappointing. I almost left. But, we were already seated, the room is gorgeous and inviting, we were ravenous, and they thoughtfully provided extra red silk cushions on the banquette which is great for short people like me who have a hard time reaching the table when sitting at a banquette.



I started with oysters, as usual whenever possible. These were Fanny Bay and Virginica east coast oysters. The wait person/actor told us both were from the east coast, which I know is wrong, but I don't really care. Both types were delicious, the presentation was lovely (I love some sea weed) and the mignonette was sharp and vinegarey.



I also love looking at barnacles. They are strange creatures.






With nothing much to order that resembled lunch, I ordered the angus burger. It was pretty delicious. Medium rare and cooked perfectly. Medium-rare. Even the mayonnaisey dressing the onions were mixed into was nice. Not a fan of the fries at Comme Ça. They were overcooked, IMO. D switched his nice little green salad for my fries. The lettuce was pretty wilted, but a better choice than the fries. Although the burger was well cooked, I can honestly say that the angus burger at McDonald's is better. Sue me, but the Comme Ça burger is nothing that special.




D ordered a Croque Madame. He had never had one, and it sounded delicious. Again, IMO, the Croque Madame was overcooked. The bread was too dark and the cheese was crispy all over and didn't have that nice meltiness I like with a Croque Madame.



A couple of other fun notes. My rosé was corked, and the waiter/actor handled it in a lovely, unquestioning way. Brought me a new glass post haste. The floor manager came over later to tell me he had tasted the corked glass, and it was indeed corked (really?) and apologized. This was a nice and unnecessary move. I have a pretty sensitive palate, and can always tell when a wine is corked, even if it is just in the beginning stages. But I appreciated the way this was handled. One floor manager at a wine bar in Los Feliz, that will remain nameless, had the audacity to argue with me. He told me that was simply the nature of the wine. Um, no. This did not fly. Point being, they handled the concern well at Comme Ça. In case you don't know, roughly 7-10% os all bottles of wine are corked, and this is never in any way the fault of a restaurant or vineyard.

Also, I wondered who the Asian woman in the corner was. She was receiving much respect and deference from the floor staff. At one point she told a bus person to fix a picture that was slightly tilted, he did so and turned to look at her for approval of his straightening. Her table also ordered several items from the menu, and when the quiche came, she bent her nose about an inch away from the quiche and took a long sniff. Fun to watch the machinations of the staff around her table.




I am interested to try Comme Ça again for dinner. The menu looks more up my alley, and I enjoyed both the service and the atmosphere.