Soft Opening at Bottega Louie

Bottega Louie
700 S Grand Avenue (In the Brockman Building)
Los Angeles, CA 90014
http://www.bottegalouie.com/


Wednesday evening we were strolling around downtown, starting with a taxi drop off and some food in Fleming's at LA Live, and ending up in the Golden Gopher for drinks and plans to conquer the universe. On the way we passed, in true Odyssean style, Bottega Louie and were drawn in by the siren-like call of its bright lights and soft opening.

I strolled the perimeter, peeking in the window and snapping pics with my iPhone. Then we walked right in despite the big sign on the door that said, "CLOSED-IN TRAINING".

A member of the floor staff, noting me snapping away or maybe noting D's snake charming personality and good looks, greeted us kindly and gave us a tour of the entire facility. It is gorgeous.

Naturally, I was quickly drawn to the macarons. Gorgeous specimen, if maybe a hair on the too perfect side. I can only compare them to my own macarons and that of the canonical La Duree. The La Duree seem equally as perfect, but somehow a little more rustic. Mine of course were so rustic they were better eaten with one's eyes closed.

However, due to the "friends and family only" nature of the soft opening, I was denied macarons last night. They were squirreled away behind a glass counter so I couldn't even steal any while D distracted the tour guide. Denied.

There are several sections in Bottega Louie. The front as you walk through the doors is a deli & prepared foods store. It is incredibly reminiscent (on a much lesser scale) of the high end food halls of such store as Harrod's and Selfridges.

These are not to be mistaken for Ragu Spaghetti sauce. They are Bottega Louie jarred soups. If our guide weren't watching me and my thieving nature so carefully, I would have emptied one of these into my clutch for tasting later on the street.


The deli serves all kinds of beautiful items, including this duck confit.

Roasted market carrots.

And then there are the other sweets. Cupcakes...

and an array of beautiful tarts on the cold marble shelf of the fridge.

Against the west wall is a drinks & cheese, fruit & spreads fridge. Lovely.

They also offer these simple sandwiches, reminiscent of the simple filled baguettes one buys from a bakery window on the streets of Paris. D ate a couple of those daily while walking back from the Aquaboulevard on the Avenue Victor Hugo. It would take us more than 2 hours to walk back to the center of town from the Aquaboulevard, and a boy that tall needs sustenance.


When you walk in, immediately to your right is the bar/breakfast area. I love the cafe feel of this. The bar was definitely calling us last night. But not only was I denied macarons, I was denied booze. Oh, the humanity.

People hard at work pouring and serving drinks. Everything seems to be humming smoothly, everyone is all smiles, very friendly to the obnoxious woman taking pics with her phone. I just changed to the word "woman" from the word "girl". Ruh roh.

The dining room. I cannot wait to experience this. Their menu is pretty vast with lots of price points. I can see this being a place to go for a very formal occasion, or in true California style, stopping by on the way home from the beach in jeans and a tee shirt.

The uber clean kitchen. You pass this on your right as you turn to the left and into the dining room.

I licked the window with the macarons on display. I am a window licker.

Kogi Quest #2: Hitting the Alibi Room

Alibi Room
12236 W Washington Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90066
(310) 390-9300
http://www.alibiroomla.com/home.php

My wonderful friends were in town from the OC and San Diego just to hit the Kogi truck. And what does Kogi do but decide to have an eastside free evening. Kogi fail. There was nothing to do but take a stab at the infamously busy and obnoxiously understaffed Alibi Room in Culver City, sadly the furthest east distributor of Kogi on the night in question. While the bartenders were sorely overwhelmed (and one of them sorrowfully rude beyond all excuse), there are some benefits to eating Kogi at the Alibi.

The first thing that comes to mind is availability of booze. One must first find a bartender available and willing, and after some effort we procured just such a person. He took good care of us the rest of the evening. Hint: stand to the back of the bar, with your back to the wall. If you see the bar as an isosceles triangle, stand with your back to the hypotenuse. You will get served faster and get some breathing room. Please note above item, not on the Kogi truck menu, the kim chee hot dog. D died and went to Korean heaven. Not exaggerating. Tequila shots and kim chee hot dog. Nirvana.

Another benefit of eating at the Alibi is the profusion of items one cannot get on the truck. Above is another one of these items. Vegetarian lettuce wraps. Kim chee, tofu, greens, radish, and this thin savory brothy sauce. H flipped for these.

Again, another wonderful item not on the Kogi truck and hands down my favorite. Short rib bbq'd sliders. ZOMGWTFROFRMT. (zohmygodwhatthefuckrollingonfloorrubbingmytummy).

And the wonderful and ubiquitous classic, the Korean BBQ'd Kogi taco. K, P and K all agreed that this was the bestest. The above is actually not a shot of the tacos. It's another shot of the lettuce wraps. Apparently I did not get a shot of the tacos this time.

I was a little saddened by the kim chee quesadilla. This is offered on the truck, but what comes on the truck is way better. I thought I remembered tasting potato in the quesadilla from the truck when reflecting back the next morning. While eating the first time, I was fairly well on the way to being tipsy and things only went downhill from there. Maybe I was eating kleenex that had fallen out of my pocket and into the quesadilla. We will never know for sure. Still good this one, the one from the truck was better.

More Kogi to come in the future.

Empress Pavilion & Car Show Sunday

Empress Pavilion
(213) 617-9898
988 N Hill St, Ste 201
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.empresspavilion.com/



Sunday morning, after a long night trekking west for Kogi then back to Bar C in Little Tokyo for drinks, I roused my crew for dim sum.

Why not attempt to hit three Asian countries in one weekend? We parked a few blocks away and had a nice stroll through Chinatown, little more than a mile from my house over the river and across the 110.

I love our Chinatown. It is small but colorful. It is actually "New Chinatown". "Old Chinatown" in Los Angeles used to be down the street where Union Station is now. Officially established in the 1880's, it was demolished for Union Station and relocated in the 1930's. Once it was a burgeoning neighborhood, with a Chinese Opera Theater, a newspaper, three temples and a telephone exchange. It was also the site of the Chinese Massacre of 1871, when 19 Chinese men and boys were killed by an angry mob of 500.

This was one of the largest racially motivated acts of violence ever in the American west. Some consider one underlying cause of the massacre growing anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States at the time, which climaxed in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, suspending Chinese immigration for over ten years. A more concrete reason for the massacre was the accidental death of a local rancher. Apparently Robert Tompson was caught in the crossfire between two factions of Chinese gangsters fighting over the abduction of a Chinese woman named Yut Ho. On October 24th, 1871, a mob of over 500 Anglos and Latinos entered Chinatown. Every Chinese person in the area was robbed or murdered and every building with Chinese lettering was ransacked. In, Chinese Los Angeles in 1870—1871: The Makings of a Massacre, Scott Zesch writes,

"The dead Chinese in Los Angeles were hanging at three places near the heart of the downtown business section of the city; from the wooden awning over the sidewalk in front of a carriage shop; from the sides of two “prairie schooners” parked on the street around the corner from the carriage shop; and from the cross-beam of a wide gate leading into a lumberyard a few blocks away from the other two locations. One of the victims hung without his trousers and minus a finger on his left hand."

Only ten men were brought to trial over the incident, of the ten seven were convicted with their convictions overturned on a technicality.

New Chinatown now stands, clean, lively and violence free with Central Plaza and its center. Central Plaza was designed as a Hollywoodized version of Shanghai with streets such a Bamboo Way, Jin Ling Way and Chung King Road. Chinatown has expended beyond the centralized hub of shops and restaurants and is bounded by Dodger's stadium to the north and Olvera Street to the south. We walked through Central Plaza to get to Empress Pavilion, located in Bamboo Plaza on the second floor.

We arrived around 10:30-ish, perfect timing. I was expecting a prohibitive wait like last time but we were ushered in hurriedly right to a table for three in the middle of the craziness.

Our table was laid with Chinese mustard and chili sauce, pot of tea and water. From there we were pretty much left alone, save for the men and women manning the dim sum carts.

The first dish P rounded up for us was a fried shrimp dumpling, maybe called a Haam Sui Gok? Slightly sweet and savory wrapping lightly fried with shrimp and slices of sweet mango. This was delicious. Not a fan of fried food, usually, but this was done very lightly.

Although the colors are more or less the same throughout the dumpling, you can kinda see the mango on the inside to the left of the dumpling.


The second dumpling we ordered was Har Gau. This had chopped up shrimp and veggies in a steamed starchy wrapper.

You can see all the veggies in the inside. I loved this one because I can strongly taste the carrot and the cabbage.

P also ordered for us the roasted duck. This was far and away my favorite dish. I could eat this on my own. So delicious, a nice little duck roasted in soy sauce and Chinese spices with the shiny skin and fatty layer underneath...


The dish above puzzled me. It was a bit mysterious. Another dumpling, I think, but what was inside was a little indecipherable. It wasn't like a dumpling with a clearly discernible inside filling and an outside wrapper. The flavor was nice though.

I love bau. I worked for a Chinese florist for years in my early 20's. Whenever we were making arrangements for a funeral or putting huge red ribbons on plants for a restaurant or store opening, the community would send over boatloads of food. Many times we would receive a big pink box full of baked pork bau. So good.

This one was steamed with what seemed like the exact same filing. Its doughy goodness was delicious.

P & I knew we had to introduce K to the Chinese broccoli. Neither she nor P are fans or American broccoli, however they both love the Chinese kind. I love the leafiness of this and the dark sauce, but then again I adore all broccoli.

The last dish we could stuff into our bodies was a little sweety that P used to eat as a child. Just a sweet rice cake. It was fun to try but does not measure anywhere on my meter of things to try again. Thick, sweet and glutenous.

The Empress Pavilion is a little shabby. It seems to be just a giant banquet hall with a few nods at Chinese decor. The walls have Chinese panels on them, hung with thumb tacks.

A little askew.

And there was duct tape in a few places on the moulding which I found strange, Surely some blemish to the moulding was not as unsightly as the duct tape? Nevermind, everything was amazingly spotless, the food was good and the experience was fun.

P said, on the walk back to the car, the food at the Empress Pavilion is good but not great. Still, I would go again anytime. I wish dim sum was served for dinner.

We crossed the 110 and headed back to Elysian Park into another cultural experience altogether. There was a car show on this last weekend and I am damn glad I didn't miss it.

We slowed my car waaayy down, rolled down the windows, cruised up and down the street several times, saying how-dee-do to the folks, and snapping pics.

This red car is fly.

And the above Caddy is nothing short of pimpin'. Gang culture of another type altogether.