Bottega Louie

Great space. Great Service. Good food.

Showed up around 11:30 on Memorial Day. We had a party of three and no reservations, we were seated immediately. None of us had been here before, so we browsed the menu thoroughly. The top half of the menu broken down by salads, soups, pizzas, entrees, sandwiches and pasta. The bottom half has small plates, poultry, meat and seafood.
It's kinda confusing how it's broken up, but in the end it all works out.



We ordered the following, Mache Salad, Gazpacho, Aranchini, Yellowtail Crudo, Cauliflower Gratinee, Chicken Carcioffi and the Kobe Beef Burger.



The salad and soup started off our meal, both were delicious. The salad was light and refreshing, it included shredded chicken, avocado, green onions. celery, mache, lemon and olive oil . Just a really clean and simple salad, the chicken was seasoned perfectly.



The gazpacho was poured at the table, with the vegetable condiments prepared in the bowl. It was a well made gazpacho, but would have been better with a little heat.



The small plates were good, the arancini and crudo were a bit pricey for what they were. I thought cauliflower was a bit under cooked and could have been a bit cheesier.



The chicken carcioffi was nice, but because it is served a la carte, there was no starch to help the saltiness of the dish. With capers and artichoke hearts, the sauce was just too salty. The dish had a lot of potential but just wasn't well executed.



I didn't taste the burger, but it looked pretty good. The fries were average. Last but not least, were the desserts. We had the lemon tart and budino, I don't have a sweet tooth, so I skipped this course. But I was told they were both delicious.

Valentino

Friday night, dinner reservations for two at 7:00 pm.

This would be my first visit to Valentinos which has been one of the top restaurants in Los Angeles for several years. After getting a discount offer from Blackboard Eats, this was a perfect opportunity.

I was looking forward to enjoying the set tasting menu, but after hearing about the specials and reviewing the menu, I had second thoughts. Our servers name was Paul and he couldn't have been more helpful. He suggested that we order what we wanted and he would see what he could do. So we decided to go with the Prosciutto e Burrata starter, as well as the Il Timballo di Funghi. For our entrees we ordered the IL Risotto Nero ai Frutti di Mare and the Grilled Seafood Trio special.

Since we were planning on sharing, Paul said that we could make our order into a four course split tasting with wine pairing, Nice! The bread served was forgettable, breadsticks, some smaller white and poppy seed rolls. But I was not here for bread.



The Prosciutto e Burrata was the first started delivered and it was paired with a full glass of Proseco. This dish was so simple, but so delicious, the ingredients were top notch. The burrata was so creamy, and complimented the salty prosciutto. It was also served with something they called "gnocco frito", which was a little fried piece of dough. This dish was a perfect way to start.



Next up was the Il Timballo di Funghi, this was a savory flan made with wild mushrooms, served with a Parmesean and Saffron Fonduta. The mushroon "flan" or custard was so delicate and subtle. A nice earthly flavor which was paired with a sauce that was light and silky. I thought the sauce could have had a bit more seasoning, but the whole dish was very nice. The mushroom dish was paired with a Rosé,



First entree up was the IL Risotto Nero ai Frutti di Mare. A squid ink risotto topped with a seafood medley, which included calamari, shrimp and fish. Wow! I loved this dish. The risotto was delicious, the squid ink added a subtle ocean flavor and saltyness. The color contrast between the black risotto and small white pieces of seafood, was beautiful. Overall this was just a very nice and well balanced dish. Our server brought over the wrong wine for this course, so he actually poured two glasses of wine, one was for the last seafood course. He let us decide which one we though paired better and the one they choose was perfect. Sorry but I don't remember what the two varietals that were chosen.



I was getting pretty full after the risotto course, but the last course was the Grilled Seafood Trio. This plate included grilled dover sole, grilled turbot, lobster claw meat and grilled branzino, grilled asparagus was also included to add color. The seafood was served with a trio of sauces, a heirloom tomato butter sauce, a brown butter sauce and a caper berry and citrus sauce. Once again the quality of the ingredients really shined. The sole and turbot were delicious and perfectly cooked. The sauces were okay, but the brown butter sauce was the star and paired well with all of the seafood.



We closed out our meal with the Molten Chocolate cake, served with pair ice cream. Our server brought out a 1997 port for this course, that was awesome.



I can see why Valentinos has the reputation it does. The service was flawless and the food was delicious.

Cafe Firenze

I've been wanting to try Cafe Firenze for awhile now. With Chef Fabio Viviani making it to the finals of Top Chef and his restaurant being pretty close to my house, I thought why not. I also heard that it was really good.

The occasion was my sisters birthday and we had a party of four. Our reservations were for 6:30 on a Thursday evening. Located in Moorpark, CA. the building used to be Bauduccos, which closed over a year ago. The entrance leads directly into the martini bar, martini happy hour goes on Mon-Fri from 4-7pm. The decor is rustic and has a old world feel. Our table was well lit, almost too much light. We ordered a bottle of Acacia Pinot Noir and we also had a couple of martinis from the happy hour menu. With a quick glance at the menu, I noticed the specials right away. There were two things that stuck out to me, there was a Squid Ink Pasta with Clam and Sea Urchin Roe sauce, the second item that stood out was the Rabbit Cacciatore.

Before we jumped into the entrees, we started of with an appetizer trio and the Beef Carpaccio salad. The trio consisted of two small crab cakes, a shrimp wrapped with Panchetta and Burrata served on top of a grilled eggplant. The star of the trio was the Burrata, it was silky and smooth with a drizzle of Olive Oil. The shrimp and crab cakes were good, but nothing special. The Carpaccio salad was delicious, the bitterness of the arugula went well with the beef and Parmesean.

I decided to go with the pasta dish, the rest of the group went with the Grilled Ribeye steak, the larger portion of steak had a mushroom sauce. We also ordered a Fettucini Bolognese Arribiatta to share. I was so excited to see my pasta dish, but the looks were deceiving. It was completely bland and I honestly thought there was no Sea Urchin in the dish. The steaks were inconsistently seasoned but were cooked well. The best dish was the Fettucini Bolognese, which was very spicy and the pasta was cooked perfectly. My Squid ink pasta was bland and tasted like pasta tossed in oil. We did order a Flourless Chocolate Cake which was served with a scoop of Gelato. I didn't have any, but was told it was good.



With the prices of these dishes and all of the hype surrounding the chef, I was very disappointed with our meal. The one thing I have yet to mention was the service. I have rarely experienced service so poor that I contemplated giving the server no tip. Our dinner took over two hours, this was not due to the number of courses or the kitchen not expediting our food quick enough. During our two hour meal, our server literally checked on us four times. The time between her visits were up to 30 mins. The bus boys did their job keeping our water glasses filled and clearing plates, but our server was missing in action. We noted all of this on a comment card, but I'm not sure I'm going back.