Results tagged “restaurantweek09”

              

Ports O' Call restaurant, which is in Ports O' Call Village in San Pedro, has an immediate strike against it. It is a common belief that restaurants with views always suck (cough Castaway cough). Even if in this case it is just a view of oil drums and tankers. Then to really make a seasoned diner nervous, they have weddings there. Like all the time. Sometimes two at a time. Would you like the pistachio-crusted chicken or the poached salmon with dill sauce? Stop running! It's OK. Come back. They have cake.

It looks like he got his point across, at least in our most recent meal there.

When is a week not a week? when it's two weeks. Err, make that three weeks. dineLA Restaurant Week is being extended Oct.18-23! The list of participating restaurants has also been reconfigured. It is much more readable now, and you are able to see which restaurants are offering lunch without having to click on their page.

       

Pinot Bistro on Ventura Boulevard has seen may chefs come and go, some of them spectacular and some of them so-so. Previous chefs include such notable names as Octavio Becerra, Miki Zivkovic and of course, Joachim Spichal himself. Even Suzanne Goin has worked in the kitchen. We were excited to see what the latest chef, Hugo Veltman, has been cooking up and jumped at the invitation to try their dineLA menu.

         

So, a coupla chicks walk into Ivan Kane's Cafe Wa s to check out their dineLA dinner...

       

Sometimes it's really nice to take a vacation all by yourself and treat yourself to a nice meal. Dining downtown at Zucca, with its high ceilings, Venetian paintings and chandeliers gives you that feeling of pampering yourself, if only for an hour. The dineLA menu at Zucca is nothing if not hearty. LAist was invited to try out their lunch menu yesterday and the blustery weathery made the soup and pasta options especially appealing.

      

It's always a little curious when you arrive at one of the many eateries participating in dineLA's popular restaurant week and they don't hand you the dineLA menu. As a diner there to check out a spot you've maybe never been to before this means things can get off to a rocky start when right out of the gate you have to wonder if you were mistaken, or if the dineLA crowd is really all that welcome where you are. (Baffling, right? After all, restaurants choose to participate, so why not pimp it?) You know that "new kid" feeling? Yeah, that's the one.

           

Walking into Nick and Stef's in downtown Los Angeles, your first impression is that it would be the perfect place for a business lunch, should you ever need to have a business lunch. The decor is unobtrusive and simple, but it is pristine. There is not a spot on a napkin, a mark on the banquette or a glass out of place. Service is charming and impeccable, bordering on the obsequious.

     

Our first taste of DineLA week(s) was really a matter of practicality. It was lunchtime in Pasadena. What was convenient? The menu at Cafe Bizou was varied, appealing and reasonable. We arrived just as they were opening and the first impression was not good. It was an empty FrancoDenny's with a disorganized staff.

dineLA's second 2009 Restaurant Week got underway yesterday, and runs through the 9th, and from the 11th-16th. To see a list of the restaurants, prices, and menus, click here.

Some big players on the local food scene were on hand this past Friday to take part in a media event to get everyone ready for dineLA's second go-'round of Restaurant Week 2009. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa brought his appetite to the table...will you? dineLA runs October 4-9 and October 11-16, and has a list of many, many (over 200!) wonderful local eateries at which you can treat yourself to specially priced three-course menus.

You might live a recessionista foodie lifestyle, hunting for high-quality eats at low-rent prices. And while we do encourage dining at all price-points, sometimes the only way feasting is feasible is when there's a special deal going down. This is where dineLA's Restaurant Week comes in. From October 4-9 and October 11-16, 2009, you can treat yourself to specially priced three-course menus at over 200 restaurants from all corners of LA County.