All posts filed under: Restaurants

Tuesday’s Tip: For the Procrastinators of Valentine’s Day

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For those of you who have high hopes of cooking dinner at home or dining at restaurant this Valentine’s Day, these may not come to fruition.  You may have overachieved with the dinner and ended up burning it or being too stressed to pull it together at the last minute.  For those who want to dine out on this night, you may have forgotten that according to the National Restaurant Association, Valentine’s Day is the busiest day of the year for restaurants, known as the Super Bowl of dining-out days, and not made a reservation.  So, today’s tip for you procrastinators, is to use a new waitlisting app for casual-dining restaurants that DON’T take reservations, called NoWait. NoWait is a free mobile app that provides real-time information on wait times in your area, enabling diners to get in line remotely from their mobile phone, and simply show up precisely when their table is ready. Procrastinators, rejoice. Unlike OpenTable that focuses only on the 50K reservation-only higher-end restaurants in the U.S., NoWait targets the 250K underserved non-reservation, casual-dining ones.  Perfect for guys or gals that forgot to plan ahead …

Golden Globes 2015 Menu!

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The 72nd Golden Globes are tomorrow and today I am giving you a peak at what the stars will be served (notice I didn’t say eating!) during the event.  The Beverly Hilton will play host again to the event and the chefs at the hotel have come up with a very “golden” menu. The executive chef, Troy N. Thompson, says the menu is a reflection of the state’s abundance of fresh produce.  The roughly 1300 guests will have a choice between a meat or vegetarian three-course meal. The appetizer served will be a modern take on a waldorf salad with lemon emulsion. For the meat eater, the main entrée is a duo of slow roasted Arctic char and onion marinated filet tenderloin.  It will be served with a red wine sauce, an heirloom tomato compote, and a potato croquette in the middle, topped with a black Tuscan kale chip. For the vegetarians, the main entrée is a handmade ricotta and basil cannoli served on tomato sauce and topped with Parmesan cheese and fresh thinly sliced California vegetables. For dessert, the stars will be served a trio of …

Cafe Zola’s Turkish Eggs

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When I go back to Ann Arbor to visit my former college (GO BLUE!), one of my favorite restaurants to dine at is Cafe Zola.  This restaurant’s menu borrows from Italian and Mediterranean culture and cuisine, including some Turkish recipes.  And my favorite thing on the menu is their Turkish Egg, featuring two eggs, oven-baked sunny-side up with sautéed organic spinach and a slice of French feta cheese, served with sliced tomatoes, cucumbers and Mediterranean olives.  Every time I go back to Cafe Zola, I want to try something new, but just can’t because their Turkish Eggs are so delicious, fresh, and healthy!  After this past visit, I came back to LA and decided that I finally needed to try the make the recipe myself!  Give this recipe a try and you will become a quick fan of this breakfast! Ingredients: Tomatoes Cucumber Spinach Eggs Feta cheese Olives of your choice Salt and Pepper Olive Oil Spray EVOO (amounts depend on how many servings you are making!) Preheat oven to 375 Spray oven safe dish with Olive Oil …

National Pizza Month-Celebrate with California Pizza Kitchen

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Did you know that October is National Pizza Month?  Well, to celebrate, California Pizza Kitchen is running a few fun promos that customers nationwide can participate in.  First, CPK will be featured on TNT’s new cooking competition series On The Menu this Friday, October 17th!  On the Menu is the first cooking competition show ever to give viewers at home the chance to taste the dishes they see on screen.  Celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse is on the judging panel and Ty Pennington serves as the host. But fans and foodies can test their culinary knowledge before the CPK episode airs, by predicting the ingredients of the winning pizza through CPK’s Guess the Pizza app.  The frontrunner will win free CPK for a year!  Once the winning On The Menu pizza is revealed, it will be be available on October 18th in CPK restaurants nationwide, with $1 of each pizza sold going to children’s charity Make-A-Wish.  A delicious and worthy cause! For more information on CPK’s Reasons to Love National Pizza Month, check out:  http://webhost.cpk.com/npm/ Stay hungry…

Stuffed Chicken

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Today’s post was inspired by a lunch my family shared at Sermet’s in Charleston, South Carolina.  Sermet’s, located on King Street is a Mediterranean restaurant with French and Italian inspiration.  Today’s recipe was not influenced by a main dish, or dessert, or even an appetizer.  It was inspired by the dip that came before the main dish and before we even ordered!  It was a simple dip of four ingredients and I was quickly counting in my head the ways to use! For the dip: 1 cup EVOO 1/2 jar (approximately 8 sun dried tomatoes) 3/4-1 head of garlic (depending on how much you like garlic) 1/2 bunch of basil Salt and Pepper Smash, peel, and chop garlic Add 3/4 of EVOO to pan on medium-low heat and add garlic once EVOO starts bubbling Sauté garlic approximately 10 minutes, but turn heat down if garlic starts to brown While garlic is cooking, add the rest of the EVOO plus the sun dried tomatoes and basil to a food processor Blend until sun dried tomatoes and basil are almost …

Meatless Monday-My New Favorite Restaurant!

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Happy Monday!  Did that weekend go really fast for anyone else?!  One thing about the quick weekend is the fact that today’s Meatless Monday post is already here!  I had seen pictures from a few of my friends who dined at M.A.K.E. in Santa Monica, and the pictures looked so amazing that I couldn’t wait to try the restaurant for myself!  So, on Friday one of my friends and I made the trek to Santa Monica to dine at M.A.K.E..  Let’s just say that the pictures my friends took didn’t even do the restaurant justice!  I was so excited to try M.A.K.E. and tried not to hype it up in my mind, just in case of disappointment, BUT the restaurant fair exceeded my expectations.  Here is a bit about the restaurant and what my friend and I munched on! BIO: Located inside Santa Monica Place, M.A.K.E. is a living foods restaurant, featuring cutting edge plant-based cuisine. The menu is executed under the guidance of raw food chef and author, Matthew Kenney. The restaurant is located …

Los Angeles Food and Wine Festival

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On Thursday and Saturday, I had the privilege of attending the 3rd Annual Los Angeles Food and Wine Festival in Downtown LA.  I had such a great experience at last year’s event, I was beyond excited for this year.  I was looking forward to seeing the growth of the festival and taste food from chefs I had never before tasted. Thursday was opening night “Festa Italiana” hosted by Giada De Laurentiis, and Saturday, Curtis Stone played host to the ‘LEXUS Live on Grand’ and Gavin Degraw serenaded the crowd for about an hour.  Just a few chefs who were in attendance included Jonathan Grahm (Compartes Chocolatier), Fabio Viviani (Firenze Osteria and Cafe Firenze), Bart Vandaele (Belga Cafe and B Too), Steve Samson (Sotto Restaurant), Antonia Lofaso (Black Market Liquor Bar), Scott Conant (Scarpetta), Thomas Keller (The French Laundry, Per Se, and Bouchon), and Duff Goldman (Charm City Cakes).  Also in attendance were Waylynn Lucas, Brenda Urban, Kat Odell, and Jessica Miller from the new Bravo TV show, Eat Drink Love. The celebs who were in attendance …

Boeuf Bourguignon in Burgundy!

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Wednesday’s post was an overview and gave highlights of my family’s French vacation this year.  Today on the menu is the local cuisine of Bourgogne.  Probably the most famous and well-known cuisine of Bourgogne is Boeuf Bourguignon.  Two of the most important ingredients for this meal are the Charolais cows (only native to this region) and Burgundy red wine. Here are two of the Boeuf Bourguignon that my family had during our time in Bourgogne!  Read Monday’s post HERE for descriptions and other foods from these restaurants. In honor of Julia Child’s 101st birthday today, I will give you her recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon! 1 6 Ounce Chunk of Bacon Remove rind and cut bacon into lardons (sticks, 1/4 inch think and 1 1/2 inches long) Simmer rind and bacon for 10 minutes in 1 1/2 quarts of water Drain and Dry   Preheat oven to 450 degrees 1 TBSP Olive Oil or Cooking Oil 3 Pounds lean stewing beef, cut into 2inch cubes 1 Sliced Carrot 1 Sliced Onion 1 TSP Salt 1/4 TSP …

A Welcome Back from Vacation

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No, I haven’t forgotten about you or given up blogging!  I was gearing up for vacation, on vacation, and then recovering from vacation, so I took a bit of time off.  But, now that I am back in the swing of normal life, posts will be coming more regularly.  Today I am going to tell you a bit about my family’s travels and the regional foods we ate. We loved visiting Paris so much last year, that it was off to France again this year.  Unlike last year when we only visited Paris, this year Bourgogne and Lyon were also stops on our vacation.  While last year’s meals were filled with white asparagus and béarnaise sauce, goat cheese salads, and chicken paillard, this year’s menus included melon et jambon (ham), caprese salad, carpaccio and tartare, cassis (black currant), oeufs (eggs) meurette a la Bourguignonne, and beef Bourgogne.  Here are some of the highlights and a little about the restaurants that served these mouth-watering meals. Les Deux Magots: Translated as “the two Chinamen”, this famous cafe is …

Opening of PCH Rock and Brews Restaurant with KISS Co-founders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons

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On May 8th, KISS Co-founders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons opened their second Rock and Brews location on the Pacific Coast Highway.  This opening marks the duo’s second L.A. location.  Including Los Cabos, another newly opened Rock & Brews , they have 97 to go in their Rock & Brews roll-out plans.  To celebrate, Paul and Gene hosted and personally served returning vets and Wounded Warriors at a special luncheon in honor of these military heroes.  They also presented a check for $25,000 to Torrance Education Foundation President Tom Brewer at the end of the evening.  Here are a few images from the event! Make sure you check the Rock and Brews website for a location coming soon near you! Stay hungry…