Jolene Eats Here

Inn of the Seventh Ray, Topanga Canyon

2011-01-09T17:01:00.000-08:00

My plate

Some call the Inn of the Seventh Ray the "most romantic restaurant in L.A.". I've been coming here for years, but this was my first time trying their weekend brunch. For $18 you can go through their brunch buffet once. For some higher price (I don't remember what) you can go back for more. We opted for the once-through and carefully constructed our plates to maximize the amount of food we took back to our table.

I was pleasantly surprised by the buffet. $18 was a bit steep, but it came with a beverage (we got the ginger mint drinks, but they also had mimosas and juice. The only disappointment was the dessert... All of their dessert options tasted very "healthy," and not in a good way. Next time I'm skipping dessert and piling on more quiche, crab and smoked salmon.

Brad's plate

Petrossian, West Hollywood

2011-01-08T16:49:00.000-08:00

beef tartar with caviar. egg salad sandwich with caviar in the background

We went with some friends to Brad's favorite L.A. restaurant for his birthday. Everything was amazing, as expected, but if I had to choose my favorites, they would be the beef tartar and the mushroom soup. I am in love with Petrossian's soups! Their vanilla panna cotta with espresso "caviar" was a delicious and inventive way to end the meal.

Petrossian

the soup I have been waiting my entire life for

flatbread. caviar blinis in the background

burger

vanilla panna cotta with espresso "caviar"

Merry Christmas! And another short list...

2010-12-25T01:21:00.000-08:00

Wishing everyone in cyberworld a safe and merry Christmas! Keeping with the list theme, here's more "Best Of 2010"

Best Hawaii Restaurant: Sushi Izakaya Gaku I fell in love with their tofu with dashi jelly, spicy tuna tartar, and homemade tamagoyaki. And If you thought salmon couldn't get any more fatty and melt in your mouth, you gotta try their toro salmon sushi.

Best foodie book: Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires. I love this book. It details her life as a food critic for the New York Times, and her adventures going incognito so as not to be recognized by the restaurant staff. It was fascinating reading about the special treatment she got dressed as a hot blonde, and the nonchalant service she received dressed as an old lady. She drops recipes here and there throughout the book like breadcrumbs leading you from one chapter to the next.

Recipe you must try: Pumpkin stuffed with everything good. This recipe is from KCRW. This dish is testament to the fact that you really cant go wrong with cheese, cream and bacon. Click here for the recipe.

Market of the year: Nijiya. I was perusing my year in food, and I laughed remembering that crazy long obsession I had with Asian food the first half of the year. I have Nijiya to thank for supplying me with the ingredients to make okonomiyaki, beef tendon soup, and congee. Plus, I love how it's open till midnight.

I'd love to hear your "Best Of 2010"s. Leave a comment with your favorite restaurant, foodie book, market or recipe of the year!

Best of 2010!

2010-12-22T16:57:00.000-08:00

Ah, I love food lists. Here are my top picks for 2010!

Favorite Restaurant of 2010: Petrossian! This is a hands down pick for both me and Brad. Each time we've been there, we have had the best service, the most delicious food, and--strangely enough--the whole place to ourselves! I have no idea why this place is not more crowded than it is. Petrossian, by the way, is a caviar lover's dream. You must get the beef tartar, which is layers of beef tartar with loads of caviar stuffed between each layer. This is Brad's favorite dish. They also have egg salad sandwiches heaped with caviar, caviar tasting blinis, and even an espresso "caviar" panna cotta. The dish that I fell in love with, however, was not a caviar dish. It was their soup. Or soups to be exact. I have tried three of their soups (cauliflower, mushroom and borscht) and they were (I am not exaggerating) the best soups I have ever tasted.

Favorite Brunch Spot: LA Mill in Silver Lake. Sometimes I miss the east side, and a visit to LA Mill fixes that longing with an espresso shot of hipsters and well-crafted food. There is also no other brunch place that can come close to the stylish modern interior of LA Mill. Sitting there eating my little puffs of brioche dougnut holes, I feel both at home and in heaven.

Favorite "Slow Food" Restaurant: Rustic Canyon in Santa Monica. Everything at Rustic Canyon is wonderful in that "rustic" sort of way. Since their menu changes with the season, I would love to come back here again soon.

Favorite "Everyday Meal" Restaurant: Govindas! And by "everyday", I mean that I would eat there every day if I could. Govindas has been my 2010 restaurant obsession. I love their clean and healthy dining options, and their price of $8 for all you can eat food. Govindas is a part of the Hare Krishna Temple and all their cuisine is vegan/vegetarian.

Wedding Food!

2010-12-15T10:02:00.000-08:00

Since wedding food stereotypically gets a bad rap, I naturally worried about the food at my wedding. I was so surprised when I took my first bite of my wedding dinner and it was actually delicious. Another bite of juicy mango chicken, and another of crispy-skinned pork bao confirmed that this was a fantastic wedding dinner. In addition to salads, misoyaki butterfish, and mango chicken, we also had two carving stations: a whole roasted pig which was carved for Chinese pork bao, and prime rib.

I didn't take any pictures of my meal (*gasp!*), but thankfully Brad's mom did! That's her artfully arranged plate above. Scroll down to see more wedding pics.

Our wedding favors were two chocolate dipped shortbread cookies

from Honolulu Cookie Company

We fed each other cupcakes from Hokulani Bakery. Then I fed myself some more!

Yakbap

2010-12-14T10:43:00.000-08:00

Our friends Mike and Michelle gave us some yakbap! According to Mike, it's a Korean celebratory dish made with sweet sticky rice, brown sugar, and other goodies. It is absolutely heavenly. The richness of the coconut milk combined with the nuttiness of the sesame oil makes for a satisfying dessert. The sticky rice is so soft and fluffy, it melts on your tongue.

In Mike and Michelle's version of yakbap above, they included dried cherries from Trader Joes. Here is the recipe from Mike's uncle.

Yakbap

Cook: 5 cups of mochi rice.
Mix in well: 1/4 cup sesame oil while rice is still hot (less if you like)
Add: 12 oz. dark brown sugar (adjust to your taste)
Optional: a) 1 cup coconut milk b) prunes c) pine nuts d) cooked chessnuts
Form: into rectangular pans to 1.5" thick
Bake: 40 min @ 350F (check earlier to make sure the edges don't get hard)

Let cool, then cut with a plastic knife.

Our First Hanukkah Dinner!

2010-12-13T00:44:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday was my first attempt at a Hanukkah dinner. Here's what was on the menu:

Truffle Pate, herb cheese, asian pear and crackers from Trader Joes

Pot Roast with caramelized onion and roasted carrots

Challah Bread from Trader Joes, served with cultured butter

Roasted Brussel Sprouts with thinly sliced onions

Potato Latkes with sour cream, apple sauce and chives (recipe courtesy of Brad's mom)

Peeling and grating all of those potatoes was the toughest part. I made the pot roast a day ahead so that the flavors could develop overnight. The brussel sprouts were roasted with just olive oil, pepper and salt. I bought them on the stem from Trader Joes, and it took a big knife to hack them all off. I felt like Indiana Jones.

The meal was a success! For dessert we had pumpkin ice cream and a raspberry tart that Ron and Fran brought. Delicious!

Potato Latkes

4 large potatoes

2 eggs

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 tbsp flour or matzah meal

lots of grated onion (1-2 small ones)

Peel or wash the potatoes and grate on a medium grater. Pour off half of the liquid. Add beaten eggs and rest of ingredients. Fry on both sides. Serve hot with applesauce and sour cream.

Notes: Put the onions in first; it keeps the potatoes from turning. Also, soak the potatoes in water if you peel them.

Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good

2010-12-12T00:33:00.000-08:00

Brad and I heard an episode of Good Food on KCRW and they were talking about a pumpkin recipe called "Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good". Once we heard the words cream, cheese, bacon and pumpkin, we knew we had to try it. As expected, this was a spectacular dish. You can either serve it in the pumpkin (everyone spoons out their servings), or you can serve it cut up. We substituted sausage for bacon, and used Gruyere for the cheese.

We served the pumpkin with a side dish of brussel sprouts with cranberries, walnuts and bacon. Click here for the recipe.

Ingredients

1 pumpkin, 2½–3 lbs
Salt and freshly ground pepper
¼ lb stale bread, thinly sliced and cut into ½-inch chunks
¼ lb cheese, such as Gruyère, Emmenthal, cheddar, or a combination, cut into ½-inch chunks
2–4 garlic cloves (to taste), split, germ removed, and coarsely chopped
4 slices bacon, cooked until crisp, drained, and chopped (my addition)
About ¼ cup snipped fresh chives or sliced scallions (my addition)
1 Tablespoon minced fresh thyme (my addition)
About 1/3 cup heavy cream
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Ruth Reichl's Sort-Of-Pad-Thai Noodles

2010-12-11T13:23:00.000-08:00

I love Ruth Reichl's writing. She sprinkles recipes throughout her autobiographical books, which makes them all the more fun to read. In one of her books, she had a recipe for sweet, spicy noodles. She said it was sort of like pad thai, but better. I made it the other night for Brad and we agreed it was indeed better than the original! It is very simple to make.

Here is the recipe:

http://www.ruthreichl.com/2010/08/sharp-sweet-spicy-noodles.html

Mastros, Beverly Hills

2010-12-10T13:08:00.000-08:00

You know that commercial where a couple go to a fancy schmancy restaurant and are served tiny portions of food? They have to have a second dinner at home because they were still hungry after dinner!

When I was at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant a while back, I felt like I was in that commercial. I ordered a mushroom soup and they brought out a pitcher the size of a coffee creamer and then poured the tiny amount of soup into my amusingly large soup bowl.

If you spend the same amount of money at Mastro's, however, you will eat like a sumo wrestler. We went here for a friend's birthday party and we got the private room with a window overlooking the kitchen. We ordered the rib eye (split), oysters on the shell, and all the trimmings (including lobster mashed potatoes, green beans, brussel sprouts, and shishito peppers). The lobster mashed potatoes definitely lived up to the hype. Every bite I took contained a meaty, buttery piece of lobster.

By the end of the meal, I was uncomfortably full. Everybody had leftovers, and our steak was just as good the next day!

Mastros

Helena's Hawaiian Food, Honolulu

2010-12-04T12:48:00.000-08:00

This was my first time trying Helena's Hawaiian Food in Honolulu, and I fell in love with the place. I prefer Helena's to Ono's; Helena's is less salty, and I love their combos and side. We got take out to take to the beach. If you don't feel like paying for admission to a tourist-y luau, this is the place to come for authentic Hawaiian food. If you're not sure how much to get, just ask the waiter or cashier and he or she will set you up with the perfect amount of food!

(front to back) poi, chicken long rice, lomi lomi salmon

(front to back) squid laulau, ahi poke with opihi, lau lau, short ribs

haupia coconut dessert in the back

Patrick's Road House, Santa Monica

2010-12-02T19:00:00.000-08:00

The Jessica Burrito

Brad raves about Patrick's Road House every time we drive past it on PCH. It's one of his favorite after-surf spots to refuel. The other weekend on our way up to Malibu, I finally got to taste it for myself. We got a breakfast croissant sandwich and the Jessica burrito (not on the menu), both with sides of fruit. The croissant sandwich was my favorite--the bread was perfectly flaky and toasted. Inside of it was an egg, avocado, tomato and bacon. The restaurant itself is so cozy and has a great "home-like" feel to it. They just opened for dinner as well, so I can't wait to come back.

Breakfast croissant sandwich

Oatmeal Two Ways

2010-12-01T18:56:00.000-08:00

Brad made "oatmeal, two ways" as a midnight snack for us the other night. The first way is with brown sugar and cinnamon. The second way is with soy sauce, furikake and a fried egg on top. Don't knock it until you try it!

Hokulani Cupcakes, Honolulu

2010-11-30T18:43:00.000-08:00

We had a cupcake tower for our wedding, and Hokulani Bakery provided the sweets. The two flavors we chose were strawberry guava with cream cheese frosting and lilikoi with lemon cream cheese frosting. The cupcake topper is from Etsy seller Melabo.

Hokulani Bakery

Uncle Bo's, Honolulu

2010-11-29T18:32:00.000-08:00

We were so lucky to have Uncle Bo's cater our wedding rehearsal dinner! They have a room in the back of the restaurant for special events, and we were treated to plate after plate of delicious dishes, buffet style. We started with appetizers that included kalua pig nachos, clams in white wine, Hawaiian pizza and dynamite shrimp. Then they brought out salads (Caesar, spinach, and more), and then main courses. The prime rib and the garlic rib eyes were both amazingly tender and flavorful--I couldn't stop eating them! There was more food than space in our bellies, but we kept eating. Dessert arrived and we feasted on fried ice cream, chocolate cake and fresh pineapple. By the time we had finished, everyone was happily stuffed. Thank you Uncle Bo's (and Brad's parents) for a delicious and memorable rehearsal dinner!

Imanas Tei, Honolulu

2010-11-28T18:21:00.000-08:00

Chanko Nabe

Hawaii's izakaya restaurants are so much more affordable than L.A.'s ones! At Imanas Tei, six of us ordered a whole boatload of dishes to share PLUS two orders of chanko nabe. I have never eaten so much at an izakaya before! We got the bill and it was only $30 a person (including tip!). I loved the food, and the decor was gorgeous.

The Chanko Nabe is pictured above. Our waiter told us that this is what they feed sumo wrestlers to get them big and strong. All the pieces are artfully arranged in the pot, and the dish is allowed to cook over an open flame at the table. As it stews, the tower sinks lower and lower until it's all in the broth. After you finish eating, the server comes with rice and more broth, and makes a comforting rice porridge out of the leftovers.

Imanas Tei

Father's Office, Culver City

2010-11-27T18:50:00.000-08:00

We took our friends Mike and Michelle out to a thank you meal at Father's Office in Culver City. I've discovered the secret to a fun dining experience at F.O.--get there at opening time! We got there exactly at noon on a Saturday, and we had our pick of seats. By 12:30, the place was packed inside. Brad got the Father's Office burger and I got the lamb skewer. The lamb was pretty good, but next time I am going to stick with their burger since it's undoubtedly the best thing on the menu. We also got a basket of sweet potato fries, and a basket of regular fries. Don't ask for ketchup--they only serve them with the blue cheese dip!

Shirokiya, Honolulu

2010-11-26T18:27:00.001-08:00

butterfish bento box

Every time I visit Honolulu, I make a stop at Shirokiya. Shirokiya is a Japanese marketplace/shopping area located in Ala Moana Shopping Center. I love the food court area, where you can get everything from gooey takoyaki balls to fried ika and hand rolls. This last trip, we went three times (taking three different groups of friends with us).

On this trip, I fell in love with the grilled miso rice balls and the butterfish bento box. The bento box made a great snack to take to the beach!

inside the daikon kiriboshi (not a fan of this--the bun was a little too tough)

delicious grilled miso rice balls

Sushi Izakaya Gaku, Honolulu

2010-11-26T18:13:00.000-08:00

Spicy tuna tartar with quail egg

Brad and I got married in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago, and my first meal of our wedding week just blew me away. I went to Sushi Izakaya Gaku with my friend Erin (Brad had a headache and couldn't come) and now it is my favorite restaurant in Hawaii! In addition to everything pictured, I also got a natto handroll, a spicy tuna handroll, and an additional tamagoyaki for Brad takeout, and the whole tab was around $55! I couldn't believe how affordable everything was, and how delicious it was too. The only downsides are that the parking lot is small and street parking in the area is scarce. Make reservations!

Sushi Izakaya Gaku

fresh tofu with dashi soy gelee on top

Tamagoyaki

Salmon toro sushi

Okinawan Sweet Potato croquettes

Soy milk dessert

Thanksgiving at Paradise Cove, Malibu

2010-11-25T15:24:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

In keeping with tradition, for the third straight year Brad and I went to Paradise Cove in Malibu for Thanksgiving. We slacked in getting reservations, so the only time available to us was at 10:30 am. We dragged ourselves away from bed ("Wake up, we have to go eat!"), did the beautiful coastal drive up PCH, and stayed for a lazy two hour brunch. The feast started off with a trip to the salad bar and a Bloody Mary, followed by a rich clam chowder, a herculean plate of Kobe beef ribs (their specialty), an overflowing plate of turkey with all the fixings, and coffee with a pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. We took home two of the largest take home containers I have ever seen at a restaurant, and I believe we have enough leftovers for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow!

On our drive back, we were listening to Good Food on KCRW. Evan Kleinman was talking about a stuffed pumpkin dish and a brussel sprouts dish that made our full bellies hungry again. We're going to make these two dishes next week, so stay tuned!

Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good

Brussel Sprouts with Lardons, Cranberries and Hazelnuts

Clam Chowder

Salad Bar

Turkey with everything

Kobe beef ribs

Pumpkin cheesecake

Pier outside the restaurant

Brad was full after three bites

Bloody Mary

Beautiful day by the beach!

Foodie Readings

2010-11-21T15:09:00.000-08:00

You know you're a foodie when _______________.

My obsession with food is embarrassingly obvious when you see the latest books I have devoured...

Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw

Host of the famous and infamous food and travel show No Reservations, Bourdain is a food author whom Brad and I love. Brad got me Medium Raw for our trip to Hawaii, and it had me cracking up the whole time. Meanwhile, he was reading Adam Carolla's new book, In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks.

Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires, Tender at the Bone, and Comfort Me With Apples

I especially love Garlic and Sapphires, the first book I read of hers. It's about her secret life as a food critic for the New York Times. All of Ruth's books have recipes scattered in them. I made her "sort of pad thai" noodles, and true to name, they were "sort of like pad thai", but even better. All three books are autobiographies.

Service Included by Phoebe Damrosch

This is a wonderful autobiography that details Phoebe's life as a waitress at Thomas Keller's Per Se. It really makes me want to eat there or at the French Laundry! I can now see why our service at Bouchon was so great.

Test Kitchen: Marcel Vigneron

2010-10-07T00:15:00.000-07:00

I just blogged about my recent experience at Test Kitchen on my other blog 365losangeles, but I'll be a little more critical in this post for all the foodies who might be interested...

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Test Kitchen is a unique restaurant. Chefs take over the restaurant for two or three days and come up with a prix fixed menu that features innovative dishes that they might not normally be able to create in another restaurant. The cuisine is frequently bold and daring. Sometimes you will get a few duds, but it's all in the name of experimentation.

This past weekend, Top Chef alumni Marcel offered a six course menu for $55 per person.

The price doesn't include drinks or tax or tip. Test Kitchen adds on an 18% tip on all tabs, which I found to be a little presumptuous. The service was not consistent. A couple of waiters were great and described the dishes perfectly to us. Others just gave us a couple of scanty details and left it at that. Our waitress forgot our drink order and we ended up not getting it. There are long wait periods between dishes and it took 2 hours to finish our meal (I actually like slow meals because it gives me more time to talk and relax, but this is just a warning to those of you who might get antsy sitting for that long).

Kombu Cured Hamachi: Crispy Rice, Pineapple, Avocado

This was one of my favorite dishes. The pineapple is the yellow rectangle underneath the hamachi. It is thinly sliced and topped with seaweed, toasted rice, jalapeno, avocado dollops and a foam. I tasted each ingredient individually before wrapping it up into a hamachi "taco".

Scallobut: Flavors of puttanesca, artichoke

This dish was very clean and simple. A scallop and a halibut cheek sit next to a deconstructed puttanesca with anchovy, olive powder, roasted cipollini onion, tomato and toast. Parsley and garlic dollops frame the composition. The scallop was barely raw in the center--a beautiful thing.

Wagyu Beef Tongue & Fried Egg: radish, beet, arugala, beans

Break open the fried egg and you'll find a perfectly runny yolk dripping out. Three types of beets, arugula, radish and beans adorn the Wagyu tongue. The tongue melted like butter in my mouth. My only criticism is that the dish came out luke warm, like it was sitting out for a while.

Vadouvan Lamb Chop: Cauliflower, Amaranth, Mint

This was my other favorite dish of the evening. In the background is a cauliflower puree that is saturated with butter. The lamb sits on top of an almond, pomegranate, mint and feta "cous cous". It is topped with more foam.

Ricotta Fritter: Baby peach panna cotta, agave

The green thing on top of the panna cotta is a Japanese baby peach. It was just about the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. The panna cotta was brilliant. The fritter tasted like salty old oil, sadly. It was fine when eaten with the panna cotta because it hid that "off" taste, but by itself I found it unpleasant.

Macadamia "Sponge Cake": textures of strawberry

The sponge cake was made all in the microwave, our waitress bragged. What a strange thing to be proud of, I thought. This was such an interesting dish. The cloud of strawberry foam was topped with this carbonated filled strawberry jelly. It popped in my mouth just like the "olives" at the Bazaar. The whole thing was lightly sprinkled with pepper and topped with celery leaves. It all worked, strangely enough!

Keep your eyes on the Test Kitchen calendar. On October 7 and 8, three Top Chef alumni will be in the kitchen! Check it out here.

Rustic Canyon, Santa Monica

2010-09-20T11:33:00.000-07:00

Crispy White Polenta photo by Carol L. on Yelp

Rustic Canyon is right across from its sister daytime restaurant Huckleberry. Rustic is only open for dinner, and it offers Farmers'-Market-fresh ingredients and an ever changing menu that is dictated by the produce offerings at the markets. I didn't get to take pictures of our meal, but I'll give you a play by play...

We had reservations at 6:15 pm on Saturday and were seated right away. I was struck by how much smaller the restaurant looked on the inside than the outside. It is a wide space, but shallow. Our friendly waiter brought out some delicious olives to start.

We ordered:

Figs with roasted fennel, burrata, honey, black pepper ($14): This was a great starter... All the flavors worked very well with each other, and the burrata melted in our mouths.

Crispy white polenta with farm fresh egg, wild mushrooms and parmesan ($16?): Brad wanted this all to himself. The egg on top was sunny side up, so we broke the orange yolk and let it spill all over the polenta. The polenta was cooked perfectly--crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside--and the wild mushrooms brought a rugged earthiness to the dish.

Butternut Squash Mezzaluna with pumpkin seeds, sage and brown butter ($15?): Half moon pastas stuffed with butternut squash. The pasta was made in house and was both al dente and silky. Topped off with crispy roasted pumpkin seeds.

Whole trout with greens, currants and capers ($24): The trout came out split in half. It was crispy and brown on the edges and just so delicate in my mouth. The only problem I had was that I got a mouthful of tiny bones near the head. I guessed they missed a spot. But other than that, it was divine.

The prices are from my memory, so they might be give or take a few dollars. The total was $90 including tax and tip. Not a cheap night out, but certainly date-night worthy.

We didn't order any wine, but I heard that they have an excellent selection. I will be back to try their doughnuts and hot chocolate (they didn't have it when we went) and other seasonal offerings.

Rustic Canyon

Oaxaca Living Food

2010-09-20T10:04:00.000-07:00

Brad and I were at the Mar Vista Farmer's Market on a Sunday. Our empty bellies were nagging at us, so we found ourselves in the hot food area... The smells of made to order crepes, burritos and ribs beckoned us and Brad darted off to get a giant apple sausage quesadilla.

A raw foods booth that specialized in Oaxacan cuisine caught my attention. I couldn't believe my eyes... I mean, how L.A. is that? Not just raw food, but Oaxacan raw food? Wow. I felt sorry for them because they weren't as crowded as the rest of the booths, so I got a sample of the raw zucchini pasta. I've had a lot of raw zucchini pastas before (Leaf, Juliano's, Rawvolution), and this one was on par with the rest of them. They even came with little "meatballs" made of nuts. I bought one (I think it was $9). It was just the light lunch I was looking for. They also sell whole young coconuts that you can drink the water from and then eat the flesh.

I love this farmer's market more than the Santa Monica ones because it's less crowded, there's still a live jazz band, and there are even picnic tables. It is open Sundays 8:30-2 pm.

LA Mill Coffee Boutique, Silver Lake

2010-08-22T17:29:00.000-07:00

We met up with our friends Ron and Fran (and Vincent!) for brunch at LA Mill Coffee in Silver Lake this past weekend. I am in love with this place!

We started with house-made brioche doughnut holes (6 for $3.50). The doughnut holes were so light, it was like eating sugar dusted clouds. They came with an airy vanilla whipped cream (additional .50). We were in heaven.

Brad ordered the Steak and Eggs ($11). Soft scrambled eggs were accompanied by flank steak, chives and a house-made steak sauce.

I got the Arctic Char Tartare ($15) with creme fraiche, capers, hard boiled egg and toasted house made brioche. The arctic char melted on my tongue, its flavor punctuated by salty capers and sweet sour pickled onions. Egg yolk was presented crumbled on the side, and egg whites were chopped up, providing an interesting texture.

We'll definitely be back to LA Mill soon. If you go, don't forget to get the coffee--they're famous for it!