Restaurant Reviews

Recently I'm finding myself liking the posh resto/bar scenes more. I'm guessing it's a combination of things: stress, finding the right crowd to hang out with, wanting to blow off steam, liking the taste of wine, liking the cosmopolitan feeling of it all, wanting to be more proactive with my love life (or lack thereof).....at least when i look back in the fu

Anyway, here are a few reviews of some places i recently visited and am liking a lot:

Red White and Bluezz:
http://www.redwhitebluezz.com/
What this is is a restaurant with live music (usually jazz). I met up with 2 friends and we decided to go for a girls' night out. got there around 7pm on a friday night and thought we could wait for a table. nope, everything was completely booked up! we were told to go to the other entrance of the restaurant where there were another dining area with the live band in there to try our luck. initially we were almost disappointed again, but the super nice manager managed to move a few tables and squeezed us in! in a completely book room, on a completely busy day, and our seats were right next to the platform! I couldn't believe our good luck. our waitress was very attentive and recommended very good things like the wine flights (a couple of wines for you to do a little wine-tasting), cheese flights (we had Gouda, Brie, and Goat cheese), saffron prawns (delicieux), some really good rib eye, duck breast, and a dessert sampler and some Rose wine. at the end of the night the bill burned a hole in my pocket but it was SO WORTH IT! Loved the music too, sometimes a little raggae, sometimes a little jazz, sometimes a little 80's, but overall a very good vibe and very interactive with the crowd. i give it 4 stars!

JiRaffe
http://www.jirafferestaurant.com/
It happened on a monday night when me and 2 other girlfriends from school decided to try out new places in town. my friend had read about some review about the restaurant's monday special. Apparently they were offering a 3 course meal for a mere $35! Usually each platter costs about that much so it's a deal to die for. The restaurant is located in Santa Monica, very nice ambience and homey. We got our seats on the upper level overlooking the restaurant. the 3 courses we had were: crab cake, grilled yellowtail over spinach and rice, and pecan pie with coffee ice cream on it and some coffeebeans dipped in molass. We ordered some wine as well to complete the experience. Overall i liked everything we had. the crabcake was filling, and the pecan pie was fresh and warm. the yellowtail was good, but it's made too much like asian style so not exactly an invention (for me anyway). I'd give it 3.5 stars. :) How i love dressing up for a night out!

The Parlor (in santa monica)
http://www.theparlorsm.com/menu.html
This is an upscale sports bar located on Wilshire Blvd in Santa Monica. We went there for a grad school association mixer, which turned out to be a totally weird experience. apparently when we arrived no one really knew about the usc event, everyone including the bouncer and the waitress thought there was some ucla thing goig on in there. We went upstairs to sit for a while and had some really lame guy come over to try to talk to us ("sorry i was late, the traffic was real bad." and we had no clue who he was). then we went downstairs to mingle and finally found ppl who knew what was going on and gave us a ticket. then as the night went on we proceeded to talk to some really weird dental students. (see my previous post for exact happenings). The bar was very nice completed with several large plasma screens showing football, as well as LOTS of seats and tables. the bartenders were nice and friendly, so were the waitresses. some people looked like they came right after work. overall, a very casual scene (which i was totally overdressed for). recommend it if you like sports bars. the quesadilla was very yummmy.

Bodega Wine Bar
http://www.bodegawinebar.com/
This is the place we hit right after The Parlor on a thursday night. there's some really nice chairs and couches for you to lounge on. we ordered a bottle of red and white, and i ddin't really like my wine choices that night. But it's $30 a bottle, and a 750ml one too (i think). we had to cork it to go. didn't stay very long but a nice place to hang out with friends to just talk. ;)

Creme de la crepe
http://www.cremedelacrepe.com/
This is in Hermosa Beach. We got there around 12 and there was a line waiting outside. the diner's quite small so there's not too many tables in there. But the food was good, prolly one of the best crepe places i've had in the US. i ordered a french toast which was actually baguette dipped in egg and pan fried, not like your normal french toast. and i shared a Crepe Ziane with my sister which was really good too. the crepe skin was thin and crispy and it was filled with fruits and a scoop of ice cream. c'estait tres incroyable. :) we then ended up walking up and down Hermosa. it was a cold day but nevertheless filled with a lot of good window shopping.