Restaurant Review #220: Cafe Firenze, Moorpark - Restaurant of Top Chef's Fabio Viviani

Osso bucco

I wanted to go to Cafe Firenze even before I knew what it was--the restaurant of Chef Fabio Viviani, the #4 contestant from season five of the television show Top Chef. The glitz of Los Angeles proper doesn't generally make its way out to places like Moorpark, which is several miles over the Ventura County line, a few miles north of Thousand Oaks. I was curious--could a place out in the boonies measure up? An 80% off coupon code for Restaurant.com made it easy to find out. I got a $25 gift certificate for $2 and off we went.

Strawberry balsamic martini

I couldn't believe how packed the restaurant was on a Tuesday night at 8:00--we had to wait a good 15 minutes for a table. We camped out on some broken-in leather couches in the boisterous bar area, where the low lighting was on par with a night club but the flat screen television tuned to a sports channel brought back the bar vibe. I don't know what the singles scene is like in Moorpark, but the bar at Cafe Firenze would seem to be a good place for it. They don't just have the same old boring drinks, either--they have a very extensive list of innovative martinis (complete with $10 price tag--is that considered cheap these days?). I tried the strawberry balsamic martini, made with fresh strawberries, lime juice, vanilla vodka, and perhaps another ingredient or two. If they weren't so expensive, I definitely would have ordered a second one (or two, or three)--this drink was fantastic.


Caesar salad

My mom ordered the caesar salad as an appetizer and thought it was the best caesar salad she'd ever had. To me, it tasted the same as every other caesar I've ever had--it was tasty, but nothing out of the ordinary.


Proscuitto and melon appetizer

I was very excited to try the proscuitto and melon appetizer, which is something I've never had before. I gather that it's supposed to be a very simple dish based on two ingredients that, when high quality, are delicious enough to stand on their own but are even better together. So to me, it seemed like this appetizer really had too many ingredients, with balsamic vinegar, burrata cheese (like fresh mozarella, but softer and more moist), arugula, and fried balls of dough that were like donut holes, without the glaze, if they had been sitting out for 24 hours. The canteloupe was grilled, and the way the natural sugars had carmelized along the grill marks was heavenly.

However, with only two slices of canteloupe and a whole heap of proscuitto, the ratio of the dish's most important ingredients was off. The arugula (my favorite leaf lettuce) really didn't add anything to the dish--some might think that it's peppery crunch was a nice contrast to the more subtle flavors of the cheese, melon, and ham, but to me it just seemed out of place. The fried dough balls definitely seemed like an afterthought--even if they hadn't been stale, they wouldn't have added anything to the dish. I would have gladly eaten a pound of the cheese in one sitting, though, and the portion was quite generous for an appetizer and for the price. I was almost full afterward. Curiously, the appetizer pictured here looks nothing like the photo of the same dish on the restaurant's website.


Lobster ravioli

The meal portions were kind of hit or miss, however. The lobster ravioli was about the same size as my appetizer, while the lamb shank was enough for two meals. The flavor of this dish was pleasant, but it just didn't seem as rich as lobster ravioli usually seems. Maybe that's a good thing if you don't like heavy food, though, and in my opinion, the richness of lobster is perpetually overrated. The shrimp provided a nice touch--they aren't usually part of a dish like this. It might be worth ordering again, but perhaps something else on the menu would be better.


Lamb shank

The lamb shank was a disappointment because it was overcooked, dry and hard in some places and not nearly as tender as it could have been in others. It certainly didn't fall off the bone or melt in my mouth. The wine reduction sauce was flavorful, but couldn't compensate for the dry meat. I took home the leftover meat, shredded it, and put it in a stew. The gnocchi with mushrooms and gorgonzola cream sauce was another story--if eating so much fat in one sitting wasn't just asking for it, I'd gladly consume this dish a few times a week. Nothing could be smoother or richer than the combination of savory mushrooms, gnocchi so soft they don't even need to be chewed, and cheese fused with cream. I'll take this dish over fettucini alfredo any day.


Dining room

The dining room is divided into several sections. Part of it is adjacent to the bar, so if you don't like noisy dining, ask for a table in the back room. Regardless of where you sit, the restaurant has a very impressive feel because of its high ceilings and weighty decor--heavy beams, oversized chandeliers, high-backed leather chairs. It's definitely nice enough for a date or impressive enough for a business dinner. The service was friendly and competent, if a little slow at times.

I guess the most surprising/disappointing thing about the restaurant is that while it was fairly good, I expected it to be amazing. I thought that someone who a) made it on to Top Chef in the first place and b) got as far in the competition as he did would serve better food. Eating at Cafe Firenze actually made me doubt the legitimacy of Top Chef as a competition. This certainly wasn't the food of one of the top chefs in the nation--it's not creative enough or perfect enough. Of course, a lot of the best chefs in the country have no desire to be on a reality cooking show, so that limits the applicant pool.

That being said, if you put aside your expectations about what a Top Chef's restaurant is supposed to be like, you'll probably be pretty pleased with your meal. At most Italian restaurants in the United States, you already know what to expect before you even set foot in the door--that's why I don't really like going out to eat for Italian. The menu at Cafe Firenze breaks that mold by serving more than just lasagna, fettucini and pizza, and there aren't a lot of restaurants like it in the area, which is dominated by low-key places and chains. Even though I didn't love everything I tried and the prices are a little high for the 'burbs (though not for the amount of food you get in most dishes), I would go back, especially since it looks like new items have already appeared on the menu since my last visit (I want to try the octopus).

Key lime martini

Cafe Firenze
Italian Restaurant and Martini Lounge
563 W. Los Angeles Ave.
Moorpark, CA 93021
805.532.0048
Cafe Firenze Website
Hours:
Tue., Wed., Sun. 11am-10pm
Thur., Fri., Sat. 11am-2am
Closed Mondays

Restaurant Review #115: La Bottega, West LA

Insalata Ravella

I did takeout at La Bottega, so I didn't get the full restaurant experience. You can usually tell a decent amount about a restaurant without actually eating your meal there--after all, you can still see what the place looks like, time how fast they can put a meal together, interact with at least one staff member, get a feel for the pricing, and taste the food.

From my brief time on the inside, the restaurant seems to be a friendly neighborhood corner joint, an unpretentious combination of hole-in-the-wall, market, and nice restaurant. The woman who rang up our meal had the professional demeanor of a career waitress, or someone with an admirable amount of composure and self-respect. Take-out menus are everywhere, so the restaurant must do a fair amount of business this way, and an array of desserts beckon from a display case next to the register. La Bottega describes itself as “the kind of deli-cafe you’d find only in Italy.” I'm fairly amused by this statement, since it’s located at the corner of Santa Monica Blvd. and Purdue (two blocks east of Federal), which is decidedly not Italy. The menu insists on using the proper Italian names for all its dishes--polpette al sugo, tagliata di manzo, burrata e carciofi grigliati. This is a nice, authentic touch, though it may be a bit daunting for those who don't know Italian. Descriptions follow each name, though, so you will know what you're ordering, even if you can't pronounce it.

Since I've been trying to eat more fruits and veggies, I ordered a $10 salad to start my meal. I couldn't resist the promise of shaved fennel, arugula, mushrooms, parmesan, and tomatoes. The tomatoes were bland, but the button mushrooms were surprisingly tasty. The fennel was not well-distributed throughout the salad, and there wasn't quite enough of it, and the cheese suffered the same fate, but both were very good. It was rather bold of them to dress my to-go salad: most places give you a side of dressing so that your salad isn't soggy by the time you get home. Of course, using as little dressing as possible seems to have the same effect. I'm not the kind of person who likes my salad swimming--I understand that in a properly made salad, each leaf of lettuce should be only lightly dressed. The dressing here was really too minimalist.

I also ordered a 16” medium six slice pizza (as described on the menu). I focused on the 6 slices, not the 16 inches, and ended up with a pizza that will continue feeding me for the next three days--a good thing too, for $15. Any normal restaurant would call this a 12 slice pizza. But the important thing, of course, is how the pizza tasted.

The vegetarian pizza I ordered had mozarella, tomato sauce (they do have a couple of sauceless pizzas), fresh tomato, mushrooms, onion, eggplant, olives, bell peppers, and tomato sauce. Yes, that’s right, the menu lists tomato sauce twice! In case you couldn’t tell, I’m one of those people who just can’t stand to see something in print that wasn’t proofread carefully (this explains the probable number of typos on my own site, of course). Not only did my pizza not have double tomato sauce, it also didn’t have any eggplant (but I think they tried to make up for it with double onions--everyone’s least favorite topping). Ranting aside though, it was a good pizza, and worth the extra money over a fast-food pizza chain to enjoy fresh toppings and real crust. The crust was pretty thin, which I like because it means I can eat more cheese and toppings before I get full, but as a result, the crust got soggy pretty quickly, which seems to be a common ailment of veggie pizzas. I also don't think it is necessary to call a pizza "vegetarian" just because it doesn't have meat. I think it would have sufficed to call it a vegetable pizza.

Overall, I enjoyed my meal, but I wouldn't order a $10 salad from them again, and I'd probably prefer to look for a pizza whose crust wasn't going soggy. I might return to try their pasta dishes and desserts, though.

Total cost: $27, including tax


Vegetarian Pizza

La Bottega
11363 Santa Monica Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90025
310-477-7777
M-F 10-10
Sat. 8:30-10
Sun. 10-9
Also located in Larchmont Village

Restaurant Review #91: Fritto Misto, Santa Monica

Sweet potato ravioli with wild mushrooms in a sage cream sauce

Hidden across the street from the Big Blue Bus barn at the busy but unnoticeable corner of 6th and Colorado lies Fritto Misto, a highly rated but somewhat unknown Italian cafe that I discovered by accident one day while looking for a parking space. It looked quiet and peaceful, popular but not overcrowded. Though I rarely go out for Italian food, something told me I should make an exception.

I went with the expectation that I was about to be let in on a hidden secret.

The interior didn't look like I'd anticipated--it's very casual. There is a refrigerated display case to your left when you walk in (yet I had faith that it had no connection with what I was about to eat). The decor is scarce--three walls are taken up by large windows and the kitchen, leaving only one wall to be adorned with large, brightly painted plates. Two fans turn overhead, their rhythm making the track lighting flicker across the glossy wooden table tops. There are about fifteen tables in the main room, and I think there may have been another room in back, though I didn't investigate.


Dining room

Some of the tables are much too close together, but since I arrived for an early dinner on a weekday, I got to take the more secluded table for four in the back corner by the window. Several other tables filled around the time we arrived, and by the time we left an hour later, the restaurant was almost full. Even when it was full, it still wasn't too loud.


Fritto Misto

My friend and I ordered the fritto misto appetizer, jumbo ravioli, pasta puttanesca, and creme brulee. The fritto misto appetizer was described on the menu as "Shrimp, calamari, artichoke hearts and seasonal vegetables in a light spicy batter, quick fried in vegetable oil and served with pineapple cocktail sauce and roasted garlic mayonnaise." I was surprised to get a heaping plate of food that would have been enough for four meals for me (or two or three for someone with a larger appetite). I was also pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of a few whole baby calamari, although they didn't have as much flavor as the calamari rings. The flavor of the calamari took me back to Spain, where the food is fresh and flavorful. According to my friend, the shrimp were his favorite part of the dish, and the broccoli was quite good, considering that he doesn't like broccoli (I still wouldn't touch it).

The artichoke hearts didn't live up to my hopes of what a fried artichoke could taste like--I think they should use bigger chunks to lock in more moisture and artichoke flavor. The other vegetables were broccoli, carrots, eggplant, zuchinni, and button mushrooms. The calamari and the eggplant had the best flavor, so next time I'll get the calamari appetizer and maybe ask them to throw in some eggplant. If there was pineapple in the cocktail sauce, I couldn't tell, though it sounds like a good idea. What sounds like a better idea to me though is to forgo the red cocktail sauce altogether in favor of something more pinappley, but still tart. The flavor of the roasted garlic mayonnaise complemented the batter nicely. There are a few cajun items on this otherwise Italian menu: cajun seared chicken and pasta New Orleans. Hmm. Quirky.


Make your own pasta

In addition to its excellent food, large portions, and very reasonable prices, another of Fritto Misto's strengths is the large variety of menu options. Fritto Misto has plenty of ingredients to choose from if you want to make your own pasta, making it a great choice for kids and other picky eaters. You can choose your own pasta, sauce, and toppings in whatever combination you want. Even without this option, the menu has plenty of variety and accomodates vegetarians and others with dietary restrictions.


Jumbo ravioli

The jumbo ravioli was the clear winner of the night. It was my friend's dish, but it smelled so good that I beat him to the first bite (and snagged the leftovers). The jumbo ravioli are "stuffed with prosciutto, mortadella, and chicken, tossed with garlic cream, carmelized onions, pancetta (bacon) and sundried bacon." In case you were wondering what mortadella is, it's a very large smoked sausage--real Italian bologna, which is very different from the rubbery slices you see in the supermarket. Though I don't really care for meat, I didn't mind it in this dish, since it was all either in small bits or well-disguised, and lent the ravioli and cream sauce a very rich, smokey flavor. The dish was also very colorful, though I thought the actual arrangement on the plate was a bit sloppy.


Pasta puttanesca

This was my first experience with pasta puttanesca: "kalamata olives, capers, fresh roma tomatoes, anchovy, red pepper flakes on lemon pepper fettuccini in a cabernet butter sauce (spicy)." I was in the mood for something nice and salty. The dish tasted like Christmas trees, and though that may sound highly unappetizing, what I mean is that the flavors somehow captured the essensce of Christmas for me, maybe because that's usually the only time of year that I eat real Italian food. It paled in comparison to how good the ravioli was, but my addiction to the leftovers confirmed that it is indeed a very flavorful dish. I especially liked the cabernet butter sauce. In case you're scared of anchovies, don't worry--they're cut up into bits so tiny that you barely notice them.


Creme brulee

The creme brulee had a pleasantly thick carmelized crust and a slightly thicker consistency than usual. The dessert had a rich, eggy flavor, and overall I really liked it, though it was served just a tad cold, indicating that it had been stored in the fridge (or perhaps that display case) and not heated well enough before it was served.

Our friendly, unpretentious waitress stopped by frequently to check on us, our food came quickly, and our water glasses never got more than 1/3 empty. There is a small parking lot behind the restaurant which fills up quickly and may have a hard time accomodating large vehicles, but when we went, street parking was plentiful.

I think this is one of my new favorite restaurants..

Fritto Misto Italian Cafe
601 Colorado Ave.
Santa Monica, CA
310-458-2829
Fritto Misto Menu

Second location:
316 Pier Ave.
Hermosa Beach, CA
310-318-6098

Restaurant Review #87: Rosti, Santa Monica

I almost never eat at chain restaurants, so I'm always surprised when I walk by one and see how busy it almost always is. But then when I do eat at a place like P.F. Changs or Buca di Beppo's, I can kind of see why. All snobbery and noise level consideratiosn aside, the food is quite good.

Rosti hypes itself as an authentic Tuscan restaurant. To be fair, I haven't eaten much authentic Italian food, but I'm sure that this isn't what everyone raves about when they talk about real Italian food. The food at Rosti is bland and uninspired, with the possible exception of their signature dishes, the roasted chicken and rosemary potatoes, both of which I have not tried because I hate roasted chicken and roasted potatoes.

To elaborate a bit on why Rosti's food is overhyped--mostly by the restaurant itself--I'll tell you about the dishes I've had there. The tomato, basil, and mozarella salad is the first loser. Smack in the middle of August, the tomatoes weren't the greatest quality. When the Santa Monica Farmer's market teems with delicious heirlooms just blocks away, there is no excuse for any restaurant to serve subpar tomatoes, especially in the middle of tomato season, unless they all decide to make a run on the market one week and exhaust the supply. Also, the mozarella wasn't very flavorful. Sadly, most Americans think of mozarella as a very bland cheese with no other purpose than to adhere toppings to pizza, but true mozarella has a deliciously rich, creamy flavor. A salad that highlights tomatoes and mozarella should use nothing less than the highest quality tomatoes and mozarella.

The other dish I've tried was probably doomed from the moment I ordered it since it came from the healthy section of the menu, but still, it's not hard to make a tasty, healthy piece of fish. All you need is some olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, and an oven--ingredients that any restaurant has on hand. If I, a slightly above average home cook, know this, any restaurant should. Instead, Rosti tries to use butter to flavor the fish, while trying to skimp on the butter in order to be healthy, and serves it up with a side of uninspired vegetables. If this is what's labelled as healthy, it's no wonder so much of our population is overweight.

Rosti gets points for having vegan soups, but I'm going to assume that vegans don't have a terribly difficult time at Italian restaurants anyway. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

In short, if you're on Montana and jonesing for Italian, skip Rosti and go to Spumoni instead.

Rosti
931 Montana Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90403
310.393.3236
Website

Restaurant Review #76: Lago, Santa Monica Farmer's Market

Parma Panini: Mozarella, tomato, and proscuitto

Lago, an Italian restaurant located on the Promenade, has a panini stand diagonally in front of their restaurant during the Santa Monica Farmer's Market on Wednesdays and Saturdays. They sell mostly panini, but also lasagne, polenta pancakes, and minestrone soup. All but one of the panini had meat, I believe. One may have been vegan, if the pesto spread did not contain cheese. They also sell $2 Italian bottled soft drinks, and less expensive cans of Coke, Diet Coke, and Sprite.

The stand has a short line most of the time, and a short wait for your food, which is all pre-made but needs to be heated and/or boxed. Unfortunately, they use large styrofoam boxes for everything. I wish more places would use Juliano's Raw/Real Food Daily style cardboard boxes. The service was smiley and appeared to speak Italian as a first language, rattling it off between customers and wishing me "buon apetito" when they handed me my food. Panini are $5-6 each for two medium sized triangles--about the perfect lunch portion to be full but not stuffed.

It took me about 15 minutes to get the panini from the stand back to my office where I ate it. By that time, it was only vaguely warm, so I popped it back into the toaster oven. The sandwich as a whole didn't taste like much and was a little too salty, and in my opinion, would have benefitted from some freshly ground black pepper and a basil spread. Cheese is not enough to moisten bread properly for a sandwich. The bread was very crunchy and covered me with crumbs, but this may have been due to its stint in the toaster oven. I prefer chewier, moister bread in general (a la Panera Bread, though I'm not a huge fan of the foccacia they use for their panini) and think that all sandwiches benefit from some sort of spread--just enough to moisten the bread without making it soggy.

I decided to take apart the second half of my sandwich and eat the ingredients individually. The tomatoes had a rich heirloom tomato flavor, but were ruined by a mealy consistency. The proscuitto was very thinly sliced and soft, not tough, and didn't have too strong of a flavor. I'd say the quality of it was pretty high, though I'm no expert, and my inner vegetarian couldn't eat all of it. The proscuitto had the effect of making the tomatoes and mozarella taste extra salty (or maybe they added salt to the sandwich?). The mozzarella was on the more flavorful side--not the best I've had (that was in Italy), but definitely above average. The proportions of ingredients were well-balanced, except that there was a bit too much bread.

The sandwich wasn't good enough to finish, and I doubt I'll return to try any of their other food. In generally, I'm not too quick to forgive a restaurant for a sub-par dish. Instead, I'll try the not-yet-opened Panini Grille on Wilshire at 6th in the old Mon Sushi spot (which, according to Tony Bourdain, means it's already destined to fail).

Restaurant Review #71: Spumoni, Santa Monica

I almost never go out for Italian, because it's so cheap and easy to do at home. In fact, probably at least half of my daily meals are either pasta or pizza (it's my secret to staying so slim). There is definitely a difference between restaurant Italian and slapped together on a weeknight Amy Italian, but there's even more of a difference between the invisible hamachi in my fridge and the sushi at Kiriko, so Kiriko and it's many cousins tend to win out 95% of the time.

I was curious about Spumoni though because of the incredible garlic aroma I smelled whenever I walked by, so I finally caved.

Though Spumoni seems to specialize in gnocchi (they have a whole page's worth of gnocchi entrees), what I really wanted was a pizza--an artichoke heart and garlic pizza, to be specific. Yum. Pizza bliss. It was served piping hot and had plenty of cheese, just the right amount of garlic, and, unlike most places, they didn't skimp on the artichokes at all. I also had leftovers for two more meals.

Spumoni doesn't have the greatest atmosphere, and it's usually crowded, but when all you want is a good, filling, reasonably priced meal, Spumoni is perfect.

Spumoni
713 Montana Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90403
310.393.2944

Restaurant Review #70: Trastevere, Santa Monica

Trastevere is a seemingly nice restaurant on the Promenade which is designed primarily for tourists and is not nearly as special as it pretends to be. The garlic herb dipping sauce that came with the bread was addictively good. The veggie pizza I had for my meal was fine, but nothing memorable. Unfortunately, the most salient part of the meal for me was the rude, rude, I-am-too-good-for-you-because-I-am-an-aspiring-actress-and-you-are-not-wearing-designer-clothes-or-makeup service.

A visit to their website (link below) will give you a good idea of how cheesy and poorly run this restaurant is.

Not recommended unless you have a hole in your head.

Trastevere
360 3rd Street Promenade
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 319-1985
Website

Restaurant Review #49: Osteria Latini, Brentwood

The Dining Room

I loved the friendly hostess who didn't scold us for not making reservations or give my mom a look like "what are you doing in Brentwood?" The dining room was very inviting, full of natural light, and yes, this is the whole dining room.


Oyster mushroom and yellow lentil puree amuse bouche

Mmmm, mushrooms. Give me a sauteed mushroom and I'm a happy girl. The yellow lentil puree was unexciting, though. Yellow lentils generally are. The dish was on the overly buttery side, but I ate both mine and my brother's.


Complimentary bread basket and dips

Why does there currently seem to be a trend of making a dip out of black olives? Black olives, the kind that come from a can and taste like a combination of metal and nothing? Also, the tomato basil whatever was silly, because the tomatoes were slightly underripe and it came with no utinsel, as if I was supposed to dip my bread in large chunks of tomatoes. No winners here.


Rigatoni with tomato, basil, and parmesan

Good. Nothing amazing.


Gnocchi

I like Trader Joe's gnocchi better, actually. This just didn't do it for me. I think I make better pesto, too. There was too much olive oil in this one, and it used walnuts (my least favorite nut) rather than pine nuts.


Lemon champagne sorbet

This was pretty good. It was brought to our table, gratis, perhaps as a palette cleanser before the dessert. It was hard to drink it all though, because the foam resisted drinking and eventually settled tot he bottom of the glass, where my nose prevented access to it. I guess that's what spoons are for. Or a better choice of glassware?


Dessert sampler

The best part of the meal was the fantastic panna cotta on this dessert sampler. I've never had panna cotta before, and really didn't understand what it is (and still don't, but it's that white round thing on the far left). The sorbets were made from fresh fruit--no one told me, but I knew, without a doubt.

So what is the big deal about this place? The food didn't really impress me. My wine was not as good as something I could have bought at TJ's or Whole Foods for $7. Overall, this seems like the kind of place that people with unadventurous palates find really good. I'm not even sure it has potential, since the tomatoes were sub-par (and at an Italian restaurant, that's inexcuseable). Don't get me wrong, the food was not bad by any means. It's just that there is much better Italian food out there. Also, if Brentwood is vying for distinction as a Little Italy, they might want to import some Italians.

It's a good place for trophy wife watching, though.

Osteria Latini
11712 San Vicente Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90049
(310) 826-9222