Restaurant Review #219: Eggs N Things, Simi Valley

Scrambled eggs, bacon, and potatoes O'Brien

There are a variety of reasons why I don't really like to go out for breakfast. I am not a morning person. Breakfast is cheap and easy to make at home. I don't like to eat right after I wake up. I hate the smell of bacon.

Perhaps worst of all is that it's impossible to get through a meal without those near-invisible traces of syrup that are on the menus and the edges of the table finding their way onto your fingers, elbows, and shirt. You can never see the stuff until it's too late. I don't understand why the servers and busboys at most breakfast joints can't do a better job of cleaning up. It takes a little more attention to detail and a little extra elbow grease to track down and clean up all the sticky spots and shifts are often fast-paced--I get it. But shouldn't a sit-down restaurant have higher standards of cleanliness than your average fast-food restaurant?


Crepe appetizer

So one of the things that I liked so much about my experience at Eggs N Things is that there were no traces of leftover syrup on the menu or the table. The dining room is sparsely decorated except for the country-kitsch yellow wallpaper. Sunlight pours in through the large windows lining the front of the restaurant, and though the view of nearby Target's parking lot leaves something to be desired, at least there is plentiful free parking. While the staff seemed fairly brusque, they were generally prompt. What they lack in charm is perhaps made up for by the free crepe that starts your meal--hot off the griddle, bathed in melted butter, topped with berry jam and dusted in powdered sugar. If I go back, I'll probably order the crepes for my meal.


Blueberry pancakes

Being a newcomer, however, I ordered the blueberry pancakes. While fluffy and perfectly cooked, they could have had more blueberries and more moisture. I prefer IHOP's pancakes, which seem to border on greasy but don't need to be drenched in syrup to be swallowable.


Omelet with hash browns

I didn't try the food that the other people in my party ordered, but I can say that everything looked properly cooked, the portion sizes were generous, and everything is reasonably priced. On a weekday at 11:00 a.m., there was no wait for a table. The restaurant is quite large, so I imagine they can even accommodate the weekend rush fairly well (though I can't say for sure, having only been there once). In the same week, I also went to Coco's, which just drove home what a superior breakfast joint Eggs N Things is--it's celebrating its 20th anniversary in Simi for a reason.

Eggs N Things
2955 Cochran St
Simi Valley, CA 93065
(805) 527-0055

Restaurant Review #218: Two Guys From Italy, Moorpark

Jägerschnitzel

Our party of five showed up at Two Guys From Italy on a Thursday night around 7:30. We were a little taken aback at first because we were asked to wait for a table and the restaurant looked nearly empty. But then a friendly woman told us that she had two large parties coming in and she wanted to give us a quiet table in the back where another group was finishing up. Once we found out that the wait was to try to give us a better experience, we didn't mind. I used the time to peruse the menu, and started falling in love with the restaurant as soon as I hit the beer list. Just to have a beer list that consists of something more interesting than Corona and Heineken is exciting; to have a full-page list of interesting German brews, complete with descriptions, is a godsend for beer lovers. (They also have a wine list for you oenophiles.)

Contrary to its name, Two Guys From Italy is actually run by "a chick from Bavaria," as owner Valeria refers to herself. She purchased the restaurant in 1998 and has allowed her native southern German cuisine to influence a small part of the menu (ten entrees). The rest of the menu is Italian--awfully good Italian that you'd never guess came from a German. The lengthy menu would take weeks to eat through--there are eleven types of pasta and twenty-six sauces that you can combine any way you want, along with several meat and seafood entrees and pizza. If you want to try to get through the menu a little faster, you can try the restaurant's lunch buffet.


Tortellini con nocini

The tortellini con nocini is one of the create-your-own pasta options. The nocini is a creamy gorgonzola sauce with walnuts and one of the best pasta sauces we've ever tried. The chicken Marco Polo, two thin, juicy chicken breasts with mushrooms and artichokes in a slightly tangy, deliciously heart-attack-inducing cream sauce, was also a winner. If you're sharing plates though, don't order these two dishes--the flavors of the different sauces clash with each other.


Rouladen

A recent trip to Germany and a couple of years of German lessons had me in full-on trip nostalgia mode, so I ordered a German beer (Wiesen Edel-Weisse) and a German entree, the rouladen, which is a three-quarter-inch thick piece of beef rolled around pickled vegetables, onions, and bacon and drenched in gravy. I can't say I've ever had this dish before, so I didn't have anything to compare it to. The beef was moist and tender, and while I was somewhat concerned about the pickles being overpowering, I didn't even notice them. The onions were similarly mild. The dish paired wonderfully with the beer, which was served in the correct glass and expertly poured by the waiter. The dish came with a side of spaetzle, a sort of fried, homemade noodle-dumpling perfect for sopping up excess gravy, and sweet-tart braised red cabbage (not pictured).

All of the entrees come with your choice of soup or salad (the lentil soup tastes wonderfully homemade) and a basket of warm bread and olive tapenade (that doesn't taste like a tin can).


Cannoli

Of the items on the dessert list, the tiramisu and cannoli are made in house and the rest come from outside vendors. The cannoli's thick, crunchy, bubbly shell oozes with dense, super-sweet cream that has a hint of vanilla.


I'm not a cannoli expert, but I really loved this one. Like a Sprinkles cupcake, however, it's perhaps too much of a sugar high for one person.


Tiramisu

As for the tiramisu, I think that once you've had one tiramisu, you've had them all. This one didn't change my mind--not that it wasn't good, it just didn't wow me. We also tried the blackout cake, which was similarly good but generic.


Blackout cake

The service at this restaurant is superb. Of the many servers we interacted with, all were friendly, pleasant, and seemed happy to be there. All of our dishes arrived promptly. Valeria, the owner, visited our table several times during the meal. The decor is, shall we say, very red and green, with lots of hanging plants, a wall of mirrors and some neon (yes, it's a bit dated). There's nothing trendy or showy about Two Guys, and it's not the kind of place you take someone who is hard to impress. It's just a casual, comfortable, reasonably priced restaurant with excellent food and excellent service. And that's why I like it.

Two Guys From Italy
484 E. Los Angeles Ave
Moorpark, CA 93021
Hours:
Mon - Fri: 11am - 9pm
Saturday: 4pm - 10pm
Sunday: 4pm - 9pm

Restaurant Review #217: Indian Haweli, Simi Valley

Aloo gobi

Simi Valley isn’t known for its restaurants. Food snobs on Chow.com, a message board website for culinary enthusiasts, refer to the distant suburb as “a culinary wasteland” and “a real down and dirty low class locale.” Another commenter moans, “My co-workers and I are stuck in Simi Valley for a few months on our latest project. There seems to be nothing but fast food, chain restaurants and disappointments out here.”

Those in the know who come to the boards seeking advice attempt to avoid incurring the wrath of those who wouldn’t be caught dead at a TGI Friday’s by timidly labeling their threads, “decent sushi in Simi?” and “Simi Valley chow?” After all, who knows what kind of ostracism could result from associating your screen name with an opinion that there is good food to be had in Simi?

There’s no question that it’s easy to get spoiled dining in Los Angeles, and that it’s best to practice culinary relativism when grubbing in Simi if you’re not a native. Pretend like you’re in the Midwest, for example, and you might be pleasantly surprised.


Chicken tikka masala

Take Indian Haweli. Its first strike might be that a fair number of Simi residents probably shut down as soon as they get to the second, unfamiliar word in the restaurant’s title—at best, they might call it “Indian Hawaii.”

Its second strike might be that it’s located in a strip mall next to a bait and tackle shop and a sewing machine and vacuum store. Of course, anyone who has been dining in and around Los Angeles for more than a year knows better than to rule out a place based on this characteristic. Just think of all the celebs who dine at Zagat-acclaimed Hamasaku in the corner of a two-story strip mall in West LA (and what is West LA if not a series of strip malls?).


Dining room

Those who can overlook the restaurant’s ragged edges, though, like the institutional acoustic ceiling, the bumped and bruised chairs, the dorm-style plastic tube lights and the buttercup yellow walls that look like they were painted by a mildly industrious yet slightly lazy teenager will not find much else to complain about at this restaurant.

For starters, there is no leathery-skinned, bleached-blond woman with the body of a 12-year-old talking too loudly about her last audition at the table six inches away from yours, because the restaurant’s 12 tables are not arranged to maximize profit per square foot so much as to create a serene dining experience (and besides, that woman is a safe 30 miles away at Urth Caffe in West Hollywood). Cheery yellow and orange panels further separate each table from the ones behind and in front of it.


Lamb vindaloo

Among the restaurant’s best dishes are the aloo gobi, a vegetarian dish of tender, spiced cauliflower and potato—at least, it’s supposed to have potato—and the lamb vindaloo, succulent meat and potatoes sauced in an earthy brown medley of spices. All dishes can be ordered mild, medium or spicy, and when it comes to heat, the cooks mean business (even if you don’t appear to be Indian).

The lunch buffet, offered seven days a week, is a steal at $6.99. Included are six entrees, plain and saffron-infused basmati rice, and a salad of lettuce, tomato and onion, plus raita, mint and tamarind chutneys, two kinds of dessert and fresh naan. While the naan is delivered straight from kitchen to table, the rest of the spread can suffer from the common buffet problem of sitting out too long and not being hot enough. Those who arrive at 11:30 when the buffet starts won’t have experience problem, though.


Mattar paneer

There’s nothing new on Indian Haweli’s menu (or the TV in the front corner, which shows Bollywood movies), but then, when is an Indian restaurant’s menu ever unpredictable? All the staples are there, from samosas and vindaloos to kormas and masalas. To their detriment, many of the dishes belong to the creamy school of Indian cooking—that means it’s possible to get full just by looking at the matar paneer, a vegetarian dish of squishy, lightly fried cubes of theoretically homemade cheese accompanied by bright green peas that blink from beneath a lush orange sauce flecked with spices.

Adjacent to the restaurant is a small Indian grocery store. It's only three aisles across with a few convenience-store variety refrigerator and freezer cases, but the selection is almost comparable to an India's Sweets and Spices (an LA chain offering satisfying meals, cavity-inducing confections, and groceries)—or even, with its bounty of crispy Indian snack foods and ready-to-make dessert mixes, a store in Artesia’s Little India. Such a store would be a gem just about anywhere, but it's an especially welcome surprise in Simi.

Along with a plethora of spices and canisters of ghee (clarified butter) for patrons who want to make Indian food from scratch, there are Pillsbury samosas and frozen paneer for the faux home cook.

The quality and meager selection of the store’s sweets leaves something to be desired, though—their subdued flavor and a nearby box suggest that they may not be homemade. It doesn't help that they're kept in a display case—those always seems to leave food tasting stale and slightly off.

The sweets on the restaurant’s dessert menu, however, are so moist they seem like they were made to order, though that’s impossible given the time-consuming preparation of most Indian desserts. Try the ras malai, a delicate ricotta cake bathed in a sweet, cardamom- and pistachio-laced milk.

Despite its imperfections, Indian Haweli is an oasis in the supposed culinary desert, a restaurant where one can enjoy mostly solid food in a tranquil, crowd-free atmosphere at reasonable prices, where there’s no risk that the man at the table next to yours will be sitting close enough to accidentally sample your dish and where the waiters aren’t running on Red Bull or wearing 35 pieces of flair.

Indian Haweli
1750 E. Los Angeles Ave.
Simi Valley, CA 93065
(805) 520-1236
Indian Haweli website

Restaurant Review #215: O2 Sushi, Simi Valley

Hawaiian ceviche

I found O2 Sushi on Yelp! while looking for a nice, independent restaurant in Simi Valley, land of many casual restaurants and chains. Simi Valley actually has a surprising number of independent restaurants - you just have to work a little harder to find them since they aren't in freestanding, multi-thousand-square-foot buildings with giant red signs. Perhaps even more surprising are the number of sushi restaurants in Simi - at least ten by my count.


Albacore roll (front) and scallop roll (back)

I will admit that I am skeptical of eating sushi in a place that doesn't have the culinary reputation of Beverly Hills or West LA or West Hollywood because for me, sushi doesn't have a middleground--sushi that's just okay is not okay. But after examining O2's online menu and prices, I felt confident that the odds would be good with this place.

We went early, around 6:30, thinking we would beat the rush, but when we got there and found the place full, we thought perhaps people in Simi like to eat earlier than people in LA. Like all sushi restaurants, you can choose between a table or bar. The sushi bar is the focal point of the restaurant, brightly lit with a backdrop of blue-grey fabric mimicking water and a school of silver fish swimming energetically toward the ceiling. Almost all of the tables run around the perimeter of the restaurant, so there is a considerable amount of privacy. I could even push my chair back without hitting the person behind me.



The teriyaki filet mignon ($20) cooked medium rare is a nice change of pace from the usual teriyaki chicken (which they also serve). Since teriyaki sauce can be very sweet, I wasn't sure it would be a good match for such a fine cut of meat, but this sauce was very subtle and the steak was beautifully presented on an oblong plate with vibrant green asparagus, an orange pepper, a single curled shrimp and a rectangle of cantelope. The entree came with standard-issue miso soup and a fresh green salad with a tasty soy vinaigrette--not quite Maggie's Farm quality (my favorite salad purveyor at the Santa Monica Farmers Market), but not bad for the middle of winter.



Teriyaki filet mignon

The Hawaiian ceviche (lead photo) was a ring of wafer-thin half slices of lime heaped with voloptuous wedges of whitefish, tuna, salmon and yellowtail, interspersed with cilantro and almost unnoticeable slivers of red onion and marinated in a succulent citrus-soy vinaigrette. I didn't care for the whitefish, which was a bit crunchy, but the tuna was especially supple. And for $11, it was plenty of fish, too.

The albacore roll and scallop roll were sloppily presented compared to the other two dishes, but that didn't affect their flavor. The portions were generous, the rice was loose and moist, and the fish was top notch. The albacore roll had the perfect amount of wasabi packed in, and the mayo in the scallop roll, despite looking a tad menacing, didn't actually have any flavor (and that was fine with me).

The service was slightly erratic, but friendly. The waitress seemed to expect us to know what we wanted to order almost instantly, and the arrival of the food wasn't well-timed. But honestly, I'd rather have the minor shortcomings of this restaurant than a technically perfect meal where I can't hear the person sitting across from me, I'm bumping elbows with my neighbor and I'm being rushed through my 7:00 reservation to accommodate the next reservation at 8:30. And, like every place in Simi, parking is plentiful and free, and there's no need to contend with a valet.

Overall, I was very pleased with the high-quality fish, the relaxed ambiance, and the reasonable prices.

O2 Sushi
2902 E. Tapo Canyon Rd. Unit A
Simi Valley, CA 93063
805.527.0202
O2 Sushi website