Restaurant Week Review - The Penthouse

You know how every girl is supposed to have that one best gay guy friend? Well, I have one except he's not gay. Anyway, he was back in town for a few days and on Sunday afternoon, we were supposed to go to Tra Di Noi in Malibu for lunch. We stumbled upon this fabulous Italian restaurant back in college. When he used to live in LA, we would go there about once or twice a month for lunch on a Saturday or Sunday. Going there has become one of our traditions so every time he's in town, we try to head out there.

As we were nearing PCH, I came up with the idea to go to The Penthouse at The Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica instead. It was my second time going and his first. I thought it would be nice to do something different. The restaurant takes up the entire top floor which means you're dining inside a glass box with great views no matter where you're seated. There are cabana sections along the windows which can seat up to about 6 people or so. Each cabana is decorated with a white chandelier and white drapery which makes it a very intimate setting. If you're planning on dining here, I would suggest you ask for a cabana or a table next to the window. You can also come here later at night when it becomes a lounge as well if dining here is not your thing. Click here to see a virtual tour of the restaurant.

After we sat down and started settling in, our waitress brought over a set lunch menu and mentioned to us that it was Restaurant Week. I had completely forgotten that The Penthouse is one of the participating restaurants even though I mentioned it in a previous post. Our sudden change in dining choices for lunch worked out perfectly because I was already planning on dining at a few participating restaurants but had yet to plan out when and where.

Here is the set lunch menu from The Penthouse (courtesy of dineLA):

Appetizers
1) Tuscan Tomato Soup
2) Market Greens Salad
3) Baby Romaine Salad

Entrees
1) Pappardelle Pasta
2) Wild Salmon
3) Sirloin Burger

Dessert
1) Chocolate Lava Cake
2) Creme Brulee
3) Apple Tarte Tatin

My friend decided to order the market greens salad, pappardelle pasta and apple tarte tatin. His choice of drinks were two Aperol Smashes. I also chose the market greens salad and pappardelle pasta but picked the chocolate lava cake for dessert. As for my drink, I ordered an Apricot and Honey 75. You can find the descriptions of the drinks on the Lounge Starters page.

The market greens salad was a typical mixed greens salad with some hearts of palm tossed in and what some may consider to be too oily of a vinaigrette dressing. I personally like my vinaigrette dressing on the oilier side so I thought it was just right. The dressing didn't have the usual overwhelming vinegar taste to it and was able to mask the bitterness of the mixed greens. I enjoyed this light and simple salad but would have liked some more hearts of palm.

The pappardelle pasta was my favorite dish. The pasta was cooked al dente and had a slight resistence when biting into it. It wasn't dry and lacking in sauce or soggy from drowning in sauce. Instead, it had the perfect amount with some small pieces of meat in it. I forgot to ask whether the meat was beef or pork, but I'm hoping it was pork since I can't eat beef. I really liked the width and the thinness of the pasta. This entree was great for lunch since it was not heavy on the stomach. I would definitely order this again.

As for the dessert, I was a little disappointed with my chocolate lava cake. Below the cake was a layer of some type of peanut butter mixture which made the cake too sweet. I tried to balance out the cake with the ice cream provided but it was still too rich for my liking. It would have helped to have a bigger scoop of ice cream. There was also a long rectangular banana flavored dessert next to my lava cake which I didn't enjoy. I didn't think it was necessary to have as it didn't complement the rest of the plate.

I've recommended this restaurant to people before and will still continue doing so. After introducing this place to my non-gay best friend, he actually went back the following day for lunch again. I also plan on making a second appearance here this week and will bring Ko this time. Overall, the food and the view made for a great lunch. I think we might just have to make The Penthouse a new tradition.

Hello Kitty

I can't even begin to explain how excited I am for an upcoming event at Royal/T Cafe located in Culver City. It is an exhibition celebrating the 35th anniversary of Hello Kitty starting October 23 - November 15.

Hello Kitty has always been and will be a big part of my life. She's gone with me to school and even to work, kept me company at home and has even traveled the world with me. I currently still own most if not all of the Hello Kitty items I've purchased or received as gifts. My two favorite Hello Kitty gifts are:

1) A life-sized Hello Kitty - I was in Hong Kong at the time and a family friend gave this to me as a birthday gift. I remember thinking to myself how in the world am I going to get this back to the US. Luckily, I was sitting in business class so I was allowed to carry it on board. As I was boarding the plane, I saw heads turning my way and girls staring in awe of my life-sized Hello Kitty.

2) A Hello Kitty blow-dryer - I got this in Taiwan from a family friend who owned an amusement gaming center. Normally you go there to play the games, win tickets and then use the tickets to exchange for gifts. In order to exchange for a blow-dryer, you need a lot of tickets and that wasn't something I could have won within the 5 minutes I was there. So yes, I cheated. With my "connections," I just went up and asked for the blow-dryer while all the other kids tried to figure out how can this girl "exchange" for a gift with 0 tickets.

I can't imagine my life without my favorite Japanese character always by my side. Even as I'm typing this right now, I have my Hello Kitty blow-dryer to my left, a stash of Hello Kitty pens and pencils in front of me and my Hello Kitty banner hanging on my wall. Hello Kitty is not just an icon but every girl's best friend. I hope to pass on the love I have for her to others. I love you Hello Kitty!

For more information regarding this event click here. Make sure to check out the calendar of events as well because there are different events each weekend.

Restaurant Week

On October 4-9 and October 11-16, there will be an event in LA called Restaurant Week. Participating restaurants will offer 3 course lunch and/or dinner meals for a set (discounted) price.

Here is a list of participating restaurants I recommend (in alphabetical order):

• Campanile
• I Cugini
• Jer-ne
• JiRaffe
• Katsuya
• Luna Park
• Sushi Roku
• The Penthouse
  

Tofu Village & Farmer's Market

I was really excited when I found Tofu Villa on Sawtelle because the soon tofu there was super delicious. On top of that, their side dishes were fresh and tasty and the free frozen yogurt dessert made my tummy smile every time. Unfortunately, Tofu Villa suffered just like many restaurants in these tough economic times and is now closed. Ever since then, I've been on a hunt to find the next Tofu Villa. So this past Friday, Ko and I decided to try Tofu Village in Gardena.

I ordered a seafood pancake and seafood soon tofu combination and Ko ordered a kalbi and regular soon tofu combination. The seafood pancake was decent but it was different from all the other seafood pancakes I've ordered at Korean restaurants. This one was much thinner and crispier. I felt that it was lacking in dough, green onions and seafood . The soon tofu was close to what Tofu Villa had to offer but not quite there. As for the kalbi, I can't comment on that as I'm not eating beef this year.

(From left to right: seafood pancake, seafood soon tofu and kalbi)

Here is a quick comparison of 3 soon tofu places:

Tofu Villa: Great soon tofu, fresh side dishes, free delicious frozen yogurt dessert
Tofu Village: Good soon tofu, decent side dishes, serves fried fish side dish, no free dessert
BCD: Overcooked soon tofu, so-so side dishes, great fried fish side dish, serves spicy raw crabs, no free dessert

In my opinion, Tofu Village cannot replace Tofu Villa but it is definitely much better than BCD. Until I can find the next Tofu Villa, Tofu Village will do for now.


On Saturday, Ko and I went to Playa Vista's Farmer's Market for the second time. If you enjoy going to Farmer's Market but don't like how crowded most of them are, this is one you should visit. Not that many people go because it's meant to serve a smaller community and not that many people know about it.

Since it does serve a smaller community, there aren't as many stands as some of the other Farmer's Markets (i.e. Culver City or Century City). The fact that it has less stands does not mean that it's lacking in quality. It still has the essential stands that make up a Farmer's Market (i.e. fresh fruits, flowers, dried fruits, home made jam, kimchee, corn, etc.).

When we arrived there, we went straight to the corn stand to purchase two roasted corns and a yam covered with brown sugar and butter (pictured below). Ko also bought a tamale at the tamale stand. The roasted corns and yam were delicious. At first I thought the brown sugar on the yam would make it too sweet. I've never had brown sugar and butter on my yam before. Normally, I eat it plain because the taste is already quite strong. To my surprise, it was actually very good. I will definitely be ordering it again next time. As for the tamale, I wouldn't buy it again since I'm not a tamale fan.

Before we left, we made sure to stop by the fruit stand to buy pluots and nectarines. I highly recommend the dragon eye pluots, the black cat pluots and the mango tasting nectarines.

Hokkaido Fair

Since my last post, I've been playing around with the settings and options on blogger to try to learn how to use this thing. So let's see if I've mastered the art of blogging...

Let's start off with some food reviews! Last weekend, I went to the Hokkaido Fair at Mitsuwa in Torrance. I almost forgot about it until I saw a friend twitpic her Hokkaido ice cream (Thanks Yvette!). Good thing I caught her tweet in time to make it there before it ended.

Since it was the last day of the event, a lot of the delicious goodies were already sold out, but I still managed to pick out some yummy treats for us (Ko & myself) to eat.

The first thing I discovered were boxes of squid stuffed with mochi rice (Squid Bento Boxes of Abe Shoten). The squid was cooked just right making it soft and easy to chew and the amount of mochi rice inside was just perfect.

I only ate one to leave room for all the other foods we purchased, but if I could go back in time, I'd eat both myself!

We also ordered a salt ramen which was just okay to me. It wasn't anything spectacular or something to rave about. The name of the ramen says it all, it's salty, very salty. Other than that, it was just a plain bowl of noodles.

Ko also bought 2 curry croquettes from the Pullman Bakery stand (not pictured). I'm not a big fan of curry croquettes, but I will admit that these were pretty good. Although I probably wouldn't buy them again, they were worth trying.

Everyone I knew that went to the fair talked about how amazing the ice cream was and that it could have easily been the best ice cream they've ever eaten. I was informed to get there before 3 PM (supposedly that's the time they normally ran out each day) and that the wait could be up to an hour. When I heard this, I thought that 1) people were crazy to wait that long for ice cream and 2) I had to try it!

Before we left, we stood in line for about 30-40 minutes to get the famous La France and Milk soft serve ice cream from Bake de arles. I was really impressed! We weren't sure what flavor La France was supposed to be, but it tasted a little like melon to me. I found out later from a co-worker that it was pear.

Between the two, I'd definitely say that the Milk tasted much better. The texture was very creamy and the milk flavor wasn't overwhelming. This was probably one of the smoothest soft serve ice cream I've ever eaten. I could have easily eaten 2 or 3 of these myself.

Overall, I thought the Hokkaido Fair was a great success! I believe Mitsuwa has it once a year but I might be wrong. If it does come back next year, I will definitely be purchasing the squid bento boxes and the Milk ice cream again. Out of all the things we ate, these two items were my favorite.

Welcome

Welcome! I finally have my blog up after contemplating for a long time over what name to use. I've decided to use Celestial Heights for a few reasons which I'll talk about at a later time. This blog is going to be about a variety of topics including food, shopping, travel and just whatever I'm experiencing.

Well, I'm going to keep my first post short and simple. Come back soon to read my next post!