Cork Fire Kitchen - Temecula

A long December has come and passed, and Travelzoo has a deal. Sunday thru Thursday, Temecula Creek Inn costs $89 a night, and for two nights we can sit on first-floor balcony, watching the golf carts roll by, forgetting the world as we sip on our welcome wine. 

We did that until we got really hungry. Our building is right next to the on-site restaurant, and that's about as far as we're willing to go. And it's so pretty, the Cork Fire Kitchen, with a center bar and a homey fireplace, well-equipped for sitting and sipping for hours on end.  

We're all about some Miso Glazed Diver Scallops to start. The scallops are seared. Can't taste the miso, but the chopped-up mango on top is sweet and fruity fun. Each scallop sits on a crispy cake of onyx rice. They're called forbidden rice cakes, and I am confused. What exactly makes the rice forbidden? And can you eat rice cakes that are forbidden? Apparently, you can because I'm still here to complain about them. This entree wasn't bad, but I probably should have gone with the shrimp & grits.

Next entree...really should have gone with the shrimp & grits...or anything else. I can sum up the Tangerine Glazed Duck Breast in one short acronym: W. T. F. Made by someone who can only cook duck crudely; the middle of the breast is bleeding, and it has the density and texture of a smoked Christmas ham. Don't know where this glaze went either - do they actually know how to glaze? All those sauces, especially the amorphous mess of cherry sauce and hash, take away everything that makes duck taste like duck. I liked the polenta, but otherwise I really don't know what to do with this dish.

I sipped my wine a little faster, and moved on to dessert. Some of us drink to forget, and some of us have to drink to forget the previous dish. Then comes the daily special Crostata. The special is the part where you have to guess what's in it as all three staff members we spoke to were unable to tell us. "I don't know". *Shrug*. Absolutely no effort to find out. And this is from two servers and the floor manager. No regrets, though. A nice flaky crust and sweet apples with a hint of cinnamon and an almond finish.

We're finished too. Finished with a low-mediocre meal, and finished with the staff who don't give a... We're too wined up to whine much, but I'd whine a lot if I had to come back sober.

Tasty Noodle House - Lomita

I love Lomita. So many tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and they pop up suddenly, unexpectedly, like a rainbow after a storm. And finally, a Shanghai restaurant, promising dumplings without the line at Din Tai Fung. 

The dumplings are made to order so the Steamed Chicken with Spicy Sesame Sauce boosts my blood sugar while we wait. I get what the were trying to do here, but they really could have done much better. The sauce tastes like a combo of sesame and peanut, and t's thick and smooth and sweet. Not at all spicy and in a quantity that is so excessive. Still, it didn't cover up the pieces of chicken that felt a little slimy, a weird, slippery texture that skeeved me out a bit.

I was super excited to see Shanghai Sticky Rice Shumai as well. There, however, are gross. The rice is sticky, but some of the appealing adhesive is negated by a muddy flood of soy-sauce overkill. Highly disappointing.

The XLB are the opposite. Not quite as juicy as Din Tai Fung, but the broth is sweeter and almost as savory. Tender, flavorful filling, the very definition of this Shanghai staple.

These are the first Shanghai Grilled Pork Buns I've seen in LA. The steamed-bun wrapper is soft comfort-food, and the bottom is sesame-coated and seared to a just-right crisp. The filling is the same as the XLB, and it's perfect. Unfortunately, there's a weird coat of oil all around the outside, which turns a good thing greasy.

I don't love them, but it's worth going for the XLB. Won't be ordering much else next time, but the dumplings do hit the spot.

Petit Trois - Los Angeles

Ludo LeFavre is the very embodiment of everything French and everything chef. Severe and exacting, his reality-show kitchens cower under his stern brow and unrelenting demands for perfection.

And why shouldn't he demand perfection? French food is the foundation of so much fine dining, and it's imperative that the basics be done very well. The gratuitous yet gratifying use of butter, the flambe, the saute, the bake, the bread. 

Except everyone is trying to set themselves apart. By pushing boundaries with novel ingredients and unconventional combinations, so many chefs try to blaze their own trail, to find a rare frontier where so much has already been tried.

Imagine the exact opposite of that, and you have Petit Trois. The food is as French as LeFavre himself, and most items are as textbook and classique as the French Baguette. It doesn't look like much, but it is as perfect as those that come out of the ovens of France itself. The crust is airy and crisp, crackling willingly between the fingers. The inside is chewy and soft, requiring a little more pull to break it apart.

More bread slumbers beneath the murky depths of the best French Onion Soup I've ever tasted. The crock is steaming porcelain, crusted with cheese, intense strings of gruyere and emmental that cut deep into a beefy broth sweetened by liquid onion.

The Burgundy Escargots are of a rare beauty; the round spiral shells too pristine to eat, the soft pillowy snails soaked with gently-pungent garlic butter too decadent not to eat.

The more shells the merrier, with a pot of Mussels Mariniere. A simply steamed, white-wine sauce tradition with a touch of cream.

The mussels are appreciated, but it's the side of Frites that steal the show. Like most things at Petit Trois, they are cooked in clarified butter, all the flavor with almost none of the lactose, a whole plate of fries with only half the heavy-and-gross aftershock.

Everything is so French, but let it never be said that the French have no sense of humor. The Big Mec is a cultural fusion, the ultimate big mac en francais, except it is so much better. A lesson in dual patriotism and decadence, two all-American patties erupt with rivers of juices over an avalanche of melted cheese and thick slabs of bacon. The brioche bun is impossibly buttery, and it swims in a foie gras foundation of Bordelaise sin.

I've never spent so much on lunch, but the prices hardly matter when a steamy soup fogs up your glasses as you curl up at a cozy counter. The quality and skill are unparalleled, and believe me, it's worth every centime.

Tar and Roses - Santa Monica

I am 5 minutes early, and I get that the ONE other person in my party of two is not here yet, but is it really necessary to herd me into a holding pen until she arrives?

At least I get unlimited phone calls and a drink menu. I order a glass of wine because there's literally nothing else to do, and then I sit on the uneven wooden bench twirling the stem because there's nowhere to set it down.

Friendless me on a wooden bench, fenced in by an iron rail, guarded by a hovering hostess...she's here. That was the longest ten minutes of my life. They set me free and herd us to our table...five steps away. That table has been empty and just waiting for us, but apparently it was too much trouble to let me sit in a comfortable seat and put my drink down while I wait.

I need a cool-down by the time I get to this tiny table because my arm muscles are burning from holding up that glass of wine and a pinch of cold Crab Toast does the job. The crab is sweet, and it always goes with avocado. Pickled onions and citrus on top; nothing that hasn't been done, but they do it very well.

It'll take more than crab-on-toast to make me less crabby about that holding pen...oh damn, the Oxtail Dumplings are giving me amnesia. They're so perfect I can't even handle it. Soft and gooey-chewy on the outside - someone did that wonton wrapper so right! They're impossibly soft and gooey on the inside too - small meaty shreds with the texture of melty ricotta cheese, highlighted by the san bai su which is a perfect mashup of sour-salty-sweet.

Heavy meat needs a vegetable so I go with what I'm feeling: bitter. Brussels Sprouts are charred just right, and they're flavored reliably with go-to pancetta. Then a pleasant surprise - creamy-sweet chestnuts provide a creative contrast to the previously bitter-savory-crisp. A bit too heavy on the mustard, though. The dish was great without it.

My berating brain goes quiet by the time the Bone Marrow comes out. Bring on the running rivers of oily, buttery, gristly chunks. I'm practically drooling into the onion marmalade, which makes a nice pairing.

No a lot of small plates, but they're rich and we're already full...wait, did someone say sticky toffee pudding? Not full. No way. Our stomachs have a separate place for dessert. It's a no-frills space...like a holding pen. (No, I'm really not letting that go). The Sticky Toffee Pudding is not sticky. But it is intensely sugary and moist, with vanilla ice cream melting all over. Definitely among the best I've had

Sticky toffee pudding hits the spot, but wow, the Strawberry Ricotta Crostata steals the show. Flaky crust that twists curls without shedding crumbs, cradling a warm well of ripe berries in a ricotta cloud, even better when drizzled with ice cream and a honey crunch.

Downside: they're snooty and the service sucks. The Santa Monica location isn't the most convenient, and the food is safely delicious. They serve the things we know are good, and but they do cook them well. It'll be a long time before I go back to be corralled like a wayward sheep, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't like the food.

The Original Red Onion - Rolling Hills Estates

You can just hear that hillside pride. It's THE original. It got there first, and it got there before anyone else EVER came up with such a name or such a place. And before 1949, maybe no one had. Back then, they didn't have cell phones, after all, and they didn't even have civil rights. Whether or not we'll even have civil rights is under question, too, but that's a different concern for a different blog...

The Original Red Onion has stood through so many uncertain times, and it looks like it's stood exactly like that. Fireplace in a dark den looks so familiar and antiquated...like the regulars seated all around us. It kind of blows my mind that they opened back when Rolling Hills were just a bunch of hills that no one wanted to live on.

But people must have flocked for the food, and clearly they still do because the establishment stands staunch, backed by pillars of Mexican-American cuisine. There's a savory, coarse-cornmeal Tamale on my plate, shrouding a softer shredded pork. The Chile Relleno, which I usually hate, is so well-made it's baffling. This spicy-yet-sweet pepper is overflowing with fountains of melted cheese, and it's covered in a fluffy, egg-bread batter. The selection of side options is plentiful, but the plate doesn't feel right without some straightforward Mexican rice mixed with stringy cheese-covered refried beans. 

The Premium Quesadilla seems a lot more modern, but change is good in the form of charred strips of carne asada interlaced with Mexican cheese. The flour tortilla is decent, and the steak is flanked by cool-downs like pico, guac, and sour cream.  

63 years The Original Red Onion has stood the test of time. Not so original anymore, but there's a sweetness in its simplicity, and in some ways it's a lesson in PV history. I don't know what its future will hold, but I do hope it keeps on standing.