Mediterraneo Kitchen & Bar - Hermosa Beach

Two terrible restaurants later, PTSD had me equating fine dining with a voluntary root canal. I know how cynical I sound, but cut me some slack after that meal from hell at The Church Key!

I figured I would at least keep the food down if I started small and played it safe. The Mix & Match was as safe as it gets, a board of charcuterie and cheese. The pungent Saint Agur Blue was creamy and right on, and the El Valle Manchego and Carr Valley Gran Canaria were crumbly and smooth. The Bernina Bresaola was a cure, the Angel's Duck Proscuitto was greasy, fatty, melty goodness, the Angel's Venison & Berkshire had some game, and they had the Iglesias Jamon Serrano just right.

It's also hard to mess up Traditional Hummus, and the texture was right on.

Caprese is yet another strong and safe starter - heirloom tomatoes trump the traditional, a sweeter accompaniment to soft mozzarella.

I could only play it safe for so long, and that fresh, sweet n' Spicy Blue Crab Pintxo turned out to be a gamble that paid off.

I decided that there were more fish in the sea, and the Grilled Green Lip Mussels were quite the catch,  meaty and tender, with Spanish viniagrette to lighten them up.

The Antonio was dense with basil cream, a shelled, stewing mix of mussels, scallops, and shrimp.

The Seafood & Fennel was a bit more creative, chilled bites of stretchy squid and shrimp with fennel as clean and crisp as the ocean breeze across the pier.

The seafood was sublime, but it was time to get my feet back on the ground. The Roasted Brussel Sprouts were both earthy and airy with heavy garlic and a light a dash of lemon.

Roasted Dates are always a good idea, especially when you add prosciutto. I prefer bacon with blue cheese, but I still can't complain.

Rich and heavy Filet Mignon Tips over an impressive tagliatelle stayed savory with juicy mushrooms rounded out with red pepper flakes.

I enjoyed every last crumb at Mediterraneo, and the flavors were far from flaky. There's no medicine strong enough to cure the anxiety The Church Key gave me, but Mediterraneo was the right step towards a cure. They delivered reliable quality with finesse, and that kind of fine dining is fine by me.

The Church Key - West Hollywood

Despite everyone's warnings, DineLA had yet to steer me wrong. I was in the mood for dumplings, and dim sum had yet to let me down.

Well DineLA's best dumplings list equated The Church Key's Pierogies with the likes of Shanghai Dumpling House and Wang Xing Ji, and like an idiot I believed them. I was suspicious of anything on Sunset Blvd, but at least I wanted to believe that they would be anything other than these dry, hard, pockets of mealy potato with barely-there Gouda drowning in copious globs of apricot mucus.

The Church Key is named after a bottle opener, and you better be prepared to use it. The secret is to empty as many bottles as you can before you eat. Their cocktails are the only thing they competently make, and after about five of those, your gag reflex should be adequately suppressed to eat the food.

The Canadian Bacon Sticks sound pretty fancy, but they're just deep-fried, over-breaded sticks of grocery-store ham...The ham that comes from a can because even the deli serves better stuff.

The Ahi Tuna Tartare does taste like top-quality tuna in smooth, flawless cubes. So fresh I could have sworn it was served in its natural habitat...also because it was drowning in a sea of salt. The menu says that it was made with other flavors and spices, but thanks to all that salt, there was no way to tell.

The Dungeness Crab Stuffed Crepes were served in a similar fashion, the crepes somewhat soggy from the crab that had gotten cold. I'm not sure what took so long considering we were seated right next to the kitchen, but at that point, it would have been nice if the dim sum cart came with a microwave.

Drowning seems to be a theme here, and I imagine the restaurant is headed for a fate similar to the Fire Roasted Shishito Peppers, which were submerged in a murky soy sauce mud. The Slider wasn't wet, but I made a better one at home.

I've shied away from LA fine dining because it often disappoints me, and this overpriced, 104-dollar meal (before tax and tip!) at The Church Key may have turned me off entirely. What I ate there was easily the worst meal I've had in all of LA, and possibly the worst meal of my life.

Not Adoring Abigaile - Hermosa Beach

Looking at my recent restaurant list, it seems I've shied away from the finer things. True, my resident budget only goes so far in Redondo Beach, but even med student me would face starvation for the occasional splurge.

I broke my frugal phase when a friend bought herself a ticket to SoCal and bought me a ticket to Abigaile.

Few things are better than catching up with a friend, and our rekindled friendship started strong with a silky Fresh Burrata. The burrata brought out a whole flavor bouquet of lemon, peaches, and wild arugula, atop tasty toasty points.

The burrata had me eager for more, but my pleasure didn't last long. The conversation never got dry, but the Plancha Baby Octopus did. The sharp mojo verde negated that error quite nicely, but it wasn't enough to put an unremarkable "Portuguese" sausage on the map.

The Roasted Brussels were just as bad. So shredded we thought we ate a cabbage slaw, with so much vinegar we thought we ate a lemon.

But our friendship was too strong to be soured, and stayed hearty like the Poutine. The lamb belly had the potential to build on the cheese, but it fell a little flat. I enjoyed the dish, but I'm not sure the Canadians would claim it.

To say that Abigaile is without merit would be a gross injustice. The free-standing brewery rocks a five-beer Flight, and if I had a nickel for every time I heard their cocktails praised, I could have paid for my entire meal. But the quality of that meal was definitely not a problem of price. Because few restaurants have blown my mind, but few have left me as deeply disappointed as Abigaile.

Bargain Bluesalt Fish Grill - Redondo Beach

Sometimes I think I am a terrible person. Maybe not entirely terrible but definitely far from normal, and sometimes it comes out when I least expect it. Like after 40 scenic minutes submerged in a gorgeous Catalina dive park, a normal person would be reveling in the beauty of nature, but there I was, reveling in its deliciousness instead. Everyone else gasped at all the beautiful fish. I salivated. 

Obviously we ended up at a fish grill  after the dive because I was about to start stuffing abalone into my purse. 

Sadly Bluesalt didn't have any abalone, but they did have a pretty good Ahi Tuna steak served raving red and rare.

In case you couldn't tell from my desire to sample everything in the dive park, I'm an equal-opportunity eater. Except when I'm a White Fish supremecist. And it's hard not to be when facing a folder rubbed with a heavy coat of cajun butter, herbed and significantly spiced.

I'm almost as hooked on diving as I am on eating, but I definitely wasn't hooked on the Fried Calamari. The breading was so thick it was impossible to tell if they were rings of onions or squid.

I started wishing for a jet pack when the black sea bass swam by for a finale of food-that-moves, so I'm glad I had the soft, splurg-y Cajun-spice Chilean Sea Bass to hit the spot. The free-swimming sea bass was fresher, but actually not by much. Plus it came with a pretty great side of sweet corn and grilled zucchini. It was a splurge, but I was sold.

I wasn't expecting much from what looked like a fairly-priced, non-chain spin-off of Malibu Fish Grill, but Bluesalt is far better than it seems. It's no-frills at its finest, but quality fish at a price I can afford is a catch I'll never go.