Sixteenth-century concubine Roxolana was reportedly so radiant that she motivated Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent to dismiss the rest of his harem. The sultan’s tale recently inspired Kiev-born chef Igor Zagorodnyy to launch a Ukrainian restaurant named in her honor.

The new Roxolana, in a former office space in Pasadena, sports an Old World look, with brushed yellow walls, coiled chandeliers, and onyx-black candleholders on each table.

The large menu features hearty starters like solianka ($8), a soup loaded with beef, bacon, sausage, ham, black olives and lemon slices. Another appetizer, the historic Olivier 1904 (pictured; $16) is a relic of 1860s Moscow that proves that salad need not be dainty. The aioli-tossed mountain is a meaty mass of chicken, beef, potato, carrot, egg, pickles, shrimp and black olives, with a sliced hard-boiled egg topper supporting bursting salmon roe.

Ukrainian main courses include golubsty ($17): stuffed cabbage rolls filled with a savory blend of beef, pork and rice and served with crunchy bell pepper, dill-topped sour cream and cayenne-spiked tomato paste. Naturally, Zagorodnyy serves chicken Kiev ($21) too, the rolled chicken breasts holding a prodigious amount of herb butter that imbues each bite with magnificent richness. - TastingTable

Roxolana
34 S. Raymond Avenue
Pasadena, California 91105
626-792-0440 | roxolanarestaurant.com

 Outside of the Beijing-style restaurants that serve gloriously crisp roasted duck, the whole bird is woefully neglected.

So when we read about a Korean preparation of whole duck roasted in a clay oven, we knew it had to be tried.

The dish ($60, including banchan; reserve at least four hours in advance) is served at Dha Rae Oak, which outfitted itself with the oven and clay vessels for cooking the ducks last month. Forget the ubiquitous Italian-imported pizza ovens—this is one of the few restaurant in the country with such a duck-roasting setup.

 Stuffed with a mass of sticky rice and various nuts, dried fruits, legumes and sweet potatoes, the duck is swaddled in cheesecloth, then encased in a pill-like clay capsule where it roasts for four hours.

The long, enclosed cooking yields exceedingly tender meat, the bird slumping down around its bones into a soft mound of skin, fat and flesh. It’s difficult to tell if you’re eating leg or breast, but it’s all delicious—especially when dipped in the vinegary chili sauce.

 The stuffing is like a treasure hunt for your chopsticks. Hunt and peck through the glutinous rice and you’ll find tender walnuts, plump raisins or, if you’re lucky, a chunk of liver.

Dha Rae Oak | 1108 S. Western Ave. | Koreatown, CA 90006 | 323-733-2474

Soul Burgers
1035 S Prairie Ave Ste 2
Inglewood, CA 90301
www.tonissoulburger.com



Toni Malone’s burger concept called Soul Burgers, is quickly becoming the talk of burger lovers all over LA. Soul food on a bun.

Toni’s love for cooking goes back about 25 years when she opened her first burger joint not far from her current location. But her love for music was too strong, she closed her restaurant and hit the road. Now, after all those years, she’s returned to Inglewood with her soul burger. But this time, instead of classic beef, she’s combined something that her son loved the most; turkey burgers and southern cooking.

And sure, it makes sense. Combine two comfort foods into something that sets so cal apart, soul food and hamburgers. Open for nearly a year, Soul Burgers features a selection of tender turkey burgers infused with southern soul cooking. Like the Luscious Yam Burger; a turkey patty layered with turkey bacon, egg, cheese, and special spicy sauce. Get it extreme and go for a turkey burger layered with turkey bacon, cheese, egg, greens, yams, dressing, and that special spicy sauce.

The soul food doesn’t stop at a turkey burger. Try the Heavenly Chop Burger with a seasoned lean pork chop topped with turkey bacon, egg, special spicy sauce, cheese, and your choice of greens or yams. They also have veggie, fish and fried chicken on a bun.

Their sweet potato fries, lightly fried, are sprinkled with just a dusting of sugar. They also feature a smattering of sides like mac-n-cheese and a selection of home made desserts. Keep on eye out for them on an upcoming episode of Food Network’s Outrageous Food, featuring their Outrageous Extreme Soul Burger.

Soul Burgers

1035 S Prairie Ave Ste 2
Inglewood, CA 90301
www.tonissoulburger.com

(Source: jasonz)

Ted’s Bulletin on the Hill

Some of the things waiting for me at Ted’s Bulletin in D.C.

The Big Mark Breakfast
~ $11.79 ~
3 eggs, 2 bacon, 2 sausage, hash browns, toast and homemade pop tart

Boozy Milkshakes at Ted’s Bulletin, a new set of 10 milkshakes spiked with liquor.

Ted’s Bulletin
505 8th Street SE
Washington DC 20003
202.544.8337 phone | MAP

Liaison Hotel to Ted’s Bulletin
View Larger Map

GO Burger
6290 Sunset Blvd (at Vine)
Los Angeles, CA 90028
323-327-9355
http://www.goburger.net/

GO Burger, a bastion of burger innovation here to bring you spiked milkshakes and melted gruyère, opening Monday at the corner of Sunset and Vine.

It’s a bright, modern corner spot from the beef artisans behind BLT Steak, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto one of Hollywood’s busiest intersections―an easy spot for a quick work lunch, or a burger date before or after a movie at the ArcLight.

To start: you can’t not try the UltiMELT, a giant burger topped with bacon and caramelized onions, with two gruyère-on-rye grilled-cheese sandwiches for buns. Supplement it with Fried Dill Pickles or Duck-Fat Fries. Or even a salad (yes, they have them).

If you want your booze in a milkshake, try the Aztec Mocha (it’s tequila, coffee ice cream, chocolate syrup and cayenne pepper). But if you prefer your cocktail in cocktail form, go for the Brown Derby, made of rum, lime and maple syrup.

Rarely does a pizzeria bother opening in the mornings, when the only pizza likely to be eaten is a cold slice from last night’s delivery. On 3rd St., however, the olive-wood-fired oven at Olio Pizzeria & Café is stoked to 800° while the day’s first coffee is brewing.

Every morning, the newly opened pizza place refashions the dough that will later carry toppings like chanterelle mushrooms and butternut squash into bagel-like bialys, pastries and more.

The wood-fired Danish ($6; pictured) is an elongated pizza crust smeared with a vanilla-spiked ricotta and topped with fresh fruit (blueberries, on our visit)—everything crisped and caramelized by a quick blast of dry heat from the oven. There’s no flakiness to the pastry—just blistered-crust crunch at the edge, a prelude to the classic combination of ricotta and fruit in the middle.

Bialys—Polish breads that, unlike bagels, are baked (not boiled) and sport a large dimple rather than a hole—cover much of the Austrian-Hungarian empire on the menu, showing up alongside smoked salmon on one plate ($13), or schmeared with pesto and topped with a poached egg on another ($5). Bialy are well suited to both preparations, the bread’s particular balance between crunch and chew offering something L.A.’s often lackluster bagels never could.

Olio Pizzeria & Café
8075 West 3rd St.
Ste. 100
Los Angeles, CA 90048

(3^rd & Crescent Heights)

323-930-9490
http://www.pizzeriaolio.com/

Despite our temperate weather, the menus at local restaurants don the wardrobe of colder climes in fall and winter months. Regardless of the temperature on Beverly, ordering chef Laurent Quenioux’s cassoulet special (three courses for $35) at Bistro LQ on a Tuesday night will have you spending the next few hours living the best of a cold winter’s night in Southwest France.

LQ’s cassoulet is pure Tolouse, from the long-cooked tarbais beans to the simply seasoned but immensely flavorful sauscisse de Toulouse—found only in Quenioux’s kitchen, where he makes it and the garlicky saucisson a l’Ail. And if the sausage weren’t enough, you also get lamb shoulder and duck and pork rib confits, their near-melting texture contrasting with bits of crisped skin. The meat and beans have a combined effect similar to eating Southern food: a state of slothful enjoyment.

Bookending the cassoulet is a frisee salad with a quivering poached egg (with bacon or confit duck gizzards) at the start, and a plum bread pudding topped with coffee Anglaise and vanilla whipped cream at the end.

The question is not which Tuesday you’ll eat cassoulet between now and December 28, but rather on how many Tuesdays you can make it to LQ between now and then.

Bistro LQ
8009 Beverly Blvd., Mid-City; 323-951-1088 or bistrolq.com (map/directions)

Polka – Polish Restaurant
4112 Verdugo Road
Los Angeles, CA 90065
www.polkacatering.com



So healthy, delicious, nutritious, Polish dishes!

On the surface, Momed is a stylish spot where you order at the counter and servers bring you your dishes. But the menu is full of Turkish, Greek and Lebanese influences that you don’t often see at your regular grab-and-go.

The pides—chewy wood-fired flatbreads with toppings like buttery haloumi cheese, spicy soujuk sausage and piquillo peppers (pictured; $14)—are great pizza alternatives. With the wraps, house-made pita envelops tender roast duck and fig confit ($14) or juicy ground lamb koefte and sweet blistered tomatoes ($10). Get a crisp Keo lager (from Cyprus) to go with either one.

Choose any of the colorful salads from the case as a side, like chunky cinnamon-scented carrots, cucumbers with a sweet poppy-seed dressing or artichokes and fava beans with tangy lemon vinaigrette. A trio of these ($12) makes an excellent light lunch.

The mezze are particularly delicious, especially baleela (aka balila)—soft, spiced chickpeas swimming in brown butter sprinkled with toasted pine nuts ($8). The chef went all the way to Lebanon to find this dish, and for that, we’re eternally grateful.

Momed / 233 S. Beverly Dr. / Beverly Hills, CA 90212 /  310-270-4444 / www.atmomed.com

Sean Meenan’s much-loved New York eatery brings its signature painted palm trees, ecofriendly ways, and neighborhood hospitality to the Lumber Yard.

The Latin-by-way-of-Manhattan menu made it west too, modified only slightly to make the most of California produce. If you don’t gorge on grilled corn and Cuban sandwiches (we know it’ll be hard, especially considering it’s been a bit of a wait), go for ceviche, chicken and corn salad, or grilled rib eye with chimichurri. Wash it down with a frozen guava margarita, Corona michelada, or anything else you’ve got a hankering for from the full bar.

Lush native plants, reclaimed wood tables, eBay-ed chairs, and Rose Bowl finds add up to a lived-in, all-are-welcome feel. And despite what’s carved in the concrete outside, there is no Hector. So what? This place is still the real deal.

Cafe Habana at the Malibu Lumber Yard / 3939 Cross Creek Road at Pacific Coast Highway / Malibu, CA. / 310.317.0300 / cafehabana.com).

 http://habana-malibu.com/

All-you-can-eat Brazilian pizza.

From a Brazilian expat entrepreneur, Bella Vista’s a no frills, patio-abetted pizzeria w/ unusual ingredients and a heavenly concept borrowed from the parlors in his own country: pizzas are brought out all-you-can-eat churrascaria style.  Bella Vista serves 35 different types of Italian and Brazilian-inspired pizza (including some dessert flavors), salads, soups, and other Brazilian specialties.

Bella Vista
10826 Venice Blvd
(just West of Overland)
Culver City, CA. 90034
310.558.2374

* Read more at LA Weekly and Thrillist

From Chef Roy, the same mind that blessed us with the Kogi truck, Chego’s a no-frills, open-kitchen’d strip mall spot serving up all sorts of Korean-fusion craziness, abetted w/ ultra-colorful decorations, ranging from Pee-wee dolls to fine-art paintings of phone booths, to leave-your-mark bathroom chalkboard walls.

The main offerings are multi-ingredient rice bowls, including the “Sour Cream Hen House” (w/ fried egg, Chinese broccoli, & sambal sauce), the “One Chubby Pork” (glazed, w/ kochujang, fried egg, & water spinach), and the egg/water spinach/fried shallot/creamed horseradish “Tiny’s Prime Rib”. For non-rice-bowl action, they’ve got sides like charred asparagus w/ blueberry jalapeno salsa, garlic, chilies, parmesan, and lemon; a crazy dessert called “It’s Been a Rocky Road” w/ chocolate ice cream, smoked almonds, caramel, brownie, and marshmallow fluff; and apps like the green onion/sesame/polenta-abetted “3am Meatballs”. If there’s just not enough stuff in the bowls, you can add on pork belly/chicken/kimchi etc, plus they’ve also got weekly “ADD specials”.

Chego
3300 Overland Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 287-0337
Tuesday-Saturday (6-12am)
www.eatchego.com

Since its November opening, a reservation for Thomas Keller’s Beverly Hills Bouchon Bistro is still elusive. That’s why the new (and separate) Bar Bouchon couldn’t come at a better time.

The ground-floor bar has only about 15 seats, with tables outside along the small park. It’s definitely a drop-in-anytime kind of place, albeit one with the Keller stamp all over it. And unlike the restaurant, it stays open between lunch and dinner.

This isn’t just an extension of the main dining room: Save for a few items, most dishes are exclusive to the bar. There’s earthy chicken liver mousse ($13) and bowls of pretty little pickled vegetables ($6). Butter-soaked escargot ($16), each crowned with an individual pastry puff, are some of the best in town.

As for the oeuf en meurette (pictured, $12.50), we’ll take that perfectly poached hen egg and its pool of dark, bordelaise-soaked du Puy lentils over “regular” bar food any day.

To drink, there are expertly made classic cocktails, and wines by the glass or carafe. Keller even does beer: The White Apron ($6), a crisp, pilsner-style beer, is custom-made for Keller by Russian River Brewing Co., and the dark, Belgian-style Blue Apron Ale ($24) was previously only found at Per Se.

Bouchon Bar, 235 N. Canon Dr., Beverly Hills; 310-271-9910 or bouchonbistro.com

Essex Public House
6683 Hollywood Blvd
(E. of Las Palmas)
Los Angeles, CA 90028
323-460-6608
www.essexhollywood.com

Essex is a casual gastropub laser-focused on its menu and beer list, with two distinct interior sections designed by the Kitchen 24 dude: a patio-looking entrance room w/ red-brick floor, exposed-duct ceiling, and two monstrous chalkboards w/ food and drink menus, while further inside’s

an oak-topped, wrought-iron-bottomed bar, surrounded by high-top black leather banquettes and mismatched light fixtures. Food’s from a former Asia De Cuba chef, and spans all sorts of gourmetness: “Figs in a Blanket” w/ La Quercia prosciutto & goat cheese fondue; yam gnocchi w/ smoked duck confit, pea tendrils, and hazelnut sauce; and chicken and biscuits w/ sweet English peas & natural gravy. Brew’s from the ubiquitous “Beer Chick” (The Library Bar, Father’s Office, etc), who put together a 50+ list including specialty draughts like Lost Coast Raspberry Wheat, Bruery Black Orchid, and Alesmith Nautical Nut Brown, bottles like Green Flash Le Freak Belgian IPA, Chimay Blue, and Hitachino Nest White Ale, and even hard-to-find and vintage bottles like the dense, dark Harviestoun OLA Dubh, which was aged in a whiskey barrel for at least 30 years.

Essex also has beer cocktails. Start with the Drunken Malum, with Floris Apple beer, bourbon, diced apples and a streudel-rimmed glass.

Dining in the desert is usually a crapshoot—menus are as dusty as the landscape, never wavering or changing. But with a recent spate of renovations, plus new chefs using seasonal, local and organic ingredients, things are starting to look up.

With its mod style and young, friendly staff, Cheeky’s is the locals’ new breakfast favorite. The menu changes daily at the whim of the chef, so you might find dishes like maple-sausage hash with sweet potatoes, parsnips and a perfectly poached egg ($9), and buttermilk pancakes studded with fresh corn and blueberries ($9). Get the “bacon flight” to taste all of the house-seasoned strips (cinnamon, jalapeño, maple and herbs). 622 N. Palm Canyon Dr., 760-327-7595 or cheekysps.com

For a swank lunch, sit poolside at the Riviera Resort’s Circa 59. New executive chef Bradley Manchester tosses pappardelle with roasted beets and their greens ($13); brown-butter vinaigrette adds surprising richness to shaved Brussels sprout and fennel salad ($9); and the short-rib panini with pickled onions ($14) is hearty enough for two. 1600 N. Indian Canyon Dr.; 760-327-8311 or psriviera.com

Even if you’re not staying at the sprawling La Quinta Resort, the just-opened Morgan’s (pictured) is a reason to visit. The room has rustic desert elegance, with seasonal dishes to match, like creamy roasted fennel soup with apple and bacon ($8), steaks with grilled, plump porcini mushrooms ($32), and roasted Santa Barbara spiny lobster with herb butter ($36). 49499 Eisenhower Dr., La Quinta; 760-564-4111 or laquintaresort.com

The Ace Hotel’s Amigo Room could just as easily be in Los Feliz as in Palm Springs. In addition to fresh-fruit cocktails and craft beers, the menu in the bar (and at Kings Highway, the former Denny’s across the hall) features addictive truffle popcorn ($5), vegetable potpie with a flaky crust ($8), and locally raised rib-eye steak with herb relish ($29). 701 E. Palm Canyon Dr.; 760-325-9900 or acehotel.com