Cuttlefish is very similar to squid and only gets chewy if you cook it too long. Either cook it very short at high heat or braise for longer time
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It’s like a short, fat squid. Very popular in Italy (seppia).
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Exactly. As this was seared, and a special I suspect it was left on a bit too long to get a “sear” and the chef wasn’t familiar enough with it to pull it off.
Still a really good little spot.
I forgot to mention the libations. Great wine list, but also good selections of sherry, madeira, and port. Humorous note on the menu (paraphrase) ‘port was invented by the Portuguese to sell to the English and stick it to the French’. They offered a beer with a shot of sherry which I selected. Quite good.
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Ours was the same on a recent visit. It’s more like a cuttlefish “loaf”. A deft hand could’ve also been used on the prawns as they were also overcooked and tough. Almost every dish was over-seasoned on our recent visit, including the bifana. We had a lot of dishes and many of them had a very similar paprika, garlic, parsley, flavor, profile. Sergio was in the house. Great scene and good service, though.
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More like beer (Skyduster Dry Lager) with a side shot of rotating sherry. Not to be combined. Agree. Very tasty. Also Atxa Vermouth Bianco 
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Howdy folks, apologies if this isn’t the best thread.
My family recently moved from Salt Lake, we have an incredibly adventurous two year old that eats through a boule a week. We used to get the 48hr ferment, milled in house whole grain loaf from the very excellent table-x bread.
There are plenty of older recommendations on this forum for bubs and grandmas, is there anywhere else I should be looking? We are on the westside in between WeHo and BH but am happy to drive for such a staple.
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Off of the top of my head:
Clark street bread [Bentwood might be closest] https://www.clarkstreetbakery.com/
Tartine bakery Tartine
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The best bread imho, Jyan Issac on Ocean Park. Lodge on Washington and Gjusta in Venice are worthy as well.
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Omanas (Pomona)
Ambience
Chile Verde
Adobada
“Perron” style asada
Adobada was fave. Usually my favorite there is the Chile Colorado but they were out.
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Cassell’s new spot which is Echo Park/Chinatown area, and shares a building with Bakers Bench.
1021 Alpine St
LA, CA 90012
Address included because it’s not yet on Cassell’s website. So this little communal complex has a coffee place or two, some likely hip offices. A really lovely garden with tables, and a tattoo place.
We got the Cassell’s buger, cooked medium rare; fries; and the vegan burger. (house provided ice water to drink, they do have canned beer they sell).
With a 20% tip, it was just about $50 for two - and I have to say, the food was very good. My go-to burger place is George’s in Boyle Heights. To me, it’s the best version of a fast food place. And Cassell’s is a very good version of a restaurant style burger.
Notable: the pickles tasted housemade!
Irritating: when ordering, I mentioned, if the burger came with onions, to please grill them. The employee politely told me the burger did come with onions, however it would be an extra charge to grill. Yeesh. I understand about charging extra for extra condiments, but charging to grill onions for a burger is new to me. I declined that honor.
I’d go back and try other options, and check out the onion rings.
We stopped at Baker’s Bench on the way out and picked up a twice baked croissant and a berry hand pie. Nice bang bang.
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Some topics about bread in LA:
Mandalay’s Morning Star (Covina). We liked all the dishes at this Burmese place. It’s probably the best around. Worth the drive.
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Mother Wolf early Sunday is empty. Good for us. The food is still firing on all cylinders.
Still the best fried squash blossoms. Finley Farms arugula salad with lemon, olive oil and parm. Simple but delicious. Weird shaped arugula.
Some of the best pizza. So thin crunchy and everything in perfect proportion. Had a bit of an issue with the pacing here. Took about 45 mins to get our pizzas. They must have messed up the order. Waiter said they wanted to refire the pizza bc it wasn’t to their liking. Manager came over and comped the diavola. Gave us some extra pours of wine. Service was excellent throughout the meal.
I’m not sure where we have had better pasta in LA. Saucing is great. Flavors are bright and balanced. Perfect al dente. My kids devoured the amatriciana and spaghetti arrabiata.
Was a little hungry on our way to Salt N Straw. Had a few tacos on the corner of Vine and Melrose. Great to see Mario’s Peruvian is still there. If you see a corner taco stand with 10 people standing around eating tacos it’s probably good.
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Garo’s Deli. Good for lunch in DTLA (or breakfast if you like foul and man’oushe). Pictured is a kashkaval sandwich. Kashkaval…caciovalla.
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Te Isshoku. This takeout Japanese place across from the library in DTLA has a 5.0 rating on Yelp with 70 reviews. There are many good reasons for that—ridiculously nice owners, lovely presentations, and quality food. Order ahead as it takes them a while to prepare.
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Strong Water Anaheim won a James Beard award or something and getting a lot of accolades. Tiki bar themed. It felt like we were on a Disney ride. Not a very big place with about 8-10 tables and 2 separate bars. They have 50 or so drinks on the menu. Most are rum based tropical drinks but they have a few tequila, gin, whiskey and mezcal drinks.
Excellent mixed drinks all around. The pic of my black sesame colada came out terrible but the drink was delicious. Mango sticky rice colada and a nice stiff gin drink. Would come back just for drinks. The tropical drinks were definitely not as sweet and cloying as other tiki bars.
Food is Asian influenced and much better than we expected. Highlights were the spicy chicken dumplings, loco mock burger with spam, fried egg and bone marrow gravy, salt n pepper pork chops with fried rice and the condensed milk cake with coconut cream. Kinda like a less sweet and not as saturated tres leches.
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Agree with @js76wisco.
The drinks are fantastic…and they offer a great to-go program. During the pandemic, they came in Capri Sun-like packets. We had many a fun pandemic evenings with cocktails and our own snacks.
We only thought the food to be okay. But maybe we didn’t order the right things.
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I wonder if that’s the old Cafe Pinot spot?
No. Across the street and halfway up the stairs.
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