Rosaline Restaurant Review

Gold Dig #65 Rosaline is the only Peruvian restaurant on Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list at the time of this writing. Located in the prime eating area of West Hollywood, the front room has a bar and somewhat of an open kitchen where you can watch the magic happen. The back room is a…

Aburiya Raku Restaurant Review

Gold Dig #64 Aburiya Raku is a West Hollywood branch of the much-talked-about Japanese izakaya restaurant of the same name in Las Vegas. The cozy spot apparently has a very different feel from the Las Vegas original, but the food is just as good and it makes Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list. Aburiya Raku…

Connie and Ted’s Restaurant Review

Gold Dig #63 Connie and Ted’s is the big place with the swooping ceiling on a main stretch of West Hollywood that on Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list, he calls a “clam shack”. Inside is an open kitchen and a bar. Outside is a fantastic patio, which unfortunately looks out onto the parking lot…

Drago Centro Restaurant Review

Gold Dig #61 Drago Centro is an Italian restaurant located downtown in City National Plaza. On Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list, he calls it one of “the most commanding restaurants downtown”. The large, glassed-in dining room has a high arched ceiling, an impressive tower of wines behind the bar, and a great view of…

Lemon Posset

This is a creamy lemon dessert that feels in the genre of panna cottas and mousses, only without all the fuss in the making. With just 3 ingredients and 3 simple steps, a magical food science thing happens where the dessert thickens into silky goodness without having to mess with any of the typical thickening…

3.14 Pi(e) Day II

March 14 was almost upon us, and since last year’s Pi(e) Day party was such a raging success, I decided to rally the troops for another celebration of my favorite food. My fellow pie fanatics answered the call, helping me to celebrate what is fast becoming my favorite holiday of the year. Rules were the…

Vietnamese Iced Coffee Pie

It’s that time of year again… March 14… in other words, my favorite holiday – Pi(e) Day!! My Pi(e) Day party has now become an annual event, which I’m delighted that people are excited to celebrate with me no matter what random day of the week 3.14 might fall on. Since I require everyone to…

Sunday Supper II

Fall has come round again, so it seemed like the perfect time for another Sunday Supper of heartwarming food with friends. It brings me so much joy to have a community of friends who enjoy cooking and eating together as much as I do. We started with apples dipped in caramel sauce. The apples were…

Pineapple Trifle

Traditionally a trifle is made up of a fancy cream custard, sponge cake or lady fingers, and fruit compote. This is my poor man’s version of a trifle – much easier to whip up with no cooking involved and using ingredients you could easily have around. But the result is a fancy-looking dessert that you…

Tahini Cookies

Cookbook Club – Jerusalem For October’s Cookbook Club, we used Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. I made the Tahini Cookies. You can see our explorations of all the colorful cuisine of their hometown on my Cookbook Club site. For now – my dish! I recently heard an interview with Yotam Ottolenghi where he…

Mini Cherry Cheesecakes

Do you remember when it was your birthday and your mom would send you to elementary school with cupcakes for everybody in the class? Well, my mom would make these awesome mini cherry cheesecakes, which made my birthday the most looked-forward-to of the whole school year. These are easy to make, but look fancy, taste…

Ahhh Comfort Food

My friend Heather threw a comfort food dinner party, which meant lots of dips and spreads, mac n cheese, grilled meats, and s’mores… it generally involved a lot of eating with your hands. And eventually progressed to sipping wine by her amazing fire pit. Sign me up! Dips and Spreads We started with an array…