Jonathan Gold

Hmmm, well at least he writes quite a bit so most might have overlooked this.

El Coyote Many restaurants resemble this place — from the cheap margaritas, to the “Mexican pizza” available in the ever-crowded bar, to the walls decorated with broken mirrors, to the wire-mesh-enclosed patio with its plastic smog-dusted foliage and visiting local sparrows, to the guacamole dinners, to the ersatz tostadas — but I could pick an El Coyote combination plate blindfolded out of 100 others, and most of the regulars could, too. 7312 Beverly Blvd., L.A., (323) 939-2255. Lunch and dinner Sun.–Thurs. 11 a.m.–10 p.m., Fri.–Sat. 11 a.m.–11 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. Dinner for two, food only, $18–$25. MC, V. Mexican. JG $

I would like to point out that even though there are lots of places that offer up sloppy "mexican" food that really is just lard and some spices, that El Coyote is the worst mexican food (if not the worst food) in all of Los angeles. Anyway, this is the first time that I can remember having a strong disagreement with anything Mr. Gold has written.

catching up with....violets

Again, I'm late to the party but the girls at violet sure know how to bake cakes and cupcakes and probably other baked goods but I only ever see cupcakes and cakes there.
Always seems to be a line which obviously is a good sign when they primarily only sell cupcakes at retails. Among the favorites are some sort of tahitian thing, strawberry short cake, the chocolate with cream cheese frosting. The one dislike was the french toast cupcake. Menu varies by season which is nice. Who am i kidding? I also liked the chocolate bomb thing, the cherry pie, the carrot cake and even the plain vanilla. Pistachio was also a bit disappointing. Why have we eaten so many cupcakes? We've ordered our custom made wedding cake from them.

Notice the sweet DOF (or lack thereof)? Just trying to up the photography caliber on the site.

The owner's name is Denise, but we are always greeted by the friendly and hard working jenna.

21 E Holly St
Pasadena, CA
91103

Phone: (626) 395-9821

750ml follow up.

Michelle, being as bored as she is, sent me an interesting post from chowhound.

chowhound 750ml thread

I would say this place should be shut down. Hopefully it will go out of business on it's own.

750 ml sucks my will to live

this is really just taken from a comment I left at another cool blog.
http://weblogs.variety.com/theknife/
check it out.


750ml was one of the WORST dining experiences I have had in several years.I eat out quite a bit. probably too much. but this meal was all wrong. 4 of us ate, but I think we shared dinner for 1. Dinner for 1 being 4 entrees and 4 apps. or should i say 8 small apps.
The wait staff appeared to be stoned out of their heads. The waitress kept apologizing for things taking so long because it was so hectic. There was 10 people in the restaurant. 4 were us, 2 were the waiter/waitress and 2 were the chefs. What does that leave? maybe 2 other people?
The breadstick thing was pretty lame considering how slow the service was. is bread expensive these days? i'm not sure and i guess I'm getting old because I remember when it was free.
The rib eye steak was the thinnest steak I have seen served other than skeak-ums or minute steak. fatty. not the good marbled kind of fatty, but the big gnarly piece of fat hanging around for no reason. fries were limp, oily and bland.

i would have loved to try the cheese that came with one of our salads but the piece was so small that it was only able to be cut into thirds.

even the tap water was really bad. not the usual snotty LA, must drink bottled sort of way. but the damn, what the hell are they doing kind of way.

750ml. 0ml good.
no photography necessary. just stay away. far away.

pinkberry. cantaloop.

So there was some hullabaloo in the Times about whether or not pinkberry is real yogurt. Well, I'll wait to see what the FDA decides, until then cantaloop is my choice for delicious frozen yogurt. All natural, is one thing i guess, you can probably tell I don't really care about that. Their pomegranate yogurt is better than plain or green tea at pinkberry.

Anyway, it's on the corner of La brea and hollywood. The staff is much friendlier than the snobs at pinkberry too.

More burrata info

My good friend michelle, who apparently is as bored as me, gave me this link from the LA times to further our discussion about burrata.

la times burrata article
free registration required.

They have some pictures and stuff. good reading. better eating.

An apple.

Hey, look at this apple i cut.
We were at Sears buying a bar-b-q for a friend's bar-b-q. Somehow (me) we were suckered into a 10 minute sales presentation for the all new and improved ginsu knife company. they had this stupid plastic knife that can cut diagonally into apples and stuff. anyway, they gave us a free orange juicer plastic thing. that is strangely available in amusement parks and gourmet stores.
i cut the apple with a regular knife. i'm crazy like that.

here's the action at sears.

Burrata. defined.

Gotta love this wikipedia deal.
read up on the burrata. for some reason even people that work at some restaurants don't know what it is.


Wiki article

obligatory pizza mozza post

What would a LA food blog be without a post on pizza mozza. Sure, its a month or 2 behind the 200 other Mozza postings, but cmon, I'm getting back up to speed in the blogging game.


We had a difficult time getting reservations for 6 people. That of course is to be expected. With all of the hype and celebrity star-power of this place, I can understand that. What I have a harder time understanding is the rudeness and nastiness from the various people we spoke with on the phone while trying to get these reservations. Anyway, enough of that. The food really is quite delicious and overall, I am very happy to have this pizza place in the city. I think we need a pizza battle sometime soon.


sausage and fennel or was it fennel sausage. pretty taste but a tad on the conventional side for a restaurant like this.


fried stuffed squash blossoms. freshly fried and served hot. unlike some places that let dishes like this sit around and get less fried and less delicious.

i think this one was the winner. giancale (pig's cheek bacon) spelling??
egg and asparagus. really really good.

duck confit. this is not a pizza. pizza mozza offers one special dish per night. this was really good. served on a bed of lentil.

burrata and roasted tomatoes. a pretty interesting twist. very tasty burrata. and the tomatoes were really good too.

first new post in 2 years.

Well, one of the most recent fun food things I've participated in was a brief yet fierce gelato battle. We have these friends (who shall remain nameless for the time being) who swear hollywood gelato is better than pazzo's gelato. In the end, it was a tie.
Vanilla vs Vanilla went to pazzo.
Dulce de leche vs almond/chocolate went to hollywood.

it was a close decision and i'm sure we'll have another battle soon

where have i been all this time...

good question. hopefully i'll post on my blog again soon.