Chef Laurent Quenioux's Spring Menu at Vertical Wine Bistro (Pasadena)

Vertical Wine Bistro in Old Town Pasadena has seen many personnel changes in the past two years and now Chef Laurent Quenioux (formerly of Bistro LQ) seems to be settling in as the kitchen's helm.

He may be pushing the envelope at his LQ @ SK dinners (including a weed "herb" dinner) but he returns to simplicity here in old town Pasadena. A recent tasting of their new spring menu showcases Chef Quenioux's love of great produce.

We started with a salad of watercress, endive, valdeon cheese, hazelnuts, and pear.

Normally endives are a little too bitter for my taste, but surprisingly these were sweeter. The crispness is balanced out by the valdeon cheese (which I also loved by itself).


This is Vertical Wine Bistro after all, so all our courses were paired with wines. The endive salad was paired with Domaine Fouassier Sancerre Les Chailloux, Loire, France - chosen for its acidity.

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Pitfire Pizza Opens in West Hollywood

Pitfire Pizza recently opened its West Hollywood outpost a block away from Fairfax and Melrose. Despite having a great meat shop (*cough* Lindy and Grundy), there wasn't much by way of restaurants in that immediate area. I had only been to the downtown and Westwood locations and the WeHo space is definitely much bigger, with a bar (with various craft beers on tap) and a patio dining area - and a pink Foosball table! Oh yeah.

Pitfire Pizza is very proud of their interior design: the Barbara Bestor-designed Culver City location won an AIA design award last year. This time they brought in Ana Henton and they particularly loved the way the elevated kitchen worked out. This location was actually two separate spaces and they worked out one of the elevated one into the whole design. You can easily see the kitchen staff working this way.

The food menu is the same as the other locations.
On a chilly night, start with some hand-crafted chicken meatballs ($6)

One of our favorite dishes was actually the Farmers Market Roasted Vegetables ($9.95). The winter platter featured roasted sunchokes, brussel sprouts, braised chickpeas with chard and harissa, roasted rainbow carrots with chili honey and rosemary

Possible the sweetest carrots I've had in a while, sunchokes that almost seem like potatoes, and great brussel sprouts.

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Pre-Theatre Prix Fixe at Boulud Sud (New York, NY)

Early in the evening, Daniel Boulud's new Mediterranean restaurant, Boulud Sud, has a pre-theatre prix fixe menu, three courses for $55. Since I was going to see War Horse and the restaurant was just a stone's throw away from the Lincoln Center, I thought it would be a perfect time to check it out.

The restaurant was pretty full when we got there, but it was still quiet enough to hold a conversation.

The "bread", of course, was Mediterranean. 

For my first course, I ordered the Octopus a la plancha with marcona almonds, arugula, Jerez vinegar

I liked how the subtle accompaniments showcase the flavors of the octopus itself, which also had a great texture.

My companion ordered the House made lamb kibbeh, swiss chard, feta, pine nuts

It was not what he expected, apparently. It was good but I thought it was a little dry and we both preferred the octopus.

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