The Best Dishes Eater Editors Ate This Week: June 23
The editors at Eater LA dine out several times a week, if not per day, which means we're always encountering standout dishes that deserve time in the limelight. Here's the very best of everything the team has eaten this week.
Beachside snacking usually conjures memories of hot dogs slathered with ketchup and a dusting of sand, or a tart lemonade and a corndog from Hot Dog on a Stick. However, on a recent trip to the beach, I stopped by one of Perry's Cafe's outposts, a mini-chain with locations spanning the Santa Monica coastline. After a few hours in the sun, I wanted something a little more filling than the usual basket of fries, and took a chance on the California Beach Bowl with mahi mahi. My choice was quickly affirmed when the bowl came out piled with Mexican rice, black beans, pico de gallo, guacamole, and two strips of grilled fish. The bowl far exceeded my expectations: the fish was well-cooked and the seasoning was well-balanced throughout. Plus, Perry's Cafe also serves beer, margaritas, and more drinks that can be sipped in one of the restaurant's lounge chairs. 930 CA-1, Santa Monica, CA 90403. — Rebecca Roland, editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest
Cento Raw Bar almost defies description. The restaurant's interior looks like the inside of a mermaid's cave come to life: the plaster-adorned walls have a wavy, scalloped molding that offers a 3-D effect; creamy oval sconces give the light of an anglerfish; a patch of fluorescent blue-and-green floor tiling evokes bioluminescence; teeny, spiny white chairs have a conch-like spiral on their backs. The food menu, though small, is no less fantastical—lush, buttery raw bar preparations come on pastel plates with Polly Pocket-sized cutlery. Not to be missed, of course, is the seafood tower, propped on a modular green glass serving stand with oysters on the half shell, uni, Peruvian scallops, crab legs, and fatty lobster claws. Less obvious as an order is the tuna crudo, which Cento makes stand out from others in the sea of endless tuna crudo in Los Angeles by piling the tender sliced fish with gazpacho grated tomatoes and perilla leaves. This isn't a neighborhood restaurant, more than it is an art installation. Come ready to be engaged through all senses. 4919 W. Adams Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90016. — Nicole Adlman, Eater cities manager
As a lover of savory and salty foods, I typically refrain from sweets. I find most uncomfortably sugary, especially confectionary coffee drinks. However, Southern California continues to open fantastic bakeries that are dialing back refined sugars and letting the other ingredients shine. Case in point, San & Wolves Bakeshop in Long Beach. It's a neighborhood stop on Fourth Street slightly east of Redondo Avenue in a compact room with a few seats out front. Staff will help guide you through the display case, which is filled with Filipino-flavored and plant-based treats, including ube pan de coco, cornbread bibingkas, and ube malasadas —a raised yeast doughnut filled with ube jam, prepared as a weekend specialty item. I fell in love with the black sesame bun, which looks very much like a traditional cinnamon roll, but with owner Kym Estrada's black sesame paste. San & Wolves specializes in executing baked goods with excellent consistency. You'll never know that anything on the premises is made without butter or milk. After securing an order (get at least four goodies) from this charming space, along with a cup of coffee and this standout of a roll, you're off to a solid start or break on any given day. 3900 E. 4th Street, Long Beach, CA, 90814 — Mona Holmes, editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest
Raphael Lunetta's tenure at Marelle has been mostly under the radar, a sleek but toned-down restaurant along Santa Monica's busy Ocean Avenue. With distant views of the beach, the Sandbourne hotel restaurant eases into weekends with a sprawling indoor-outdoor space. Long white curtains sway, and a DJ pulses out tunes as the sun sets, a fine place to tuck into Lunetta's unabashedly California cooking. The menu oozes with seasonal produce at its prime, like a stone fruit salad with arugula, endive, and ricotta salat or a leg of charred Spanish octopus laced in a savory chorizo veloute and dragon's beard greens. The lamb loin comes right out of the Jiraffe playbook, Lunetta's long-closed Santa Monica restaurant, which served a pan-roasted lamb loin with vegetable lasagna and yellowfin potato samosas in the mid-'90s. Now Lunetta serves the tender loin strips, cooked to a wonderfully juicy medium rare, with a refined ratatouille, plump spring peas, and slender roasted carrots. The dish itself felt marvelously out of season, like an early spring entree that somehow made it to the end of June because of our state's long growing season. The Pacific Coast doesn't quite conjure the south of France like this dish does, but I appreciate the juxtaposition. An ocean view adds the best kind of synergetic seasoning. 1740 Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90401. — Matthew Kang, lead editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest See More:
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