Memorial Day weekend. A day to celebrate and remember. The unofficial start of summer. And a time to have a poolside BBQ where you can see the varying degrees to which your friends react to the late-May LA sun. I’m personally sporting a gnarly racerback tank tan on my back. I will be spending my summer Fridays trying to even it out.
Tag Archives: bruschetta
Pizzeria Mozza
When someone doesn’t want their reservation to Pizzeria Mozza, there’s probably a few folks out there who’d love to take it. And that’s what cousin Chrissy and I did last week. A pizza opportunity (pizzatunity?) came a knockin, and we were more than willing to answer.
Pizzeria Mozza shares the same corner of Highland and Melrose with its fancier sister restaurant, Osteria Mozza. The reservation situation is the same (it’s the same unending phone queue for both restaurants), but it’s a small price to pay to eat at two of my favorite places.
Bottega Louie in DTLA
Bottega Louie has a very “New Yorky” feel, despite it being located in the heart of downtown. Serving macarons at the corner of 7th and Grand, the restaurant takes up the bottom floor of this gorgeous architectural beauty.
It’s a self-proclaimed restaurant and gourmet market, but from both times I’ve been there I find that the Bottega’s lacking in the latter. The restaurant and patisserie is where all of the vitality is. While the selection in the “gourmet market” is on the slim side, I was ecstatic to see that they were selling Intelligentsia coffee beans. I obviously went home with a bag 
Chicago the Musical: The Closest I’ve Been to the Midwest
A friend and I caught a matinee showing of Chicago playing at the Pantages Theater, and of course lunch was involved! We decided on a small Italian restaurant a block south of the theater called Fabiolus. The restaurant is cozy, with every inch of wall space covered with any given Italian-themed poster.
To start, we had the bruschetta di pomodoro. The bread was drizzled with olive oil, topped with chopped tomatoes, basil and creamy fresh mozzarella:
These guys don’t just throw some bread on your table to tide you over. There is a small bowl of this mouth-watering olive pesto tapenade to spread on the bread:
Since the portions are ginormous, we split a pasta dish–fusilli alla ricotta with eggplant and toasted walnuts in this amazing cream sauce that isn’t too thick or too thin (I usually don’t like cream sauces, and I enjoyed this particular one):
We were far too stuffed to have dessert (unfortunately! They had some fantastic sounding options), so we headed for the theater. The show was dazzling, even from the cheap seats in the back (literally. The very. last. row.) I always love walking into the Pantages…it’s one of my favorite theaters out here. It’s a stunning historic art deco theater that had a serious overhaul back in 2000 (I think…).
Here is the lobby:
And us after the show:
Not too shabby for a beautiful spring afternoon in LA:)