Sunny Spot in Venice: A Ray of Sunlight Among Roy Choi's Other Duds

I was somewhat apprehensive about Sunny Spot by Roy Choi of kogi fame because I never liked those galbi tacos. There, I said it. Love the idea. Hate the execution. I much prefer my braised oxtail tacos if I may say so myself. Then there was rice bowl joint Chego, which was ok but not great. He started expanding like crazy with A-Frame, which was highly disappointing. Thankfully, Sunny Spot was a pleasant surprise.

The vibe and decor of the place immediately made me feel like I was on vacation at some warm and humid Caribbean island with crystal blue water. There was outdoor seating and an overall relaxing, welcoming and eclectic atmosphere. Can I also say I LOVE the seating policy of not having to wait for the entire party to arrive to be seated? Kudos on the customer-oriented policy that other restaurants should follow.

This was a type of restaurant whose cocktails would be interesting, since it had a pretty serious selection of rums and when I think Caribbean, I think yummy cocktail. Ok, and I had a long week. I wanted something citrusy but not too sweet and went with Field & Stream recommended by our server, which had Haitian rum, Orgeat lemon and angostura. And yes, I had to look up Orgeat and Angostura because I'm no Caribbean cocktail expert.

It wasn't a bad cocktail but I must say, I didn't love the almond undertones. I love munching on almonds but I hate the syrup version of it used in drinks or baking.

The best dish by far was the lamb stew. It pays to check out what message boards say so you find the dishes that got the most raves on average and sure enough, we scored. The slow roasted lamb was super tender, of course, and didn't smell too strongly of lamb, which is usually what turns me off to lamb that's not fresh or of great quality. The lamb was seasoned just right, salty with enough kick to warrant calling it a respectable "Jamaican lamb stew," as the menu called it. The chef added his own Korean twist by adding iceberg lettuce wraps and pickled mango on the side to make Korean-style wraps called ssam.

I'm no fan of iceberg lettuce (it's nothing but water!) but tried a few wraps and they were ok but I didn't think the combination worked so well. The lamb tasted best solo and enhanced with some full-bodied red wine.

The calamari was done Thai style, marinated in coconut milk with a passion fruit dip and topped with slivers of bright red chilis and green mint leaves. It definitely made for a pretty picture on a plate and the calamari was good but it wasn't as creative or novel as the other dishes. My favorite calamari done Asian style is at Burma Super Star in San Francisco's Clement Street. They are downright ethereal.

The next nice surprise was the modified mofongo, which is a mound of mashed plantains seasoned with garlic and spices that I first had in Miami at a Puerto Rican/Dominican joint. It was a tad dry when I had it then and this version was anything but. It didn't look like the traditional mofongo -- more like an Indian dal made of lentils and spices topped with fresh cilantro.

The flavor was on the sweeter side because of the plantains but the tiny chunks of bacon gave the dish more substance and a nice balance of savory against the sweet.

The yucca fries were piping hot, crispy and...skimpy. All of six fries to an order. They came with a so-called banana Thai basil ketchup that didn't have too much flavor.


Now let's get to the somewhat ugly. Message boards raved about the burger and being a total burger snob, I was curious yet skeptical. The verdict: downer. Some swore it was the best burger they'd ever had, which can only mean one thing -- that they've never been to Houston's. The burger that came with arugula, herb mayo and tomato jam was a flop. The bun was decent enough -- soft and fresh albeit on the dense side. But the patty? Oh, the patty. It was all the wrong texture -- not evenly ground with some areas being too chunky and others being mushier. More importantly, the flavor was nowhere to be found. The worst offense of this burger was the addition of the all-too-sweet tomato jam that overpowered everything and was the nail in the coffin. It was a more ambitious attempt than the sad, anemic burger I had at A-Frame but still, not nearly a halfway decent burger.

Tasting Kitchen: Excellent Pasta and Bread but I Don't Like Paying for Bread and Butter

Tasting Kitchen on the trendy Abbot Kinney strip in Venice was good but I couldn't help but feeling a bit ripped off for paying for bread and butter. Who does that?

Yes, the bread was fresh -- crusty and substantial enough to withstand my vigorous butter spreading -- and the butter, well, it was good although I liked the butter at Bouchon Bistro as much if not more. But charge for it? That's outrageous. That's like charging for kimchi and banchan in a Korean restaurant.

My favorite dish was the tagliarini pasta (similar to fettucini) with crab meat and serrano peppers. The dressing was a light cream sauce that was barely there, which was good because the crab was almost sweet in its freshness and deliciousness and it was complemented very well with the kick from the peppers.

I'm a sucker for all things crab, so this was a veritable treat. They thankfully didn't skimp on the crab meat, which was nice.

The second favorite was the fries. My dinner companion and I concurred that it must have been fried in duck fat several times to achieve this kind of extra crispiness. The fries were the only item that came to our table piping hot, straight out of the fryer. The only thing I wasn't crazy about was that the olive oil fragance was too overpowering. I liked the sage touch on them but after the initial euphoria over the texture, the olive oil took over everything and not in a good way.

The flat iron steak with fingerling potatoes and oyster mushrooms was just ok. Considering the caliber (and price tag) of this place, I didn't think the quality of the meat was all that. Hard to go wrong with roasted fingerling potatoes and mushrooms, which they had skimped on (like two each). They hadn't skimped on the quantity of meat but apparently had on the quality, so that's one thing it needs to improve on.

We also had radicchio salad with lemon and olives, which was far too bitter as I had somehow expected the radicchio to have been grilled or slightly cooked to get rid of the bitterness. It had shavings of parmesan cheese but I only had a bite, which I didn't enjoy.

Dessert was a tad disappointing. We were full so got the sorbet and gelato three-scoops combo. We had the coffee and chocolate gelato and lemon sorbet but none was any good. Again, I expected to be blown away like at Gordon Ramsay (not documented in this post but went back recently) when I got the plum sorbet. Now that was amazing and tasted like I was biting into the fruit itself.

I had several other beefs with this place, good-tasting as it was.

All but the fries came out lukewarm, which didn't affect the pasta's taste so much but the steak, oh the steak. Steak's gotta be sizzling hot on the outside, right? It wasn't.

And last but not least, what's with the uber rushed service? I liked the attentive water service, but the rush to get us out was ridiculous. This isn't Fatburger, y'all. This is one thing American restaurants need to learn from their European and Asian peers. Do not clear the table unless the last morsel on the plate is gone. Do not come by five times to check whether we have paid our bill. Do not bring the bill unless we ask for it, for that matter. This is such a basic notion that I'm flabbergasted at how rude some servers at these supposedly fancy restaurants are in bringing it to you. Special occasion meals last for hours and that's why we're here. Get used to it! This isn't some go in, eat and go out-kind of place.

Also, our server was ok but not as good as the down to earth, Danny Meyer-esque trained folks at Jose Andres restaurants. Don't just hire beautiful people. Hire servers who can talk intelligently about the menu and prompts one to want to get that and return for more. Ours didn't.

Gjelina: Very Good Pork Belly, Margherita Pizza and Mushroom Toast (Read on to find out what this is)

After many failed attempts at nabbing a table at Gjelina, my friend and I finally made it to this prized local gem. We're both big eaters wanting to try everything on the menu, so when it came time to order, we weren't shy. That is to say, we grossly over-ordered. "We could always take the leftovers home," we reasoned.

We duly researched what the most raved about dishes were on Yelp and adjusted to our own preferences. The verdict is that it is very good, even excellent, but a lot of the dishes were very salty, service by the model-lookalike wait staff was spotty and the noise level made us feel like we were in a stadium watching the World Cup's final match.



Still, the quality of the food was superb and I would return in a second, given, of course, I can get a table (They're not on Opentable, which makes it cumbersome to actually dial the number on your phone and talk to a human being).

The highlights were: Miatake mushroom toast with creme fraiche and truffle oil (which was the #1 raved-about dish online and didn't' disappoint); a refreshing kale salad (more details later); the Margherita pizza (almost as good as Mozza); grilled radicchio; and the braised (oh so soft) pork belly.

In retrospect, the only dishes that weren't as memorable were the variation on lasagna with beef cheeks and the dessert -- a black berry and chocolate bread pudding.

Let's go back to the dishes that were worth the trip. The mushroom toast was like a fancier and decidedly more scrumptious cousin to the lowly cream of mushroom. Ok, that may be offending the dish and the chef but I can't help it if that's my only reference. The point is, it was velvety and creamy with very strong mushroom aromas and flavors. To borrow the now-cliched phrase, it was decadently good.

I liked the kale salad (second image up top) that came with shavings of mild ricotta salata, shaved fennel, radish, lemon and bread crumbs that gave it a crunchiness along with the crunchy texture of the raw kale ribbons themselves. I'm always up for new and interesting ways of eating superfoods like kale, so this was a nice take. I've only stir fried kale with some olive oil and garlic but this one seems like a winner for the summer.



I also liked the Margherita pizza, which had an ultra-thin crust that was chewy with nicely charred edges that gave it a nice crunchiness. The tomato sauce, mozzarella and fresh basil were very good. Like someone yelped, possibly my second favorite pizza in LA after Mozza.

The pork belly. It's hard to go wrong when you have a whole layer of fat that by default is going to impart a ton of flavor and juiciness. Braise the baby for hours and you're likely to have a winner. Ok, the flavor of the pork was also pretty good. This was clearly no cheap pig (hailed from Niman Ranch). The glistening pork from the caramelization came on top of a bed of polenta, bitter greens and apple cider that gave it a tartness and sweetness at the same time.

Another vegetable I don't cook much with is radicchio. I'm not a fan of the raw version, but when grilled, it takes on a whole new identity -- the bitterness becomes subdued with the smokiness from the grill. In short, wonderful.

We chose a few healthier dishes to balance out the heavy meats and stuff with creamy goodness like the mushroom toasts. Oh, did I mention that the bread used for the toast was excellent? It was like a French peasant bread of sorts that held up nicely to all that topping.

The issue with the beef cheek lasagna variation was that it had a slight unpleasant smell from the meat (maybe cheeks have a distinct smell that I wasn't aware of, perhaps like liver or tongue?). In any case, it distracted from the main flavors and while ok, I wouldn't get it again. It did, however, fare better when I repurposed it at home with a runny fried egg for breakfast. Yes, that's my go-to breakfast makeover strategy and it works most of the time. This one tasted decent and I'd venture to say even better than the original, if I may say so.

The dessert sounded promising -- black berry and chocolate bread pudding but truth be told, I think one of the reasons we couldn't fully appreciate it was that we were stuffed, even after having packed a lot of food to go. Then again, the bread pudding wasn't anything special either. At least not nearly as revelatory as the one at Tartine in San Francisco anyway.

I'd definitely like to return and try some other dishes. This place has a very extensive menu. Wasn't crazy about its by-the-glass wine selection but wish it offered BYOB. The outdoor patio was also very nice. It wasn't cold with some heat lamps and I'd imagine it's only going to get better with warmer weather.