Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Exploring the local goods

John and I have been exploring our hood lately. We fell into a rut where we would only go to the same three restaurants and order the same three things over and over. This is really a shame considering there are a million places to go within walking distance. Our top picks include the following....

http://www.orrisrestaurant.com/
Orris is a tapas joint on Sawtell that is kinda French and Asian fusion/kinda "How the heck did they come up with this?" For example one of the dishes was grilled romaine lettuce with shaved parmesan on top. Strange sounding but really good! We went there with Irene, Dave and Dave's brother the other night. I love tapas because I always want one bite of everything on the menu. Plus tapas is fun to have with a group of people.

http://www.qusqo.com/
http://www.yelp.com/biz/qusco-gallery-and-bistro-los-angeles
I think I was drawn to this place because I misread it as Queso which is cheese in Spanish LOL! After reading the blurb on the front of their menu "Qusqo" is a kind of language spoken by the descendants of the Incas in Peru. We quickly found that this restaurant leans towards rustic Peruvian dishes. They also attempt to be an art gallery but what they lack in artistic taste they make up for in their food. After eating so much Mexican food it was nice to have a different spin on Latin grub. For instance I had a tamale appetizer that instead of carnitas or cheese was filled with roasted peppers and hearts of palm. Good stuff. We also enjoyed the oldschool pre-Snow White Disney cartoons they projected on the wall. Be warned though, the lemonade is not free for refills, we won't be making that mistake again.

This is a dumb one but ....
http://www.yogurt-land.com/
I have been having serious cravings. If my dress fits tight I have this place to blame. I can't help it. They are 3 blocks away and open till 12:00am on weeknights and 1:00am on weekends. I don't understand why everyone has to sample every single flavor though. It takes us 20 times longer than it should to get through the line. But its worth it :)

One place we tried that didn't quite make the cut was ...
http://www.sawtellekitchen.com/
It was ok and actually at the time it was part of a perfect evening for us but the blend of Japanese and Italian was a little disjointed. We like being able to sit outside on a summer night though.

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