Bäco Mercat, the new downtown Los Angeles restaurant from Chef Josef Centeno (of Lazy Ox Canteen fame) centered around his flatbread sandwich/pizza/taco creation, is a restaurant years in the making. Centeno first introduced the hybrid bäco as a staff meal at Meson G in Hollywood, where he was executive chef, and later put it on the lunch menu at Lot 1 in Echo Park. It occasionally shows up at Lazy Ox, too. Now the bäco has a home of its own, and it’s settling in nicely.

A good place to start on this menu is with The Original bäco made with pork, beef carnitas and salbitxada, a zesty tomato sauce made with almonds, serrano chile and garlic. The cocas, or pizzas made with thinner bäco flatbread, are also a good bet, and The Tomato & Cheese with smoked tomato, jalapeno and basil is a nice one.

The Original baco

The Tomato & Cheese coca

Don’t over look the small plates, though. The Caesar Brussels Sprouts, which are shaved and tossed with pecorino, anchovy and garlic, and the Crispy Head-On Shrimp with cubeb pepper and side of pickled cauliflower are delicious and addictive. The braised beef raviolo topped with pesto and egg is a revelation; unfortunately, it’s not always on the dinner menu. I hear the bazole is also good, but I didn’t try it on this recent visit.

Caesar Brussels Sprouts

Crispy Head-On Shrimp

Braised beef raviolo

As for dessert, make sure to try the Almond Cheesecake Pudding served with lemon curd and chocolate crumb. Skip the Banana Cream Cannoli, which just isn’t that tasty.

Almond Cheesecake Pudding

The drinks here are interesting, but I’m not entirely sold on them yet. You pick a spirit and a house-made sweet and sour soda from a list of seasonal flavors. I had a bourbon with a persimmon soda, which was fine but not extraordinary. There is also a rotating list of drink specials, too.

Drinks, bourbon and persimmon soda in back

Another thing to note: One of my dining companions commented that Centeno favors pickled onions, and lo and behold, most of our dishes contained pickled onions. Not that they’re bad, but what’s the deal?

Gonpachi's courtyard

Restaurant Row on La Cienega Boulevard has been long known for its large, overly expensive eateries — Lawry’s The Prime Rib, Benihana, Woo Lae Oak, The Stinking Rose. But the Row’s Gonpachi Beverly Hills, though large, is one of the best values on that strip with its incredibly fresh-tasting sushi-grade fish and satisfying hot dishes, including robata.

I was recently invited to dinner at Gonpachi to try out its new menu. I hadn’t been to the restaurant for years, and only for happy hour, so I was excited to go back. The courtyard is lush with foliage and a koi pond, and the interior is reminiscent of the film Kill Bill (which was filmed at the Tokyo location of Gonpachi). All this really sets the scene for the fine meals served here.

Gonpachi Beverly Hills

I took Rory along as my dining companion (naturally), and we started our meal with the garlic soy edamame, which was a tasty twist on the usual edamame appetizer.

Garlic soy edamame at Gonpachi

One of my favorite dishes of the night was the Smoky Yellowtail Jalapeno crudo, which came with a dome of apple wood smoke over the yellowtail sashimi, avocado, jalapeno and citrus soy vinaigrette. A little flashy, yes, but oh-so tasty. The dish was creamy, spicy, smoky and citrusy — a great combination.

Smoky Yellowtail Jalapeno

Smoky Yellowtail Jalapeno

From the robata menu, we tried a bunch of items. I liked the scallops in soy butter, though it was rich! The presentation was nice, too.

Scallops in soy butter

My favorite robata item was the kakuni skewer made with braised Niman Ranch pork belly and karashi. The pork belly literally melted in my mouth — I was in heaven! The tsukune ground chicken skewer also had nice flavor, but the poached egg it came with was strange to me because it was cold. The negima crispy chicken skewer and the Brussels sprouts skewer weren’t stand outs.

(From left to right) tsukune, negima, kakuni and Brussels sprouts

The sushi roll we had, the Geisha made with a spicy tuna roll topped with assorted fish and avocado, was also a good choice. The fish was nice and fresh, though there was a lot of mayonnaise-based sauce going on.

Geisha roll

For dessert, we had the Pumpkin Zensai with sweet azuki beans, mochi balls and vanilla ice cream in a pumpkin soup topped with almonds. I liked this a lot because it was creamy but not too sweet, and I always like those red azuki beans and mochi.

Pumpkin Zenzai

All in all, Gonpachi offers great value — quality food in a pretty setting. Prices are moderate, especially for the type of cuisine. The most expensive item on the menu is the chef’s sushi omakase at $70, but most items fall under the $20 mark. It’s the best deal on the block.

Note: This meal was hosted.

Eggplant caviar and smoked trout rillettes

Culver City just got a little cooler: Chef Benjamin Bailly, formerly of Petrossian in West Hollywood, has taken over the helm at Fraiche. And he has revamped the menu to blend French (he’s from France, natch) and Italian influences. Perhaps the best part, at least for me, is the reasonable prices for the high quality food: nothing is priced more than $28 on the dinner menu, with most items coming in under $20.

I recently had the pleasure of experiencing the dinner menu myself — along with Caroline of Caroline on Crack — at the invitation of Chef Bailly. Herewith, some of my favorites.

We started with a couple of the potted items under the Share section of the menu. I really liked the smoked trout rillette with lemon, chives and creme fraiche. It was creamy and packed full of flavor. The eggplant caviar (really just the seeds of the eggplant) topped with golden raisins and marcona almonds was also a winner — and pretty.

Eggplant caviar topped with raisins and marcona almonds

The brussels sprouts salad had lots of sweet and savory flavors with its mixture of chorizo, dates, almonds, manchego cheese and piquillo pepper vinaigrette. I loved the juxtaposition of the spicy chorizo against the sweet dates, and I’m a huge fan of brussels sprouts in general, so this salad was perfect for me.

Brussels sprout salad

And speaking of perfection, the mushroom agnolotti topped with more wild mushrooms, mascapone cheese and truffle butter was amazing. AMAZING. I could have lapped up that sauce all on its own. This is a must-order dish. I hear Chef Bailly also makes a truffle burger, which I will definitely go back for.

Mushroom agnolotti

From the entree menu, we had this crispy loup de mer served on a bed of sunchoke soubise (a béchamel-based sauce normally containing strained or puréed onions), wild mushrooms, crosnes (small crispy tubers in the mint family), salsifi (the root of a flowering plant) and bordelaise sauce. As you can probably tell, this dish was full of uncommon ingredients that required a bit of Googling. But while I was eating it, I didn’t feel like it was so exotic; rather, all the items came together nicely, from the perfectly cooked fish to the strange-but-tasty crosnes (the little white things underneath the fish that either look like seashells or larvae, depending on your point of view).

Crispy loup de mer

For dessert, I enjoyed the pistachio crème brûlée served with apricot sorbet and rosemary cookie crumbles (and a cool sugar design). I’m a sucker for anything pistachio, and I had never seen it served as a crème brûlée, so this was a treat.

Pistachio crème brûlée with apricot sorbet and rosemary crumble

Pistachio crème brûlée

We were also served a slew of cocktails by mixologist Kiowa Bryan, and my favorite was The Big Lebowski, a deconstructed white Russian. Most of the other drinks she graciously presented to us had just too much going on for my taste.

The Big Lebowski deconstructed White Russian

All in all, I would recommend the new menu at Fraiche for your next trip to Culver City. Thanks again to Chef Bailly for making this happen!

Note: This meal was hosted.

The L.A. mini chain Pitfire Pizza is about to get just a bit bigger with a new location in Culver City, and even though it’s not officially open for business yet (official word has it opening in about a week), the food is already pretty solid. I guess that’s easier to do when you’ve had some practice at your North Hollywood, downtown and West Los Angeles locations. But the Culver City location has a new kind of pizza oven, so there!

Really, the pizza, especially the crust, is very good. I normally don’t eat pizza crusts, but the crust on these pizzas was so good that I had to force myself to not eat them lest I was not able to control myself. It’s perfectly light and chewy, with just the right amount of bite. As for toppings, stick with the pizzas that come with tomato sauce. The burrata, magherita and pepperoni pies are good. I wasn’t as impressed with the field mushroom pizza, made with fontina cheese and creme fraiche, because it didn’t have as much flavor without the tomato sauce, which is also spicy.

Burrata pie, topped with arugula

Magherita pizza

Field mushroom pizza

But Pitfire isn’t all about pizza. Before this visit, I had been to the downtown location a couple of times and had pasta both times. While we didn’t sample pasta this time (the pasta is good, by the way), we did have some starters. I loved the roasted vegetables, especially the brussels sprouts and the cauliflower, which was dusted in breadcrumbs. I could easily eat a plate of these vegetables as my whole meal. The chicken salad, with roasted chicken, arugula, butter lettuce, croutons, scallions, toasted pine nuts and pickled currants.

Roasted vegetables

Chicken salad

The cucumber mint lemonade was a standout, and the jumbo chocolate chip cookie is one of the best I’ve ever had. The chocolate is layered, so you get the maximum amount of chocolate in every bite. It reminds me of the cookies at Grey Dog’s Coffee in New York.

Cucumber mint lemonade

Chocolate chip cookie

A note about the new location: Though it’s technically in Culver City, it’s not in the downtown Culver City area. It’s west of the 405 freeway. Be prepared.

We started off with four cocktails, of all which were too sweet for my taste, though the vanilla mango mojito wasn’t so bad. But you don’t go to a place like Morels for the cocktails; you go for the food and the wine, which I don’t know much about though I understand the restaurant has an impressive selection. We had wine pairings with all of our courses, but I can’t knowledgeably talk about them, so I won’t. Onward.

Vanilla mango mojito (left), gala apple martini (right)

Nectar margarita (left), something with raspberry that I didn't write down (right)

We sat down to start our meal with a cheese and charcuterie plate, which was so tasty and satisfying that I could have made it my entire meal. My favorite cheese on the plate was the petit basque sheep’s milk cheese, which was soft and reminded me of brie. I would have eaten the whole plate, which was piled high with all kinds of goodies, if I didn’t know to save room for the next three courses.

We then moved on to a Caesar salad made table side, complete with made-to-order dressing. You want more garlic or anchovy? No problem. I liked how it turned out the first time, though, so that’s what we went with. It was tasty, though it was just a basic Caesar without any kind of protein.

Next up was the steak tasting with filet, New York and rib eye varieties. There were also four kinds of salt you can use to accompany your meat, something I’ve never seen before. I’m not a big red meat person, but if I had to choose, my favorite combination would be the filet with the smoked salt. Use the salts sparingly, though. It’s easy to go overboard.

Filet (left), New York (center), rib eye (right)

Salts

Here’s my favorite part of the meal: the root vegetables that were served with our steak. Or, more precisely, the brussels sprouts that were part of the root vegetable side. These are by far the best brussels sprouts I have had yet. I hear the ones at Village Idiot are amazing, but I haven’t tried those. So Morels brussels sprouts are my amazing brussels sprouts. Served with pancetta, which is similar to bacon, these were perfectly cooked — tender on the inside and crispy on the outside — and had so much flavor that I was literally eating them off other people’s plates. The parsnips were good, too, but mostly because I don’t think I’ve ever had them before. They were new to me!

The lovely brussels sprouts in the center

Last on the menu were the desserts: a strawberry rhubarb cobbler and a pumpkin souffle. I preferred the cobbler to the souffle but mostly because I don’t like souffles much. I find the texture strange. I’m also not sure pumpkin lends itself to this medium; the flavor didn’t mix well with all those eggs. But I think this is a matter of personal preference here.

Strawberry rhubarb cobbler

Pumpkin souffle

Back to the fanciness of the restaurant. As the name indicates, it’s a steakhouse and a bistro, which means there are two menus. The steakhouse menu is obviously more expensive — there’s a $42 New York Angus sirloin on the menu — but a side of brussels sprouts is only $7. The bistro menu isn’t cheap, but it’s not too pricey, either. I’d go back just for the brussels sprouts and to try the mussels, which I hear are good, too.