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Huevos Polenta at Playa Rivera

When I first heard that Chef John Rivera Sedlar was opening Playa Rivera restaurant in the old Grace space on Beverly Boulevard, I jumped for joy. I love Sedlar’s food (and Julian Cox’s cocktails) at Rivera downtown, so having one of his eateries closer in proximity to where I live is really a treat.

Elegant, hearty and delicious, Playa Rivera’s brunch is a great choice for a casual-but-elevated meal. I had the pleasure of having brunch here with Fiona of Gourmet Pigs, Lindsay of LAist and Esther of estarLA, and we had a well-rounded meal complete with cocktails and a chat with Sedlar himself, who happened to walk in just as we were leaving.

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Fig pizza

In honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Osteria La Buca is donating a portion of its proceeds earned through the end of October to the Susan G. Komen Foundation to support breast cancer research. Because many of the restaurant’s friends and family have been affected by this disease, they decided to team up with Komen and painted the exterior of the eatery pink to draw even more attention to the cause.

So you have one more week to eat here for a good cause, or go anyway because the food is good! Some of the dishes I enjoyed at a recent media dinner were a pizza with multi-colored cherry tomatoes, figs, a leafy green (kale, I think) and mozzarella cheese; asparagus spears topped with parmesan and a fried egg; osso buco risotto; and tiramisu.

Tiramisu

Asparagus spears with parmesan and egg

Note: This meal was hosted.

This past weekend will go down in L.A. food history as The Weekend That Was The Clusterf*ck Known As The L.A. Street Food Fest. Don’t get me wrong — I thought it was a great idea, and I enjoyed myself while I was there. But as is the case with so many first-time events, there were problems, though I guess things could have been worse.

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