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Sausage, sauerkraut and mustards at the W Los Angeles’ The Backyard

After all that Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping, consider kicking back with some brews and bites at W Los Angeles‘ new happy hour at The Backyard, or cocktails and afternoon tea at BLVD 16 at Hotel Palomar.

Featuring beers from L.A.’s own Angel City Brewery and Bavarian-inspired comfort food from Executive Chef Dakota Weiss, The Backyard’s happy hour — offered Monday through Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. — is set poolside in a cozy, heated tent at the W hotel in Westwood, creating a winter beer garden for us Angelenos.

Waffle with short rib

Here’s the menu:

*Beer nuts ($3)

*Potato pancakes with sour cream, chives and sweet mustard ($5)

–With Kobe hot dogs ($8)

*Waffle bites ‘n stout herbed gravy ($6)

–With duck confit ($7)

–With short rib ($8)

*Daily sausage with trio of mustards ($6)

*Housemade pickles ($3)

Everything is made in-house, including the mustards. Make sure to try the sausage special (the house made mustards are great), waffle with one of the tender meats, and potato pancakes with the Kobe beef hot dogs.

Potato pancakes with Kobe beef hot dogs

At BLVD 16, also in Westwood, take an afternoon break with some tea, mini sandwiches and sweets, available from 3 to 5 p.m. with 24 hour notice ($27 per person).

Afternoon tea at BLVD 16

*Sweet & savory sandwiches

–Cucumber: cream cheese dill aioli, watercress salad, lemon vinaigrette

–Prosciutto: sliced red onion, avocado, fig aioli

–Peanut butter: house marmalade, banana

*Pastries and sweets

–House seasonal scones with clotted cream, fruit preserves

–Butter tea cookies with house marmalade

–Chocolate covered strawberries

*Selection of Mighty Leaf teas

*Choice of bubbly ($10)

The scones are nice with clotted cream, and the prosciutto sandwich offers a nice savory balance to the sweetness of the cookies and marmalade.

Afternoon tea snacks

If you’re here on a Tuesday, check out the Trees on Tuesdays cocktail menu ($9 each) featuring Greenbar distillery spirits. For every drink sold off this menu, Greenbar will plant a tree.

*Sittin’ Pretty: Tru vodka, Fair goji berry liqueur, Marie Brizard triple sec, fresh lime juice

*Barbados Winter: Crusoe spiced rum, Velvet Falernum, Aperol, fresh lemon juice, pineapple juice, clove syrup

*Herbal Remedy: Tru gin, green Chartreuse, Bar Keep lavender bitters, lavender flowers, fresh lemon juice, simple syrup

Barbados Winter

Note: These tastings were hosted.

Milkshake in an Alice cup at Max Brenner

Yes, I’m writing this post a month and a half late. But I wanted to document my bachelorette party on this blog in some way, so I’m going to tell you about my meal at chocolate heaven-on-earth Max Brenner in The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. This may not have been the best meal in terms of food, but it was definitely the most fun.

The best part of the menu was the variety of drinks. My friends and I ordered the Mexican Spicy Hot Chocolate (red chili, cinnamon, nutmeg and pepper), the Melting Marshmallow Hot Chocolate (hot chocolate with tons of mini marshmallows on top), what I think was the Hazelnut Cream Chocolate Milkshake (vanilla bourbon ice cream, dark chocolate truffle and whipped cream) and the Chocolate Chai (chai spice blend infused with white chocolate). All were very good, but my favorite was the chai, which was enhanced by the white chocolate, not overpowered as I had feared. The presentation of the drinks is noteworthy, too, as Max Brenner has created his own cups for different drinks (the Hug Mug for hot chocolates, the Alice for milkshakes, a tea pot that dispenses when you place it on top of your cup).

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Allez cuisine!

That’s kind of how I pictured the special appearance of Ludovic Lefebvre at The Foundry on Melrose‘s Bluesy Tuesday Southern food night last week — a battle of Iron Chefs duking it out over gourmet fried chicken, Ludo v. The Foundry’s Eric Greenspan, who was in fact a contestant on Food Network’s The Next Iron Chef. What we diners got was more of a delicious pairing of two very different styles of fried chicken that complemented each other rather than threw down against each other. Though both Ludo and Greenspan brought it, as they say…in the parlance of our times.

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