Category: Restaurants

How often do you get to indulge in tuna tacos and a short rib sandwich on your lunch break? Well, now you have an excuse to do just that. This hearty surf and turf assembly is just one of the combinations you can choose from the dineLA lunch menu at Upper West in Santa Monica.

On this 10th anniversary of dineLA, Upper West and more than 300 restaurants will be offering specially priced prix fixe menus for lunch and dinner from Jan. 12-26. Now in its eighth year of participation, Upper West’s focus for this two-week event is to welcome new guests to a distinctive and diverse food experience. 

Upper West is known for their unconventional fish tacos: ahi tuna mixed in an orange-chipotle vinaigrette and jicama-cucumber salsa, sprinkled with rice cracker beads, and served on crisp tortilla shells made from plantains. If you’re trying to pinpoint the cuisine to which these tacos belong, don’t bother. Upper West Executive Chef Nick Shipp doesn’t even know.

“People always want to know what our cuisine is,” said Shipp. “To be honest, I don’t have a clue.” Nonetheless, Shipp, who is also a co-owner of Upper West, is passionate about bringing a spectrum of cultures and flavors to the restaurant.

Shipp first embraced whimsical styles of cooking in Fort Worth, Texas while working with fellow chef Clark McDaniel, who Shipp calls his “Chef Yoda.” At the bygone restaurant, Angeluna, they challenged Texan palates with eyebrow-raising combinations, such as Chinese Spaghetti, rib-eye steak with gorgonzola napa cabbage slaw, and buttermilk ice cream with black pepper. 

Though Shipp came to Los Angeles to pursue a path in music as a drummer, he soon realized he missed the thrill of a kitchen. After honing his skills with Wolfgang Puck’s catering service, California seemed a natural fit for him to expand upon his eclectic culinary beginnings.

“Here, you can eat Japanese, Ethiopian, and Italian all in one day,” he said. “So we wanted to turn that experience into a restaurant with some Americana thrown in.”

On the dineLA dinner menu, the Southern staple of pork chops and applesauce gets an Upper West makeover. The tenderloin—sourced from Devil’s Gulch Ranch in Northern California—is coffee crusted and charbroiled, topped with a jalapeno spiced applesauce, then served with goat cheese mashed potatoes in the style of a French puree.

The Upper West dineLA menus are designed to showcase the essence of their regular menus and please many different appetites, Shipp said. He assures the portions are big and the staff is prepared to hand out to-go boxes.  “The main thing is not to skimp on size,” he said.

But leave room for dessert! Shipp refers to his brioche bread pudding as “the big beast” for its grand size, which commands shareability. It’s on the dineLA dinner menu along with another weighty dessert: a carrot cake sandwich with cream cheese ice cream.   

Customers who come for dineLA often come back, which is why Upper West works hard to make a great first impression, Shipp said. A return trip to Upper West would give you a chance to try several other renowned dishes that aren’t on the dineLA menus, such as the veggie burger.

“It was an accident, really,” Shipp said, on conceiving the burger. As a Texas native, vegetarian cuisine was foreign to him, he said. So he experimented with veggies, pulverizing them until they formed a substantial paste that was close to the consistency of ground beef. He cooks this innovated patty in vegetable broth and wine to intensify the flavors.

Shipp also highly recommends trying the mussels from their regular dinner menu. He buys them fresh from Santa Barbara through the Dock-to-Dish sustainable fishery program and cooks them in a garlic-saffron broth with chorizo sarta and a cilantro garnish, accompanied by buttered ciabatta.

The restaurant’s name is a reference to Manhattan’s Upper West Side, a tree-lined area of New York City known for its cafes, restaurants, and bars. The restaurant adopts the look of a spacious New York loft with the rustic industrial elements of wood, metal, and high ceilings. 

Upper West was the first restaurant of its kind to open in the neighborhood on the border of Santa Monica. Shortly after its success, more restaurants settled in on this patch of Pico Blvd., and the area grew more inviting as the city invested in beautifying the sidewalks and planting trees. Located adjacent to the 10 Freeway exit ramp, the restaurant is easy to reach for regulars coming from Downtown LA, Pasadena, and Calabasas.

Now that Upper West is a Santa Monica institution, Shipp says the name has taken on a new meaning: a place that’s fun, sleek, and full of atmosphere. Simply stated, he says, “It’s a state of mind.” 

With Pasadena fired up for its annual Cheeseburger Week, Jan. 7-12, diners are hankering for specially crafted burgers across the city.

While visitors converge to partake in the food scene of Old Town, locals in the know venture farther out to spots like Plate 38, which is as far east as a restaurant can be and still technically reside in Pasadena.

“We’re in a world of our own,” says Robert Humphreys, owner and chef of Plate 38.

The neighborhood of East Pasadena has yet to be recognized as a culinary destination. But for the past eight years, Plate 38 has enjoyed true gastropub credibility as a place to watch sports and sample exotic dishes such as venison, braised rabbit, and escargot.

Changing the menu daily and using locally grown ingredients certainly brought intrigue, but it wasn’t enough to bring in the customers. Humphreys said the catalyst was the decision to sell oysters during happy hour for $1.50 each. The oysters are brought in fresh every day, and due to their popularity, each customer is limited to 12 per night.

“We make no money on them,” said Humphreys, adding that those losses are worth it because they bring in the crowds. The success of the oysters and Plate 38’s extended happy hours fuel Humphreys’ belief that East Pasadena has eager diners nearby, or people are willing to drive the distance for a bargain. Happy hours run 3-11pm on Mondays and twice a day the rest of the week: 3-6 pm and 9-11 pm.

The steady stream of customers has given Humphreys confidence to try more things that loyal customers and newcomers alike would appreciate, such as pumpkin cheesecake, pasta made from scratch, a Bastille Day celebration menu, and cocktails based on the HBO series Game of Thrones.

“We like to do certain things that are off the beaten path,” Humphreys said. 

For the occasion of Cheeseburger Week, Plate 38 is plating four varieties: the Classic Burger with cheddar, the Barbeque Burger with blue cheese crumbles, the Smoked Mozzarella Burger, and the Truffle Mushroom Burger with truffle cheese.

Cheeseburger Week gives diners a chance to vote on their favorites. Plate 38 is entering three categories: favorite bar burger, favorite gourmet burger, and favorite cocktail with (or before) a burger. 

The secret to creating an exceptional burger is to not mask the flavors with a bunch of ingredients, but let the core components speak for themselves, said Humphreys. 

Plate 38 grinds its own meat for the patties, which are grilled and served with a pinkish center for a juicier burger. “I trust the quality of our meat,” he said. 

To top it off, Plate 38 burgers are cushioned between soft flavorful buns from Bread Los Angeles, an artisan bakery that adds butter to their bun recipe.

But even if you miss out on Cheeseburger Week, it’s worth a journey to the edge of Pasadena to try something new from Plate 38’s ever-changing chalkboard specials.