My first DineLA eating out adventure! I go to Restaurant Week in SD a lot because I just want to try everything! I could not wait to go to LA to eat again– they have the most amazing restaurants and also the chefs there have space to create. SF and SD restaurants are usually very small because of space constraints and the way the cities are set up.

My friend and I chose this restaurant because 1. We have heard it before; 2. We know celebrities go there all the time. I looked at the menu and it looked great. Mediterranean food! Done deal. We were going! We ended up walking up Melrose looking at the clothing shops to kill time because we got to the area a bit early. By the way, if you have never been to Melrose and you love clothes, you should really go. There are sooo many shops and each have their unique style and flavor to it. You can literally find everything. Anyway, we got to the restaurant a little bit before it opened…they open at 6pm for dinner! When you walk in, the walls are lined with olive oil and you immediately see couches and candlelight. Beautiful decor.

They presented us with 3 different olive oils: One from NorCal, another from Italy, and Spain. We all agreed we liked the NorCal one the best- it tasted less olive oil-y, like less bitter. And because they are famous for their crostinis, we got a plate of 6. The fig&prosciutto and mushroom ones were outstanding! The shrimp and salmon one were alright– sort of plain. Goat cheese one was sweet but tasty.

For appetizers we got 1. Mushroom Croquette; 2. Salmon Crostone; 3. Beef Carpaccio. The mushroom croquette was super creamy and flavorful. The salmon crostone was just a bigger version of a crostini. It was alright… and the beef carpaccio was tasty- the beef was sliced very thin and the tomatoes were an amazing paired with it. The service was great there and they even stopped by to talk to us and asked us where we were from and what brought us there! I love it when they interact with you!