RivaBella Ristorante is in West Hollywood on the border of Beverly Hills and within sight of the Sunset Strip. From the outside, RivaBella has the look of an expensive fine dining restaurant. Walk inside and the friendly bar men will offer you a cocktail or a glass of premium wine, then you'll enter a dining room with rustic wooden tables, brick walls and a massive hearth. The spacious restaurant has the feel of an upscale country inn.
RivaBella balances elegance with casual dining. On the evening we had dinner, some diners were dressed in business suits while others wore shorts and colorful sport shirts. A retractable ceiling opens to the sky. Natural light floods into the room through floor to ceiling windows. At night, candles on the tables and strings of white lights give the room a romantic, festive aura. You'll experience the restaurant's theatrical side when you enter the dining room and pass the DJ who is working through a play list of pop songs. Order the mushroom risotto and the waiter brings a cart to the table heavily laden with a Parmigiano Reggiano wheel large enough to fit on a Mini-Cooper.
I'm pretty sure LA is the only place that it can be hard to find a restaurant marked by a gigantic neon sign. That's because in a city that's made up of a string of strip malls, neon signs are easy to overlook. And this one is tucked behind the parking lot of an unassuming boba place. It reads 'park' above an arrow pointing one way and 'drink' above an arrow pointing the other way, towards Beer Belly.
I know I’m really late to the game on this one, but I finally went to
Fraiche in Culver City. I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t just chance that
kept me from trying it. It’s not that I don’t want to give Culver City
a chance. I do. And I have. I’ve been to Wilson – terrible and
terribly expensive (good riddance). I’ve been to Akasha (and will
probably go back)—I highly recommend the lamb sliders, but it’s a
little expensive for me. I’ve even been to Royal/T where, although I do
like the idea of eating in an interactive art gallery, the food is only
so-so and there are way too many children running around. But my mom
would not stop raving about Fraiche. So I
decided to swallow my bias about Culver City and try it. Plus, Matt and
I really needed to go on a date—for both of our sakes.
I've studied wine for a decade and have worked on my palate,
expanding my personal taste to include styles from all over the world.
Red, white, sparkling, dessert. I've tried them all. Yet, when it came
to food, I still treated most meals as the means to an end – which was
drinking great wine. So the fact that I've dined at the Petrossian Cafe
twice in 3 weeks is more than a little out of character. It wasn't
until I started following a bunch of LA foodies this past spring on
Twitter that I realized how limited my experience with food really was.
I was embarrassed by the long list of delicacies that I had never eaten
and was actually afraid to put in my mouth. So, I started making a
concentrated effort to eat outside my comfort zone and jump on the
foodie bandwagon. Within the last six months I've eaten Wellfleet
oysters on the half shell (a must when on Cape Cod), Escargot a La Bourguignonne
(anything smothered in garlic and butter tastes good) and a Scotch Egg
(a deep-fried delight).
There’s a new cake in town. Actually, it’s a whole boutique full of cake and it’s here to stay! Lady M, the glorious cake boutique with three locations in New York City opened in LA last August, quietly without much fanfare but with a line out the door. It seems word spread fast among cake connoisseurs.