Beverly Hills and Marina del Ray
Beverly Hills. Hmmm. It's not all the interesting compared to the rest of Los Angeles. The food plays along with that roll. Expectations might be higher from what you've heard, what you see, but the reality is, it's just another place on the map, and seems to rely more on its location than what it offers you.
This post might jump all over the place. We had driven down to Beverly Hills one late night because we were craving some Chinese food, and Shanghai Grill was the closest place to Hollywood Hills that we could find with good reviews. From the pictures on the wall, it looks like a lot of celebs eat here. Or maybe they just pop by. Either way, the Chinese restaurant was a disappointment. The food was bland and soggy. Our beef lo mein was inedible, as we had a hard time telling if the beef was actually beef. I really don't want to ruin this whole post about Beverly Hills by talking about bad Chinese food. It was our own fault, however, we felt it was important to mention, if you find yourself on Rodeo drive craving some Chinese food, skip Shanghai Grill.
The next day we would be back in Beverly Hills, this time for breakfast and a bit of a stroll around Rodeo Drive. We had breakfast at The BLVD which is located inside of the Beverly Wilshire a hotel built in 1928. The E-shaped structure is built of a special Tuscan stone and Carrara marble in the Italian Renaissance architecture style.
The Beverly Wilshire was the primary filming location for the 1990 movie Pretty Woman and a common filming location for Entourage, an HBO television series. The BLVD has an expansive dining area, with some of the highest ceilings I have seen in a restuaraunt, but the decore feels like an old fashioned lounge where old money came to talk about stocks and whatever is they talk about over whiskey and cigars. Sadly, the food leaves a lot to be desired. Regardless of how much truffle shavings and they add to your eggs, it still tastes like overpriced hotel food.
The shops around Rodeo drive are very high end, but since we had just came back from Vegas, there wasn't anything new. Strolling around the Casino shops in Vegas is pretty much what Rodeo drive offers. We didn't see any celebrities either, not that we were really looking.
We did find the manhole covers fascinating.
Our trip in Hollywood Hills was complete, and was now time for us to head to Marina del Ray. It's only a 30 minute drive. We'll be posting the pictures for Marina del Ray AirBnB house that we stayed at in the next post. This post is going to jump right to dinner. SUSHI!
Since eating at Koiso in Maui, we have found ourselves searching for the perfect sushi shop close to home. Marina del Rey isn't a short drive, but it could be a possible trip once a year or so. We found sugarFISH, their website explains perfectly what we were looking for-
"SUGARFISH embodies the philosophy of celebrated sushi chef Kazunori Nozawa, well-known for his Trust Me-style sushi at Sushi Nozawa, which operated in Studio City from 1985-2012. Nozawa shuns “American-style” extravagant rolls and fusion dishes. Instead he concentrates on the purity of his basic ingredients— nurturing relationships with the finest fish purveyors across the globe, cutting his fish with an artisan’s painstaking care, and even making his own fresh soy sauce and ponzu.
To bring Chef Nozawa’s legendary food to our guests with quality and efficiency, the SUGARFISH team has made some changes that defy the conventional wisdom about sushi places. Our menu, while always featuring the highest quality items, is greatly simplified. Diners choose from three core menus called Trust Me’s, a takeoff from the traditional Japanese omakase. The biggest change is there are no visible sushi chefs behind the sushi bar. By moving our sushi-making to the kitchen, we are set up for quality and maximum efficiency (and not for show)."
The sushi offered at sugarFISH is indeed fresh, but we wouldn't make a trip from our home just to dine there. If you live in the area or nearby, you should check it out. They always have a number of locations around the greater Los Angeles area.
Our trip continues!
*fin*
