Cocktails

It seems like every time I drive down Ventura Boulevard in Studio City/Sherman Oaks, there is a new restaurant. It is hard to keep up but one of these restaurants caught my eye. With the vibrantly colorful exterior, it is hard to miss Cocina Condesa along Ventura Blvd just east of Colfax. Cocina Condesa Inside the restaurant is a large open space with long high wooden tables and tall red leather chairs, a full bar along the back wall and tv screens above the bar showing the local sports game. The walls are exposed brick while the ceiling is red. Mexican folk art is displayed throughout the restaurant, as well as accents of color. The loud, casual dining room opens up to an outdoor patio that runs the length of the restaurant. This restaurant screams high energy. Cocina Condesa Cocina Condesa features a menu prepared by Executive Chef Eddie Garcia of Mexican street food - tamales, tacos, corn on the cob and more. What that also means is that the menu consists of small plates so it is fun to order a lot of different items for a selection of tastes.
25 June, 2016
On May 25, 2016, The Abbey celebrated its 25th Anniversary. Long a mainstay bar in the heart of West Hollywood, The Abbey has received many awards and accolades over the years. They have been awarded:
  • Best Gay Bar in the World – Logo / MTV
  • Most Popular Nightlife Destination in Los Angeles - Zagat
  • Most Popular Bar in California – Foursquare / Buzzfeed
  • Most Popular Bar Drop off in the United States – Lyft
  • Most Popular Nightlife/Bar/Restaurant Destination in Los Angeles - Uber 
  • Best Gay Bar in Los Angeles – LA Weekly, LA Weekly Reader’s Choice, Time Out Los Angeles
  • Best Nightlife in Los Angeles – USA Today
In time for their 25th anniversary, The Abbey completed the biggest menu update in its history. Known for its flavored cocktails, they brought in mixologist Armando Conway (Pour Vous, La Descarga, Harvard and Stone, Hakkasan) to redo the menu. Armando Conway Now there are more than one hundred cocktails on the menu and each one is made with fresh herbs and produce and house-made juices and syrups. The cocktail menu at The Abbey has joined the craft cocktail world. The menu is broken into categories and I did my best to try one from almost each category when I was invited to check out the new menu.
31 May, 2016
A year after opening, Preux & Proper in downtown LA is like a new restaurant. The decor is the same and the slushy machines on the ground floor are still there, but there is a new chef at the helm. Chef Sammy Monsour Sammy Monsour came to Preux & Proper in January 2016 but is also new to Los Angeles. Raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, he went to culinary school at The Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park in New York. He was working in Boston, learning from great chefs, and then took his art on the road, organizing pop-up events such as "Chuck Taylor’s Fried Chicken All Stars", "The Future of Junk Food" and "Antibellum". But now he has found his new home at Preux & Proper. He also brought his chef de cuisine, Steven Hacker, and sous chef, Paul Trevino who worked with him at Antibellum and kept almost all of the original staff of the restaurant. While the restaurant was first opened with a New Orleans theme, Monsour calls his menu "soul food". There is a mix of southern flavors (New Orleans, Texas, the Carolinas, Alabama) that work well together. Monsour is down-to-earth, charming and outgoing. But what shines the most is his passion for what he does. The food is focused on flavor and soul and is very very tasty!
02 May, 2016
"Cocktails are about something beautiful." As I sat down with Foreign Cinema Bar Manager Nicky Beyries, this was one of the first things she told me. "They evoke memories or by mixing fun ingredients, we make new memories," she continued. "I like to take great ingredients and be irreverent. The point is to let the ingredients speak for themselves" And that is what she does with her cocktails. Nicky Beyries Nicky grew up on farms in Petaluma and Santa Rosa, which explains her appreciation for fresh, seasonal ingredients. With ten years of experience behind the bar, she joined Foreign Cinema in San Francisco last October. The current cocktail list is her first full cocktail menu at Foreign Cinema and I joined her at the bar recently to taste through her current list.
11 February, 2016
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