When most of my friends come to visit they want to see the touristy sights of L.A., you know, the ones I’ve seen 20 times and are crowded with pushy camera-toting tourists. However, this time, I had a visitor who wanted to be a culinary tourist - now that’s something I can get behind.
My friend, who by the way isn’t a slouch in the kitchen either, didn’t just want to eat L.A. food, he wanted to eat great L.A. food. What’s a girl to do? Say no?
On a beautiful 70-degree day we ventured up the coast to Neptune’s Net, the beach-side restaurant that’s been in too many TV shows and movies to count.
We ordered a big spread (see above): clam chowder, crab cake, steamed clams and some sort of fried fish. (As you can see by the bottle of wine on the table, my memory might not be up to journalistic par for this meal.)
This clam chowder reaffirmed my love for the dish, especially when ordered in a sourdough bread bowl. However, I discovered that clams just aren’t my thing. I just don’t dig their texture.
Now the food was good, but it was the atmosphere that made me love Neptune’s Net. With the beach in sight, plastic utensils and paper plates on the well-worn table tops and an enthusiastic employee calling out order numbers in various voices and languages, I decided there was nothing not to love about the Net.
After a day in Malibu and an evening at the Ray LaMontagne concert at the Greek Theatre, we decided a late-night meal at Pizzeria Mozza, owned by chefs Mario Batali and Nancy Silverton, was in order.
I have no pictures from this meal because I was too distracted by the darn good food to take a single picture. You’ll just have to visit the Pizzeria Mozza website to take a look at their delicious concoctions.
We sat at the pizza bar, which faces the wood-burning pizza oven, and got to watch them make our food. We ordered the pane bianco with olio nuovo and eggplant caponata as appetizers for our 11 p.m. meal. The pane bianco is the most sinfully delicious gigantic slice of bread. It is nirvana for someone who loves bread as much as I do. I could’ve eaten just that all night long. But the eggplant caponata was just too yummy not to heap it on top of the bread.
Our main course was the funghi misti pizza with tons of mushrooms, fontina and taleggio cheeses and thyme. If you don’t like mushrooms, this pizza might convert you. If you love mushrooms, it will be your nirvana like the pane bianco was mine.
The food was so good my friend was even considering building a pizza oven in his house, but I think that was the pizza and the red wine talking.
We headed out as the restaurant emptied out around 12:30. The next day we headed to Venice to complete our culinary tour of L.A. with James Beach’s fish tacos. You’ll just have to wait for the next post to hear that tale.
