Izayoi & Palate Quick Hits

I promise full posts of these places, just because the photos I took were fantastic, but my fiancee Christine treated me to these two places after getting a little lucky at the blackjack tables. Yes, I might be the luckiest man in the world just for being with her, but here's a quick report.

Izayoi is a simple place in Little Tokyo with an extensive izakaya menu. We gorged on pork belly, grilled shishito peppers, agadashi tofu, fish cakes, ankimo, and more. We didn't have any chicken dishes so we'll have to indulge the next time, but the quality of the ingredients and the solid preparation make this a worthy place to visit when in Little Tokyo. The strip mall location shouldn't be off-putting because you can free parking in the Office Depot lot just next door, which is a plus in this part of town.

Palate is a destination that really shouldn't be for me, as I probably live closer to here than any other quality restaurant (well, Bashan is pretty close to me too). I've lived in Glendale since I was 6 years old so naturally this ought to be the place I root for the most.

I came on a previous visit and took some fabulous photos on my film SLR. This time around I just carried my trusty D50 and my amazing 35mm F2.0 lens while dining with my favorite person in the world (guess). She also happens to be stunningly beautiful and generous, offering to buy this meal for us. We didn't skimp out, we ordered practically half the menu with the porkfolio, duck and pork confits (served in mason jars though not preserved in them), pickled cauliflower, green onions, and cipollini onions.

For appetizers we had the asparagus topped with whole egg and parmesan cheese, parsnip soup with asian pear and bacon, and the agnolotti. For the mains we had the roasted lamb, pork belly (naturally), and octopus. All three of the mains were astoundingly good, with the lamb and octopus pulling just ahead of the pork belly. I loved the sweet/bitter/citric kick of the blood orange paired with the pork belly, but the texture of the octopus was positively luscious, something not easily accomplished. The lamb was slightly on the dry side for some of the pieces, but overall the flavors and pairing with the dry lentils made it a homerun.

Service was a slight bump at Palate. While it was great when we got there for our 5:45 reservation, we realized that only one server was really taking orders for the dining room while a few others helped bus the tables. This made for a very slow service period from our mains and beyond. We had a trio of cheeses, where the roquefort was really the only good part and we skipped dessert since it took over 10 minutes for it to come out (we canceled after ordering).

Also I was peeved that the wine glasses were chock-full of lint! We even asked for new glasses and the new glasses had lint on them! At a wine-centris restaurant this is unacceptable. They should buy just ONE Riedel wiping glass, which is lint-free, and use that for drying their glasses. Their sommelier needs to tighten this up pronto. That said, our wines were superb, a crisp sauv blanc from Santa Barbara, a nice mellow Loire Valley red and the fantastic Chateaneuf du Pape from Clos St. Jean. A nice hefeweizen rounded out the drinks.