not taipei/los angeles: i recommend Westside Tavern
Yum, yum, yum and yum.
I have been enjoying a lot of the new places that have cropped up since the last time I was in town earlier this year. I don’t know if I would have found Westside Tavern eventually when watching a movie at the revamped Landmark theaters at Westside Pavilion, but we ended up there when a friend chose a place for dinner.
Westside Tavern has a menu full of appetizers, soups/salads, sandwiches and burgers, mains and desserts served with a modern California flair.
It was my first time eating burrata, which we mistakenly thought was a type of proscuitto for some reason when reading the menu. When the Gioia burrata and heirloom cherry tomatoes (US$14) came, we thought, where’s the proscuitto? Oh…. it’s cheese!
But a lovely cheese it was, like a softer, creamier buffalo mozzarella. If you like that sort of thing.
My friend got the lamb french dip and I got the Spit Roasted Chicken Cobb Salad (US$16)- which after falling in love with the yummier (and cheaper) Cobb salad at Tender Greens, the Westside Tavern’s Cobb Salad just didn’t compare.
We did however throughly enjoy the Lemon Meringue Pie, which was like a crown of baked egg whites on the perfectly tart and sweet lemon pie. Something nearly impossible to find in Taipei.
The second time I visited Westside Tavern was about a week later with a couple girlfriends I hadn’t seen since middle school. Yes, MIDDLE SCHOOL! Craziness. Westside Tavern was the perfect place to catch up on our lives and split an appetizer and a few desserts.
The baby artichoke and smoked mozzarella flatbread with roasted tomatoes (US$14) was like a fancy pizza- baked to the right crispiness and topped with a dressed arugula.
We couldn’t decide between the warm sticky toffee cake (US$8) or the hot fudge pudding cake (US$7) and we ended up with both. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but we couldn’t finish because one dessert could easily be shared between 3-5 people!
I’d stick with their signature warm sticky toffee cake only next time. The hot fudge pudding cake wasn’t particularly decadent or memorable, while you just wanted to keep eating the gooey, moist toffee cake though you knew it was full of sugar.
So the next time you want to eat before a movie, skip the food court across the mall and make a reservation at Westside Tavern.
WESTSIDE TAVERN
10850 W Pico Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90064-2132
(310) 470-1539
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