When I told my friends who live on the west coast that I was going to go to California, they warned me that the pizza on the west coast is awful.  I knew from previous experience that the ethos of west coast pizza is putting a bunch of ridiculous toppings (like baby corn, eggplant, and pickles) that make the pizzas awful.  However, Aaron and Kara suggested that we try Mozza2go, the takeaway version of Mozza, a restaurant founded by Nancy Silverton, Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich.  With that combined celebrity, we knew we had no chance of getting at table at Mozza.  Thus, Mozza2go.

We decided to split the funghi misti with taleggio, fontina and thyme.  I am a big fan of mushrooms on pizza, and this took the mushroom pizza to the next level.  Normally, it’s plain old white button mushrooms, but this had a nice blend of white button, portobello, and possibly some shiitake mushrooms.  I would have preferred it with tomato sauce, but it was simple and very tasty without.  Apparently all the fuss over celebrity chefs is somewhat justified, and for you east coasters, I think you may finally have a decent place to get a pizza.

When Aaron and Kara first mentioned Mozza, they would talk about the butterscotch budino as if they were part of a cult and butterscotch budino was the Messiah.  Butterscotch pudding, salted caramel crystals, and the most deliciously light creme fraiche that I’ve ever had was so good that even I was converted to the holy church of Butterscotch Budino.

Mozza2go is a great option for those not prestigious enough to get a table at Mozza, and actually want to get good pizza in LA.  Admittedly, the price is quite steep ($17 for the personally sized fungi misti pizza), but if you really want a treat, it’s worth it.  There are plenty of interesting vegetarian options, using an assortment of ingredients and cheeses that you would never hear about outside of Italy.  Because of the exorbitantly high price and lack of vegan or gluten friendly options, I can’t give it five cheese sandwiches, but I will gladly give it four.  A very special treat when you’re out in LA (but only once in a blue moon, unless your sitcom just got syndicated).

Mozza2go
6610 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90038 
(323) 297-1130

My mother came into town for her spring break, so I’ve been on a temporary hiatus from reviewing restaurants as I have been eating loads of home cooking (and home-cooked leftovers).  I thought I’d pay her back (as best I could with my meagre salary) and take her out someplace nice.  We ended up going to Upstairs in the Square in Harvard Square, which is one of the most convoluted restaurants I’ve ever been to (and that includes Vapiano).  There are multiple different dining rooms, each with a similar, yet slightly different menu.  We started on the first floor, and told the hostess we were mostly vegetarian, so she said “You should try the Supper Club menu, there is a vegetarian prix fixe.”  So, we decided to climb up to the top level which was decorated like an Alice in Wonderland tea party.

We actually ended up not ordering the vegetarian prix fixe which was a 5 or 7 course meal for 50-70 dollars (depending on how many dishes you wanted).  Funnily enough, most of the dishes on the prix fixe were available à la carte, so we decided to split a few entrées and appetizers.  The free bread (pain gratis, if you prefer pretense) was tasty despite being sourdough.  I don’t like sourdough, but I do like free bread, so I’ll say the bread made me morally conflicted.

Our waiter told us that he really liked us, so he had the chef make us some cheese gougères, which were basically fried cheese puffs.  They were quite fantastic, and we were really excited to get these for free.  That was until we saw our waiter say the exact same thing to another table.  That actually broke my heart almost as much as my last girlfriend, because you expect that from someone you are involved with emotionally, but not a waiter!  He even invited us to come visit him in Brazil during the World Cup in 2014!

After that, we tried to salvage the dining experience despite that overt betrayal.  Fortunately, my mother’s Jerusalem artichoke soup was phenomenal, with bits of sorrel and black trumpet dried mushrooms providing texture contrasts to the perfectly salted and flavoured soup.  I am not a big fan of soups, but even I was impressed by this soup.

I ordered the roasted beet salad with horseradish panna cotta, which was a phenomenal dish.  The sweetness of the beets paired with the sinus-clearing flavor of the horseradish was an intriguingly tasty pairing.  I could eat this all day.

Unfortunately, there was only one entree for the three vegetarians, which was mixed winter root vegetables with gnocchi.  Almost all other gnocchi dishes that I have ever had were very heavy and filling, this dish was magically light.  It was minimally salted, and the contrasting flavors of brussel sprouts, carrots, parsnips, mushrooms and chestnuts with pesto created a delightfully tasty broth remaining after the dish was finished.

At this point I was pretty full, but we had to order dessert.  My cousin ordered churros with chocolate syrup and cinnamon ice cream which was phenomenal.  Each item (churros, syrup, ice cream) would have been delicious on their own, but in combination were amazing.

I ordered the gateau noisette, a hazelnut mousse torte with hazelnut butter cream and hazelnut ice cream.  It was a little too hazelnutty for my liking, and I like hazelnut.  At this point I wished I had gotten the churros instead.  Apologies for the blurriness.  At this point I was approaching a diabetic coma.

My mother ordered the chocolate pecan turtles, which were chocolate covered pecans with a brown sugar caramel.  These were very tasty, but ludicrously sweet, to the point that I could only eat a half of one (okay, maybe one and a half) of the three turtles.

Upstairs in the Square in my opinion is a little pricey, but definitely worth going if you want to experience fine dining.  The service is very friendly (perhaps too friendly – don’t get emotionally attached to your waiter, they’ll break your heart).  I know I gave a glowing review of Rialto, but I would say that Upstairs in the Square is better than Rialto.  There are not a lot of vegan options (the gnocchi had egg, the soup and salad all had dairy), so for that I can’t give them five cheese sandwiches.  But I will give them four and a half cheese sandwiches.

Upstairs in the Square
91 Winthrop Street
Cambridge, MA 02138 
(617) 864-1933

Facebook really doesn’t do much for us as a society, despite the amount of time people devote to it.  However, I did discover an amazing place as a function of Facebook stalking a girl I barely know.  This girl went to DC to a place called the Mansion on O Street which serves a tea service, where you get tea and an all-you-can-eat dessert buffet.  Now, I have explicitly expressed my disdain for buffets numerous time on this (and other) forums, but when you have an all-you-can-eat DESSERT buffet, then all rules have been broken.

The neat thing about the Mansion on O Street is that it is basically an old building that functions as a flea market/hotel.  So people come and can buy kitsch that is on the walls or whatever is just hanging around.  Think of it like visiting a very rich friend, and buying the crap he/she has lying around the house.  All the rooms are amazingly decorated and have their own unique themes, which I only discovered as a function of the scavenger hunt option that is available if you book a tea (which is only on Sunday afternoons).  I would say, only book one scavenger hunt per group, because it’s a waste of money otherwise, you’re only paying for a piece of paper.

Anyway, our tea was Forte Tea, which was a brand that I have never actually heard of previously, despite me being a tea enthusiaste.  I was initially shocked and dismayed to find that the Mansion did not have my favorite Earl Grey flavor, and was tempted to say something to our scantily-clad hostess, but I figured that making her dress like a 50’s era cigarette girl was demeaning enough that I decided against it.  I got the English Breakfast tea, which was great, as you’d expect from English Breakfast, but what I thought was neat was the leaf and string attached to the tea pouch was very stiff and rigid, and you could use it to dip the tea up and down without it falling into the tea or getting wet as the tea diffused up the string.  So, that is one perk for Forte Tea.

To say that the dessert spread was impressive would be akin to saying the death total of Russians during World War II was high.  Neither statement really encompasses the true meaning of the experience.  From the chocolate fountain, to the multitude of full-size cakes, to the petite scones, to the blow pops and rice krispie treats (yes, the commercially plastic-wrapped variety).  What blows my mind is that when I explored the Mansion later is that this room is not the only one equipped to fully house a plethora of sweets, there are no less than 3 separate rooms for this purpose!  It amazes me considering the typical girth of Americans that this building is not on the mall with the other parts of the Smithsonian.

For the first round of sweets, I took (clockwise from top right) a chocolate espresso cake, whoopie pie, carrot cake creme pie, date cake, and a chocolate wafer (in the center).  I am giving my own terms to these things, as there was no signage at all saying what was what.  Which was unfortunate, because I was convinced that the date cake was tiramasu (which is completely different!) before biting into it.  Surprisingly, despite the aesthetic appeal of the desserts, they didn’t really taste very good.  The only one I enjoyed was the chocolate espresso cake and the chocolate wafer.  The carrot cake creme pie was very heavy, as was the whoopie pie.  Halfway through this plate, I fully realized my mortality, and that I frankly just couldn’t eat this many sweets.  When I was young, I could eat half a night’s haul of halloween candy with no remorse.  Now that I’m almost thirty, I have to show a little more self-respect (just a little).  After pathetically only eating half the food, I made an attempt to go for a second round (just because I could, not because I should).

My second plate was a little more sensible, and like that terrible donut blitz I did six-eight months ago, I realized that I needed something savory to balance out that sweetness.  Fortunately, there was a tiny island hidden in the room that had a bowl of fresh veggies, hummus, cheese, and crackers.  It has always amazed me how people could consider cheese and crackers as a dessert option, but after my first plate, nothing seemed more fitting than a plate of cheese and crackers.  I forced myself to try the oreo silk pie, a sliver of actual carrot cake, some caramel corn, a petit lemon scone, and a mint chocolate chip cookie.  Everything on this plate was delicious, I don’t know if it was a function of having a palate cleanser of the hummus, green beans, and carrots.  But, the silk pie was probably the highlight of the dessert buffet for me, with the carrot cake a close second.  The cake on the carrot cake was far more moist than the carrot cake creme pie, which was fortunate that I decided to give the Mansion a second attempt at carrot cakerie.

Overall, the Mansion was a once in a lifetime experience, I learned a lot about myself (that I can’t handle as much dessert as I used to be able to), and it was fun to replace an angel’s flute with a twizzler.  If you’re vegan or celiac, you’re going to have a rough time, as almost everything is unlabeled, and the staff is not very helpful in explaining what is what.  But for lacto-ovo-vegetarians, this place is great, and it’s almost better just to seep in the experience than eat anything.  Though eating is awesome also.  I give it four cheese sandwiches.

Mansion at O Street
2020 O Street Northwest
Washington D.C., DC 20036-5912 
(202) 496-2020

One of the nice perks about being back in Lexington is the opportunity to hit the old favorite spots that I didn’t have time to get to last time I was here.  One of my favorite bakeries in Lexington is a French pastry shop that has been in the Chevy Chase area for over 26 years, called Le Matin.

Le Matin means “the morning” in French (bien sur!), and if you want to get anything good here, you have to really time it well.  Their croissants and danishes are almost always gone by noon, but I came in early at 9 AM to get a chocolate croissant (top), almont croissant (bottom right), and pecan danish (bottom left).  The flaky pastry is what you would expect from one of the finest patisseries in Paris, and their fillings are delightful.  The chocolate croissant is gooey with chocolate filling, and the marzipan center of the almond croissant is sans pareil.  The pecan filling was the same gooey non-descript substance that you find in a pecan pie.  I know a lot of people who don’t care for that, but I love the stuff, so you’ll get no complaints from moi. 

Now for the cakes.  If you thought nailing the pastries was hard enough, Le Matin makes some of the finest cream cakes I have ever tasted in my life.  First, their chocolate eclair is one of my favorites because they actually use a vanilla custard instead of chocolate.  Most French pastry shops fill their chocolate eclairs with chocolate.  And I admire this racial harmonization (why can’t vanilla be mixed with chocolate my French friends?  Pourquoi?) that Le Matin espouses that few other traditionalists will accept.

Their Napoleon was a favorite of my grandmothers, and I timed my run to perfection, as a fresh batch had just come out of the oven.  The icing evanesces in your mouth as you bite through the deliciously flaky pastry and custard.  I have had several Napoleons in my life (anybody who’s actually seen me can tell), and Le Matin is not only my favorite, but I think this occasion was the best Napoleon I’ve ever had.

Unfortunately, they did not have the Amaretto Cake which I normally get, so I had to “settle” for the coffee cake.  The cake itself was so light and fluffy (I’m fairly sure it’s comparable to lady fingers) that it barely gets in the way of the frosting.  Just a hint of coffee is sufficient to give you a caffeine buzz but not smack you in the mouth with its flavor.

Fruit tarts.  I didn’t eat these, but these are almost pieces of art, and I am glad that I left them for my mom because A) I don’t like fruit and B) how can you eat something so beautiful?

Overall, I can’t help but give a glowing recommendation for Le Matin.  Abbas (the owner) and his wife have done an outstanding job of growing a small pastry shop into a cafe and wine cellar (across the street - the original location of Le Matin).  Lexington is quite fortunate to have such a perfect homage to French patisseries in it for 26 years, something that cities like New York and Boston struggle to maintain.  Just for the sake of balance, I feel I should complain about the fact that Le Matin encourages a very anti-modern cuisine, by selling many French cheeses and probably using imported ingredients (I’d be surprised if they actually use local butter or flour, as any dairy from the US is terrible).  So, if your ethos is buying local, Le Matin is probably not for you.  But it can’t hurt to treat yourself every once in a while, so I’m still going to give Le Matin five cheese sandwiches.

Le Matin
890 E High St
Lexington, KY 40502-2135 
(859) 269-1511