New Season Warrants New Visit to Sadie (Hollywood)

A new season means new menu and new cocktails at Sadie. Summer was the season for strawberries and cocktails like the Pink Rose (lillet rose, lemon juice, strawberry syrup, GH mumm cordon rouge - $13)

Gio Martinez' summer menu featured cocktails like the Sandy Swizzle (pineapple and sage infused chivas regal, agave, lemon juice, whipped coconut cream, Smith and Cross float, $12)

The first sip of the coconut cream on top was a weird, but as you keep drinking the flavor melds together well with the rest of the cocktail. The coconut cream brings me back to my holidays back home in Indonesia. This was my favorite and the most unique of the summer cocktails!

The chef has changed since I was here, but when I visited I had some great fried chicken. The Sadie Fried Chicken came with grilled red lady peaches, crispy confit potatoes and Bulleit rye jus for $22

There was also this gorgeous Charred Bone Marrow with peppadew peppers, leek ash, citrus chive vinaigrette, and of course, toasted bread

When there's bone marrow at a bar ... you know what might happen, bone luge!

e*starLA is a pro at this!

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Fun Pairings at Colonial Wine Bar (West Hollywood)

Colonial Wine Bar in West Hollywood is a new restaurant and wine bar co-owned by sommelier David Haskell, whose fun wine pairings I have always enjoyed in the past. The full experience here is not from just the individual food from chef de cuisine Ryan Otey (Patina, Tasting Kitchen) and drinks but having them paired for you.

When we came in for dinner, Haskell brought out three dishes at once with a couple of wine, beer, or sake that would pair well with the three dishes.

The first round included: Deviled eggs, pickled jalapeno, smoked paprika, crispy bacon and greens ($5)

This was my second visit to Colonial and these deviled eggs are becoming a favorite. I liked the deviled eggs paired with Hitachino White best, which is one of their beers on tap. Colonial is apparently one of about ten places in LA that has this beer on tap.

Burrata, heirloom tomatoes, sherry vinaigrette, balsamic gastrique ($12)

The burrata was very creamy and the tomatoes sweet and fresh. The first three dishes were also paired with a wine called Kabaj from Slovenia, which is a pinot grigio but with the skin left on and thus unlike other pinot grigio. With this dish, the tomatoes are meant to lighten the Hitachino while with the wine it's meant to invoke sparkling tomato juice.

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Industriel Urban Farm Cuisine (Downtown LA)

This new restaurant in downtown LA has a rather confusing tagline: "urban farm cuisine"? It doesn't prevent them from being completely packed during Dine LA Restaurant Week though. The tagline is supposed to embody the fact that they're in downtown but uses local farm-fresh ingredients (though many other downtown restaurants do these days, without the tagline).

The decor is for the most part stark and minimalistic, but they have this cute installation of this "chandelier" made of honey bear jars over a bathtub!

The menu was divided into different price levels: $11, $14, and $19 (and a couple of "market price" options). The restaurant's website says they serve Provencal French cuisine, but there were only a few Provencal specialties on the menu (like bouillabaise and barigoule) and many other influences from Italian to Russian.
We started with a Crispy soft poached egg, speck, asparagus, mustard truffle dressing ($14)

The crispy poached egg was nice, though I wished the dish had an earthier, bolder flavor component. I also thought this should've been in the $11 section.

Quinoa, roasted mushrooms, pecan, kale, caramelized shallot vinaigrette ($11)

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