I’ve been too busy enjoying the driving and eating to have updated the Charge It! series, but here’s a place that I went to a month ago in the Abbot Kinney section of Venice Beach.
The chargers are located in the aptly named Electric Lodge which has five Blink chargers on the wall located on 1416 Electric Avenue, between Milwood Avenue and California Avenue.
However, after 7 pm, they CAN be ICEd by folks going to the Electric Lodge. The electric only restricted parking is only enforced during the day, 7am-7pm daily.
Since it’s after 7pm, THIS guy IS allowed to park there:
This area of town has been a “hip” part of Los Angeles for quite a while and two of the restaurants in the area have been in eater.com’s Top 38. I liked both Tasting Kitchen and Gjelina, but today’s post is about Gjelina.
We started our dinner with a nice bottle of a dry furmint Tokaji from Bottpince Winery. This was the perfect summer wine to complement our meal. It’s akin to a dry Riesling, but slightly sweeter.
The plates on the menu were categorized between smaller and larger plates and we opted to dine Tapas style and enjoyed two starters, the Copper River Salmon Crudo with lemon Aioli, Horseradishe, and Chive AND Grilled Monterey Bay Squid w/ Melon, Celery, Chili & Salsa Verde.
The Copper River Salmon Crudo was excellent. The fish was fresh and very refreshing. It was melt in your mouth good. The dish went well with the wine and would’ve been excellent without it.
The grilled squid salad and melon’s only flaw was the fact that I wanted a bigger dish. However, as a single starter it would have been better, but having to share it with the better half left me hanging for more of the dish.
Luckily, I had other dishes that were still to come as this is Tapas style, after all people and we ordered more dishes.
The anchovy burrata toast was yummy! Nope, not a loss for words, just required ONE WORD – Yummy!
The next several dishes were our warmer ones AND the the restaurant was getting darker, so I have to apologize for the photos having to be touched up to be seen, but such is the challenge of photographs with iOs devices with no flash.
Our next two dishes were both Pork dishes. Luckily, I’m not restricted from eating pork as both dishes were awesome. The Pork Meatballs were nicely sauced and very flavorful. The meatballs were a great contrast to the light seafood that we had to start our meal.
After the meatballs, the Crispy Niman Ranch Pork Belly was the piece de resistance. The pork belly presented the same protein in a different yet delicious way. The pork meatballs is comfort food with a nice solid bite. The pork belly was both crispy (as the name implied) and ideally marbled underneath the sauce and chili.
If it had been an Asian restaurant, the pork belly would’ve come with rice, and I suppose that would’ve made the rice that much better, but it would not have gone with the flow of the meal. So, no fault of the restaurant, but this dish would’ve been great with white rice. But that’s a matter of personal taste, and the dish was excellent without is.
The culmination to this meal was the Banana and Chocolate Bread Pudding with Fresh Cream and Caramel. The dessert was great. It doesn’t look great, but it sure tasted that way. As plain as it looked, the dessert spared no expense in taste. What it lacked in looks, it made up for in the packed flavor in each bite.
Oh and Tasting Kitchen was great too… But I’ll have to write about that at another time. Just too stuffed after this one.