A DAY OF DINING IN LA LA LAND

Well I've returned to life in Boston...frigid temperatures and snow in April. (I'll admit, this is not an unusual occurrence.) And not like it was so warm and balmy out in LA. After three cloudy days at home, the sun finally came out on the day I left. This is the second time this has happened to me. So here I am, ready to recount to you my first day back in LA. It was a very busy day for me, and I started it off with breakfast with my little sis. She happened to have the day off since those neocons that she works for at Fox give Good Friday off. So my sister took me to a popular weekend brunch spot (since it was a weekday, there wasn't a line) called Doughboys. I had already looked at the menu online back in Boston and was pretty excited to go and try it out.

I could see why this place was popular. It was a super casual place that is comfortable. It's in a key location and it doesn't have many seats. Look at this pic I took of the ceiling. It's lined with egg cartons. Isn't that funny?The menu is really extensive. I had a tough time picking between sweet and savory, but ended up going for savory. I ordered a scramble with potato, turkey sausage, spinach, tomato, scallion and mushroom. I admit that I mainly ordered it cause it came with a side of cornbread, and I love cornbread. Here it is below.It comes in this gigantic bowl. (Actually, all their servings are gigantic). I wasn't in love with it, though. I think they could've cooked the sausage a bit before adding it in with everything. That would've brought the flavor out. And the cornbread was disappointing. It wasn't vary flavorful and had this dense, greasy quality to it. Meanwhile, Cathy ordered a frittata with cream cheese, onion and smoked salmon.It was another enormous portion. I really did like the walnut bread it came with, and I think that's where I made my mistake in ordering. This place if known as a bakery and in the future, I should order a baked item.

After a day of running around the city, I finally ended up at Mozza for dinner with my family and Katie. When we entered the space, it was already packed, with people waiting for tables. The restaurant was much smaller than I had expected, but I liked the high ceilings and sort of rustic feel to the place. We perused the menu for a bit, and decided that it'd be easier to order a bunch of appetizers and a number of pizzas to share. So let's start off with the appetizers:

Actually, I'm look at the menu right now and a lot of the appetizers we ordered aren't on there. At any rate, here are classic fried zucchini blossoms stuffed with ricotta.These were perfectly fried and salted. I thought they were delicious and wish there were more.

Next up, marinated beets. These don't look like the typical red beets, but after visiting the farmers markets, I found out that there are a larger variety of beets in CA, including these light colored variety. These were also very tasty.

My dad wanted the bruschette with chicken livers, capers, parsley & guanciale. I took a nibble, minus the guanciale and found it delicious, but too dense and rich for my taste. (it is liver after all.)
We finished with this side of polenta topped with some shredded chicken. The chicken ontop was amazing, but I found the texture of the polenta a little disconcerting. It's hard to tell cause the pic is blurry, but the polenta was a lighter color than the polenta I cook. And the texture was almost smooth and custardy. I wasn't a big fan of that. I like to feel some of the grains when I'm eating polenta.
The we waited for the pizzas to arrive. It was kinda hard for me to decide what pizza I wanted, because in typical Batali fashion, almost every pizza contained some ingredient I didn't eat. But there were also some very typical Batali ingredients all over the menu; anchovies, rapini, burratta, etc. As we waited for the pizzas to arrive, I noticed that working near the oven was Nancy Silverton herself. Ok, now here's a listing of the pizzas we ordered:

My pizza:Funghi misti, fontina, taleggio & thyme.Katie's pizza: Coach farm goat cheese, leeks, roasted garlic & bacon (minus bacon)

Fennel sausage, panna & red onion Littleneck clams, oregano, parmigiano & pecorino
And this pizzette (mini pizza). That involved green peas and bacon, but I can't find it on the menu and I don't remember what else was in it.So what was my opinion of all this pizza? It's hard for me to answer that question. Cause I don't really think you could call it pizza. Sure when you look at the pics it LOOKS like pizza, but for me, when I'm eating pizza, I have a certain idea in mind of what pizza should be like. Be it a thin crust or thick crust, it has a certain type of crust. It normally involves some sauce (even if it's not tomato) and it normally involves cheese. These weren't pizza-like to me. The crust was more like bread. Very few of the pizzas had cheese and almost none of the had sauces. This isn't what pizza in Italy is like, either. It was its own entity. I enjoyed it and my older sister loved it.

However, my favorite part of the meal was dessert. Because finally, after years of searching, I have found gelato that tastes exactly like what gelato tastes like in Italy. Il laboratorio del gelato came close, but this was exactly it. Here's my dish with chocolate, strawberry and nociolla. My little sis kept trying to get me to order the olive oil ice cream, but I was happy with the classics.My big sister and Katie shared this Meyer lemon gelato pie, but my dessert was my favorite. So was it worth it? Well, if I lived in LA, I'd wait until all the hoopla died down to visit, but since I'm there very rarely, I'm glad I go to try out Mozza and tell you guys all about it.