For my last dinner in LA, I kept looking around and found a few things. Then I was watching Take Home Chef and he picked up someone from a brazilian market in LA. Then I realized that there would be brazilian restaurants here! So that’s how we ended up at Cafe Brasil. It also helped that it was only a few miles from the apartment.

The place is casual. You order up front and take a number and wait. Then you pick up your food when called. It’s super cute inside, with mismatched tables and chairs in all kinds of colorful primary colors. Everything is bright and colorful. Maybe a bit too colorful. There’s outside seating too, but that’s probably only recommended when it’s daylight out.
J got the red snapper. That came with rice, salad, beans, salsa, and plantains. It’s a good thing he ordered this and not me. For whatever reason, everything came with a mustard base. The snapper had a mustard crust. The salad had mustard dressing. Even the salsa had some mustard in it. It was bizarre. I don’t remember any of the food that I had in brazil having any kind of mustard slant to it.
I was feeling nostalgic so I got the feijoada. That was served with rice, farofa, collard greens, and oranges. We also got an additional side of plantains, which I gobbled up quickly. We also got a couple of pao de de quiejo (cheese bread), but these were not fresh at all and therefore cold, crunchy, and not that good. I enjoyed my feijoada very much. It had big hunks of meat in it, including fall off the bone pork. I’m not usually a fan of greens, but these were pretty good and nice and garlicky. The farofa? I dunno about this stuff. When I was in brazil, we always called it sawdust. Not because it tasted like sawdust, but just because it looks like sawdust. Well, this particular farofa tasted like bacon. Like bacon sawdust. I guess I just don’t get farofa. I also got a guarana by Antarctica. That was the brand we always had in brazil. I was very happy to get my brazilian food fix!

On my last day in LA I did lots and lots of walking. Around 4 miles actually. And with my short stumps for legs, just think about how many steps that is! As a reward, I treated myself to some frozen yogurt.
Red Mango was the choice this time. They’re a Korean chain that made it to the US last year. They don’t seem to have as many topping options as pinkberry. I liked the store though. Clean and simple and modern, yet warm and inviting.
I never get any of the cereal or nut toppings, I’m just much more of a fan of the fruit. Their fruit selection seemed a bit limited, but I went with blackberry and mango. For a place with mango in their name, the mango was quite unripe. And being in southern california, I thought it wouldn’t be too hard to find some ripe mango. At least the blackberries were good. The yogurt itself was good. There’s something surprisingly tasty about plain frozen yogurt. I think pinkberry is still my favorite.

I met up with a couple of my west coast colleagues for a dinner at Gaucho Grill on the Promenade. I think it’s supposed to be an Argentinian restaurant? The place was practically empty, which didn’t seem to be the best sign. The place is fairly large and attractively decorated.J ordered an appetizer. It looks like an empanada, but I totally forget what it was. But I do remember it being good.
She also ordered the salmon entree. It was grilled with a sweet cherry tomato sauce and served with spinach and rice. She liked this very much.
To continue on the salmon slant, S ordered the grilled salmon salad. It was a huge portion served with a garlic vinaigrette. She liked this, but felt that the greens got soggy too quickly with the hot salmon and other warm ingredients being heaped on it.As for me, I was the lone non-salmon person, ordering the cuban chicken paillar. It was basically a giant flattened chicken breast with grilled onions. Simple yet tasty. I really loved the rice as well. The beans were ok. Overall, good food and good company. I’m not sure why this place was so deserted. It wasn’t great, but it was perfectly good, affordable, and had good service.