Bond Street Beverly Hills
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
So last night, I dined with two of my most fabulous friends at the new Bond Street Beverly Hills (that's what the business card says. Bond Street Beverly Hills...with the "Beverly Hills" in cursive.) It's in the new Thompson Hotel.
Imagine the JOY I felt when I heard that one of my NYC faves was traveling to the other coast. Picture squeals of delight, mildly excessive salivation, and email chains to set up dinner dates and reservations immediately. I was ECSTATIC.
To be perfectly fair and honest, I haven't been to Bond Street in NYC since...ummm...I'm going to guesstimate about 2003. I definitely haven't been since I moved. And the few times I ate there, I wasn't paying, so I didn't really notice how expensive it was or wasn't. But the thing that I don't remember is the portions being miniscule. What's the matter? You can't see that word to read it? Yeah...well that's sort of how we felt about the toro tartar that we ordered. Couldn't see it to eat it. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Girl's nights are fun. I love having dinner with girls. I've never been one to have big groups of friends that travel in packs. But it's fun to have a few great girls that you get dressed up for (because let's be honest...they'll notice your new boots more quickly than most boys will) and eat great food with and discuss girly things with. I always have and always will love and adore my girl's nights. They are a necessity to happiness in life.
So last night I had dinner with aforementioned fabulous girls. 2 of them to be exact. I arrived with one Amy at the new Thompson and we immediately scoured our surroundings. The hotel has an NYC boutique hotel feel. In other words, it had a reaaaaaaaally small and fairly dark lobby. That's as far as we got in terms of looking around the hotel but if anyone wants to come visit and get a room there, I would welcome the opportunity to get more acquainted.
We checked in at the restaurant and went to the bar to wait for our 3rd - also Amy. We pondered the chi-chi drinks for a moment (who doesn't love a good saketini??) but in my old age, I have chosen to refrain from hard alcohol for the most part, especially on school nights, and opted for some cold sake. Must say that I love the way the sake is served. It comes in a proper glass - not those little shot glasses that you have to refill every 5 minutes (or 2 seconds - depending on what's happening in your life at the current moment). So Amy and I sat and drank our sake whilst waiting for second Amy to arrive. And we people watched. We didn't even pretend that we could truly have a proper conversation with each other about anything important because there were too many interesting things and people to look at. And by interesting, I sort of mean Euro-trashy. It was like Soho was transported to Beverly Hills.
By the way, the "lounge" part of the LA Bond Street...oooooh, pardon me...Bond Street Beverly Hills (in cursive) is severely lacking in comparison to it's east coast counterpart. If you've never been in NYC, you have nothing to compare it to. But if you're expecting the same kind of swanky downstairs space in LA, you'll be sorely disappointed. You're welcome to eat in this lounge...but good luck finding a place to sit since there are only two tables with room for about 5 at each and a bar that can seat 4. It's all feels like it's been sort of squeezed in. Like an afterthought. And we felt sort of squeezed in there just waiting for our table so I can't imagine trying to enjoy a meal.
When our 3rd arrived, we were seated immediately at a cozy table next to the fireplace. I ordered more sake, and the Amy's both ordered a glass of wine. I always thought there was nothing that annoyed me more than the "upsell." You know the, "if you like that glass of wine, you'll looooooove this one." You mean the one that's $7 more? But last night I found something that annoys me more than the upsell. We'll call it the uppush - in which the waitress does not suggest the more expensive glass of wine, she just simply BRINGS it to you and informs you that she knows you'll love this one more than the one you ordered as she sets it down. That's more annoying than the upsell. The upsell was a big portion of our evening. When we asked the waitress for her favorite dishes, we couldn't help but notice that she just happened to point to the 5 or 6 most expensive dishes on the menu. Huh. Interesting.
Anyhow - we agreed that we would share everything we ordered - the mixed green salad with ginger dressing, the japanese eggplant in miso sauce, the toro tartare, himachi, and cod in a black bean sauce with vegetables. The waitress told us that she felt we were short on food so we decided to include an order of the crispy shrimp with chipotle. Done and done.
Let me say, my company was divine. How can it not be when the topics of conversation run the gamut from sweating to weddings to crazy mother-in-laws to car buying? Fabulous.
The mixed green salad was fantastic - the perfect mix of greens (and no frissee which feels like I'm eating the branch of a tree) and a delicious and tangy ginger dressing that I would have been happy to bathe in. It's a good thing our waitress suggested a 6th dish, because we had trouble finding the food on the other two first courses. While the japanese eggplant was absolutely delish - so sweet and perfectly soft- but very sparse on the plate. And the toro - which came atop of HUGE mound of crushed ice in a beautiful silver bowl, was simple and quite good, if not the SMALLEST bit of toro I've ever seen. But can someone PUH-LEASE explain to me why on God's green earth people in restaurants try to remove food from the table when there is CLEARLY a fair amount of food left on the plate? I mean, they only gave us 7 little pieces of eggplant...DO NOT take the plate away when one still remains! I know this is Los Angeles and there are people who pay to NOT eat, but we are not those people. And we were hungry! This happened with both the salad and the eggplant. And we're not talking 2 pieces of lettuce left on the plate. There was a freaking third of a salad left! Maybe their other tables weren't eating, but I swear, if that busser came over and tried to take an unfinished plate one more time, I was going to cane him with my chopsticks.
The crispy shrimp and the cod were decently sized...about 6 or 7 shrimp and an entree sized portion of cod. The himachi came in orders of 2 pieces - we ordered 3 so that we could each have 2. It was definitely divine yellowtail. No question. And you can't really skimp on the size of sushi. The shrimp were really good and thankfully, fairly filling as we were all beginning to wonder if we were going to end up going home and having to order pizza at this point. The cod was fine - the sauce and veggies were nice and light, the fish a little...well...fish-y. I wouldn't order it again and I wouldn't recommend it.
We opted out of dessert as we discussed that we could never bring our significant others to a place where they would be able to finish an entire order of something in a single bite. After all, we're girls and we weren't feeling satisfied. (Which led the two of us who live close to each other to Urth Cafe to share a proper fruit tart on our way home.)
I don't remember feeling so starving when I left Bond Street NYC. I don't know if that's because the portions were slightly bigger or the people that I was dining with had really deep pockets, but overall, the experience felt entirely different. Perhaps it has something to do with the frilly Beverly Hills tacked on to the end of the name. And I'm sure it will be a destination to see and be seen (Robert Rodriguez was having a dinner party/photo shoot there last night) but I'd rather see the sushi bar at Sushi Wa for 1/2 the price and double the portions. So what if I have to refill my sake glass every 5 minutes?
Bond Street Beverly Hills, 9630 Wilshire Blvd. at Crescent, Beverly Hills 310-601-2255
Wa Sushi and Bistro, 1106 La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood 310-854-7285
Posted byMeesh-elle my Belle at 4:55 PM
Labels: food and drink
