$$$ – expensive
My friend Fancy took me out to the O-Bar when I was in town last year. My first thought was, wow. It was a luscious, ultra hip and modern bar/lounge/restaurant with an accompanying “Forbidden Garden” on the back patio. We were seated in one of the many fabric draped cabana-esque booths great for groups as music and lively chatter engulfed us.
Don’t be fooled by the name — the food is nothing short of what trendy l.a. demands: artistic food that tastes as good as it looks. I ordered the pan roasted salmon over a bed of purple potatoes, watercress, and shallots. I am not exaggerating when I say that this is the best salmon I’ve ever had. There was no hint of fish, yet at the same time was intensely flavorful. Each bite had a melt-in-your-mouth quality I never knew seafood could possess. My only complaint was that the potatoes were slightly undercooked. The online menu says $22 for the salmon, which is very fair. The dessert menu has changed since I went, but the Tahitian Vanilla Cheesecake with blackberry-lemoncello sorbet and lemon verbena sauce sounds heavenly.
The bar definitely lived up to its culinary counterpart. We actually started the night with quite possibly the best summer drink ever: mojitos. This was the first time I had tried a mojito and mayhaps am spoiled from the experience. We ordered the mango mojito made with mango rum. I think the best mojitos are those in which you can’t taste the alcohol, but rather enjoy the marriage of fresh mint and squeezed lime that was ever present in our drink. The only suggestion would be to use pureed mango, like D.C.’s Lotus bar (great mojitos, but you can definitely taste the alcohol) rather than flavored rum.
Indulgent, trendy, and up-scale food. Spent a little over $40 total, but well worth a night on the town.
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