A-Frame Restaurant, Culver City & Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

On New Year's Eve Eve (get that? Dec 30th), my friend and near-relative JustJenn and I headed over to A-Frame Restaurant in Culver City/West Los Angeles. It's a new restaurant by Roy Choi...of Kogi trucks.

A-Frame is in an A-Frame building (former IHOP restaurant space on Washington Blvd.) The space is really inviting; the seating is "modern picnic" style with bench seating. Since it was just two of us, we sat family style with a group of 6 or 7 to our right and an international duo on our right (when we arrived, there was a couple speaking Chinese next to us, then two guys who spoke Russian took their place! Ahhh, Los Angeles. You rock the diversity).

It was freezing in Los Angeles (I'm sure the girls in the Wisconsin sweatshirts here for the Rose Bowl thought we were wimps), so they didn't have patio seating that night. The wait was pretty long, but the hostess was the nicest person in the world. We got hugs! Super nice!

Luckily, Jenn and I had time to catch up on things while waiting for our table, because we pretty much ate in silence. The only words exchanged were "Oh My God", "Soooo good" and "My nose is running because of the heat [from the wings], but it's a good pain."

Wings ($9): Korean-style, blue cheese dressing, heirloom pickles. Jenn and I are Japanese American so we are biologically wimpy when it comes to spice. But we ate these up! The pickles were so interesting...an Asian pear was in the mix. Yum. I don't like blue cheese so I didn't try much of the dressing.

Kitchen Fries ($6): purple Okinawan sweet potato, yam, Korean sweet potato, with kimchi sour cream and sea salt. These were soooo delicious. Too bad I had to share them.

Cracklin Beer Can Chicken (Half $10, Whole $18): Peruvian-style, with century egg, salsa roja, salsa verde. OMG. The chicken was so moist, and the skin? Although the Surgeon General probably hates me for doing so, I devoured every piece of that flavorful chicken skin.

Chu Don’t Know Mang ($6): Pound cake churros, cinnamon, malted chocolate milk, ice cream. Holy smokes. Pound Cake Churros...perfectly fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar. Please. Give me more.

And yes. Don't judge. Three of four of our dishes were fried. Diet starts later.

Sorry the photos suck. The food doesn't. If you are in Los Angeles, you should go!

Happy New Year everyone! 2011 is gonna rock!
- mary the food librarian

Links:
A-Frame website with menu. 12565 Washington Blvd 90066, Only open for dinner (as of Dec 2010)
LA Times (and pretty photos of the interior), Oct 29, 2010, A-Frame restaurant Culver City: A sneak peek
LA Weekly, Nov 9, 2010, Roy Choi's A-frame Opens in Culver City