26 Beach

After going there today and remembering how much I love it, I can't believe that I haven't blogged about 26 Beach yet. Located not far from Venice Beach on Washington, this shabby chic little eatery serves brunch, lunch, and dinner and is incredibly delicious. One of my first impressions of 26 Beach was the large number of items on the menu with goat cheese. They serves a pan fried goat cheese salad in an appetizer or a full salad portion that is dressed with strawberry vinaigrette. You can add your choice of meat, be it chicken or rock shrimp for an extra few dollars as well. The burger with goat cheese is another spectacular dish here, but really it doesn't seem that you can go wrong, which may come as a relief after you sit down and wade through a four-page menu. The bulk of those pages consists of about 20 different salads (roughly $13 each), various entrees and pastas ($15-20), pizzas ($13), sandwiches ($12), and gourmet burgers as they call them ($12). I came here for a third time today and third time was definitely a charm. Despite that the parking lot is small and narrow, the indoor patio is spacious and cozy with shabby chic furniture covering the space. It feels quite like sitting on your aunt's patio, if your aunt is a rich homemaker in the south. When it came time to order, we started with a chicken quesadilla served on a whole wheat tortilla. While it was good, there's really not that much you can do with a quesadilla (with the exception of Doughboy's breakfast quesadilla). For my entree I ordered the ceviche tostada, which was essentially a blend of a Mexican taco salad and ceviche. The ceviche and salad parts were balanced well and it kept me full for several hours after the meal, something that is usually pretty hard for me with salads. The ceviche was particularly good and while I was worried that the lettuce might taint the ceviche, it really didn't. I'm not sure I would argue that it made it better, just that it made it heartier, and it certainly didn't make it worse. Two of the other three girls also got salads, but the real prize winner was the fourth diner who ordered the Polar Bear, which in layman's terms would be croissant French toast served with vanilla ice cream and berries. We teased her for having ice cream for lunch, but it really was superb. I took a couple of bites as dessert, but it wasn't incredibly sweet, so I could definitely see having it as brunch. It was really huge (for only $12) so the rest of us tried to help her finish it. I've heard the rest of the brunch menu is great, and you'll definitely see me back there for that!

http://www.26beach.com/food.htm