Cube

Cube, a cheese specialty Italian space on La Brea is somewhere I've wanted to go for some time now. Finally last night we made it over there, and boy I wish I had done it sooner. We tried making a reservation the day of, but they only had room for us at the cheese bar. When we got there we were able to sweet talk the hostess into letting us take an outside table as long as we promised to finish up by 9:00 (which I felt was kind of unprofessional, but worth it). They don't have a wine menu, but there is a small or no corkage fee. When you sit, you are brought a small serving of the daily cheese on a graphite cheese block with the name written in chalk. Beyond that we ordered a couple of cheeses recommended by our waitress. One was a fabulously rich goat cheese from France, the other was a hard cheese also from France. The goat cheese was so good that the second cheese didn't have a chance. As an appetizer we got crispy calamari with lemon and salsa verde. The calamari was probably the smallest I've ever seen, but it was oh so delicious! The salsa verde was a flavorful alternative to the usual tartar sauce as it was a little bit sweet as verde sauce tends to be. Second up was the gazpacho. I'm still on the search for the gazpacho that takes me back to Spain, but unfortunately we still didn't get there, though this one was good. It was really chunky, however, which made it taste a little bit like eating salsa. Following the gazpacho was the best mac & cheese ever. It was a four cheese man & cheese with truffle oil baked in a skillet with bread crumbs on top. So rich and creamy! For the entree we indulged in a seared tuna loin with pesto on top of creamy risotto and heirloom tomatoes. The waitress was really pleased that we picked this dish and was right saying that all of the flavors really play well with each other. The pesto was a little strong at times I think, but overall, outstanding. To finish it off, we grabbed a risotto cheese cake with red currant to go. The red currant wasn't quite sweet enough for me, but the cake was really light and fluffy. We really had such a hard time deciding what to get because everything looked so great, which means we'll definitely have to come back.  At the end of the meal, we were out $85, which is kind of high when you consider that we brought our own alcohol, but I still feel the meal was well worth it. The food was so good and the night was so pleasant that you almost forgot you were sitting on one of the biggest streets in LA. And they do have a $5 valet, but we were able to find street parking not too far away. Can't wait to go back!

http://losangeles.menupages.com/restaurantdetails.asp?restaurantid=31082