Eating and Drinking in Los Angeles

I am not surprised because this type of model can never make money. I fall in love with these small chef run places and so many of them go out of business. It is sad. It is just hard to make money at that scale.

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This is what’s so impressive with Philip Franklin Lee’s Scratch restaurants. He found a way to greatly scale intimate fine dining restaurants while, so far, from what I (and Michelin) can tell, maintaining the high quality. Shame about Kinn and other restaurants that strive to provide the best dining experience but cant make it work financially.

Maybe not the best comparison. Don’t all of PFL’s restaurants charge a lot more then Kinn? Also, I lost count of the number of restaurants he is associated with. Kinn is/was a passion project. It is also in a somewhat high rent location. I think Kinn would have operated better as a pop-up or even a food truck (like Del Mar Ostioneria-which is fantastic). I applaud the effort, but like Robert said, most do not survive.

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much lower food costs than other places due to their ingredient sourcing. So he can pluck those restaurants down anywhere and not really worry about not being able to more difficult to find things

Is there an announcement on Kinn?

When are they closing? No reservations on Resy.

Was hoping to go again this quarter (I go quarterly)

I was disappointed in my last meal at Sushi by Scratch.

Uni wasn’t great. Add one not worth it.

With Kinn closing, not sure where I’ll spend my InKind $$ in LA.

Haven’t heard good reports re Mother Wolf.

I wasn’t trying to compare Kinn to PFLs restaurants, but was just commenting the scaling issue Robert mentioned. I’m just think what PFL is doing is surprising/impressive to a degree because I dont think it’s common (maybe I’m wrong) to essentially turn Michelin starred concepts into chains. I’m not suggesting that this is the gold standard or that other restaurants show follow the same model.

I haven’t been to Sushi by Scratch, but I do love Pasta Bar. If you dont like that and have leftover inKind credit, I think Broad Street Oyster is a great option.

last day November 25th. They announced it on their IG

Is the announcement still up? I just see pictures, must not know how to use instagram.

It’s in the caption under Kinn’s second most recent photo.

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Looks like they are also selling aome slightly used Zaltos. I wonder why they’re selling all of this stuff.

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TC is closing Craft LA. Sad to see it go. We just celebrated my Father’s 90th birthday on Saturday. It’s a large space. Will be interesting to see what’s next.

The only decent restaurant in Century City. A shame.

Happy Birthday to Papa Greenbaum!

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It’s been a long time since I’ve been, but I think Hinoki and the Bird is really good. Not your thing?

they completely switched over to Glas.vin a couple years ago. So no need for mismatched zaltos. Just been sitting in storage taking up space.

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Had a great family dinner at Sea Harbour recently. Very wine friendly – we went with Champagne and Burgundy.

Some things I don’t normally see:

Shrimp paste in Chinese donut
Fried pigeon
Steamed egg custard with dried scallop
Lamb chops with basil

Noodles (seafood and beef) were on point as well as the rice dishes (scallop and combination), stir-fried beef with mushroom, and dungeness crab. Everything was delicious.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a place where I can have great Peking duck on Christmas? I’m assuming I should go to SGV, but if there is anything closer to the West SFV, I’m all for it. Bonus if they allow BYOB.

Ji rong in SGV

Bistro na is gonna start doing it soon too.

Meizhou Dong po might be in Sfv too (i know there’s a century city one) and they do good duck.

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I need a recommendation for a Cantonese restaurant that has a private room and corkage friendly. We bring our own stems and service the wines and order/tip big, so hoping for no to minimal corkage. Sadly Colette does not have a private room. TIA.