Downtown LA: Chaya Downtown

Where's one of the best place to grab happy hour in LA? Downtown, especially around the financial district. There's a bunch of restaurants and bars offering happy hour for all the professionals working around there.

Chaya Downtown is an upscale restaurant located right next to Drago Centro. Both offers all day happy hour so when we were contemplating on where to go for happy hour, we found out that Chaya had $2 Yakitori specials on Mondays so we opted for Chaya.

To get yakitori, you must sit at the "yakitori garden" aka the outdoor patio. As soon as you walk to the garden, you can immediately smell the yakitori grilling on the side by two Japanese chefs, which is a good sign of authenticity!

Chaya Downtown

525 S Flower St

Los Angeles, CA 90071

All yakitori items are $2!

Ordered shiitake mushroom, beef, and chicken skewers

Shiitake skewers. Very simply done with just a sprinkle of salt and either lime or yuzu to give it a little oomph.

I loved the beef skewers. It was cut up into a nice-sized cubes, 4 on a skewer. I'm guessing they used rib meat so it was really tender and succulent. The sauce that they use is amazing as well, since it had a stronger flavor than many yakitori restaurants. The chicken was white meat, cut up into similar size and dipped in the same sauce.

Kobe beef short rib melt. Tender short rib sitting in its own juices with onions and melted cheese on top. The artisan bread it came with was awesome. It seriously is a must have for happy hour.

Beautiful cheese browned in the broiler.

Seafood tartare roll. It wasn't made properly as some were falling apart.

Salmon skin roll. It was alright but even at $7 I felt a little jipped since salmon skin roll isn't expensive to start out with. Nevertheless, it was really good though.

Of course at happy hour, can't be without any drinks so I opted for the Abita Amber, which is seriously my favorite beer right now. Smooth, malty, and just plain delicious. Goes extremely well with Japanese food even though it is an amber ale.

Great happy hour. Now it is gonna be tough to choose between Drago or Chaya when I'm around now! Free valet doesn't hurt either haha.

West LA: Coral Tree Cafe

The Coral Tree Cafe is a popular eatery in Brentwood for breakfast, brunch, and lunch. It's an extremely friendly spot right in the center of San Vincente Blvd. Lots of outdoor or patio seating for the days when the sun are shining and a big menu using organic ingredients for all the picky eaters.

A group of us came here after a night out around SAMO so we decided to grab brunch nearby. Reviews seemed mixed on Yelp but we decided to go for it since our friend that lived near by said this place is pretty good.

Coral Tree Cafe

11645 San Vicente Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90049

Breakfast burrito. Wasn't anything special in my opinion and extremely small for the price.

Veggie frittata with soy cheese. Doesn't that cheese just look fake? Ahhaha

Egg Benedict. The only thing that really appealed to me. Love the Hollandaise sauce.

Some sort of panini... wasn't really memorable so I didn't bother hahaha

Did you know they have organic Heinz ketchup??? You can actually tell the difference since the taste is milder and it's not as smooth as normal ketchup.

My Italian egg scramble. It was good but I expected much more flavors. It had pancetta, cheese, sun dried tomatoes, and pasta (??). Mixed green salad had a good vinaigrette ahah.

Another frittata. Totally forgot what this one was too but it was bland... and needed a lot of Tapatio.

Even though it is popular with the locals around, I think it's just a little too hyped and definitely lots of things to improve on. I like how they use organic ingredients and how they brew their coffee & tea with fair-trade products but still, a little overpriced for what you get. If I lived or was around the area, I would probably go just because it's a nice spot but it's not a place I would want to go back to again. The food is just.. a bit forgettable.