Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Rose Cafe @ Santa Monica


I’ve been away for a little while, mostly because I was on a week-long colon cleanse program. (Appetizing, I know.) I’ve always wanted to do it, but wasn’t up for starving myself. So I found a program where I could eat normally and take a mineral supplement five times a day for a week. I’ll get into the gross details here.

I blame the colon cleanse on my moodiness as of late. Or maybe it’s just the rag. When I sat down with my grandmas in the patio section of the Rose Café over the weekend I was so bothered by the oversized plastic chairs that I started taking pictures.

Why can’t chairs cater to the 5-footers of the world? It’s not fair that the 'under-tall' must keep their feet hanging or struggle to maintain balance by searching for a random foothold. Chairs are built with back support, but if you can’t even reach it what’s the point? Rose Café’s chairs are actually your standard-issue ones they probably got from Home Depot, so I don’t blame them particularly. I blame America.

With that said, the café is one of my favorite brunch/lunch places on the Westside. The place is bifurcated into a restaurant and a deli counter with open seating. Tourists and locals alike swarm the place on any given weekend, so I like to head straight to the counter for a sandwich/salad combo. It's ready in 5 minutes and there’s always a table for you.

In the 7-plus years I’ve been coming here I realize it’s hard to go wrong. Some of my favorites are the caprese sandwich – fresh water mozzarella, basil and sliced tomatoes stuffed between some of the freshest bread in LA – and the salmon Florentine – a mixture of salmon, spinach and roasted tomatoes in a puff pastry. The deli salads are mostly good and the desserts are even better. I’m a fan of the bread pudding.

The café is open for breakfast but I wouldn’t bother going until 11:30 a.m. when the deli counter opens for full service. My grandmas and I were there at 10 a.m. last Saturday so we decided to take a seat in their restaurant. The food is just as good – just a few dollars more.

I tried the frittata, the Italian style open-face omelette. It came with a choice of potato hash or fruit. Of course, all the LA-ites around me chose fruit. Come ‘on people. Just work it off at the gym! Well-seasoned and pan-fried to a reasonable crisp, the hash was an excellent choice if I must say so. The omelette was just as tasty with roasted eggplant, roasted peppers, tomatoes, basil, and topped with crumbled goat cheese.

My grandmas shared the eggs benedict, lightly nestled over two hot, fluffy English muffins. I didn’t try it, but they seemed pretty happy with it.

Rose Cafe is a stone's throw away from the beach, so it's nice to walk over after lunch. Conveniences like this make me happy to be living near Santa Monica. Don't you wish you were here too?

The Rose Cafe
220 Rose Ave. Venice, CA
(310) 399-0711

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2 comments:

tannaz sassooni said...

that chair rant is the story of my life. thanks for sticking up for us little guys!

sdfafsadf said...

being 5'1'', i know exactly what you mean. on the flip side, at LEAST our butts don't fill up all that space.