Ugo an Italian Wine Bar

Preface:  So I must confess I have a real problem with this whole blogging thing.  My problem being that everytime I go out and get tasty, blog worthy food, I forget to take a picture and so my friends for todays entry you will see a bunch of half eaten dishes.  My apologies.

Ugo an Italian Wine Bar
So last week my good friend Aaron and I came over to Ugo because we hadn't been here before.  For those of you who ALSO haven't been here let me fill you in.  The wine bar, on Cardiff Ave in Culver City, is a little tiny bar that has little circular islands of wine.  You go to main bar and give the bartender whatever amount of cash you would like to put on your new Ugo debit card.  You take that card, and hopefully the wine glass they handed you, to one of these islands and insert it into a designated slot.  Each bottle of wine has a digital display of a price above the bottle ranging from $0.78 to upwards of $10.  That quantity indicates the price per 1 oz pour, you put your glass under the spout and press the button.  Ta-da!  You have now done Ugo wine bar.  Keep in mind this is an Italian wine bar, so odds are you won't know any of these wines and will basically have to chose which wines to taste based on price and the short descriptions about each bottle.

On with the story so after ten dollars worth of 1oz pours and pizza we split we decided we would return next week for happy hour and split a bottle.  Ugo, for your information, happens to be within walking distance of my place ergo splitting a bottle isn't too risky.  When we came for our bottle I realized it was DineLA and of course ordered food as well!  After we ordered they brought us some sliced bread with little pour bottles of olive oil and balsamic.  Which was nice....except there was no where to pour the olive oil and balsamic except for our bread plates.  Independently we both attempted this maneuver but since they act like oh I dunno oil and water, when you pour them both in one small area of a larger plate, the balsamic literally slides out from under the oil and separates itself.  Annoying but we made due.  I ordered a trio of crustini for my appetizer, one eggplant, one mushroom and one caramelized onions and prosciutto (not picture...I ate them too fast.)  These were actually pretty good, not the most amazing thing ever created but the sweet caramelized onions with the salty prosciutto was to die for.  Too bad it was only two bits. 

For my entree I order a fried risotto cake with cheese in a marinara sauce. At least I remembered to take a picture this time.  So these were actually really good.  Aaron got the rack of lamb and personally I think I made the better choice.  They were basically risotto with seasonings that appear to be pan fried on top of this melty mozzarella cheese.  I ate all of it!  Unfortunately as I am writing this is has come to my attention that nothing even resembling this is on their menu online so you will have to go to Ugo and check it out for yourself.  I really liked this dish however my draw back was the size.  These little fried medallions are somewhere between the size of a golf ball and tennis ball.  A racquetball maybe!  Anyway, they're not very big, but thankfully we had a nice little basket of bread to help fill me up.

That was until dessert arrive.  Chocolate mousse cake, described as the perfect balance between mousse and cake.  And it was!!  It was large and it was really really good.   I like that it was 50/50 mousse and cake and very delicate.  I also like that it was topped with a thin wedge of chocolate on top cut the same shape as the cake.

All in all I would say 3.5 points.  It was pretty good, I didnt dislike anything, but nothing really stood out as "really good", let alone "I have to come back and have this again" I wont come back for the food food, but I will come back for wine and the happy hour specials.

***Side note the week before we shared the happy hour pizza which was a nice sized pizza with prosciutto, shaved parmesean and arugula.  VERY GOOD****

Happy Hour at Ciudad!!

So on Thursday it was my friend Rob's birthday so we decided it was time to go out after class for some drinks and dinner!  First we went to Yardhouse at LA live , which had a two hour wait!  Apparently there was a Los Angeles Kings and Buffalo Sabres game at the staples center and all the fans had decided to camp out at Yardhouse until the game started.  So we hopped in our car an drove up Figeroa looking for decent place to eat.  California Pizza Kitchen is good, but we were looking for drinks.  Morton's has drinks, and a dollar sign heavy price tag for said drinks not to mention dinner.  Then we roll up on Ciudad and I quickly googled it from my phone.  "Happy hour till 7, half priced drinks and 3 dollar tacos!"  and we were sold!

We sat in the bar at this cute little high boy tables.  There were only four of us so we attempted to squeeze us all around one, but the waiters noticed and very nicely offered us to put two tables together.   Score 1 point for Ciudad.

  The options for drinks were $4.50 for a house margarite, house mojito, house sangria or house ciapirinha (see the rest of the menu here).  Now we asked the waiter what the heck a Ciaperurbadjda (cause I couldn't pronounce it) was he said it was muddled limes with simple syrup, soda and a rum made from sugar cane or fire water.  Well that sounded tasty, except for I wasn't sure how sugar cane = fire water but I was willing to try it expecting something along the lines of a gimlet.  It was not a gimlet.  It was made with Cachaça and OMG was it fire water.  I took one sip expecting it to be a sweet drink only to find it was a very SPICY drink.  And one sip was enough for me.  Lose one point for Ciudad (from me, one of the girls I was with loved hers and drank the whole thing.)

When the waiters came around again and I told them I didnt enjoy the drink and they quickly replaced it with one of the tastiest sangrias I've ever had (regain the lost point).  We proceeded to order a number of tacos and at the last minute I changed my mind and ordered the empanadas. Best decision I had made all day!

I also got the potato taco (just in case happy hour empanadas were not large enough to fill my appetite) which apparently was deep fried (which we know I love) and had some sort of tasty orange colored cream sauce underneath. (1 more point)

But the best part of my meal was the empanadas.  Two little flaky puffs of awesomeness!  First they come out on a plate with one empanada in a bright green sauce and one in a tangy orange colored sauce (different from the potato taco sauce.)  Unfortunately I didnt realize they were two different empanadas and I wish I had because one was WAY better than the other (though they were both super good).  The one that was playing second fiddle was the wild mushroom ( which I love) and a chipotle (orange) cream sauce.  Still very tasty.  The star however (which I foolishy devoured not realizing it was the only one I had) was stuffed with a purree of spinach, pine nuts, raisins and manchego in an oh so yummy salsa verde.  My darn camera phone doesn't do the plate justice, since the colors of the sauces were so bright and the empanadas were a golden brown perfect.  It should also be noted that I have no tolerance for heat or spicy foods, these sauces however had the warm flavors without the heat!  I am totally coming back here and ordering this again and again and again!  (+1)

Also happy hour only runs until 7 so around 6:50 the waiter comes by and asks if we want to order another round.  We don;t have to drink it now, and they wont even bring it out until we ask, but if we thought we might want another round to order it now to get the half off prices.  I have NEVER had that happen before!  It was just so nice!  Obviously another round was ordered (the ciapirinha, interestingly was left off the second round.)  Another MASSIVE point!

All in all out of 5 possible points, I give Ciudad's happy hour menu and service and whopping 4 points!

(note: I know that I said I wouldn't judge a place based on the service, but I mean,  theses people were super nice!  We obviously were not high rollers and I thought that was just awesome!)