Lunar New Year Dinner at Arte Cafe

Friday, February 12, 2021 LA County finally opened up to outdoor dining again. Richard was "Johnny on the spot" to get a dinner scheduled. Perfect timing for the Lunar New Year. LKargfe , appreciative crowd tonight, Tables are set far apart for the required social distancing. Started out with house made egg rolls. Light, delicate wrapper, perfect chruncy vegetables inside. Next was "West Lake" soup. This was a real new one for me. Loads of flavor and really hit the spot in the cold weather. Looked up online to see what it really is made of. Minced beef, minced chicken, mushrooms, coriander, cilantro and a beaten egg drizzled into the broth. Our third course is a steamed Sole stuffed with Shrimp and Ginger soy. Sole was cooked perfectly and was in a wrapped coil position. A very large grilled shrimp was on top. The ginger soy was delicious. Perefct for the light fish. Main course is a Wagu beef ribeye with a hoisin BBQ sauce and grilled bok choy. Beef was cooked perfectly medium rare and very good flavor. The hoisin bbq sauce was excellent. Richard outdid himself in this one. Another new item for me. Long Noodles. Also looked it up online. They basically are a very long, very thin wheat noodle with garlic, ginger, onion and muchroom. The idea is to eat the "long" noodle without breaking it. This is for longevity. Really liked the garlic flavor to a simple noodle. Dessert was a housemade almond cookie with a heavy, dense, smooth cream on top and berries. We were given a cocktail after dinner. Part of the original menu. Had a choice of 4 different Hennessy's Cognac cocktails. I chose the "Fortune Cookie" Side Car. Really into side cars and this was a bit different. Hennessey's VSOP Cognac, Grand Marnier. lemon juice and a sugared rim. We were surprised that wine was served with dinner. Not on the original menu. Douglas brought a Gran Campo Viejo Cava to start. Beautiful,colorful bottle and the Cava was very good. Then Arte Cafe poured a Lamarca Prosecco. We also had a 2016 Conundrum which I do not care for. Have never liked it. But I will admit that it did pair very well with the sole. On it's own not so good. Then a Belle Glos Pinot Noir. Decent for an inexpensive wine. The wines were poured in addition to the origional menu. They were not the best, but not the worse either. Inexpensive, decent wines. Dinner including the cocktail was only $58 so you should not expect a "gift" of free wine to be La Tache. So good to be able to get out again. have no issues dining out at Arte cafe as they are set up for it year around. I have an adversion to those tents that the restaurants are using to circumvent the no indoor dining rule right now. How can a 3 sided with roof, vinyl tent not be considered indoors". If you are seated at the back of the tent you are no way "outdoors". I did a dinner once in one and was not comfortable even though I was seated at the end near the open side. So those tents are off my list for "outdoor" dining that is in place right now due to Covid.