$16 Catch

Thanks to the Dine LA promotion (see my previous post), Catch in the five star Casa Del Mar hotel has $16 lunches (and $26 dinners) that include three courses and a view of the Pacific Ocean from floor to ceiling windows in a space where all the tones are clean and fresh feeling. With ivory and wood for the table settings, and a partially visible sushi station in the middle of the room, this is an amazing atmosphere for a historic building restoration of a bath house.

There are three choices for each of the three courses and for the first course I chose the grilled asparagus with citrus, feta and arugula. It was a perfect way for me to get started on real food after three days of a cleanse. The other choices for an appetizer were smoked trout or a leek and potato soup of the day.


I decided to stay with lighter dishes and segued into a sashimi salad with a soy vinaigrette with beautiful pink disks of thinly sliced radish. The picture doesn't show the sashimi well because it was on the bottom of the greens (six slices of tuna and salmon). Other choices for a main dish were a Niman Ranch Skirt Steak with crispy potatoes and salsa verde, or warm grilled vegetable salad with basil pesto.


For dessert, the only thing I had room for was the blueberry crostata with marscapone and lemon. It was wonderful, flaky, warm, and not too heavy. The other lighter choice was a vanilla yogurt panna cotta with strawberry compote, but next time I want to try the warm molten chocolate cake with espresso gelato and mocha sauce.

The DineLA website allows you to register your American Express card with the program so that if you dine at least 3 times during restaurant week for at least $16 per charge, you will get a $20 statement credit, so maybe I'll come back for seconds next week.