Because Atkins Is So Five-Minutes-Ago

Comments (0) By Jonathan Gold And Michelle Huneven Wednesday, Mar 22 2006

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Dai Ho Kitchen

9148 E. Las Tunas Drive
Temple City, CA 91780

Category: Restaurant > Asian

Region: Central San Gabriel Valley

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Enoteca Drago

410 N. Canon Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Category: Restaurant > Italian

Region: Beverly Hills

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Valentino. Valentino was the first restaurant in California to serve white truffles, balsamic vinegar or radicchio, and Friday lunch here is almost a sacrament for Los Angeles foodies, sanctified with a ritual dribble of the latest obscure olive oil that owner Piero Selvaggio has managed to find in Liguria, and bottles of ancient Barolo. There is an actual menu at Valentino, and a wine list thick as the Manhattan phone book, but the entire point of the place is to pretend that they do not exist. Valentino is a certain kind of great restaurant, prepared to transform your whims into six-course meals, to solidify abstract desire into fish and meat and rice and pasta. Bring money, lots of it. 3115 W. Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 829-4313. Dinner Mon.–Thurs. 5–10 p.m., Fri.–Sat. 5–10:30 p.m.; lunch Fri. 11 a.m.–noon. Full bar. Valet and street parking. AE, CB, DC, MC, V. $45–$85. Italian. JG $$$

Vincenti Ristorante. The western stretch of Brentwood has been called the Los Angeles answer to Little Italy by some, although the New York neighborhood that its intense concentration of Tuscan-lite restaurants brings to mind tends to be the lesser avenues of the culinarily challenged Upper East Side. But Vincenti is the real thing, a spare, elegant embassy of modern Italian cooking: spit-roasted birds, minimally sauced pastas and house-cured meats; pungent flavors and abundant herbs; and an obsession with grilled steak that is unmistakably Italian. Such refinement comes at a fairly high cost — on busy evenings, the line of 745s outside the valet station can reach halfway to infinity. At these times, it is good to remember that Monday is pizza night. 11930 San Vicente Blvd., Brentwood, (310) 207-0127.Mon.–Sat. 6–10 p.m., lunch Fri. noon–2 p.m. Full bar. Takeout. Valet parking. AE, D, MC, V. Entrees $18–$40. Italian. JG $$$b