Doma [beverly hills]

DOMA

362 N. Camden Drive

Beverly Hills, CA 90210

I came here on a Thursday for lunch for a networking event, and was pleasantly surprised to see that the restaurant is located across the street from Villa Blanca, and looked much nicer than VB did. The interior is very nice, very Beverly Hills, and so are the prices. It is an Italian restaurant, and I saw they had a few pizzas on their menu, so I decided I just might as well try it. I had never heard of this place before the email for the networking event, but there was a small chance that it could be a hidden treasure trove of pizza so I decided to take that chance. Since I was at a networking event with a bunch of women lawyers, I didn't want to be obnoxious and take tons of photos so I only managed to snap one pic of my pizza before I started eating. All the other women basically ordered salads of course, but that's just not me. I ordered the bacon & egg pizza. 

"Bacon & Egg, Fontina Cheese, Prosciutto, Sage, Tomato Sauce" ($22)

I thought the pizza sounded great because I liked all the ingredients, AND it had sauce. By one look at the one photo, I think you can tell it was disappointing. Like I said, I knew it was just an Italian restaurant so I didn't get my hopes up too high, but this was just not good. Especially for $22, absolutely not. The meats were overcooked, the egg was okay but it was the only flavor in the whole pizza. The sauce was minimal and didn't taste like much and the cheese left much to be desired. The only thing I liked about the pizza was that it was cut into quarters and which is great for folding. However, this pizza didn't really need to be folded because the crust was so hard that it just pretty much cracked in the middle. The dough was not good and overcooked, and I would rather spend $22 on a large pizza from round table. 

Overall, my pizza was terrible. I can't speak for any of the other pizzas but I probably will not be trying any of those. I'm sure the pastas here are good, as well as the sandwiches (I did try someone's truffle potato chip, which was delicious), but I would probably never come back here again unless another networking event is scheduled here. 

Crust: cardboard

Cheese: whatever

Sauce: minimal, caked into the dough

Best Part: the egg?

Recommend: do not get pizzas here

Sotto [century city-ish]

Sotto 

9575 W Pico Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90035

I had been wanting to try Sotto's pizza but the three dolla $igns deterred me for a while. Andrew decided he wanted to take his family there when they came to visit so it was the perfect opportunity to snap a few pics. Of course, when dining out with a big group it is a little bit more difficult to whip out my camera to take a million photos of a restaurant, especially one so small and dim inside. I did manage to take a few innocuous photos on my phone, to try to capture the essence of their pizzas. 

Not pictured are the appetizers we had, including the housemade bread plate with delicious and creamy burrata as well as what can only be referred to as lardo. Also ordered were the olives and the pita chips. Andrew and I also got a pasta to split before we each got our own pizzas because we are gluttons. I can't remember exactly what the pasta was but it isn't even on their menu online so does it really exist? Anyway, I ordered the margherita pizza of course, and Andrew and his dad each got the Guanciale pizza, which seemed to be the most popular online. 

The pasta that we had as an appetizer was very delicious, and I was already getting pretty full before digging into my margherita. It looked very good upon first presentation, with a fluffy crust and a good cheese-to-sauce ratio. I only got to eat 2 slices of it before I was stuffed, but overall I thought the pizza was pretty great for an Italian restaurant. The cheese was good quality and tasty, and the crust was perfectly soft inside yet crispy on the outside. The only complaint I had was that overall the pizza was a little too salty. It may have been the sauce or they sprinkled on some extra sea salt or something on top, but they could have done without it. I didn't even get to try Andrew's pizza, but he said something about the ingredients being a little overpowering. Everyone was just already pretty full from the appetizers by the time the pizza came out, so the pizza impressions may have been a bit skewed.

Sotto is a great Italian restaurant though, but I would probably only come for the pastas and could get better pizza somewhere else. The atmosphere is nice and hip and seems like a place you might see a celebrity or something because it is pretty dim inside and you can't really see people's faces. Very LA.

Margherita: tomato, mozzarella, basil, EVOO ($14)

Good crust texture and ample cheese

Guanciale: house-cured pork cheek, ricotta, scallions, fennel pollen ($18) (added fried egg for $2)

Crust: great, soft yet crispy and not too soggy

Cheese: good amount

Sauce: maybe a little salty

Best Part: the crust/dough

Recommend: pizza is okay but you should just get a pasta instead

Gjelina [venice]

Gjelina

1429 Abbott Kinney Blvd

Venice, CA 90291

I had been wanting to visit Gjelina after I had seen lots of LA youtubers and bloggers visit. Located in the heart of Abbott Kinney, the clientele is exactly what you would expect from Venice: people trying very hard to look like they aren't trying at all. The interior is very crowded with some communal tables as well as regular individualized tables. When we checked in at the front, we were made to stand against the side wall with a bunch of other waiting patrons, just awkwardly behind people enjoying their food. It was nice seeing a little bit more closely what the food looked like though. 

Dreading that we were going to have to sit at an uncomfortable corner of a communal table, I was quite pleased to be sat out on the patio on "the couch" which was probably the best spot in the house. It was much more spacious out on the patio and much less hectic in general.

Since there was so much on the menu, Andrew and I decided to share one pizza and a few small plates. The duck sausage pizza stood out right away, and Andrew had already read about the mushroom toast as a must-have. I really wanted the frites, but apparently they were out that day. We settled on the mushroom toast, asparagus, duck sausage pizza, pork belly, and planned on the butterscotch pot de creme for dessert.

Regarding the pizza, Gjelina totes itself as an American restaurant, and certainly does not claim to have neapolitan pizzas. That being said, the pizzas are well-known to LA as being very excellent. My only complaint was the lack of sauce pizzas. The duck sausage pizza we got was a white pizza, no sauce, and I knew this going into it. I found the flavor of the mushrooms and duck sausage to be okay, though I couldn't really distinguish the "duck" sausage from any other type of sausage. The pizza without sauce was just a little too dry for me, which is my complaint about almost all white pizzas. It wasn't a bad pizza, but just not something I really look for. Regardless, the other plates were very delicious so the visit to Gjelina was worth it.

The pork belly was my favorite plate, the meat was very tasty and the apple glaze on the root vegetables was the perfect accompaniment. We also got the asparagus side just to add some more greens to our meal, and it just tasted like regular asparagus, nothing too fancy. The mushroom toast was also good, lots of grease and very flavorful - something the pizza probably could have used. The butterscotch pot de creme at the end was soooo yummy and was the most amazing consistency. I don't think I've ever had pot de creme before, but I've had some puddings in my life, and this was definitely better than any I've ever had. Definitely the best part of the meal.

Mushroom Toast

Asparagus

 Duck Sausage pizza: duck sausage, nameko mushroom, garlic, mozzarella, shallot, parmesan

Pork Belly w/ roasted root vegetable, greens, apple glaze

Butterscotch Pot de Creme

Overall Gjelina is a great restaurant to go to, not just for the pizzas. Next time I would definitely want to try something with a little more tomato juice, but would still end with the butterscotch pot de creme.

Crust: average, held all the ingredients up (probably because there was no sauce making it soggy)

Cheese: good

Sauce: none :(

Best Part: mushrooms I guess?

Recommend: getting a sauce pizza, unless you're into that white pizza sort of thing