TBA
L'Assiette Steak Frites
Stop number two for this January's dineLA Restaurant Week: L'Assiette Steak Frites on Melrose.
Tries to be very French at an affordable price, only partially succeeds. USDA Prime beef sounds fancy until you realize it's skirt steak as opposed to a better cut, and while quality Kennebec potatoes make for good french fries, lots of other places do good french fries as well.
Salad wasn't bad, the sorrel soup was excellent, they were out of salmon (oh noes!) so we had portabello mushroom instead. Portabello mushroom was just okay; wasn't special enough to get excited about. Final course was more french fries and the sous video steak. Turns out one round of french fries is plenty, hard to get interested in a second round. And while sous vide is great for a lot of things, it leads to pretty boring steak.
Crowd seemed to be half college kids and half 20s-and-early-30s adults, either on a date or after a first-try on "French" food, since at $30 for dineLA dinner, it was quite affordable. Sadly it was disappointing, even considering the reasonable price. Not really French, not really fancy, more of an almost well-executed middle ground that turns out to be not all that interesting.