Week in Reviews: Westside Tavern Takes Two

Today, SIV rides the escalator up from mall parking L2 to (mostly) dote on Warren Schwartz's newest venture, Westside Tavern. Perhaps a funny name for a restaurant located in a shopping mall, the Westside Pavillion, Virbils shares her surprise that "nothing is startlingly original, but what is unusual is how well-conceived and well-executed each dish is." Her highness delights that the food "is consistently good," especially the pizza which is "as good, or better, than most restaurant pizza around." Though, SIV repeatedly advises potential diners to be aware that:

The portions are huge at Westside Tavern. Unless you're a real trencherman, count on sharing appetizers and even mains, all of which make this Westside restaurant even more affordable.

She also did run into some red flags, notably the pastas were "over-sauced, not quite al dente, overambitious," and she didn't dig the Dungeness crab cake salad "mostly because the crab cake had more filler than crabmeat." All in all, SIVis deems the mall-gem "affordable" California tavern fare, and Warren Schwartz walks away with two shiny stars. [LAT]
 

THE ELSEWHERE: The Find rounds up hidden Peruvian restaurants in SoCal, the OCR finds a breath of fresh air in Lola Gaspar, the OCW discovers tasty tapas at Boqueria , DailyBreeze samples Persian fare at Turquoise, Food She Thought goes mochi hunting at Mikawaya, MattBoy finds a strip mall izakaya at Izayoi, Dig Lounge enjoys taco Tuesday at Sky's Tacos, while Delicious Coma gets sticky fingers at Territory BBQ & Records.

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