Palisades-News-June-3-2015-

Page 30 Palisades News June 3, 2015DINING WITH GRACEENZO & ANGELA11701 Wilshire Blvd. (at Barrington), West L.A. • (310) 477-3880It is always a treat when youreturn to a restaurant a year laterand find the food just as compellingas it was on your last visit.Enzo and Angela Battarra havebeen treating Westsiders to excellentItalian cuisine for several years.Although the upstairs restaurantalways had a pleasing Italian vibe,the walls are now totally coveredwith lively photographs of dining inItaly: it seems to transports dinersto Sicily as if we were there withthem. Soft lively background music,a water fountain and a few simpleflowers in a jar on each white-cladtable set the scene.Best of all, while you study themenu and order your wine, they bring you bread with adelicious dipping sauce of olive oil and tomatoes fragrantwith garlic. The sauce is so delicious you have to restrainyourself before you even order.The menu is extensive with a number of appetizers,salads and soups, a quartet of risottos, a trio of fishdishes, along with chicken, veal and beef entrees. Notto be ignored, of course, are more than a dozen pastas.But now, there is also a Menu Fisso Dinner (fourcourses) priced at $29 per person. My friend and I foundthis hard to resist. He ordered the lentil soup, beautifullyserved in the center of a large deepbowl (ensuring that it was hot).Freshly made, this soup was excellent.I ordered the simple mixed saladof assorted greens with mushrooms,tomatoes, cucumber and decorativeswirls of carrot mixed in a finevinegary dressing.Pasta was the next course.Spaghetti Bolognese was oneselection; mine was the linguinemussels in a red sauce, and the thirdoption was penne eggplant andmozzarella. My mussels weredelicious and just the right portion:five or six mussels on the linguinewith a superb red sauce. Equallydelicious was the spaghetti Bolognesewhich my friend enjoyed to the last bite.Then came the entrees; his was the baked lamb chopsconsisting of two superb chops with roasted potatoesand French green beans. Accompanying the dish was asplendid little mint sauce for the chops flavored with abit of green onion and balsamic vinegar.Equally delicious was my filet mignon in a mushroomand Cabernet sauce. This scrumptiously flavored steakwas accompanied by a little baked risotto topped witha slice of tomato and zucchini. The other entrees wepassed up were seared ahi tuna with an orange saucewith capers, and a chicken breast in a Port wine sauce.Dessert was either a slice of Angela’s delicious homemadelemon cake or a scrumptious, rich chocolate cake.Overall, a good deal for $29 per person for the excellentquality of the food and delightful service.Enzo and Angela have been cooking together for threedecades and it is reflected in their passion for flavor. Atlunchtime they offer the same large variety of pastas alongwith panini, sandwiches, soups and salads, meats and fish.Lunch is served Monday through Friday from 11 a.m.to 2:30 p.m., while dinner service is Monday throughSaturday from 5 to 9:30 (10 p.m. on Saturday). In theevening there is valet parking.— GRACE HINEYLA'S TOP TEN BESTWEEKDAY BREAKFAST SPOTS1032 SWARTHMORE AVE • PACIFIC PALISADES, CA • (310) 459 7561