Samplings

Got a last-minute call to check out One Sunset as part of DineLA's restaurant week last night. I arrived first, and got a mojito from the bar, which could have used a little more mint-muddling, but was otherwise tasty. They also offered a Johito, which had Jack Daniels instead of rum, and a berry mojito, which was a regular mojito with berries.

Parking was less of a nightmare than I'd expected - I had decided early on to suck it up and valet - but my compatriots found meters pretty easily. Only thing is, all the meters are 15 minutes per quarter, and no one seems to have quarters. I asked the bartender at Red Rocks, and she looked at me like I was asking for a made-up microbrew. I clarified, "Twenty-five cent pieces," and the confusion lifted, but she still didn't have any.

We were given the option of a dining table, for which we'd have to wait a few minutes, or a lounge table, which was available for the taking, and opted for the latter - it was much cushier, anyway. Why sit on wooden chairs when there are sofas?

So the deal was that it was a prix fixe menu. There were three courses, each with three options. I started with the prosciutto and pear st. andré flatbread (sans saintliness); other options were a tuna tartare dish, and some candy-striped beets, about which our server raved. Apparently, beets are all the rage these days. My starter portion was the largest - an oblong thin-crust of pizza-like dough with the aforementioned ingredients drizzled in vinegar. Honestly, with prosciutto being salty enough, the vinegar might've been overkill, but I love all things pigly, and consumed much of it.

That turned out to be a good call - though we'd been informed that the portions were rather small, I think we were all shocked to see that the entrées were anything but entrée-sized.
We had two orders of the beef tenderloin / potato pancake / king crab dish, and two orders of scallops with raspberries & squash. I had pictured my dish (the beef) as being a small cut of beef, perhaps beside a potato pancake and a crabcake - instead, it was four potato pancakes, each with two slices of beef, covered in a crab bernaise sauce. Not being all that partial to seafood, I ate one slowly, then brushed the sauce off two others, and gave the last away.

For dessert, we got all three of the options between the four of us - two jasmine crème brulées, one order of the red velvet rope cupcakes, and one of the molten chocolate cakes. All were delicious. The cupcakes dish was three mini cupcakes (red velvet with cream cheese frosting). Mine, the molten, was two mini molten cakes, one hazelnut, one raspberry, with a smear of chocolate sauce between them, leading to a dollop of coffee ice cream. Finally, the jasmine crème brulée was served with miniature coconut pyramids.

Overall, I think I'd rate the experience pretty highly. The wait staff would clear dishes almost as soon as they were empty, and our server was congenial and informative, while not intrusive. Perhaps my one gripe would be about the serving size, which was less than ample, but, for $34 per person, seemed like a pretty good value compared to the rest of their menu options.