Hotel Shangri-LA

I recently stumbled upon a restaurant in Santa Monica, CA when I was looking for a place to meet a friend on the west side for dinner. It is the Dining Room in Hotel Shangri-LA. It is located on Ocean blvd. at Arizona. The hotel was “the place to be” in the 80’s and I was recently updated earlier this year. shangrila-hotel.com
They had indoor and outdoor seating so we opted to be out on the beautiful patio under the white linen canopy.
For dinner, we choose to do a little sharing of some plates (my favorite thing to do) and started off with grilled artichoke.

(I promise this blog will not only be about artichokes but, I do love them.)
The artichoke was cooked OK although maybe a little undercooked for my liking. I know some people like them just a little on the raw side as I like to be a little softer. The dipping sauce was an aged sherry aioli. We enjoyed the aioli but it was a little sweeter than I normally prefer. Over all, not disappointing though as it did take care of my fix for the night.

After that we had the Heirloom tomato caprese. This dish was quite delectable. The usual buffalo mozzarella was substituted with Burata cheese. The soft, buttery cheese, was a perfect match with the seasonal tomatoes and the virgin olive oil that was drizzled over it.



For our main course we had the Heirloom Corn Risotto. This, my reader, was my favorite part about the restaurant. The Risotto was totally vegetarian. As most veggies know, or find out at some point, it is commonly made with chicken broth. They even offered to make it vegan but hey, I don't want to go to extremes here. This light, but still hearty risotto was delicious. One of the better risotto's that I have eaten at a restaurant. The portion was just right and the corn added a great texture to the dish. It truly brightened up the dish. The flavor was a nice change up from some of the more traditional versions.


After the wonderful dinner, we chose to have a small dessert. They had a peach crumb with raspberry sauce. This was the interactive part of the meal. The sauce was served on the side for you to decide how much you wanted to add. Of course we dribbled all of the sauce on it. The raspberry sauce was wonderful and not too sweet or tart. It did end up taking over the dish though so in hindsight, you might want to start with half of what they give you.











All in all, Hotel Shangri-LA is a restaurant I would definitely go back to.