Dining Out

from left - "D," self,  Mouton, Richie   

Second City Bistro.com  April 24, 2018

Once a month, the four of us dine together, restaurant choice rotating around among us.  This April, it was "D"'s turn  and he chose Second City.  

It's a habit to have an appetizer with our drinks and so we shared onion strings - lightly breaded, non-greasy and good and New Zealand Green Lip mussels.  The comments on the mussels were "Smallish,"  "Tough," but the sauce was great for dipping bread or an onion string or two.  

I dined from the apps side of the menu and had tempura shrimp - nicely coated, not that big puffy surrounding of air and grease and the"giant"  crab cakes.  $11.45 and $9.95 respectively.  The two crab cakes were round, slightly bigger than a golf ball and ... fluffy!  Nicely crisped exterior and quite tasty.

Richie and Mouton ordered a full rack of baby back ribs ($26.95) and the kitchen wasn't kidding when it offered a full rack.  I thought the two of them had split a whole pig.  They came with a fancy dancy kind of mac and cheese in that it was rigatoni, a creamy sauce with bits of chopped green onion all topped with bubbling cheddar cheese.

"D" played Official Table  Malcontent and critiqued his meal of oven-baked salmon with white rice and baked cabbage.  One whine after another -- "The rice could have used a little seasoning of some kind.  The cabbage wasn't baked long enough. (pause for thought) but the salmon was good!"  

We were too full for dessert.  We waddled up Richmond to the cars.  Of note:  There are no street parking meters in El Segundo which makes it a desirable destination if all of the restos served Ken-L-Ration. 

Dominque'sKitchen.com  Thursday, 4/26/18

House-made chicken pate with red onion chutney and arugula with dressing, on left $6; toasted baguette slices, saucisson (French salami) and cornichons - French sour pickles $6

Six Bourgogn escargots $13

I had the appetizers for dinner because I wanted to save space for their dark and white Belgium chocolate mousse au chocolat $6.

Richie went for the big taste and ordered the slow-braised short ribs with pino noir, tomato, celery, garlic, onion and truffle-crushed potatoes $27 and ate every bite.   No leftovers for dinner tonight.  He'll have to make do with whatever he can scare up here, but for that matter, so will I.  I ate all of the appetizers.  

AND THE GRAND FINALE TO BIRTHDAY WEEK - Sunday Champagne Brunch at Ports O Call!