Down with AOC

I wont go into the disastrous circumstances that led to Jenny's condo manager to encourage us to go out for a "nice" meal on his dime a few weeks ago, but lets just say its the least he could do.

So when Jenny hears "nice meal" she's not thinkin about Super Sizing her Quarter Pounder at the local Micky D's. In addition, we had just recently talked about how we both would like to go out for a nice dinner at some point.

Jenny decided we should check out AOC on 3rd street in West Hollywood. AOC is a take on a French Wine Bar. Its food is served in small "family style" portions that might be snacked on over a nice glass of wine. Think of it as French Tapas. For a whole meal, it was suggested by the waitress that we select 5 to 6 dishes.

The decor is nice, but very stripped down. No paintings or significant decorations to speak of, just a nice wood bar. In the back you can spot a deli style meat slicer cutting thin slices of choice Prosciutto and whatnot.

Our waitress was very nice and made us feel at home.

The crowd was definitely upscale, but everyone was there to eat, not to make the scene.

Our food choices and our thoughts on them are as follows:

Wine: a mid-priced Pinot Noir called Estrella I believe. It did the job, good but not a stand out in its own. Tasted pretty good with everything, but I'm not a wine pro so there isn't much more I can say.

Tapenade: Came with bread while we were waiting for our courses. It was hard not to go over board on it and ruin our appetite, but we managed to do so. The bread was good and chewy.

Cheeses: The menu allows you to choose from a variety of cheeses in different combinations. We went with one goat cheese, one sheep, and one blue cheese. All were pretty mild. The blue cheese was my favorite. The mould was sitting in a Brie style soft cheese, really delish.

Summer Fruit and Prosciutto: Plums, peaches, and grapes with a sort of dried prosciutto that was almost like a high- class bacon. I really liked this. Oh yeah I believe there were nuts in it as well....and something else, I can't recall now. But like I said, it was nice.

Pork Rillettes: This is one of those foods that Jenny has turned me onto and I never thought I'd like. Probably my favorite dish of all. Basically its kind of a pate of pork and fat with seasonings undefined. It was served with toast and cherry preserves. Just a touch of the preserves, some rillettes, on toast and I was in heaven.

So those were the cold dishes, we quickly learned that our dishes were divided into cold and warm. So onto the warm.

Wild Mushrooms: Oily and crispy, I liked the texture of these, but nothing super special. Should've probably chosen something else for our Veggie selection since the meat dishes just kept on comin'.

Pork Confit: A pork cutlet. Not really much for me to say about this one. Jenny loved it at first bight, but I wasn't impressed. Reviews I had read have complained about the fattiness of their meats...and this seemed par for the course.

Stuffed Squid with Chorizo: The squid basically acted as a casing for this spicy sausage. Good, but kinda overwhelming. And after all the other food, a bit much to take.

With all that, you'd think we were stuffed. And we were. But lest you forget, this wasn't on our bill. So yes, desert was in order. We chose the lightest thing on the menu. A plum and almond torte with almond ice cream. Very good. The crust was buttery and flakey, the ice-cream tasty. Had an espresso with it.

All together counting in over $100.

I'm sure your evening could either fall short or surpass ours depending on your selections, but I'd have to say the gamble is worth it.