L.A. Restaurants: HLAY (Here's Looking at You)
Address| 3901 W 6th St, Los Angeles, CA 90020
Coming on the L.A. scene in 2016, Here’s Looking at You (HLAY) gets a lot of rave reviews and I was looking forward to trying a few dishes from their eclectic menu. Situated in Korea town, when first entering HLAY you’ll be greeted with warm and friendly service and an overall ambiance of rustic chic. The menu is divided into two sections “Savory” and “Dessert”. With some advice from our server, we ordered the Dad's onion dip, salmon roe, fried shallots, chips. That was an easy sell because we could see the kitchen staff peeling thin slices of fresh potatoes and dipping them into the hot oil. The dip was good and fresh made chips were really tasty. We also tried the Cavatelli pasta, crab, sungold tomato, mint, pecorino. This was okay, the crab was scarce and the Cavatelli didn’t wow me. My favorite dish was the Romano beans, sofrito blanco, fennel, gomashio. The flavors and textures combined nicely and it was a unique dish that you wouldn’t find anywhere else. Finally, we had Local black cod tail, black vinegar, mustard, house “sriracha.” This was tasty but I’m not fully convinced that serving just the tail is a good idea. The meat was scarce so you really only got a small taste of what it is.
HLAY is known for their cocktail menu. We stuck with a bottle of wine for the evening but from the reviews it seems like a good idea to try a cocktail or two. This isn’t my favorite L.A. dining experience but it was okay and has a cool vibe for meeting up with friends over a meal.
