Playa Rivera - DineLA

Since it's restaurant week here in lovely Los Angeles, I decided to hit up a few new spots this month. I have heard great things about the modern Latin menu at PLAYA RIVERA so my friend Alissa and I made a special visit last week.

The first thing I noticed about the place is the gorgeous wall of liquor in the bar. The whole wall was illuminated and highlighted the different colors of bottles from top to bottom. I was so mesmerized watching the bartenders craft these beautiful drinks that I sadly forgot to take a photo of but I did break out the camera while enjoying our first round of drinks.

Alissa ordered the "A Oaxacan The Clouds" which was a delightful blend of mezcal, agave nectar, lemon juice, roasted tomatoes and crispy sage. I really enjoyed Alissa's savory drink, the tomato/sage and smoky tequila was a winning combination! I couldn't decide what to get for myself but I knew I wanted something with a kick. My waitress suggested a custom made drink with tequila and some spicy bitters. They used a house blend Hellfire bitters which had an lovely amalgamation of Habanero and Jalapeno peppers. Along with some citrus juices, my drink had a serious punch of heat that I found very addictive.

 

Alissa's drink on the left, my Hellfire concoction on the right.

 

A Oaxacon The Clouds, minus a few tomatoes ;-)

We ordered a few things off the DineLA menu but also decided to mix it up with some things from the regular menu. Playa has a nice Maize Cake menu so we had a couple to share.

 Maize Cake Breakfast - 63° egg, pan-seared potato, truffle cheese espuma and market mushrooms

I was swooning with each bite of the Maize Cake breakfast. First of all I'm such a runny egg slut that I couldn't resist the chance to cut into a perfectly cooked egg like this. The flavors in this dish were simply breathtaking. The truffle cheese, mushrooms and potato gently wrapped in a luscious golden egg yolk. If only I could start my day with this breakfast every morning!

Maize Cake Mediterranean - feta, spiced yogurt, cucumbers, kalamata olives, capers and lamb meatballs

The Mediterranean version was good but I didn't love it as much as the Breakfast. I thought the lamb meatballs were great, very tender and I enjoyed the crunch of the cucumber.

 Corn Borscht with Proletarian Caviar and Beet-Habanero Afterburner (DineLA menu)

There were a few items on the DineLA menu with a Russian influence as the head chef was reminiscing about a dinner he did in Moscow awhile back. This is definitely not your mother's borscht soup. This bowl was an eye opener, a creamy corn soup which was brought alive with the red beets and habanero cream on the side. It was a very comforting bowl of rich flavors.

Top - Beijing Duck Arepas (DineLA)

Bottom - Shrimp Arepas

Now for the Arepas portion of our meal. The Beijing Duck Arepas were on the DineLA menu. Since I am allergic to shrimp I did not get to try the shrimp version. The duck arepa was good, the duck meat had some nice flavor to it and I liked the warm corn cake. Alissa loved the shrimp version. The only downside to this part of the meal was that the corn cake was quite filling so we decided to move on to dessert. HA I didn't even notice that Daniel Craig was on our plate.

A Beer & A Ball - Campari, Aperol, Grapefruit, Sage, Lime, Hops Infused Champagne

Alissa continued on with her Sage theme and ordered A Beer and A Ball, who could resist this sexy orange drink? It wasn't as pretty as my glass of malbec so I was experiencing a bit of cocktail envy.

Chocolate-Chile Ice Cream Sundae with Mezcal Crema (DineLA)

And now on to the final part of the meal, dessert! We continued on with the spicy theme and shared the Chocolate-Chile sundae, off the DineLA menu. The chocolate ice cream was smooth and I loved the Mezcal whipped cream but my favorite part was the Chocolate Chile sauce that we poured on top. It was a thick peppery chocolate sauce that made my heart skip a beat. The sundae also came with this blue corn chocolate cookie. It had a really nice composition from the blue corn and yup it was blue inside! There were so many things going on in my mouth all at once from this dessert. The rich chocolate, the subtle character from the cookie, the spicy heat plus the smoky cream. I wanted to live in this moment forever but alas all good things must come to an end. If anything this was the perfect way to end a pretty flawless meal.

The chocolate chile pour

Oh Playa, you're the best! How can I not love a place that is secretly named after me? I look forward to testing out your brunch and happy hour for sure!