Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Love Affair Continues at Ar Cucina








In a city I want no part of, it's amazing I still coming here every other week.

Not quite sure if was by design or by accident, I think this part of the area was more of tourist trap than any other city on the westside including Santa Monica or Venice. It fascinates me that a portion of the city is right dab smack in the heart of many hollywood types who have a studio nearby.


Believe it or not, I love coming here for dinner or brunch. To AR Cucina, I definitely love coming here.

While north portion of Hollywood gets starlets wannabes, I started to notice the industry workers tends hang out here in Culver City. People might not know them, but their credits on IMDB tends to rival the performers/actors anyway.

Untitled

This brings up the interesting thing about AR Cucina in  a busier section of the street that caters for industry types, that are busier than Canon Blvd up in Beverly Hills or Sunset Blvd in West Hollywood. AR Cucina was a restaurant I followed closely back in the day when it used to be an Indian restaurant called Sambar. It abruptly changed to an Italian focused restaurant sometime in early last year.

Untitled
Steak Tagliata - medium rare grilled steak, salsa verde, pickled cipilloni onion, travioso radicchio

I can tell you in that the setting almost remains the same with the cocktails serving here remains roughly the exact posh presentation as well. The restaurant always had a big wood fire oven that was seemed out of place I guess for tandoori chicken, but works great for pizza. So the transition went very smoothly.

Untitled
Polipo - Grilled Octopus, Arugula, Fingering Potatoes, Fresno Chili

Speaking of which, many of the naan reminds me of either a pita bread or pizza dough. Of course, I was thinking Indian fine cuisine was somewhat in style for the trend a few years back, I can see why this place wants to catch that hot trend of the moment.

Back in the day, I loathed coming to this area because of the high pretentiousness of certain industry types I have to hang around with, but love the potential of cool vibes of certain part of the city. This restaurant along with its sister restaurant Akasha always gets me in a good mood.

The other selling point was their outstanding happy hour nibbles and creative drinks that can soothes the wary naysayers such as myself. These drinks often inspires me to check out the other creations they might have and reduce me to a happy go lucky person by the end of the night. Luckily, this tends to be ever changing menu with different specialty based on the main components.

Untitled
Tagliatelle - Pork & Beef Bolognese, Tomato Strattu, Paraigiano-Reggiano

Oh, let's not forget about the pastas. It's probably the saving grace in this fine establishment. Especially the Tagliatelle, the Pork & Beef Bolognese version is the best I have encountered here. I also recommend any of Steak dishes they served that night. They do anything beef right in here. With so many Italian repertoire, it would be amiss if the steak is not present.

Untitled
One Crazy dessert...

Overall, I just love coming here to AR Cucina. I haven't really formally go to the flagship restaurant Akasha as I thought it was more of a date place during evenings where ARC is more of a cozy bistro. You will get the feeling of having the urge to check out the newer spots in downtown Culver City as there was a revolution of new places popping up along Culver City Blvd, Santa Monica Blvd and Jefferson.

Now, I may want to come here for meal... living here in this city is still a love/hate thing for me that is hard to get over. People needs to live here to find out.

Ar Cucina
9531 Culver Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232

AR Cucina Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

No comments: