FOODIE FRIDAY

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Lemonade

Recently, in need of a fast-yet-fun eatery for a casual meeting, I recalled that a new restaurant called Lemonade had opened up in Studio City, CA. We popped in after 8 pm, delighted to find the bright and welcoming space comfortably busy, smelling wonderful and the cafeteria-style line still brimming with fresh food.  My guest and I were amazed by the array of fresh salads, delicious appetizers, stews, breads and desserts, complemented by the fresh lemonade of your choosing (my fave: cucumber mint!).  

Lemonade is restaurateurs/entrepreneurs Alan Jackson and Ian Olsen's 14-location mission to redefine fast casual dining in So Cal, and they certainly seem to be succeeding. Guests surrounding us in the indoor/outdoor seating space ranged from a mother/son duo to hip couples and most notably, several tables of young guys raving about how much they love the simple/healthy menu, and, actually eat there every day. It's not surprising, as the flavorful yet simple food is served up without the usual "you're eating alone" stigma, and the seasonally-evolving menu is vast enough to make daily dining attractive. Check out your local Lemonade menu.

Our dinner, enthusiastically-shared, included six salad servings from quinoa to beets to kale to curried cauliflower and a peanut-based slaw; main servings of a Meditteranean-style chicken stew and a Basque chicken dish, herbed brown rice; and lemonade choices of Cucumber/Mint and Guava.  There were lots of leftovers, and takeout is encouraged with handy little containers available.  The total cost: $39.

Lemonade is creating a stir. It's hard to know if the clever restaurateurs planned it this way, but the well-lit decor and beautifully-designed food have Lemonade blowing up on social media.  It's "old meets new" as the Paleo-leaning dishes become the colorful subjects of cellphone images shared to their Twitter, Facebook and Instagram pages...a most relevant sign of success in our 2.0 world, reinforced by the impending opening of a space in Dubai.

Rating (crawl/walk/run): Run!

Foodie Fridays

AH says "Oops, one last thing about this 'shroom...."

Key artwork for the ShroomGate incident in Arizona Highways

Here at BEING, we usually write about fun and tasty things to eat, but today's post is about what NOT to eat - the Fly Agaric Mushroom! Our FUNGI FRIDAY ALERT is specifically aimed at informing the 123,000 nationwide subscribers of Arizona Highways magazine who are about to receive the October issue containing an "okay" to eat a certain mushroom that can be psychotropic when consumed raw...a little fact they neglected to mention in its "Nature Factoid" article. Oops.

Most of us are taught from childhood on not to eat unidentified bugs or plants, especially mushrooms, unless you're with someone in the know...a mycologist, for instance, or your earthy Grandpa.  Even so, trusting the editorial advice of AH - a glossy nature, travel and photography magazine - the story might have caused an eager chef to toss the potentially trippy little mushroom into a gourmet slo-food salad, with unexpected (and possibly terrifying) results for the Ladies Who Lunch or, heaven forbid, the rare toddler who eats everything Mommy eats. Scary.

Honestly, one has to wonder what caused the foggy thinking that allowed the writer to make such an error in the first place (although he does recommend use of a field guide to make sure you get the right mushrooms...apparently just not the one he's been reading, which would be helpful to know). But, we do praise the magazine for its quick action in sending out a special postcard alert to all of its subscribers to warn them of the error, and pulling the printed copies from newsstands; a corrected e-version will be available to non-subscribers wishing to purchase this month's issue.

Here is the key point in the actual warning, which is also featured on the AH website:

"The fly agaric mushroom should not be consumed in its raw form because of its unpredictable psychotropic and physical effects."

Unsurprisingly, in following with all of this, one of the magazine site's top questions in the Comments section today is:

"Where can I find some of these mushrooms?"