17th St. Cafe & Bakery

(Based on the name of this post) you can probably guess where I went to dinner over the weekend…

17th Street Cafe & Bakery!  It’s on Montana Ave (and 17th Street – duh) and has been on my to-try list ever since we moved to Santa Monica.  I live a few blocks away, so there’s really no reason why I haven’t yet been.

Last week Alene emailed saying she had a groupon for the restaurant that was about to expire.  There’s nothing like a coupon for food to get a group of friends together (add in the element of a ticking clock and suddenly it’s date night)!  🙂

How cute are these muppet cupcakes!?!  They certainly whet my appetite.

Alene and I oogled over them while waiting for the rest of our group to arrive.  It was the same four-some from this dinner night.

We started with vino.

I’ve been really into white wine lately, so the fact that everyone else was in the mood for Pinot Grigio means it was written in the stars.  Or we’re all lushes.  Either way.

We got the Santa Margherita and it was delicious.  Very refreshing.

 

To start, Alene got tortilla soup.  Or was it gazpacho?  I can’t remember.

The bowl was pretty and she seemed to enjoy it (as you can probably tell, I didn’t bother asking her much about the dish).  It looked like there was cheese in it.  Does tortilla soup usually have cheese?

For her main, she got the Grilled Tuna salad with fresh seared Ahi served on a bed of mixed baby greens, avocado, red onions and asparagus, tossed in a soy-rice vinaigrette, garnished with ginger, wasabi & sesame seeds.

Not gonna lie, I was slightly jealous of her order.  Well done Alene.

Ethel’s salad looked delicious as well!

She got the Grapefruit, Chicken & Avocado salad with butter lettuce, shredded chicken, grapefruit segments, avocado and toasted pine nuts topped in a sesame vinaigrette.

Minus the chicken, this baby has my name all over it!

Caroline’s order was less enticing, but I’m not much of a pasta girl.

Chicken Pasta with mushrooms, sun-dried Roma tomatoes and a touch of sweet basil pesto.

I got the Oak Smoked Salmon Salad with mixed baby greens, oak smoked salmon, mushrooms, radishes, daikon sprouts and a sesame vinaigrette.

Check out the artsy presentation!  I nixed the feta on my salad, but decided to leave the salmon.  To be honest, the amount of salmon was minimal and yet, the nice smoky flavor came through beautifully.

The radishes and daikon sprouts were surprisingly yummy.  I guess I haven’t had radishes that weren’t either pickled or in raw (crudité) form.  Weird.  They were good!  I think it was the dressing and the way they were sliced that made them tasty.

The dressing was mild (aka hardly noticeable), meaning it neither distracted from nor overwhelmed the rest of the ingredients.  Fine by me.

My only complaint was the size.  Everyone else’s portions seemed bigger than mine! 🙁

When I got home, my sweet tooth kicked in so I got to work on baking cupcakes.  They are vegan and gluten free.  And yummy.

Warm yellow cakey perfection.  It didn’t matter that I started making them at 9:30 because I’m trying to get off schedule for night shifts starting Tuesday night.  [blah]

Recipe coming!