I Love Le Pain Quotidian

Several years ago I went to Le Pain Quotidian for the first time. It's a chain of French inspired cafes, with many locations in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Orange County. The Westwood location is just minutes from my mom's house in LA, and we used to go there for lunch, sometimes for breakfast when I visited. It's everything I like in a restaurant. Small, casual, moderately price, good fresh organic food, and a menu that changes seasonally. Their signature lunch item is tartine sandwiches. Tartine sandwiches are open faced, made on wonderful freshly baked thin sliced bread, and topped with ingredients like lox and capers, ham and Gruyere cheese, baked mushrooms and cheese and curry chicken salad. In addition, their salads, like cobb, warm goat cheese and beet, and salmon salad are delicious. Plates such as their Mediterranean plate, which includes hummus, babaganoosh, and tabouli served with quarters of bread are among my favorites. Breakfast is equally delicious, with scrambles, quiche, freshly made croissants and other yummy pastries, and wonderful coffee and tea drinks. Desserts, too, are worth the calories. Fruit tarts with cream filling, carrot cake, apple turnovers, and passion fruit pudding were just some of the wonderful desserts offered on my recent visit. Six of us went to the Fashion Island location in late October, and had a great meal. We sat at a community table, all the rage now. Le Pain Quotidian has two long community tables in the center of the restaurant, for singles or big groups. It's great for people eating alone. They will have new friends by the end of their meal. We all ordered something different, then divided everything up so that we could taste everything. Salads and tartine sandwiches were all superb, and beautifully presented. We had a few desserts, including a lemon tart, carrot cake, fruit tart and chocolate tart. All were polished off in no time flat. Not only did we all enjoy the food, many of us bought merchandise that was for sale. Speculous and a hazelnut spread are to die for, and my friends were generous enough to buy me a bottle of the hazelnut spread. Debbie bought salt and pepper shakers to give as a gift (yea, right) and Jean and Marie bought a few of the white ceramic boards on which they serve the sandwiches. We must have been their best customers of the day. Be sure to try Le Pain Quotidian for breakfast or lunch if you find yourself near one. It's a winner. The only bad part of the day was the ride home. A rig turned over on the 5 in San Clemente and it took us 2 1/2 hours to get home. It really wasn't all that bad, as it gave Regina and me a great chance to talk. I think we solved almost all of the world's problems.