Cafe Laurent
4243 Overland Avenue
310-558-8622
www.cafelaurent.com

I was panicking on the way to Café Laurent for brunch recently, because I had two very choosy pals with me. Ted and Steve B. (not to be confused with Steve from La Jolla who recently joined me for a review) were giving me a hard time on the drive over, so I was expecting negative comments from them. Well, the food here was so good that it instantly mellowed them out. What a great result to get from a restaurant! I may have to bring Mr. X here…every day!

Though there’s a lovely side patio which looked inviting, I chose to sit inside, just in case someone with a death wish lit up a cigarette out there. And we were closer to the food indoors, too, which is always a bonus.

The foods that calmed these guys down to begin with were salads. Steve said his nicoise was truly the best salad he ever had, explaining, “The tuna is just right [not greasy], and the green beans snapped.” Ted declared his smoked salmon and pear salad “a wonderful medley for a hot summer day.”

My whole posse went nuts for the special secret salad dressing. I’m not kidding about the effect it had on my group. It’s hard to portray in writing, but I may seriously take others there to see if it works the same magic on them. I didn’t try the salad myself, but I was way cool to begin with.

Eadie ordered the crab cake sandwich, which was that day’s special. She said it was flavorful and crunchy, with thick avocado slices, on delicious whole grain toast.

I’m all about going out to breakfast on weekends, so I had a waffle with nutella, bananas, and pine-nuts, which was a welcome change from traditional breakfast nuts. (Walnut, pecan, macadamia.)

I’ve had similar ones before, but I seriously couldn’t stop eating this one. At one point, I even boxed it up to finish at home, but went back into the box to get it! (Maybe it had that secret ingredient, too.)

The other three moved on to lunch dishes. The pasta Florentine floored them, as well. Ted said it was “beyond belief!” (They had it with chicken.)

We had to try a Tartine, a traditional French openfaced sandwich. Ours had vegetables and goat, and was accompanied by salad and scalloped potatoes. The latter was my favorite dish.

We had also ordered the one dinner platter they serve—Dijon chicken. Just then, Pascale, the manager, reminded us that there were several desserts, so I brought the chicken to Mr. X, who went nuts over the whole plateful. I guess I started my secret mellowing plan early by accident. And it appeared to work!

The desserts were all excellent: chocolate bread pudding in cake form, a chocolate, pecan and coconut tart, and one with marzipan and fruit. Unanimous thumbs-up to them all.

Three last notes: 1)they all loved the iced green tea. 2)the bacon is perfect. 3)Café Laurent is in a very easy area of Culver City.