RIP Pastis

LA is a funny food town in some ways. It's an easy place to find a great meal for two for under $30, be it a pastrami sandwich at Langer's, dim sum in the San Gabriel Valley, Thai, Korean or a taco truck taco. It's also easy to find a great meal for over $200 at one of our numerous and growing fine dining establishments, but it's very hard to find a great meal for two for $100. What is an LA couple to do when they want to splurge on a meal without taking out a second mortgage?

For years, a great answer to that question was Pastis, which closed its doors earlier this month. The Beverly Boulevard French restaurant offered up well prepared French dishes at decent prices. A full dinner with apps, desserts and drinks, would run a couple about $100, depending on the price of the drinks.

I particularly loved the profiteroles. Unlike the normal pastry, Pastis profiteroles were more like chocolate wontons, fried wrappers filled with molten chocolate. I also loved the Moroccan mint tea service, which featured a sweet mint tea with pine nuts poured artfully from a few feet above the glass.

Nothing lasts forever, but recently, we've been saying farewell to too many good, reliable venues. I'm sad that Pastis has added its name to the LA restaurant necrology. I'll miss Pastis and the mid-priced niche it filled.