fried chicken @ bouchon
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Bouchon (Beverly Hills, CA)

Bouchon’s Beverly Hills location closed at the end of last year after eight years. I came here for one last meal, coinciding with the restaurant’s last Ad Hoc fried chicken Monday. The restaurant holds a special place with this blog. My two visits during the restaurant’s opening weekend was the first post on this blog, ever, and it’s also the place that I sat next to Thomas Keller for dinner.

yazawa beverly hills
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Yazawa (Beverly Hills, CA)

Yazawa is a chain of restaurants based in Japan specializing in Japanese wagyu beef. The restaurant group has locations in Singapore and Milan in addition to Japan, but this is their first in America. As the server described it to us, what differentiates Yazawa is that they are also a distributor of wagyu cattle; they butcher their own beef in-house and are not required to freeze their meat before serving. As a result, Yazawa serves the largest variety of wagyu I have seen in America. They have some domestic beef varieties too, as well as some chicken and pork cuts all grilled up at the table. A handful of appetizers and side dishes, many of them featuring wagyu, are available too.