Mini Foodventure #62: LA Mill (Silver Lake)

After practically every foodblogger in L.A. had weighed in on the place, I finally had the opportunity to drag my old-fashioned butt to try LA Mill, but only after a most unremarkable and mediocre lunch in Hollywood and I felt like making it up by treating myself to some damn good (and pricey) coffee & sweets.

Swinging by the place at around 3:30pm, for a place so raved about during its soft opening period, it was surprisingly empty and quiet. A student was grading papers by the bar, a middle-aged foursome were sharing dishes family-style, a hipster-ish couple sat outside and a regular was chatting it up with a barista. Alas, no celebs . . .

After studying the menu a while, I decided to go for lighter fares. As much as I would love to watch the barista work that interesting coffee pot, I opted instead for their signature cappuccino . . .
. . . that's flavored with orange essence and finished with pinches of valrhona cocoa powder. It was good, but not mindblowingly so. The foam was perfectly pillowy, the espresso sufficiently strong and the orange aromas fragrant and overall pretty smooth but it had a tinge of burnt-bitter astringent aftertaste that I didn't care for. So not sure I would pay $5 again, especially since I wanna see them work the clover machine or that hourglass-looking pot next time.

For dessert, I got the humble sounding pear-cranberry crisp with miso ice cream -
and got a freaking gorgeous work of art! A knotted tube of torched pear gelee with dots of cranberry compote, alongside miso ice cream atop of buttery streusel crumbs, finished with two dollops of limey foam. All the components are as flavorful as they were pretty and not too sweet (I especially loved the miso ice cream!) and I had some fun mixing and matching them to get different combos of tastes and textures. However, as delicious and delightfully whimsical this dish was, lost in translational in this artsy modern-chic interpretation -- was the more homestyle Americana pear betty kind of dessert that I was originally craving for. Should've known better than that the sweets here wouldn't be so humble, considering that I had Adrian Vasquez's creative works at Providence.

But it was overall an interesting and mostly positive first impression. Given all the other interesting things on the menu (savory, sweet and drinkables), I'll definitely be back to give it another go. And I'm not even gonna wait for a crappy meal to prompt me to either!

LA Mill
1636 Silver Lake Blvd
Los Angeles
323.663.4441