Portfolio: Editorial

Restaurant Review

Chaya Brasserie
After over 23 years, Chaya Brasserie just off Robertson Boulevard bordering Beverly Hills continues to please guests with its innovative, delicious French-Japanese cuisine. On a recent weekday, my lunch guest and I entered the airy dining room with its very high ceilings and I was reminded of a large, inviting loft space. The dining room was pleasingly decorated with internationally-inspired artwork. Fresh, white linen tablecloths covered each table throughout the room.

Informal, Friendly Atmosphere
For our lunch, we proceeded to the adjacent outdoor patio with walls lined by vine-covered trellises and flower boxes filled with seasonal plants. Despite its many awards received over the years, Chaya remains an informal, very friendly place. While sitting outside, we enjoyed listening to the subtle sounds of rhythmic music with an international flare over the speakers mounted above.

Our attentive, knowledgeable server, Alana, explained our menu options and offered some winning suggestions. We started with two of the colorful Chaya lunch time thirst quenchers: ginger strawberry mojito and mango lemonade. Chaya also features a variety of fruit-flavored martinis and margaritas such as pomegranate and tangerine.

A Sampling of Tastes
To start our meal, we sampled the many tastes from the foods presented in the restaurant’s special lunch Bento box with its six compartments. The delicious dishes included spicy tuna roll, salmon tataki, Fuji apple watercress green salad, grilled tenderloin beef with mashed potatoes and green beans, seabass with Asian balsamic dressing and chicken satay with spicy peanut sauce. Our server explained that the dishes included in the Bento box change weekly.

Following the Bento box, we shared the rainbow sushi roll for our appetizer. This included tuna tataki, tuna sashimi, seared albacore, salmon New Zealand snapper, shrimp & scallop over California roll and tobiko & wasabi caviar. If you like sushi, you can’t go wrong with the rainbow sushi roll.

Delectable Main Entrees
When it was time to order entrees, we had a difficult decision to make among many tempting options. We chose soy-glazed black cod with hijiki brown rice and lobster ravioli. The cod, which was cooked just right with its mild, delicate flavor, was perfectly complemented by tender, colorful vegetables including baby bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, eggplant, asparagus and broccolini. The raviolis were stuffed very generously with scrumptious lobster meat and covered by a light, creamy pesto sauce.

What's New

Ongoing

Quail Botanical Gardens

Mexican Garden
Opened in August, the new Mexican Garden includes such notable plants as daisy tree, tree dahlia, bursera or copal, and naked coral tree. Other new plantings include cycads, agaves, salvias, cupheas, echaverias, grasses, tillandsias and cacti.

This garden is located west of the Larabee House between the Walled Garden and the Subtropical Fruit Garden. New bilingual interpretive signs and dozens of new plant identification labels inform visitors about the diversity and cultural heritage of Mexico's flora.

Set on 30 acres in north coastal San Diego County, Quail Botanical Gardens includes nearly 4,000 kinds of plants representing three general plant habitat types: desert collections, Mediterranean collections and subtropical/tropical collections. (760) 436-3036 x206. www.qbgardens.org.

Ongoing

Explore Balboa Park In a Unique Way

New Audio Walking Tour

A new audio walking tour is now available for adults and children that highlights the history, architecture and horticultural beauty of the nation's largest urban cultural park--Balboa Park. The one-hour tour features a "listening wand" that allows visitors to take an acoustic, number-by-number look at many of the major attractions and lesser-known special places in Balboa Park.

Narrated by San Diego TV news personality Larry Himmel, the adult tour includes interviews by a variety of Park experts in horticulture, history and architecture. The children's tour features narrations by actors voicing two Park historic figures--Kate Sessions, called the "Mother of Balboa Park" for her horticultural contributions, and George Marston, a San Diego civic leader instrumental in the founding of Balboa Park. The audio tour is available at the Balboa Park Visitors Center from 9:30am to 3pm. (619) 239-0512.

Ongoing

Little Italy Tour Adventure
Learn about one of San Diego's most historic communities up-close and personal in a new guided tour of Little Italy! See the original homes that the Italians built at the beginning of the 20th century, old-fashioned Italian grocery stores, pasta shops and bakeries, the corridors of Little Italy's Prohibition alley, the Italian Church featuring the Inspirational works of the Venetian artist Fausto Tasca, and the newly-finished Piazza Basilone, a stunning courtyard and fountain with a view of the harbor that commemorates the boys from Little Italy who lost their lives at war.

Fashionable, Functional Fences

Finding the Right Fence to Seclude, Project and Beautify Your Property

Thinking about adding a fence to your home? Perhaps you want to beautify your property. Maybe your kids need a secure place to play or your pets could use some safe running room. Possibly you’d like more privacy from your neighbors.

Whatever the reason, the right fence can add beauty, character and value to your property. But with so many products on the market, where do you start?

According to Lynn Hayworth, president of the American Fence Association, there are several factors to consider including personal taste, safety, privacy and budget. She says with careful planning, you can ensure a trouble-free fence.

• Personal Taste
  Johnny Panjarjian, owner of Vinyl Pro Fence, says the first thing to do is research. Look around your neighborhood and browse through magazines. He advises homeowners to get a feel for their preferences in style and materials and determine the type of fence that will complement the architectural style of their home, landscaping and neighborhood.
• Safety
  Panjarjian says to consider safety in selecting fencing for your home. Do you need to keep children and pets in? Do you need to enclose a pool area?
• Privacy
  Don Kidder of San Diego Fence Company adds that privacy may be an important concern. How much privacy do you want? Do you prefer six-foot-tall fencing with solid board or a shorter version with more space between boards?
• Budget
  Kidder advises homeowners to determine a budget range. He cautions, however, to remember that the least costly fence initially may not be the least costly fence over the fence’s lifetime.

Once you’ve answered all the right questions, it’s time to select the right material for your fence.