bacaro l.a.

Bacaro is about the size of a living room. One entire wall is a huge chalkboard and the menu of wine and food is written neatly in cursive like the lesson plan of a epicurean instructor. Over the course of the evening, they played The Specials and some current alt rock stuff too. The chalkboard and the soundtrack harkened back to school days gone by. The owners don't look like they're more than a few years out of college, so the choice of music makes sense.

Personally, friend, when I'm sipping my 40, I prefer more innocuous and soothing noises. The Specials are a bit too political for a wine bar, and ska has that beat that gets you all jumpy. Happily, after a few drinks, I lose my sense of hearing.
The coolest feature of the room is the overhead installation of wine bottles threaded on rods like beads on a necklace. It's a very neat flourescent tube. My admiration for it is pretty limitless. Could you think of such a cool light fixture? Don't lie. God's watching.

Drinking in the sights is all well and good, but some literal drinking with my gustatorial instrument, i.e, my eager esophagus was called for. I started off with a fun chardonnay right down the ole hatch. I didn't even pretend to sniff its bouquet because that's just silly. Then we ordered a bottle of pure and fruity pinot nero bianco, then there was another glass of something or other, and we ended the meal with a moscato that was "thick and juicy" as a New Jersey Real Housewife might say to euphemistically describe her portly but wealthy eye-talian husband. (New Jersey is a very descriptive language). The moscato was on the house. Domo arigato mister moscato, domo arigato.

Free pours are a clue that you have ordered like sailors on leave. I daresay Mr. Juicy himself would have had a hard time keeping up with the yutjangsah. We had the fried polenta squares, the scallops, crostini 3 ways and artichokes. It's 3 dishes for $21. It's an offer you can't refuse. The scallops were fresh and firm, the crostini crackled (if you have cheap veneers you may want to avoid this one) and the polenta was creamy and dense if a bit bland. The artichokes covered with bubbling browned cheese with a splash of limon was an instant fave.

Since we were there for four hours basically pickling and preserving our innards, we had some cheese and cured meats to go along with that theme. The cheese and pesto on cranberry bread was the ideal companion to the brisk white wines we were drinking.

For dessert, we had strawberry gelato. The gelato was on the house as well. It was berrylicious and fresh, she's so fresh, ouu she's so fresh. (domo arigato mister gelato/domo arigato.)

It was a most leisurely and relaxing wine bar experience. I wish I owned that well conceived establishment to be honest. If I did, there'd be a lot more empty wine bottles waiting to be entombed in the ceiling that is for certain.