For my birthday dinner this year, my lovely wife-to-be took me out to the Los Feliz part of town as a surprise. It’s not a part of town we spend much time in, and we made our way to Little Dom’s, an Italian place that hovers between fancy and neighborhoody. The menu had a lot of great-looking options and we decided to start things off with an appetizer and wine.

The appetizer we went for was rice balls. I assumed these were going to be like arancini, but they turned out to be a whole new level of ballsiness. Rather than little golf ball-sized balls of rice, these weighed in at baseball size and were perfectly fried to a brown crisp on the outside. On the inside was a core of mozzarella cheese and delicious rice. The crisp part had a flavor and texture reminiscent of latkes, while the cheesy, ricey interior was very welcome.

For my main course, I went with their pizza, which was basically a margherita plus my choice of add-ons. I opted for Biellese (fancy) pepperoni and a fried egg. After all, egg is one of the best toppings known to man. The result was a pretty good pizza. It was thin crust and the pepperonis were definitely a cut above your average cured pizza meat. While the cook was a little uneven, it was nice and crisp around the edges, making its oddly-shaped slices easy-ish to eat.

My lady ordered the meat loaf as her meal, which had apparently come as a recommendation. The recommendation was definitely spot-on, because it was a loaf of meat that I enjoyed just as much as my full meal. The loaf was mostly beef, with some pork, and topped with a tasty marinara sauce. It came with some mashed potatoes that were actually under-seasoned and boring, but were fortunately not the main part of the dish.

Finally, instead of dessert we ordered an additional amazing-looking appetizer. This was the baked ricotta and wild boar soppresatta and it tasted as amazing as it looked. The soppresatta came out on a sheet of wax paper looking like old-fashioned dot candy and the ricotta was in a nice little bake dish looking nearly as pretty. The result of this food combination was nothing short of taste bud delight. The soppresatta had a nice kick to it, which was perfectly balanced with the ricotta. In my mind, this was a must-eat.

And so my birthday feast ended on a high note. In fact, aside from the bland mashed potatoes, there was no low note. It was a meal of joy, and while Los Feliz is a long way to go for Italian food, it was certainly worthwhile.

The newest edition of Umami Burger opened up a couple weeks ago in Los Feliz and I got there as soon as I could to see if they could continue producing those same amazing burgers. The last time I went to Umami on La Brea, it was still BYOB and had yet to develop a burger built for unvegans. Even the so-called “Manly Burger” had onions, but they were still nice enough to make burgers for my unvegan specifications. Umami Ni, as I like to call the new Umami Burger (ni meaning two in Japanese), was a grown up version of the original.

Not only does Umami Ni serve beer and wine, they even have a bar called Salaryman (another Japanese homage) where they serve Asian beers for comfortable prices. Arriving at 9:00, I expected to be seated quickly, but the place still had a waiting time, so I headed over to experience Salaryman. The place seems to really only exist for people waiting on their tables. I wouldn’t really consider the bar itself a destination, but it is a nice place to wait. Before I had time to finish my beer, my table was ready.

I checked out the menu and was amazed to find that they had finally crafted a burger for unvegans, the Truffle Burger. This veggie-free dream simply has Italian truffle cheese and a truffle glaze. With my mouth watering, I ordered my burger.

After a relatively long wait, a runner brought my burger, but to the surprise of my co-eaters none of their burgers showed. The burger looked amazing, but I waited a minute for the other burgers to arrive before digging in. A minute passed and our waiter came to tell us there had been a mistake. The burgers would be coming soon, but I should eat mine. Confused, but now free of being rude by eating my meal first, I started eating. It was everything I hoped for and more. I can say without a doubt that this is the best burger I have ever had. I don’t know what it is about truffles, but they seem to make everything taste better. I am now adding them to my list of things that make everything taste better, which includes cheese, garlic and bacon.

And what’s more? With the arrival of the rest of the burgers at the table, they brought me out a second burger, which I cut up for the rest of the table to try. It was nice to see a restaurant like that recognize even a little mistake and make up for it in spades. Now if only they could start making sides that match the burgers in tastiness. I tried both their sweet potato and regular potato fries, and neither were worthy companions to the Truffle Burger. They weren’t bad by any means, it is just that the standard is so high.

Umami Ni and its Truffle Burger has spoiled me for burgers and I now long for my next opportunity to devour some of their perfectly prepared burgers.

Walking into Palermo, I had little idea what I was in for. We had found it on my mom’s iPhone, using the Urban Spoon application, which I had never used before. Needless to say, we didn’t have the highest expectations.

When we got inside, there were quite a few people in the waiting area and they all were drinking wine. Asking one of them, we were told that they were selling wine for a dollar a glass. On a Saturday night! What a great way to start out our night. Despite the number of people, we actually only waited about 15 minutes. No sooner than we sat down, one of the staff came by and offered us a platter of pizza bread, explaining that it was “on the house.” The bread was a little tomato-ey, but it’s hard to complain when it’s free.

After these two pleasant surprises, we got down to ordering our real meal.  Gazing at the menu, I was torn on what to order. So many things looked deliciously unvegan. Hoping I could find someone to split my meal with me, I ordered one of the only items on the menu without a smaller size, the Tortellini with Meat Filling. For some strange reason, I was compelled to get it with alfredo sauce.

When it came, it was even bigger than I expected. On top of that, everyone had been shocked by the gigantism of their own plates and couldn’t do a thing to help me with mine. I took a forkful of my cheesy-beefy concoction to my mouth and started eating. It was immediately apparent that I went with the wrong sauce. I can’t really blame Palermo for this, as the right choice almost certainly would have been meat sauce. For what it was, however, I have to say that both the tortellini and the alfredo sauce were really good, just not so much when they were combined. Everyone else, who had made more logical orders, loved the meals that they got. I’ll definitely have to go back and make a wiser decision.

As we were winding down, we got our third surprise of the meal. Our waitress came over to our table and asked us if we would like some home-made tiramisu…again, on the house. Never ones to turn down free dessert, we happily accepted the tiramisu. It was quite the way to round out a night of pleasant surprises.