Plan Check Kitchen + Bar, Sawtelle {restaurant}

Guess who has instagram on her phone?

If you said anyone as of today, you'd be right.

(But, yes, me, too. I have joined the club. And this post, including that photo of a glass of sparkling wine in a type of glass I hate, is a total departure from my usual style. I blame instagram. It makes me think I'm artistic and can do anything.)

I went to Plan Check to meet a friend for dinner because Le Ben was out of town and those are the opportunities I seize to dine beyond our delicious little radius. (Or eat kimchi.) I know. I shouldn't have to wait until he's out of town to do my own thing, but whatever.

I shouldn't have to pretend to be an independent woman.

Plan Check's Menu reads like a fantasy but for some reason, everything we ordered seemed just slightly "off" in a way that I can't legitimately explain because I am not a professional, but if I were to illegitimately explain because I'm a jerk, and I cannot believe I am about to say this out blog, I think it might have been the lighting in the dining room.

The lighting.

You know how when you have Double Smoked Pastrami with Swiss cheese, KIMCHI MUSTARD and a f**king FRIED EGG on top, and you Instagram it with your iPhone, it looks all dark and rustic and sexy and you can just taste how meatmeltyhotrunnyegg it's going to be when you put it in your mouth? And then what you actually do is take a photo of it with your Blackberry from 2007 with the flash and like, you know what it is because for god's sake there it is all lit up on your 1-inch Blackberry screen, but it looks like, well you know what food looks like when you use flash.

I can't believe I am trying to make this analogy.

Okay. Stopping now.

This is what we ordered:
~ oysters on the half shell with yuzukosho cocktail sauce
~ pickles (jalapeno escabeche and pickled chorizo)
~ duck breast prosciutto
~ stuffed mushroom (roasted portobello, swiss cheese fondue, crispy kale, and steak sauce)
~ pastrami nosh (double smoked pastrami, swiss cheese, kimchi mustard, fried egg)
~ fried chicken (jidori chicken, smoked milk gravy, yam preserves, pickled okra)