Panini Cafe

Today, a few coworkers and I decided to chance the impending Southern California rain and venture out to Beverly Hills for lunch. The great thing about rain in LA is that there are not many people out and about in it. We decided to eat at the Panini Cafe on the corner of Camedon and Little Santa Monica. If you haven't been to Beverly Hills, there is plenty of public parking (metered) but sometimes you feel like you are driving in circles looking for it. Luckily, we found parking immediately in one of the covered metered lots that sit on Santa Monica and every cross street.

The restaurant, right on the corner, looked very inviting with the impending gloom around us. It had an orange glow coming from inside. When we stepped inside it was nice and warm. Oddly, while there was plenty of parking, there was nowhere to sit. The restaurant was completely packed to the brim. We put our name in for our party of eight and worried about timing. It didn't look like a large enough table would clear up any time soon.

The manager came out shortly after our arrival and asked if we would be interested in sitting outside on the heated covered patio. Now, remember it was kind of cold out for LA and it was raining. We talked it over though and decided to do it. Unfortunately, the tables were attached to the ground so we had to split up into two groups of four. After we were settled other large groups started to come out and sit on the patio with us, we had started a trend! The waitress alerted us that she couldn't do eight separate checks but she could break it down in groups of four. Unfortunately, it seems she only had this conversation with our group of four (this created a riff at the end of the meal by the other group of four).

The menu consists of some kebab and rice dishes, salads, soups and paninis. Even though I had seen one of the gigantic rice and kebab plates and it looked delicious, I decided to order one of their paninis. I ordered the ham, brie, mustard and caper panini. My fellow diners ordered variations on the caprese paninis and a kebab wrap. Each dish came with choice of couscous, fruit or salad. I chose the couscous and the others chose the fruit.

Our food came rather quickly. The cheese on the panini was melted to perfection but the ham seemed a little cold. There was a ton of mustard on the sandwich but that gave it a lovely flavor. The bread was incredibly soft but not as warm as I would have liked. I liked the sandwich but would probably try a different one next time. The fruit that came with my fellow diners dishes was not what I expected. It came with a blackberry and then mostly melon, but I think the blackberry gave it a little hint of gourmet and I would therefore order it as a side. The couscous that I got was actually a cold couscous salad similar to tabbouleh. It had golden raisins and walnuts in it. While I don't generally like raisins, I found it to be quite delicious but not at all what I was expecting.

This restaurants choice of entrees interests me. There is a definite Mediterranean flair that I didn't expect based on the look and name of the restaurant. The kebab wrap wasn't as good as it sounded but as I said, the kebab plate came with a huge mound of rice and looked delicious. I am not sure why they decided to add those dishes to a list of paninis, but it seems to be a good fit.





Panini Cafe
9601 Santa Monica Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
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