Amazing Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

I went out to dinner tonight with a group of friends to Campanile in Los Angeles. It was my first time there. Their food is delicious! On Thursday nights, they do grilled cheese sandwiches in all varieties. I had the Reuben on country white bread ('cause I don't do rye bread). They use La Brea Bakery bread and mmmmm... it was heavenly!! The service was adequate, nothing really to write home about. I had a good glass of champagne and a pretty decent Long Island ice tea. It's been a while since I've gone out for a dinner like this and it ended up costing $67 including alcohol, food, tip and valet.

Here are pictures of all our sandwiches...


My Reuben on Country White (not rye)



Hanger Steak with Wild Mushrooms



Grilled Turkey, Cranberry, Cheese sandwich



Gorgonzola Dulce with honey and walnuts



Grilled Cheese with Cured Meats and a Fried Egg on top


Cheese platter for "Dessert"


Then, we went out to Simon LA for dessert. It's located on the bottom floor of the Sofitel Hotel on Bevery Blvd. To start, we ordered a couple side dishes: macaroni and cheese gratin and truffle mashed potatos. Both were just so-so to me. A couple other people in the group kind of liked the mac & cheese, but I wasn't super crazy about it.

For dessert, we ordered the junk food platter which included: vanilla bean milkshake, Rice Krispie treats (regular and cocoa flavored), fresh pink cotton candy, a peppermint sundae, melon sorbet, bag of cookies (chocolate chunk, oatmeal cranberry and peanut butter), caramel popcorn with peanuts, homemade Hostess cupcakes, and homemade Snowballs. My favorite item on the dessert platter was the vanilla bean milkshake. The second best was the cotton candy and I'm not a huge cotton candy fan!



As if that wasn't enough, we also ordered grilled donuts served with a cup of melted chocolate for dipping.



The one thing that was pretty good was our server. He was pretty attentive, but the best part is when I inquired about our leftover desserts to be sure none of them had nuts, he got us all new desserts that had definitely NOT been in contact with nuts to take home. His girlfriend has a peanut allergy, so he is very aware and sensitive to the seriousness of that allergy. He was very gracious and gave us extra cotton candy for somebody's breakfast tomorrow!

Bottom Line: I would gladly go back to Campanile for the food. However, I wasn't overly impressed with anything at Simon LA, so I doubt I'll make the trek back there. I'm glad I went once to at least try the desserts and a couple side dishes, but I don't know if I'd want to go back and spend $50 on an entree.