lunching at laurel hardware

Had a lot of lunches out last week, networking with friends and former colleagues. All were fun, but just one was at a place "on my list" -- Thursday's lunch at Laurel Hardware with a friend who has just launched a great new web production shop called We Love Butterfly. (So if you need a website built, especially one for kids, call them!)



But back to food... Laurel Hardware is a neighborhood eatery/bar in West Hollywood near the corner of Santa Monica Blvd and Crescent Heights (Laurel is the actual cross street). It is housed in what used to be a real hardware store, but other than the name and the sign outside, all remnants of tools and building materials are gone. (Although, you could probably get hammered on screwdrivers at the bar. Ha. I crack myself up!)

The menu is American with a twist (organic salads, pretty pizzas, fancy sandwiches, meat) and is made to be shared. So that's just what we did -- picked out an interesting salad and pizza and split it all down the middle :)

Before ordering food though, I was intrigued by the drink menu. Laurel Hardware is a place after my own coffee-hating heart.

They have a variety of loose leaf teas to choose from, plus fun and funky cold drinks like mexican coke, bundaberg ginger beer and "house" sodas.

I decided to be different and, instead of tea, ordered the elderflower and mint house soda. I love any drink with mint, and elderflower reminded me of Harry Potter and the elderwand -- LOL -- so I ordered it. It was fizzy and very refreshing ... and looked pretty too :)

For our starter, we ordered the quinoa salad with chicken breast, baby kale and a fennel vinaigrette. Unfortunately for our small-sized table, they brought it out at the same time as the pizza, but we still ate it first.

I'm not a big fan of kale, as previously documented here and here, but this salad was really delish! The chicken was warm and moist and the vinaigrette and quinoa were added to the leafy greens in perfect proportions to add flavor, not overwhelm. Definitely recommend this salad.

But my favorite part of the meal was the prosciutto pizza with artichokes, radicchio and asiago. The crust was super thin and crispy with great seasoning. And again, the toppings added flavor in the perfect proportions but were not overwleming. It was light, there was no grease (a pizza pet peeve of mine) and it was the perfect size for two people to share and not be super-stuffed.