Does the name Westvleteren XII mean anything to you?  What about Rolls Royce.  Rolex.  Dom Perignon.  Picasso.

Other than a funky name, what does Westvleteren XII have anything to do with all those fine luxuries? Along the lines of the world’s finest and most sought after items, it has been rated the “world’s best beer” by connoisseurs and beer reviewers.

Rating beer is a combination of a number of different factors.  Who is judging, where they are judging and types of beer being judged.  The rating of the “world’s best beer” is at its basic an accumulation of all the reviews of all the beers in the entire world…. imagine the feat.  There are around 200,000 beers listed on the ratings list of www.ratebeer.com and Westvleteren XII is KING.

Why?  Well for one reason the fact that the beer is extremely rare and rarely available.  It is made in Belgium by Trappist monks, who until recently never sold the beer publicly.  But Abbey at Saint Sixtus has some financial difficulty and have turned to the extremely sought after beer for help.

For the first time ever the beer is commercially available throughout the United States this year.  For those who are lucky enough to come across an establishment who has it, they get a chance to taste the finest and rarest beer known in the world. We are offering this little sip of heaven for a limited time in for their “Fit for a King” special that includes a meal for $70, or $60 for the bottle itself.

It’s not every day you get the opportunity to try the real King of beers.

In today’s new found foodie age of cooking reality shows and TV personality chefs and it should come as no surprise that the food itself has found its own celebrity. More and more the simple foods we enjoyed as children have come full circle and are being revamped to become tastier than ever. No more is this true than in the simple grilled cheese sandwich we all enjoyed as a kid. Thanks to Nancy Silverton, co-founder of the popular La Brea Bakery and also considered the “godmother of grilled cheese” in part to her cookbook Nancy Silverton’s Sandwich Book and the late Campanille’s famous Grilled Cheese Night on Thursdays, we have a whole new way of enjoying a childhood favorite in a very adult way. Say goodbye to the two boring pieces of white bread and a slimy slice of American cheese; and just say hello to a variety fresh artisan bread combined with different gourmet, specialized cheeses.

Ever since Nancy combined her love of baking bread and fondness of gourmet cheese in her best-selling book, restaurants and chefs across Los Angeles have stepped up to present their own spin on the classic sandwich. It has spawned food trucks – LA’s favorite fast food – solely dedicated to variations of the sandwich favorite.

April 12th is National Grilled Cheese Day and every April, The Grilled Cheese Invitational is held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. THE ROSE BOWL! It’s that popular. In 2009, we competed in the Grilled Cheese Invitational and came up with two grilled cheeses that we thought were great combinations of cheese, bread and butter. One of our award winning recipes was adapted for the BRÜ HAUS menu that we serve today. The Grilled Cheese Invitational was also the first place where we developed Beetchup, but we will save that for another post.

Broccoli was one of our favorite vegetables as kids. It’s delicious. It’s simple. But at BRÜ HAUS we have found a new fav. Like suddenly changing your favorite color, we never thought it was possible to change our favorite vegetable.  What could be better than broccoli?  Well folks, we have made the impossible, possible.  The answer, is cauliflower. (Yes, you read right. BRÜ is touting veggies.)

In fact that white broccoli looking thing in the corner of the grocery store that no one bothers to pay attention to is extremely delicious in a variety of ways.  It’s as versatile as a potato, with the added health benefits of a non-starch vegetable. For vegetarians, vegans or anyone looking to add more veggies to their diet, cauliflower actually has 3g of protein per serving; making it perfect to fuel your day. We’ve seen chefs add it to their menus as a cauliflower and Gorgonzola soup or roasted cauliflower with mayo. Superba Snack Bar has melded the meat formation into the dish with a cauliflower “T-bone” steak – a concept we totally dig.

So we searched for new ways to present it to you, our customers.  Why not elevate it and make it an appealing appetizer?  So, our new fav makes a noteworthy appearance on the new Happy Hour menu at BRÜ HAUS.

This was a great article in the NYTimes about Terms of Service used at restaurants in New York City. My favorite term of service when I worked at Joe’s on Abbot Kinney was firing “oysters,” which the cooks said to each other whenever attractive women walked by the kitchen. How many oysters will we fire tonight at BRÜ HAUS?

In 610 AD “…an Italian monk invented pretzels as a reward to children who learn their prayers. He called the strips of baked dough, folded to resemble arms crossing the chest, ‘pretiola’ (“little rewards”). Here at BRÜ HAUS, no religious mantra required, we serve up our famous German pretzels just to your liking – lightly salted, soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. And for a couple of guys from LA, adding our dessert churro pretzel to the menu was fitting.