Eat Out. The Mercantile.

Sunset Boulevard has a new restaurant that's something to be excited about. It opened late last year and is quite delicious. What's nice about the Mercantile is, it's gourmet fare in a casual setting.

Chau and I went on a recent weeknight evening with a great coupon from BlackboardEats, which gave us three-course prix fixe dinners for $20 each (drinks not included, and most glasses of wine are $10 and up). We both started with the endive and warm goat cheese salad (pictured above) which had a generous amount of goat cheese, fresh lettuce, dates, and smoked almonds. I totally cleaned my plate, it was a great salad. For our main courses, I had their gnocci (which I think is actually gnudi), and Chau went with their homemade sausage dish, which was Spanish chorizo. The only complaint I'd have is my portion was a bit small! And if that's the only complaint, a restaurant is in pretty good shape.

The restaurant/specialty market has a deli case of meats and cheeses that one can buy for take-away, as well as shelves stocked with wines and condiments such as pepper jelly. Next to the deli case, is an ice cream case with homemade gelato--course number three. After some samplings, Chau went for the white chocolate peppermint, and I for Nutella-banana. Both were flavorful and creamy, perfect gelato. While the check would have been heftier if not for our coupon, I think I'd still go back, with or without help from BlackBoardEats. They're supposed to have a fantastic brunch, stay tuned!

The Mercantile is located at 6600 Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood.

-- Leslie Anne Wiggins

Photo credit: the BEAT