Shaquille’s Restaurant- LA Live

If you are looking for a hip new restaurant when you are up at LA Live, look no further than Shaquille’s Restaurant.

Shaquille’s is self labeled as an upscale casual restaurant specializing in southern cuisine. And with a feature of Shaquille O’Neal’s own signature fried chicken, the restaurant focuses on farm fresh fare.

The Atmosphere

When you walk into Shaquille’s, you get a feeling of an upscale restaurant. With a high end feel, and a swift friendly greeting front one of the multiple hostesses, we felt quite welcome.

A look off to the right and you see the bar area with a wide variety of liquor on the shelves. Just past the bar is the wine vault featuring what looked like a mechanical wine selection system. From there you have the dining room which was spacious and full of tables and happy diners.

We did find the dining room to be well appointed with comfortable furniture, nice light features, and a preset table as we sat down. The only thing we noticed was that the dining room was pretty loud so we did have to speak pretty loudly to hear each other.

The Shaquille’s Menu

A little tip as you plan your trip to Shaquille’s, bring your cheaters! I know I am getting old, and believe me, I feel it every day, but I found the menu to have pretty small font and found it difficult to read. Luckily I was prepared!

The menu isn’t extensive by any means, but they had a nice selection of items for each course.

Here are a few photos from the menu.

The Food

We weren’t totally starving when we went to Shaquille’s, but were looking for a bite on our way over to Microsoft Theater for a concert. But after perusing the menu, we both had our appetites going.

After giving the menu a thorough look, I decided on the Shrimp and Grits. As described in the menu, Fresh Gulf Shrimp, Andouille Sausage, Carolina Barbecue Green Chile-Cheese Grits. All I can say, is Oh My!

The grits were absolutely delicious. The shrimp themselves were perfectly cooked and tasted like they were grilled. There had to be a half dozen or more on top of the tasty grits. Just about every bite had a delightful bit of andouille sausage that exploded with flavor. Not too much heat, but just enough to keep you wanting more. Lets just say, I really enjoyed this dish.

My wife ordered the Red Butter Lettuce Salad with a Salmon kicker. This salad was very delicious. It is described as Frog Hollow Thin Sliced Pears, Red Onion, Gorgonzola, Herbs, Spiced Pecans and Mustard Dressing.

At one point, my wife literally said, “this is the best salad I have had in a long time.” This salad was very flavorful. The salmon that she added made for a nice touch. I snuck a few bites myself as often as she’d let me.

Dessert

As we were enjoying our meals, we saw several other entree’s and desserts walking by. Of course, the desserts caught our eye the most. We kept seeing a GIANT slice of cake walking by and I had to ask our server what the heck it was.

The answer was Hummingbird Cake. Our server described the cake as “our version of carrot cake.” The menu describes it as having Pecans, Banana, Pineapple and Cream Cheese Icing. Oh, and it was HUGE! The pic seriously does not do it justice. It had to be 8-10″ in length by 6-8″ tall.

This had to be one of the most flavorful and moist cakes I have had in a long time. We have already been looking up Hummingbird Cake recipes. I’m sure we can make one at home, but there is no way it can compete with Shaquille’s.

I mentioned that it was huge. I ended up splitting into three cake slices vertically so that each had a top icing layer. We had so much we offered up the third piece to the table next to us and they gladly accepted.

In Conclusion

Shaquille’s was an awesome find! We are really glad we saw it on Yelp, but were surprised by the 4 star reviews. Sounds like they may have had a rough start, but we had great, friendly service and an excellent meal. It was definitely a 5 star evening for us.

If you are headed to a Laker, Clipper, Kings, or even a concert, Shaquille’s may be a place to check out for dinner. We really had a great night and great meal. Maybe you will too.

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Happy eating!

Davey