Magneto gave me one of the best birthday presents last year: membership at LACMA. While we don’t take as much advantage of it as we ought, we finally made it out there for a current exhibit and ended up lunching there.

The Stark Bar and Ray’s are perfectly situated just outside the Ahmanson Building, in a breezeway that brought some welcome cool air to us on a hot and sunny weekend day.

Seated outside to enjoy the weather and people-watching, we ordered pretty light because it was already late-ish in the afternoon.

My watermelon, heirloom tomato, cantaloupe, and watermelon radish salad (see top photo) was garnished with arugula, broken balsamic, shaved parm, and slivered almonds. Refreshing and light, it was just the right mix of savory and sweet. And so colorful!

Magneto’s parfait consisted of stone fruits, granola, Greek yogurt, and was topped with a stone fruit sorbet that made the whole dish come together. Garnished with a bit of mint, this tasty brunch entree surprised Magneto – he’s not much for sweet mains, but he took a chance on this one and it totally paid off.