Right Way to Eat!

I Fizzled, SobaPop Sizzled @ BreadBar (Mid-City)

2011-02-28T00:56:00.000-08:00

One of my recent rant was about how I wished there were more pop-up places that can be more accessible and viable for diners to try out new dishes from the creations of upstart chefs. That particular wish was somewhat granted by the same people who brought us the Hatchi series.

This new series was called the SOBAPOP...get it?...as in "Sodapop" for the introduction of soba noodles for the good people of L.A. This limited engagement was held in the BreadBar restaurant on Third Street that was the same location for the first two LudoBites series.

Cold Artisanal Tofu with Japanese Herbs and Grated Ginger - $8

I was somewhat skeptical on how inventive or how experimental soba noodles can be. More poignantly, I was more interested in what groundbreaking new ways for people who already can grabbed a bowl in anywhere else in east part of Los Angeles and south bay area of Los Angeles county where plenty restaurants can served this noodle in every way possible from traditional to cross-cuisines dishes.

For the limited engagement, the team of Sonoko Sakai and Akila Inouye introduced the healthy buckwheat flour of noodles that can be served stone cold dip in a sauce or served in hot broth soup. For those of the uninitiated, please check out my other post that dealt with soba in my reviews of popular establishments of Inchimian or Otafuku in the south bay area.

Summer Pickles with Cucumber and Japanese Turnip with Yuzu, Asazuke Style - $7

Will the people that are not familiar with the traditional soba noodles appreciated this type of traditional Asian cuisine? One big selling point to the uninitiated, they will appreciate the fact in that the noodles are originated from the stone-milled, organic wheat crops from the Gunma Prefecture in Japan. The noodles are served hand-made fresh daily in the restaurant. The only obstacle in the health conscious mind will be the fact that it is still consider cabs in the carb-free diet world.

Marinated Soft Boiled Egg, Tokyo Style with Garnishes served in a cold soy-bonito broth - $6

The appetizers are fine, but not really out of ordinary either. Pretty much of a safe play for these non-decrepit starters. You can't really screw the pooch on a boiled egg or seasoned pickles. At the same time, the tofu is pretty much very easy as long as you don't add too much sauce of a flavor to taint the soft tofu taste. Those can easily avoid a disaster, but also can't really go beyond either.

Tender Pork Belly, Kakuni Style with Greens - $15

As in for the pork belly, that I can give much more kudos because of different preparations with different style of seasoning and added greens for different savory taste of the simple pork and fat.

I was glad our table ordered a lot more appetizers than it needed to because the soba noodle dishes does take some time to be ready. In fact, the menu did put a warning on the bottom stating that it would take 20 minutes for each to be prepared.

Toro Toro Pork Soba - Tanemono Style, Braised Pork Belly, mushrooms, scallions, mitsuba, yuzu - $24

When the bowls of hot soba noodles does come, I felt a sense of a relief on that the dishes have arrived.

Honestly, I can tell a lot of work was put into it with many of the ingredients being imported from various prefecture regions in Japan was put into the bowl. At the end, I think it feel like the braised pork belly we just ordered was placed into that bowl of soba with soup broth. The soup taste fine with different elements of Japanese ingredients until I get a good bite out of the noodles.

Instantly my cold pessimism had gave way. Never had I felt the quiet moment to myself and just enjoying a simple bowl of noodle. The noodles just melt in my mouth with me taking a huge amount of slurp gobbling down whatever that was put into the bowl. Never mind the fact that my dining companions were sharing their cold soba with tsuyu sauce or they had a Kari-Kari Shrimp soba in their disposal. I just didn't have the care in the world to pay attention or share until it was too late.

I knew I was in trouble because I got a mean stare and a couple cracks of me not sharing the rest of the night, but thank goodness it was so good that I didn't mind at all. I was mean, but I don't think anyone would remembered after a day (Incredibly, I was so wrong when the same person brought it up again a few months later).

Broken Plum Wine Jelly and Dattan Soba Kanten Jelly - $7 each

For the desserts, we have two types of jelly. One was a plum wine with Okinawan brown syrup and soba grannules (Left on the picture) with the other bowl having a clearer Umeshu Jelly with seasonal fruit. Both served well to cleanse our palate for the night and continue the trend of healthy eating for the night.

On the back of the menu, I noticed that both Sakai and Inouye were teaching classes on how to make hand-made soba noodles. It was only later that I discovered that I found out on that Inoyue had trained many Japanese soba chefs that went on to open their own restaurants and eateries around Japan. He has his own teaching academy in Tokyo, Japan where many of the aspiring soba chefs have gotten start. Sakai had written many cookbooks and is a film producer that was trained under Inouye at this said academy.

Here's the kicker, if I wanted to experience their soba adventures again, where can I find them again? I can ponied up a pretty penny to attend one of their soba making class for one day if they happen to be in town. If not, here is what I hope....Sakai resides part time in L.A. Hopefully Sakai can come back to do one more limited engagement in L.A. and bring Inoyue, the master chef and teacher to do this event.

Boy, do I kick myself for not going more often. I only tried one dish and that was not enough. This is why sometimes we do need more of these pop-ups to get one of these chef(s) to these events more often. Even if it's for one day, it's well worth it.

SobaPop

@ BreadBar

8718 West 3rd Street

Los Angeles, CA 90048
(310) 205-0124

Revealing the Best French Dip Sandwich in L.A. @ Nate N' Al (Beverly Hills)

2011-02-23T23:44:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, I made a promise on this blog that I would reveal my favorite place for French Dip sandwiches after I did a review on for both Cole's and Philippe The Original . It was a battle for supremacy on who was the inventor of the French Dip sandwich as both have stories on how they come up with au jus sauce and the way the sandwich was dipped in to invent that unique way of eating that sandwich.

Somehow I could care less on who invented, but rather on who has the best in town. My answer to this debate is Larry King's favorite breakfast joint in his neck of the woods.

Surprisingly, my favorite French Dip sandwich is at "Nate 'n Al".

The Front Counter at the deli section

My initial reaction coming here was that I hoped I didn't have to bump into Larry King or some old foggy pseudo celebrity because I wanted to take a few picture without them thinking I was part of TMZ snapparrizi that is usually outside stalking at Wolfgang's Steakhouse or Spago's. The charming thing about the place was that it looked as if they kept the place the same since they had opened in the mid 40's. The booth seats looked it belong on the set of the restaurant scene in the movie "L.A. Confidential" where many of the area depicts a vintage Hollywood set. The place doesn't feel old, it just gave the feeling of prestige...the older kind.

They still have a big selections of deli meat on board for take outs. I could had swore that every bald husky guy looked like Rob Reiner coming in and ordering various deli meat for their midnight snack. The selections of meat on display in the refrigerated counters can probably rivaled "Canter's" for their pick of the deli.

French Dip and potato salad - $14.25

Without further ado, we got to see the sandwich on hand and really debate about the selection I had made. The au jus sauce was not as sweet like Cole's or Phillipe's. What's so remarkable about the sandwich was the sesame bun. It was not very thick or harden like the other two because dipping into the sauce will obviously make the bread more soggy. Here's another benefit, you noticed the sauce is put on the side and not pre-dip.

That was a big plus in this humble reviewer's eyes. The bread itself is firm, but also fluffy enough to withstand the post dipping carnage of not disintegrating into smooshy texture like the potato salad that accompanied it. The beef also get a textbook grade of A for excellence from me for being flavorable before the dip in the sauce and an added component of the sauce enhanced the taste even more.

Sweet Pickles

The other big cool thing about coming here are the pickles that are served here. I think they can bottled it and sell it in the chain of supermarkets. Very fresh and crunchy. After you snapped this, the sweet taste reminded me of the pickled cucumber I had when I was a kid. Definitely wishing I could take some of these pickles back home if it was made available.

Noodle Pudding - $4.50

My big discovery of the day was something that elevated my horizon a bit when I saw the noodle pudding that was served. I knew with my curiousity, I got to order that. I later figured it out that it was also called "Kugel". As you can observed, it's baked like a sliced of an apple pie with layers of egg noodles that resembles a cut of pastas. If you are asking me if I ever had a Jewish or Middle Eastern dessert such as this, I would be pleading as though I was a newbie and would have wrongfully guessed it looked like the popular Latin dessert of Tres Leches. The dessert was absolutely fantastic as I could not stopped eating this delicious food as I though I had never encountered before.

Since then, I had tried other Noodle pudding or noodle kugel, but alas not one of those places can match Nate n' Al's version of this traditional dessert. The pretender's version tend to either be too soggy like a Tres Leches or just had too bitter of a taste with too much of different different flavor taste. Can't figure it out if they had some secret milk ingredient they had where the other places are missing such component in this dish.

After the delicous meal, I wasn't going to leave empty handed and order another batch of French Dip sandwich. Nope, they didn't pre-dip either. That's what I love about this place as they have kept the au jus sauce on the side. I also took home an order of hot pastrami sandwich as well since I want to compare that sandwich against "Johnny's" and "The Hat". Again, no comparison. Hands down I would give the nod to Nate n' Al's over the other two as well.

Hot Pastrami Sandwich - $13.50

The pastrami was much more flavorable and much tastier than the oversteamed versions that was served at the other two establishments. The rye bread and sweet pickles alone would smash the other two if a comparison battle needed to be done, but I spared the other two for further punishments as their sandwiches paled in comparison.

Before we all jumped in, considered this...there is a reason why Larry King can afford to eat like this day in and day out. The sticker shock will probably scared off most casual diners, but I do think the quality itself on all of the sandwiches and deli items are worth it. Plus they are catering to a certain crowd in one of most recognized zip code in all over the world. Regardless of the price, they are still packing them in, which is no longer a marvel to me because I can attest to why they are popular.

They still have the best French Dip sandwich in town and now I can add hot pastrami sandwich to the list as well.

Nate 'n Al Delicatessen & Restaurant
414 N Beverly Dr
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
(310) 274-0101

Hatchi by Roberto Cortez @ BreadBar (Century City)

2011-02-20T01:16:00.000-08:00

If you think you are a creative culinary chef and starting to starting to get an itch to in wanting to be the head chef in a kitchen. You probably will get the followings popped in your mind kitchen: you have work the grind of the industry in thinking you have paid their dues, wanting to be one that get noticed for the dishes that are created on the menu each and every night, and most of all you felt the "need to move on to new challenges".

Of course those are fair assertions and assessments that are being thought out loud, but how can those chefs go about in showcasing their talents? It's not as easy like the other jobs in uploading resumes to Monster.com .

HERB STAINED SALMON - whipped jasmine rice, pickled cucumber paste, passion fruit chili noodles

You can tried to open a new restaurant, which required a lot of money and closure rate will work against you in a short amount of time. Probably send out audition tapes of yourself to join a reality TV show in a cooking competition. Be warned... you will need to sell yourself just to get to the contestant row on "Price is Right". They don't always look for the most talented chef, but also looking for ones that are "good" for TV. If you can cook and bring drama with your egotistical personality, you might be considered (so I'm told).

VEAL SHORT RIB - cauliflower cocoa butter, vadouvan, grape edamame shallot confiture

However, there is a better way these days. One of the few phenomenon that was happening in Los Angeles the past few years for the up and coming chefs to showcase their talent is through the pop-up channels. Which for one day or maybe a limited time engagements, a chef will come to a kitchen of a restaurant space to showcase their dishes.

LEMON LACQUERED CHICKEN - hot aerated potato, soy gelée, almond corianders oatmeal

One of the earliest pop-ups I ever attended was the Hatchi series that was presented at The Bread Bar in Century City. On day time, it's a full restaurant like anywhere else, but at night time of the said event, the Bread Bar's kitchen will gave way to the featured chef of the night. This was one of my favorite only because it's not full tasting menu where you can choose the numbers of dishes you wanted at a cost of $8 for each plate. At this monthly event, it usually featured an upstart, maybe a seasoned veteran in the industry that is letting people know he is available, or even a recent celeb chef that wanted to go in a different course and wanted to test out his new cuisine for his/her fans.

At this particular dinner, we were treated to dishes created by a former personal chef to the stars, Roberto Cortez. This international cuisine chef has very impressive lists of clients he had catered to and also had a very extensive culinary training background in five different countries. If you googled his name with the word "chef", you'll probably be impressed by the name of the celebrities he had served to.

SMOKED SHITAKE TERRINE - white corn velouté, Indonesian cinnamon butter, arugula

The theme of the dinner prepared by Chef Cortez this particular evening was called "Unfamiliar Conflict". It was aptly named for the combination of different flavor profile that is served in each of the course. For instance, the above Smoked Shitake Terrine was an interesting contrast to this lively tasting. The white corn velouté is in sweet richer flavor profile while the terrine is in a bitter savory taste that is giving a tug and war pull of flavor contest.

Many of the dishes presented were offering a beyond the boundary approach considering the training background of the chef who has European and Latin cuisines in his repertoire. Asian components with Latin flavors mixed with European influences are some of the discoveries that were made. The dish that exposes that type of techniques were evident in the "Veal Short Ribs" and "Lemon Lacquered Chicken." Both dishes offered succulent take on otherwise familiar dishes that served in many upscale restaurants. Chef Cortez's unfamiliar conflict can be considered in the realms of avant garde in the culinary field for its bold take on unconventional flavors matching.

SPARKLING LEMON CURD MOUSSE - strawberry water caramel, mint oil, crêpe crunch

At the night, I think the desserts were probably the ones that get the most applause in our table even though I think the main courses were the ones that are the hardest to prepare and get my approvals. I think the Manjari Chocolate Cream dessert bowl with tiny pearls and cherries was probably the highlight for any of the desserts we ever had in any of the Hatchi series. The Valrhona chocolate that served in the bowl was divine and absolutely decadent.

8C MANJARI CHOCOLATE CREAM - thai spice cherries, frozen malt, guinness

I think overall that if this was an audition for chef Cortez to impress his future scouts or gather new fans, he would have passed with flying colors. It's too bad on that they haven't continued the Hatchi series in a long time. Considering I had been out for a while, this event had taken place over a year ago, but yet still etched in my mind on what creativity it can bestowed upon if an up-and-coming chefs get to display his craft like Roberto Cortez had once did.

Alas the series is not active at this moment nor do Bread Bar is having a schedule event since middle of last season. There are few other pop-up series that are spreading around various part of Los Angeles. If there is ever a good route to go for a chef that is looking to make a name for themselves, these type of events would be a good "instant" course of action.

Hatchi at BreadBar by Roberto Cortez
10250 Santa Monica Blvd
Century City, CA 90067
(310) 277-3770

Eat!, Not Be a Pig Head @ Gorbals (Downtown L.A.)

2011-02-17T00:13:00.000-08:00

There are only a few places in L.A. would captivated me to write a review for one dish.

Gorbals would be one of those places that steered me from my unbroken rule. Usually, restaurants would have to have more than 1 dish in their repertoire on their overall balance in their menu to stand up for themselves. Hence, I rarely would have just write about one dish for any restaurant.

If you are a fan of a reality show on Bravo called "Top Chef", then you may have probably know that the owner and head chef of Gorbals was Top Chef Season 2 winner Ilan Hall. The second season of the show was my favorite because of well crafted editing of the show, the personalities of each of the main contestants, and the creativity of the dishes that was put forward by many of the contestants including Ilan Hall.

Honestly, when I heard he was opening up a restaurant in downtown LA, I was thinking more of the line of Spanish cuisine because of his previous employment in New York would dictated that. I was pleasantly surprised by his bold daring move of opening up a Jewish fare borderline with other International influenced cuisines.

The cooking at Gorbal is more geared towards rustic home cooking which many of the diners and fans came to love at this place. Some of chef Hall's popular dish were his "bacon wrapped Matzo balls" and his "banh mi poutine".

Roasted Half Pig Head (Gorbals - Downtown L.A.)

On this particular night, we were going to experience a new dish he presented last fall...his roasted half of pig's head.

Needless to say, growing up in a Chinese household, I have only gotten taste of boiled pig's feet or snout that was poured with massive amount of soy sauce. I might even have steamed liver, tongues, or pig's ear, but never the entire head (well, we're getting half of the entire head). You can only imagine how nonplus I am about wanting to try this dish. I just figured it will not cost me that much because I'm sharing the head with 5 other diners that night.

Let me start off by saying I was so surprised how well cook the pig's head was. The roasted pig's head was very crispy on the outside, but very tender on the inside. Giving you a perspective, the skin is like the Peking duck, while the meat was moist and tendered like a broilered chicken. There were some seasoning to make the meat more enjoyable because I was definitely expecting a bland pig meat. Our table deconstructed the head from the ear to the snout, with the pig's teeth and eyeball being collected as souvenir.

As pointed out earlier, the plate of half of a head was more than enough for a dining group of 6 as all of was stuffed that night. Make sure to order ahead because it will take about 45 minutes for the dish to be prepare.

After 4 visits at The Gorbals, I have to put the pig's head dinner as one of more satisfied meal in recent memory. I definitely would go back for the "banh mi poutine" as well and "bacon wrapped matzo balls" have won me over recently.

Now, the only question I have for Ilan Hall was that if he was serious about starting a food truck business. If so, will the "banh mi poutine" be on the menu? I doubt the roasted pig's head can be prepared adequately, so I'm hoping for at least one of the two popular dish to survive the food truck venture.

One dish doesn't make or break a dinner. However, just for this one unique dish, it can complete a meal.

The Gorbals
501 S. Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 488-3408

Lesson Learned: Don't Wait Too Long

2011-02-14T23:23:00.000-08:00

Seriously, I think I had been out of the game way too long.

The feeling I can't really be put into words until I was told there was a new place opened up called "Red O" or did I tried "Toranko". Huh and huh? Followed by a sound of "hmmm" with a quick reflex to google up in my smart phone. I can't even fathom on how I can keep with these new places.

It was also brought to my attention that a few of my favorite places have closed down since last my post in the summer of '10. Felt a bitter cold wrenched in my heart and a little bewilderment clouding my thoughts because I always thought places that served good food will last forever.

Won Ton Noodle Soup (Won Ton Forest - City of Industry)

The closure hit me the most was a won ton noodle shop called Won Ton Forest in City of Industry. This hurts me badly because it was only a minor walking distance from my work. A won ton noodle shop that would have made a great lunch choice for me instead of Jack in the Box nearby most of the week have now come and gone. Somehow I didn't even know about it until a comrade Go Ramen (who is pursuing his dream of being a top Ramen maestro in Japan) introduced this place to me and had championed it for as long as I had remembered.

The big heart break?... I didn't visit this place until a month before it decided to shut down.

The won ton as anyone can tell you is not a small dumpling in a soup, but a well crafted combination of meat wrapped beautifully in either a flour skin or deep fried variety. Personally, I loved the soup version of the dumpling served here in a generous portion with an inviting bok choy that accompanies it. If I had to turn back time, it would be skipping the lunches at Subway (right next door) and all those crappy lunches at Jack in the Box, and come here instead.

Boy, did I ever regretted this.

Pho Bac (Pho Minh - South El Monte)

If I need another gut punch, this blow would floored me for sure. I was really bummed when I discovered that Pho Minh closed down in November of '10. I treated this place like my secret hideaway. Never really wanted to give an acknowledgement on how good their broth with its unique subtle and very light taste. Most of the time, the oily backtaste that is on the broth soup leaves me clamoring for water. Not at Pho Minh, which I'm sad to learn they never really caught on.

I wasn't suprised because I'm usually the only person on most week nights and no other customers to speak of. It has to be very discouraging because it never got a fair shake as it had a rough start and never recover.

The sad part is that both establishment were run by young and enthusiastic owners who are hoping they can make a go at the unforgiving world of restaurant business where the rate closure is less than 3 months. It is going to be brutual and both started at a not so great locations for their business. I really hope both young owners give it another go at this restaurant jungle, but I would understand if they felt discouraged.

It's tough to see these places go in a quick flash. It only serves me as a reminder that these new places that are popping up are replacing the old establishment that didn't made it. Of course after looking up where Red O and Toranko are located, I can only surmise that both have a fighting chance with much more buzz going for them.

Lesson Learned for me. I let this things passed by and only had a faint memories of these two places.

Shoot....*sigh*. Let's take a look at the menu for the new place that had just opened up. What's it called again?... Playa Rivera?

Former Locations:

Won Ton Forest
18230 Gale Ave
City of Industry, CA 91748

Pho Minh
9646 Garvey Ave
South El Monte, CA 91733

Pondering Thoughts: Where Have I Been?

2010-06-21T00:10:00.000-07:00

In Front of XIV Restaurant

Pondering thoughts, part deux...what have I been doing lately?

That seemed to be the questions most people have been asking lately and I had been mindful that a few people didn't realized I been around. Maybe the quantity of posts had been dropping precariously that had made people to think I had disappeared.

Fear not, that is not the case and I am prepare to share my latest activities lately.

To my surprise, a personal favorite dining meal in the recent months was in Michael Mina's XIV Restaurant at West Hollywood. One of my favorite dining partner, The Minty let us in on a tasting menu deal that XIV was promoting last month. A six course (including amuse bouche and dessert) that was moderately set at $40 with a chance to get a bit of a taste of each of the popular main course that appears on the menu. An agreement with almost everyone in our table, our Tai Snapper course was probably our favorite dish of the night.

I have to give credit in applauding how magnificent was the decor at this place. Some of our seats felt like a lounge couch in a trendy Hollywood club with hip trendy atmosphere. Very imaginative in terms of the setup and food gotten yours truly to think the place was obviously catered to a certain clientele during evening service. It's probably worth a repeat closer look for me in the future to further try out other main courses on the menu.

You can read The Minty's thought about that night in her post.

-------------------

Earlier this month, one of my favorite bloggers, The Ravenous Couple had a get together for their Elegant Summer Party. Set up at a private residence up over the northern inland corridor, a group of All Star Bloggers descended to be feted with some of the beautiful creations the Ravenous Couple would be presenting that day. Nice warm early weekend afternoon with a homemade lemonade, we were treated to some of the southern Asian creations with a delicate twist in their interpretation of the popular Asian modern comfort food prepared by the Ravenous Couple. That was more than enough, but we were even further treated with desserts made by The Food Addicts and Triple Scoop Desserts.

If you ever checked out their site, you will understand why I am excited to see their recipes being brought alive for my tummy to get a full tasting. Not only was I not disappointed, but I actually bummed that I didn't take up the offer of bringing some leftovers home. Next time, I won't be turning that offer down.

For the record, I sucked for not bringing my camera to this event. I wished I had taken some photos, but please check out the Ravenous Couple's site and have the wonders of their creations tempted your eyes and appetite. You will be envy of me getting the taste of some of those dishes that appeared on their site.

-------------------------

My other memorable meal was at Jitlada hosted by The Gastronomer who wanted the input of the owner on what some of the dishes she would recommend for us on that fateful Spring evening. Jitalada had been one of my go-to place for some spicy Southern Thai fare and was a great occasion to have big menu of various delicious dishes suggested by Jazz, our lovely host and owner of the establishment.

The dishes being served here have never really let me down and always have the suggested fear of lashing on the tongue for the unknown consequences we might suffered if we didn't know ahead of time on the spicy meter level. It was always a great time hanging out with The Gastronomer and Astronomer in this feast.

Take a look what we have that night at Gastronomer's post.

There you have it! A glimpse of what I have tasted in the last few months. There are many more to come and more surprises I might have in store for you readers. You have just have to stay tune to find out....

Best Kept Secret Place in South Bay @ Otafuku (Gardena)

2010-05-31T02:44:00.000-07:00

The decoy front door (the entrance is in the back door)

One of the my pal Frederick told me a story about one day he needed to entertain an out of town guest for a taste of food that would reminds the guest back home from Japan. Frederick at first was going to suggest and take his guest to a few spot popular in Gardena and Torrance, but the guest would rather come to this non-descript place because a popular Japanese tour guide recommended this little hole in the wall as the place to visit. Needless to say, my pal was hooked and I have since was introduced to this place based on a recommendation from a tour book.

The real entrance to the restaurant (next to the back parking lot)

In order to enter this noodle shop/Izakaya place, you have to enter from the back parking lot as front door is serve as a decoy entrance with the door being pad-locked down. I don't know why as maybe it deters people from the street to open the door for a lookie-loo.

One of the few things I learned about this place was that they served a mean soba noodles. My previous review of Ichimian can be a fair side by side comparison on who takes the nod as the top place that serve the best soba. In that review, I did proclaimed Ichimian over Otafuku as the place to go for this chewy flavorable noodle.

However, I do have to point out that this small enchanted place that looked like a cozy Izakaya in a small village does served other items beside the noodle dish that attract a full crowd at any given night. I think the small skewer items on the menu and other tapa like dishes of Izakaya are some of the big reason for the establishment's popularity.

My two favorites were the Japanese Black Berkshire pork cutlet and their handmade cold tofu. Single-handedly, I can eat the pork cutlet dish by itself. Nicely breaded and with the right amount of sauce, the cutlet was one of the better piece I have had. Nice too tough and definitely the breading was handle it correctly without falling apart. The handmade tofu was one of my favorite at this location. It is on par with another my favorite Agdeshi tofu at Izakaya Bincho as being the most refreshing tofu in town.

Handmade Cold Tofu - Radish sprouts, Japanese Basil with Bonito Flakes - $4.50

Japanese Berkshire Black Hog Cutlet - $10

Japanese Style Egg Omlette - $8

Mini Tomato Skewer Rolled with Germ Free Thin Sliced Pork - $3 per Skewer

One of my dining companion's favorite dish of the night was the tomato skewer wrapped by a thin sliced of pork. I can see why he raved about it as it is not a fresh piece of fruit being wrapped about everyone's favorite savory dish....a piece of bacon. In fact, what doesn't go with bacon these days?

Zaru Soba - $8

It's too bad Otafuku didn't have too big of a dessert section other than the traditional ice cream. I think majority of the dishes we had that night was something I would repeatedly order or suggest to others including the soba and the Japanese egg omlette. If the soba was the main attraction as it was often publicized for the place, I would give them kudos for that. If it invloves the Izakaya section, then it's a must go. You shouldn't missed both if you get that chance.

Too bad for me, it took a Japanese tour book from a friend of a friend to get me to come here.

Otafuku
16525 S Western Ave
Gardena, CA 90247
(310) 532-9348

Engagment Returns @ Ludobites at Royal/T (Culver City)

2010-04-08T00:05:00.000-07:00

It's been a long while, but I think it's good to let everyone know someone's back. In the back of my mind, I probably was talking about myself, but alas someone bigger is getting that love. A larger presence who I think a lot of foodies are excited about is making a return engagement.

Yes... Ludo is back!

I'm sure there are skepticism being thrown out there about how food are getting to be the same. Such as why would food prepare by Chef Ludo Lefebvre is something to get excited about? Why the hype? Honestly, I can comprehend the initial waves of doubts that people may have. That is until they get a chance to actually come in and taste the food themselves. Many times often, they eventually would changed that tune and become one of the many converts.

VIP Table in the middle of the room!

To be quite honest, I needed to be initiated into this discovery by my good friend Gastronomnom who set up the first visit in the previous LudoBites visit at BreadBar. To get people acquainted about what LudoBites is and who Chef Ludo is, you probably will need to get some first hand knowledge before the obsessions and raves start kicking in.

For the shorter tale, it basically boiled down to be about one of the more creative chef in this fine city of Los Angeles who can create some of the traditional French fare and reinvented into one of his creative interpretation. One of the big kudo dish from my many visit at the BreadBar locations was a simple sandwich that not many people out there can replicate or captivate our taste buds.

Confit Pork Belly, Pickled Mustard, Vadouvan Apple, Frisee - $12

The dish was the Foie Gras Black Croque that have various ingredients that probably could have been done, but somehow no one other than Chef Ludo Lefebvre was able to perfect. The Foie Gras Black Croqu e seemed simple to make, but yet have all the intricacy of flavors all meshed into one component. In fact, many of his dishes in the menu which he boldly experimented have not only was successful in terms of taste, but also have people wanting to be amaze with anticipation of something new. I think that may be the reason why so many followers and believers in Chef Ludo have to come to expect.

Since then, I became one of the converts and started raving about that dish which was one of the many reasons I went back in three visits in the span of less than three weeks. Pretty amazing, ain't it?

Bread Soup, Poached Egg, Gruyere Marshmallow - $9

Chef Ludo have serve his creations in a modified restaurant which he set it up part time on what now the term is being called "pop-up" restaurants. This is where his restaurant would be temporary be stationed in a reserved location for a limited time, during which only dinner service are being served with his wonderful plates of different fusions he carefully crafted with many flavors blended into one plate of exquisite fine cuisine.

His 3.0 (Third limited engagement) of "LudoBites" was stationed at a cafe called Royal/T in Culver City.

Again, our fellow LudoBites fanatic Gastronomnom invited me again in another LudoBites outing with a few of the new Bloggers at the time, FoodForFel from the Food Ledger, The Minty, and Chef Austin from I'm Living to Eat. I spotted a few of fellow blogger friends as well who took in the big festivity that night such as Street Gourmet LA, Yutjangsah, E*Star LA, Sam, and Diana Takes a Bite.

What we experienced that night was extraordinary in that if you were not there, you really missed out. Those are the kind of moments you can wished you were there if you heard about it. For starters, the big draw that night was a marinated hanger steak served with a mole sauce. The weird arrangement would probably not go well if you heard it first hand, but after trying it and you'll be shocked to learn Chef Ludo was able to find a way to incorporate that mole sauce from a special Mexican recipe with special assistance from a very famous LA blogger, Teenage Glutster.

Mole sauce done the right way would have this sweet taste that goes well with savory items. For the life in me, I just never really thought it would go well with a piece of beef until I try it. Not only it made a believer out of me, but I was impressed at the numbers of tries that Chef Ludo experimented to make it work in his dishes.

There are other dishes that night that gained notoriety that night I should have revisited before the engagement of LudoBites 3.0 ended. Dishes such as a Foie Gras Beignet, Veal Udon with sesame seed miso and mushroom, or the Monterrey Squid with kimchee puree and a sheet of eggplant "paper".

The worst part is....I probably didn't do a good job of taking some of those photos because I was salivating to eat these wonderful creations. Then there is the funny part which was that LudoBites had set up a lighting tent was set up for anyone who wanted to take photos of their food at the corner of the restaurant. My only worries was that the food would get cold if I wanted to take photos of the food. Luckily, I was more interested in eating that night than taking photos. It doesn't happened often, but at those moments at that evening was one of those time.

Veal Udon, Kombu Dashi, Mushroom & Sesame Seed Miso - $13

Pistachio Rice Milk, Lemon Pound Cake on the side, Coffee Chantilly - $10

Obviously, the massive anticipation for the return for the 4th installment of this franchise is on full blast. In fact, I am sadly need to inform people that is sold out or fully booked in reservation until the last few weeks (those dates are blacked out from reservation). I'm already hearing the Ludo Fried Chicken (affectionately known as LFC by the fans) was making rounds in some special appearances before hand. Now I am ready for some new creative dishes that can be served out at a downtown LA location.

My visit to Ludobites 3.0 at Royal/T was a night I can't forget. Dishes that pretty much blow my mind. One of the very times where I probably was more interested in eating than taking photos of beautiful food. It doesn't happened often, but I can tell you that food are meant to be eaten and I was more than happy to reciprocate that thought. You can tell that the exciting new dishes that is in store for the LudoBites 4.0 will be greatly anticipated by yours truly.

Please do give a shout out to Ludo's wife, Krissy as she was more than happy to accommodate everyone that night and was willing to assist in making a memorable night for all diners. In fact, here's a Christmas photo we took courtesy of Krissy's help. Thanks again Krissy for the VIP table!!

LudoBites 3.0 at Royal/T Cafe
8910 Washington Blvd

Culver City, CA 90232

********************************

post note: Here is the info in case you want to make a reservation at LudoBites 4.0. Keep in mind, people do flake or cancel their reservation at the last moment. You can always be squeezed in when things happened. Please make the reservation online. I don't think you can call in to Gram & Papas to make reservation, so please try the online reservation or leave an email for stand-by.

Reservation can be online for dates from April 8 to May 28, 2010: click here

LudoBites 4.0 at Gram & Papas

227 East 9th Street

Los Angeles, CA 90015

Valentine's Day Gift or Chinese New Year extravaganza: Return of Pinkberry's Coupon

2010-02-12T01:34:00.001-08:00

Here is something that you can give instead of a box of chocolate for Valentine's Day or a Hong Bao (red envelope) for Chinese New Year. Running again this year is another "Buy One, Get One Free" coupon from Pinkberry.

The yogurt shop that rises to the top during the days of Atkins's diet (coincidentally watching Krispy Kreme taking a noise dive at the same time), are offering their loyal customers a freebie with a purchase of the same item.

A little add-on this time around... free toppings on your free yogurt. Any available toppings according to the coupon. Hence, don't be surprised if the yogurt shop mysterious ran out of mochi or something like that. Get them while it last as offer ends Feb. 19.

Bon appetite!

ps. Link to the corporate site, in case people need proof of the existence of the coupon

My New Year's Resolution for 2010

2010-01-25T00:25:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year everyone!

Yes, I know. It's been a very long time since the last time I post something in my blog. So I want to get off a good start and forecast ahead on which places I wanted to visit personally. The start of every year always begins with a personal check list of places I wanted to fulfill my dining adventures. Last year, my list contains places I have high hopes and I was able to check off one third of that list.

See for yourself: The list

This year will be something of a bucket list...places I wanted to go before I die:

Dining Room at Langham Hotel (Pasadena)
The Belvedere at Peninsula (Beverly Hills)
Addison in the Grand Mar (San Diego)
Kiyokawa (Beverly Hills)
Mozza Pizzaeria (Los Angeles)
Alex (Las Vegas)
La Barca (Los Angeles)
Little Dom's (Silverlake)
Mr. Pizza Factory (Koreatown)
Rivera (Downtown)
Moto Restaurant (Chicago)
Sona (West Hollywood)
La Cachette (Santa Monica)
Gorbal (Los Angeles)
Porto's Bakery (Downey, CA)
Langer's Delicatessen (Los Angeles)
Cassell's Hamburgers (Koreatown)
Pollo a la Brasa (Los Angeles)
Arturo's Puffy Taco (La Mirada, CA)
Ceviche Del Rey (Downey, CA)
Tito's Market (El Monte)
Heng Yang Chili King (Monterey Park)
Guelaguetza (Los Angeles)
Lazy Ox Canteen (Los Angeles)
The Waterside Inn (Berkshire, UK)

I am keeping this list much more simpler than last year's list. I managed to get 1/3 of the list checked off, but was woefully short. I might be able to get this "must visit" places accomplish than the first go-around.

Wish me luck!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T23:36:00.001-08:00

Christmas Greetings from LudoBites at Royal/T Cafe

It's another exciting year that passes us by with many delicious culinary experiences that I will cherished with this past year (and post later on).

Countdown is now on for the landslide of lists of "the best" of whatever categories which will hit us in the upcoming week before the end of the year. I'm very sure that the above picture of LudoBites will be on some of those list for favorite meals or favorite dining spot of 2009.

I just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year! Hope everybody got what they wish for in their Christmas stockings!

Anticipating the Return @ Ludobites (Los Angeles)

2009-11-30T00:48:00.000-08:00

We recently just had a Thanksgiving holiday, which got me thinking of a few things I am thankful for the year 2009. Met tons of new friends, visiting fascinating places and having a great meal to go along with it, great stories to share, and more importantly another year of good health.

Because of some great friends I met, they were able to share with me some of their favorite places they like to dine at. One of my favorite discovery for this year was not a taco truck, but a pop-up style restaurant where a chef would take over a non-descript place and run the restaurant like a Ghetto Gourmet in San Francisco. I never heard of a concept like a pop-up style restaurant until a friend of mine, Gastronomnom introduced it to me over the summer.

He confided to me that Ludo Bites was his favorite new restaurant along with Animal (which he suggested to me as well). Once he go into details on how the former chef at L'Orangerie and Bastide, Ludo Lefebvre have decided to turn a small Artisan Bakery cafe (BreadBar in Mid-City) into his personal kitchen and run it with great precisions. Then my friend begin to tell me how Ludo was able to turn some simple ingredients into a delicious fanfare, I was at the time more than intrigue wanting to find out more.

Then a slew of my other blogger friends relayed to me in that one of their blogger companion was at the BreadBar bragging about how great Pierre Gagnaire's food was, Ludo calmly replied with a smile and said "Yeah I know, I used to work for him for a few years".

With that, I knew I was going to love the guy and the food he was going to serve!

Green Bean Salad, Peach, Coconut, Apple, Horseradish, Lemongrass

Snails, Spinach Curry, Yogurt

Homemade Boudain Noir Terrine (Pork Blood) - Potato Puree, Mustard, Black Currants

Some of these dishes that I am about to show were some of my favorites in my three visits to LudoBites. When we first got the menu, I was very perplex to see some of the dishes on the menu. For instance like pork blood. Don't worry, I have pork blood plenty of times due to my steady of diet of Taiwanese cuisine as part of my raising by my parents. I was amazed Ludo was able to glamorized a street food and work it with a potato puree. Think of this like a soft pudding and get it dipped with some creamy potato sauce. Never imagine it with mixture of potato until now and was absolutely stunned that it can worked well together.

Already, the imagination on these charts worked splendidly better than I hope.

Creamy Polenta - Cantal Cheese, Oxtail Beef, Black Truffle

Foie Gras Black Croque - Monsieur, Ham, Cherry, Amaretto

Some of the few dishes that I was able to get my hands on, I was truly impressed and amazed by how complicated of a work these simple dishes can be made into these wildly intricate with vivid imaginations. A lot of the starters are favorites among my dining friends that joined me that night along with Gastronomnom and his fiance, FoodforFel from The Food Ledger, the Minty, and a common friend of the group, Ally. We also spotted FoodSheThought right when we were about to be seated in a corner table.

The two starters stood that night for me was the Foie Gras Black Croque and the creamy polenta. Think about this for one second: if you can get a hand on a perfect moist sandwich with a dipping of cherry jam and neatly stuffed with foie gras and ham. How much will you willing to pay? For myself and a few in the table, we would gladly fork over the $20 (the price tag at the time) if Ludo was willing to serve it for a take-out lunch bento box.

The creamy polenta with oxtail is something that is very comforting and one of the more traditional dish on Ludo's repertoire. An addition of black truffle was a major plus as it only enhanced a rich, creamy dish that was a favorite of mine.

Monkfish "A la Nage" Leeks, Nutmeg, Lemon, Potato

Spaghetti Carbonara - Santa Barbara Prawn, Sage

Grilled Duck Breast - Leek Salad, Ginger, Capers, Black Truffle

Let me pointed out that his savory dishes are some of his strength. I didn't get the chicken dish that was flavored with duck fat as it was wildly described by LA Weekly's food critic, Jonathan Gold. However, the three savory dish that I was able to experienced was more than adequately fill the void (where the chicken was last served the week before I got there).

My favorite was the Grilled Duck Breast which had a conflict of battle in taste, but somehow came beautifully once it is inserted into your mouth. Some chefs likes to play with presentations or with molecular gastronomy. Chef Ludo likes to let the tastes and flavors be the deciding factor. If you were able to tell me that ginger goes along with salt on a duck, I would have plenty of skeptical doubts. Taking the unconventional road and recreating it was a risk worth taking if you have the confidence. Not only it pays off beautifully, it was a dish I would order every chance I can get when I step in to his Bread Bar location.

Of course this was a man who was on a TV competition show trying to hawk a pig's ear quesadilla. He is not only brave, but very daring and willing to take risks.

Vanilla Panna Cotta, Caviar, Carmel

Peach Curry - Masacarpone, Verbene

Chocolate Cupcake, Foie Gras Chantilly, Candied Bacon Almonds, Maple syrup

Desserts are usually not my favorites, but you just couldn't skip some of the treats waiting in store at this place. Have you had a savory chocolate desserts? How about a foie gras on your cupcake? Maybe a caviar on top of a panna cotta?

Sweet mixing savory? Does it work? Believe it or not, my mind says no way, but my taste bud didn't stop licking what is on the spoon or plate. Just asked my friend Hall-e of The Michelin Project (below picture) about it. She can't stop either.

Trust me when I say it's a sight to be hold until you get to experience these little pleasures in life. There always something new every week when I was there. After my initial visit, by chance I was able to come back the second time in three days span. Didn't stop there as I came back again for the third time two weeks later.

If the question from my loyal readers was that does Ludo still have his pop-up restaurant at Bread Bar, then the answer is no. Fret not, he does have a new location and an interesting twist to his new venture. The new location of his pop-up restaurant is at Royal/T cafe in Culver City where the space is also a Japanese-style cosplay café where you do get to see something of interesting arts that is provided there for your constant amusement. It's one thing to get an entertainment out of the food, but to also have bizarre art pieces to display around your dining table probably will complete your evening of curiosity.

Not only am I excite to see what he have in store for us on the menu, but can't wait to see how a work of Takashi Murakami fit in to this dining experience.

ps. Make sure to make your reservation on their website. Even though the reservations might be filled up, you can get on the waiting list for this limited, selected 13-day engagement at Royal/T. The start date official begins on December 2nd. Don't miss out!

LudoBites (old location)
@BreadBar
8718 West 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(310) 205-0124

LudoBites (new location)
Royal/T Cafe
8910 Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232

Reservations for Royal/T can be made in the website.

Grade:

Thomas Keller Book Signing at South Coast Plaza

2009-11-11T12:28:00.000-08:00

In case you don't have a reservation at the grand opening of Bouchon in Beverly Hills next Monday, don't fret. The master chef extraordinaire, Thomas Keller will be signing his book "ad hoc at home" tomorrow in the South Coast Plaza Williams-Sonoma.

You can ogle at him or just tell him that his restaurant Per Se and French Laundry is not that hot. Either way, this is probably the best chance you will get to meet him up close and personal.

The Black Goat Extravaganza @ Chin Go Gae (Koreatown)

2009-11-01T02:11:00.000-08:00

No English Translation on the sign (just look for the Korean signage)

Has anyone ever tried Black Goat? That is until you realized it does not taste or looked like lamb meat. It's a pretty weird concept and worth a Deep End Dining style trip to further enhance your foodie adventures.

It's a weird concept only because this was an actual protein that is very popular in Korean cuisine, but only a few places in Los Angeles would served it. Seriously, I would need to dig deeper to find other hole in the wall places to get this kind of discovery.

Bahn Chan (side dishes) - Seaweed, Cucumbers, sweet daikon, and kimchee

I have heard this place was very popular in Koreatown for over two decades. Many Korean Angelanos have regard The Black (heukk) Goat (yeum so) is served two ways here. The most popular ordering choice is served in hot spicy soup (tang) and can be ordered in sauteed fried style as well. Both popular dishes will set diners back to around $15 each and will feed about 4-6 people for each order.

We get the usual bahn chan starters before the main courses arrives. Usually the Korean appetizers are there to tie you down just like peanuts in a steakhouse can do for you. The cucumbers and sweet daikons are some of my favorites in these Korean restaurants. It was too bad that the ever popular bean sprouts was not in effect at this place, but it doesn't diminish the arrangements that was placed in front of us before the mains were served.

Yeum So Moo Chim (Goat Salad) - $15.50

The first dish is a sauteed Goat Salad. According to my research, the yeum so is served with arrays of different vegetables. The main components of that salad style dish has some Korean sesame leaves (kkaennip) with a dash of chili, garlic, red pepper, and sesame seeds (deulkkae).

Now here's the catch with this plate. The table provided a glass of deulkkae (the same sesame seeds in the goat salad) where you can mix it with the bowl of chili paste to make your own dipping sauce for the yeum so (goat) meat.

Toasted Deulkkae (Perilla Seeds)

Special Sauce - sesame oil, chili paste, and toasted deulkkae

The sauce isn't really that secretive nor hard to make. Considering most of the ingredients like the sesame seed can be easily acquired in most Korean shops or markets. There is some sesame oil that is added to enhance the dipping sauce.

By dipping the sauteed goat to the sauce add a bold strong flavor taste. Surprising for me was that it was not overwhelmingly spicy nor any drastic sour taste to the meat. If you want a comparison to what it taste like, my best given answer would be like a flank in a Mexican Sriracha sauce. The texture is not as a gamey as I originally had feared, but rather soft and very tender. It was very delicious in an absolute easy dish for it to be made that was also very pleasing to the stomach.

Before - the leaves were added on before getting pushed down

Yeum So Tang - with Green Onions, Kkaennip (Korean Perilla Leaves) - $15

The big attraction finally arrives to the table in the form or a big pot with a portable cooker underneath was the goat soup (yeum so tang). It started off with the servers placing the kkaennip (Korean Perilla leaves) on top of the soup and pushing it down to be simmered while the boiling soup also cooked the goat meat.

As we quickly devoured the soup and the black goat meat, couple of observations hit me: one was that the soup just like the goat salad wasn't too spicy. In fact I was expecting the soup to be as hot and spicy like the ones I had in On Dal or Ham Ji Park. My best guess can also be attributed to the fact that maybe someone in our table requested that, but nonetheless the soup is something I want to slurp. The soup was very rich and flavorful while the meat was already in a soup that had the similar components as the sauce was very delicious as well.

The other observations was that the leaves and other ingredients in the soup make the broth taste better than most shabu shabu or hot pot places. The soup is probably the highlight in this dish more so than the goat.

In this go around, the goat meat was stewed and have this nice texture like a slow braised pork. With the chili paste and other spicy ingredients added on to the goat meat, it was like a melted piece of delicious treat.

Is there an adverse after effect like a bad steak? Luckily for me, I was alive and still kicking it the day after. I couldn't say the same for me in an unfortunate dining at Chung King.

Kimchee Fried Rice

Like some of the traditional Korean places, the meal will end with a round of Kimchee rice. They used the pot from the goat soup to add in rice and a bowl of various kimchee ingredient to make this popular end of the meal treat. I could honestly say I have better (Ondal being one of the place), but it was still very good for what we have that night and still a welcome treat after the meal.

My adventure of the black goat dining have me scratching off the list of names of protein I wanted to try. Special thanks to my pal the Minty who invited me along in this unusual Korean specialty dish.

This place is a foodie dining institution for many Korean natives who probably doesn't want hoards of invaders coming over to this place as the small place really only have about 8-10 tables. Probably still on the down low as we speak. When I come back here again, the two yeum so dish will be conquered, but I'll make sure this time around they can up the level of the spiciness for the soup.

Chin Go Gae
3063 W 8th St
Los Angeles, CA 90005
(213) 487-0159

Grade:

LA's Most Underrated Fine Dining Spot @ Simon LA (Mid-City)

2009-10-26T00:12:00.000-07:00

Another edition of a dining review that took place during DineLA week where we found ourselves in a predicament that had never seemed to happen before.

We actually have to beg people to come to this restaurant.

My man Gastronomnom was working hard on the twitter and Facebook outlets to see if we can find a person to fill in the last spot in our table. In a bit of surprise, for the last two weeks leading up to reservation date, no one has decided to take up on the offer. Was it because people in LA are not familiar with Kerry Simon or his restaurant? Surely people must have heard of him if they know who Ludo Lefebvre is.

Kerry Simon is probably one the most unconventional of all fine dining chefs in LA. In many articles I have read, one of his most famous menu dish was the "Junk Food Platter" which consists of marshmallows, cotton candy, and other weird snacks that can substantially raise your calories count in one bite.

Chef Simon started his distinguished career by taking a job in a restaurant kitchen because he needed to raise money to buy a guitar for his first true job passion.... a music career! Often labeled as the "Rock n' Roll Chef", he fell in love with the kitchen and decided to stick with it as a career changing move he never regretted. In his impressive resume, it included an apprenticeship in the Michelin Three Stars restaurant of Jean Morels' L'hostellerie Bressane had worked along side with an upcoming culinary superstar in the '80s (you guys probably heard of a guy named Jean-Georges Vongerichten).

In an ascending career span, he was able to open up a restaurant in Las Vegas, aptly named "Simon". Very shortly after that, Chef Simon decided to migrate to Los Angeles and helped opened up "Simon LA" in the first floor of the very posh Sofitel Hotel.

Watermelon Margarita - $14

I can't decided if this place was going to be a loud club lounge settings as they have very chic bar right in front of the restaurant. Before I make any judgments, a Midwest couple coming out of the restaurant in their very casual tourist looked out of their elements, but did seemed to enjoy themselves. Probably hitting back to their hotel room to write to everyone back home on how they met a few celebrities in the dining room. (kidding, none were spotted that night)

The dining room was elegant and was very dim lighted for a very soothing romantic atmosphere. I guess I was expecting a lounge type restaurant that seemed to be in vogue these days for many West Hollywood restaurants that get converted into dance clubs at night, but was pleasant surprised on how very mature the setting was without giving that hint of a conversion.

Jumbo Lump Crab Salad - Avocado, Micro Greens and Grapefruit

For a New American fare, I was anticipating a steak fare for meat lover, some fish dish for seafood lover, and a vegetarian dish just round up the main course selections. I was figuring almost all of the DineLA selections played it safe to cover all three bases, but they would still need to impress to ensure for future repeat businesses from the frickle LA diners.

All three selections of the DineLA starters choices are salads. I took the Jumbo Lump Crab salad is the only one selection at the time with proteins in the salad. I really did enjoyed the salad with the avocado on the bottom of the salad providing a stark additives for the crab. It was a pleasing cleansers before the main dishes to come.

I took the initiative of ordering a watermelon margarita. Somewhat sweet, but a solid drink that goes well with this interpretation of Chef Simon's crab salad. Cocktail drinks in the menu was worth exploring for future visits.

Grilled Skirt Steak - Balsamic Roasted Root Vegetables

Much to my amazement, the grilled skirt steak I have ordered is probably the best steak so far in my DineLA experience. The medium rare selection was cooked to perfection as it was able to retain the juiciness and flavor with the texture of the steak not dried out when it was served. Balsamic root vegetables added some nice compliment and worked very well with the steak.

The steak was so good, it would be insulting to add A-1 steak sauce at this moment. It then got me thinking, if the steaks were cooked properly and seasoned correctly...would A-1 steak sauce be out of business? At this moment, who still uses that sauce anyways?

Cheesecake with Cotton Candy

One of the more bold and daring creations that Chef Simon has been marketed was for his desserts. I took a shot at the cheesecake only because it had the cotton candy. Yeah seriously, that was my only reason for ordering that dish. To my profound astonishment and going against rational that I had, I truly enjoyed the cheesecake. It looked like a half scoop of ice cream on top of the cookie, but it's really crust with a very rich cheesecake. Gastronomnom ordered the same dessert and was excited to find out it's cheesecake and not some random cream of cheese.

The cotton candy didn't do any harm to the dish or enrich the plate, which I think was only added for the show. Nothing more, nothing less.

Underrated and in many ways still uncharted for many of the LA diners. I think if the place got passes the initial press of their bizarre desserts and let their main dishes stand out, they probably can attracted serious foodies and casual restaurant patrons to dine here more than just the special occasions. The glamorous setting is a huge plus and the great service we have for the night definitely make our dining experience that night much better.

A return trip for other dishes in the future will be in the books. Definitely one of the most pleasant surprise in this go-around of the DineLA.

Simon LA
8555 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(310) 358-3979

Grade:

New DineLA Visit to @ Campanile (Mid-Wilshire)

2009-10-21T03:00:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, I participated in few of the dining spots that were the participants of the seasonal DineLA week. It used to only last a week before expanding it to two weeks, but if it were successful, it get the extended run of 3 weeks.

The idea of DineLA week was to expose the restaurants scene in LA to casual diners who might not be privy to what each location's cuisine would be offering. Usually a hit and miss in the bargaining department because it's not always the best dish that get offer to the public, but in many cases a strong effort by the restaurant can result a repeat business from the casual diners who are looking to splurge on a full course meal down the road.

So in many ways, it is the best interest of the restaurant to put their best foot forward in ensuring that any repeat business is possible as any week night can be a lonely night in the reservation books.

Take a look at my last editions of Spring of '09 to get an idea on how DineLA have evolved: Bazaar by José Andrés , Border Grill, Dal Rae, Wolfgang's Steakhouse By Wolfgang Zwenier .

Our wine of the night chosen by Gastronomnom

To get started on one of the earliest visit for DineLA, one of our good friend (and a new blogger) Gastronomnom decided to reserve a table at the much critically acclaimed Campanile on La Brea Ave. Interesting enough, another new blogger FoodForFel have also joined us as well as Gastronomnom's fiance Amy, our long time friend Edgar, and our dining companion Veronica.

To get people familiarized with the menu concept, it usually involves a choosing of one of the starter, entree, and a dessert from the basic three choices in their brief DineLA menu. Be warn about this, it can be a hit and miss with great selections or a disastrous choice.

Poached Egg and Porcini Mushroom Cream

Roasted Beet Salad

Soup Du Jour

Our starters become a divide and conquer as we made split decisions in all three choices (with the majority of three going for Poached Egg, two going for Roast Beet Salad, and one for the soup of the day).

I decided to go for the roast beet salad for an easy cleansing of the palate. I wasn't quite sure about the poached egg because it was something that was either going to be a great dish having a running egg all over the persimmons or just a bunch of greens all over the plate. The soup of the day was nice looking warm tomato soup. In the end, I took the safer route with the roast beet salad and have no regrets (can't say the same for FoodForFel with her poached egg).

Roast Pork Loin - with mustard mashed potatoes, kale and crème fraiche

Steamed Mussels - fingerling potatoes, fennel and tomato confit

Before the main courses about to arrive, I took a very long observation of the restaurant here in Campanile where many in attendance that night was either wearing business slacks or very relaxed comfort clothing. Casual or business are both welcomed and mixed very well in the atmosphere of a historical building. This two story building was originally built for Charlie Chaplin (yes, the same Silent Movie Star) for supposedly his office back in the early days. When he got divorced from his 2nd wife, good ol' Charlie was forced to sell this place.

After decades of the place in changing hands, Chef Mark Peel who opened up the restaurant by purchasing this building with two partners, with then-wife pastry chef Nancy Silverton (where her La Brea Bakery was first to open - currently still right next door to Campanile) and Wine director Manfred Krankl, was able to restore the building and remodeled it with a restaurant in the main court yard complete with a bakery and bar on each of the side. Meanwhile, a few banquet rooms was upstairs overlooking the dining room of the restaurant. I was surprised to see the upper banquet room dedicated to the Silent Star with proclamation of "The Charlie Chaplin Room". You can't really missed it as you will get to see that room on your way to the restroom.

My delight of the night was how well cook my pork loin were as it was absolutely scrumptious and quickly devoured by yours truly. The mashed potatoes were a big hit for me as well where the side dishes are both excellent in complimenting the main protein. I also got a few bites from Veronica in tasting the steamed mussels. I have to admit I was skeptical at first, but did enjoyed the mussels as well. Alas, my big tummy wasn't able to take both full dishes.

Bourbon Bread Pudding - caramel sauce, creme fraiche

Funniest thing of the night, the only item we all agreed upon was the dessert in getting the bread pudding. It was lavished with sweet caramel sauce and a counter reduction of creme to balance it out in giving a great dessert. That was probably the only thing I can say that everyone was able to agree on, where various of opinions are given in some of the dishes.

The big question of the night, did Campanile do its diligence in attracting new patrons that otherwise would be intimidated in coming? With the price being preset for everyone ahead of time, it was easy enough, but did restaurant gives a favorable impression in return visit?

For me, definitely. Now I can't wait to try his other contemporary American cuisine dishes that he presents. Interesting side note, I was able to visit Mark Peel's former work place at Spago in Beverly Hills. You can actually see some of the inspiration transfer to Campanile. The Spago review will happen shortly, but check out places while you can. For $34 in that three course menu, it was well worth the risk to check out a new place.

Campanile
624 S La Brea Ave
Los Angeles,CA 90036
(323) 938-1447

Grade:

5x5 Chef Collaboration Dinner @ Providence (Los Angeles)

2009-09-12T23:04:00.000-07:00

One of the interesting topic surrounds sports was that if you can form a great team consists of the greatest players of its generation, would that be an easy domination for that great team? That's why there was a concept of "Dream Team" for Olympic Basketball with mixed success. This is a good idea if there is a chemistry that works well together ('92 and '08 Olympics), but disastrous if it was an incoherent mess ('04 Olympics).

Hence, the question relating to the foodie world would be if the kitchen was filled with 5 of the best chefs in town, will you get the best meal of your life? The 5x5 concept was an idea that was put in a bold experiment that was being provided with a beautiful restaurant (such as the Providence on Melrose) served as the Colosseum venue to please the audience. In that sense, it was the diners.

The idea of five different main courses prepared by five different chefs put images of a relay race of an Olympic race instantaneously. In order to have a good start, the first dish need to set a good tone. Then the rest of the dishes need to carry on in a consistent progression and with the final dish end in a spectacular final dash to the finish line. Appetizers and desserts are not required in this 5x5 Olympiad, but all of the five dishes of that 5 (courses) by 5 (chefs) will have to maintain its consistency. Team work and chemistry are essential and keys to that goal of winning that race (in this case, satisfying the whims of the customers who paid $150 thinking it will be the meal of a lifetime).

If you ever watched Top Chef, you will always see contests that required team work in the team competitions where the contestants often were not having communications among each other to carry out the progressions. Each dishes were treated like a baton being handing off from one dish to another. One dish can come off savory, but the next one would come off sweet, you do not want to see a mishap like that in an expensive $150 five course meal. Which was the big intrigue to see if any of the top chefs in this town can worked well together to bring out the best meal for the diners who are paying $150 per head on that night.

To start off, Michael Cimarusti (head chef/owner of the Providence) was providing us with a quartet of Amuse Bouche before the main courses comes out. Chef Cimarusti was sitting this one out as he graciously provided the venue and opened up his kitchen to five different chefs that will showcase their work that night in the fable 5x5 meal.

I don't know if was a tradition, but I guessed the host of the venue would always provide an amuse bouche or a quick starter for the guests to munch on before the dishes arrives. I went back to Providence 6 weeks later and enjoyed a wonderful meal with a different arrangement of edible one-biters as well by Chef Cimarusti.

Quartet of Amuse Bouche (Hokkido Scallop, Sea urchi Roe on Tomato, Greyhound cocktail Spherification, and Tasmanian sea trout over salmon skin)

The first one on the left was the Hokkido Scallop surrounded with puffed rice over bed of Sriracha and mayonnaise. The center two pieces of the amuse bouche were the sea urchin roe on top of tomato and the Greyhound cocktail spherification.

To start off the night in the right tone, sometimes it only takes one bite to realize you will have be in a treat for a wonderful meal. I always have various different amuse bouche at other fine dining places as well. In many ways, I have many one biters that are similar to what chef Cimarusti's amuse, but has always been impressed with his interpretation and playful look on a liquid nitrogen drink. The greyhound cocktail was something I never had before, but love how it held together in the liquid form and dissolved once it reached your taste bud.

Sea urchi Roe on Tomato and Greyhound cocktail Spherification

The last of the starter was the Tasmanian sea trout over salmon skin, with soy sauce crème fraîche. My impression about the sea trout, Hokkido scallop, and the sea urchin roe were wonderfully presented and have a great taste. Nicely throughout in terms of what to add appropriately and each of the seafood specialty was something I can imagine eating as a whole dish at Providence.

Overall, I had a great impression of what Providence was going to offer in the menu. Eventually I would make a visit here in the short immediate future to get some of his offerings in his 9 course tasting menu.

Hamachi Sashimi - Ton buri, Asian pear, red radish and fennel (by David LeFevre of Water Grill)

The first dish of the night was by a talented young chef from Water Grill, David LeFevre who gave us his interpretation of a Hamachi Sashimi. It had a nice little tonburi, which was seeds of fireweed that has texture and taste closely resemble a caviar. Truth to be told, I honestly thought it was caviar until I took good close look of it. The hamachi was fresh and very delicate where it just melt in your mouth once you took a bite. Very delicious from the start where the tempura with slices of sweet Asian pear was paired on the dish as side for contrast against the hamachi.

The tempura had a mixture of Dungeness crab wrapped in shiso leaf with a tart cream on top to give it a crispy bold taste. Adding a sweet pear underneath was an act of counter reduction against a little bitterness of the shiso. It worked well enough as a compliment pair against the hamachi and complete the overall dish much to my surprise as I initially thought the tempura was unnecessary.

Unexpected, but much to my amazement, it was one of the dishes I really liked that night.

Shellfish "Printanière" - Santa Barbara prawns, abalone, Japanese sword squid, clams, lemongrass-shellfish emulsion (by Josiah Citrin of Mélisse)

My favorite dish of the night was from my favorite chef of the moment, Josiah Citrin of the restaurant Melisse. For this shellfish dish to include bits and pieces of albone, a Japanese sword squid, claims, and some Santa Barabara Prawns to go along in one harmonious way, the dish turns out to be a divine classic.

Truly, a remarkable dish that made me a believer and a big fan of chef Citrin. In fact, after the dish, I told chef Citrin I would be visiting him very soon. At this Spring discovery menu dinner that night one month after this 5x5 dinner, he came up to our table and indeed remembered our conversation of about my intended visit to Melisse.

If I have one dish to remember my evening, it would be this dish of chef Citrin's Shellfish Printanière.

Sautéed Wild Striped Bass - white carrot purée, nettles, fava beans, fennel pollen (by Neal Fraser of Grace)

Next dish was very highly anticipated by yours truly was from Grace's Neal Fraser. A beautiful wild striped bass that had a sidekick of a white carrot puree. The thing that bothers at first was the look of the carrot puree because I thought the color was not very pleasing to look at. However, I find it very refreshing to have a carrot puree to have this sweeter taste than the usual potato puree that usually accompanied a fish dish.

The nettles and fava beans that was sided with the striped bass offered an interesting contrast. Not necessary for the benefit of the fish because it didn't enhanced the flavor profile of the bass, but it does a contrast to counter reduce the savory rich complex taste of this bass. Helpful because it made the rich flavor of the fish stands out. Luckily the fish did not have any unnecessary tangy, fishy smell. One of the great ingredient to increase the enhancement was add a Lemon, it increases the smell, but masked the flavor. For us, the big favor the chef did for all of us was let the fish standout by itself with the bass being sauteed enough to give crisper outside and tender inside of the skin.

A competent contemporary dish that was aimed to please, was able to handle off the baton of progression to the next dish with comfortable room of lead.

Barley Timbale - peas, artichokes, foie gras, mushroom sauce (Gino Angelini of Angelini Osteria)

The fourth main course of the night was a favorite of a few of my dining mates. Essentially on how this dish is to come out was that it was a barley risotto layered inside of a wrapped spinach with a hint of foie gras and a tomato on top of the spinach.

The main component on this dish to me was the barley layered with the other vegetables. The barley was wonderfully cooked to almost perfection. The vegetables of spinach and tomato complimented the barely very well. The mushroom sauce also helped enhanced the flavor of the dish. The foie gras was the side addition rather the main component of this dish, actually is better off as the supporting cast as the barley was rightfully the highlight of this entire plate.

Roasted Duck "Apicius" - spiced pineapple, rhubarb and celery root (Alex Stratta of Alex)

The hammer of the night and the main guest chef in this 5x5 course was an out of town special guest, Alex Stratta who is the head chef of his namesake restaurant in Las Vegas called "Alex". The much acclaimed chef garnered the impressive Mobil Five Diamonds rating for his restaurant Alex and have won acclaims for Best Chef in Southwest from the James Beard Foundation.

Chef Stratta presented his dish of Roasted Duck "Apicius". The aforementioned word of Apicius was often attributed to classic European fusion cooking that dated all the way back to the Roman times. It was often suggested that Roman Emperor Marcus Apicius were credited for the collection of Greek recipes that would attributed to the fabulous feast that was hosted by the Roman foodie Emperor. Over the centuries, many of the classic cooking and recipes from the Apicius era were the influences of many different types of European fine cuisines.

The roasted duck on that night had some interesting spices and celery roots that gave an arousing aroma that heightened the intricate taste of this well rested roast duck. It was cut at the right time as it was able to maintain the juiciness without drying out the texture of the meat. The sauce with a hint of a few sweet ingredients in the sauce that can offer enhancement in the flavor profile while adding the richness to the juicy duck.

Excellent way to end the main course of this example of a great fine dining. I think it started it off in a fast and ferocious way, maintain in the middle , and ended in a full sprint. Relating to a sport race, it's a blowout race.

Un Café à Bordeaux - canelé ice cream, coffee parfait and toasted hazelnuts (Adrian Vasquez of Providence)

Inside of canelé ice cream

Mignardises

The deserts was an added treat for us later on after this meal. It was often cited that Adrian Vasquez, pastry chef of Providence serves the best deserts in Los Angeles. For many, deserts is often the closer to a fine meal where it could complete tone of any epic meal. On this was no exceptions.

The canele and ice cream parfait were well composed and these delicious sweet creamy deserts that were badly needed to end the parade of fine savory dishes. The mignardises candies were also very welcome as well.

In retrospect, to find out each of these fine dining establishments and asked them to provide you with one of their better dishes to help showcase their work was a great idea. For $150 that was the price tag, it was worth it. Part of the proceeds of the $150 tab goes to the Southern Chapter of the Special Olympics makes it much more worth while.

Even though this meal happened back in April 28, I have very fond memories of each of those dishes. Thanks to kevinEats for organizing this outing for us as Will & Brian from FoodDigger were able to join us, as well Kung Food Panda and Tangbro 1 from Only Eat What Feeds Your Soul!.

5 x 5 Restaurant participants

Providence (Host, amuse bouche, desert)
5955 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90038
323) 460-4170

Water Grill
544 S Grand Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90017
(213) 891-0900

Melisse
1104 Wilshire Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 395-0881

Grace Restaurant
7360 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036-2501
(323) 934-4400

Angelini Osteria
7313 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036-2534
(323) 297-0070

Alex
3131 Las Vegas Blvd S
Las Vegas, NV 89109
(702) 248-3463

The Place That Housed Beer Lovers @ Animal (Los Angeles)

2009-09-08T01:20:00.000-07:00

A month ago, one of my friend Linden confided in me that his two new favorite restaurants of the year were LudoBites and Animal. He and his lovely fiance, Amy had invited a group of us to LudoBites and showed us around on what to order at one his new favorite place of the year. It was a fantastic meal that night as we ordered almost everything in the menu.

Given that the success of that meal from LudoBites was an excellent choice by Linden, I was more than curious about his other choice for the favorite "new place" of the year where he had mentioned about the decadent foie gras that was served here and the pork belly that was to die for.

It doesn't take me very long for my head to come up with a bright idea to visit Animal very soon. It comes very naturally I guess to suggest that I would like to visit this place to see if it fulfill the same satisfaction as I had at LudoBites.

CasinaVel Del Prete (Barbera d' Asti - 2007 Piedmont) - $47

The much ballyhooed and acclaimed chef duo of Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo known as the "Two Dudes" because of their TV show on the Food Network, which they have shown their audiences to defy conventional cooking as they have ushered in new ways of cooking for traditional American cuisine. Discussions about categorizing their food as New American would be still be too conventional for them as they continue to push the envelope on re-inventing the old classic dishes.

In many ways, the Two Dudes reminds me of the "Too Hot Tamales" of Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger. Just like the Tamales, the duo of Shook and Dotolo worked in the same restaurant before traveling to a new city together. In fact, the funniest similarity is that Shook and Dotolo both became TV personalities at Food Network on a show called "Two Dudes Catering". Just like the Tamales were able to do early on in their career was to reach to vast audience in define a niche for themselves and expose the type of food they want to cook.

The show worked out very well for the Dudes as it gives them both a chance to exert their personalities in their cooking without the retread of boring conventional cooking methods. It's an entertainment for the television broadcast, but does the unconventional cooking methods worked in the kitchen?

Throughout the night, I would get to see how the free spirited chefs with no boundaries and have many times on their show proclaimed "they play by their own rules" would leave their indelible mark in their cooking. In some way, it works. While other times, it left me wondering.

One of my friend Holly from The Michelin Project and her good friend Kat's 9 Lives had invited a few of their friends from the OC and various Yelpers to complete this dining extravaganza. We had a dining companion who was very well versed in ordering wines for our tables because the selections of wine was very limited in the menu. That was one beef I had with this place because the few wine bottles we had ordered doesn't seemed to fit with the courses we had (which the wines were suggested by the staff) .

In matter of fact, one of the beer our dining companion chose was much better suited than the two wines we had ordered for majority of the dishes.

Foie Gras, Biscuit, Maple Sausage Gravy - $22

Pig Ear, Chili, Lime, Fried Egg - $10

One of the dish that was agreed upon unanimously before we even looked at the menu was the pig ear. I think everyone was giddy because they thought it would be soft and tender like a liver. The ear was cut like a shredded strips and was topped with a fried egg. The playful look soon gave way to the chili and lime that accompanied the pig ear made it more spicy. The new hot taste was exciting and added an unexpected element to this exotic dish.

The big hoopla of the night was the very first dish that came out: Foie Gras with maple sausage gravy on top of the biscuit. The Foie Gras was cooked just about right where it delicately place on top of biscuit where it can be easily cut as it was very tender and would melt instantly right in your mouth.

Once you take a bite of the foie gras, the flavor just exploded right into your taste buds. The maple sausage gravy was something I couldn't stopped eating as well. It's not quite mushy like an average puree, but was very creamy with delicious bold flavor. The sausage is part of the supporting cast of the maple flavored gravy. Both worked with the biscuit, as all the components comes together for the foie gras.

Pork Belly, Kimchi, Peanuts, Chili Soy, Scallion - $12

One of the more inventive dish of the night was the kimchee pork belly. The pork belly was an absolute delicious succulent piece of heaven you want to repeatedly eat all night long. Their interpretation of of adding kimchee salad reminds me of an abstract Ceveche salad with pork belly replacing the hot shrimps as the components.

This is one of the dish that I thought the Two Dudes was able to redefine and made it one of their own. It was very unique in the fact they incorporated a Korean dish onto their menu and remade the pork belly dish as a fine example of anything goes with it.

Holus Bolus (syrah) 2007, Santa Ynez Valley - $50

Barbecue Pork Belly Sandwiches, Slaw - $10 each

Two other things that goes well with pork belly, the second wine we have ordered and the cold slaw. Finally, the wine have worked with a dish. We ordered a syrah (Holus Bolus) which has a nice robust flavor in the wine that compliment very well the pork belly sandwich we have just ordered. The cold slaw replaced the lettuce as the pork belly sandwich became Animal's version of a mini slider.

Fine interpretation of a classic burger? Perhaps. $10 for each slider? That was the reason it gave me some pause.

Sweetbreads, Creamed Spinach, Capers, Hen of the Woods - $12

Quail Fry, Girts, Chard, Slab Bacon, Maple Jus - $28

Balsamic Pork Ribs, Herb Butter - $37

Succotash (goes with the pork ribs)

Flat Iron, Artichoke hash, Truffle Parmesan Fondue - $25

The main courses are for most part the big attraction in wanting to fill up the tank while emptying your wallet. Their Balsmic Pork Ribs are excellent and very tender where the meat just fell off the bone. Well prepared and seasoned, it was one of the big surprise of the night. For $37, it was also the one dish that we were watching our budget. To go splurging without a discern taste, yes it would be worth it. Value for the price? To make that call, let's see if any pork ribs would cost that much in real life and judge it from there against other ribs. (To be honest, I had better ribs that was for half of the price for the same size of slab of ribs).

Two of the more challenging dishes were the sweetbreads and the quail leg. Let me get to the positive first about the quail leg, I thought that was the best main course of the night. Probably slight edge over the balsamic pork ribs. I thought it was very well breaded and very juicy in the meat that for a few second you would forget to swirl it around the maple jus. You probably don't need it as it can be a standalone dish without too many other components in that plate.

Unfortunately, it can't be said for the sweetbreads and the flat iron. From the look of the photos above, both dishes were surrounded and ganged up by supporting elements that was probably needed to cut down by two to three ingredients. The sweetbread isn't a main course, but might as well be enjoyed as such. It had a mushroom of Hen of the Woods (pretty much known as "Maitake" mushroom) where it got lost in the plate as other garnishes were all over the plate.

The flat iron suffered a worse fate, the truffle parmesian fondue overwhelm the smell and flavor of the steak. Its taste totally got lost where I'm not sure which component of that dish was suppose to be the main one, even though the flat iron was the first item listed in the dish.

For most part, a lot of these garnishes or ingredients could have worked. In all confessions, I did like the sweetbreads and quail legs by itself. If it is needed to add other components, it's still would be fantastic dishes. Forced upon to eat it with the said garnishes and ingredients, many of our dining mates wound up scrapping it off and leave it on the side. Eventually, maybe we can dipped it in the sauce or eat it separately.

Panna Cotta, Saba - $7

Bacon Chocolate Crunch Bar, S&P Anglaise - $7

Tres Leches, Dulce de Leche - $7

Brown Butter Berry Tart, Whipped Creme Friache - $7

The deserts are probably on par with some of my favorite restaurants, but would not be in the same class as some others (Melisse, Providence) that can end the night on high note. Yes, I could definitely say that Panna Cotta and Tres Leches were interesting desserts, but lack the high expectancy of the tartness we usually come to expect from these two popular desserts.

My favorite desert (and the most ignored in our table. *sigh*) was the bacon chocolate. I was in love with the bacon as it had a bit of the salt. It tasted very delicious with the chocolate bar and with the crunchy bar dipped in that Anglaise cream is an absolute delight. The Bacon Chocolate bar is probably the only thing that prevent me from disregarding the entire deserts lineup.

I do think their style of cooking would be greeted by the masses that are looking for something unconventional, but yet tasted so delicious. In retrospect, I did think most, if not all of their dishes were well thought out and were fantastically delightful when the place reaches the table. Presentation of the garnish on certain dishes can cut back a little to showcase the main proteins on the dishes.

If they can figured out on how to get more wines that matches with their dishes, they make a killing in this place with alcohol. Beer selections that include IPA is on hand. Seriously, no joke on this one, the beer worked wonders that night with so many of the dish which I have to say the selection of Paulaner Hefe-Weizen is the best. One more thing, Mexican Coke is served here.

When they start serving Mexican Pepsi, I'll surely be back in an instant.

Animal
435 N Fairfax Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(323) 782-9225

Grade:

FoodDigger Event @ Church and State (Downtown LA)

2009-08-27T00:16:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, we had another exciting dinner sponsored and provided by the good people of FoodDigger. If you don't remembered them, check out my blog post of Giang Nan which was my very first invited dinner by these swell fellas.

This time around, they wanted to introduced a few new additions on their websites allowing bloggers an easier time to submit their reviews. If you have seen some of my reviews with icons on the bottom of some of my restaurant reviews where you get an idea on what I think of the restaurant (besides my grade). The linkback is reciprocated as well from the FoodDigger's website where they sent their readers to the full original contents in my blog. This is almost like getting in on the ground floor of a new website and being part of it very early.

They also have other news that night and wanted to introduce it in a very hot place at this moment in downtown LA. The chosen dining destination is called "Church and State" and was just recently given a 3-stars review by LA Times restaurant critic Ms. Virbila. The restaurant was a great choice as the praise was lavished by Ms. Virbila. To appreciate Church and State's rapid rise from an miserable beginning, you will have to get know the chef in the kitchen.

That chef would be Walter Manzke.

Church and State Bistro had a rough start early on last year where they opened to a solid success, but with poor execution. If you read Ms. Virbila's early summary of the place, you would have assumed the place is a mess. The restaurant itself was located on the ground floor of the ancient Nabisco Biscuit Co. building that is surrounded by factories and dock yards. The location is also only a few blocks away from MTA's parking lot that stored majority of the MTA buses. The best advice anyone would give is to not wandered off too far from the restaurant late at night as the neighborhood is a complete slum yard that only a few places can be considered a beacon of light, dim ones at best.

Given the grim environment around the neighborhood, the owner Steven Arroyo was still unfazed and undeterred in making this restaurant a success. Mr. Arroyo was the brain behind the Cobras and Matadors franchise and partnered up in his new Umami Burger restaurant (he owns half of the share along with partner Adam Fleischman in the new joint remodeled from his old C&M). Just like most of his establishments, it's a cool place to be, but the food is always secondary to the ambiance.

Canapé

Hiring Walter Manzke was a major coup considering he was the only active head chef in Los Angeles to be awarded three 3-stars in reviews from Ms. Virbila while being the head chef (Patina, Bastide, and now Church and State). To many of his supporters, chef Manzke is a miracle worker that can turn around a restaurant's fortunes in a quick hurry and install a discipline like no others.

Now armed with being in charge of coming up with new bistro menu every other days, chef Manzke have change the perception of the place where it used to be that ambiance and environment comes first. To counter that perception, Chef Manzke is now making the food to be main attraction in coming to this place. It doesn't mean that the place is not going to be hip as witnessed by many of our dining mates. It went from business types to young crowd in a matter of hours (Ms. Virabila described it like a story taken from "Curious Case of Benjamin Button").

Baguette

Being given an assigned seat, I was able to sit next to Eddie and Marshall from FoodDigger and discussed a few things about the plans and updates about their site. Will, the community manager was welcoming others in our group such as the writers behind the blogs of Gastronomy Blog, I Nom Things, Kat's 9 Lives, kevinEats, Kung Food Panda, LA and OC Foodventures, and Weezer Monkey.

As we get started and waiting for our food to arrive, we were able to munch on some Canapé and a fresh loaf of baguette. As we looked around this festive room now filled with joyous laughter and a few banters about which color of background goes well with your photos (the inevitable and unavoidable blogger talk), some of first dishes started to arrive.

Beignets de Brandade de Morue - Salt Cod, Saffron Aioli

As I was chewing a few bite of this delicious fried cod fritters that was served, I just can't help noticed my fellow blogger companions who have various different set of point and shoot cameras or the emerging SLR hounds. As I was enjoying every morsels of this well battered fritters with a scent of saffron aioli and the scrumptious cod, I just can't helped the fact that everyone was excited on to position the food for their photos. This would not be the first nor the last time that had happened where a big group of photo hounds descended upon the same plate of food.

Iced Kumamoto Oysters

"Bistro Sushi" - Smoked Herring, Fingerling Potato Salad

The iced oyster and the smoked herring were also getting some needed attentions...by my stomach and taste buds. I was giddy when I saw a very fresh sets of oysters neatly stacked for of us to see. There were a bucket on each side of the table. You got to hand it to us photobloggers, we have the patience because I wouldn't wait to swoop in and take my share of the oysters. It hit the spot immediately to satisfy my initial appetite growl. Luckily for the smoked herring which was on a plate by itself for everyone, was almost like a amouse as it can be eaten in one quite bite (according to my mouth).

Some of my favorite dishes of the night were well seasoned Santa Barbara prawns which got great flavors from other ingredients of Lemon juice and olive oil and the Main Lobster that was named after one of our very own FoodDigger host, Marshall. I think the lobster is probably the best of the night even though I think a ringer was install in this plate, but you get a variation of different lobsters whenever Chef Manzke presented in his menu. Coupled with the asparagus from Hog's Farm in Salinas, California made this an attractive pair due to wonderful coupling of fresh vegetables with the Maine Lobster. The prawns was absolutely a winner as well as it was delicious.

Gambas à la Niçoise - Santa Barbara Spot Prawns, Lemon, Olive Oil

Asperge à la Tashiro - Maine Lobster, Hog Farm's Asparagus

Escargots de Bourgogne - Snails baked in Garlic and Parsley Butter

The escargot baked in garlic and parsley butter in a small porcelain bowl was massively raved by our LA critic, Ms. Virabila as the "don't pass up" when you can get a chance to order. I didn't understand her rave until I dip the snail in the rich butter sauce under the cloud of a chicken pot pie. First, the baked escargot was one of the best escargot I ever had, but to dip in this rich and savory sauce that tasted like a rich broth soup was just unfathomable. I truly wanted to steal Marshall's bowl because he wasn't eating it initially and because it was that good. Seriously, "don't pass up".

Right now, there is something that people were excited about. The charcuterie are freshly prepared by Chef Manzke daily and cut for our enjoyment. As you can see from the picture below is the various meat that is on display at a slab of a cutting board (noticed how many cameras are getting positioned to take this photo?). Chef Manzke also had a jar filled with pork rillettes where he freshly made with pork made from pork fat with prunes and Armagnac. There was a special treat with a jar of rich foie gras sauce and a basket of brioche for the charcuterie.

This I thought was the end of the evening and the charcuterie would send us on our way....but a big pleasant surprise came from the kitchen.

Assiette de Charcuterie - Selection of Artisan and Housemade Pâtés, Saucisson Sec, Terrine de Foie Gras with Port-Wine Gelée, and Rillettes de Porc with Prune Confiture and Armagnac

We were treated to a few more dishes to end our evening. Very unexpected I think.

One of the big dish that was very popular in this bistro was the flammenküche. It is essentially a pizza without tomato sauce and topped with Caramelized onions and bacon. Very light, not greasy with Gruyère Cheese that was very delicately baked to perfection. Better than your average Papa John's pizza and an easy item to satisfy anyone. It's not to going to compete with the best gourmet pizza of the world (like Pizzeria Mozza), but it is one of the more satisfying interpretation of a delicious easy pizza to make.

I got carried away when we saw the Moelle de Boeuf, the roasted bone marrow in the frying pan presented coming into our table. At this point, I was already satisfied and stuffed, but I just couldn't resist a bite of the bone marrow. That turned into a gorge of half of the bone marrow all by myself. Tender and moist with a bowl of crouton breads to make a small bite size finger snack was all I needed to make it a very memorable night.

It was hard to eat the steak frites because of the huge amount of food at this point, but the fries was too hard for anyone to stop eating. LA and OC Foodventures and I was just mowing the fries down as we both gotten addicted at this point. So far nothing have worked to stop us both from stuffing ourselves into a lifesize pinata. The steak was not bad, but it was the fries that carried the top billing in that duo.

The dessert platter was just over the top. It put us all in culinary ecstasy where we can now all know we die very happy after this meal.

Flammenküche - Caramelized Onions, Bacon, Gruyère Cheese

Moelle de Boeuf - Roasted Marrow Bone

Steak Frites - Frites au Lard, Sauce Béarnaise

Dessert - Crème Brûlée, Cherry Tart, Apricot Tart, Croustade aux Baies, Pot de Crème au Chocolat

As we look back, I would like to thank FoodDigger for inviting us and treat us to one of the best feast we ever had. It seemed like everyone enjoyed the food and the company of the evening. One weird episode to conclude the night.

Not sure if it was a blog follower or a Yelper that knew a few of us (mostly Kung Food Panda and I), where this person came from the table next to us and proceed to give Kung Food Panda a few stomach poke and atta boy shoulder pat to me. Very surreal and frightening at the same time. It didn't exact freak us out, but we got to tell that dude to calm down (too much drinkie perhaps?). Big fan of Kung Food Panda and Pepsi Monster? Perhaps.

Check out the new icons and other layouts below and at FoodDigger to see what we thought of Church and State. Here's the link to the review of the place given by some of the participants on that evening.

Church and State
1855 Industrial St
Los Angeles, CA, CA 90021
(213) 405-1434

All-Star Meetup @ Hatchi at BreadBar by Michael Voltaggio (Century City)

2009-08-06T01:30:00.000-07:00

Last week was a star gazing at its finest. We're not talking about the usual celeb sightings that you routinely get at Century City, but rather we speak of the bloggers sightings! Seriously, how often do you see Bloggers in the middle of Mid-City other than Beverly Hills.

We're also not talking about Blogger proms or blogger conventions where bloggers meet bloggers, but rather an Average Joe coming to a restaurant will instantly know these camera hawks are not up to no good like some paparazzi.

Instead of worrying about which designer brand was the movie star wearing or which music star is shacking up with which reality TV wannabe, what most people wanted to know was: which camera is the prefer choice of the blogger and more importantly.... which lens are they using?

Big names was lounging around the outdoor mall of the Westfield Century City Mall waiting to be seated where I spotted Oishii Eats (sans her hubby, ahh C'mon D!). Many have arrived early with much anticipations and have been seated where luminaries such as kevinEats, Only Eat What Feed Your Soul, The Foodie Traveler, My Last Bites, and supposedly When Tara Met Blog who arrived much earlier have all gotten their tables. Our table was no slouch in filling in with the big shots such as LA & OC Foodventures, E*Star LA, Hey Hey Scensters, Kung Food Panda, Princess Kitty, and Folie à Choisauce.

Veal Sweetbread - Poached Egg, Pea Consomme, Coffee-Cardamom Soil

Why the fuss for a blogger party in the Westfield Century City Mall? For one night only, a special dinner prepared by Season 6 Top Chef contestant and current Chef de Cuisine at The Dining Room in Langham Hotel, Michael Voltaggio was able to lure in these types of enthusiastic crowd.

Let's get this out of this way as most people will point out the chaotic and spotty service. It was a rough going as some early patrons overstayed and enjoyed the restaurant atmosphere a while longer by ordering more wine. No harm in that. Kitchen was trying to catch up with the food that was ordered. Some were rushed with 4 dishes in the same time and arriving in out of order of sequences. It happens.

There was no way of avoiding this type of traffic with the only hope of redemption rests in the chef Voltaggio's cooking as the saving grace. Was it enough to overcome the early deficit? Without a further ado....

Japanese Tomato Tartare - Green Almonds, Parmesan "Overeasy", Tapenade Powders

The background of chef Voltaggio was briefly mentioned in my post about having a picture taken with him when a few of us attended a dinner at his former employment in Saam which is the private room in the restaurant "The Bazaar by José Andrés". Recipient of AAA Five Diamonds Award and finalist for the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant instantly makes him an uprising star in a town crowded with former Top Chef contestants hoping to make a mark in LA (Ilan Hall, Stefan Richter, Tiffany Faison, Antonia Lafaso, and Fabio Viviani).

Chef Voltaggio is one of the new wave of chefs who practice molecular gastronomy, but balanced it with modern techniques that favors the presentation and the flavor to match with the ingredients being presented. It was a treat to meet him at The Bazaar where he brings out some unique dishes to his repertoire and many of us were geeked to find out what he might have in store for us when he takes over the duty of chef de cuisine at Langham. As you can see, his one night viewing at The Bread Bar attracted big numbers of bloggers want to take advantage of the $8 per dish special that was advertised for the monthly Hatchi (Eight dishes for $8 each).

Artichokes "Barigoule" - Salmon Belly, Philadelphia Cheese, Smoked Salmon Roe

Hamachi Crudo - Smoked Egg Yolk, Sea Sponge, Watermelon, Wild Rice

Veal Sweetbread - Poached Egg, Pea Consomme, Coffee-Cardamom Soil (2nd Helpings)

The pictures that are posted in the chronic order it had arrived in. As it pointed out in obviously terms, the Veal Sweetbread was the first to arrive (should be the 4th). We love the poached egg which was one of the simple dish that chef Voltaggio have stated in Top Chef's bio which he love to create. The coffee cardamom added a sweet contrast to beautifully poached egg and the savory veal that was supposed to be the spotlight. It was the poached egg that won us over.

The Japanese Tomato Tartare was a big surprise we didn't expect because we thought there was an egg whites on top of the tomato tartare, but it was rather a thinly disguised Parmesan cheese covers the well seasoned tomato. It's well noted that a tomato and cheese substituted for the beef and egg, but it worked beautifully as the light dish starting off early in our course will gradually prepare us for the heavier savory dish that will come up.

The salmon and hamachi that followed the veal sweetbread and tomato tartare were both provided in a beautiful presentation. Both dishes were greeted with the accompanied vegetables in a well thought out plate that will highlight the flavor profile of the dishes. For the hamachi, it was on top of a fresh watermelon with a dash of egg yolk for sauce. Being fresh as it was, the hamachi being mixed with fresh components would just melt in your mouth and you still can take in the flavor for a bit while after your initial bite. The salmon belly with cheese was a strange choice for mixture of flavors, but sandwiched between the artichoke, it did taste very smoothly with the amount of balance. It did seemed to look like a cream cheese on a sushi, but it worked out much better than my initial reaction.

Crispy Chicken Thigh - Cuttlefish, Green Garlic, Sweet and Sour Mushrooms

Wagyu Beef - Short Rib, Saul's Pastrami, Tamarind, Broccoli Textures, Horseradish "Styrofoam"

How did the final two savory dish worked out? It's too bad that Veal Sweetbread went first because it was suppose to join these duo as part of the bigger middle of the line up.

Here's the magic for the Crispy chicken with cuttlefish, it tasted great with the Belgium beer that was provided to us by the head of the service staff. No joke, the beer washed down beautifully of the well cooked crispy chicken and the tender cuttlefish (looked like a string of noodles) and was the best pairing of the night in terms of which alcohol beverage goes great with which dish. If we can figured a savor dish for Fat Tire, I'm all in.

The Wagyu beef with a string of pastrami underneath had a sweet sauce lavished over both of them. For kevinEats, it reminds him of a Tamarind sauce, for me I thought it was of sweeter soy sauce. I make sure to get a piece of the horseradish Styrofoam that was shaped like a sugar cube and toss it in to the green broccoli sauce, both would counteract against the sweet sauce that was on the Wagyu beef. Hot off the stove, the beef was tender and the pastrami underneath serves as a great wrapper around the ingredients and beef. Both dishes ended well for us before the desserts as the food served as a memory loss potion for the earlier chaotic service we have gotten.

Fool's Gold - Hazelnut Praline, Salty Caramel, Nitro Coffee Mousse

Miso Cake - Jasmine "Rice Cream", Strawberry, Yuzu

The desserts both have its moments and was the closer for the night. The fool's gold was a playful reenactment of a dish that resembles the great find of the gold rush, except this was better than your average gold findings. The chocolate mousse and the salty caramel was going to be an appetite killer if you started it off with those two combination. Make sure you get hazelnut praline first before frolicking in this "fool's gold". It's not the ice cream you thought it was going to be.

Luckily some of us decided to get started on the Miso cake first before further digging on the fool's gold. The miso cake had an interesting component on the plate which confuses me as a slice of spam. On further inspection, it was a sliced of savory ham that mashes with the sweet rice cream. Before we continued, we decided to drink the last two pairing of the wine to see if compliment well with the desserts. Lo and behold, it actually did served as a great elixir to mix the flavor profile of sweet and savory very well. The fool's gold of salty caramel still need to be eaten last, but at least we know something can counterbalance that after taste.

Overall, all of us did enjoyed experiencing the dishes that chef Michael Voltaggio have to display before his big move to Langham Hotel on the same week. It's enough of the preview we needed to make a visit to the Dining Room in the near future.

Weird arrange of order of dishes at first, but all well that ends well is what it matters.

As in for the blogger meetup in the Bread Bar, I cannot tell you on how many passerby have remarked that "it's probably a Blogger convention" when they see a half dozen cameras going on simultaneously in the same table whenever a dish come out. For one night, it was exciting to meet the superstars of the Foodie Bloggers world all arriving to the same arena for the same adventure. Similar interests with different methods are all on display. You can say it's one of those party where everyone shares their crafts and trades to the similar enthusiasts.

I can only hope another all-star meetup that can exist in a tiny arena happens in the distant future.

Hatchi at BreadBar by Michael Voltaggio
10250 Santa Monica Blvd
Century City, CA 90067
(310) 277-3770

A Dream Meal That Lives Up To Reality @ Melisse (Santa Monica)

2009-07-20T01:06:00.000-07:00

Once in a while, you always get that pit in the stomach that you hope this would be the best meal you ever had. Maybe you get that intuition all the time because of the price tag you will need to absorb at the end of the meal. Hence, it's better be that good for you to spent on a meal.

Last month, the restaurant Melisse had a special menu called "Summer Discovery Menu" which for a very reasonable price of $65, it will include a three course meal plus a dessert that was heavily hyped by the hostess of the dining group. That hostess was the Notorious P.I.G. who had promised that Passion Fruit Parfait would be out of this world.

So much hype, but I did had a great experience at Providence's 5x5 meal which included a dish from Melisse's chef/owner Josiah Citrin which blew my mind with his dish of Shellfish "Printaniere". That was one of the best dish I have ever had, so the anticipation for me to come here was huge.

Before our meal start off, chef Citrin gave us a refreshing drink of his Green Apple Consomme with a bit of Apple "caviar" (chunks of Apple bits). The starter was very playful considering the soup almost tasted like apple juice, but was very inventive in a way on how the consomme was able to pull it off as the starter as it was a delightful drink to start before the main course. A great way to heighten our anticipation on what was about to come.

Green Apple Consomme

For our courses, we decided to make a divide and conquer. We decided to pair off in group of two with each person ordering a different dish and sharing both dishes. In essence, we got all six main courses and both of the dessert. That way we can't complain later about missing out the other dish or had the "what if" questions later.

I teamed up with Kung Food Panda as the other group consist of the Notorious P.I.G., Mattouille, and Choisauce.

Our first set of Main courses was between Silver Fluke and the Potato Gnocchi. My favorite out of first duo was the Potato Gnocchi. This dish was very simple with bold flavors that let the taste stand out without adding too many other ingredients to it. It consists of summer squash, a dash of ricotta cheese and some green almonds on top of the gnocchi. It really tasted very delicious after you took the first few bites, you just couldn't eating it. I actually needed to take the plate away from KFP as he was hogging that dish.

The fluke, better known as summer flounder or a flatfish to some was very tasty as well. I think with a little dash of lime and truffle helped out a fresh fish dish that otherwise would had been hard to eat. It played very well in your taste buds as the combination of the ingredients does work well and makes it hard for you to decide on which dish in the first course should you choose. Luckily, we had both.

Potato Gnocchi - Summer Squash, Green Almonds, and Riccota Cheese

Silvered Fluke - Truffle, Lime, Wasabi, Chilled Mushroom Consomme

I took the liberty of ordering the Duo of Foie Gras as a side to my special tasting menu courses. Besides the two different Twice Cooked and Terrine Foie Gras was a confiture that tasted lemon and a chocolate servings in the plate. We also had a plate of brioche bread to go along with the foie gras. I think it was great as a dish itself as it was filling before I even get to taste the final two dishes.

It was funny seeing a few of my other dining mates trying to order more of the brioche thinking it was part of the complimentary breads that was passing out.

Duo of Foie Gras - $27 (Twice Cooked on top left and Terrine on bottom Right)

Our second set of courses in the special menu was consist of the choices between of Tea Smoked Ahi Tuna and the Curried Black Mussels.

The Ahi Tuna was looked like a cut of rare sirloin steak on top of the marinated Egg plant. I did enjoyed the tuna steak at Wolfgang's The Cut a few months back and found surprisingly tasty for a steak-like cut of a rare tuna. The rosemary sauce made enhance the flavor profile of the tuna and worked especially well when you eat it with the egg plant. The heirloom tomato on the side was a nice side feature that complete the overall effectiveness of the entire dish.

I did enjoyed the curried black mussels as well. It was not very well received by some of our dining mates as they felt the flavor was too much with too many ingredients overshadowing the mussels. Maybe the cilantro was too much on the other plate, but I really did enjoyed the simplicity of the mussels with the nice added breaded naan for the compliments for the dish.

Tough call, but I probably would go with the Ahi Tuna in a close contested race for the best of 2nd course.

Curried Black Mussels - Parsley, Cilantro, and Naan

Tea Smoke Ahi Tuna - Marinated Egg Plant, Heirloom Tomatoes, Lemon, and Rosemary

The fireworks really begin with the final pairings. As we wound down with the final sets, so far not a disappointing or underwhelming dish had come out of the kitchen and the dinner was moving swimmingly as we also enjoy our company at the table. Then, the end of all endings had bestowed upon us.

First off, either of one of the two dish would be an ideal choice to close out on any chef's menu. Both were that good and we wouldn't have it any other way.

The no-brainer of the night was to order the Hanger Steak Frites. Let me say that in one other instance at Bouchon (Thomas Keller's poorly conceived sequel in Vegas) was a major let down and the one at Walter Manzke's Church and State was well received. Confidentially, let's just say the dish was a big wow. Everyone understand about the steak, but it's potato fries that needed to wow a person over and chef Citrin's fries was an ecstatic winner. Dipped in the brown butter Bernaise, it was like an elixir that instantly gave your tastebuds a boost. The arugua salad and the hanger steak were excellent as well, but it seemed like we wanted to dip everything in that sauce.

The Cornish Game Hen came in with low expectations, but came out to be the biggest surprise of the night. I don't think anyone of us thought the stuffed poultry leg was going to be anything but a turkduckey. However, with each passing bite, it reminded me of the Buddha Chicken at the Duck House . The creamy polenta is something I can eat all night long along with the big button mushroom that was provided with the delicious stuffed game hen. I don't think you should passed this dish up when you get a chance. Easily, one of the highlights of the night.

In further consideration, I thought it was a dead heat between the two. I was just happy that I get to have a taste of both (even if KFP was chowing both down like there's no tomorrow).

Cornish Game Hen "Jambonette" - Creamy Polenta, Button Mushroom, Pear Onions "Jus Roti"

Hunger Steak Frites - Arugula Salad, Brown butter Bernaise, Red Wine Shallot sauce

The dessert was a moment of truth for our hostess of the evening, Notorious P.I.G. She claimed in her blog and was quoted a few times of saying that she was not in love with the restaurant, but with the dessert (as in the Passion fruit Parfait). After all the delicious dishes we had, the dessert was a make or break for her? Ha!

After a few teasing all around from everyone in the table, we can hear her giving out a few prayers before the dessert was passed out. After a few bite, let's just say she is off the hook.

With all the adulation being lavished on the passion fruit parfait, all of the sudden the P.I.G. looked very confident in dishing a few "I told you so" to some of us in the table. In one quick turnaround, she got her bravado back with all the thanks to chef Citrin.

With all the kiddings aside, the passion fruit parfait was delicious. The souffle drenched all around by lemongrass milk and was sandwiched between a coconut sorbet and a pistachio cookie. This was easily our favorite dessert of the night.

The poor strawberry shortcake never stood a chance as it was very solid and competent, but was overpowered and shadowed by the aforementioned Passion Fruit Parfait.

Passion Fruit Parfait

Strawberry Short Cake

If I ever had a best meal of 2009 award, this place easily deserved that honor. Great service throughout the night with each passing dishes progressing better and better. It ended with a big bang in the final course and closed out with a flurry with the excellent desserts.

I only writing this now not just because I want to share about this place, but because I'm going back again this week. Yes, I just can't wait to see what this place had in store for us.

Melisse
1104 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 395-0881

Grade:

Our Photo with Top Chef 6 contestant Michael Voltaggio (and the runner up to Top Chef Season 2)

2009-07-10T02:16:00.000-07:00

photo courtesy of kevinEats

A few months ago, a group of us decided to make a return trip to The Bazaar by José Andrés for the private room of Saam for their 20-course meal. (well, it's the return trip for everyone of us except for one person). One of these days, I'll have to finish the review for the spectacular dinner on that night.

However, our highlight of the night was that our dinner group get to meet the chefs in the kitchen. Brian and Will of FoodDigger, Kevin of kevinEats, Tangbro1 of Only Eats What Feeds Your Soul, The Teenage Glutster, and myself was treated to the grand tour of the kitchen and have gotten a few photo ops as well.

As you take a good look at the photo on the top, you will noticed that Marcel from Season 2 of Top Chef was on the far right between Will and Bryan. The man in the dead center is attracting a lot of attention this week and for a very good reason. He was the chef de Cuisine of the restaurant, Michael Voltaggio.

Considering this week with the announcement of Top Chef Season 6 contestants revealing that chef Michael was among the contestants for the show that was taped in Las Vegas. I'm a little geeked about this only the fact that he is probably the odds on favorite to win it all (just like the few favorites who stumbled in the finale like Richard Blais and Stefan Richter).

The funniest thing about the photo was that Marcel is the sous chef while Michael is his supervising boss. If you think that Marcel finishing runner-up in Season 2 with strong contestants, gives an impression that Marcel's boss must finish better than runner-up. Does it give Chef Voltaggio the inspiration and push for winning it all for season 6?

With a resume that included working in an "AAA Five Diamonds" restaurant and working in a James Beard Finalist award (for this restaurant, the Bazaar), it would boldly stated like wise, but you'll never know until a biased decision handled out to an undeserving winners year after year. Will I tuned in for this season of Top Chef?

Oh yeah!

--------

ps. Another caveat, Chef Voltaggio will also be competing against his brother Bryan on the show as well. Sibling rivalry on the show? I hope it's better than the contrived Euro vs USA stupidity that was on last year's show.

Bid Adieu to Wonton Forest (City of Industry)

2009-06-29T23:00:00.001-07:00

Am I the bearer of bad news or what? I think I enjoyed playing the Angel of Death this week because this is the 2nd news of something that are not going to be with us. Sadly, I cared about this place more than the Michelin Guide.

Wonton Forest was a place that my boy Go Ramen! had championed since its earliest days of opening. Since the mythical Won Ton Time closed in Alhambra more than a year ago, many people had being trying to find a replacement for a cheap won ton noodle soup. Why mythical?

To this day, no one knows how they make any profit margin by charging a bowl of soup with big won tons for less than $4. If you have to ask, yes...Won Ton Time closed under mysterious circumstances which we'll never know the behind the scenes.

For this case however, sadly Keizo of Go Ramen! actually whispered to some of us that the end will come for Wonton Forest. About more than a month ago, Daily Gluttony of Rants and Craves and I wanted to join Keizo for the last hurrah before the official announcement were to be made about the future of this restaurant.

The popular slang of "FML" comes to me when I realized this place is only 3 minutes from my work place. That close, but yet I never knew about the place until Keizo pointed this place out. Damn me...

Just looking at the photos of the Won Ton Noodle soup and the spring rolls made me wonder why I took such a long time to write a review and not championed this place earlier. Now, this restaurant will be part of a group that didn't deserved to suffer an early demise.

It's one of those regrets I wish I would have come to this place more often because the soup broth were excellent and the won tons were scrumptious. The spring rolls were a delightful crunchy sucker that was waiting to be dipped in the sauce so that you can fully enjoyed the wonderful flavor and aroma.

Too bad, now it's just all for naught as Keizo posted the sad news. With that in my mind, I do want to wish the owner Paul all the good lucks and may he prosper down the road as he worked hard to make this place that never was fully appreciated in a tough restaurants area.

With this, I bid adieu to Wonton Forest and wish the new place (whatever it may be) the best of luck.

Wonton Forest
18230 Gale Ave
City of Industry, CA 91748

-----------

ps. I would have given this place a rating of A minus. *sigh* FML??

Nightmarish Marriage comes to an end between city of LA and Michelin Guide

2009-06-28T22:59:00.000-07:00

Maybe deep down inside, you knew Angelina Jolie's marriage to Billy Bob Thornton wouldn't last. Somehow you still wound up admiring the guy and want to give Billy Bob a high five for that feat.

In many ways, a pause was on the back of my mind when it was announced two years ago that the French Tire company Michelin who started this red book to help travelers around Europe to find good places to stay and worthwhile places to eat, would be adding a new addition to our fine city of Los Angeles. I was skeptical on how long they would keep this edition.

So it came no surprise to me on Friday when it was announced that the Michelin Guide will "temporarily" suspend the Los Angeles edition along with the city of Las Vegas for their next 2010 issue. Only one reaction have came to me.

Finally. -- and good riddance!

Late last year I wrote a post about the exclusions of many ethnic restaurants in Los Angeles edition of their fable guide. Even though the Michelin Guide stated that ambiance and service was not part of the grading system or the determining factor, it's pretty obvious that the European inspectors tend to favor the upscale fine dining establishments.

Of course, the rival pundits who annually put up a list for LA diners (such as LA Weekly, LA Times, and LA Magazine) have all pointed out the inspector for the LA list does not like ingredient based dishes, but tends to favor the standard fare with beautiful presentations. Also the big complaint of obvious objections to the guide not venturing out to other parts of LA for a fairer assessment of the best places to dine.

It was always comical to me that they present their guide with two simple lines of minimal description with the awarding of the stars grade as the only indication of how the restaurant will be. Even a list of some restaurants that was included in the "Bib Gourmand" section drew an irate reaction such as the inclusion of places that would be consider to be question choices (such as Empress Pavilion as one of the only 4 Chinese restaurant selections in 2008).

For me, I used it as check off list for places I have visited. I knew two of my fellow dining buds, Notorious P.I.G. and kevinEats have also included the stars as part of the indications of places they have visited based on the list.

With that list being vanquished for at least one year, we won't be hearing about how Gordon Ramsay got his restaurant undeserving in this list (Gordon Ramsay at London) or how restaurants with $50 per head are always on that list. By the way, why is Bastide even part of that list? They are not even opened before the 2009 was announced!

You'll probably see more of Essential 99 ramming down our throats for years to come. Jonathan Gold will be shilling Nancy Silverton and Suzanne Goin's restaurants to remind us on how great these two chef's places (AOC/Luques and both Mozza) are. Oh joy!

----------

Speaking of which, since the list is gone, which new restaurants would have been on the list? Are there any restaurants worthy of three stars in their grade?

Nope on the three stars, but I do think places such as Bazaar and Angelini would probably granted one star in the list. I would have enjoy watching Bastide, Patina, and Water Grill off the list.

Any places you want to put in or leave off the list?

The Secret Sauce Savored @ Brodard (Garden Grove)

2009-05-25T23:41:00.000-07:00

Quite often I was told of a secret place that has served some of the best spring rolls can be found in this nondescript place. My first reaction would have been to retort with "every pho place in town serves the same spring roll". That probably would be true in some extent, but for this place to have such a high acclaim for serving outstanding spring rolls that is going to be out of this world?

I just have to see it and taste it for myself.

Exactly a month ago, Wandering Chopsticks was hosting a dinner for her 24, 24, 24 for Foodbuzz, where she had kindly invited a few of us to join her on experiencing a 7-course meal for Vietnamese goat. Afterward, our group which also consists of Aaron of Food Destination, Kevin of kevinEats, and Kung Food Panda decided we can continue on with the evening with more foodie adventures.

Somehow Brodard was mentioned as the possible destination which instantly lighted a few of our eyes. Maybe it was the thought of spring rolls dancing in my mind, but I couldn't wait to get there to discover this mystical spring rolls that was much talked about.

On a Saturday evening, I was quite surprised on how busy and crowded it was in this restaurant. I did surveyed the place to see which dishes would be popular with the diners here that night. It was safe to say that the nem nuong cuon (Vietnamese Grilled Pork Patty Salad Rolls) by far was the hot item to get that night.

An interesting note that was share to us by Wandering Chopsticks was that the special homemade dipping sauce was the big reason for the enhancement of the spring rolls. Apparently, the dipping sauce's recipe is a closely guarded secret that can never be replicated and was often imitated, thus others have never came close matching to the original. The sauce in its glory had a compounded flavor of sweet with an effect of subtle and gentle creamy sauce that compliment well for the rolls.

In a joke, I guess we can inhale the dipping sauce as a soup, but I wouldn't recommend that. Dipping the rolls into this murky, but delicate garlic infused sauce will enhance the flavor profile of each roll you will taste. The sauce is neither spicy or sweet, but providing a contrast to the crunchy savory taste of the rolls.

Nem Nuong Cuon ($7.50 for 5)

The aforementioned Vietnamese Grilled Pork Patty roll was the highlight of the evening for me. This pork paste can often be confused with the look of a spam, but does not quite have taste of it and without the high concentration of salt.

Bundled neatly with lettuce, cucumber, carrots, and other small forms of vegetables before being wrapped in a thin transparent rice paper like a pig in a blanket. Dip this roll into the homemade dipping sauce, you will understand on why the description can never be fully described. The only thing that will go off in your head was the bells of Saint Mary and you will want to slowly eat the roll to savor every last bite of it.

Chao Tom Cuon ($10.00 for 5)

Our next order of spring rolls was the Chao Tom Cuon (Shrimp Rolls) that is a repeat from the above Grilled Pork Patty rolls. All of the basic ingredients are the same with the exception of the main component substitute the pork patty for the shrimp paste.

It will still get you the same results as the Nem Nuong Cuon (grilled pork patty rolls) and the sauce again will play a vital role in assisting of enriching the flavor taste.

Black Jelly with pearls - $3

Binh Tom Co Ngu ($6.95)

The Binh Tom Co Ngu is like a deep fried shrimp and sweet potato tempura in a shape of tic-tac-toe boxes that had a sidekick of an Asian greens and lime sauce to go along with it. The lettuce provided on the side are used to wrap the Binh Tom Co Ngu, which you will proceed to dip into that accompanied sauce.

Banh Khot ($6.95)

In this variation of a popular Vietnamese appetizer, the banh khot served here consist of a while shrimp supplied with mung bean and a dash of turmeric powder served with Asian greens and lime chili fish sauce. The crispy rice cake's batter that holds the shrimp and it's ingredients was made of coconut milk and rice flour. Kevin remarked in his blog that the banh khot had an intense coconut flavor that the sauce emphasized on it, which you definitely can taste it.

For me, the shrimp and the turmeric powder overpower the the crispy rice cake as I did enjoyed the subtle contrast in the taste and the flavor.

Overall, I did finally get a chance to try out the much hyped spring rolls from Brodard and absolutely enjoyed it. The price was also very reasonable and the service for most part of the night ran very smoothly. I will definitely come back here to try out other noodle dishes that are on the menu, but more importantly come back for the spring rolls with the special homemade dipping sauce!

Brodard
9892 Westminster Ave
Garden Grove, CA 92844
(714) 530-1744

Grade:

Back to the Routine @ Taipei Golden Pork Chop Rice and Noodle (Rowland Heights)

2009-05-14T01:30:00.000-07:00

Oh wow! I just realized on how much time have passed since my last post.

My new job pretty much have taken top priority and so many reviews are also in the back log. I just don't have the motor or the inspiration to write new post. Writing a new review seemed daunting at these busy times, but I think I was just satisfied by eating out and let the review peculate itself until I get the inspiration.

How did I decide to choose this pork chop place to be my next review? Well, truth to be told, my visit to Urasawa because a quagmire because I wanted to brush up on some of those dishes and my review of several other places was just too difficult to write in a few paragraph. In essence, this little place is my way of easing back to write more reviews.

My boy Kung Food Panda had mentioned a few times to me that this Taipei Golden Pork Chop was disappointing, but my co-workers loved this place. No need to ask because I know who I would trust for opinions on where to dine.

This cafe shared the space with a supposed Izakaya that was operating only at night while the pork chop operation occurs for only a few hours during daytime for lunch. I remembered a place called Brochette (the name on the side for the Izakaya) took a long time to finish decorating the interior a few years back. I was very surprised to see how minimal the decor was inside even after the long remodeling. Seriously, nothing inside of this place would ever suggest to me that an Izakaya was in effect.

When I dined here the first few times, the TV stationed next to the entrance door would be airing some Taiwanese broadcast shows for its Taiwanese diners. The food would come out in a lighting speed of only a few minutes as I witness the kitchen (through the glass) that they only have two items prepared for lunch.

The sad part about this place was that there was only two main dishes: Pork Chop or Chicken Leg. Both can be served either with steamed rice or in the noodle soup. In reality, the noodle soup is very bland and the meat's flavor would disintegrated in the soup. You can understand why I would skipped the noodle in favor of having the meat coupled with steamed rice instead.

For $6.50, the pork chop rice served with their own relish, stir vegetables, and soy sauce boiled egg always comes out in five minutes or less. It came out so fast from the kitchen, we often ordered to go for our office nearby. Very popular with my co-workers because it was fast with no fuss, but quite often I am unsatisfied after the meal.

1. Pork Chop Rice - $6.50

My impression of the lightly breaded pork chop was that I enjoyed the meat, but I am not that thrilled with the portions of the pork chop that was served nor was I happy about the minced meat that comes with the rice. For $6.50, I would have gone else to fill up my stomach, but for a quick pinch, I guess this place would have to do.

For a better pork chop and a better value, I would suggest going to Shu May for their larger portion with cheaper price. If you have to ask...yes, I can order an extra set of pork chops without the rice for $4.20. This would make an expensive meal if I decide to make an added purchase for one dish.

The menu is still a work in progress as they only 17 items, but with only four main courses so far. I would ventured a guess that they have a small staff and would only prepare a certain amount of dishes in three and a half hours of operation (the restaurant opened from 11am-2:30pm from Monday to Saturday). I think if they continue to draw a crowd like I have seen recently, they would have no problems in introducing new items to their menu.

One of the dish I would recommend was their cold tofu with preserved eggs. For most part, many of these small appetizers or cold dishes are passable in their version of Taiwanese food. It was very standard in terms of what was being offered, but you definitely can get better Taiwanese food in SGV.

Tofu with Preserved Egg - $3.70

That report is a bummer for me to consider coming back here regularly for lunch. Too bad I cannot sway any one from ordering from here or Red Ant because those two are tiring place to get lunch. The new hot spot for lunch in Rowland Heights?....Maxim Cafe.

Don't ask me why on that answer for lunch question in Rowland Heights. As in for me, I can't wait to go back out for dinner or lunch on the westside or SGV! Stay tuned because those reviews will come out very shortly.

Taipei Golden Pork Chop Noodle and Rice
1380 Fullerton Rd.
Suite 106
Rowland Heights, CA 91748
(626) 810-5570

Grade:

Recession-proof Burgers @ Mom's Burgers (Compton)

2009-04-13T00:12:00.000-07:00

Who says recession affect every area equally? Apparently not affected at all in the city of Compton.

Several months ago, several bloggers mentioned the best place to grab a ghetto burger would be in Compton due to the low seedy looks of the neighborhood. I just can't seemed to fathom on how or why the city continue to get a bad rap. I understood Compton had high crime rates and corruptions in the city hall during the Omar Bradley days. The 60's Watts and 90's LA riots have also contributed to make some conditions worse. However given that those dark days were long gone and the city have been revamping since then, I don't see how the tag of "ghetto" apply to the New Compton.

Now adding tacos to the burgers?

For a piece of mind, the neighborhood was actually pretty safe during day time and located across the street from Compton High School. Some of the new redevelopment townhouses are built in a unincorporated city of Rancho Dominguez, which shares the same zip code with the city of Compton. There were some serious wattage of bling on the tires that displayed many of the customized chrome rims driving around the city that day as they rolled into the parking lot of Mom's Burgers.

Mom's Burgers have been operated for over three decades founded by Joyce "Mom" McLaurin, who like a few others started a mom and pop burger joints around the surrounding neighborhoods. This place is a very low maintenance burger shack that had two outdoor benches and a half dozen stools around the counters.

I wanted to ordered the big Colossal burger that they had listed in the menu, but they ran out of the pastrami that day. The guy behind the big shatterproof window smoothly talked me into ordered the Mom's Bacon burger, which is almost essentially like Colossal burger, but minus the pastrami and extra patty.

Mom's Bacon Burger Combo ($6.30)

I have to admit, I have slowed down on ordering these massive patties because they tend to not cook very well because of the lack of seasoning in a big burger patty and also undercook/overcook a patty because of its size. I didn't have to worry too much of that as I thought the patty was excellent. With or without that bacon, I thought the burger was juicy and a messy debacle that was easily ignored because you would inhale that in less than 5 minutes.

The burger combo comes with a side of fries and a can of soda of your choice. A major brownie point for this place: Pepsi is the prefer choice!

The prefer choice of soda drink at Mom's Burgers

The next two choices are very much the epitome of what a ghetto burger is all about these days: adding egg to the patty. I guess I'm not used to it or ever really experience it other than on a sausage link sandwiches, but it was something I mostly definitely needed to add.

I ordered the popular Chronic burger which was essentially a bacon burger with an addition of an egg on top of it. So essentially, for about 76 cents more, you would get the same Mom's Burger with an added egg which was a much better selection. That was also another burger that didn't take long to wolf down.

Junior Chronic Burger Combo ($7.06)

The hot link sandwich didn't have an egg, so I added on with no fuss at all. That was one great thing about this place was that even though they didn't have much selections, but you can customized it with any added ingredients to your likings as if you were at one of The Counter franchise burger joint.

The burgers and sandwiches are on the gourmet burgers price range you normally would find at Red Devils, Blue Dahalia, or at Pete's. You won't find Mom's Burgers comparable to your average local burger joint and definitely better than the surrounding burger shacks like Fresh and Meaty or Three Bears.

Hot Link Sandwich ($2.71) + Egg ($0.54)

The big question is whether or not it's worth driving to a remote place just for a simple burger? The truth is that the burger is pretty good, but driving all the way there would required you to travel to another place and used this burger shack as a pit stop for your burger munching. Driving it for just the burger would not be necessary.

Considering the prices that was charged, I'm just shock that the burgers are recession proof. Tam's burgers are 99 cents each and In-N-Out burgers are cheaper, but for the price and value, it was worth the order.

Would this place's serving qualify as a ghetto burger? The city of Compton wants to let others know that the city is turning a new leaf and wants the label of ghetto to be repeal.

Mom's Burgers
336 W Alondra Blvd
Compton, CA 90220
(310) 632-6622

Grade:

2 Year Anniversary Special @ Marché Moderne (Costa Mesa)

2009-04-08T22:40:00.000-07:00

MARCHÉ MODERNE, the contemporary French Bistro (located in a shopping plaza that I couldn't afford to shop - South Coast Plaza) are celebrating their 2nd year anniversary. The chef and owners of the restaurant Amelia and Florent Marneau decided again to have another special four courses menu to take part for the celebration of their anniversary. Due to their success of last year's anniversary special, they decided to offer this menu not for one night, but for two nights.

They got the coveted and hard to earn three stars from LA Times critic S. Irene Virbila: Read here

Date: April 28 and April 29

Marché Moderne’s 2^nd Anniversary Menu

Amuse Bouche

Yakitori of lobster and sweet bread, baby shiitake, yuzu and sake dipping sauce

NV Brut Louis De Sacy “Tradition”

Marché

McGrath Farms, Coastal Organic Farms, Jaime Farms, Weiser Farms, Green Farms
Vegetables simply roasted, sauce mousseline “au goût de Béarnaise”

Rosé, Chateau Saint Martin, Cotes de Provence

Ocean

Butter roasted filet of Dover Sole, wild ramps,

brown butter spring carrot mousseline, artichoke chips

Pouilly Fuissé, Domaine De Fussiacus, Macon

La Ferme

Wood burning roasted Prime Ribeye cap and Ribeye mignon,

Braised short ribs wood burning roasted
“asperge blanche et vertes” jus de Porto, crème de foie gras

2004 Chateau Trianon Grand cru, Saint-Emilion

Gourmandise

Raspberry-mascarpone soufflé tarte,

pistachio crème brûlée, Chambord ice cream

$75 per person food only
$35 additional for wine pairing by “Fernand”

No substitutions, please

Reservations: 714-434-7900

Seating is limited and reservations are required

The Long "Stretch" @ Pink's Hot Dogs (Los Angeles)

2009-04-06T00:50:00.000-07:00

Epically I always thought it was awesome to show some of your out of town guest/family members/friends around all parts of Los Angeles to let them get a grasp of all the glory what L.A. has to offer. Plenty of times it disintegrated into the few usual touristy trap places like Disneyland, Hollywood area (where they can see that big sign), Universal Studio, and get this: #1 choice of out of town tourists destination is..... the outlet malls to get cheap discounted name brands.

When it comes to food, they don't really want comfort food. Shoot, they can get the real authentic dish once they get home. So which food or type of food do people conjure up when they think of L.A.? Yup, so far by a wide margin in an unofficial Pepsi Monster's poll from his loved ones out of town, it is Pink's Hot Dogs.

It's funny because I don't associate cheesesteaks to Philadelphia or clam chowders to Boston, but apparently people thinks Angelinos eat hot dogs. Pink is the choice for that place to visit when out of towners want hot dogs to taste. Damn those visitor's guides and travel books!

Usually, I am very persistent in showing other L.A.'s famous eateries or convince someone else to endure this pain. The pain I'm talking about is the tedious long wait just to get a hot dog in a landmark place that has opened since 1939. Trust me, I'm not that impressed when the word "institution" or "landmark" get thrown around. Just read my Apple Pan review.

Sure enough, when we rolled in the line was stretch around a furniture store and almost to the parking lot next door. I slightly peeked at the front line and hoping it was going to be fast with multiple cashiers. Guess what? They still have one cashier system with one employee taking one order at a time in a rotation. Knowing the case, standing in line around the corner of the furniture store, I calculated it'll be more than 40 minutes of wait time.

20 minutes later...

I figured I had nothing to lose at this point. The above photo was taken 20 minutes after the initial wait. At the time, we were deciding if what types of chili hot dogs we like. I have noticed they dedicated a few hot dogs to celebrities or well known figure heads like our Mayor of L.A. I think it's part of their regular orders, but they added in some other obscure ingredient and dedicated the chili dog to the few lucky famous figures such as our Mayor.

With my initial forecast of 40 minutes being incorrectly predicted, I had finally got inside of the canopy and away from the searing hot sun. That wait took about 50 minutes to endure and with the ordering station not far from the reach as I'm turning around the corner.

...50 minutes later

Since I stuck this long, I think I can see the promised land (ordering station). I just never realized that the hot dog stand from the Great Depression can expand into a global business empire where Huffy brand hot dogs with unique casing on the outside makes it easier for the dog to snap when you bite into them.

They don't take phone orders (or I would have gladly faxed it in), but on their website they promised speedy service. Yes, that's the sound of laughter in my head as I now waited in excess of over one hour to order any food.

More signage of other dogs that named after famous celebs or "figures"

When I finally did reached my destination (the ordering station), I quickly ratted it off a New York Dog with Spicy Onions, 10" Stretch Dog, and a Poli Bacon Burrito Dog. With a few orders of drinks. All that for an approximately 1 hour and 12 minutes.

Before anyone thinks I'm sourly complaining, other famous celebrities don't get special treatment to cut lines either. I have heard stories where famous celebs would sent out their newly hired Personal assistants to get some of these dogs. One of the famous test was that the PAs would need to get these dogs within less than half of a hour back to their boss, in order to keep their jobs.

True story, I have seen some desperate errand boys bribing the people in front of the line to add their orders.

...finally! They are making my dogs!

The Tray (ps the Coke can is not mine!)

Some interesting observations when the tray of dogs are completed. The hot dogs are long and skinny. The chili was very comforting and not too heavy. Spicy red onions did have some kick to the flavor, but it wasn't too overpowering to ruin the flavor the dog. One good thing about the hot dog was that it has a natural casing and a good meat in the ingredients.

10" Stretch Chili Dog ($3.55)

New York Dog with Red Spicy Onions ($3.65)

The interesting thing about the Poli Bacon Burrito Dog (Polish sausage with bacon) was that the all beef dog was wrapped like a burrito. Are they trying to play up the cultural reference to the city? Maybe. Just like adding burgers in their menu, I do think Pink is trying to re-invent themselves and catching up with some of the changes in today's times.

Poli Bacon Burrito Dog ($5.60)

For over an hour of wait in a ridiculous long line, I can honestly say that I will never want to endure that kind of wait again. As in for the hot dog, it was very satisfactory. Both of the standard long dogs like the 10" stretch and the New York Dogs had always been my favorite whenever I stopped by. Too bad I didn't have the forsight to order more than just one dog for myself, but I can take one thing in comfort when we started to leave the place.

Looking at the long line that never get shorter for the people that is waiting to order. It didn't bring joy to my eyes, but at least I know I'm not the only one that need to suffer this fate. Everyone needs to share the pain equally!

The line was still a long stretch after the visit

Pink's Hot Dogs
709 N La Brea Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90038
(323) 931-4223

Grade:

Surviving the Stare Down @ Sushi Zo (West L.A.)

2009-04-03T00:43:00.000-07:00

One of my friend have told me that I need to visit Sushi Zo before I make a visit to Urasawa. He had told me stories about unfair comparisons being made afterward for any place that have to follow Urasawa. So my friend had kindly made the suggestions that I need to visit Sushi Zo before Urasawa so that I won't give unfair and unrealistic expectations for Sushi Zo. In case the Big U lives up to the awesome expectations, it would be easy for every other sushi joints to pale in comparisons.

A little history and some footnotes about Sushi Zo before you decide to come here. On a last minute lunch meeting cancellation, I have decided to come here on a lazy Friday afternoon. Supposedly, if you are rolling in on by yourself and needed to be seated at a counter, you will be obligated to dine at an Omakase pricing set by the chef where dishes are ordered by the chef and you will not be allow to order anything from the a la carte menu. According to kevinEats, he heard that only Friday and Saturday will be accessed with Omakase (as in Chef's choosing the dishes in the terms of "trust us") for every diner.

Omakase can be a crap shoot because A) you don't know what the Chef have in store for you when he presents the dishes. B)The Chef will ask you ahead of time on what dishes you won't eat, however you cannot turn down a dish if you don't like the look of it. C)The cost is undetermined ahead of time. You can tell the chef when you want to stop eating, but there is no indication in that the price is strictly based on the numbers of dishes. The price is variable in either the amount of dishes you had or the type of the dishes you had, but the algorithm for any omakase is based on the price set by the restaurant with no real equations.

The man of the hour (or 30 minutes for my case) is chef Keizo. He is either often referred as the Sushi Nazi in the form of the famed chef Nozawa or the "Iron Chef" because of his uncanny resemblance to a younger version of Masaharu Morimoto.

There are some rules you will need to abide by before you they will even begin to service you. One is that the hostess/server will give you a long lecture about this place being a true sushi place where they don't do handrolls, California Rolls, or any absurd special request rolls. Once I agreed, I noticed a few more rules will need to adhere before hand. The two most important rules are that I can't used the soy sauce liberally as I have in the past. In fact, chef Keizo Seki will briefly tell me on how to eat the sushi either in "no soy sauce" or "little soy sauce".

The other rule is that you cannot mixed wasbi on to the soy sauce as they would not provide you with one. The chef will place the wasabi underneath the raw fish himself before serving to you. You cannot remove the wasabi and will have eat the fish as it was intended. There is also an unwritten rule where you have to eat the sushi within 5 seconds after he served it to you. The intention was that you are suppose to savor the fish as it was freshly serve to you and not let it sit too long. As Oshii Eats (no relation to kevinEats) found out, chef Keizo will admonished you about letting the sushi lingered on too long without being eaten.

Let me first off by saying that I was a bit intimidated by chef Keizo Seki at first because he does not look straight in my eyes and the stare down can be a little bit off putting. I was a little bit buzzed by the hot sake and the picture was snapped right away without much focusing. So bare with me on those pictures.

Here are the run downs of the items I have ordered before quitting the Omakase after #17.

Kumamoto Kaki/Oyster (picture not taken) - I have heard it's the standard for him to serve us this fresh oyster first as he wants to test how willing your palate is. It's delicious and I wish took a pic of it. Don't worry, I got braver after this.
Baby Squid - I like the chewy little squid as it was beautifully presented in this nice little dish
Awabi/Baby Abalone - This one was a danger to me before it ends because the abalone is a tougher chew and was the biggest piece in the whole repartee. If you can finish this big cut of abalone, you are on your way to a fantastic meal rest of the way. I have a good feeling that this will be an appetite killer or speed bump.
Ika/Squid Noodle with Uni/Sea Urchin - It was very subtle and an easy dish to eat with a touch of sea urchin with the squid noodle. Try to imagine eating slices of oyster and you get the same feeling of what's it like in eating this dish.
Hirame/Halibut - One of my favorite dish of the night. Love the freshness that was served as my blurry pic can attest on how excited I was in wanting to eat the halibut.
Tai/Red Snapper - another well cut standard bearer I come to enjoy. The red snapper and yellowtail are favorites in any sushi lineup. The red snappers are very fresh today.
Yellowtail - This was a solid standard bearer of all sushi. Never really can disappoint unless it's a bad cut of fish.
Hotate/Scallop - I thought I would like the scallop, but it didn't agreed with me as much. Honestly, I think the sake didn't go very well with it. This is one time I wish someone was with me to tell me to slow down with the drinks.
Aji/Spanish Mackerel - Luckily the next few dishes are spot on and this Aji melted in my mouth.
Toro/Fatty Tuna -Oh wow, the fatty toro explodes in my mouth. I loved the fattiness of the tuna which the toro is now winning me over besides being the part of the most expensive cut of the fish. Now I can see why. Very delicious.
Uni/Sea Urchin -Big chunk of uni will always test me out, but I think I'm getting to appreciate this popular item.
Madai/Red Snapper -No Soy sauce on this bad boy as it already put some sauce on top. Another standard bearer that passed the test.
Aoyagi/Orange Clam - This one will be a tough chew. I think most people would have ended right here because of the toughness of this item. Luckily I found the strength to move forward
Ha-Gatsuo/Skipjack Tuna - I attempted to put soy sauce before the Chef quickly told me "no soy sauce" on this one. Frankly I don't think it needed that either, but it was funny watching him in horror when I tried to dipped in the soy sauce.
Kanpachi/Amberjack - Just like the yellowtail, it's another standard bearer for sushi. The sauce on the fish was plentiful as chef Keizo sternly asked me not to put soy sauce.
Butterfish with Miso - My FAVORITE dish of the day. I think the sauce played beautifully on this tender raw fish. If I can this fish everyday, I would be very happy.
Engawa/Halibut Fin - This is the dish where I needed to end the journey. I think Aoyagi was still sitting rough in my belly, but at least I got to taste the butterfish and kanpachi.

Overall, my service was stellar. Yes, it's coming from the same server who probably lectured to every patrons about sushi. It can be considered rude, but I think she is going through the same mechanism to remind everyone about the place (and I also think she is taking the hit for the chef as he might not want to lecture about sushi).

Chef Keizo was really a nice guy even with the rough posture and the stare-down without looking at you at any time. Frankly, a man with so little words that would rather concentrate on providing beautifully crafted dishes that not only looked good, but tasted delicious as well, should be commended rather than misunderstood. He is always slicing and preparing the dishes as he is not in the mood for idle chit chat. Shy man perhaps? That's the theory that is floating out there about Chef Keizo.

For my lunch, it was about $72 for the Omakase and $15 for a hot sake that really put me on tailspin. I'm glad I came here before my big expenditure on Urasawa because I don't know if I really can appreciate this place on its own. I actually started formulating a review before the big U and found it surprisingly that this place still withstood in face of the formidable Urasawa as a top sushi place in Los Angeles.

Go here on a lazy after noon at lunch before 1:30pm and you will get an undivided attention like no others. Make sure you sit on the counter in front of chef Keizo as that is the best seat in the house.

Sushi Zo
9824 National Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 842-3977

Grade:

File This Under "Weird Themes"

2009-03-31T13:48:00.000-07:00

Image via Fun Fever

I just ate a hearty meal of Pizza Hut's pasta for lunch. Nothing special, but it was worth eating.

In a very surreal instance and unlucky chance, I stumbled upon a site that has 15 of the most weirdest themed restaurants. Two of them grossed me out immediately. There is one with a Taiwanese restaurant with a restroom theme and using a toilet bowl seat as your chair, while another Japanese restaurant had a cannibalistic theme of using a disemboweled body as your "deboned" protein meal.

Image via Weird Asia News

If you want to check out this site, go to Weburbanist for more of these interesting dining options around the world.

As for me, I'll have to get started on my Urasawa and La Casita Mexicana reviews so that I can be reminded on how good food don't need offbeat themes to attract people into the restaurants.

Quarterly Report on the 2009 New Year's Resolution List

2009-03-29T22:19:00.000-07:00

Baby Abalone at Sushi Zo

Remembered the silly list I compiled late last year? It was my New Year's Resolution list of places I have wanted to visit in 2009. It was a daunting task because of weird variety of places that set them apart anywhere from being a hole in the wall place to a fine dining place I have yet to visit.

Funny story.... I had visited three of those places this past week and the list is about one-fourth of being done. Some people try to lose weight unsuccessfully for their new year's resolution. I think this list was much more manageable for me as I can eat my way out without feeling guilty.

My reviews on some of those places includes Mom's Burgers, Sushi Zo, La Casita Mexicana, and Urasawa will come out soon. Now, I just need to be put in a Jenny Craig diet.

Wanna join me?

Breakfast Closed @ Daily Grill Downtown (Downtown L.A.)

2009-03-29T02:01:00.000-07:00

When you get back in the office on Monday, there will be a new change on the old Daily Grill Downtown. I guess it's the sign of the times when recession hits a place like this would closed for breakfast and cut down hours. It is sort of sad for me because I can remembered fondly of the swinging carousel doors and their diner food that is opened in the heart of downtown LA. It's not like they have the best food or the cheapest price. It was just that they are the most convenient for downtown transients within walking distances to their offices.

Oh well, I guess it is BLD here I come. Unless they got rid of their breakfast and now called LD. Now, that would be a sign of the apocalypse.

Revising the Best Noodle Question @ Ichimian Bamboo Garden (Torrance)

2009-03-26T03:47:00.000-07:00

Last night, I get a chance to meet my hero, Eat Drink & Be Merry at a social function hosted by our man Teenage Glutster. For some time, I have been using his "other" noodle site for reference guide in my noodle adventures. For an unforeseen turnabout, ED&BM decided to ask me what was the best noodle I had recently and where at.

I fluffed and gave him an answer of Monterey Park's Daikokuya. The ramen-ya was actually very good and much better than Little Tokyo's branch, but the best noodle I had recently belongs to the cold soba from Ichimian Bamboo Garden.

Last month, a group of us decided to do a whirl wind tour of Japanese eateries around South Bay areas in Los Angeles County (ie Torrance, Gardena, Redondo Beach, etc.) hosted by Burumun of Gourmet Pigs. Members of this illustrious group also included Choisauce from Folie à Choisauce, Aaron from Food Destination, Kung Food Panda, Mattatouille, RumDood, and Teenage Glutster.

After a brief stop for an Okonomiyaki meal and pastry place, we decided to make soba as our noodle dining stop before ending the trip with an Izakaya meal. Yes, I can feel a heated question coming up about our soba destination choice.

Tea Station

Why or better yet, how come come we chose to come here instead of Otafuku for soba? To make a short answer, we tried to go to Otafuku on Saturday afternoon for lunch, but we didn't check ahead of time so that we may discovered that Otafuku does not open for lunch on Saturday. Yikes!

Another respected foodie blogger, Exile Kiss had mentioned about this tiny shop that have also hand made their noodle every day. This tiny delightful little shop only opens for four and a half hours every day (Monday-Friday at 11am - 3:30pm) or until they ran out of noodles. They are open on Saturday (11am-5pm) and closed on Sunday.

Ichimian (translation to Bamboo Garden in Japanese) specialized in these hand made noodle that are made from Buckwheat mixed with certain types of flour. The little noodle house is part of the franchise owned by the famed Ichimi Group who is trying to usher in soba as the new healthier product and market soba as the best Japanese fast food choice (as oppose to Yoshinoya?).

Soba can be offer in two ways: cold served with chilled dipping sauce or hot in a soup. The most popular option for cold soba to be served on was on top of a zuru plate (bamboo sieve-like tray) and provided with a tsuyu dipping sauce that closely resembled a sweetened soy sauce. To fully enjoy soba, it was often suggested you dipped it in the tsuyu sauce, swish it like you would in a shabu shabu, twirl the soba noodle like a yarn, and enjoy it cold as it was meant to be.

Uchiatate Zuru Cold Soba - $5.90

The soba noodle was firm, chewy, and elicited strong rich flavor when you dipped into the tsuyu sauce. The aforementioned sauce contains dash of dashi, mirin, and sweetened soy sauce. The tray also included fresh green onions and wasabi to enhance the flavor profile of the sauce. One big advantage to this cold noodle was that even if it was served cold, the noodle was not stiff like it was al dente style cooking. That was quite pleasing to me when the noodle was tender.

I decided to share and get the cold soba noodle with tororo on top. It resembles a soft puree made of Japanese Yam with a dash of seaweed. The soba noodle is already in its bowl of soup with a big spoon for your scooping needs.

At the end of the meal, if you still have left over tsuyu sauce, you can go to the tea station and add in hot or cold tea to the leftover sauce for your drinking consumption. That was actually not bad and a refreshing drink to boot.

Tororo Cold Noodle - $6.90

One of the interesting segment was that our entire group almost unanimously picked cold light colored enriched soba as the choice. Mattatouille decided to go against the grain and went with a hot soba instead. I think he chose the Tanuki, where the soba was accompanied with deep fried tofu. Not quite sure if that was it, but you can see that below along with a bowl of Negitoro Rice ordered by Choisauce.

Hot Soba Bowl

Negitoro Rice - $3.55

Here's the answer to the question most people will want to know. How is this place compared to the other handmade soba place in town, Otafuku? Since, the Panda and I had soba from both places on the same day, I would say my answer is that I preferred Ichimian's soba noodle over Otakfuku.

I thought the texture of the soba at Ichimian was much more firmer and had a better flavor profile. The flavor tasted less doughy comparing to Otafuku, but I think it was very small of a margin in that regards. This doesn't mean it ends the soba battle discussion, but for one night I did tasted a clear difference in which place has a better soba noodle.

If you are tired of ramen and Neu Ro Mein, the buckwheat soba from Ichimian can satisfy your craving needs for fresh and enriching appetite without being heavy. It in fact was trying to position itself as the prefer choice of best Japanese fast food. Good luck with that versus Yoshinoya.

So ED&BM, to withdraw the previous answer and inserting new one to the noodle question: this would be my place for the best recent noodle I have had.

Ichimian Bamboo Garden
1618 Cravens Ave
Torrance, CA 90501
(310) 328-1323

Grade:

Once In a Lifetime Steak Dining @ The Cut (Beverly Hills)

2009-03-23T03:27:00.000-07:00

Restaurant is in the Four Season Wilshire Hotel

Last Month, I sent out a S.O.S. distress signal in wanting to dine at the steakhouse of the other Wolfgang. Mr. Zwenier's Wolfgang Steakhouse on Canon Dr. wasn't that bad as the decor and ambiance of the place was stellar, but the food did not quite live up to the beautiful standard of the place.

Immediately my bat signal was able to reach to Burumun of Gourmet Pigs, Kevin from kevinEats, and Tangbro1 of Only Eat What Feed Your Soul. With some nifty date searching, I was able to get a 6pm dining reservation on a Saturday. Too bad that the daylight savings didn't start until the following day as we did not get too much natural lighting in a dimly lit room. This restaurant is very practical for a place to impress your clients or a natural place for a romantic dinner. Either way you'll score major points for taking your most important person to this much buzzed restaurant, which gather One Star from the popular Michelin Guide.

Our service was excellent throughout the night. They were at our table at the precise moment when we needed them, but yet not too overbearing as they give you a room to breath. Our server for the night was a lovely young lady who was fantastic for the handling of our table, even at to face of four tourists busting out their cameras (kidding guys!). There was another server assisting in our table that had a slight resemblance to Adrian Grenier of TV's "Entourage". He was a total dead ringer to the young TV star and the young man even admits that he gets mistaken for Vincent Chase.

Before anything comes out, our server brings a tray of various types of meat for display of demonstration. She was showing us the difference in the cut for Sirloin, Filet Mignon, Rib Eye, and Bone In steaks. It was fascinating to see the inside of the meat and at the same time I was just salivating by looking it.

We were also quickly served with our choice from their baked pantry for starters while we get to take in the atmosphere before we wait for our meal to begin.

Five different selections of pantry bread

Our first dish to come out of the kitchen was the Kobe Steak Sashimi with Spicy Radishes. I felt this dish had a nice spicy flavor to it without overwhelming the rare beef. It was beautifully presented and I think it was good start to our meal.

Kobe Steak Sashimi with Spicy Radishes ($22)

The next four dishes required a little bit of imagination as I was awestruck by the how beautifully the plates were laid out. Luckily, I'm not jaded yet as I don't see too often on how wonderful a dish can look, but taste delicious at the same time.

In the past, I did described on how I love the blue fin toro at Hama Sushi. It was beautifully cut with the fat maintaining its beautiful appearance and flavor signified by its wonderful streak. Even though my photo does injustice as the low lighting started to kick in big time (as they dimmed down the light even more), I felt lost by blue fin toro at this place. I think the blue fin toro at a sushi place that is handled by the right sushi chef can display the fatty part of fish with its original intent. The other components in this tartare dish destroyed what I liked about the raw fish. The ginger was overwhelming, but nonetheless I thought it's still a very composed dish. I got the impression my table mates liked this blue fin toro dish much more than I did.

The Prime Sirloin tartare did played wonderfully on the satire of a steak and egg. As we stirred the aioli on the ground beef tartare, I was briefly trying to imagine a dish of spam coming right out of the can. Thankfully, it tasted nothing like the fake product as the flavor was fresh and the small amount of quail egg provided more tangy texture to the beef. Wonderfully played on the presentation of this dish.

#1 Grade Blue Fin "Toro" Tartare, Wasabi Aioli, Ginger, Togarashi Crisps, Tosa Soy ($32)

Prime Sirloin Tartare with Herb Aioli & Mustard ($22)

The next two starters will complete our appetizers before our meal. The Warm Veal Tongue was my favorite of the night for the starters. I appreciate the complexity of the tongue mixed in with other flavor profiles such as sweet and tangy. Obviously playing fusion and while maintaining the tenderness, I was satisfy in that the sauces didn't masked the taste of the veal tongue. I was looking at this dish with so many things going on the plate, luckily the tongue still stood out.

The maple glazed pork belly was an odd choice for me because the name already sounded as if this dish still needed sweetness. In fact, I was right, it was too sweet. This dish badly needed to be more tender and slow cooked more like the short beef ribs we're about to be served. Best part of the night, we had a champagne of 2002 Jose Dhondt Champagne Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Mes Vieilles Vignes, which set us back about $122. The champagne ran out about now, but I was able to save it and wash down the pork belly and the blue fin toro tartare with no regrets.

Warm Veal Tongue with Marinated Artichokes, Cannellini Beans, and "Salsa Verde ($17)

Maple Glazed Pork Belly with Asian Spices, Watercress, Sesame-Orange Dressing, Rhubarb Compote ($16)

The two non-prime steak dishes were the 8-hour slow cooked Short Beef Ribs and the Tuna steak were a hit in my eyes. The chef took the liberty of evenly distribute the main courses into 6 pieces for each of us. Very thrilled about that so that we can get evenly cut meat and presented with no fuss.

The tuna steak I thought it was nicely cooked. In the menu, it stated that it qualify as a sashimi quality, which explains the rare feature on the inside. I felt mellow about the short ribs, but it all changes with the sweet pea puree surrounding the beef along with a touch of garam masala (mixture of spices) that gave it a hot, but not quite spicy taste. I felt a little pepper on the hotness as worked pretty well into dish.

8 Hrs Slow cooked Kobe Beef Short Ribs "Indian Spiced" w/ Curry Sweet Pea Puree, Garam Masala (R) - $39
Sashimi Quality Big Eye Tuna Steak (L) - $42

The moment of the night came when our steaks have arrived. We decided to take all four versions of the medium rare New York Sirloin steaks in the menu. There was a tasting sampler listed, but Kevin advised against it as he calculated based on his last visit that the value is not worth it with that order. The fact that we have six people gave us a chance to order variety of items and also drive down the per cost in the steak dishes. The four dishes of steak we ordered was a much better saving and value than if we had ordered the steak sampler.

(From R to L) Dry Aged 35 Days, Bone In, American Wagyu, & Japanese Wagyu

Let me preface before we start on the steak, I love all four steaks we have that night. The New York Sirloin is part of the many names for the cut of top loin steak. Think of it like a porterhouse steak that has being stripped of choice portion of the tenderloin. Because of the balance in flavor and tenderness, the top loin can be very expensive of a cut.

My two favorite cut of the night were Bone-In New York Sirloin and the 35 Days Dry Aged New York Sirloin. Throw in a little controversy, those two were the least expensive than the wagyu beef. Was there's a big bruhah? Let's break it down:

All of the steak were grilled over hard wood & charcoal before finished in a 1200 degree broiler. The bone-in steak was fantastic with the bone in to add in more flavor than without a bone. One of my dining mate asked me why I thought a cheaper priced steak like bone-in was better. Most people don't realized that bone-in steak or chicken tends to be cheaper and taste better with the bone kept in tact. Plus it aged well at 21 days than without. The Illinois corn-fed bone in steak was probably my 2nd favorite of the night.

U.S.D.A. Prime, Illinois Corn Fed, Aged 21 Days - Bone In New York Sirloin (20 oz - $56) *1/6

The 35 Days Dry Aged Steak was my favorite of the night. Out of the four cuts, it was the most rich and distinguished flavor out of the bunch. As the picture showed below against the bone-in steak, it has some marble patterns. Not quite as much as the wagyu obviously, but a distinguished feel that separated from its Midwest counterpart. The dry aged sirloin melted in my mouth with its juicy medium rare meat. No way of describing it as it hit the height of ecstasy in my mouth.

U.S.D.A Prime Nebraska Corn Fed, Dry Aged 35 Days (top) - New York Sirloin (14 oz $59) *1/6

We are now heading towards the Wagyu territory and it really become the testament on whether or not wagyu at its price was worth it. Keep in mind of all the stories you might have heard of the cow being fed with beer and beer mush while being massaged with sake. This type of beef is often refer to as the "foie gois beef". It's often the most expensive steak to purchase and it's not easily cooked as many have tried to imported and cook it themselves at home. Failure will be theme of that story.

I do think both of the meat comes off very gamey. As you can see the texture of the meat, both of them are incredibly marbled and very high amount in unsaturated fat. The American "Kobe Style" which uses similar method as their Japanese counterpart. Because of the fact it's not raised in Kobe Japan, it's not considered a Kobe beef.

True Japanese 100% Wagyu Beef from Saga Prefecture, Kyushu, Japan
New York Sirloin (6 oz $120) *1/6

The Japanese Wagyu was the 100% real McCoy as it was very fatty. The rich aroma gave off a strong smell, while the steak may had been known for its marbling appearance, it's often times very gave out a dull color (compare it to the bone-in steak on the top picture). The juiciness and the strong rich flavor was very evident. For some, it's an acquire taste and I can see a lot of doggy bag taking the Wagyu beef home in that fancy "The Cut bag" I have noticed popping in every table that has the Wagyu beef.

The American version of Wagyu is not as rich or bold in flavor like their Japanese counterpart. Even though it's not my favorite, I still enjoyed the subtle tone of its rich flavor profile, but it lack the juiciness I thought it would had. Some of our dining mates thought this was the best, so it can be the sheer difference in the cut as I missed my luck.

American Wagyu/Angus "Kobe Style" Beef from Snake River Farms, Idaho
New York Sirloin (8 oz $75) *1/6

Seeing on how overall we enjoyed our meal, we tempted our faith in desserts as at this point I was getting full. Since we all wanted to share the desserts, we decided to cut in half and go ahead to order three desserts. Our Vince Chase look-alike server made an educated guess that we all wanted the Soufflé and crumble. Somehow someone in our table thought we should get the "donuts". For $14, that better be an orgasmic donuts.

Brooke Cherry Toasted Almond Crumble, Tahitian Vanilla Ice Cream ($14)

It was a sweet surprise to see how much I enjoyed all three of the desserts, especially the crumble. With Ice cream mixing with the cherry toasted almond crumble, it was a delightful dessert. As in for the donut? Somebody mentioned it was better than French Laundry. I'm going to keep that in mind and skipped that when I decided to make my visit to Yountville.

Warm Brioche Doughnuts, Huckleberry Compote, Butter Pecan Ice Cream ($14)

For the souffle? Someone need to tell Notorious P.I.G. to mix in the ice cream first before crumbling the souffle. I might need to revoke her dessert credentials before she destroyed another dessert.

Just kidding!

Dark Chocolate Soufflé, Whipped Crème Fraîche, Gianduja Ice Cream ($14)

Overall, we were treated to a very good service and a very excellent courses. Not all of them were a hit, but was a winner in my book. Two wines, six starters, six main courses, and three desserts added up to a grand total of $185 for each foodie. Definitely not cheap and more of a luxury. I can safely say that I'll never look at Ruth Chris's or Outback the same way again.

I'll definitely will be back there soon. However, only for that real special occasion!

The Cut
9500 Wilshire Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
(310) 276-8500

Grade:

Grand Preview: Corkbar (Downtown L.A.)

2009-03-20T02:04:00.000-07:00

This past week, I decided to visit my old stomping ground that has seem some revitalization that was not imaginable back in the 90s. Often disregarded and only would be seen as other side of the neighborhood that is far away from City Hall and its fancy tall building neighbors, this part of downtown was slumming it for quite a while.

Just as I had made a recent visit to D-Town Burger Bar that was about eight blocks away, I was happy another new place had opened up in downtown that is a short distance away from LA Live, Nokia Center, and the Staple Center arena.

Before we hit off to the Varnish Bar, I convinced Kung Food Panda to stop by here at this new wine bar that I read about which had its grand opening opened on March 12. We wanted to drop by and see how this new wine bar was coming along and what they have to offer.

We were quite impressed with the decor and ambiance of the place. The place have two outdoor patio areas and a several tall bench counter tables as well as a grand dining room. The place has a nice slick modern look with plenty of natural lighting to give it a warm inviting feel when you sit down. Behind the beautiful crafted bar is a tall elegant collections of wine bottles that is being offered here at an aptly named place called "Corkbar".

I would have wrongfully assumed this place would have been a stuck up or pretentious about wines, but I was quite very surprised by their welcoming friendly faces and services they offered here. Let's face it, me and the Panda are not going to look like a wine connoisseur at any stretch of imagination. It was great to see that great care of service happened.

We knew that they held a little private wine tasting for some club of sorts that was visiting this particular night. It was quite interesting to see them taking notes on each of the wine that was served here at this establishment. All of the wines and beers that are served here derived from California.

Our meal have included an order of their 6-Hour Braised Short Ribs that was served on top of cheese polenta. This was one of their two main dishes served so far as I am figuring they would be adding more down the road (since they were opened less than a week when we visited them).

The short ribs was actually pretty good. It was spot on with the Melville Syrah red wine that I have that night. That was another nice touch in their menu was their recommendation of wines that would be appropriate to go along with each of the dishes that was on their menu.

6 Hour Braised Short Ribs with Cheese Polenta ($16)

Charcuterie (7 meat for $19)

We have also ordered an array of different meat served with sliced baguette, dijon mustard and pickles. It was beautifully displayed on top of a presentation board. The seven different meat were Prosciutto, Speck, Soppessata Salami, Toscano Salami, Smoked Chorizo, Bresaola, Bündnerfleisch.

Baguette

One thing I love besides the presentation was the freshness of the meat that was served here as well. Beautifully presented, I was glad that we chose this over cheese as I would normally done, but my lactose intolerance coupled with wine would not worked that well.

FYI: *cough* cheese don't go well with Pepsi either.

Prosciutto

Toscano Salami

Smoked Chorizo

Soppessata Salami

Bündnerfleisch

For a new place like this to exist in downtown L.A. is just marvelous because a place that is unpretentious, but yet classy is a breath of fresh air that is needed here. With the food being served here that is made fresh from farmer's market, it's quite remarkable that we should have more wine bar here in downtown. This place serve as a good start and hope the revitalization continues.

Corkbar
403 W 12th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90015
(213) 746-0050

Grand Preview: D-Town Burger Bar (Downtown L.A.)

2009-03-19T01:44:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting thing on my way to the Varnish earlier this week: another new place opened up in downtown L.A. This time is a burger joint that is about a few blocks away from Cole's and the Varnish bar where I was going to meet up a few friends for a night cap drinks.

I was pondering about whether or not to grab a quick bite before stepping into the place since it will be a while before dinner time. I was made aware of this place by a downtown blog, which gave me a favorable impression of the place. It just opened up on March 6, so it was not even two weeks old when I made this visit.

It was pretty quiet at around 5pm in the afternoon and I was probably one of the only two patrons in here. The jukebox was playing in the background and a shiny new counter that reminds you of the old classic diner was in full effect as well. A much more retro place than a Johnny Rocket? Perhaps. This place is a bit tad tight in terms of space, but then again it's down LA. As pointed out, it has a nice counter bar seats with several tables scattered around the bar counter.

Stepping inside, a big board on the east side wall is where the menu has been positioned at. As you can see, it's very limited with only three visible items on hand: a burger, hot dog, and fries. There is also a vegetarian burger if you desired, but it's really bare bone at this moment.

The Current Menu

My initial thought was that this has to be their launch menu. I'm pretty certain that they will add more items when they do get a chance. It's just like any other burger joints that started in its infancy as it will take time for the menu to grow. From what I gathered, it was a very straight forward menu.

I ordered their combo meal #1, which consists of a burger, mixture of regular fries and sweet potato fries, with a regular soft drink. The burger was not bad at all. It was served with fresh vegetables and the quality was almost similar to what you can get at either Five Guys & Burgers or Red Robins.

For $6.75, it was cheaper than a comparable burger combo I got yesterday at a Compton joint. Even better news, not much different in terms of quality of taste against some of the more overpriced burgers that is out there in West Hollywood or even beach cities. Just for a downtown burger joint, it's priced right about what you can get around here. Just think about it, a sausage joint is charging $6 for a sausage dog. Yes, that's the current rate at downtown L.A. these days.

Combo #1 - Burger, mixed fries, and a softdrink ($6.75)

Obviously, it's hard to judge a place that was just opened and with many new additions that is about to come. They probably need to make some finishing touches and work out some of their kinks. For a brand new two weeks-old place, it was very solid and probably will be a hit. I probably could hang out here just to shoot a breeze at a early supper hour. Couldn't quite fathom what this place will be like when they are busy, since it's a very small place.

Post note: As I was going home at 10pm after my Varnish visit, this place was packed. So indeed, this place is doing pretty well at late night and probably busy as well during lunch hours.

D-Town Burger Bar
216 W 6th St
Los Angeles, CA 90014
(213) 228-0022

Yes! We Should Be Friends!

2009-03-18T01:59:00.000-07:00

OK, I'll throw my hands up about something. I'm very quick at flying off the handle and overreact too quickly to criticisms. Sometimes it would be about the littlest details that is much ado about nothing. To be all honest, I'm one of the very few lucky bloggers that don't get too many criticisms or too much critiques. I'm just not into slamming a place and my blog is not much of a hater blog that needs to dog a place before it can get its sea legs going.

My preference is to just let it be and I'll tell like it is. No favoritism from me regarding about my grades. Blase for me most of the time.

Occasionally I do get a few hecklers and it would just dwell on me for a few hours like I just can't get it out of my mind. It drives me crazy.

On a lazy morning, it comes as a certain surprise to me when I got an unusual hit to my blog from a link that was very suspicious to me. I followed it and the clue lead me to a journal of someone who had a miserable sick day in bed. Then out of nowhere, she paid me an ultimate compliment.

So, I came home from the office early today…I feel like death. I slept from 1-7pm with intermitted email checks realizing that today was a nice and slow day on that front. I can’t decide if that is a good or bad thing yet.

However, during my bed-ridden day, I did discover this wonderful site.

I don’t know who this person is, but dear goodness, thank you for existing. You give me a purpose.

Needless to say it warmed my heart. An absolute stranger stumbled into my blog and want to be my friend (so said the title of her entry for that day). It was just too wonderful to be that kindly thought of and I instantly forget all the naysayers. Sometimes I take this for granted as I thought this kind of gesture does not exist. Especially from someone who is not looking to be heard or found.

It's too bad that I can't sent her an email or sent a note to her as her journal didn't enable the comment section. I tried to follow her journal at tumblr, but again no communication was possible. So the only thing I can do is to thank her publicly for the kind words and yes... I would love to be your friend!

For everyone else out there reading this, I too would love to be your friend and thank you kindly from the bottom of my heart for following along with me on my foodie adventures.

------------

A little postscript - The young lady who posted the journal entry had found out my last night's blog entry and had contacted me. She even updated her new entry here.

Now we can all feel warm & fuzzy on the inside!

A Fond Farewell Mixed with an Experimental Dish @ Duck House - Lu Din Gee (Monterey Park)

2009-03-15T03:12:00.000-07:00

A short age ago, I made a friend with this young man named Greg who at the time was aspiring to become a chef. We bonded and discussed about anything from everyday life to different cultures that is in our presence. I guess I was a little bit sadden that he decided to make a different journey by traveling back home to Pennsylvania in one short year after we met.

So with that in mind, a few of us decided to have a farewell dinner for Greg at a restaurant of his choice. I gave him a few options, but for the life of me, I don't know why I included this restaurant that I have not visited before. Sure enough, Greg decided to pick a restaurant I have not scouted beforehand for his bon voyage.

The Duck House or Lu Din Gee as some people referred as, was a off branch from the same location in Valley Blvd (RIP - closed as they relocated to a new location in Las Tunas Dr). One of the big feature about coming here was their famous Peking Duck. Before going in, you do have to make a reservation in ordering the duck one hour ahead of time. I guess they are keeping tabs of the amount of people and table needed. More importantly they wanted to make sure that they have enough poultry in stock and wouldn't want to oversell a dish.

There are a few items listed in their menu online that does required a few days notice. In fact, a story was conveyed to me that they would need a credit card payment in advance if there is more than 4 items ordered. So do keep that in mind when you decide to order multiple dishes or have a large party.

The number you have to call for advance order

This 2nd branch located off Atlantic Blvd is bustling with youngsters on Friday night when we attended dinner that night. It gave me the impression that dinner is served here first before going off to their late night engagement at a bar/dance club/lounge fare as they are dressed appropriately in their attires. Maybe the Valley Blvd location is more for the old foggies.

Once we placed the order for the Peking Duck, we do get an option of either letting it stand alone, or we can either add a soup or stir fried bean sprouts. The third option is to add both items to go with the duck, but we were warned by one of our tablemates to ignore the stir fried bean sprouts as it was deemed unnecessary.

The Duck Bone Soup has a very milky texture and a bit of creamy taste to the flavor. There is no meat to the soup as it was more a cleanser to your palate before the duck was about to arrive. They do give one free refill of the soup when you ordered it with the roast Peking Duck.

Duck Bone Soup

The main attraction of roast Peking Duck comes in a beautiful arrangement of meat separated from the crispy skin. They also put aside the sauce and the garnish for the construction of your very own roast duck taco with 12 thin pancakes included for this set. Keep in mind about this, it will cost you $5.95 for each additional set of 12 thin pan cakes and you will order two additional sets as we have done. It was mind boggling because we spend almost $12 extra because the amount of pancakes provided was not enough for the order of one plate of duck.

Roast Peking Duck ($38.95 with the Duck Bone Soup - Two Way)

Here's a quick guide of eating the Peking Duck with the pancake:

First, you have place the thin pan cake in the center of the plate openly

Second, place the Hoisin Sauce right in the middle of the pancake

Third, place a few garnish of spring onion flowerets around the sauce

Then place a few duck meat and skin on top of it and fold in half

Voila! It's that simple to construct and eat the duck with the pancake. It was a consider a national treat back in the old days. One of the features I liked about the Duck House's version of the roast Peking duck was that it was not dry and very tender when it was presented at our table. The skin was also very crispy and not flaky. You'll be surprised on how many restaurants cannot served a simple order of roast Peking Duck correctly. For me, I thought the roast duck was good, it did not prepare what was going to come up next.

The other special dish of the night was the Buddha Chicken. Granted, not one person in our table ever heard of the Buddha Chicken. In fact, not one clue was given on how to eat this thing when we saw the dish. At first, it looked like a bad construction of a meatloaf or a mushroom was given an over abundance of steroids.

Buddha Chicken ($31.95)

So I decided to take a stab at it and poke the precious bubble surrounding. After digging through, we saw that the chicken was deconstructed with stuffing inside of the chicken skin. The chicken meat was mixed with daikon, chestnuts, and a few pieces of other seafood. Seasoned well and place that is engulfed by the chicken skin to be presented in one plate of chicken.

You can conclude that the experiment have gone haywire or the gastronomy of a chicken was introduced by a mad scientists. It had an wow factor in our table as neither of us have seen it before and treated this dish with bewilderment at first and slowly accepted by a few of us. One of our late dining partner chowed this thing down like there's tomorrow. Just like him, I found the dish to be complicated at first, but accepted with an disconcerting appetite when we figured out the dish.

Inside of the Buddha Chicken

The Cumin Beef was off the menu dish. Apparently it was only available at the other restaurant, but you can ask for it if you knew the dish. This beef dish has a nice flavor component with the sauce and oil that is stir fried very well. The chili and onion complimented the beef in this very savory dish that was devoured by our table in minutes. Couldn't say it was the best dish, but I can tell you it's the most enjoyable dish.

Cumin Beef ($14.95)

Our last dish of the night was the deep fried sweet & sour garlic fish filet. This dish was very simple, but at the same time was order on behalf of our guest of honor and his less-than-adventurous foodie buddy. Even though it was not a daring item like a few preceded this dish, we still pretty much enjoyed with our steam rice and chucked this one up as a success.

Sweet & Sour Garlic Fish Filet ($11.95)

We had a wonderful meal and the bill comes out around $35 for each person. In comparison, some of us thought this was a major $$$ place for the VIP as it was not an everyday dining. For a farewell party, this was an excellent choice for the venue. If I had to suggest coming here, do order in advance for the Roast Peking Duck and the Buddha Chicken. Try to check about the Cumin Beef and skip the stir fried bean sprouts as part of the three way for the Roast Peking Duck.

Duck House
501 S. Atlantic Blvd.
Monterey Park, CA 91754
(626) 284-3227

Grade:

Recession Fine Dining Tapas @ Ortolan (Mid City)

2009-03-10T02:20:00.000-07:00

Feeling the pinch?

With the economy being on the downturn with no relief in sight, many fine dining restaurants are also feeling that same pinch. Plenty of available tables on any given night, staff outnumbering patrons, and the food is left being uncooked. This was a hard time for many restaurateur as well as for many of the diners.

With that in mind, Christopher Eme, forefront in the Haute French cuisine in L.A. decided to embed a tapas menu in their bar area and in the fine elegant lounge area that included a beautiful fireplace behind the sophisticated modern dining room. From Tuesday through Thursday from 6pm to 9pm, they will offer up to 12 different tapas dishes that is carefully presented without any pretensions (so said in their website).

The Bar behind the dining room

Elaborate, but without being snobby? That is quite a handful for a man that had worked with some of the legends in the world of French cuisine. Having worked under Philippe Braun and Michel Rostang, it will be a treat to get a tasting of these innovative small dishes for $6-10 in most items on the menu.

One of the first we have ordered was the Burrata Cheese. I actually enjoyed this little treat. It has a nice little balsamic reduction to bring up the nice little flavor to the burrata cheese that I don't come across too often. The tomato and eggplant accompanies it gave it a pretty good touch. This item I noticed also is part of their newly formed $45 Sunday brunch. So to get a snippet of it makes me wondered what else is in store for us.

Burratta Cheese -Tomato Parfait, Eggplant Caviar and Balsamic Reduction -$7

The Braised short ribs was the most anticipated item of the night for me because it was widely raved by my cohorts who had frequented the place before and told me it was out of this world. I liked the tenderness of the rib and the stuffed potato that accompanies it. To me, it was a little hard to tell since it's a small tapas dish. I wondered if this would have been better left as part of the main course, but I like to be teased just for a bite of this savory dish. The short ribs would be a better main course than a bite size tapas dish.

The other dish we got was the Crispy Langoustines that is in a shot of Minestrone soup. The immature nature of me thought it was a espresso shot, then a deep sip revealed a nice little simple texture of light soup. Upon digging further was a crispy nugget of a lobster (Langoustines). I thought the soup was nice and simple, but to get a little nugget of the Langoustines was a pleasant surprise.

Braised Short Rib with Winter Vegetable and Pomme Soufflée - $14

Crispy Langoustines (buried deep inside) with a shot of Minestrone - $9

The next three courses reflect some of Chef Eme's expression of his Haute cuisine while not being too pretentious. The first dish up was a scallop that was plated with a clam and some chorizo mixed in with a small batch of paella. I find this dish to be one of his more accomplished dish of the night. The sauce that comes with the scallop and clam was a nice mixture to raise the flavor profile.

The organic chicken in a consomme was a bizarre choice that we had ordered. I think it didn't have the same bold flavor that ribs or the scallops had. What made it a confusing for me was that the consomme is a soup made from from grounded meat. To add a whole chicken on top of it was a nice interpretation from the chef which I did enjoyed it and the Shitake mushroom did become a completed dish with the consomme with a little help from the organic chicken.

The Cuttlefish with the truffle also did displayed plenty of the flair that Chef Eme have on its dishes. Beautifully presented dish with sophisticated flavors, but without being overly done in with too many ingredients. It was simple and yet refined. One of my favorite dish of the night.

Scallop with Paella/Chorizo/Clams - $9

Organic Farm Raised Chicken in consomme with Farfallina Pasta and Shitake Mushrooms - $12

Cuttlefish “Tagliatelle” Style / Black Truffle / Basil - $10

Truthfully, we would have been happy to end our tapas night right there, but we were talked into ordering a quiche because of a big kudos from our dining mates from the next table. The Quiche had a nice touch of truffle in it, but we could have ended it a little sooner.

While we waited for dessert, we noticed a nice little garden hanging on the wall along the dining tables next to the bar. It seemed to be homegrown organic herbs that will be used in the kitchen.

Quiche Lorraine with Truffle, Asparagus and Heart of Lettuce - $12

The Homegrown Herbs on the wall

The highlight of the night was to see two beautifully decorated and delicious desserts presented to us. My dining companion had a honey parfait that had kumquat, lemon cream and a scrumptious chestnut ice cream. I had a taste of the ice cream and it was something I wish I can find in my local market.

My part of the dessert was a panna cotta encased in a caviar can. The pearls on top of of the panna cotta looked like pearls or caviar, but it's a form of a tapioca pearls nicely decorated a very creamy panna cotta. If there was one dessert that I can live without, it's the panna cotta (sorry chocolate souflee, next time!).

Honey Parfait - Kumquat, Chestnut Ice Cream, Lemon Cream ($12)

Quince and Cinnamon Panna Cotta - Apple Caviar ($12)

Overall, I thought the service was professional and on its game. I have a very favorable impressions on how the tapas were being treated with some resemblance of a Haute French cuisine. It does give me some inklings on what are being offered here as I will definitely try out their 8 course tasting menu. Their best dishes are supposedly not in the tapas, so you will be wanting to come back to try their main menu courses.

As in for the depression era themed "lower priced" menu items, it's worth checking out a few dishes and hang out at their bar for some smooth mixology cocktail drinks.

Ortolan
8338 W 3rd St
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(323) 653-3300

Grade:

Can the Best Sandwich Really Exist in the West? @ Bay Cities Italian Deli & Bakery (Santa Monica)

2009-03-08T22:59:00.000-07:00

For many years I have heard that the westside has a deli that carried the best sandwiches in all of L.A. This was a little Italian mart that carried many of the imported specialty items, groceries, and other prepared deli meats to take home for that wine tastings or for that perfect sandwich you had been meaning to create.

I guess this place will always be crowded in the weekend at all hours considering the private security guard doubles as traffic controller for their tiny parking lot. You might need to look around for other street parking in this part of the town, especially on weekends.

Walking through the door, I can almost immediately knew that the place was packed like sardines in a can and getting inside to the deli sections where the sandwiches and other hot items (pasta, meatballs, or hot plated items) will be an ordeal because of the sea of masses of people congregated in front of the counter hoping their numbers get to be called.

There was an intriguing part after a 40 minutes wait for my ticket to be call (yeah, I'm not fibbing about the long wait for a simple order or deli sandwiches). Apparently some joker who was a big fan of these sandwiches decided to come up with a sinister plan of buying a roll of ticket that is similar to what the deli was using. My guess was that he/she was tired of waiting for his/her turn to order her items, instead conveniently would have some forged tickets ready to cut in line. I only found this out when the guy behind the deli counter had to examine my ticket to make sure it's the same ticket that they have (small prints of the deli's name on the back perhaps? or some watermarks?).

I guess the sandwiches was that good for some bastards to hatch up that scheme.

The sandwiches that have gotten the raves from many of the die-hards of this deli was a sandwich aptly called the "Godmother". Quite proclaimed as the end all to be all in the land of the sandwiches. This particular sandwich had the ingredients of genoa salami, mortadella, coppacola, ham, prosciutto, and provolone cheese to complete the set with no substitutions on this order. I also put in the "works" where included all of the condiments of mayo, mustard (yellow, honey or dijon), onions, pickles, tomatoes, lettuce, Italian dressing & mild or hot pepper salad.

The Godmother with "the works" ($8)

Usually you can order the basic sandwich of bread, cheese, meat, and condiments to your liking. It would started off in the $4 range and goes up quite a bit with each ingredients added on. So, my preference would have been getting one of their creations as it was much cheaper in the long run and the right combination of cheese and meat seemed to be a big deal.

Speaking of which, I decided to also order a large order of Parma/Hamon Serrano sandwich which I decided to get it with a provolone cheese. However, the deli person talked me out of that cheese and recommended a different cheese. He was nice enough to give me test taste with a small piece of bread with sample of the cheese and parma serrano ham on it. I have to hand it to him, he was correct with the choice of the cheese to go along with that ham. Darn it, I wished I remembered the name of that cheese. It went very well with the parma serrano ham.

Parma/Hamon Serrano ($11.55)

I do enjoy both of the sandwiches that Bay Cities deli have proudly carried in their place as the two of the most popular sandwiches propped by their supporters. The sandwiches are well executed to the precisions in that the flavors of the meat and cheese were fresh. More importantly, the preset sandwiches of the combination of the meat, cheese, condiments, and bread all worked out well.

I can easily conclude that the parma serrano sandwich was one of the better ones I ever had. Was it the best in this town? Probably not, but it's right up there. I'll come up with the review for the best deli sandwich very soon.

Of course I probably need to consult with the crazy guy who was able to counterfeit the tickets so that I can cut in line. Oh, in a weird universe, I did had a celebrity sighting in that place when a former "The View" talk show host was in front of me by a few number to get her sandwich fix.

No, it's not Rosie O'Donnell. Think Asian.

Bay Cities Italian Deli & Bakery
1517 Lincoln Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 395-8279

Grade:

A "Solid" Dining Experience @ Dal Rae (Pico Rivera)

2009-03-06T12:45:00.000-08:00

Our final DineLA Restaurant Week selection was an old classic I had been dying to try out since last year. Kungfood Panda (please don't embarrassed me by not posting any reviews) and I decided to give it a go after Eileen Likes To Eat had a favorable dining experience just a few weeks prior.

The restaurant is located at a very forgotten city that reminds you of the old film noir days where Jake Gittes and Sam Spade would be doing a drive by to this part of LA where the town is close to the river bed that is classified as "Harbor Gateway". Pico Rivera (English translation to Tip Creek) would certainly fit that bill. I'm sure the city had seen its better days in the 60s and 70s where the Ford Motor company was right across the street and had their manufacturing plant before closing it in 1980. Some of the early B-2 Bombers were also being built at a plant right around the corner from this restaurant. Nowadays, the city is more residential with some redevelopment of chain restaurants and stores around the few plazas that are being remodeled in the city.

Del Rae opened in 1958, prided themselves as serving one of the best steak in L.A. while maintain its classy, elegant features that made it "the fine dining" of the late 50's and early 60's. Along with their rival Clearman N' Steins, these two had maintain what an iconic LA steakhouses would be like and set an early standard that LA had seen in a while until the crop of new steakhouses being built on the Northwest side of LA.

When you walked into this posh looking bar with leather booth tables that want to maintain the regal look of the long forgotten past, you just have the sense of aura in that Raymond Chandler wants to come by here and put this setting in his next mystery novel. Even the live entertainment of the night having a guy doing three instruments and singing Ricky Martin's "Superstitious" was out of this world.

The pre-fix three courses meal included an appetizer, main course, and a dessert for each diner in the Restaurant week special. Kungfood Panda and I decided to order different dishes so that we may taste each of the variety. There was a nice little bowl of cold vegetables to cleanse our palate right before our meal. It was very refreshing to get us going on a right note.

Bowl of Cold Vegetables

For our appetizers, we got the Crab Cakes and the Ahi Sashimi on Toast. Both looked it's cut in half in terms of portions. It would have cost both plates to be $13.95 where it would contain two crab cakes and a full round of ahi sashimi. I liked the crab cake as it was lavished with Chile and some Cilantro Cream Sauce to make it a more tender taste with the right flavor.

Crab Cakes ($13.95 for two pieces)

The sashimi on toast had some wild Greens, Capers, Onion, Feta cheese and remoulade underneath the fish. It was a doable starter that is not quite an amuse bouche, but not also not quite a filling starter.

Ahi Sashimi on Toast ($13.95 for full order)

Our main course had some entertainment presentation to it as we ordered a Duck a l'Orange, which was flambe cooking with orange liquor. Self fulfilling prophecy indicates that all things will burn to the ground flashes right before my eyes as I was having weird thoughts of fires with the flames being popped right in front of me in a very controlled manner.

Duck a l'Orange being flambe

Besides the duck, we also ordered their signature classic, Petite Filet Pepper Steak. Obviously we don't know what they meant in the menu by "pepper", but we would find out enough. Majority of these steak dishes would had cost around $35-$50, but we are only paying $34 for the entire 3 course meal. It somewhat led me to believe we are getting smaller dishes, which was fine for this special from Restaurant week.

Duck a l'Orange ($27.50) and Petite Filet Pepper Steak ($32.50)

I thought the best dish was the flambe Duck a l'Orange as it was tendered and maintain some of the sweetness of that orange liquor. The steak was.. as my dining buddy like to use his terminology for not bad.... was "solid". It wasn't bad, but not enough to wow us over. I know that they prided themselves with NY prime steak and their bone in porterhouse steak as the main attractions. The pepper steaks these days are the forgotten classics that will be soon to be savored only by the die-hards who love the steaks cooked in that style from the old days.

I honestly can see why the pepper steaks are not being offered more in most restaurants nowadays.

The desserts did some uplifting for us to cap the night. My choice of dessert was the Tiramisu which had Espresso, mascarpone, lady fingers with a dash of fresh raspberry sauce beautifully decorated around the plate. It was a fantastic dessert, but nothing compared to the one that my pal ordered, which was Gold Brick Sundae served in a lace cookie. You can see the ice cream being covered by frozen chocolate neatly presented in an edible wafer cookie bowl. That was also a fantastic dessert.

Tiramisu ($7.95) and Gold Brick Sundae (served in a lace cookie) $6.95

The service was actually pretty good as our waitress was very friendly to us for the entire evening and knew it was our first time here. Maybe the thought of us under the age of 40 have something to do with it or that we are the only ones that are not a couple or in a business meeting (the place have free wifi for wireless internet). It was very dim for that romantic occasion as you can tell by the low light pictures we took (as we didn't have any flash turned on).

As we started to leave the place, we tried to think on how the place looked and if we would come back to try something else. I did enjoy it enough to give it a go for a full meal where DineLA's special are more of tasting menu to get people in the door, which it did succeed in doing so. I'll probably need to order the lamb chop or the porterhouse ($46) next time.

For a dining experience in what we just had, I concurred with my bud Kungfood Panda.

It was very "solid".

Dal Rae
9023 E. Washington Blvd
Pico Rivera, CA 90660
(562)949-2444

Grade:

Weaksaucing On Beer, But Not On Sausages @ Wurstküche (Downtown L.A.)

2009-03-04T01:03:00.000-08:00

Oh man! Am I late to a party or what? It seemed like everyone has been to this hot spot in downtown L.A. near skid row. Pop open my boy Eat Drink Be Merry's review in a new browser window for a note which will come up in this review later on.

Wurstküche (spelled like worst coochie, but pronounced vorst kooka) is a German word for "sausage kitchen", which is one whole word that pops out of Babel Fish dictionary. The brains of the operations are the cousins and business partners Joseph Pitruzzelli and Tyler Wilson who had an ambitious ideas for this new venture in the heart of the art district where all the hipsters reside at.

Based on early permits and floor design plans, they were trying to set up in three-parts plan of having the kitchen and dining area, high end bar with 24 different beers on tap, and with any luck: a rooftop lounge area. The first two parts of their construction of Wurstküche was finished with only the rooftop lounge being the only part of the area not being realized just yet. The grander scheme of the establishment was to have a 24 hour kitchen that never closes. Imagine the possibility of not needing the bacon wrapped hot dogs and just stayed in for some sausages to soak in all the booze after the last call.

Interestingly, when I first stopped by the place a few months ago right when they were first opened, I thought I missed the place because the front of the place looked like an automotive repair shop with the front of the door resembles a huge warehouse door. It's not unusual in this area considering a lot of downtown area were being reconverted such as a docking warehouse is now a sushi restaurant and cafe (R23 and 2nd St Cafe).

If you now can look at EDBM's photos, you'll see the interior design feature a lot of stones, bricks, woods, and other natural material that gives an "element" stature throughout the place. The backroom where the high end bar is located at features a nice dining area along with 18 counter seats at the bar for the selections of 24 beers on tap. If I ever try to imagine a chop shop being reconverted to a Bierhaus (beer house), this has the look to it.

The front of the house which has the kitchen, small deli counter where all the exquisite sausages are stored, and the outdoor patio tables for daytime dining. The sausages inside the deli counter are being divided to two sections of classics and gourmet/exotic. Classic being the prefer choice of vegetarians and standard sausages while the gourmet & Exotic showcase the animals of alligators, rabbits, and turkey sausages.

My first choice of sausage was to order the exotic Rattlesnake & Rabbit with Jalapeño Peppers. I decided to lavish it with Caramelized Onions with my gamy sausage. At first I thought I was going to puke at the thought of a rattlesnake, but with each subsequent bite, I was coming around to enjoy the hot bold flavors. I think with the meat being strained down to make the sausage, it was easier for me to devoured without having the thoughts of the slimy texture.

Rattlesnake & Rabbit with Jalapeño Peppers with Caramelized Onions ($7.75 + $0.75)

My second favorite sausage was the Alligator & Pork, Smoked Andouille Sausage and the added Caramelized Onions. This sausage is in a much thicker casing, so it was going to be a bit tougher to chew. Being boiled first, then grilled, this sausage still kept much of its offbeat, but strong flavors. My initial reaction thinking of alligator meat mixing with pork would had been equal to a result of unmitigated disaster. However I was proven wrong at this as I thoroughly enjoyed this gamy, but a delightful combination for a sausage. Quite delicious if you want to try something adventurous.

Alligator & Pork, Smoked Andouille Sausage and the added Caramelized Onions ($7.75 + $0.75)

Now of course I can't tell you much about the beer because this blog is not "Right Way to Drink!", but to eat. They do offered bottled beers from Belgian, German, and North American selections just like the ones on tap. I decided to go for the botanically brewed soda of Fentimans Curiosity Cola, which was much more to my liking than a brew which will easily numb my taste buds (Yes, I'm a weaksauce).

My beverage of choice with my sausages: Curiosity Cola ($5) and Coffee

At this moment, the place is still somewhat spanking new and experimenting out new things to see if the customers will like it. They will eventually extend the hours of operations to 2am (closed at midnight on Thursday to Saturday). So the dream of 24 hour sausage kitchen might still be in effect, but they will surely come along hopefully in the near future.

I still need to check out other types of sausage (Duck and Bacon with jalapeno) and try out the beers that is on tap. You better hurry before the place hit critical mass which meant you will never get a table to dine and enjoy your beer.

Wurstküche
800 E 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 687-4444

Grade:

Sunday's Tapas Night @ Ciudad (Downtown L.A.)

2009-03-03T01:01:00.000-08:00

It seemed like everyone reviewed this place for lunch, dinner, and happy hour. My high recommendation is to check out their Tapas Sunday. Remembered the two ladies from The Border Grill that was affectionately known as the "Too Hot Tamales"? These two female chefs (Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger) are here on Sunday from 5pm-9pm preparing the their tapas menu items and Spanish wines pairing for this restaurant.

Going into this place, I was very impressed by the high class deco decor this place set up to be. It is an elegant affair with a bit of some high class touch. Although I would suggest wearing something fancy, but then again I did witnessed a slouch wearing two tees and a jean to get into this place. (he's probably the only one thinking everyone else is out of their elements). This restaurant portrays a very chic and elegant place while keeping their sleek looking bar handy where you enjoyed your drink while waiting for your table.

I do highly suggest you make a reservation for this place on Tapas Sunday as it seemed everyone booked a reservation before 6pm and filled the place by 5:30pm. It does get somewhat crowded before evening dusk. I have heard happy hours during weekday can be madhouse filled with nearby downtown transients.

There are so many interesting choices we can make with our orders for these Latin American savory little dishes. It is a bit of a fusion as it is not set on Spanish tapas. Keep in mind that the Too Hot Tamales does recreated some of these dishes with many recipes and ingredients they would incorporated from their travelings around the world.

I started off the evening by going big with an ordering of a huge glass of Suprema Sangria . Everyone at my table poked fun of me by suggesting that I'm a recovering alcoholic. The glass of sangria was huge, but a very fruity delicious wine.

Yes, it's a fruity drink of Suprema Sangria

We had started ordering some tapas dishes to go along with our sangria and wines. Our first orders were lamb meatballs and Manchego Cheese Buuelos with Serrano Ham, Arugula, and Red Pickled Onions. Those two dishes were quickly devoured before any photos could have been taken, so for now on I had to quickly took some of those photos before the crouching forks and hidden knives could do anymore any damages on any future dishes.

Here are some of the dishes we have ordered:

Grilled Morcilla Sausage on Mini Toasts with Caramelized Onions

Salt Cod Fritters with Orange, Fava, and Fresh Mint Salsa

Boneless Baby Back Ribs slow roasted in Chile, Spices, and Sweet Mistela

Romaine Hearts with Cabrales Vinaigrette, Roasted Peppers, and Plantain Chips

Spinach Empanadas with Pine Nuts and Raisins

Obviously my favorite dishes were the lamb meatballs and the Grilled Morcilla sausages. The plantain chips are a must get to start off any meal. The only thing that was not recommended by several regulars who joined us at our table was the Paella, which is a little surprising.

Majority of these tapas were very light and not too salty. They are very bold in flavors and exhibited very well in terms of execution and presentation at each of the dishes. Some of these tapas are obviously a creation based on the Too Hot Tamales' own imagination on how they would interpret a traditional Spanish tapas. Just like the Mexican street food in Border Grill, they pulled it off very well with tapas at Ciudad.

Plantain Chips

We also ordered some veggie tapas and desserts to go along with all these wonderful items. The Watercress salad was one of those and it was very refreshing in midst of all the savory dishes that came before it.

Watercress Salad

The service was excellent throughout the night and our water was refilled plenty of times. Interestingly, the manager of the place hopped by every table to check on everyone to see how the evening went and to check if everyone was enjoying their meal.

We enjoyed ourselves with these delightful and delicious little tapas dishes.The place also has a good vibes to set up a great mood through the dinner. When the desserts came, it really put a great closer for the night. The chocolate Barcelona cake was very rich decadent sweet that needed me to order a glass of latte to wash that down properly. Our table also wounded up with some Espresso dusted churros and an Apple Tart.

Desserts: Chocolate Barcelona Cake & Espresso Dusted Churros

If that was not enough for a sugar high, they do have some other interesting flan that can do it for you. I never did get to try out the pan seared seafood dishes or the carnitas at their dinner, but with the tapas we got that night, I had a very good idea on how the dinner dishes will turn out.

Apple Tart and Latte

While many people out there will be reviewing and recommended dinner, lunch, or even happy hour for their sangria, I would highly recommend anyone to check out their tapas dinner on Sunday. This will be a great treat in a very affording atmosphere.

Ciudad
445 S. Figueroa Street
Los Angeles, CA 90071
(213) 486-5171

Grade: