Food, she thought.

Hot Beef Injection at Great Chefs of Los Angeles November 9, 2009

2009-11-10T06:25:00.000-08:00

Go Green, Go Organic!
Great Chefs of Los Angeles

CBS Studio Center

4024 Radford Dr.
Studio City, CA 91604
November 9, 2009
12-3:30PM

Last weekend, on a blindingly sunny early November Sunday, CBS studios hosted the 2009 Great Chefs of Los Angeles to benefit the National Kidney Foundation of Southern California. George and Ann Lopez were honorary chair people lending their humor to the event and their visages to the red carpet. Chefs included Govind Armstrong of 8 Oz. Burger Bar on Melrose and Table 8 in NYC and Miami, Neal Fraser of Grace, Josie Balch of Josie in Santa Monica, Celestino Drago of Drago Ristorante, Enoteca Drago, and Drago Centro, my personal favorite Adam Horton of Saddle Peak Lodge who recognized me from commentary on KevinEats blog review of SPL *yay*, and many many more. So many more, and so many many chefs serving autumnally appropriate red meat under the hot Indian summer sun.

Not a member of the invited media for this event, Mr. FST and I both received one of these generous goody bags stuffed with fun and useful items, including one seductive pomegranate.

The POM company had quite a presence at the event, from the cartload of fruit to their own table with juice samples and something even more irresistible. More about that later.

The very first table I hit was Saddle Peak Lodge manned by the aforementioned Adam Horton. I shook his hand but I kinda wanted to lick it.

A simple bite of grilled antelope with cabbage, bacon, apple and black garlic on a crouton round. Delicious, appropriately sized, easy to eat.

We were both charmed by the people and product at the Sushi Poppers table. A new product that will hopefully be working its way across our radars. I chose a hamachi (3 pieces sized for the event, I assume they will sell a 6-8 piece roll) which was simple made with no dairy or mayo (a shame to have to qualify this) and very fresh. They plan to sell these at convenient stores such as Famimas, 7-11s, and the airport. This kicks ass on the greasy Caesar salad served at the sports bar in the Southwest terminal at the Bob Hope airport.

The POM Wonderful table.

Mr. FST went gaga for these POM/chocolate cupcakes. Chocolate cake with POM infused chocolate ganache icing.

I have not yet had the opportunity to hit up Akasha, so it was not high on my list of spots to visit. However, D was starving, so started off at a frantic pace. He came running back to me demanding that I try Akasha's Niman Ranch Short Rib on a pretzel roll.

Akasha FTW at the event, I think. Short ribs, check. Pretzel bread, check. horseradish slaw, omg, check. Pickles, check. D and I will be visiting Akasha sometime this season for sure.

Frank Family represents with three kinds of red. I was taking it easy on the boozing after a crazy Saturday night. But Frank Family makes some beautiful wines.

Loteria! Grill showed up with two quesedillas. Corn truffle.

And zucchini flower, which was nice but the zucchini flavor was subtle in the one I tasted.

I definitely have a white girl's schema when it comes to a quesedilla, because these look like empanadas. I am certainly no expert, really in any kind of cuisine. They were beautiful and tasted good.

Neil Fraser of Grace jumped into the red meat fray with these bites of veal and polenta.

I don't ever remember having had veal shortribs, they were certainly satisfyingly fatty and the polenta had the right amount of earthy grit. The food at Grace always makes me happy.

Thank you, SmartWater, for soothing my hangover and keeping me hydrated during the relatively warm day.

SmartWater stations abounded throughout the food marathon. Speaking of marathons, Neil of FoodMarathon.com tweeted that he was on his way but I saw neither hide nor hair of him.

Brian Moyers cooking for BLT Steak offered the following:

Red meat with a squash puree, I thought it was pumpkin but I could be diremembering.

This is one of the smarter tasting events I have been to. There was a proper amount of seating for weary eaters, tables scattered throughout our pathways to pause and savor a bite. And several bars, wine stations and alcohol-free beverage offerings. Classy, thoughtful.

Ice cold fruity beverages were being concocted above at this bar in the shade, they were really tempting in the heat.

Govind Armstrong was the guest chef of the afternoon. Pace Webb of GreenGirls.com interviews Govind about the event and the challenges of cooking sustainably and organically here.

Govind offered us beef.

A beautiful panini-esue short bib grilled Bel Paese cheese with truffled heirloom potato chips.

Starting to get full, I could not resist the generosity of Andrea Cavaliere from Cecconi's in West Hollywood..

A simple truffled risotto, with plentiful truffle shavings on top.

I considered nicking the truffle jar, but it wouldn't fit in my purse.

Dakota Chop House and Jason Johnston.

Offered a short rib slider with kale and caramelized onion.

This was a really large bite. More than I could chew, at this point in the day. It looked lovely, I hope what they are offering these days in their restaurant is of equal or superior quality.

Josie Balch of Josie in Santa Monica shared with us a quiche.

If I was puzzled by the uniformly red meat approach of the day, I was even moreso by the quiche. When I think of Josie, I think game & local produce. I like quiche, Quiche reminds me of mom and baby showers.

Fuego in Long Beach offered the only lamb I spied.

I got the opportunity to chat with Jesse Perez, but apparently his lamb en mole (28 ingredients) was so delicious, I didn't take the opportunity to shoot it. It was really wonderful.

Although I found the idea of beer kind of off putting, Fireman's Brew was there along brewery row to share three concoctions.

Sterling Vineyards squeezed in among the beer to share their organic wines with us, I sipped at a Sauvignon Blanc and it was lovely. I would defnitely buy this for keeping at home and drinking while cooking.

A little glass of cold white wine started to set my head on straight.

Stella Artois and Hoegaarden.

Melissa's, one organic option you see as a strong presence at Gelson's and Mayfair. I buy their products sometimes, but marvel at the amount of packaging used. Paradoxical somewhat, I suppose. But who am I to complain about paradoxes when grocery shopping at Gelson's nearly defeats the purpose of buying items to prepare food at home. The purpose of saving money at any rate.

Trefethen Family Vineyards.

The above strawberry cupcakes come from the cutest table in the entire event, Leyna's Kitchen. These cupcakes were strawberry cake with strawberry buttercream frosting and strawberry puree filling. I know, D took the bullet and ate one for me. They won Public Choice for Most Original at the Los Angeles 2008 Cupcake Challenge.

I should have snapped some shots of the beautiful girls in their matching hair ribbons...

Minx is located in Glendale, and despite the fact that their table was all the way at the back of the event, they threw down three different options for hungry people.

Pork Belly Sliders with Bacon.

Vegetarian Red Pepper & Goat Cheese Tarts with Kabocha Squash,

Spicy Ahi Tuna Tacos in Wanton shells.

Izze was pushing fruit drink shots and lip balm. My lips thanked you.

Paco & Lola were also on hand with their Albarino, one of my favorite varietals. It was refreshingly delicious, and I love the packaging.

I dared to ask the chef at Moonshadows if they were serving a Virgin Octopus Bloody Mary. He was not amused.

D said this was wonderful. Octopus, tomato, pickled onion and I thought there was olive on the skewer as well.

Jorge Gomez was front and center at La Grande Orange. We chatted about my love of his green chili burger.

Jorge fed us the simple, the classic, the devilled egg.

And a wonderful Brussel sprout sald with manchego, almonds and a vinaigrette. LOVED.

Kevin Alan Lee (Lutece, Vegas) from the new East on Hollywood Blvd was around, somewhere. I kinda wanted to chat, but the guy working the station was torn between being helpful and something else.

We stopped into East for a late night cocktail the first weekend they were open, and the interior is indeed beautiful in that restaurant-come-nightclub kind of way. The cocktail list was tempting, the manager was very friendly and helpful, but the food served by East at Great Chefs definitely made me hanker for a visit.

Hawaaian Waia with a Miso Mustard Cream. Fantastic, and kept pleasingly chilled.

This might have been the best bite of the entire day. Raw scallops on the half shell with Sambal and Wasabi Creme Fraiche. The accompaniments to the scallop were kept minimal allowing the freshness of the shellfish to burst forward in your mouth, this was divine. I hope it's replicated at the restaurant.

Michael Mina's XIV. The qualifier that now pops up under XIV during a Google is, "a lively lounge with casual dining". What a difference a year makes. When I dined there for my anniversary, a few months after they first opened in 2008, it was dressy opulent luxe with fur throws and couches cozied up to fireplaces.

Clearly, someone planned for a warm afternoon.

The Vichysoisse was nice, but nothing to write home about.

Jose Andres' The Bazaar.

Mixing the delicious and potent nitro-caipirinha.

Instead of the caviar cones served in the restaurant from the carts menu, they were handing out guacamole cones. Perfect for the beautiful afternoon. All the elements of guacamole, with Andres' special way of using only the heart of the tomato, a little avocado and other minced veg in the bottom of the cone. Charming.

Sweets from the Patisserie.

We didn't indulge, but gosh it was a pretty display. It remained unmolested, so I am assuming that people were either full or didn't want to spoil the visual.

A bounty of beautiful 'shrooms...

and a zuppa di funghi.

From Giacomino Drago at Il Pastaio in Beverly Hills.

Celestino Drago offered a nice little duck sandwich that was lovely, with a fall squash soup.

It looks bigger than it was, it was perfectly bite sized and yummy.

I skipped the madness at the Border Grill truck on the way in, and on the way out it was my last thin mint.

Mary's baby tacos were too interesting looking to pass up.

Mustard seed encrusted avocado tacos on corn tortillas. Still rich, but a luscious break from all the meat. Reminding me why we as a city love Milliken and Feniger's food.

On the way out I felt like taking attendance based on whose jacket was left on the rack. It's the teacher in me.

Omakase at Toshi in Little Tokyo

2009-11-07T08:46:00.000-08:00

Toshi Sushi

357 E 1st St

Los Angeles, CA 90012-3901
(213) 680-4166

When we first moved to Echo Park, years ago, and started exploring Little Tokyo in earnest from the tips of its izakayas to the toes of its grottier village sushi bars, we fell in love with the sushi chef at Sharin, located at 357 E 1st Street which now houses Toshi. D swears the chef from Sharin is his late Grandpa Nat's Japanese doppelganger. We used to go eat his inexpensive simple well prepared sushi, chat about Grandpa Nat and his love for Skipper, and drink cold sake under the watchful smile of the older gentleman chef. Long gone, but the neon fish remains, the restaurant looks much the same and there is still good food to be had here now under the moniker Toshi Sushi.

The second to the last time I ate at Toshi was just a few weeks ago on a break from a day in court with our attorney. The three of us sat at the bar and all ordered the sushi/sashimi lunch special plate. I was a little astounded our ex-football star tall blonde and hunky all-American (read blonde hair, blue eyes) attorney would be so adventuresome. The plate was generous and delicious. We gobbled down the chunks of tuna, albacore sushi, squid sashimi and other interesting bits and pieces until we were full as ticks before heading back to work. Thrilled with my lunch, I was excited when Tony C, that deliciously entertaining and outspoken rat over at Sinosoul, suggested a group omakase at Toshi. Also in attendance were Mr. FST, Hahn from Hungry Hungry Hahn, and Nancy of The Wander Kind. Some of the table started with beer. I started with cold sake, above.

The first dish, an amuse bouche I think the server said, was fermented mountain yam with wakame. Mountain yam from Japan is served raw, and takes on a mucilaginous texture when grated. Here, it is served slightly fermented in a sweet tasting vinegar with wakame, the slightly thick soft type of seaweed typically found in miso soup.

Next out, a beautiful trio to titillate our taste buds. Barely a bite of marinated tuna. Yummy, this makes an appearance again a little later.

Baby squid in a dark sauce, slightly sweet. Ponzu, maybe, with grated ginger.

And the ubiquitous but wonderful oyster with ponzu, ginger, chives and tobiko.

In ascending order: mackerel, tuna and hirame sushi. The hirame served with a strip of shiso for flavor. I used to detest shiso. Loving the flavor of raw fish in all its incarnations I thought shiso took over the flavors completely. However, after my culinary tour through Little Saigon with Chef Danhi, I developed an interest in shiso and its botanical relatives due to their importance in cooking throughout Asia. Here, I make Nobu's tempura uni wrapped in shiso and it was delicious. Uni and shiso work together beautifully.

Requisite miso glazed broiled fish. I don't know what kind of oily fish this is. It looks too dark to be sea bass or black cod. Tony?

Other things I do not know: the name for a large plate with a smorgasboard of different delicacies served in a Japanese restaurant, the molar mass of nitroglycerin, the name of my future puppy. The salmon was fresh, fatty and melted in my mouth.

Above, see thin slices of Wagyu beef on foil, and underneath is a layer of ice cubes. Not a fan of the beef over ice cubes. They made the beef super über très cold, and a little hard. The fat was too cold to melt in my mouth the way it should, and it made something that was most likely intended to be a highlight on the plate seem just meh.

A beautiful raw Spanish mackerel resided in the middle of the plate, cut into bite sized sashimi pieces running along the spine, with the tail curled decorously toward the head and entwined in radish curls. Tony asked the server to take back the carcass of said fish and fry it up, she initially said no, and apparently the chef redirected her to retrieve the remains and he did indeed fry it up for Sinosoul.

Not really interested in eating this myself, I do appreciate the whole animal approach to eating.

Basket of tempura'd octopus, lovely. Glad they sat this right by my hot little hands.

And as I started to get full of food, sake and great companionship out comes a large plate of sushi. One.for.each.of.us.

Wonderfully fresh uni, succulent mackerel, fatty salmon and tamago there at the back, cooked egg beribboned with shiso. Top right, hirame reappears with its thin strip of shiso.

The above doesn't look marbled enough to be toro, and I cannot remember what it tasted like. I might have been full and pawned it off on Mr. FST.

I missed snapping a pic of a winning clam miso that was our last savory course prior to tea and an intense green tea ice cream that would make angels sing. Sometimes at the end of a long meal I end up a little overserved alcohol-wise or overserved food-wise and my commitment to documentation wavers. Let me assure you that this was a wonderful meal that ended even more elegantly than it started. It was well worth the $44 per head price tag, even if there wasn't room at the sushi bar to chat with and interrogate Toshiko Seki-san.

LA Times reports that Toshiko Seki is a trained in Japan 30 year sushi chef veteran who previously cut, diced and rolled in New York at Azuma and still runs his own sushi catering business, Sushi Catering Toshi. Almost exactly a year ago, LA Times Daily Dish reported on Toshi's opening and Seki's simple classic approach to sushi. Other reports in the year since the grand opening have been overwhelmingly positive. Here, and here, and here (although is most of this gushing Sinosoul?).

I will definitely be back to Toshi with the same frequency I have been pursuing, about once every three months or so. I might not cave again on the omakase, but I am keen to try the chirashi (my ultimate favorite sushi offering) and look forward to another opportunity to drop in for a lunch special.

Ludobites at Royal/T in December

2009-11-03T23:00:00.000-08:00

Ludobites
Royal/T
8910 Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232
(310) 559-6300

Coming this December 02-04, 09-10,13-17, 20-22 at Royal/T, Ludobites pops up again in Culver City for a very limited engagement. We all know Royal/T as Los Angeles's first Japanese cosplay cafe, recently host to the Three Apples Hello Kitty 35th Birthday event. Ludobites will be presented at Royal/T in conjunction with Jane Glassman's exhibit "In Bed Together".

While there is no news yet about Jane Glassman's exhibit on the Royal/T website, I have definite plans to dine with Ludo and Krissy during their 13 day pop-up appearance. Click the link to email Ludo to make your own reservation before all the spaces are filled.

Reviews of my previous visits here, here and here.

Some actual dining experiences coming up soon to read about...I promise. I am on the verge of a landscape of fun dining.

Eat My Blog Los Angeles Bloggers Charity Bake Sale to Benefit Los Angeles Regional Food Bank

2009-11-03T20:08:00.000-08:00

Zeke's Smokehouse
7100 Santa Monica Boulevard
West Hollywood, CA 90046
323.850.9353
December 5 10AM-4PM

Angelenos with a penchant for gourmet sweets are invited to attend the first ever Eat My Blog bake sale on Saturday December 5th from 10AM to 4PM. Zeke's will host the event on their sidewalk patio where Eat My Blog will donate 600+ baked goods including whoopie pies, pumpkin swirl brownies, handmade macarons, sesame cupcakes with matcha frosting and more. All proceeds will be donated to the Los Angles Regional Food Bank to help raise a greater awareness for those looking to give back to the Los Angeles community.

Cathy Danh, author of Gastonomy and founder of Eat My Blog, says, "Eat My Blog is an opportunity for the blogging community to give back to those in need. If this goes well, we plan to make it a biannual occurrence."

"It's a great way to connect with people in an intimate and real way," said Diana Hossfield of Diana Takes a Bite and organizing member of Eat My Blog. "It's Tastespotting come to life - for a cause that's near and dear to our hearts."

Los Angeles Regional Food Bank is a non-profit charitable organization that has been mobilizing resources to help fight hunger in the community since 1973.

I personally am planning to make three flavors of macarons, furthering the Macaron Diaries and to enjoy being assisted by my internet bffs.

Come, buy, eat, give.

Heritage Square Museum Fund Raiser Luncheon

2009-11-01T19:11:00.000-08:00

Heritage Square Museum 40th Anniversary Fundraiser
Saturday, November 7, 2009 from 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm
San Antonio Winery
737 Lamar Street
Los Angeles, CA 90031
Tickets are $125.00

photo courtesy of LATimes

From the Heritage Square Museum website:

A living history museum reflecting the settlement and development of Southern California from the Civil War to the early 20th Century, Heritage Square Museum offers visitors a look into the everyday lives of Southern Californians at the close of the 19th Century.

About the luncheon:

Honorary Event Chair, Councilman Ed Reyes, District One, will be in attendance and making a special presentation, along with many celebrity guests, including our Master of Ceremonies, Al Downing, former pitcher with the Los Angeles Dodgers, actor Troy Evans, from NBC's ER, and Academy Award Show co-host Jane Monreal. The Museum will recognize Justin Gershuny, one of the museum's founders, and volunteers Natalie Meyer and Nancy Rhinehart for their amazing contributions and service to the museum.

Special behind-the-scenes tours of the winery, old cars, costumed docents and a lovely Italian luncheon will make this an afternoon one won’t soon forget. And the prize for attending our fancy soiree? A chance to win several limited edition bottles of wine with a one-of-a-kind Heritage Square wine label, available only at this event. There will also be several unique, silent auction and opportunity drawing items, including a special tour of a historic home off-limits to members of the general public! The only way to win this and many other exclusive auction prizes - buy a ticket to the fundraiser!

Tours of the San Antonio Winery and wine tasting reception are from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., with an Italian luncheon buffet beginning at 2:30 p.m. The 40th Anniversary Fundraiser is also sponsored by:
Pankow Builders, Ltd., Southern California Gas Company - A Sempra Utility,
Justin Gershuny, and Davis Blue Print Co.

Making Lumpia for a Non-Event

2009-11-01T16:43:00.000-08:00

Invited by Tony from Sinosoul and Eating Valley Blvd, one of my favorite food bloggers, to a potluck with the LA Food Bloggers Group, I decided to make lumpia for my pot. The LA Food Bloggers Group seeks to build bridges within the local food blogging community and the LA food community at large, today's potluck was to be their second gathering. I shopped and schemed to make lumpia and in the end decided I couldn't spare the time to actually go to said potluck due to my busy upcoming work week. Le sigh.

I walked down the hill to A Grocery Warehouse on Sunset, my favorite grocery store on planet Earth. Grabbed some Maggi sauce because some blogger was going on and on and on about Maggi sauce, and I remembered when I lived in London I used to sprinkle it on my salad instead of dressing like my then roommate. British people are weird and that's OK. I also picked up Sriracha, which in my poor college days I used to eat mixed with brown rice and consider that a meal. Grabbed a couple of cans of lychee for making martinis later in the week, lumpia wrappers and a bottle of dipping sauce for spring rolls because I am too lazy to make my own. My friend Mylene will laugh at this. I spent $20. Srsly.

My favorite lumpia wrappers. I always buy this brand. Next time, I may use Burnt Lumpia's recipe for homemade wrappers. As a child I learned to make an excellent crepe, and this cannot be that different.

I got my recipe for lumpia filling from Burnt Lumpia's guest blog on Rasa Malaysia. It's a very basic recipe, I substituted ground turkey for the ground pork. Also, I may have been a little more generous with the ginger and garlic. I ended up with a crazy delicious gingery ground turkey filling. So good. Last time I didn't even use a recipe, and added minced carrots, green onions and celery as well. That was good too. Marvin at Burnt Lumpia suggests using the filling raw, roll in wrapper and cook. I par-cooked my filling though, almost but not quite all the way cooked, then filled.

Lumpia wrappers are paper thin. You might think they would tear as you separate them one by one from the stack, but no. Surprisingly, they retain structural integrity as you lift them from one another.

Problems start to arise in the process of the rolling. Above, see an example of too much filling. Fill them too much and the relatively hard texture of the meat tears the wrapper. Roll them too tightly and the same occurs. The amount of filling needs to be just right, and you need to roll with a firm but gentle hand.

One row of perfectly (as perfect from my hand as we get at this point) rolled lumpia.

I chose soybean oil to fry in this morning. The Soya website informs us about soy bean oil,

"Soybean oil is widely used oil and is commonly called ‘vegetable oil’. Soybean oil is a very healthy food ingredient despite the bad publicity regarding fats and oils in general. Soybean oil is very popular because it is cheap, healthful and has a high smoke point. Soybean oil does not contain much saturated fat. Like all other oils from vegetable origin, soybean oil contains no cholesterol. Saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart diseases and mainly found in products from animal origin such as milk, cheese and meat products. Soybean oil contains natural antioxidants which remain in the oil even after extraction. These antioxidants help to prevent the oxidative rancidity."

Apparently lots of vegetable oils are made from soya or have soy bean oil in them. This one, the Asian Taste Vegetable Oil, is 100% soy.

Happily frying away. My lumpia look nothing like Marvin's, or Flo's. Flo is the mother of my bff. Their family lived in the Phillippines when B was a child and Flo can throw down some seriously delicious lumpia. I will be eating more than my fair share of her perfect, tightly rolled and evenly fried lumpia December 24th at around 5PM.

Mine look more like chimichangas. I burnt a few in homage to the Burnt Lumpia blog.

They were damned good, for lunch. And they will be damned good again for dinner tonight.

Domino's Pizza Blog Entry that Should Have Been a Tweet

2009-10-31T10:59:00.001-07:00

Aggressively mediocre, but yet so fast it can barely be called pizza. Should fall into the fast food category. The end.

Blue Bottle Coffee Cafe at Equator Books Grand Opening Par-tay

2009-10-28T19:32:00.000-07:00

Equator Books
1103 Abbot Kinney Blvd
Venice, CA 90291-3313
(310) 399-5544

On Saturday November 7, 2009 come to Venice, experience Blue Bottle Coffee, and meet Blue Bottle's James Freeman.

7PM-11PM.

Seems like a great way to kick off the holidays.

While you're here, check out some art.

Chill out, read a book.

Eat some Cake Monkey.

Cake Monkey & Blue Bottle Coffee, good.

Dinner at Mom's October 2009

2009-10-26T06:28:00.000-07:00

First fall dinner party, at Mom's house in Sacramento with Mom's bff, D and myself enjoying the surprisingly balmy evening, lots of good food and just a hair too much wine.

We start with our favorite fizz, Billecart-Salmon Brut Rose, Mom says this is the last bottle until after the recession is over. It feels like a decadent treat these days and we relish every bubble and sip with lots of toasts to chronicle what's good in our lives.

When my bff was visiting from London, she brought over a couple special bottles of fizz as a gift to me, so I might surprise Mom with some bubbling decadence at Christmas despite all our resolutions to tighten the belt buckles and make do with California sparkling wine.

Proscuitto, basil and gruyere palmiers. Buttery, cheesy, flaky goodness and as usual Sue eats so many of the savory hors d'ouevres she barely has an appetite for dinner. Mom has no room to complain, because this is less a repeat than an outright habit. You two kill me. Mom, if you want Sue to eat a bigger dinner, make less hors d'ouevres. Or, just don't care. She's eating, for crying out loud.

Mom has always set a beautiful table, even when making us scrambled eggs and toast before sending us to catch the school bus.

One of her small collection of salt cellars.

A trusim. She loves her wine. Apples fall from trees and only roll so far.

Sunday Suppers at Lucques is Mom's favorite cookbook, she cooks from it often.

I love how she has it coded and dog-eared for herself using dozens of post-its. These are recipes she has already made or is planning on making in the foreseeable future. A deep and enduring love for the post-it note is an inherited trait, apparently. I love how Mom's passion for cooking has evolved over the years. Always a great cook, I remember her gourmet dinner parties in the 1970's, cress salad with Green Goddess dressing, making mac & cheese pre-trend from scratch with hand grated sharp cheddar and crispy thick bacon bits, Yorkshire pudding for Christmas dinner for as long as I can recall. Now that she works her behind off and does most of her major cooking for events and dinner parties, there is always something fancy afoot. A new recipe, a special ingredient, an ethnic perspective she hasn't played with yet. Reflecting Saturday night on her hobby, she said cooking is completely the opposite of practicing the law. And as a corporate bankruptcy attorney in this economic climate, I imagine anything that feels different from her 9-5 is a relief and a joy.

Last Saturday she cooked up Goins' Spicy Pork Stew with Polenta, Root Vegetables, Gremolata.

For some insane reason, she decided it was a little too spicy. In complete disagreement, I argued that if you get rid of the heat you simply are left with pork stew, not that this would be a bad thing. But it certainly wasn't overly spicy, and if anything when cooking this at home I might even bump the heat up a notch or so.

Green salad with frisee, cress, arugula, pear, bleu cheese crumbles and pomegranates picked from Sue's tree Saturday morning. Sue shelled those seeds with her own little hands a few hours after plucking the ripe fruit from her garden.

Mom also collects vintage and antique cookery and cutlery. The above silverware is mongrammed with an E, for Elizabeth supposedly. Elizabeth who? I have no clue.

Tossing the salad.

About this time we pulled out the Petite Syrah, 2004 Marilyn Remark from Monterey. Silky smooth and wonderful with against the spicy flavors of the pork and the richness of the polenta.

Midway through the meal, Mom took a break from eating to construct financiers, a little French almond cookie. Not like a macarons, because financiers also have flour and butter. A tiny bit like a madeleine, but denser and stickier.

She has had these little tin pans around for eons.

And also wanted to use the opportunity to try her hand at baking in silicon. Silicon is great for baking, easy in, easy out, easy cleaning.

Flour, almond meal and sugar.

This vintage measuring cup holds the egg whites. This belonged to Aunty Marge or Aunty Olive. And the Pyrex bowl in the back has been around since I was a child. I have used it myself for hundreds of concoctions.

Adding the egg whites to dry ingredients.

Folding.

Stirring in the melted butter.

And filling both the tin cookie shells...

and the silicon baking forms.

Naturally, I think the cookies from the tin turned out more charming. Also, more batter went in each tin shape, so the cookies didn't cook quite as thoroughly and were thus less dry, stickier.

But they all made a pretty plate.

And the late October sun set, mirrored in the little lake populated by ducks, geese and other water fowl here and there all busy heading south. I think they travel like most Californians and just follow the 5.

Gastrodeliciousness at Village Idiot

2009-10-21T05:37:00.000-07:00

Village Idiot
7383 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90046-7526
(323) 655-3331

Ridiculously behind in my posts, this is what a great deal of travel does to the lowly food blogger. A few weeks back, D and I stopped into Village Idiot during errand running after trying to find Ricky the fish taco guy near the Silver Lake Farmer's Market. Fail, on that front anyway. Gonna hafta give that another whirl because not only does Eat, Drink & Be Merry report in on Ricky's deliciousness, so does Diana Takes a Bite, Eating LA, Will from Food Digger, and the Twitterati (on the weekend, his name pops up consistently from noon through 4, both Saturdays and Sundays). I am nothing if not a trend hound. At any rate, our errands took us farther west and we landed at Village Idiot, B & M's local haunt.

The large chalkboard on the east wall tells visitors about their specials, a Sunday Roast, guest beers on tap, luncheons and brunches, their Twitter feed, and so on.

Beers and wines. I have stopped in a couple times, most memorably after a special benefit event at The Foundry in which they fed us almost nothing. S & I came over to the Idiot for delicious mussels. Telling is the fact that I haven't visited more. When passing by and spontaneously hungry, Village Idiot is usually bursting at the seams with drinkers and diners. This is why. The why of the burstingness.

Heirloom tomato and ricotta salad with large flat leaf parsley. The variegated stripes in these tomatoes made us think they were peeled, they were not and they were delicious. I like the surprise of ricotta instead of burrata here, but the salad was missing its red onion.

Squid salad with frisee, cherry tomatoes, arugula, preserved lemons. The flavor in this was immense from the preserved lemons. The greens being slightly overdressed can be forgiven because the squid were grilled to delicate, soft and easily chewable perfection.

Brussels sprouts with smoked bacon. YUM! The bacon chunks were huge, and the sprouts had a very present acidic note. Maybe balsamic? So good.

Echoing some of the flavor sensations of the Brussels sprouts was a grilled pork belly on collard greens with cooked apple slices. The salty pork, the slightly sour collards, the sweet apple. I have never had better pork belly anywhere. An incredibly Southern dish, this screams Americana. Gosh, I want it for lunch today and am sorry to be spending my time far east of the Village Idiot.

D ate fish tacos in the end, despite having missed Ricky. Suggestion has powerful influence on a hungry man's appetite. Snapper, grilled with cherry tomatoes, herbs, and onions. A giant cabbage salad, which we ate with a fork, not a tortilla. And a nice mound of little corn tortillas, fresh and warm if not housemade.

I wish we ate here more often, I wish we lived down the block.

Cougar in Training Hello Kitty Celebrates Her 35th Anniversary at Royal/T

2009-10-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

Royal/T

8910 Washington Blvd

Culver City, CA 90232-2326
(310) 559-6300

Three Apples

An Exhibition Celebrating 35 Years of

Hello Kitty

Royal/T-Culver City’s visually stunning and playful, 10,000-square-foot Japanese-inspired art exhibition space, “cosplay” maid café, and retail store—will house ‘Three Apples,’ a multi-dimensional exhibition and celebration of all things Hello Kitty running from October 23, 2009 to November 15, 2009. The various events within the three-week exhibit will be open to the public, and free of charge—all celebrating this beloved pop icon.

Appealing to fans and food lovers of all ages, ‘Three Apples’ (the title refers to Hello Kitty’s precise weight) will feature a special Hello Kitty-themed menu that will be offered at Royal/T’s maid café during the course of the exhibition. Waitresses dressed in playful maid uniforms with a Lolita-esque touch, will serve guests:

Hello Kitty Pancakes

Hello Kitty Waffles

and Kawaii High Tea, among other delicacies and delights.

Always a Hello Kitty fan, and someone who loves a birthday celebration, I only wish my goddaughter Alice was here to go with me. Afterward, we could embark on a shopping extravaganza at Forever 21, and get matching pedicures.

Upcoming events include:

Hello Kitty Fan Appreciation Party – Saturday Oct. 24^th Time: 10am-10pm
Hello Kitty Halloween Party – Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009 Time: 10am-6pm
Hello Kitty Birthday Party – Sunday, Nov. 1^st Time: 10am - 5pm

First 100 guests to each event will receive a goody bag created especially for the occasion.

Puppies at 3 Weeks, 1 Day

2009-10-20T07:40:00.000-07:00

Inca mothering her pups.

D falls in love.

Oh, hello.

1-2, littermate's coming for you.

3-4, zut alors!

5-6, bites not licks!

They.smell.amazing.

One in particular behaves wise beyond its weeks.

Sadly, I cannot tell them apart even after an hour playing with them.

They're all just fuzzy wuzzy widdle smoogey wooodgeys.

LOL.

Beautiful Inca takes a much needed break.

LA Luxury Chocolate Salon 2009: A Photoessay

2009-10-18T09:12:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles Luxury Chocolate Salon

The Pasadena Center
300 Green Street
Pasadena, CA
Sunday October 11
11 AM- 5PM

Sunday October 11th, we piled into the car and headed to Pasadena for some early morning chocolate tasting. Brunch came later. As a tasting panelist, I got to weigh in on the best in show in many different categories, including but not limited to: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, packaging, eco-friendly chocolate, specialty chocolates, luxury chocolate, and so on and so forth.

Walking down the stairs to the main hall, I was first greeted by some of my favorite packaging, Jade chocolates.

Chocolate covered eda mame. Nice concept, not the tastiest of the day but not bad either.

Mari Chocolates had my ultimate chocolate bite of the day.

Mari offered a lovely zinfandel infused chocolate, it was very subtle.

This chevre and chocolate truffle? Hands down the most wonderful chocolate I have probably ever tasted. The strong goaty flavor of the cheese with a warm, medium dark chocolate? This is mouth heaven. Nothing beat this all day. Not even my cocktails later at Rockwell.

Mari also offered a nice chipotle, but not enough heat here for me.

Ever since T's comment about rose flavored macarons and granny panties, I have steered clear of anything rose flavored. Although these look beautiful.

Alter Eco offered the first green chocolates I tasted of the day. Dark chocolate with almond.

Dark blackout, with intense cocoa powder.

I liked their regular dark cacao the best.

Dark chocolate velvet is a dark milk chocolate.

Farm Fresh to You was in the house with...

a big box of beautiful home delivery produce. About this time, these fruits and veggies were looking mighty tempting. Ooof.

Yelp had a presence and were giving away these adorable lunch boxes to try and attract new members. I was tempted to sign up for the giveaway because I love those lunch boxes, but I didn't think it was fair being that I have been a yelper for quite some time. However, I am far less frequent and consistent with my reviews since starting this blog. I think my last yelp said something like, "It's really great. I am too lazy to expound. Just trust me." Yelp somewhat unreliable? LOL.

Choclatique, a specialty chocolate house was in the mix.

Above is their seasonal ghost shaped liquor filled chocolates.

Above, their "Boo Box".

Choclatique would only let you sample one truffle, and I tried the Hot Hot Chocolate. Just under the top is a little marshmallow, beneath that is a chocolate fluid, and under that a layer of chipotle chocolate to give your mouth some heat. And hot is was. This was a really fun chocolate to eat.

Original Beans got my vote for best eco-offering. Green Daily blog reports that for every $13 3,5 oz bar you buy, Original Beans plants a cocoa tree in the area where the beans for your bar were harvested.

And I can attest to the deliciousness of both the Esmerelda's Milk chocolate bar with fleur de sel,

it was delicious with a subtle soft saltiness...

and the incredible pop of pomegranate from their pomegranate dark chocolate bar. This was hands down my favorite dark chocolate, but I think most people would categorize this as a flavored bar.

I love salted sweets, and Alcove won my heart and taste buds with their amazing fleur de sel offering. The fleur de sel in Alcove's bar is layered in between layers of chocolate, not mixed into the stuff. So you get the satisfying crunch of salt crystals as the chocolate melts away plus a stronger salt flavor.

Alcove also offers a pomegranate bar.

Far and away the spiciest chocolate in a room full of chipotle flavored chocolates was from Alcove as well. I was forewarned about the heat. I can take some heat, and while this was definitely the hottest in the room, it was still not challenging.

We had a lovely morning tasting chocolate, people watching and so on. The room was packed by the time we left, and if I can be honest I must say that people can be pretty pushy when it comes to tasting chocolate. I refuse to be rude for sweets, so I don't think I really got a fair tasting of all that was on offer. Later next year, at the potato chip luxury salon, lookout. I am bringing my cattle prod.

DineLA Night at XIV

2009-10-17T20:17:00.000-07:00

XIV
8117 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 656-1414

Friday night was the much anticipated DineLA dinner at XIV with L from Gastronomnom and his fiancee, the lovely and sweet A. L made the reservations weeks ago, and this was their 7th DineLA restaurant visit of this years's DineLA week(s). You may or may not know that DineLA is a series of weeks in which restaurants offer a 3-course prix fixe menu for a bargain price. The prix fixe at XIV was $44 per person, with an optional $21 wine pairing. There is much conversation around the interwebs about DineLA and whether some of the high end restaurants put out fare that rivals the quality of their normal menu. Worthy of note is that The Bazaar's DineLA menu is their regular menu. They simply ask that you order one from a selection of appetizers and three additional dishes anywhere from their menu. Personally, I am a huge Bazaar fan and knowing that I would be ordering from their regular menu would remove any doubt that a DineLA menu would somehow be dumbed down. L argues that the food comes from the same kitchen and the same cooks, however, I feel that the food at XIV on this visit was, while not of different quality in terms of ingredients, just not up to the same par in terms of flavor and interest as the food during my prior visit in December, 2008.

Choices on the menu for starters: Wagyu tataki skirt steak, corn soup, and beet salad with burrata.

Choices for entree include: Jidori chicken, asparagus risotto, and Alaskan halibut.

For dessert, XIV offered: dark chocolate cake, Nutella custard, and a root beer float.

Per usual, we started with individual portions of the warm naan with a creamy feta and herbs. Heavenly, as always.

L & I both chose the Wagyu skirt tataki. Wonderfully aromatic, well marinated, and cooked well done. Nothing to argue with here in terms of flavor, I love beef tataki.

The tataki was accompanied by a cherry tomato salad with micro greens and cucumber. This had an almost pickled taste to it, however the vegetables did not seem pickled. Fresh, bright and acidic. A nice counter to the sweet and savory of the tataki.

D ordered the beet & burrata salad, with a balsamic reduction, olive oil, arugula. I adore the earthy flavor of a beet, and this is a lovely little salad. However, I feel like the beet salad is such a predictable stand-by at so many restaurants, from those of the celebrity chefs to gastropubs, that it slightly surprised me to see it on at XIV. It's just a little too platitudiness. A ordered the beautiful corn soup, which although it tasted divine and luxurious, was incredibly unphotogenic.

Surprisingly, we all ordered the halibut. Most likely paying attention to my camera while everyone else was ordering, I was shocked when 4 halibuts arrives at the table. For a group of food people, how unadventurous! A generous portion of well cooked and incredibly moist meat, it was served in fish broth on a bed of kale, with cherry tomato halves and cantaloupe balls. Not a huge lover of the cantaloupe, here it worked perfectly. I loved the sweet melonious flavor popping against the slightly fishy taste of the halibut. This was a solid dish, flavor wise. If it were on the menu in a restaurant I frequent, I would order it often.

Not being inclined much toward the sweets, I let D steer me toward the chocolate cake. Really, not a chocolate cake in the true sense of the term. This was a long thin cake-like strip down the long narrow plate, chocolate stripes interspersed between peanut butter stripes.

At the end of my "cake" was a scoop of coconut gelato which was wonderful. Almost made up for the weird cake product thing stuff.

L chose the Nutella custard, said it was delicious.

Espresso.

In the end, I thought the amount of food, the choices and the portions were definitely a bargain at $44. Again, the quality of ingredients was above reproach. Somehow, however, the meal lacked a little of the thrill of my last visit. Previously, the food seemed so inspired. Also, the crowd has changed. When XIV first opened the crowd was incredibly elegant, Angelenos to whom dining is important populated the dining room, filled the bar. The room felt hushed, genteel. This last Friday's crowd was similar to the crowd cramming into the bar at Bazaar these days. The entire feel is that of a nightclub/restaurant akin to Mesa in Costa Mesa, but more Los Angeles in mood. Think: urgent, electrified, parvenu, and all the other axioms that describe nightlife in Los Angeles.

Nevertheless, the food was solid. And there is almost nothing that good company cannot overcome.

Dessert for Dinner at Restaurant Omakase in Riverside

2009-10-15T19:13:00.000-07:00

Restaurant Omakase

3720 Mission Inn Ave

Riverside, CA 92501-3216
(951) 788-8820

Traveling as frequently as I do for work and rarely to places with much in the way of culinary interest, (some might say that in California there should always be good Mexican food around, but how much Mexican can one eat? I eat a lot of Mexican), I was excited to discover Restaurant Omakase on my radar via a few restaurant review sites. Restaurant Omakase is not a Japanese restaurant. Rather, it is a restaurant that encourages the diner to allow themselves to be put into the chef's hands for creation of their meal at his whim in that given moment. Above, please see a list of possible ingredients that might be included in the chef's tasting menu the evening I dined at Restaurant Omakase. We did indeed cave on the 5-course tasting menu, and two of the ingredients from the list were utilized in our supper.

Above is the explanation Restaurant Omakase gives to its diners, describing the nature of a chef's menu and their boutique approach to wine. While unusual in a restaurant of this caliber to explain an omakase/chef's menu dining experience, I think it is worthwhile to have the qualifications in the menu as it is located in a neighborhood where dining experiences such as this are (next to Restaurant Omakase) non-existant.

I enjoyed my evening at RO with a good friend who is an adventurous and food loving soul. And a shutter bug. We both are learning how to use our DSLRs to their fullest, and there is nothing more fun than doing so with someone else engaged in the same activity. Playing with settings, macro lenses, lighting, composition, etc.

We started with a bottle of sparkling water.

I ordinarily don't garnish my bottled water with fruit. However, I learned from S. Irene Virbila in her 2008 review of Restaurant Omakase that the chef, Brien Clements, works in partner with the Citrus Variety Collection at nearby UC Riverside to offer beautiful local citrus. Additionally, Chef Clements gets much of his produce from Randy Reeves 1-acre plot of land nearby. This was true at the time of SIV's review, and still holds true to this day according to one of our servers. That orange slice was citrus perfection.

Our amuse-bouches of the evening were a pair of gougeres, a savory little pastry with cheese mixed right into the batter.

Occasionally, I have had gougeres where the cheese part is detectable from the batter. Here, however, the cheese was completely integrated into the batter, indecipherable in mouthfeel but detectable in flavor. (This was K's favorite course up until course 4).

For the first starter, fairytale pumpkin soup with soft cheese (ricotta), brioche croutons and vanilla oil. Autumnally delicious, but very very sweet. K has a much larger sweet tooth than I and she couldn't finish hers. It was wonderful, though, with the vanilla being subtle if you took a nice mixed spoonful of ingredients, more forward if the ratio of vanilla to other ingredients was a little higher.

For the third course, we were served Maine lobster over a salad of pear, radicchio & fennel with a spice emulsion.

This course was also delightful, the juiciness of the pear making the salad rather sweet. I tasted no spiciness in the spice emulsion. I am not sure what Chef Clements was going for here or what the ingredients were in the emulsion, seen to the bottom left of the above photo. The flavors were not so strong they overwhelmed the perfectly cooked lobster, but again, the impression this dish left was rather sweet on the palate.

My favorite course was a poussin two ways. The breast on top was roasted with a crispy herbed skin, and the leg underneath was perfectly confited. Surrounding the dish is a pomegranite jus (sweet), and underneath are chunks of butternut squash (sweet fall squash bounty) and curry oil. I thought this dish as a whole was soundly delicious. But again, a couple of sweet elements after all the sweet before. This dish was probably the most well balanced between sweet & savory with some acid and spice thrown in for good measure, but after the previous two sweet dishes, the refrain was tasting a little overly repetitive.

Cheese course. This was hands down K's favorite. To the right are thin slices of Pink Lady apple decorated with large sugar crystals. In the middle is a piece of brioche, reminding me very much of French toast. Crunchy not quite all the way through, and nicely buttery.

A goat cheese is the protagonist on this plate, doused in a lovely peppered honey.

For dessert, out strolls a chocolate lava cake with ginger ice cream. Everyone loves a molten chocolate cake. EVERYONE, don't lie. However, a molten chocolate cake is nothing special to me. I could order this at the Cheesecake Factory. It wasn't special and I didn't eat it. For my palate, Chef Clements should have reversed the order of the courses, omitting the molten cake and serving me instead the fairytale pumpkin soup for dessert.

I was disappointed by a few things the other night at Restaurant Omakase. I came expecting the chef to create some dishes extemporaneously. However, nearly everything we ate came directly from the regular menu. Soup, on the menu. The salad under the lobster was a small course from the menu. Poussin, on the menu. Molten cake, not on the menu and has no place in a restaurant with these aspirations.

Service was genial but fast. So fast they nearly served us the next course while clearing the previous course. I have both read and been told by previous diners that the wine pairing brings the 5 course prix fixe from $60 to $100, however my server that evening gave me an entirely different impression. Perhaps he misspoke when he stated that wine parings for the $60 "omakase" were an additional $100. Reading a review elsewhere prior to my visit, I thought it was $100 including wine pairings, which I might have caved on. But given the rapidity of our service, I doubt I could have done justice to a $100 wine pairing, or even a $40 wine paring whichever the truth may be.

What I did love? My company. I haven't known K long, nor do I see her often. But when I do, it's always like I have known her forever and see her every single day. And that made the meal perfection.

Saturday Morning Brunch

2009-10-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

There is nothing more beautiful on a Saturday morning than a quick little brunch a deux, sitting heads bowed together, scheming to take over the universe. On my way home from spinning off tomorrow's Chocolate Salon tasting, I stopped at the store, grabbed some fresh ingredients (because I admit to having no clue what came in the CSA box Thursday) and dashed home to put heat under the poaching water.

Half a dozen organic brown eggs. I love a brown egg, the little speckles on the shell. For me, this is an aesthetic issue. I would have to do a side by side taste test to see if there were a marked difference between brown and white flavor-wise.

Poaching eggs with some vinegar added to the bath helps prevent feathering. My haphazard methodology of tossing the eggs into the bath instead of placing them gently almost negates the use of the vinegar. However, I use balsamic vinegar instead of white because I love the rich flavor of a balsamic.

For the asparagus, drizzle EVOO into the pan and add freshly chopped garlic, sea salt and ground pepper.

Pan frying the asparagus give the tips a beautiful crispness, and helps me to keep an eye on their progress more easily preventing overcooking. I always overcook steamed asparagus.

Lox, from a plastic envelope in the deli section. Not the same quality lox one might find while ordering room service at the Four Seasons, but delicious nonetheless.

The finished product. Some might not like the brown coloring from the balsamic vinegar in the poaching bath, but I do. The flavor was wonderful all around, and my tummy is full of Saturday morning goodness.

I dedicate this post to Verv & Moto, who both much prefer home cooking posts to restaurant reviews. Consider this the first of many to come and a warm up for a new project.

Umami Wednesday: Sous Vide, is it?

2009-10-09T06:52:00.000-07:00

Umami Burger
4655 Hollywood Blvd
Los Feliz, CA 90027
http://www.umamiburger.com/

Wednesday early evening we hopped on the 4 heading west toward Los Feliz and the thus far elusive Umami burger experience. This is the first fall evening in 2009 that I can recollect needing to wear a long sleeved sweater and scarf. It feels like a cool October this year, has the fall chill come early?

Umami is cool fo' sho, and that's all there is to that. We were shown to a table next to owner Adam Fleishmen wining and dining a couple gentlemen. He was telling them in depth several times about the sous-vide cooking process of Umami Burger's meat when Steve Arroyo, hanging out with some family members, strolled over to say hello. We overheard Adam congratulating Steve on the design of the interior. Some research leading me to LA Times blogs informs that Steve and Adam are in partnership in the post Cobras & Matadors space. A lot more eavesdropping on the table next door, more or less involuntarily, informs that Adam plans to open several more Umamis all over LA. An Umami empire, if you will. Drive-thru?

The interior is beyond beguiling. The giant Chow Fun neon light leads one directly into Salaryman, the ante-bar to the northwest of the restaurant. Tempted to eat at the bar, but instead choosing the main dining room gave me a good feel of the dark moodiness coupled with a not-overly kitsch Japanese atmosphere.

A giant chalkboard reveals all the burgers Umami offers in Los Feliz, as well as a special off-the-menu salad.

Turkey Miso Burger: this tempted me hugely, but they were sold out.
Triple Pork Burger: Triple how? Chorizo, bacon and ground pork. That's how.
Eponymous Umami Burger: Parmesan, roasted tomatoes, shiitake mushrooms, onion.
Hatch Burger: Spicy, with four types of green chile.
Socal Burger: Butter lettuce, oven dried tomato spread, housemade processed cheese (WTF?), caramelized onions.
Manly Burger: Flexing its muscles and burping while watching ESPN with beer cheddar, smoked salt onion strings, bacon lardons. (I missed an opportunity here.)
Truffle Burger: Italian truffle cheese and truffle glaze.
Casablanca Burger: Lamb, pickled apricots, and pomegranate aioli. (WHY do they not have a more descriptive menu? WHY? WHY? It's descriptive, but barely.

The drinks menu is brief almost to the point of abbreviatedly non-existent. With only a beer & wine license, Umami offers a few wines by the glass. The above Pinot Blanc was very well chosen to be perfect with the bold and unctuous flavors of the burgers. Also on the drinks menu is a nice list of beers, featuring several from the adorable Hitachino label (2% owl) including the White Ale and Red Rice Ale. I want a full bar in there, Salaryman is begging for it. With it I think will come a busy and enduring bar business. Steve Arroyo is bar-centric enough to have exactly that in his line of vision.

Apparently there are a lot of plans afoot for the menu. Eating LA reports Lobster Rolls are coming soon, and Eater LA chimes in that this new space on Hollywood will be offering oysters, steak and "green" fried chicken. We are still waiting on those developments. What we did eat off the pretty basic burger joint menu with sophisticated twists and turns....

Picked veg. Pickled zucchini, carrots, crimini mushrooms, pearl onions, okra and cucumbers. Delish. Every bite. Pickled okra is one of my favorite things on the planet, and this was done perfectly. I can tell the okra are house pickled, because they are not so pickled that the freshness of the veg is not retained. They were fantastic, seasonal and crunchy with no slime. The zucchini was also wonderful. When they get a full liquor license, I hope they offer the house pickled onions for my vodka Gibson.

I personally caved on the truffle burger, quel surprise. It was a delicious burger, refreshingly not oversized nor undersized. Bigger than a McDonald's standard burger, but smaller than an In n' Out double-double. Just right for my size appetite, as long as I don't inhale fries as well.

Not overtly truffley. Italian truffle cheese was subtle, as was the truffle glaze. I definitely tasted truffle but the flavor of the beef was not beaten into submission by truffle. I didn't specify cooking instructions, and mine arrived cooked medium. It was durn tasty, and I really like their choice of bun. Not too sweet, not overpowered by the juiciness of the meat, and yet not too dry or stiff. Succeed.

The meat was good, but I was left with a curiousness from overhearing Adam expound upon the sous-vide approach to burger making at the next table. He said it is a very fast process, while from what I understand about sous-vide from my own research, Top Chef and Chef Meehan at Cafe Pinot DTLA, is that sous-vide is a slow cooking process wherein ingredients are vacuum packed and sealed into plastic bags, then cooked slowly in a relatively low temperature water bath. Sooooo...do they sous-vide par-cook the meat, then grill it real quick? That might make some sense. A second visit to Umami is warranted by my dining companion's excitement over his So-Cal Burger (which was fantastic) and then I will explore more. Honestly, my waitress was sweet as summertime honey, but I am kind of surprised she found her way to work. I didn't want to confuse her with a barrage of questions lest she fade into the ether. Next time I come in, I am going to eat at the bar and grill the bartender for more details on the mysterious cooking of the many tempting Umami burgers.

We also nommed on both the Skinny Fries and the Sweet Potato Fries. Sweet Potato Fries were better, Skinny Fries needed salt. Umami Ketchup, a feature on the menu, was nothing special.

But, um, yeah...the ice cream sandwiches? ZOMG.

The young lady sitting on the banquette next to me, admittedly addicted to the Manly Burger & an Umami regular, insisted we order the Chocolate Mint ice cream sandwedge. Yes, sandwedge.

It may be hard to tell from the pic above, but let me describe its wonderfulness. CY, listen up. Mint chocolate chip ice cream in between two giant green macarons (remember, macarons are gluten free CY, made from almond flour), dipped deeply and thickly in chocolate. CY, this has your name all over it. Get down here while you are still with fetus and feed it one of these. It.was.fanfuckingtastic.

My other good friend, The Count, would love both the light fixtures and the nod to American patriotic practices. Could it really be a trendy Japanese themed spot without some wink at Americana? No, it could not.

By the time we left at about 9:30, the restaurant was packed with trendoids & hipsters stuffing their faces with sous-vide cooked burgers topped with various kinds of deliciousness. On both sides, the tables were full. The east and the west.

Late Summer Fig in Santa Monica

2009-10-06T18:46:00.000-07:00

Fig
Fairmont Miramar
101 Wilshire Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90401
310.319.3111

The proper way to eat a fig, in society,

Is to split it in four, holding it by the stump,

And open it, so that it is a glittering, rosy, moist, honied, heavy-petalled four-petalled flower.

A few weeks back, on a lazy late summer Sunday riding our bikes through Santa Monica, down to Venice and back again, we decided to sup at Fig. Fig good. Worth a drive over the hill and through the woods for with a resounding, why YES!

Then you throw away the skin

Which is just like a four-sepalled calyx,

After you have taken off the blossom with your lips.

Fig is located in the posh Santa Monica Fairmont Miramar hotel, but don't be overly put off by the poshnessossity. Fig is more or less normal restaurant price, a lot less expensive than Melisse or Bistro LQ, and a bit spendier than Church & State. The bar is stunning, and we would have settled there had there been even the tiniest space to squeeze ourselves into.

But the vulgar way

Is just to put your mouth to the crack, and take out the flesh in one bite.

Decor is ever so reminiscent of an upscale Westwood home, circa 1970-something, owned by a professor and his bohemian wife. Lots of wooden earthy details, spare glitz, dish towel napkins in walnut rings.

Every fruit has its secret.

And there is diversity to the seating arrangements, not a bad seat in the house. We sat toward the front of the restaurant, great for people watching. The rear overlooks the pool and an expansive patio.

The fig is a very secretive fruit.

As you see it standing growing, you feel at once it is symbolic:

And it seems male.

But when you come to know it better, you agree with the Romans, it is female.

We started with one of our favorite wines, one we have never seen on a menu. Sean Thackrey Pleiades.

The Italians vulgarly say, it stands for the female part; the fig-fruit:

The fissure, the yoni,

The wonderful moist conductivity towards the centre.

Balsamic herb butter, salt cellar.

We started with chicken liver pate, a country pate, rough texture with beautiful cornichons and chunks of seat salt.

Involved,

Inturned,

The flowering all inward and womb-fibrilled;

And but one orifice.

We shared one of the most elegant mussel dishes I have ever had, with grilled bread, a garden's worth of herbs, white wine and butter broth in this beautiful Staub cast iron pan. To the left there is a little grate, slightly separating the crunchy bread from sinking too deeply into the broth, yet allowing it to suck up the flavorful juice from the bottom like a straw. My mouth is watering.

The fig, the horse-shoe, the squash-blossom.

Symbols.

We both ordered steak au poivre, mine accompanied by a beautiful little salad with early grapefruit slices, giant cloves of roasted garlic and bleu cheese butter.

D ordered his with a giant mound of herbaceous frites and housemade catsup, very very tomatoey.

There was a flower that flowered inward, womb-ward;

Now there is a fruit like a ripe womb.

We passed on dessert, not because it wasn't wildly tempting...chocolate pot de creme, strawberry shortcake, Meyer lemon curd. But mainly because we had shot our wad appetite wise on our appies and entrees. A'hem.

It was always a secret.

That's how it should be, the female should always be secret.

Even the bill presentation was in keeping thematically with the ambience and decor. Tim Zebrowski (Del Coronado Hotel, San Diego, Eden Roc Hotel Miami Beach) is responsible for the interior. Way to follow through conceptually, Tim.

There never was any standing aloft and unfolded on a bough

Like other flowers, in a revelation of petals;

Silver-pink peach, venetian green glass of medlars and sorb-apples,

Shallow wine-cups on short, bulging stems

Openly pledging heaven:

Here's to the thorn in flower! Here is to Utterance!

The brave, adventurous rosaceæ.

Till the drop of ripeness exudes,

And the year is over.

Excerpts of poetry from Figs, by D.H. Lawrence. Who else can write that legitimately porny, quoted in my blog, with me still holding my head high in public? Not Penthouse Forum, that's for sure. Not saying I checked.

Oyster Afternoon at Bouchon, Las Vegas

2009-10-05T18:30:00.000-07:00

Bouchon
The Venetian
3355 Las Vegas Blvd S
Las Vegas, NV 89109-8941
(702) 414-6200

With the ladies spread in disparate corners for the daylight hours of our lovely little girls' weekend, I found myself with time on my hands. Following a good sweat in the gym of the Canyon Ranch Spa Club, I was only in the company of a decent appetite. Oysters on the half shell and champagne were calling me from all over Vegas, the loudest call being right down the hall from my room.

Thomas Keller's Bouchon is located in the labyrinthine Venezia Tower portion of the Venetian, and I found my way there relying on my infamous Native American sense of direction and equally innate desire for fizz.

During the late weekend afternoon, post-brunch and pre-dinner service, a small menu is offered.

Limited, with some of the usual suspects. Raw bar, terrine de foie gras, salmon rilletes, marinated olives, quiche, tartine du jour (salade nicoise), and a croque madame.

Enjoying watching the staff close down parts of the restaurant and prep others, I pulled out a magazine and sipped at Lucien Albrecht Cremant d'Alsace.

The least expensive of the five bubbles offered by the glass, it was perfectly suitable and wonderful with the oysters. A smooth and vibrant taste, without a lot of sugar lingering on the back of the tongue.

I am more than a little in love with the long metal bar. My first visit to Bouchon left me dissatisfied. D and I had been to Paris within the previous 6 months and Bouchon, while definitely French bistro in nature, lacked the grit of any neighborhood or popular bistro in Paris. It felt pre-fab, to an authentic French bistro what the Palm Islands of Dubai are to the Atafu atoll in Tokelau.

This trip I was less critical. Following one girly day of traveling, shopping, drinking and dining with more to come that evening, I was blissed out and everything made me happy. Or maybe Bouchon is just that charming.

Unable to resist a kusshi oyster, I nommed on half a dozen of these.

And while I enjoy oysters with simply a little lemon squeeze, the mignonette was carefully made not too acidic, and the cocktail sauce with just enough bite.

Kusshi are from British Columbia, and as noted in an earlier post, kusshi are made to mimic a kumamoto but tumbled during the growing cycle to deepen the cup of the shell.

Porny oyster perfection.

The charming barman and I chatted about oysters, those from B.C being his favorite. However, he had never tried the second B.C. oyster on offer, Deep Bay. Above is the one I tried. It is brinier than a kusshi, a little saltier. Kusshi, FTW.

Still hungry, I ordered the salmon rilletes. Smoked and fresh salmon in a little hinge-lid canning jar. Above my favorite barman of the afternoon lifts off the butter seal for me.

Served to be spread on crackers, or toasted bread.

It was beautiful, but I really ate most of it with a fork.

I could have been at Bouchon, Yountville. I was well taken care of, the staff went about their business with a hushed pleasantness. Late in my meal I was brought back to shockingly entertaining Vegas reality when two swimsuit clad middle-agers approached the bar requesting a Long Island Ice Tea and a blended Bellini. My barman didn't bat an eye. Not a lot of swimsuit wearing 60 year olds in the wine country. Just saying.

Puppies at 5 Days

2009-10-02T06:29:00.000-07:00

Top Chef Obsessed: Marcel Vigneron Cooking Hatchi at Breadbar, Century City 12/17

2009-09-30T18:19:00.000-07:00

Hatchi at Breadbar
10250 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90067
310 277 3770

What is this Hatchi thing at Breadbar, you might ask? You have read me waxing on about Chef Ludo Lefebvre at Breadbar in Beverly Hills here, here and here. Now I am at it again, rubbing my hands together after tasting Chef Marcel's food at The Grove last week. Breadbar's website explains Hatchi:

"Series: 8 Plates at 8 Dollars. This unique venture features a different guest chef every month preparing an original, one-night-only suite of eight plates, including six 'savory' dishes and two 'sweet' creations. Guests can enjoy as few or as many of the eight dishes as they would like, so make sure to reserve a table for these outstanding culinary collaborations!"

And Marcel is up to bat December 17th. Thus far, December 17th is too far in advance for reservations through the Opentable system. Who do I gotta pay to secure a reservation for me and the hubs?

Rockwell, VT via Los Feliz

2009-09-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

Rockwell, VT
1714 N. Vermont Ave
(enter off alley behind Vermont Restaurant)
Los Angeles, CA 90027
323-669-1550

This weekend I was surprised to see how aged the sign is behind my long beloved Vermont Restaurant. Vermont has been open since I lived in Hollywood, back in 2000-2001, and we used to be regulars there, very regular. At the time there was a dearth of high/middle-end restaurants on the East Side. The Arclight hadn't opened (or was just in the process), Magnolia, Bowery, Mission Catina, Blair's, Edendale...all yet to come. Time flies. And the Vermont sign along the alley ages.

Between my last visit to Vermont and Sunday September 27th, the back end of Vermont has been taken over by Rockwell, VT. Josh, our wonderful server Sunday, spun a long and drawn out story about how some of the people behind Mark's in West Hollywood are involved. I was unable to keep the story straight, although I am sure T did and will email me the details which I can then insert here. Per Eater LA, Vermont chef Stephanie Beaucamp is responsible for the menu and Steve Trowbridge of Rhetroactive is responsible for the gorgeous interior/exterior.

Interior/exterior indeed, as very little of Rockwell is actually inside. Not going to be destination spot during the rare Southern California rain, it is nevertheless beautifully suited (given strategically placed heat lamps) for all two Los Angeles seasons.

Main room downtstairs.

Small covered area in the rear downstairs.

The main covered area downstairs. Not sure how many square feet this is, but someone with the bottom line in mind was wise enough to cover the bar and have several deep comfy booths well covered, and well air conditioned despite the wide open walls.

Main bar, with a small service bar upstairs. Another bar of this proportion is currently in the works for upstairs bar-flying as well.

I became pictorally obsessed with the giant jars of dry goods in the window behind our booth.

Slight sunset light shining through the jars revealed shapes, textures and colors beautifully.

Nothing edible.

Yet the shapes called to me, reminding me of working with dried flowers and leaves for a few years at a florist in Sacramento during my early twenties.

Upstairs is even more square footage, a surprising amount actually.

A lovely loungey booth area in the front as you come up the stairs from the main room.

And if you follow the path around, you come to another slightly more private booth area. This is a perfect spot for a fire pit of some sort, but the hole in the middle of this platform seating is probably just for cocktails.

We visited during their post-soft opening period. Next week is Rockwell's official grand opening party weekend, to which we were invited but are all previously committed. I would have certainly come otherwise.

Next weekend a full Sunday brunch begins.

And I will definitely be hitting that sometime before the air chills.

The food was simple but good.

They offer some lovely cocktails, I am tempted by the Autumn with Hangar One Frasier River vodka, crushed raspberries, basil and lime. And when the weather does cool off, the Lovely Pear made from honey infused Bullett bourbon, pear liquer and chilled pear nectar.

Composed of mostly small plates, we started with rosemary creamed corn white corn, in which I tasted nary a leaf of rosemary. Still, it was pleasant enough.

A simple macaroni and cheese, baked in the oven and served in its own pan. With extremely light sauce, light in texture, I didn't find this interesting at all. It certainly tasted fine, but its not a destination mac & cheese.

Monday Meatballs. Good. Sitting in a little puddle of tomato sauce and olive oil, sprinkled with parmesan cheese. Mmmm. Meeeat balllls.

Brussels sprouts were outstanding. Pan seared with pancetta and balsamic vinaigrette, these had a salty sweet slightly vinegary taste, if these crossed my path at Thanksgiving it would be all over for the turkey.

The now beyond ubiquitous sliders. Sliders are wildly and repetitively beat-me-over-the-head-with-your-A-list-rating popular for a reason. If there were tabloids for food, sliders would appear on the cover as often as Lindsay Lohan falling out of a nightclub appears on the cover of US Weekly. More delicious than Lindsay these days, sliders are big in flavor and small enough in stature for a gaggle of PYTs to share for pre-booze binge tummy coating. Rockwell's are made from Kobe beef, with a delicious shallot marmalade and bleu cheese fondue.

I thought the bun was delicious and did not get unpleasantly drenched from the juices of the beef. Maybe this is because the patty well cooked and no longer very juicy. These would be perfection in my mouth if they were served medium-rare. Remember to ask.

We were unanimously apeshit for the flat breads. We ordered gouda, goat cheese, shredded parmigiana, mozzarella, roasted tomato sauce and wild arugula. This was no holds barred delicious. Not even a pizza fanatic, I would go back just for this. Success. A little thicker in the crust than I normally like on a flat bread, the bread itself was light yet supportive of all the wonderful cheesey ingredients. Arugula was sharp and tasty, and the tomato flavor was nicely softened by the roastedness.

Lovely and tropical garnishes at the bar. The now more and more common lychee nuts, star fruit, lemongrass and sugar cane. Sweet.

I started with a tall Absolute LA vodka and soda garnished with lime wedge and sugar cane...

and finished with a tall Kai lychee infused vodka and soda garnished with an orchid and lychee. Lychee is my Achille's heel.

The boys demanded dessert and we caved on a chocolate chip cookie skillet, vanilla bean ice cream, caramel and chocolate sauce. Everyone swooned at the warm deliciousness.

Mmmm.

To recap: we pressured the staff gently to let us in the open doors at 3:55, though truly they didn't open til 4. Starting next Sunday, brunch from 9AM to 4PM, then hopefully they will shift to the regular menu. Atmosphere, outstanding. Service, perfection really. I didn't wax on about service here at all, but we were really well taken care of. Food, some hits and some misses but overall very good for what I consider to be more of a cocktail lounge/drinking hole. It's a short bike ride away from my house, an even shorter bus trip and in some situations a brief taxi ride. I foresee myself spending time here a lot with friends in the early evenings before the younger Los Feliz/Silverlake crowd comes out to play. Cannot wait to see what's on offer for happy hour.

And the sun begins to set on the weekend.

Two boys, two girls.

2009-09-27T06:47:00.001-07:00

The puppies are here!

That is all.

Psst: This was my 301st post.

Cheftestant Cook-Off: Bravo's Marcel Vigneron vs. Food Network's Jeffrey Saad

2009-09-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

TV Celebrity Chef Cook-Off
Los Angeles Magazine
The Grove
189 The Grove Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Chef Marcel Vigneron of Top Chef Season 2 now sous cheffing under Jose Andres at The Bazaar.

vs

Chef Jeffrey Saad of The Next Food Network Star, now making cooking videos as Ingredient Smuggler for The Food Network.

When did celebrity cook-offs become to the early 2000's what American Bandstand was to the 1960's? I have not been tracking this cultural zeitgeist since its genesis, only purposefully for the last 2 years or so, and probably circumstantially in my mind for the past 6 years. We (the universal we) now DVR religiously at least one cooking show, care where our produce was grown, know the hours of several local farmer's markets and have read both the biography of Alice Waters and the raunchy early memoirs of Anthony Bourdain. And apparently we squee like stuck pigs when the handsome Marcel Vigneron messes with a nitro charge and swoon at the sight of sexy Jeff Saad gesticulating over how to get a good sear on some seafood.

After attending and writing about the Rosa Mexicano opening party earlier this week, Shauna from The Valentine Group LA took note and invited me to sit at the media table for Los Angeles Magazine's Celebrity Cook-Off at The Grove. This was their third celebrity cook-off, and the most well attended. Also demo'ing for us were chefs from The Cheesecake Factory, Maggiano's, Morel's and The Farm. As these four chefs cooked, little plates carrying samples of their food circulated through the crowd for everyone to taste. Let me set the stage for you.

Each table was set with several bottles of Evian, event placard, linens & cutlery, etc. It looked quite posh actually, the Valentine Group did a great job.

There were quite a lot of tables, each sitting a maximum of 6. Someone mentioned afterward there had been 250+ people viewing the event. Impressive.

Other sponsors included Malibu Family Wines serving Semler Merlot and...

many bottles of Saddlerock Ranch Chardonnay.

Seemingly endless bottles of wine passed by our table, and magically stopped there until they were empty. Also, at my table, in addition to the wine, were: Yolanda the ubiquitous journalist who writes the Plywood Reports for Eater LA, Andrea who writes an Easy Meals column for the L.A. Examiner (with Brendan her manpanion), and John from Social Domain. Great food, lots of wine and good company? Winning combo any night of the week.

Viking Ranges were also a sponsor. All the chefs cooked on one of these babies.

Does want.

Our hosts were, from the left: Leo Quinones of KCRW,

and in the aloha shirt, Merrill Schindler of Zagat.

This series of pics was too good to resist.

First chef up to bat was Scott Ross of Maggiano's. From Maggiano's website I learn that although they are a chain, every Maggiano's has a head chef and every dish is made from scratch. Good to know. Chef Scott made for us a beef braciole. Above Scott, from his mouth to your ears, "beats his meat" before rolling the beef cutlet around ground beef, Italian vegetables and asiago cheese. He then cooks the roll in a red wine and tomato sauce.

Above is his finished product. It looks gorgeous and I can clearly see the wrap.

Above is the piece handed out to the audience. It tasted great, however I was not getting the wrap experience. Both John and Yolanda said it was easy to tell with their piece that it was something wrapped around something else. However, mine simply reminded me of a delicious Italian sausage. The piece shared with the audience was made in the kitchen set up in a giant white tent behind the event floor as opposed to being made by the chef onstage.

Also cooking for us in the initial set of demos was Eric Bouloud (sp?) from Morel's French restaurant at The Grove. I have eaten at Morel's many times with D, before or after shopping and/or the occasional movie. Conversing about my dining experiences there with John led to the start of a rich discussion about food in L.A., how most people deem acceptable very mediocre food experiences as part of L.A. culture. Sadly, our environment was very loud and interactive, the conversation had to be put off. But we plan to get back to it. One of the reasons I am interested in John's opinion is that not only is he an L.A. native, but he is an L.A. native who loves L.A. Typically people bemoaning L.A. are not from L.A. and will use any platform to express their disdain for our fair city. Not a native myself, I nevertheless have a deep love of Los Angeles and am always fascinated to hear critique about the city in which I make my home by someone who loves it as much as I do.

Nevertheless, Chef Eric was making boeuf bourgignon. Above he explains how to make a great celery root/potato puree and the process of caramelization. Chef Eric uses half celery root for flavoring the puree and half potato to get the flavor just right.

This was one of the two best bites of the evening. While my picture is not great (again, camera learning curve and all), the flavor of this was sickly delicious. My mouth is watering for it again, right now at 10 in the morning. The meat was tender, the celery root puree was smooth without being gloopy and had just the right proportion of heft to lift in its texture. Omnomnomnom.

Next up is Chef Hans Goplen from The Farm of Beverly Hills. Not to be confused with L.A. Farm where Top Cheftestant Stefan is now cooking. Apparently their schtick is that they too make everything from scratch. I don't think this can be a schtick for much longer. These days people dining in any restaurant more reputable than a Denny's expects scratch. Whether or not they are getting it is another blog post altogether. Chef Hans demo'd a chicken pot pie.

Chef Hans' beautiful chicken pot pie.

Our personalized mini versions of the pie. How fricking cute is this? It was good. If I were craving a pot pie, I would go to The Farm for one. The crust was light and in the veggies and meat in the pie sat atop mashed potatoes. What's not to love?

For some reason in all my gazillions of pics from the evening, I did not get one of the chef cooking for The Cheescake Factory. A little cheesy trivia? The Cheesecake Factory at The Grove is the highest grossing Cheesecake Factory per square foot of any in the chain. Out of 146. And it ain't small. The chef cooked us a "jambalaya". Served on pasta, instead of rice. It was meh. I hate to say it, but definitely Cheesecake Factory food. Not bad but definitely not a true jambalaya, no rice and the flavors didn't seem melded together quite right.

What wasn't meh was a tiny portion of The Cheesecake Factory cherry cheesecake. Not passionate about cheesecake, I admit The Cheesecake Factory makes a decent one. Yolanda was loving it. Loving.

Please note my Sharpie. I am a Sharpie whore.

After all the drooling and snacking, and snacking and drinking, and drinking and chatting it was finally time for the celebrity portion of the evening. There were to be three judges of Chef Marcel's and Chef Jeffrey's food, two from sponsors (Viking Ranges and 2010 Buick Lacrosse) and yours truly. Yes, I got to help judge Chef Marcel's and Chef Jeffrey's food, and ZOMG it was so exciting. Also chosen was one random member of the audience. They instructed that it be a "normal" person, not a professional chef, not media, just someone who loves food.

The women went wild.

I am surprised no one threw panties.

They chose Tina, from L.A. She doesn't cook at all, and she loves Top Chef. Honestly, she did a great job. She was thoughtful and reflective about both chefs' food.

Marcel Vigneron approaches the stage, with entourage and security. I am serious.

Part of Marcel's entourage was the blonde hottie above, Steve the chef for Monsieur Marcel at The Original Farmer's Market. I can imagine a spin-off pilot...Celebrity Chef Entourage.

Chef Jeffrey is incredibly animated.

Not fully appreciating how dynamic he was on The Next Food Network Star, I wonder now if the episodes were edited to play down his dynamism, or if he was just having a hard time coming out of his shell on camera.

I found him to be warm, approachable and passionate. One of my table companions found him to be a bit over the top. I think his personality will really translate to TV. I was impressed with his enthusiasm and sweet way with this fans.

He was this kind to everyone who approached him.

Marcel's affect is much quieter, more studious, more focused.

Occasionally while working he would simply toss the detritus of his efforts over his shoulder prompting Leo to comment on the dangers of standing behind Chef Marcel.

He spent much time focusing on the tools of his molecular gastronomic approach and only toward the end did he engage the audience and show some wit, leading me to wonder if some of that Malibu Family Wine had made it down his gullet while he was working.

Onto the food. Both chefs had $100 dollars to spend to feed 5 people an appetizer and an entree. Above, Marcel holds up the kaffir limes he brought with him, explaining the dishes he will prepare.

Kaffir Lime "smoked at the moment" Day Boat U-10 Scallops with Cauliflower Cous Cous.
Seared Lamb with Figs and Deconstructed Tzatziki.

Below while holding up his Chinese long beans, Jeffrey commits the faux pas of telling us he bought his produce at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market and not the Original Farmer's Market here on the premises. Ruh roh.

Jeffrey cooks:

Chinese Long Beans in Hoisin with Peanuts.
Scallop, Prawn and White Fish in Lemongrass Broth.

The four judges are provided the following clip board to rate the chefs' food on a scale of 1-5 in three categories. Flavor, presentation and originality.

First Jeffrey's food.

food photos courtesy of Andrea Torng of Easy Meals Examiner and Run to Live

Chinese long beans in hoisin. This was tasty but not particularly interesting or innovative. Accesible though, and I think most people could easily recreate this at home. Not a huge fan of Chinese food, but I adore long beans.

food photos courtesy of Andrea Torng of Easy Meals Examiner and Run to Live

Pre-broth, Chef Jeff's seafood. One large scallop, prawn and white fish over which he pours a fragrant lemongrass broth. One of my favorite preparations of seafood, this was delicious, healthy and again unchallenging. Something I have been seeing in restaurants for years and have made at home many times.

food photos courtesy of Andrea Torng of Easy Meals Examiner and Run to Live

From Chef Marcel's mise-en-place comes...

food photos courtesy of Andrea Torng of Easy Meals Examiner and Run to Live

Smoked seared scallop sitting in cauliflower cous cous and a tom khai emulsion. Thai flavors are very forward in this dish, and the purple and white cous cous is actually made from cauliflower in the shape of cous cous. Although I have experienced the smoking sensation at The Bazaar before with a salmon dish, the spectacle is quite the crowd pleaser. The scallops are over salted, which Marcel must have been worried about because he asked. I said no, meaning yes.

food photos courtesy of Andrea Torng of Easy Meals Examiner and Run to Live

However, his lamb dish was the best thing I tasted all night. Perfectly seared little lamb chops medium rare with beautiful in-season figs. The deconstructed tzatziki was what blew me away. All the flavors of a regular tzatziki were there, the yogurt, cucumber, dill, and some lemon zest. What was beautiful about this deconstruction was the treatment of the cucumber. Chef Marcel had used something akin to a melon baller to make perfect little spheres of cucumber. It's hard to see in the background of Andrea's shot there, but the presentation of this dish and particularly the tztaziki was lovely.

x = number of years as a math teacher, y = years as an educational consultant. Therefore, 4 (10x + 3y) = I am an incredible nerd. Not only did I take charge of counting the ballots, but I recounted the tally three times, checked my work and considered the reasonableness of the outcome. What really struck me was the facts that: a) no one else wanted to count the ballots, and b) everyone just took my word for it, and a couple of the people looked like the counting of said ballots was somehow confusing and awe inspiring. I think this reflection seals the coffin on my self-identification as a nerd. I can hear the dirt falling on the wooden roof of my sarcophagus as I consider what color pocket protector will go with my favorite Ella Moss top, and if I need a calculator more complicated than the one on my iPhone.

The tally was very close, surprisingly so from my perspective. But I think the tally accurately reflected differences in food tastes and my own bias against hoisin sauce. However, Marcel won by about 12 points, IIRC.

It was a wonderful evening with pleasant company, good food and too much wine for driving. Many thanks to Shauna and The Valentine Group for their excellent hosting and mad party throwing skills.

Review Sans Pics: Le Saint Amour

2009-09-26T10:48:00.000-07:00

Love the atmosphere at Saint Amour. Brightly lit casual French bistro in the true sense of the word bistro (unlike Bistro LQ which is decidedly NOT a bistro). Short but sweet list of wines by the glass, French focused but with a few New World options. Menu all French bistro: Moules Frites, Frisee au Lardons, Charcuterie, L'escargot, Saucisson Lyonais on Lentils, Boudin Noir, Steak au Poivre avec Frites, etc.

The concept is simple and lovely, the execution could be better. Charcuterie meats were overly oily, moules were small and just a hair over cooked, french fries were not salty enough (quel dommage), and my BIL's steak was just meh.

What I do like? I liked my server, a tall handsome French man who did an excellent job of choosing wine to go with my meal. I loved the butter lettuce salad, lightly dressed in a balsamic vinaigrette with lots of shallots. Adored the fact that there were many French people dining there, which makes me feel like they are definitely cooking French bistro fare for the French and not for the Californians. Fortunately, only a trace of French attitude and in a good way both when making the reservation on the phone and while in the restaurant. Not even one TRACE of the Ho'Wood/LA attitude one gets from some of the servers when dining at Church & State. The feeling here is one of authenticity, the staff is brisk and business-like, but takes very good care of your needs, just like any bistro in France where they appreciate your business and don't give a merde that you are not French.

For me the nail in the coffin of my discontent was the lack of air conditioning. I was drowning in a puddle of my own sweat by the time we were done eating. I had to leave my companions while they fiddled with the bill to get some fresh air. Come on, my Gaelic friends, in the US we really prefer ambient temps below 80 in our dining rooms.

I plan to return again when the fall starts to cool off and taste the food again. There are enough untasted items on the menu to warrant a second visit, maybe this time with camera.