Three Tastes: Cliff's Edge Mother's Day Weekend

It's been awhile since my press dinner at Cliff's Edge.  Having followed Chef Bailly from Petrossian to Fraiche, I was thrilled to have him in my own neighborhood. Also thrilled to see Silver Lake adopt a chef of note to add some polish to a neighborhood spot.  Since the press dinner I have been in three times with various folks to try more things on the menu, and my initial assessment holds true. Bailly elevates the menu with delicious dishes across the board retaining the same Mediterranean focus and approachable atmosphere. Three items from an al fresco pre-Mother's Day dinner.

Grilled pears, burrata, pomegranate vinaigrette.

Mom had the flat iron steak with arugula, basil, bleu cheese and a tomato panzanella. D has ordered this a couple times, it's a favorite.

Seared scallops, lebne, cauliflower, vadouvan, and a verde sauce.

A few tried and true items from the menu: chick pea fritters, chicken liver crostini, smoked trout rillettes, the skate wing (my favorite). Something new this week that I am continuing to obsess over is the crispy polenta with fried egg and mushrooms.  Try any and all of this with the Duende tempranillo...by the glass or bottle.

Blue Velvet sans Kris Morningstar: Delicious & Well Managed

John McDowell, Morningstar's sous chef, is now heading the kitchen at Blue Velvet. In my opinion he is heading the kitchen to good effect. It may be my imagination, but it seems as though the food is heartier and a touch less precious. In addition to the wonderful food we ate, an issue with the wine we ordered was handled beautifully and with such politesse that we will surely visit again sometime soon.



I don't understand or really appreciate French wine in the way that I understand New World wines. I have taken classes on Old World wines. I drink French wine on a somewhat regular basis. I have visited France more than once, and I go to wine tastings at a shop that specializes in European wines. Nevertheless, my taste buds out me consistently as a rube. My mouth is accustomed to bold, Oregonian reds & rich California whites. For some reason D decided we needed to try a French pinot Friday night, and it did not sit well with me. This 2005 Chambolle-Musigny was so tart that my face screwed up every time it hit the back of my mouth. My eyes watered. I know an off wine when I taste it, and this was not off. It just did not suit me. The waiter asked if he could decant it, and we agreed, hoping the not inexpensive wine would open up and soften. In the meantime we downed martinis and ate these appies.



I noshed on the above piece of pork belly. As fatty as pork belly is, I don't typically order it. But after watching several contestants from Top Chef have a go at it over the last few seasons, I was intrigued. And it was good. Very good. It was served with sour cherries with a cherry glaze drizzled on the plate, and accompanied by the short seasoned and much loved squash blossom, lightly fried.



D has come to love frisee au lardons, or anything mimicking that, this summer. This particular version used pea tendrils as the green, and it was a lovely rendition.



About this time the waiter swings by and we try the decanted and oxygenated 2005 Chambolle-Musigny yet again. I pull a sour puss. We assure the waiter that there is nothing wrong with the wine, rather there is something wrong with us, and we will happily pay for it, but we really need to drink a different bottle of something else. He sends the manager our way, and the manager offers to bring us something different and eat the cost of the offending wine. We assure him this is not necessary, but he convinces us in such a lovely way that I left feeling both very pampered and very drunk. Goldilocks ended up with the above Oregonian pinot noir and it tasted just right.



Goldilocks also ate the above guinea hen, wrapped around caper berries then wrapped in what I believe was its own skin, served with long beans and a variety of mushrooms. The menu mentioned a cream sauce, but knowing how sparely sauces are used in this kitchen I ordered it anyway, and I guessed correctly. There was just a trace of cream sauce to accent the mushrooms rather than drowning the bird.



D predictably ordered the scallops from the prix fixe menu. I didn't taste the shellfish, but I sampled what looked like vermicelli on his plate. It was actually some sort of radish type veg cut to mimic pasta, it tasted wonderful and added a lovely acidity to the dish.

After martinis and red wine, on a much needed Friday night...

Pot Luck and a Winning Team

~That that pure sanguine complexion of yours may never be famisht with pot lucke.
Thomas Nashe, 1592

The term pot luck has many different interpretations, including the native American potlatch, the old English portmanteau, and the common United States suburban potluck dinner in which all invited guests bring a covered dish to share with the gathering. Common wisdom guides me to believe that the origin of the term comes from the idea of making food to feed your guests from whatever happens to be laying around. And this is what happened last Tuesday evening when John joined us to watch the our Lakers beat Indiana.

Having just returned from one of many weekends out of town, and looking at a fridge full of little else excepting some cornmeal, slightly puckered cherry tomatoes, turkey bacon and a freezer full of random nonsense including some Trader Joe's sea scallops, I put two and two together and made grub.

I wanted to piggyback on my mom's delicious polenta from two weeks ago and make something a little lighter in calories and fat and marry this with the sea scallops. In the cupboard I found some roasted beets and lentils, both in shrink wrap packaging, and some pine nuts.

First, I cut the bacon into small pieces and threw it in the pan. Here my sous-chef assists me in assessing the freshness of the bacon.



Next, I started the chicken-broth-from-a-box boiling for the polenta, next to the bacon simmering with a little olive oil and red pepper flakes. I added some olive oil to the turkey bacon because it produces so little fat in the pan, and I want to make good use of the leftover bacon essence for the scallops...bacon = meat candy.




After whisking the polenta into the broth, I added most of the bacon and some fresh-ish thyme. Did you know it takes 5 cups of liquid to cook one cup of polenta? I like a nice creamy polenta, but not soupy. So I reduced this polenta within an inch of its life and serve it steaming hot.



When the polenta was nearly done I sliced the slightly insipid tomatoes in half, tossed them with some olive oil and the pine nuts and threw the mess under the broiler for roasting.



After the roasting, I lay the tomatoes and nuts on a bed of lentils tossed lightly with a vinaigrette, and drizzled a little white truffle oil over the top.



Next I thoroughly rinsed the sea scallops which were surprisingly beautiful...I will surely use these again. A handy thing to have in the freezer, no doubt. I tossed them in the bacon-ed pan and seared them well done, just like D likes them. The bacon essence, olive oil and red pepper flakes in the pan cooked to an almost caramelized consistency, leaving the scallops with a lovely brown and slightly crispy finish.



All in all, the meal was really tasty. I would have ideally liked a better mix of textures, both dishes had kind of a mushy, comfort food texture. The only really crunchy participants were the bacon bits and the roasted pine nuts. But it all tasted good and I completely avoided a trip to the grocery store or a phone call out for pizza!

Third Time's the Charm at Ortolan

One lovely Friday evening, when the air was just starting to turn crisp, we left the house directionless and hungry. We ended up at Ortolan on Third. We had been there previously twice, both times enamored of the decor but less so with the food. The decor really draws me, it is like dining in Marie Antoinette's private apartments. And the food, appropriately, is French. This is a modern style French that really appeals to my California sensibility. Chef Christopher Eme has cooked in Los Angeles at L'Orangerie and alongside Joel Rubichon with Philippe Braun and at famous French restaurants Taillevent and Auberge de l’Eridan. We dined at Ortolan when it first opened out of curiosity about the remodel of the Lynq space, then again about a year later for our wedding anniversary and haven't been since. It is definitely a special occasion atmosphere, which worries me for the longevity of the restaurant. Wildly successful restaurants in Los Angeles tend to be more casual and easily adaptable for any occasion, like a Lucques or a Jar where you are as easily comfortable in jeans as a suit. And I feel even more concerned at this writing because our food Friday was phenomenal. The third time was the charm, everything was beyond delicious, flavorful and presented with whimsy. What a joy.

The service was also stellar. Every person who approached our table seemed genuinely interested in our comfort and pleasure and they all seemed like they were enjoying being there, something I love to see in a wait staff. The sommelier even chose a wine by the glass appropriate for our orders, and did so in a professional manner 100% unconcerned that we were not going to order an entire bottle. I have no clue what he chose for either of us, save that each was French and utterly sublime. White for me, red for him. I should call him and see if he remembers because I would love to try and dig up a couple of bottles. Chef Eme came out toward the end of the meal and we had a lovely conversation about upcoming events, the obligatory beaujolais nouveau coming November 15th, and the unfortunately missed white truffle menu of mid-October. Le sigh.



We ate in the bar area/lounge which feels a little more casual. I love this bar area. Above the room is a massive skylight, which makes for no particular impression in the evening, but during the daytime provides them with enough sunlight to host a gorgeous tiered herb garden hanging from the west wall. It looks so beautifully striking in the candle light and runs the entire length of the room.



To start, the chef sent out a lovely autumnal amuse-bouche. There were two soups to share in these funky little test tubes he loves to use. One was a pumpkin and the other was a roasted red bell pepper, both soups were so intense and infused with evggie richness. Both were also topped with a trace of the omnipresent foam that all contemporary French restaurants use prodigiously. A lovely mix of textures.



Also served was a little dish of eggplant caviar surrounded by pesto. Eggplant caviar is one of my favorite things, although I rarely see it on a menu these days and have only made it myself a few times. The pesto gave it a nice kick.




To start, we ordered one course of Heirloom Tomato Five Ways. What amazing tomatoey goodness. Let me count the ways: a small mound of tomato ratatouille, two small lumps of tomato puree encased in a light aspic, one part of the plate looked like a small cigar with something vaguely pink but delicious in the middle, another was akin to a tomato mousse thinly wrapped in cooked kale, and the fifth seemed to be a tomato puree that we swirled around the plate and used for dipping. It was truly lovely.



The second starter was a ceviche of bay scallops with osetra caviar. These were wrapped in thin little sheets of browned sugar so they would keep the shape of a neat little circle. I loved that Chef Eme is so dedicated to presentation. I am always happy with anything that tastes good and I am not a stickler for presentation. But how fun to eat the food of someone who is. It is an art form to be reckoned with. I love watching the French food competitions like the Bocuse d'Or, where the presentation is clearly more than half the battle.



For main courses we tried poached turbot with lemongrass and ginger with pumpkin gnocci, and there were also lovely chunks of okra, red grapes and red bell pepper on the plate.



The second main course was a cod wrapped thinly in cooked kale. This seems to be a theme. I like it because it gives shape and color to the food using something slightly uncommon on most restaurant menus. In my memory, I have only seen this done in one other restaurant, Monet in Ashland, Oregon. This dish was strongly suggested by the server (Chef Pierre Verger's wife) and it was basically a melange of veggies overcooked into a slightly mushy but dry texture and then wrapped in kale. I was not overly pleased with that dish, but I loved my cod at Ortolan. The cod was accompanied by clams in their shell, julienned potatoes, and a lovely light sauce lightly flavored with truffle. Honestly, you could put truffle on the most horrifically prepared and conceived crap on Earth and I would gobble it down. I love the truffle. This dish would have been delicious even without.

http://www.restaurantmonet.com/



We declined dessert and dove into the little plate of petite fours they sent around with the bill. These are always cute and fun. Two of them looked like little sugar hamburgers, two of them were simply homemade marshmallows, one was a little chocolate football and the sixth was mysterious. I always love these little plates because I am not a huge dessert fan and these fill the need for just a taste of sweet.



Enfin.

Halloween @ Blue Velvet

There is nothing not cool about Blue Velvet Restaurant in Los Angeles. Everyone on staff is not only friendly and accomodating, they also offer, in my opinion, above par service. The atmosphere is fun and young yet sophisticated. The location is great, close to Silver Lake, Echo Park, downtown and just a short drive on the 101 from Hollywood. They even have a co-ed bathroom.




The chef, Kris Morningstar, studied at the Cal School of Culinary Arts and has cooked at Los Angeles restaurants A.O.C., Grace, Patina and Meson G. I have enjoyed eating at all of these restaurants (Patina the least, surprisingly) multiple times so it is not surprising that I enjoy the food at Blue Velvet.

http://www.bluevelvetrestaurant.com/


We went in on Halloween evening for their special Harvest prix-fixe supper, entertainment and DJ'ing to start on the patio at 9. We didn't love the look of the prix-fixe menu, so we stuck with the regular menu happily, and we drank a bottle of David Bruce 2005 Pinot Noir from the Russian River. I would definitely order this up again. After a 15 minutes breathing session it opened into a surpringly full bodied pinot with a nice depth of flavor. It was pretty great.



The kitchen always sends out an amuse-bouche, which I always find an unnecessary bit of fun and joy. Tonight's amuse-bouche was a chilled cream of parsnip soup. I think it would have been better off not chilled. Because it was 101 degrees in Los Angeles county last week, a chilled soup still seems appropriate, but I think the flavor of the parsnip would have been richer if the soup had been warm. Whatever. This was the least lovely thing I put in my mouth last night, so I think we did pretty good.



To start, I was served the fig salad with burrata & raddiccio in a lovely sweet and savory vinaigrette. Surprisingly, the portion size of the salad was quite large. Blue Velvet is notorious for small portions. This was pretty delicious. I loved the texture of the burrata with the figs, and the dressing ensured that the dish was not lacking in intense flavor due to the subtle nature of the figs and cheese.



My personal song writer ordered linguine with clams to start, and I cannot remember having has a better bite of pasta...it was al dente, house made (I think) and the clams were fresh, in the shell. It was a lovely little dish, and perfect for a starter. I think it would have been too rich for a main course.



As an entree, (Why do they call it an entree? It is not the start of the meal. Whatever.) I had the wild boar. I love wild boar because it is both gamier and more lean than regular pig. I love it. Love love love it. This time it came served rare over a small bed of what I think was creamed spinach, with a couple of nice swooches of pureed sweet potato on the sides of the plate. Nom nom nom!!!



The composer ordered the dayboat scallops, as usual. These were, well I have no idea what these were served with. I looked at them and they were purdy. But really, I have no clue.



We skipped out on dessert, being full as ticks. We had come as much for the food as for the promised entertainment, but said entertainment never materialized. We had been promised a fire eater, a glass walker, and other circus acts on the gorgeous patio between the fire and the pool. The outdoor space of the restaurant is a HUGE selling point, it is nothing short of remarkable. There is a large pool, an outdoor firepit with banquette, and a beautiful view of downtown Los Angeles and requisite palm trees.





We didn't leave until close to ten, and there was nothing more amusing outside than merry makers in various forms of Halloween costume. Sigh. It's just as well. I fell asleep in the car, as usual.