Church & State: Revisited

Church & State
1850 Industrial St.
Los Angeles, CA 90021
213-405-1434

Friday night we revisited the very busy, bustling Church & State for another go at their French bistro fare. Located on Industrial, in the first floor of the Biscuit Company lofts, in a neighborhood that is really starting to pop. I loved the atmosphere last time, and we love Nicola the bartender, so we gave it another whirl Saturday despite not being thrilled with the food last time. This time was better.

Biscuit Company lofts to the left, Toy Factory lofts to the right. The first floor of the Toy Factory lofts houses Royal Clayton's, a British style pub.


I again ordered the Salade Lyonnaise, one of my favorite salads. I love warm poached egg over cool frisee with a nice vinaigrette, and this rendition is almost perfect.


Two things could have improved this. I would like more frisee. And being that bacon is a hallmark feature of the Salade Lyonnaise, I would like more than one tiny rectangle of bacon. Lots more. Like maybe even a dozen pieces. I am not greedy, but the stomach wants what the stomach wants.

That was really the only failure of the evening. Again we sipped and shared with our neighbors our favorite Chateauneuf du Pape, La Fortia.

I was very impressed with the chicken liver pate. This one was quite a bit lighter than the one I gobbled down a few weeks ago at BLT. And on top was a sweet fruity syrup. The wait person says it was a red wine reduction, but I will swear on a stack of blueberry plastic boxes that there was fruit in this reduction.

Either way, the combination of the chicken liver pate and the fruity syrupy reduction was immense. Massively delicious. This was my entree and it was wonderful Around this dish, Church & State have redeemed themselves.



D started with the clams, which were, like last time, perfect. Cooked just right, just the right amount to start with and not over-brothed or over-garlicked.



For an entree, D ordered the scallops, well done. I love the dark stickiness on the outside of a well seared scallop. And these came with frisee, which is always lovely. For some reason D decided that night that he hates frisee, when he loved it just a couple weeks ago. Clearly, he is slightly unhinged. This was lovely all around.



The night went south in a much less civilized manner later on, but we started out well.

Kizuna Steak House: I might go back, but probably not.

Kizuna Steak House
Honda Plaza
456 E 2nd St
Los Angeles, CA 90189 (213) 617-1008



After the waiting and not eating debacle at Bacaro, we headed back to Little Tokyo because we were meeting friends there for drinks later, and it is certainly no secret that I love Japanese food. There were lines outside the usual suspects; Haru Ulala, Sushi Gen, KaGaYa, Izayoi, and so on. My extremely high heels made me boycot a meander in search something new and exciting, and D's hungry grumpies led us to the first restaurant with open tables. Bad shoes. BAD.



There was not a single occupied table in Kizuna. Bad sign. They were out of several items on the menu and a couple of the sakes we wanted to try. I am not a big believer in signs, and these were less subtle signs that one would use inference to interpret. These were more like the glaring neon signs blinking on and off in a red light district. Not subtle at all.



I do hearts the decor. Very earthy, rattan chairs and table mats, and the cow mural is way cool. The tables were set with beautiful chop sticks made from natural wood and other fibers, but they brought us forks. White people eat with forks, don't they?



First item out was a nice salad, basically greens and taro root in a delicious ginger dressing. Very eatable.



Next out was a "ceviche". There was nothing ceviche like about this dish, and I found it frightening.



The scallops and prawns were cooked, not cured via marination in lime or any other highly acidic citrus. Frankly, it was a little creepy. The greens were not fresh, and they were oddly chewy. No.



This dish was a winner. Lovely dumplings atop soft tofu stuffed with a ground shrimp mixture. Delicious. If I go again, and they are not sold out of these, I will order them. Very nom.



Mmmm. Dumplings.



The tempura salmon skin roll was gross. The seaweed was way chewy, and the tempura batter was hard as a rock.



Clams, IMO, not fresh. D liked them but after eating one I refused another. Looked pretty, tasted suspect.


This, however, was a succeed. Kobe hamburg, they called it. A simple hamburger patty with ponzu sauce. Truly wonderful. Silky meat, flavorful juices. This might entice me to return again. But probably only after all other options are exhausted.



They did a great job with the veggies on this dish. Beautiful, fresh, just a touch of garlic.



It even looks pretty together on the plate. All in all, not a total fail. But the food was so inconsistent, I won't ever be planning to eat here. Instead, I will watch for signs.

Church & State: Week One

Church & State
1850 Industrial St.
Los Angeles.
213-405-1434

I am going to give Steve Arroyo's new offering an A for effort during their first week, for creating something in atmosphere, decor and location that so perfectly suits me I plan to be there weekly. Located in the Biscuit Company Lofts, across the street from a busy convenience store and The Royal Clayton's, the Arroyo's choice of address is the perfect combination of slightly renegade (a marginal neighborhood in downtown, close to the produce markets and the strip clubs) and safe (downtown is burgeoning, Royal Clayton's is across the way, and the lofts are starting to fill up).



The dining room was packed last night, all night, from the time we got there at 8 pm til the time we left around 11. Surprisingly, this is kid friendly. Arroyo was there with his own offspring, and several tables had toddlers of various ages. There is an outdoor dining area, and the door opens onto an expansive sidewalk, perfect for kids to blow off some energy doing cartwheels or walk a crying baby. I love this, like I love 3 year old girls with brown curls and shiny red galoshes.



Church & State has a very New York vibe. Most likely the age of the building helps. But the way they dealt with the interior helps as well. They left a lot of the industrial touches, exposed beams, pipes, the usual. They hung strands of lights, used subway tiling, and kept the colors dark and moody which is beautifully offset by the expansive windows.



I adore the choice in artwork scattered throughout the restaurant.



I even love that bathrooms for both genders feature these OG trashcans. Don't ask me how I know this. I know things.



Now, onto the food. We sat at the bar. They had a table for us, maybe briefly for 5 minutes they had a table for us. People just continued to pour in the door. But another great thing about Church & State is that they managed to steal an amazing bartender from Cafe Luna on La Brea. Several people in our party knew her from visits there. She is pretty awesome. Actually, both bartenders were accommodating and entertaining. The bar seemed to me to have capacity to seat about 10 people.



I like the price range here. Nothing would stop someone of average means from eating here on a semi-regular basis.



The wine list is heavily French, which I am still not good at ordering. But I am very good at drinking almost anything, and was extremely happy with this lip smacking Chateauneuf du pape 2006 Chateau-Fortia. I even went in search of this the next day at Rosso's (Montrose/Glendale's premiere wine shop) 2nd anniversary party.



Onto the food...



My friend C has a wild and wacky ordering style. He just starts calling out random things from the menu, "let's try a couple of these, let's try a couple of those" and so on and so forth. We started, I think, with a couple frisee au lardons, one of my all-time faves. It was nice enough. I would have liked more pork, and a little more tang to the dressing.



Next arrives beef tartare. I prefer a little less egg in the egg/beef ratio. I would have liked the kitchen to have used a smaller egg. But the beef was good quality, tasted fresh and they kept the presentation simple. I liked the accompaniments of cornichons and whole grain mustard. The whole grain mustard was almost all mustard grains, with very little mustardy stuff to carry the grains. I loved the texture, spread on a little bread with tartare on top.



D ordered one of his favorite soups, French Onion. What we liked about it: the perfect amount of cheese. Sometimes a soup is overcheesed, but this was perfect. It was a delicious Gruyere, just a little smelly. So nice. We also loved that the bread was cut into the shape of large croutons. You probably know that sometimes the bread is one or two slices of a baguette, and one has to wrestle with this in the middle of the hot cheesy soup. The smaller pieces of bread made it easier to eat, which would have been a plus in a soup that tasted better. This was the saltiest soup I have ever eaten. They could solidify it and hang it as a salt lick in the Fallow Deer Reserve. Once you got past the cheese and bread and into the broth, this was uneatable.



T ordered the clams. These were rather nice, and when I go again (I pledge to try again in a couple of months, maybe week 10) I will order these because they were a succeed this time. Simple steamed clams, not too much broth and some nice grilled bread.

Dear Restaurateurs,
Grill your bread,
Love L.



For an entree, D ordered the scallops. Quel Surprise! Little frissee on the side, no sauce to speak of. Meh.



C ordered steak frites. The steak was fine, but the fries were just ok. I cannot wax poetic about the fries because they weren't great. Fries can almost always be great. If you are going to have anything, have great fries. Everyone has great fries. To have mediocre fries is just veird. And the steak sauce was, again, nauseatingly salty. WHAT up, back in the kitchen, people? Someone burn their taste buds while tasting something hot? That's the only plausible excuse for this much salt in two courses.



All in all, it was a fun evening. We had great service and a great atmosphere. We were extremely well tended to. I just wish we were well fed.

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.