Ludo Bites at Breadbar
Average user Rating: 91
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Artisanal breads baked in the French breadcraft tradition are offered along with café food in a modern setting.
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96
1/3/2010
The one and only Ludo Lefebvre is returning this week for yet another highly awaited installment of LudoBites - this time, at the quirky Royal/T art gallery cum cosplay cafe, side-by-side with Curator Jane Glassman's exhibit, curiously titled "In Bed Together." And with lasting just 13 days (yes, you heard me) - 13 DAYS - you can bet your bottom dollar that starting Wednesday, December 2nd, LudoBites at Royal/T will be the hottest ticket in town. Not even the big fluffy white bearded guy can sashay his way past the incredible demand for this one. And as you can already imagine, scoring a reservation to LudoBites at Royal/T is surely any foodie's Christmas Wish (or anyone's Christmas Wish, for that matter).
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Recommended Dishes
"Chorizo, cantelope, cornichon", "foie gras black croque monsieur"
89
12/2/2009
I heard about Ludo Bites a few months ago, I don’t remember exactly where, but since then the city has been all a-buzz over Ludo, and for good reason. The food is unique, decadent, innovative…simply divine. Dave and I made our first trip to Ludo Bites in July, and I knew I had to come back for the final celebration. And I did. And Ludo did not disappoint.
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96
8/24/2009
Everyone and their brother has been remarking that this summer has gotten away from them. There's a collective sense that we've been beset by a perpetual June Gloom. This summer has certainly flown by fast and without much to map it by except bad news, but for me, just as The Summer of '69 is a kickass song by Bryan Adams (I did not personally experience the summer of love but thank you so much for asking), the summer of 2009 will be the Summer of Ludobites.
It's been a summer of rectangular tables, backless stools, paper printed menus, Jay Z songs from the black album, and the joie de vivre imparted by breathing in the molecules of strangers and friends who are passionate about food, wine and life, and more than likely, drunk on all three or on their way to getting there. For this, I thank Chef Ludo and his wife Krissy, the architects of the LudoBites patented feeling.
The last night of Ludobites was beyond memorable, beyond good and evil. A special shoutout to the big hearted, fun loving My Last Bite and hubs, The Delicious Life, the Baubshow and bf, and the wine making Kinsellas for breaking bread with the Yuttiness. The parade of dishes we shared marches through my head as do these images:
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Recommended Dishes
fried chicken, asparagus veloute, hanger steak, scallops in curry yogurt sauce, foie gras tart, panna cotta, cheese course, croque monsieur, pork belly, prawns, green beans, heirloom tomatoes, chocolate foie gras cupcake
93
8/9/2009
A dining experience like no other -- LudoBites presents Michelin-star food with a casual, up-beat vibe and entertains the palate with items such as foie gras cupcakes and liquefied chorizo.
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89
7/22/2009
Having heard about the famous Ludo Lefebvre on LA Food Hunt last year, I've been curious about this culinary prodigy. After stints at L’Esperance in Paris, Bastide in LA, and LAVO in Vegas, Ludo knows fine dining. This doesn't discourage him from flexing his casual muscle with limited engagements at Breadbar on Third.
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77
7/17/2009
It’s not about the food, silly!
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Recommended Dishes
Not the cod. Not the "sweet & sour" shrimp.
93
7/14/2009
The second time I went to Ludobites, the waiter stared at me and said "Weren't you just here ...?" Hey, that was 5 days ago! It's not like I come every day ...
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Recommended Dishes
polenta+oxtail, fried chicken, cheese board
89
LudoBites at Breadbar (Los Angeles, CA)
7/12/2009
Described by chef/creator Ludovic Lefebvre as a "guerilla style pop-up restaurant," LudoBites is a restaurant-within-a-restaurant concept that pairs Ludo with establishments that offer only breakfast and lunch service, creating a dinnertime event that drives brand awareness for both parties. The end goal is to serve haute cuisine at affordable prices by keeping overhead to a minimum, to create a "bistronomy" of sorts that offers Michelin-level food at Claim Jumper costs. LudoBites is designed to move every few months, not unlike an artist's exhibition, and this current engagement, which started on May 19, is slated to end on August 22. Go Tuesdays through Saturdays, and make sure to BYOB.
Though LudoBites is normally done à la carte, Ludo and his team agreed to create a one-off tasting menu for FoodDigger.
1: Deconstruction of Bloody Mary
This first course was more of an amuse bouche, one seemingly taken from the pages of the Moto playbook. An unabashedly deconstructivist dish, it consisted of spicy tomato sorbet, vodka gelée, and celery mousse. Taken in concert, the three elements effectively mimicked the classic Bloody Mary, with the sorbet taking center stage at first, before handing things over to the gelée, for a lingering alcoholic finish. The gelée, meanwhile, also added some nice textural variation with its Jello-like consistency.
2: Tuna Sashimi, Sushi Rice Ice Cream, Shishimi Togarashi
My next plate held two slices of tuna sashimi, topped with sushi rice ice cream, sesame oil, sesame, ginger, crispy onion, and soy sauce. I first tried the maguro alone; it was clean, mild, yielding--a good start. I then took everything together, and noted how the various accoutrements, the onion with its crunchy consistency especially, heightened the tuna, while the ice cream took on the role of shari in nigirizushi, effectively balancing and moderating the other ingredients. An interesting study in disparate tastes, textures, and temperatures: sushi, deconstructed.
3: Shrimps, Sweet and Sour, Rosemary
The next course, a one-biter, consisted of a solitary shrimp, covered in a gelatinous sweet & sour blanket, sprinkled with rosemary and lemon zest. The crustacean itself was firm, meaty, snappy--no complaints there. I was afraid that the whole amalgam would turn out a bit blunt, but in fact, the shrimp's natural sweetness was very nicely complemented by its accompaniments.
4: King Red Salmon, Smoked Vinegar, Watermelon, Mint
Here we have a cube of salmon, topped with ikura, and a cube of compressed watermelon, laced with mint and sesame. We were instructed to fare the fish first, followed fastidiously by the melon. The salmon was actually quite mild, but its brininess was elevated considerably by the roe. The watermelon, sweet as expected, was also quite minty, and the whole sweet-salty-minty complex that followed was rather unsettling. Indeed, the melon's sweetness did offset the richness of the salmon, which is what I think Ludo was going for here, but also introduced its own set of problems.
5: Chorizo, Onions, Cornichon
The next course was my favorite of the entire meal: a chilled Spanish chorizo soup with an island of cornichon and onion granité. Tasting the viscous soup was almost disconcerting--it was just so completely saturated with the quintessence of chorizo, its smokiness, savoriness, meatiness, its spicy lingering finish, along with a marked cheesiness that my dining companions likened to Doritos. It was delicious on its own, and I would've been happy drinking the "gazpacho" by itself. However, we mustn't forget about the "sorbet," a tangy amalgamation with a positively bracing flavor that balanced the overt saltiness of the sausage.
6: Foie Gras Tart, Lemon Paste, Mushrooms, Four Spices
Besides the chorizo, the most talked-about dish of the evening was this maple-crusted foie gras tart. There was quite a bit going on here; the first thing I noted was an attack imbued with truffle oil, giving way to the essence of liver, which strengthened as time went by on the finish. The lemon paste did its job in tempering the dish, but the key here for me were the mushrooms. Served uncooked, they had a wondrous raw earthiness to them and were a deft/daft foil to the decadence of foie, in addition to providing a great textural crunch.
7: Diver Scallop, Port, Crème Fraiche
Here was a lone scallop, in a sea of crème fraiche-port emulsion, joined by bacon and onion, and just a speckle of orange zest. The sweetness of the mollusk was enhanced by the use of port, while its savory components were brought out by the bacon. The course garnered mixed reviews from my compatriots, as these two countervailing forces either worked for you, or they didn't. Fortunately for me, they did.
8: Halibut, Spiced Butter, Fresh Porcini, Tonnato Style, Lettuce
After a series of rather striking dishes, this halibut seemed so...conventional. Conventional doesn't equal bad though, and the fish turned out to be one of my favorites in fact. The "tonnato" here refers to the sauce, a commixture of tuna and egg. It proved a fitting complement to the halibut, and I absolutely loved the use of lettuce, which gave the dish a vegetal aftertaste and a crisp, light texture contrast. The porcinis, meanwhile, contributed an earthy gravitas to the course.
9: Duck, Almonds, Crispy Skin Puree, Tapenade, Turnips
This duck was the bane of me. I thought that it was absolutely too sweet, on account of the almond, which overpowered the duck's natural flavor. Brian actually compared the dish's taste to that of mole (while Sook thought of Honey Smacks)! In any case, in an effort to neutralize said sweetness, I made a go at the tapenade, which, with its intensely olive-y flavor, sort of swung the pendulum to the other extreme. The best part of the dish was the stout cylinder of turnip, which at least provided some moderation. I did eventually try the duck by itself, and enjoyed it much, much more.
10: Cheese
With the savories dispensed with, it was time for a quintet of cheese, sourced, I'm told, from The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills:
• Brin d'Amour / Toasted Hazelnut with Licorice
• Époisses de Bourgogne / Apricot Paste with Rosemary
• Fromager d'Affinois / Honeycomb
• Etorki / Date Purée
• Valdeón / Pink Grapefruit Gelée
11: Panna Cotta, Caviar, Caramel
We ended the meal with a dish developed by Ludo during his tenure at Bastide: a vanilla panna cotta, with caramel sauce, topped with a generous quenelle of caviar. I was a bit concerned about the roe at first, but fortunately things turned out alright. The admixture of caramel and caviar worked surprisingly well, inciting a sensation like that of salted caramel. The panna cotta, thus, took more of a back seat here, and clearly the action was focused on those two contrasting sweet-salty elements. This seemingly experimental juxtaposition of completely disparate elements was a fitting end to our LudoBites experience.
Ludo wanted to come to the US in order to expand his traditionally French repertoire, and to that, he has achieved considerable success. At L'Orangerie and at Bastide, Ludo cemented his place in the City's culinary landscape, combining his Old World foundation with exotic new flavors, techniques, and ingredients, even venturing into molecular gastronomy, breaking new ground in the process. He is thus constantly evolving his cuisine, always seeking out what's new and interesting, taking risks, learning, respecting the past, all the while living in the present. Though clearly not everything I ate on this night worked, I appreciated the spark, the international flair, the whimsy and the panache in his cooking that I bore witness to, and will be thoroughly interested as to where Ludo goes from here.
Full review with photos: http://www.kevineats.com/20 09/06/ludobites-at-breadbar -los-angeles-ca.htm
96
Dining Fun with Ludo
7/6/2009
It isn't often that I have the opportunity to allow a fine dining establishment to charm my stomach twice before I write a review. And it certainly isn't often that I get to try 22 dishes before writing a review either. In fact, I'd hazhard to guess that these circumstances are not likely to happen again anytime soon. Or, given the current state of my back account, ever.
Ludo Bites at BreadBar, a culinary tour de force manned by Chef Ludo Lefebvre and his lovely wife Kristine, offers its patrons the rare opportunity to break out of conventional dining with its menu of constantly changing, affordably priced small plates. As such, it becomes completely acceptable (and even desirable) to try as many dishes as possible before they disappear - like the infamous chicken fried in duck fat that has suddenly vanished from the menu.
During my first experience dining at the restaurant, total stomach annihilation was the goal. Our group of five ordered two of almost every dish offered that night, and overwhelmed our senses with too many varying tastes and textures at once. I didn't know up from down by the time we put down our dessert spoons, but I did know that I inequivocably loved the aforemention fried chicken, the creamy polenta with cantal cheese and oxtail, the sauteed diver scallops with curry yogurt emulsion and spinach, and felt kindly toward the poached egg 65 degrees that was a fine excuse to eat breakfast for dinner. Some of the other dishes were a struggle for me to understand, particularly since I had never tasted foie gras or sweet breads before that evening. I wasn't sure what Ludo was doing or why he was doing it, and I spent the next several day scratching my head over the Ludo Bites experience.
Did I like this guerrilla-style of dining? Did I like taking my palate on a roller coaster ride that could drop and spin and turn my tongue and expectations upside down?
I didn't know. Or at least I didn't until I tried Ludo Bites for the second time at a Food Digger event that offered me and a handful of LA food bloggers an 11-course feast.
This time I was ready -- my mind was open and my tongue was primed for bold new flavors and combinations. Chef Ludo doesn't let his diners off easy, and as the dishes began coming out of the kitchen, my palate was prepared for the challenge.
While not every dish was love at first bite, the evening as a whole was one of the best/most interesting dining experiences I've had to date. Ludo played tricks on our senses with his deconstructed bloody Mary, and the chorizo, onion, cornichon puree. He messed with our expectations with his tuna sashimi with sushi rice ice cream, shishimi togorashi and crispy onions. And he wooed us into obedient dining soldiers with his commands for us to eat the shrimp with sweet and sour sauce, rosemary and lemon zest in "one bite," and to tackle the cube of king red salmon with smoked vinegar, watermelon, and mint, by eating the salmon first and the watermelon second.
Ludo's kitchen experiments make dining fun, but he also knows how to pull out some show stoppers that could win over even the pickiest of palates. The foie gras tart on a maple crust served with lemon paste, raw button mushrooms, and four spices; and the panna cotta with caviar and caramel sauce (dessert course) are revelatory pieces of culinary art. I enjoyed the halibut with spiced butter, fresh porcini mushrooms, tonnato sauce, and lettuce, and was content to demolish the perfectly seared scallop that evening, but the foie gras tart and panna cotta are the dishes that have haunted the foodie cortex of my brain since the Food Digger event. I want more.
But not just more of my favorites. I want more of everything. I want another challenge. I want another shock to my senses. I want to feel the rush of biting into something totally unexpectedly delicious.
This is what makes Ludo Bites different from any other dining experience in LA. It's never the same. And it's never boring.
Recommended Dishes
Fried chicken in duck fat, Foie gras tart, Panna cotta caramel caviar
93
7/5/2009
Ludo Bites, the latest restaurant concept from Chef Ludo Lefebvre, is kinda like that hot guy who sublet a room in your neighbor's house for the summer. He's pretty much the perfect man because he's super sexy, super smart, has classic features but with a rockstar edge, has tons of personality and best of all knows how to show you a good time. Problem is, he's only here for a few months so you have to get it while you can.
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Recommended Dishes
Foie gras tart, panna cotta with caviar
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