01/26/2010

I don't know what I was expecting but the Tar Pit was much darker, cooler and art deco than I expected. What shade of restaurant darkness can I compare it to? It's verging on Jones' level darkness where you can see there's a skillet on your table but the contents thereof are somewhat of a mystery. How cool is it? Tweeter @djjewelz tweeted that "everytime I walk into tar pit, I feel like snoop's sensual seduction should automatically start playing."

True. But don't worry, there's no disco balls or round circular beds. Instead, there's golden cages, black lacquer chinesey booth details, cream colored leather chairs, hanging chandeliers everywhere and the crowd is bunched up at the bar and getting their talk on. It's cool. So cool we should say it in French, c'est cool. The music is cool too. We heard Radiohead, The Knife (when's the last time you heard The Knife being played at a restaurant?) and other c'est cool bands that I can't recall just at this moment.

The food? Well, it's Chef Mark Peel and all that, and there were some sincere and tasty bites, but if it's true that there is latent post-Campanile competition between Chef Peel and Chef Nancy Silverton, well, I have to say, I'm going to have to hand the gong to the latter. The appetizers - particularly, the fried oysters, the crab cakes and the duck sliders made my mouth sing. A few of the entrees, however, in my mouth anyhows, were quite oversalted. Maybe it's too dark in the kitchen or the salt mill had a big hole in it that night, but that was the general observation made by two of my friends and myself. The other two apparently are working for drug companies that push blood pressure meds because they were like 'it's well seasoned. Whatsa matter you?'

But I don't care. Even if some of the food was a touch salty, and some bites were not life shattering experiences, I still had such an awesome "c'est cool" time at the Tar Pit. It's swanky and adult. And they play good music. And the drinks are cool.

I'm already set to go back to the Tar Pit and twice in one week is a lot for the yutjangsah to venture out, much less to the same gin joint. I guess like all tar pits, this one is a watering hole we thirsty creatures cannot resist being sucked into.
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Recommended Dishes:
fried oysters, duck sliders, crab cakes, mac and cheese, gin gin mule

 
12/21/2009
As much as I enjoyed the opening ceremonies, I was more excited to come to Royal-T a week or so later to graze with Angela, Diana of DianaTakesaBite, Lauren of HarbKnockLife and Sarah of TheDeliciousLife.

We started off with carmelized peanuts with curry.  This was the best damn crackerjack I've ever had.  If they sold this in Bombay, it would be perfect to eat at cricket matches and bollywood movies.  Diana and I went to town on this.

Bread soup, poached egg, gruyere marshmallow. You know how they say beer is "liquid bread"?  Well, this was the real thing.  I loved the marshmallow.  This was Angela's favorite dish of the night and it was deeply savory and mysterious like gravy's lighter cousin.  The egg pretty much melted in your mouth.

Our raw scallop, brown butter, pineapple friend from opening night was refreshing and again, sweet and sour like a tropical vacation.

We ordered two and sometimes three of every dish which Diana and I ended up eating by ourselves practically as Sarah was off socializing, Lauren had gone vegan and Angela was a light eater.  It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it.

Diana and I loved the udon.  We scraped every bit of the miso sauce into the wonderfully mushroomy broth and slurped up the noodles with large hunks of shredded veal meal.  Veal is generally offensive to my mouth because the scary texture and the terror of eating a child essentially.  Here, though, the veal was tender but not terrifying.  In fact, it was pretty damn tasty.

Monterey squid, chorizo oil and kimchee puree was delicious.  It was just spicy enough and the blackened sheet of eggplant challenged the notion of the place of burnt food on a plate.  A must try.

Foie gras beinet.  We all took a bite of this fun round friend.  We all liked him very much. He was creamy and crisp and nourishing.

Confit pork belly with mustard and frisee.  I loved the way this dish looked.  Doesn't it look like an underwater reef or some such?  It could even be like an illustration of a complex part of a cell like a golgi apparatus.  Don't you recall the golgi apparatus? It was so pretty and mauve.  Do you remember? Do you also remember how your heart would beat when you had to dissect the earthworm and you'd put on your rubber gloves with a sense of the surgeon's responsibility?  And then how you'd take a kim wipe and clean the beakers and the microscope slides and then you'd put away the bunsen burner, and you'd think, science is a trip.

This dish was a trip and a half. So delicious and you know I'm not even a pork belly lover but this was probably my favorite dish of the night.

Striped bass, garden vegetables, yuzu aoili.  Again, Diana and I were all over this.  I think Lauren ate some veggies.  It was a clean fresh dish.

Hanger steak, escargot, baby corn and olive mole.  Another favorite.  So delicious, perfectly cooked and the mole was marvelous.  As was the fat ass baby corn.  This is not the baby corn of your chinese stir fry.  Like one of those 20 lb infants, it was fatter than its peers and came with green hair. We loved him so we ate him up with a knife and fork.

Pistachio rice milk, lemon pound cake.  I'm not sure if these two things went together but each was nice on its own. I love pistachio anything and this was deeply madly pistachio.  The pound cake was delish. "Nobody does it like Ludo Lee."

I don't recall eating this dish.  It's quite likely I did not given that I ate either Lauren or Sarah's portion all night and was pretty full at the end of the evening.  How full was I?  If poked my tummy with a knitting needle, your needle would bend.  

The second time I went to have LudoBites at Royal-T, we were driving when we saw Santa Claus on a flatbed truck being carted around by a business advertising themselves.  It's the most wonderful time of the year.

We started off with tuna sashimi, sushi rice cream and soy sauce gelee.  I loved the rice cream but I also loved the gelee.  Like salty bits of jello, they'd go really well with all kinds of asian foods like soba noodles or a bowl of cold rice splashed in a bit of green tea.

Once again, the beefey shroomy brothey udon was a big hit with my taste receptors.

The teriyaki cod was amazing. So moist, perfectly seasoned and classically satisfying. One of favorite of this night.

The pork belly, eggplant puree and plaintain was another favorite.  Crisp seared fat never tasted so good.

We were most fortunate to procure LFC and the French colonel's secret recipe was a taste explosion in my mouth.  Before the chicken came to the table, I told my friend this was the best fried chicken he'd ever have.  Kind of like an astronaut might tell a civilian passenger to brace themselves at take off, I felt some kind of warning was called for.  But the civilian actually threw down a challenge asking, "better than Honey's Kettle?"  I made one of those whistling noises between my lips meaning I am so offended, my ancestors just farted in their graves.

So, what happened after my friend became acquainted with Ludo's chicken? I asked him, "better than Honey's Kettle?" And he said, "pretty good."  That's how you know someone lost their throw down. Even a year ago, I might have said "face" while dragging my fingers down my face to signify my victory but I just sat with folded hands letting the internal glee flood every pore of my body.  Dignity.  It's nice.

Guacamole, exotic fruits, ice cream.  I'd rather have the ice cream with the exotic fruits.  The guacamole was like a party crasher but interesting. Who would ever think to use guac in a dessert?

Krissy led me to the kitchen so I could see the internal workings of the engine room.  Sous chef Austin was there with Chef Ludo.  It was hot and lots of energy was bouncing off the walls. I said something very profound like "it's hot in here" and scurried out to let the chefs cheffify their stuff.

I just loved my second meal at LudoBites, perhaps even more than my first because I felt each dish was stronger and even more delicious.  It was sad that I wouldn't be coming back but I felt with the evening starting off with Santa, progressing with delicious food and ending with Chef Ludo advising us of his plans to cook a testicle-less rooster for Krissy's family at Christmas, I had had a great time and it wouldn't do to be greedy...

Until, that is, Will of Fooddigger.com, invited me to join him and some friends for an all Bruin dinner table at LudoBites. At that point, I became Gordon "greed is good" Gekko.  Do you recall that scene where Gordon is walking on the beach with a proto cell phone and the phone is seriously the size of a VHS tape?  Hilarious.

We had the sushi again. We loved it again.


Celery root soup. It was soothing and creamy with a truffley accent.

I loved the carmelized endive with grapefruit.  The bitterness of the endive which was mellowed and the bitter acidity of the citrus went really well together.  Who would have thought?

Lardo.  This was a huge hit with the gang. I couldn't eat it. I know. It's "the best song sung in the key of pig" according to Mario Batali but pure pig fat is a ditty that I can't get myself to hum along to. TheDelicious absolutely loved it though as did Will and my new 1/8 Chinese 1/4 Trinidad and 1/8 something or other friend who is going to learn how to cook ox tail soup from his mom and then challenge TheDelicious' korean ox tail soup. Stay tuned.

You know I love me my fish and this was again perfection!

Will told me that he had never had an over or undercooked piece of fish or meat from Chef Ludo with the reason being that Chef Ludo had been taught to cook through the precise control of time.  In other words, he never touches a piece of food to test how well cooked it is.  Not one piece of fish or steak or whatever gets tapped or prodded with a probing questioning finger. Cr
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12/17/2009
I went, with modestly elevated expectations, to JTYH having read Jonathan Gold's article and Sinosoul and Gastronomyblog's posts on same.



Meeting me there were two Chinese who I relied upon to do the necessary, i.e., order the food and ensure the yutjangsah was fed and watered as appropriate. It was a hot day and it got even hotter once we got to JTYH and it became apparent that (a) neither of these putative "Chinese" could speak a lick of ching-chong to the waitress who was a fiesty red lipsticked type made from the mold labeled "no-nonsense"; and (b) the waitress was not convinced by my attempts to speak "mandarin" aka wave my fingers around and nod knowingly and sternly at her. She knew dog meat when she saw it and that was us friends. Oh yeah.



The first thing she did was tell us to pipe down because the customers were complaining about our volume. Given that my "Chinese" friends had no idea what she said, we continued screeching and laughing until a kind gentleman informed us we had been told to shut our pie holes. We then screeched a bit more softly in the barbaric tones of American English lacking the cultural capital to "shay shaw choux" our way into the good graces of our Mabelline'd waitress.

Once it came time to order, though, our waitress was very helpful and we ordered several dishes on her recommendation.

We started off with pig's ear which I just found to be a delight and a half. It was marinated in a spicy red grease like you might find leaking out of a burrito or gracing the top of a yukkejang soup. The texture was spot on too with that gelatinous cartilegey sensation. To round off the fun, I found a pig's hair on one of the slices of ear. I promptly removed that sucker and then ate the ear it came from. Who says I can't travel to a 3rd world country and eat yak's blood? I just ate a hairy ear people!



We moved on various noodley dishes. The beef noodle soup was good but it wasn't profound like the beef noodle soup to end all beef noodle soups. To be just, I've only had it once before so take this justice as a gift to you on my daughter's wedding day.





We also had a pan fried noodle dish with eggs and mushroom. This tasted just like a korean rice cake dish and I loved it. Easily my favorite. The long ribbons of shaved dough like curls of parmesan had thin and thick edges that varied the texture and feel of these noodles in your mouth. Clever.







The onion pancake and the beef roll were both fine if unremarkable. Ultimately, it was a pleasant enough time and nothing offended my sense of propriety - even the brisk treatment by the waitress was kind of refreshing like when someone rolls over your foot with a shopping cart and it feels vaguely like a foot message because you eat so much sugar you probably have diabetes and can't feel your foot anymore. You know what I'm sayin'? You dig this groove? Oh, you don't speak 70's? Anyhows, whatever the experience was here, it was not like finding the perfect pair of 501s. The search continues.
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Recommended Dishes:
noodles with mushroom and egg

 
11/17/2009
Bull fighting. What could be more insane yet majestic yet cruel yet insane yet majestic? I don't know. Thinking of bull fighting of course brings to mind Ernest Hemingway's short stories on the subject. My favorite is the one where he sketches the lives of various bull fighters and one of them has lost his nerve. He can no longer face the bull so he's laying face down on his bed. Everyone knows he's finished and no one respects him anymore. Not a cheery pick me up type of story. But terribly moving for sure.

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Recommended Dishes:
fried lentils, asparagus, corn cakes, salad with proscuitto

 
11/12/2009
The family dinner was simple, homey, rustic-y, casual, with dishes passed hand to hand, people calling for more bread, can I have the clams, please pass the sugar, who wants more pasta, etc. - and no one told me this - but it's all you can eat! Just like home! Which in my case is down the road. But it's better than home because there's food not just a few bottles of Kombacha and a dried turnip and the food is yummy.

It was also the anti-Atkins-Christ dinner. We started off with potatos, progressed to garlic bread, advanced to pasta and finished with corn cakes. There was a detour of some delectable and large bottomless clams but, on the whole, it was carb heaven.
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Recommended Dishes:
Sunday Family Dinner

 
09/22/2009
The bacon brioche was yummers.



The salt shovel was really supercute too.



Gin and tonic gelee was fun as was the balloon animal of mojito. The pumpkin soup was whatever. It added color. Maybe that's what it was meant to do.



Kanpachi with creme fraiche and rice cracker. This was lovely with a distinct chewiness and a slippery creaminess. The rice cracker really brought it all together. The only kvetch I have is the dish was distinctly too salty.



The dish I most wanted was not on the 9 course tasting menu. So, I subbed out a salmon and inserted the famous salt roasted prawns. It added $55 to the bill but I thought it'd be worth it. The table side presentation is fun and makes you feel like you're getting a little show but they were a tad overcooked and chewy. No regrets though. The show was worth it.


This uni and egg yolk concoction was simply magnificent. Genius comes upon us suddenly in the shape of an egg with the top cut off. I was very much astonished by these flavors and the smells. I can't describe them though. Sorry. There were bread crumbs though. The chef understands the significance of texture and feel in addition to taste. He's like the Helen Keller of seafood.



A good scallop. Scallops are always good.



After being overwhelmed by the uni, then recovering with the scallop, a second assault on our senses was waged by this halibut with fried burdock and shiso. Our waiter Olaf-Daniel (he called himself Olaf but also said, if he's in trouble, he likes to go by the name "Daniel" so I'm hyphenating his real name and pseudonym) told us this was one of the dishes that Chef Cimarusti bested Iron Chef Morimoto with. It was a dream that my mouth had. I wish it were a recurring dream I could have rather than that one where your teeth fall out. Don't you hate that dream? It's horrible.



The veal was nice but it's hard to follow a showstopper like the halibut.



The wine pairings were good but I'd pretty much say the same thing if I were served two buck chuck. I couldn't quite keep up towards the end. Olaf-D had poured me an extra glass of one of the wines I prematurely chugged while waiting for the uni course. After that, I was all wined out.


Olaf-D presenting the cheese cart in its abundant glory.



Our cheese plate was good.



Olaf took over my camera ostensibly to take our photo, but he began hamming it up like a fiend snapping pic after pic of himself in all kinds of poses. It was funtertainment at its best. There were only a few diners left at this point, so it was more than appropriate and a laugh riot.


I think this was a grapefruit sorbet. Lovely way to cleanse the cheesed up palate.



The finale was a fireworks deal like the Hollywood Bowl. Geez Louise. This cheesecake pretty much devastated both my brother and me. My mom gave her cheesecake up to her offspring which was a smart move because I was about to order another one if she didn't do so. Man alive. What the hell did they put in that thing? Graham cracker crust to boot.



I'm glad my mom and my sibling had a great time celebrating their Virgoness at Providence. I also enjoyed myself a lot more than I thought I would. It's nice to treat the people in your life with something nice. They deserve it.

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Recommended Dishes:
uni in egg cup, halibut, cheesecake, veal, bacon brioche

 
09/15/2009
Chabuya feels easy going. No one's going to hassle you here. There were some solo diners slurping to their heart's content and few small groups steaming their happy faces.



Of the major Japanese beers Sapporo is my least favorite but it was the only one Chabuya carries in large. Again, my American buy in bulk mentality trumps my love for Kirin and Asahi Super Fly.


The classic. You know. Salt. MSG. Pork. Oil. Noodles that have those fun wavy kinks in them. Ramen noodles they're called. Dig in ramen lovers. It looks pretty good.



I had the salad bowl with ramen noodles. It comes with a creamy dressing because what Japanese salad can be eaten without some type of creamy dressing? No-salad, that's the kind of japanese salad that can be eaten sans cream.

This was pretty good. Nice and refreshing. It's something I can see a Murakami character eating. I just can't see a Murakami character diving into an actual bowl of soup ramen. But like I say, prove me wrong and I slurp the curly noodle too.
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Recommended Dishes:
summer noodle salad

 
09/15/2009
Later that evening, I had Mexican food again. This time at Loteria Grill at the Farmer's Market. We ordered a horchata and a limeade. The horchata was wonderful in its milky, creamy, cinnamonny way.



I got the chilequiles rojas. This gets strangely spicier the longer it sits out. It's still not really spicy but it has a noticeable kick about the time you're 1/3 finished with it. A really deliciously hearty and comforting dish. Soggy nachos with like half the fat.



The tortilla soup is also down home comfort in a bowl. This is the small, believe it or not. The large is a bucket pretty much. With two slices of avocado and a light film of cheesy oil coating each spoon, you probably want to share - or maybe not. The chicken tinga burrito is always a good choice too.



Loteria Grill has great mole as well and a terrific breakfast menu that's served all day. I love their plantains and their spicy pork tacos. I should eat Mexican more often. It's so delicious. I need to make Burritos in the House! a line I can shoutout with veracity.

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Recommended Dishes:
chilequiles rojas, spicy pork burrito, chicken tinga burrito, tacos, plantains, chicken mole, horchata.

 
09/07/2009
I happen to know a lot of Virgos, including Lauren of Harb Knock Life. To properly celebrate her birthday, we decided to go hog wild and eat at Animal. I was expecting to like it, but I had no idea that I was going to get a spa treatment from it. The flavors were so bold and kickin' it cleared the mist from my eyes, and I think the wax from my ears also melted away. I wouldn't be surprised if it exfoliated my skin too. Like Karl Marx said about capitalism, all that is solid melts into air. That's what happened at Animal.

We ate a scandalously large meal. I don't apologize. I'm merely bracing you for the shock and awe. We sat at the bar because the small space was teeming with people. I liked it because we got a little window into the chefs preparing our food. As they bustled around, sweaty back and all, I'd think, soon my food will appear and I will have sort of watched it being made.


We had prosecco because no birthday is complete without bubbles.  

Heirloom tomato, ginger vinaigrette.  This was insanely flavorful.  And it was $5.  Get it or regret it.


Arugula, apple, grapes, pine nuts, white balsamic, parmesan.  Arugula, which sounds better as rocket, is one of my favorite greens.  It reminds me of all the mysterious greens my grandma used to pick in vacant lots and then hoist on her head in a large sack.  She'd walk around Granada Hills with her arms swinging free and a huge sack of vacant lot greens on her head.  One day she told us a woman ran out and snapped a picture of her.  Being an immigrant means having to hear stories about your relatives being photographed for National Geographic type posterity. It also means you eat dandelion and other weird weeds and develop a flavor for bitter, hairy and scratchy greens.  It's all good.

This was one of the best arugula salads I'd ever had. Peppery, bittery, creamy and just wonderfully compelling. I like you rocket.  I like you a lot.

Amberjack, yellow peach, citrus, mint, chili.  This was great.  The peaches were a terrific foil for the fish.

Grilled squid, chorizo, chimichurri.  The potatoes, the chimichurri, the salty and smokey flavors with the herbaceous ones.  Lovely.

I wanted to steal this print.  Lauren said it reminded her of Where the Wild Things Are. Totally.

Leg of lamb, merguez, salsa verde, alubia criollo beans. The lamb was perfectly cooked and I love merguez which is salty and intensely smoking verging on burnt but this dish was a bit too reminiscent of the squid dish. I think salsa verde = chimichurri and merguez = chorizo.  Both are good but I'd get one or the other, not both during one meal.  My favorite were the beans.  Why don't we see more beans in the summer time?  Beans are good.  Let's see more of them, shall we?

Barbeque pork belly sandwich, coleslaw.  For $10, this is a steal.  

I didn't love it though because there was so much seal blubber.  But we had run into activefoodie before dinner and she had recommended this as one of her favorites so I bet most people would agree that this is one of the standout dishes at Animal.

Of course we had to get the bacon chocolate crunch bar.

I cannot lie to you America.  This picture was staged.  Due to my cheap ass camera, I missed the critical shot of Lauren blowing out the candle.  Thus, we had a re-take with the already extinguished candle.  Isn't it nice that there are 2nd takes in life?

When we left, Animal had finally calmed the heck down.  

I had had AOC the night before and to be honest, Animal blew my queen out of the water.  I don't know if the depth or the variety is there.  But the flavors are full frontal and animalistic.  This is getting added to the regular rotation for sure.  And next time, I'm stealing the print off the wall, hoisting it on my head and walking off with my arms swinging at my sides like my grandmother before me. If you're fast enough Pre, you can snap a pic. It'll last longer.
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Recommended Dishes:
heirloom tomatoes, arugula salad, grilled squid, grilled lamb

 
09/02/2009
If I had a nickel for every time I felt like eating at AOC, I'd be a wealthy woman for sure. I like sitting at the cheese bar and eating slices of bread with that slightly bitter brick colored paste. I like using the wooden paddle to paint my bread. I like sipping wine and watching the staff go about their business. I like the yellow almost covert exterior of AOC. The font. And of course, I love the food. In other words, I love AOC.
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