Los Angeles: City of Food Angels

Street tacos: Quintessential LA Cuisine

Although I missed the talk last year regarding "What is LA cuisine," having finally left the city, I can certainly look back on my five years and tell you what characterizes Los Angeles food. It did take me several years to get over the superficiality of the Westside. In fact, living West of the 405 had left a bad taste in my mouth regarding LA's obsession with fads. By the time I graduated from UCLA, I thought I would leave the city thinking this shallow, pretentious image of Beverly Hills would be the one I'd take with me for the entire area. However, this last year I discovered the authenticity of the city actually lay within the unique geography and ethnic makeup of the city. And of course, I made that discovery by eating my way through this food destination.

More...

Several weeks ago, I received a frantic call. My friend was looking for restaurant recommendations for a Chinese business executive flying in for only two days. This guy was coming in by private jet; money was no object. What were some of the best restaurants in LA when you can spend anything you want? Of course the usual contenders made their appearance--Urasawa, Providence, Melisse and the like. But beyond the few, I soon realized that the best food in LA is not the most expensive food. Sure, these restaurants offered what you might characterize as "LA/Californian," but fresh, organic ingredients with a combination of European and Asian influences didn't seem immediately indicative of LA. You could say the same of almost any fine dining restaurant in the world. So what makes LA unique?

Bless the Commutes

One of the most frustrating aspects of the city also makes creates an environment for the best dining. Does it really take two hours to drive ten miles? It can in LA! Everything's so spread out, streets and freeways are packed all day. Stuck on the 10 for the second hour, it is easy to lose sight of the benefits of being so dispersed. Given my upcoming move to New York City, I would hardly call LA a city. Instead, LA is more like a collection of various villages carved out by long running boulevards and concrete rivers. This combination of low-density and high population form ethnic enclaves each offering its own victuals. Unlike cities like San Francisco, the constant influx of new immigrants creates communities that don't exist elsewhere. Being so spread out, these communities don't meld and mix as readily as they do in other denser cities. It usually takes a traveling kitchen to mix Korean and Mexican food, though a drive through Koreatown will convince you that Spanish and Korean are both native languages of Mexico and Korea. The result is communities that have a certain cultural integrity and allowance for diversity within those cultures. The distances between cultural quarters allows restaurants to specialize and become incredibly proficient at a few dishes that would mostly appeal to a homegrown crowd.


Ho-tteok from Pizza Land in K-Town

Where else can I go on a LA Ghetto Goodies marathon and have Korean ho-tteok, fried pancakes filled with brown sugar, and tacos off four taco trucks on the same day? Los Angeles is home to the largest communities of Thai and Vietnamese outside of their respective countries. In fact, North Hollywood is home to the only Thai Town in the United States. I spent almost every Sunday in old Chinatown, and despite its dilapidated charm, it still has a vibrant community. Go further East and you'll run into the newer Chinatown cropping up in San Gabriel Valley. I lived in Westwood; Little Tehran was just down the street. When I felt like eating with my fingers, it was off to Fairfax's Little Ethiopia. The South Bay has a diverse and vibrant enough Japanese community to host a Japanese Marathon without a sushi restaurant. Not to mention almost all of Los Angeles has taquerias and taco trucs.

Cheap Food Draws All


Tostada Mixtiada from Mar Azul

As a consequence of all these immigrant communities, cheap, delicious ethnic foods abound. A seafood tostada is $3 from the Mar Azul taco truck. $7 for the best ramen at Santouka. Indulge in Seven Course of Beef for $14. This is the perfect environment for amassing friendly eating gatherings, and as I've mentioned before, food marathons.

LA's cultural geography makes it rich for food blogging. Instead of just debating the best Japanese restaurant in town, people can claim expertise in the best yakitori, izakaya or ramen. A restaurant can be terrible in all other respects but have one dish be its saving grace. That's the magic of the LA dining scene.

Where to Go From Here


Chocolate cake from Comme ça

As I have emphasized, the beauty in LA food is the influx of new immigrants. But the lack of Old World immigrants have also led to a lackluster collection of European eateries. In future returns to town, I'd like to see growth in French bistros and Italian trattorias. Yet, will this betray the new age cuisines that characterize LA? Maybe a return to classical cuisines wouldn't be so bad. After all, the sushi and Thai fads are fading, but it seems like anything served from a truck is immensely popular.

What are your favorite aspects of LA cuisine culture, and where do you want to see it grow?

^

Read More

Williams, Arizona: Journey to the Grand Canyon

In a sleepy one-road town on Route 66, my girlfriend and I stayed for two nights for our trip to the Grand Canyon. Williams, Arizona, about sixty miles from the National Park is one of the closest and most affordable places to lodge if you're going to see this magnificent natural wonder. When asked if the Grand Canyon is worth seeing, I always respond the same way--while most landmarks look smaller in person than you expect, the Grand Canyon is hundreds of times grander than you imagine. Since this is Food Destination, I thought I'd profile three of the restaurants in town.

More...

As you can tell from the photo above, there's not much to this little town. Mostly dingy hotels and a scattering of restaurants, the tourism on route to the Grand Canyon seems to be the only thing keeping it alive. Oddly, there's a very modern looking Safeway grocery store at one end of town though. I guess everyone's got to have their slice of the twenty-first century.

Night 1: Dara Thai Cafe

The town's dining options are dominated by steak and chop houses offering slabs of meat in various slices of Americana. We actually searched out the outlier in all these restaurants and visited the one "ethnic" restaurant in town. It's actually not that easy to find, since the listed address is actually a real estate office. The cafe is hidden up Grand Canyon Boulevard, just keep your eyes out for signs. Being a Thai restaurant in the middle of nowhere with no discernible access to fresh ingredients, I didn't expect much. Places like these could get away with serving whatever chicken satay slathered in Sriracha and call it Thai. But the first thing I heard when I opened the door was rapid chattering of a Thai tour group. They were interacting with the waitstaff and seeming to enjoy their meals. I took their lack of total disdain as all the assurance I needed. A tom yum soup, a spicy tofu stir-fry and a dish of chicken sauteed in coconut milk called "jungle princess" all held up to the standards of Thai restaurants in LA. Certainly it's no Ruen Pair or Lotus of Siam, but I would go to Dara Thai Cafe even if it wasn't the only option in town.

Night 2: Rod's Steak House

After a day of hiking the Bright Angel trail into the Canyon, we came back to down ready to satisfy our inner carnivore. Along Interstate 40 driving towards Williams, we saw a cow silhouette on those familiar blue boards that show dining options at the exit. That cow would soon be very familiar to us, as it's used all over Rod's Steak House.

As with most establishments along Highway 66, Rod's is old. Old enough to have switched hands over three sets of owners and have legacies going back to the 1940s. In fact, judging by the interior, it probably hasn't been refurbished in decades. Though I can see how replacing some siding and table cloths might impinge on its Old West façade. Steaks at under $20 is not a bad price. I actually ordered their signature "charred steak", dipped in sugar and grilled. Yes, I was just as skeptical as you. Indeed, the sugar caramelized, then quickly burned, leaving a blackened exterior. But the steak was thick enough to maintain a pink medium-rare center. As a matter of principle, I refuse to order steak at restaurants that don't specialize in steak. While Rod's beef was far from transcendent, a thick, juicy slab is exactly what you need after a long day's hike. I didn't care much for milking the historic Highway 66 vibe, but if that appeals to you, Rod's certainly satisfies.

Morning 3: Old Smokey's Pancake House

Before leaving town back for LA, we decided on an extended breakfast at one of the many diners around Williams. Old Smokey's, like Rod's, features a long history coinciding with Route 66. In its previous life, it had been a diner, barbecue, and now a pancake house. Given its claim to fame, I had to order the pancakes. An unlimited stack of buttermilk pancakes for $5.99 was the way to go. But when I got my order, I was shocked that the buttermilk pancake plate was just one gigantic pancake. With griddle cakes this wide, it's hard to cook evenly, but they did a great job. Consistent throughout, and topped with one of the flavored syrups added to my delight. Strawberry, boysenberry, and pecan syrups all added something different to my pancake Frisbee. Though I settled on the nuttiness of the pecan as my favorite. Since I had a long way to drive, I didn't get another pancake, though in retrospect, $5.99 for one pancake would be too much to pay. To make it worth your while, at least down two of those suckers.

While there are a few more restaurants up in Tusayan, a few miles outside the Park, and many high-end eateries within the Park, Williams offers that small town feel. That is, assuming the small town has no evidence of any of the services you'd expect in a fully functioning town besides the tourism. But most of all, Williams has the cheapest lodging if you're on your way to the Grand Canyon, a trip I highly recommend.

Dara Thai Cafe
145 W Route 66, Suite C
Williams, AZ 86046
(928) 635-2201
~$10 a dish

Rod's Steak House
rods-steakhouse.com
301 E Route 66
Williams, AZ 86046
(928) 635-2671
>$20 a steak

Old Smokey's Pancake House
sideeffectsllc.com
624 W Route 66
Williams, AZ 86046
(928) 635-1915
$5.99 unlimited pancakes

^

Read More

Ludobites, I Eat

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.

More...

Yes, that Breadbar is serving food by an elite chef. According to Ludo, he wanted an environment in which he could interact directly with customers; he certainly did so on my visit there with Christine. Chef Ludo was in the front of the house all night, talking to each party, taking pictures, describing many of the dishes that he personally brought tableside. I didn't know what to expect, hearing about his outspoken personality. However, he was congenial the whole night. In fact, he seemed to be having a great time making sure everyone was enjoying himself.

For $5 corkage, I think the restaurant was encouraging people to bring their own wine. We started off with a gift from the kitchen of Ludo's "Popcorn Experiment." Although it was called an experiment, I didn't think it was very adventurous. Seasalt and Parmesean--yawn. Plus the oil drizzled over the kernels stole the crunch from the popcorn. Being the Breadbar, I also expected more out of the rustic bread with honey butter.

The real fun started with the cheesy rosemary polenta, oxtail and yellow carrots. Each ingredient built on the other to create a complex flavor and texture combination. You get the sandy polenta with the tender beef and crunch carrots. However, each element didn't stand out by itself when separated from the dish. The foie gras miso soup was my favorite of the night. Much like the foie gras shabu shabu at Urasawa, the liver permeates the soup while leaving droplets of oil along the top of the liquid.


Foie gras miso soup

The tuna, watermelon, beets, and balsalmic vinegar had the perfect balance of acidic flavors, the sweetness of the fruit, and the brininess of the fish.
Also, the fried chicken was fried in duck fat. Anything in duck fat is good.

Fried chicken in duck fat

Among the mediocre dishes for the night, sauteed diver scallop with curry-yogurt sauce failed to impress. Scallops are good enough on their own; it takes an outstanding sauce to compliment them. I just didn't think the curry flavors melded well. The beef tartar with Vietnamese peanut sauce came in a rice paper roll. I honestly don't remember anything about this dish. While typically I have poached egg on black olive bread as a breakfast item, it tasted just fine for dinner too.

Scallops
\
Tartar

Most disappointing, I thought the brocamole wasabi and corn chips suffered from the lack of avocado. I'll applaud the attempt to replace broccoli with the alligator pear, but the dip suffers when there's nothing to replace the creaminess of a ripe fruit. If anything, the brocamole tasted healthy...a little too healthy for me.


Of the two desserts that night, the chocolate mousse and grilled bell pepper didn't seem to coalesce with quite the ease of the strawberry soup, rhubarb, hibiscus and marshmallow ice cream. I couldn't get past the odd flavor of bell pepper in my chocolate. But the strawberry soup had the refreshing feel of a fruity gazpacho that I greatly enjoyed.

This was the first night of the a la carte menu. I much rather preferred this over a prix fixe 3-course meal that was the standard before. Splitting twelve dishes between four people, we still got our 3-course fix and got much more variety. Better yet, it was about the same price. Come with friends, meet the chef, share a few plates, and don't take yourself too seriously--Ludo doesn't.

Ludobites at Breadbar
ludolefebvre.com
8718 W 3rd St
Beverly Grove, 90048
(310) 205-0124
$38 pp

Check out GourmetPig's review


^

Read More

Wine, Hot Dogs, and Cookies; Didn't We Just Eat?

As a follow up to our dinner at Canelé, we headed over to Silverlake Wine for CakeMonkey, sparkling Syrah and the Let's Be Frank hot dog truck.
More...

First the Drinks

I've mentioned before how dinners with bloggers inevitably become marathons. Don't get me wrong, I value always having a place I need to check out and great friends to bring me there. Silverlake Wine, frequented by Mattatouille and Christine every Thursday for wine tasting, focuses on "boutique, small production wine in all price ranges around the globe." When we arrived, the place was packed, but I loved the feel of the store. The checkout counter is in the front. You go inside, open up whatever bottles you'd like in the store, and pay when you leave. It seems like a very casual system, but one that's not intimidating at all to a stranger or a budding oenophile. They offer tastings Sundays at 3, Thursdays 5-9, and Monday 5-9.


Cleared out by the time we left at 11

Then the dessert

During dinner, Danny kept raving about something called CakeMonkey. Upon inquiry, he could only tell me that I'd have to try it for myself. I imagined a full-sized edible monkey made of cake. When I arrived at Silverlake Wine, I discovered the cookies he was referring to. Decadent hardly describes these circular morsels of oatmeal cookies sandwiching maple vanilla buttercream called Li'l Merri's. When a cookie bends under its own weight, you can imagine how much butter is in each one of them. I happily ate one, but more than that at a time might be too rich. Plus, having worked at Ben and Jerry's in high school had given me a natural aversion to buttercream. There's nothing like seeing buttercream by the bucket load that will turn you off to it.



And finally the dogs


The other draw of Silverlake Wine is the Let's Be Frank hot dog truck parked outside on Thursday nights. After hearing Fiona raving about Let's Be Frank being better than Wurstküche, I had to investigate. We ordered the all three of their frank offerings and compared.



Biting into each of these dogs, I realized that I can't compare Let's Be Frank to Wurstküche at all. I still think the best hot dog in LA is Pink's, but I'll give best sausage to Wurstküche. There are different criteria for rating hot dogs versus sausages in my opinion. For sausages, I focus on the combination of flavors and I'm looking for a heavy, complex mouthfeel. Contrastingly, for hot dogs, the appeal is always in the casing. The best hot dogs, like Pink's or Gray's Papaya in New York, have a snap that's unparalleled. I want to bite into a hot dog and have it bite right back at me. Let's Be Frank was somewhat in the middle between the two. Without quite as much snap as a Pink's hot dog, but definitely not as satisfying flavor-wise as Wurstküche. Still, they make a great frank, just not my favorite. Paired with a few white beers from Silverlake Wine, this made a fantastic second dinner/snack.

Of the three we tried, the beef "Frank Dog" beef frank had the best casing snap, the "Hot Dog" spicy frank had the best flavor, and the "Brat Dog" pork frank had the least appeal. Pork just doesn't make quite as a good a hot dog. Get each one with their house pickles and grilled onions.

Silverlake Wine
silverlakewine.com/
2395 Glendale Blvd
Silver Lake, 90039
(323)662-9024

Let's Be Frank
letsbefrankdogs.com
Culver City and Silver Lake, check the website/twitter
$5 per dog

See Kevin's detailed review.

^

Read More

Kogi's Karmic Fail: An Introspection of Food Fantacism

Kogi Fail, ticketed for zoning

Step away from Twitter for a day and it feels like you've been out of touch for a week. Upon returning from a day trip to Universal Studios, I discovered the gem of drama surround Kogi's rebuff of Food She Thought. As luck would have it, the food gods blessed me with cosmic coincidence that Kogi would actually be a block outside my apartment today. So I stepped outside to see what the fuss was all about.

More...

Flushed with the amusement at Kogi's PR failure for ridiculing a budding journalist, I couldn't believe that the truck would just happen to be within walking distance of me. As a disclaimer, I write all this despite never trying anything from Kogi. This isn't a criticism of their food, which could be excellent for all I know. Instead, this is an examination of food fanaticism and how silly we all look from the outside.

Repeatedly, those who have tried Kogi tell me that it's NO BIG DEAL. It's Korean food, in a tortilla. And if you haven't tried Christine's grandmother's kalbi, don't tell me that Kogi is the best Korean food. My stance on the phenomenon is the same treatment I give any taco truck. If it's there, I'll eat at it. Do I really need to scout out the @kogibbq locations, and even in extreme cases, chase the truck when it moves?

Of course Kogi's success is mostly through word-of-mouth and viral marketing, two very powerful strategies in this increasingly interconnected world. As a blogger, I can see how fast new restaurants can spread, or even how soon they close just by blogger buzz. If Kogi wants to forge ahead, it can't abandon its grass-roots supporters. I've heard stories of Kogi not appearing at stated destinations or even abandoning lingering customers to find bigger crowds. This kind of business inevitably leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the consumers. As of the writing of this, Kogi still has not issued any sort of response or apology for the backlash it's facing on Eater.

But back to the events of this evening. I was thirty feet from white truck and the throngs of hungry students before I realized that the shutters were shut and the signs were down. This was the scene in the photo above, an officer citing some remote ordinance about serving food at a T-intersection for more than thirty minutes in a residential zone. My first reaction was internal satisfaction that Kogi would get punished in a karmic way after its poor treatment of a fellow blogger. But my attention snapped back into the current moment when a Kogi groupie ran up to the driver excitedly. "You can park around the corner. I just checked and it's fine to park there in ten minutes. Wait, let me double-check with the cop." He runs over to the police car, swaps a few phrases, then comes back nodding his head in hopeful affirmation. The line of young men and women behind me gather in unison, like some sort of freedom march for the legal union of short-rib to tortilla. They turn the corner and camp a strip of curb for their beloved truck.

This whole scene was oddly surreal to me. In most cases, I'd be one of those kids. Food has become such a peculiar fascination for me that it wouldn't be far-fetched for me to chase Kogi across town. However, given the opportunity to look in from the outside, those students looked ridiculous. Suddenly, all the images of food porn paparazzi (myself included) swarming a dish came to mind. It's funny to imagine the scene, and I can easily see why people are so vocal against the food blogging surge. We really just take ourselves too seriously. I'm not trying to cast doubt on the passion of any of my fellow foodies, but have we gotten so carried away in this journalistic hobby that we've lost sight of what brought us into it in the first place? I've been tempering my blogging as of late with my impending departure looming overhead. And I'll tell you, it's been nice just eating for the sake of eating, without notepad in hand or camera around my neck.


Poor groupies waiting there for a truck that never came

Despite the attention paid by the customers in preparing a truck stop, Kogi actually turns the opposite direction and drives away. I laugh to myself and walk back to my apartment to twitter share the ticketing picture. Half an hour later, I take a peek outside; there are still a dozen or so people hovering over that curb with fingers crossed. At the head of the pack--the guy who checked the street signs and cleared the location with the cop. He was looking down at his shoes, stomach probably growling. The light changed and his head perked up--the knock-off Calbi truck just drove down the street.

There's only one word to describe all of this: delicious.

^

Read More

Too Bad Hot Isn't a Synonym for Spicy in Chinese: Boiling Point in Monterey Park (沸點臭臭鍋)

It's really a shame that I don't make the trek out to San Gabriel Valley (SGV) for Chinese food more often. I'm constantly complaining about the Chinese offerings on the Westside, but it's hard for me to find opportunities to travel East. In my mind, Chinese is always best enjoyed communally; at a dinner for two, there isn't enough variety. That's why I cherish my trips back to the Bay Area for a chance to see my family and eat Chinese. Additionally, my Chinese is too pathetic to order anything interesting, so I've been reluctant to climb into a restaurant that caters to the ethnic Chinese. In one embarrassing incident, my Mandarin was so terrible that the woman thought I was speaking Cantonese and gave me a chicken leg instead of a pork chop. It took a Korean, Christine, to show me a hot pot restaurant in SGV. Can I get some love from any other American Born Chinese who can't read menus?

More...

We came on Tuesday for their hot pot lunch special. What was normally $9.99 was discounted a dollar and supplemented with a free drink. While Christine insisted on the available garlic sauce, spicy bean paste, and spicy oil, I was perfectly content with the seasonings that came in the pot.

In fact, I questioned whether it's healthy to ingest something so dark red. Christine would call me a complainer, but her idea of "complaints" are more of what I consider "observations" for my health.

Each person receives a personal pot loaded with ingredients. Pork intestines, tomato, fish cake, napa cabbage, enoki mushrooms, sliced pork, fish balls, floated in the crimson soup. Below those treasures, I excavated blocks of stinky tofu (臭豆腐). This was the first time I encountered stinky tofu hot pot. It's amazing what you miss out on when you don't explore this culinary cornucopia called LA. As the name would imply, stinky tofu is rather robust in fragrance. The smell is fairly strong, but the taste is much more mild. It takes tofu to a whole new level in my opinion, since tofu is normally so bland.

I ordered the spicy pot, and it was just at the level of enjoyable for me. A milder one wouldn't have had enough flavor, but anything hotter would've been unbearable. I believe that pork intestines are best enjoyed in preparations like this--simmering in a spicy broth. Overall, I had a great lunch, but I wonder now if I'll experience any regrets the next day.

Boiling Point (沸點臭臭鍋)
153 Garvey Ave
Monterey Park, 91755
(626) 288-9876
$8.99 lunch special

^

Read More

Canelé in Atwater Village: It's Pronounced Can-a-lay

As the title might suggest, I was a little slow picking up the correct pronunciation of Canelé. I'm never very good with French or Italian. So after being corrected by Christine I'm writing it here prominently so I can remember. Given that I was working in Pasadena the last week, I decided to send out an invite for a casual dinner at the restaurant I had been meaning to try for months. Of course, I realized that night that bloggers don't really have "casual dinners" and meals inevitably (d)evolve into marathons, to be chronicled in an upcoming post.

More...

My first encounter with Canelé was the LA Magazine Top 75 Restaurants list last year. When I first read it, I had only gone to four of those places. Now I've gone to sixteen. Still not quite as many as I had hoped, but along the way I found enough other places to keep me quite satisfied. But knowing that this was one of Mattatouille's favorite restaurants, I called him up along with Christine, Danny, Fiona, Josh, and Kevin for dinner. I guess it's safe to say since today was my last day of work, but I'm moving to New York. This was one of the last get-togethers I'd have with my foodie friends and certainly didn't disappoint.

I entered the quaint restaurant about ten to six on a Thursday night. Greeting me was Jane Choi, the manager, and Corina Weibel, the chef. Together, this dynamic duo runs the front and back-end operations of Canelé. Of course "back-end" is somewhat of a misnomer because of the open air kitchen in plain sight of the dining patrons. I could see myself coming by for a bite after work, maybe sitting along the bar, watching the cooks churn out Mediterranean comfort food. I swore I saw Andre Royo at the bar too, but none of my companions watched The Wire and couldn't identify him as that lovable drug addict Bubbles.

No reservations are accepted since the place is so small, but since I was the first person in the restaurant, I had no trouble securing the large communal table, which seats about 8-12. Eschewing the $22 prix-fixe menu Tuesday through Thursday, our group of seven picked out five appetizers, seven entrees and four desserts.


Cod Brandade
According to Matt, this is a common bistro fare. I could easily imagine it being a simple snack served on a Parisian patio. As with most French food, the dish was rich and soul-warming. A cod, olive oil, and milk puree, it had plenty of cod flavor but without unbearable fishiness. Eaten with a few slices of baguette, this could easily make a heavy first course or a midday snack. I wonder if any wine could stand up to this dish. Our syrah and chardonnay certainly couldn't keep up.


Clams and Mussels
As one of the specials of the day, the clams and mussels dish was not a typical menu item. For seafood like clams and mussels, I always like to hear that they're offered as a special. I like to think that the chef picked those out because they looked good for that night, rather than keeping them on the menu and settling for substandard seafood. What I liked about this plate of mollusks was that the shellfish had an opportunity to express its own flavor rather than simply being swallowed up in garlic butter. Definitely, the butter helped to heighten the flavor, but it wasn't dominating.


Lamb liver terrine
This was my first encounter with lamb liver terrine. Considering my deep love of anything lamb, I would've sought this out earlier had I known it existed. However, my fear with liver dishes is always that the iron taste of liver would overwhelm whatever else was present in the dish. Perhaps it was just bad liver prepared in my childhood that turned me off to that organ in particular. But this lamb terrine had a curious consistency, almost like tuna salad, and an intensity of lamb taste. Paired with the caraway-beer sauce, I could eat a tub of it.


Asparagus and egg on toast
Maybe there's a fancier name for this dish, but it is best described by its component parts. Typically, I am not a fan of asparagus, but the combination of asparagus and egg actually makes me want to buy a few stalks of the hardy green for my next omelet. I always like loose yolk preparations of egg. Good bread dipped in a runny yolk makes an excellent breakfast.


Duck liver pate
My favorite appetizer of the night, the duck pate was creamy enough to melt delicately in my mouth, but solid enough to hold up the cherry compote. This was presented to us as duck liver, but I'm curious if there is a duck liver that's not foie gras. Does the liver need to be fattened to be considered foie gras? As far as I can tell, terrine refer to the cookware, whereas pate just refers to a spreadable minced meat and fat.


Salt roasted brazino
I believe the salt roasted title indicated that the fish was covered in a salt dome to moderate temperature and properly season the fish. The resultant dish had a pleasant flavor with the perfect amount of seasoning. This was my first exposure to caperberries, which are like giant capers. From what I deduced, capers are pickled buds of a Mediterranean bush, whereas caperberries are when the buds are allowed to flower and produce the caperberry fruit. In my opinion, caperberries are much more delightful.


Duck confit
When I first heard about confits, meats slowly simmered in its own rendered fat, I thought this would surely be my favorite preparation of duck. However, in practice, most of the confits I find are too dry. Without enough moisture, the flavor is defeated and the texture flakes. This wasn't the case with the confit at Canelé. Each piece maintain its juiciness and fat.


Pork shortribs
Christine may peg me as a complainer, but I was clearly complimenting the short ribs for glistening in all that holy fat. I wouldn't blame anyone for mistakenly calling this lump of hog meat pork belly. Given its shiny, layered appearance, I was shocked that this didn't come from the underside of a pig. Do I really need to describe its flavor? Look at it. How else could it taste?


Leg of lamb
For my personal dish, I chose the leg of lamb. I'm a sucker for lamb, I just can't resist. Sadly, for all the complexity of flavor, much of it was lost by being overcooked. The meat was probably closer to a medium-well than a dull red medium-rare.

We also had a few desserts, but by then the sun had set and my poor camera couldn't capture anything that wasn't grainy and bathed in the orange glow of incandescent light. Their homemade cheesecake was my preferred meal-ender. Instead of a slice, each cake is made separately. It looked more like a wheel of chevre than a cake. The flourless chocolate cake was also one of the fluffiest flourless cakes I've had. It bypasses the problem of dense chocolate black holes of indulgence. And in case you're wondering, Jane served us Canelés on the way out. Maybe I got a bad one, but mine tasted slightly burnt and it lacked any kind of soft center.


Ah, so that's the namesake pastry

See some actual food worthy pictures and encyclopedic insight on Kevin's post.

For the brunch review and a Christine photospread, see Matt's entry.

Canelé
3219 Glendale Blvd
Glendale, 90039
(323)666-7133
canele-la.com
$6-11 appetizers, $18-22 entrees, $7 desserts

^

Read More