A weekend in LA - part 1

Only one more day for the BonBonBar giveaway! Be sure to enter if you haven't already.

Most of my extended family lives in Los Angeles , so we usually end up going there a few times a year. Each time we go, we try some new restaurants. I was really happy to hear that Jose Andres was opening an LA outpost, because I love his cookbooks and tv show. On Friday night we had dinner at The Bazaar by Jose Andres. The restaurant format is tapas, and the menu is split into two sections. The Rojo section of the menu focuses on tradition tapas fare. The Blanca section of the menu is modern tapas with a molecular gastronomy slant. We spotted Marcel from Top Chef hard at work in the kitchen.

I did all the ordering for the table, and tended to veer more heavily towards the Blanca section of the menu. Simply put, the meal was amazing, definitely one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten (French Laundry still holds the #1 spot). Since there were quite a few courses, I’ll keep the descriptions relatively brief, but please feel free to ask questions in the comments section and I can provide more details.
Philly cheesesteak - This was a hollow bread filled with a cheese sauce and topped with thinly sliced Kobe beef. Tortilla de patatas 'new way' - A quail egg cooked slowly at 63 degrees C topped with a warm potato foam and crispy potato bits. A modern take on the classic spanish tortilla.
Modern and traditional olives - The modern ones are Ferran Adria liquid 'olives', which I believe are spherifications of an olive flavored liquid. The traditional olives are stuffed with anchovy and piquillo pepper and topped with orange zest. The modern olives come to the table in a jar of olive oil and are fished out of the jar and placed onto the spoon by the waitstaff.
Jamon iberico de bellota - Acorn fed, free range iberico ham served with tomato bread. This was definitely a splurge, but worth every penny. They had a separate meat slicing area with a big bowl of perfect looking tomatoes for the toast. I'm not sure where they got such nice tomatoes in January, but I'm not complaining!
Crab buns - Crab and cucumber with a creamy sauce (alioli maybe?), served on steamed buns. The buns were the perfect texture.
Foie gras cotton candy, salmon caviar cone - A piece of corn nut crusted foie gras torchon wrapped in warm cotton candy. It may sound strange, but trust me when I say it was delicious. I didn't try the caviar cone, it was for the person in our party who doesn't eat foie gras.

Ottoman carrot fritters - Bits of carrot and white bean loosely bound and fried. Served on a bed of creamy pistachio sauce.

Butifarra - Pork sausage with white beans and mushrooms. The sausage was perfectly cooked.

Tempura avocado with airy mayonnaise - Chunks of avocado lightly battered and fried, served with foam for dipping. I detected a nice hit of sherry vinegar in the foam.

Mozzarella-tomato pipettes with micro basil - To eat, you pop the tomato into your mouth and squirt in the liquid mozzarella and olive oil from the pipette.

Bunuelos - Traditional salt cod fritters with honey alioli. I just realized that I have the recipe for these in one of his cookbooks, so you can bet I'll attempt to recreate them at home.

Tea service

Traditional spanish flan with vanilla and orange - We decided to end with a traditional and a modern dessert. The flan was the best we've ever had.

Coconut nitro floating island with banana and passionfruit - Frozen on the outside, soft on the inside coconut island on banana slices with a passionfruit sauce and passionfruit seeds. I thought the passionfruit seeds were a nice touch.

There's only one dish that's not pictured here, and that is the fideos with shrimp and alioli. I didn't bother with a picture because it wasn't particularly attractive, and it turns out it was also our least favorite dish. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't as good as everything else. We will definitely be back, hopefully sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I have his cookbooks to work my way through!