A weekend in LA - part 2

On Saturday night, we ate at Osteria Mozza in Hollywood. About a year ago, we had a great meal at Pizzeria Mozza, which is the more casual restaurant next door. The Mozza restaurants are owned by Nancy Silverton, Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich. I think Nancy Silverton is a great chef – I own three of her cookbooks and I cook from them regularly. I’ve also eaten at both Batali/Bastianich ventures in Las Vegas, most recently at Enoteca San Marco, which was not very impressive.

Unfortunately, we were also not impressed by Osteria Mozza. Everything - from the grilled octopus appetizer to the fritelle di riso dessert - was on the bland side. I didn’t get any pictures because the restaurant was quite dark. On the plus side, Nancy Silverton was working at the mozzarella bar, and my husband spotted Michael Hall and Jennifer Carpenter from the tv show Dexter.

On Sunday morning before we left town, we ate breakfast at Brent’s Deli. My entire family has been eating at Brent’s for as long as I can remember. A trip to LA is not complete without a trip to Brent’s. We really don’t have any good jewish delis in the Bay Area, so I can only get my smoked fish and black and white cookie fix when I’m in LA. As usual, they didn’t disappoint.
Smoked whitefish and cod platter, enough to serve an army (bagels not pictured)
Black and white cookies - the mini version. Their large version is 10 inches across!

A weekend in LA - part 1

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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!

Eating our way through LA

A few weeks ago we were in Los Angeles, where we had an opportunity to sample some really great restaurants. Here's the list of our favorites:

Best Sandwiches - Smoked whitefish bagel and brisket dip from Brent's Deli

My family has been going to Brent's for as long as I can remember. It's always on the agenda when we come to LA. My husband had never been before, and thankfully, I can say that he likes it as well as I do! I had smoked whitefish and cream cheese on a bagel, and he had a brisket sandwich. They were both really good, I can't decide which was better.




Best Pizza - Squash blossom, tomato and burrata cheese from Pizzeria Mozza

This was a great pizza, the crust is unlike anything I've ever had before, it's almost hollow on the inside. The pizza was topped with tomato sauce and squash blossoms and finished with dollops of burrata cheese. Each dollop of cheese was seasoned with salt, pepper and olive oil. We also had a pizza with guanciale, fontina, radicchio, escarole, egg and bagna cauda that was excellent.

Best Pasta - Sauteed trenne with beef bolognese and cavalo nero from Campanile

This was one of the best pasta dishes I have ever had.Trenne is similar to penne, but it's shaped like a triangle instead of a cylinder. The beef bolognese was tender and perfectly seasoned, but the most interesting part of the dish was the treatment of the pasta. After the pasta was cooked, it was sauteed to create a brown crispy crust. I am still thinking about how delicious this was, and you can bet I'll be trying to recreate it soon.

Best Freebie - Cranberry and orange muffin from Craft

These muffins were given to us as a parting gift. I think the cute packaging says it all!


Best Baked Goods - Brunch pastry basket from Campanile

Every single item in this basket was delicious, which I think is a great feat. We received raspberry financiers, an apple turnover, a chocolate cupcake and pumpkin nut bread. The chocolate cupcake was the best cupcake I've had in recent memory.

Best Presentation - Beet and gorgonzola salad from Craft

This salad was almost too pretty to eat. Red, yellow and chiogga beets were quartered and mounded onto a plate. Small sprigs of greens and pieces of gorgonzola were tucked into the cracks. The salad was topped with shavings of raw beets in different colors. It was quite beautiful.

We had a great weekend, and we're already thinking about which restaurants we want to try the next time we're in LA.

Best of Vegas

This past weekend we sampled some of the best restaurants that Las Vegas has to offer. We started at Mario Batali’s B&B Ristorante on Friday night and then went to Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill for brunch on Saturday. After we had recuperated from brunch, we went to dinner at L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon. The trip ended with a visit to Bouchon for breakfast on Sunday morning. Needless to say, we consumed quite a bit of butter. And not just any old butter – butter imported from Normandy, italian triple cream butter and vanilla bean butter.

I didn’t take any pictures, and my recollection of the dishes may not be exactly correct, but here were some of our favorites in various categories:

Best amuse bouche – Cucumber gelee with yogurt, L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon. This was a shot glass filled partway with cucumber gelee and topped with a layer of yogurt, a touch of balsamic vinegar, and a tiny sprig of mint. It tasted like the best tzatziki you’ve ever had, and was a very refreshing way to start the meal.

Best bread basket – Assorted baked goods, Mesa Grill. Instead of your standard bread and butter, we received a basket of blueberry coffee cake, chile cheese biscuits, raisin nut biscuits and blue corn muffins – all were excellent.

Best pasta dish – Jose’s pyramids of braised beef shoulder, B&B Ristorante. According to our waiter, Mario feels that since making handmade pasta can be a tedious task, the person responsible for the pasta at each of his restaurants has a dish on the menu named after them. In this case, apparently Jose was the one to assemble our beef pyramids. The pyramids were about the size of a standard ravioli, but a single square of pasta was wrapped around the filling, making a triangular pyramid shape. The pasta was perfectly cooked and the beef had a silky texture. It was served with a brightly flavored tomato sauce.

Best overall dish – Lamb trio, L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon. This dish consisted of mini lamb chops, a lamb kebab on a spring of rosemary, and lamb shoulder confit. Everything was perfectly prepared, the lamb was very tender, and the confit was unique and delicious.

Best dessert – Framboise, L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon. When the dish arrived at the table, it looked like a white chocolate orb on a bed of raspberry sauce with fresh raspberries. Once the waiter poured more hot raspberry sauce over the top, the orb melted to reveal a center of yuzu ice cream. Not only was the presentation unique, but the flavors were amazing – you’d think that a dessert that contained white chocolate and ice cream would automatically be very sweet, but the yuzu ice cream was refreshing and tempered the sweetness of the white chocolate.

Best celebrity sighting – Who better than to see at Mesa Grill than Bobby Flay himself?

Overall, we enjoyed all four of the restaurants, and I’d highly recommend any of them on your next trip to Vegas. But of course, no one’s perfect. The worst dish of the trip goes to…

Goose liver ravioli with brown butter and balsamic, B&B Ristorante. When I saw this listed on the pasta tasting menu that we ordered, I immediately assumed the goose liver would be reminiscent of foie gras. I was very wrong. One bite is all it took for me to realize that I would be happy to never eat goose liver again in my entire life. And generally I am not a picky eater. I don’t really blame the restaurant; I don't think I'd like goose liver under any circumstances. My husband felt the same way.

After our weekend of excess, we filled up the grocery cart yesterday with fruit, vegetables and lean protein. We will be eating lighter this week to make up for the massive amounts of calories we consumed, but it was definitely worth it!