Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Grace's OpenTable Appetite Stimulus

Among OpenTable's restaurant lineup for its Appetite Stimulus Plan, Grace is one of the few ones I was excited about and last night I managed to try it out with Mattatouille and his girlfriend.

Besides the 2 choices for each of the three courses, Grace also offered other courses for $6-8 supplemental charge, but we all stuck with the $35 three-course choices.

The first choice for the appetizer was the Fall Squash Soup with duck confit and pistachios.
A delicious and rich soup! The duck confit went very well with the sweetness of the squash soup itself and the pistachios provide a nice crunchy texture along with the smoothness of the soup. Everyone on the table loved it.

The other appetizer choice was House Cured Salmon with roasted beets, heirloom tomatoes, and horseradish creme fraiche.
I thought the presentation was gorgeous - I felt bad destroying it but you gotta do what you gotta do. This again was a hit - the salmon was delicious, and the sweet beets and tomatoes combination worked very well.

Instead of the sand dabs that the website mentioned, the first entree choice was actually Petrole Sole. The preparation and accompaniments are still the same with potato gnocchi, hazelnuts, haricots verts, and sage brown butter.
I only had a bit of this and thought it was solid. The fish wasn't particularly flavorful but Mattatouille seemed to love the brown butter. I loved the potato gnocchi which were very tender.

I had the oven roasted Leg of Colorado Lamb with Byaldi confit and olive infused lamb jus.
The Byaldi confit reminded me of the dish from the movie Ratatouille :) (doesn't it? doesn't it?) (oops, not Rattatouille ... It's all Mattatouille's fault)
The confit may be our favorite part of the dish. The lamb was flavorful but somewhat on the tougher side. Still good, just harder to eat - if only they had given us steak knives.

For dessert the choices were the Apple Upside Down Bread Pudding with buttermilk ice cream, apple cider syrup, cranberries, and brown sugar walnuts
A great dessert. The cranberries didn't add anything for me and I think it even distracted from the rest of the dish, but after putting that aside, I liked everything else.

The other dessert choice was Boca Negra Cake Affogato, which is a dark chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream, brandied orange slice, then soaked in espresso.
Very rich! The cake itself was amazingly dense. Delicious but take small bites, it really gets to you! You'll need some hot tea or black coffee to cut it later.

The other thing I love about this restaurant is the small touches they put into their wares. The container for the honey that comes with their tea is a great example:
What a cute bee-shaped honey container! I want to take it home ...

Just like its DineLA menu, Grace's Open Table Appetite Stimulus was a hit for me. I'm glad they continue to participate in these prix-fixe weeks and continue to deliver a solid, worthwhile menu that people can really appreciate (unlike some other restaurants we talked about last night *cough*).

GRACE
7360 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036-2501
(323) 934-4400
gracerestaurant.com

6 comments:

Aaron

That does remind me of Rattatouille. You know Thomas Keller was a culinary consultant on that movie?

I'm impressed that you managed to roll out your review of Grace before your trip. Have a good time in NY; I want to hear all about it next time I see you

mattatouille

Ratatouille...I think my blog name is confusing you guys! Dang Fiona, I wish I lived the jet-set life that you have :P Nice quick post. Mine will take weeks...I'm SO backed up on posts....

mattatouille

oh btw, it was great meeting Sam! it was good to share the meal last night, we liked it too. BUT we were still hungry! If you read my tweet, you'll see that we followed up the meal with some other good dishes...Also, Give sam my regards, and I hope you have a great trip in NYC

Frequent Traveler

That smoked salmon DID look incredible !

gourmetpigs

right, right RaTatouille ... haha well it's pretty close ..? I'm also backed up on posts but I pick and choose :P

Aaron - I reviewed it in NY waiting in the hotel lobby until I can check in!

Loving Annie - Thanks, it was! We could've eaten a big plate of that.

Jon Supermurray

I've been trying to find a way to add pistachios to a soup-type dish. When I boiled them in water they lost all flavor and just tasted like soggy wood. Maybe adding them to a simmering thick broth would allow them to gain some flavor.

I've been eating pistachios "in shell" to fool myself into eating less, Dr. Painter says it works :)

http://pistachiohealth.com/the_pistachio_principle.html

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