Showing posts with label french food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label french food. Show all posts

Saturday, June 15, 2019

LQ Foodings Supper Club Still Serve Some of LA's Best French Food

Some of LA's best French food can be had at LQ Foodings, a supper club by Laurent Quenioux who owned Bistro LQ a few years ago in LA. He holds this multi-course supper club dinners at a private home in Highland Park or other locations throughout the city.

I haven't had LQ's food in a while but I regularly get the news about the supper club. I finally decided to go recently, swayed by the possibility of an uni sausage (which didn't happen as the menu changes all the time, but the dinner was still great!) and convinced estarLA to go with me. It's a six course menu for $74 (wine and cheese is extra and a 20% service charge is due at the night of the event), which is pretty good for a tasting menu in LA. We all sat at a large dining table, a communal dining experience filled with food lovers, both new and long-time fans of Laurent.

We went for the spring dinner series and started with a Wild troll salmon sausage, fennel pollen emulsion, English peas, Timut peppercorn meringue, fennel
Bistro LQ
A great, light start to the meal - I loved the texture of the salmon sausage.

Devil's Gulch Ranch rabbit "carnitas rillette" roll, yellow beet, apple vinegar gelee, arthicoke "a la grecque", black trumpet mushrooms
Bistro LQ
Yes, it's rabbit meat that's been braised "carnitas" style!

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Ti Bouchon: A Dining Experience to Remember in Saint Martin (SXM)

Ti Bouchon is hard to get to. Nestled in the French Cul-de-Sac in Saint Martin, it's not near most of the tourist areas and hotels, but it's well worth making the trip. To be honest, it took One More Bite Blog some finagling to convince me to go here, because the round trip taxi fare was going to cost us $50-60. But I must say it was definitely the best meal I had in St Martin (and Sint Maarten)!

Soup amuse bouche. I unfortunately lost a whole year's worth of notes, somehow, so I couldn't remember what this was.
Ti Bouchon
Fresh tartare medley of crab meat and cantaloupe (16)
Ti Bouchon
A nice and light treatment of fresh crab meat.

Terrine of foie gras, chocolate seeds, starfruit chutney, brioche (22)
Ti Bouchon

Friday, May 16, 2014

Provence Menu and Paul Sanguinetti's Cocktails at Kendall's Brasserie

I've always only thought of Kendall's Brasserie as that pre-theatre and opera restaurant. Sure, it's a Patina restaurant, but I never really tried to visit the restaurant sitting below the Ahmanson and Dorothy Chandler. Their cocktail menu has gotten a big revamp, as well - more on that in a bit.

Well, recently I finally made it in to try their limited-time Provence menu. I started with the Chabrirou Gratinée (Baked Goat Cheese on Potato Salad, Mixed Frisée-Arugula Salad, Picholine Olives - $15)

Goat Cheese
How can you go wrong with warm baked goat cheese? You can't!

Brandade Cake (salted cod and potato cake, fennel, arugula salad - $16)
Cod Brandade

The cocktails here have gotten a huge upgrade since Paul Sanguinetti (Ray's and Stark Bar) took over the menu. He has a few special ones for the Provence menu ($12 each).
I started with the St. Tropez Swizzle (Absolut Elyx Vodka, Imbue Petal and Thorn Rose Vermouth, Chamomile Syrup, Fresh Lemon Juice, Fever Tree Soda Water, Crushed Ice)
Swizzle

Friday, August 29, 2008

Eme's Little Bunting

I have heard rave reviews about Ortolan, so I finally decided to give it a try. Ortolan's chef, Christopher Eme, probably has two claims to fame: 1)He was a chef at L'Orangerie and 2)he is married to actress Jeri Ryan.

We were there on a weekday for an 8 o'clock reservation and the restaurant is almost empty - only two other tables in the front dining room, which had these really nice white booths. After my dinner that night I was undecided about their service, and I'll tell you why...

We were seated immediately and were asked if we would like any wine or champagne. We don't really drink so we declined and just asked to tap water. It seems like after this we were ignored ... For about 15 minutes in such a practically empty place, we were not given any menu. After 15 minutes someone came by and asked if we were ready for order. "I'd like to see the menu" was, naturally, my only response. (I wanted to add "Uhm, helloooo???!" to that).

Anyway, after that, the menu came immediately. We ordered crispy langoustine and seared foie gras for appetizers. Maybe because these were big ticket items, maybe because the guy could see that I was *unhappy*, or maybe because I were taking photos of the food and they figured out I'm a blogger - whatever it was, the service from then on was impeccable.

The first amuse bouche were two types of soups (warm) served in test tubes with straws.

The orange one was a carrot soup - good (I don't like carrot soups ...).
The red one was a tomato soup, and I don't remember what the green foam was. This was delicious!

The second amuse bouche was different than most other places - a pretty big bowl of eggplant caviar, to share for the whole table.
I loved it. It was unique and delicious. The flavors worked very well together and it has a nice, rich, creamy texture. I also loved the presentation in the stacked bowls.

The crispy langoustine appetizer was supposed to be one of their signature dishes:
It was okay ... From a signature dish I was expecting flavors dancing around in my mouth, but that didn't really happen. It was good langoustine and all, but overall didn't really stand out in my mind. Three pieces of langoustine - $24 ... hmm, I didn't think it was worth it.

So moving on to my seared foie gras:
Now this is more like it!!! This wasn't on the menu but was suggested to me by the server when I told him I like foie gras but not terrine. The seared foie gras was served with cherries - a sweet combo! One of the better foie gras dishes I've had and my favorite dish of the night.

So the chef (Eme) comes out to each table to explain all the main entrees to everyone. I thought it was nice to maintain some personal interaction like that.

One of the entrees we got was the Cod with Paella:
I thought the paella was a bit bland for a paella and the sausages being on the side was rather hard to cut and thus to incorporate into each bite. The cod, on the other hand, was perfect. In other words, it was cooked perfectly and had just the right tenderness and flakiness. And by "right" I meant "ooh, I never knew this is how cod could really be!"
So, 100/100 points for the cod, but the dish in its entirety needs to be tied together better.

For my entree I got the Pork "Maine-et-Loire" three-way.
Interesting presentation. The best part of the dish is the pork confit hidden under the spaghetti carbonara. The bulk of the dish was the two pieces you see to the left. They are, unfortunately, a little dry :( I loved the spaghetti+pork confit and the stuffed bell pepper, but the rest was just okay ...

I got the "Lime Gelee, Coconut Emulsion" dessert because it sounded interesting.
I was kind of disappointed ... It wasn't really anything special and it was also pretty small.

We also got the chocolate tart (with raspberry and vanilla ice cream)
Much better! A rich and dark-chocolatey chocolate tart. The raspberries and the vanilla ice cream helped cut that richness perfectly. Yummy.

Oh, and I didn't take pictures, but one of the highlights of our meal was the chocolate truffles that they gave us at (near) the end (before the petit-fours)!! They brought a tray with jars of chocolate truffles with different flavors: coconut, lime, earl grey, praline .. mm what else...
Anyway, these chocolate truffles were very2 good. I didn't know how many we can have, so we just asked for two flavors each. They were so good that I asked them if I can buy some to take home!! After asking the pastry chef, they agreed. I chose the flavors I wanted and brought home a box of about 8-10 truffles. They charged me for an additional dessert, which was $12. It ended up being a great deal! Cheaper than, say, Chuao (or Leonida's, even?) and much better truffles!

Chef Eme held the door open for us as we left the restaurant! This made us leave the restaurant feeling happy and important and that the restaurant gives amazing service (but then I remembered their initial blunder - which left me undecided ... I guess overall they do give really good service).

Ortolan
8338 W. 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90048.
(323) 653-3300
www.ortolanrestaurant.com

Ortolan on Urbanspoon

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