Showing posts with label nobu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nobu. Show all posts

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Tasting Ora King New Zealand King Salmon at Nobu

There's a new salmon player in the US and it's called Ora King. They culture sustainable king salmon in New Zealand in 5 sea farms and hatcheries in Marlborough Sounds. Supposedly it's the longest and most sophisticated selective breeding program in the world (they've been breeding since 1994), with every fish individually tagged by hand and tracked (that's over 200,000 fish) so that they can control in-breeding.

Ora King's salmon goes from harvest to airplanes within 12 hours and a few of restaurants in Los Angeles have started carrying them, including Nobu and Craft. I was invited to a tasting at Nobu of appetizers and sushi made with Ora King salmon. With the eating local movement going on, the question is: is the taste of Ora King salmon worth the miles traveled from New Zealand? The answer is yes!

At Nobu, we tried different preparations of the Ora King salmon. The most representative of the texture and flavor is certainly the sushi and sashimi, and I think I had seven pieces of sushi that night ...

Salmon sushi
Ora King salmon has a rich flavor and a wonderful firm, oily texture.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Cart for a Cause: Eat off a Truck, Feed a Senior

"Meals on Wheels." What do these words mean to Angelenos these days?

Taco trucks, cupcake trucks, banh mi trucks, bustaurants?

But that's not what the term used to mean, is it?

Meals On Wheels Association of America. Provides home-delivered meals services to people in need.
That's what the term "Meals on Wheels" was all about. But now, with Cart for a Cause the two come together.

Cart for a Cause is a food truck-based fundraising where every Tuesday brings gourmet meals from a different famed Los Angeles chef to the LA area.

All the proceeds will go the St. Vincent Meals on Wheels.
In short: you buy lunch from this truck, one homebound senior gets a hot meal delivered.



Sounds good enough? It gets better. This truck isn't playing around food-wise. They've got quite the chef lineup to feed all you hungry, picky folks:
Alex Becker (Nobu West Hollywood), Susan Feniger (STREET), David Myers and Dong Choi (Comme Ça), Vinny Dotolo and Jon Shook (Animal), Josef Centeno (Lazy Ox Canteen), Eric Greenspan (The Foundry), John Cuevas (Montage Beverly Hills) and Sal Marino (Il Grano).

We don't know yet what they'll be offering, but the possibility of eating kaya toast or poutine or pig trotters while knowing you're feeding a homebound senior is high.

So stay tuned for their menu and locations via @CartForACause or their Facebook page.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Matsuhisa: Overpriced "Omakase"

I suggested Matsuhisa to my friend Kat for a lunch get together once, because she wanted to go to a sushi place she had never been to before.
I previously had a good experience at Matsuhisa when I ordered their upper-priced omakase, but alas, our experience this time around felt like such a ripoff and none of us has been back since then.

I ordered a la carte this time around and started with the crab taco.
This was good as the crab was fresh and meaty, and the crunchiness of the taco shell made a great combination.

I also got the eggplant dynamite as it seemed interesting.
Interesting and pretty enjoyable, though nothing special.

I also got the mushroom buckwheat risotto (since I wasn't full)
Risotta is al dente and mushroom tasted good, but to eat by yourself this dish gets boring.

But enough about my meal, let's move on to my friend's disappointing omakase meal.
She had chosen the least expensive omakase, which I believe was about $70.

They started off the omakase with some hamachi tartar
Kat enjoyed this and the hamachi was pretty fresh - so far the meal is starting off decent.

Second item was salmon carpaccio.
Again, fresh salmon. My friend was complaining a bit that salmon is pretty cheap, though.

Then they served the hamachi salad. Wait. Hamachi, again?
Okay, so the hamachi sashimi was actually good, but two hamachi dishes in an omakase? It seems to be pretty poorly planned - or they just didn't really care at all.

Next she got the oyster fried in filo dough.
Although my friend did enjoy this, the dish was only $5 on the regular menu, so getting this as part of a $70 meal is kind of ... a ripoff :(

The other cooked item was the miso cod.
The cod was good and well prepared, but this dish can be easily found at many japanese restaurants.

I didn't even bother to take a photo of her sushi plate, as it was quite disappointing. She basically got the most ordinary, cheapest selections such as salmon (yes, more salmon), ebi (no, not ama ebi), unagi ...
$70 would have gone a loooot further at Sushi Zo. And he definitely wouldn't keep repeating hamachi and salmons throughout the meal!

The dessert they had for this "cheapest" omakase is pretty run-of-the-mill stuff. My friend got fried bananas with vanilla ice cream.

I won't argue that the food at Matsuhisa is of good quality, but the omakase she got that day was such a ripoff and disappointment. We really don't think all the items she got are really worth (or even actually added up to) $70, and the repeated fish just suggested that they put very little thought into planning the omakase!

Neither of us has been back ever since, and probably never will.

Matsuhisa
129 N La Cienega Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
(310) 659-9639

Matsuhisa on Urbanspoon

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