Showing posts with label squash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label squash. Show all posts

Friday, June 24, 2011

Cham Brings New Addictions to the Menu

Watch out for Cham Korean Bistro's new menu items or you'll end up like me: an addict. Yes, I'm addicted to their new Sesame Kabocha Squash Chips ($5)

Kabocha Squash Chips
The squash is mixed with some rice flour, giving it a chewy, mochi-like consistency on the inside while the outside remains crispy. It's lightly sweet, yet the sesame seeds gave it a nutty and smoky hint. Appetizer, snack, dessert. I'll eat them whenever and will definitely order them whenever I visit Cham but alas, at $5 for half a dozen pieces, I won't be able to take a whole bag home and eat them all day long. I wonder if they'll do a bulk discount ..

Another new menu item is the Sweet Potato Fries (w/ Honey Mustard Sauce) $4
Sweet Potato Fries
I really enjoyed these fries. They were thick and weren't battered and deep fried. The sweetness really came through and they weren't greasy as other versions tend to be.

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

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