XIV Create Your Own Tasting - It's a Learning Curve

Another late Monday night dinner, but I felt like this time god's on my side. The newly opened restaurant XIV is open Mondays until 11 pm, and blogger kevineats has already done a blow by blow review of every single thing on the menu. So I just have to go eat, right? :)

For a place that's been open for only a week, and on a Monday night, XIV is bustling busy. Everyone in there seems to be the clubbing type, of course, but hopefully it was dark enough that I somewhat blended in ...

XIV lets you create your own tasting menu and every dish is priced at $8, and as I learned later this means you should order carefully. The catch - each person on the table has to have the same dishes. In this regard, I like Sona's tasting menu where they give everyone a different dish - lets you try more dishes. Our server was extremely friendly and down to earth - loved her. But the dishes were coming practically in twos which I found weird... My risotto was getting cold as I was eating my salad.

Instead of bread, they serve some Naan with Feta Cheese, and as all have speculated, it's probably because of Michael Mina's middle eastern background.The naan was excellent and the combination with the feta cheese worked extremely well. Each person is given our own dish of naan, and yes, we finished it all.

Our tasting menu started with Foie Gras Terrine with Cranberry gelee on top, cardamom, greek yogurt, flatbread
Great foie gras terrine, and I loved the cranberry gelee on top - nice combination of flavor and texture there. The terrine was dense and smooth.

We also had some salad (not my idea, really *sigh*). The menu read: Heirloom Tomatoes, gem lettuce, avocado, bacon vinaigrette
As you can see, not much heirloom tomatoes there. Baiscally a tiny lettuce salad, for $8 ... Yeah I don't think so. There won't be a second time. The lettuce also wasn't particularly fresh.

I then moved on to a more satisfying "vegetable" dish: Black Truffle Risotto, sweet corn, castelmagno cheese
Great dish - creamy, aromatic. The sweet corn cuts the richness very nicely.

Black Cod, spaghetti squash, matsutake mushroom, foie gras dashi
My favorite dish of the night. The black cod is cooked very, very nicely. The texture is the best I've ever had on a black cod and the flavor is very delicate - amazing. The fish and the dashi goes together perfectly. The spaghetti squash added another layer of texture, and I thought everything worked very well together.

For the red meat we had the Roasted Venison, Onion, Brussel Sprouts, huckleberry
The veal was cooked nicely - medium rare and very tender and flavorful. I also loved the onion and brussel sprouts, although as kevin mentioned, seems superfluous.. The meat itself however, was good but not the best I've had. It wasn't as game-y as I would've liked. That aside, this is one of the better preparations out there.
Also, the portion is a bit on the small side - three small slices of meat. I guess it's only $8.

White Chocolate Cube, orange blossom cream, coriander, pistachio, sake
Drizzled with black sesame sauce. The cube looks like the XIV building itself. Crack it open and you'll find all the pistachio, orange blossom cream etc goodness inside. Also love the black sesame sauce - actually I'm completely biased, I love black sesame. My one and only complaint: I wish it wasn't white chocolate but dark chocolate. Again I'm completely biased here :)

Lemongrass custard, cola, buttermilk, sweet potato-yuzu mochi, saffron
I thought this dessert was tasty and interesting. The mochi was good but pretty sticky. Although I liked the taste of this dessert, it left my mouth feeling rich and sticky while I was hoping for something more refreshing. Overall I liked the cube better, but again, this one still tastes good.

XIV definitely knows how to prepare their food, meat and fish in particular, but the $8/dish can lead to a hit or miss so do order carefully (i.e. avoid cheap salads).
Oh and I forgot to mention - Valet parking is a ridiculous whopping $14.

XIV
8117 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 656-1414
http://www.sbe.com/xiv/

Hours: Sun-Wed 6pm-11pm
Thu-Sat 6pm-2am

Backpost: Osteria Mozza and My Mozzarelas

This is a backpost from ... oh I don't know months ago. This was my trip to Osteria Mozza and after loading the photos I lost access to my desktop due to many reasons. But now here it is! See if I remember anything.

We made a reservation and got there right on time but the table wasn't ready anyway, so I had to wait at the bar for 10 minutes. Oh, well :/

First I ordered the mozzarela tasting appetizer since I am at Osteria Mozza after all!

Bufala, burrata, and fior di latte. This was waay too much cheese for 1 person (or 2 when one of us doesn't really like cheese). They also put lots of olive oil on it as you can see. I mean, it's yummy but seems a bit too fatty.

I couldn't really distinguish the tastes, but the textures definitely had noticeable differences. I liked the bufala a lot in the beginning but after eating a half of it, I found I liked the burrata's texture better.

We also split an order of gnocchi (this is a half):

The gnocchi was great and the sauce was tasty. It was supposed to be "wild boar ragu" though which was the reason I ordered it, but there was not much wild boar to it. Still tasty food though.

We also shared the Crisp Duck al mattone.

Impressive presentation, IMO :)
Duck was definitely crispy. Pretty juicy, flavorful. But ... a weeee bit too overcooked - just a wee bit dry ...

Now ... I'm so sorry but I don't remember what I had for dessert. Whatever it was it wasn't anything too special.


Overall I liked the food, although I would wait until the hype has gone down before coming back, so that 1)I can get reservation semi-last-minute and 2)I can eat in peace ...

Osteria Mozza
6602 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90038
1.323.297.0100

Sona's Little Pleasures

So I finally decided to give Sona a try since overall I've heard positive reviews about it. It was hard getting a reservation through OpenTable although when I arrived the restaurant was practically empty. Kind of sad, but at least his Comme Ca is doing well (they did have more tables filling up as the night went on, although still wasn't packed).

The place is well decorated with a sleek, minimal style.

We started with an amuse bouche: a shot glass of watermelon "gazpacho". The shot was chilled and was actually sweet, almost as sweet as pure watermelon juice.

They had 4-5 different types of bread, including an interesting Earl Grey one which I tried.

One of the great things about Sona is that when you order their Chef's tasting menu, they will try and serve each person a different dish - but along the same line - giving you even more opportunities to try out different dishes!!! (This was one of the reasons I can't remember all that I ate - there were so many different ones!)

The chef de cuisine was Japanese and so they have been serving a lot of Japanese-influenced dishes. Tonight, also, we started with a couple of sashimi dishes.
One of them was a kanpachi (i wuv my kanpachi):
The pieces were nice and fresh and I really enjoyed the sauce and garnish.

The other fish was I think, albacore? I can't really remember anymore, it's been a while.

Then we had the veal sweetbreads and lobster ravioli (!!!!)
How much goodness can you fit in one dish? I haven't had that many sweetbreads in my life, but this was the best one I've had so far. The lobster ravioli and its broth was pretty light and managed to cut the richness of the sweetbread very well.

The roasted corn soup was also a great dish:
It was served with a braised pork belly. The pork belly was just a wee bit dry, but overall good, and the corn soup itself was amazing.

We then moved on to the fish dishes. One was the seabass.
The sauce for this dish was great, but as far as the fish itself goes, I've had better seabass. This one was a little overcooked/ a little dry.

The other was a halibut. Now, this was delicate and delicious.
It was cooked just right, flakey and juicy. I believe it was served with english pea puree.

Then came the meat dishes. This one I believe was Venison.
Cooked perfectly medium rare, it was a very tender piece of meat.

One of us got the roasted squab, which was delectable!
I liked this better than the venison, personally.

Then they proudly presented the Seared Wagyu Beef
It was definitely delicious and well-prepared, but I'm not sure if I'm that big on it ... it was very fatty - you can see the marbling! I somehow felt like I was eating fat (yes, I'll devour foie gras any day), so it was a bit weird ... although again, it was delicious.

A mint-cucumber granita was served as a palate cleanser. I always love these granitas as they are always so refreshing, and mint is a love of mine :)

We were offered a cheese platter, which I accepted (they charged extra for it though, which I wasn't aware of before :( ... Providence didn't charge!)

Again, couldn't really remember ... there was goat cheese for one ...
The three cheeses were served with: 1) balsamic vinegar, 2)hazelnuts and 3) sea salt caramel (yum!)
Now, on to the desserts: I don't really remember what this dessert was - I think there was some passionfruit in it.
Anyway, it wasn't anything memorable.

Next was some sort of panna cotta with coffee gelee. This dish was really small. The gelee and panna cotta were ti~ny, not even bite sized.
It's hard to say how this was, the little bites barely allowed for any taste, especially since Panna cottas themselves aren't exactly bursting with flavor.

My favorite dessert that night was the Chocolate Beignet:
Melted dark chocolate inside a rich chocolate dough with a crispy outer layer. This was also served with ice cream which I didn't take a picture of.

All in all it was a wonderful, leisurely meal. On the whole everything was well done with quite a few of very memorable dishes. Everything was very beautifully presented of course. Compared to Providence, the dishes are less innovative, but on the upside it provides a certain 'comfort level' for both chef and customer ... (the salt and pepper ice cream from my last Providence visit for example I found ... strange). Anyway, I really enjoyed my meal and will definitely be back another time. Maybe rotate with Providence now? Or Ortolan?


Sona
401 North La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90048
310 659 7708
www.sonarestaurant.com

Jian BBQ Pre-Opening Night!

Jian BBQ is a high-end Korean place on Beverly Blvd that will open its doors to the public on May 26th. Lucky for me I got to tag along to their pre-opening tasting night for friends and families.

They had beautiful woodwork inside the restaurant, but the wall of the bar was laid out with pachinko machines and there's a giant statue of a black anime robot -- I'm not sure what the reasoning is here, but I thought the pachinko machines were pretty interesting.

Now, on to the food! We had a loong tasting meal ahead of us! I was sitting with a group of Koreans so I relied on them to tell me if the dishes would be too spicy for me or not. Luckily most of them were not! (Although the restaurant can make them spicier too if you ask them - but they are mainly catering to the white clientele).

We started with a whole bunch of appetizers. This is the yun aw jun (salmon with jalapeno, wrapped in a thin dough)
Good salmon, tasty. Nothing special here though.

Then the awww mandoo (halibut, snow crab, napa cabbage, doo boo)
This was served with their "JIAN gochujang sauce" which actually was not spicy at all. Again well done and tasty, but better dishes are to come.

Next is the yook hwe (beef tartar, korean pear, baby arugula, quail egg)
Now THIS was excellent IMO. Tender, fresh beef! There's a wonderful citrus-y flavor and the combination with the korean pear was very, very good.

The came my favorite korean dish, jap chae!
This jap chae was very very good, one of the best I've had yet. I do wish they had put more mushrooms and vegetables in it, but the taste was excellent. Not too oily or peppery either.

Next is the yuja yun aw hwe (salmon tartar)
Standard salmon tartar here. Good fresh fish.

Then the doo boo kimchi. Now it's starting to look spicy, but it actually was not that spicy.
The dooboo (in a thin fried layer of dough) is underneath all that kimchi. Excellent doo boo (tofu). I actually liked this dish despite the fact that I do not normally eat kimchi. The koreans on my table really liked it too (although they did wish it was spicier).

Next is the cheese ma ri, which is basically mozzarela sticks? Not very Korean, but it was pretty good.

Then the ga ri bi ti gim (scallops fried in shredded filo)
The filo tends to fall apart, making this a bit hard to eat since the scallops were also hard to bite off. Quality scallops. I do like fried food. Nothing to rave about here though.

Finally we're done with appetizers (all those were appetizers?? We were soo~ full already).

Next is the korean bbq. They brought us some pan chan - the standard kim chi etc.
One thing worth mentioning about this bbq is that there is no vent above us! This grill is built so that the smoke would be all sucked back down underneath! As we were cooking we could definitely see that the smoke does not rise but enters into the holes on the side as you see in this picture.
This makes the whole experience less smoky and smelly :)
So we had kal bi, bul go gi, and shrimp. The shrimps were very good, and so was the kal bi. I was never much into unmarinated bul go gi though .. They also served the lettuce salads instead of plain lettuce or rice paper to wrap it with, though, which was a bit of a bummer.

Oh we're not done yet .... We also had the eun dae gu jo rim (braised cod). Served with braised radish and some fried tofu.
Everyone loved this dish. It was a lot of people's favorite. It was a little salty, but the fish was amazingly tender and flavorful. And I love those little tofu.

We also had the kim chi chigue - which again, was a lot less spicy than usual. It was still a bit spicy so I only had a bite. I thought it was delicious. This girl on my table claims that it was one of the best she's ever had and that kim chi chigue is her favorite dish -- so I guess we can take her word for it? :)
We had mochi ice cream for dessert. What to say? Mochi ice cream is mochi ice cream.
I do wish they had served a more unique dessert - we did not get to see the real regular menu, so don't know what they will actually be serving.

We all really enjoyed our meal here. Overall, everything we had was solid and well done - some more "standard" than others. They do cater more to the non-Korean clientele with the less spicy dishes, but I think they still retain a lot of authenticity. I did not get to see the real menu so I don't know how much they plan on charging.
Assuming they have reasonable prices, I would definitely come back for the jap chae, the cod (eun dae gu jo rim), and the beef tartar :)




JIAN BBQ
8256 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(323)655-6556