Yay! Another Cooking movie!

While I was on the plane coming back from Indonesia I was lucky to find another cooking movie! This time it's a Korean movie based on a comic book called "Le Grand Chef", directed by Jeon Yoon-soo.

The story goes, there's a knife that used to belong to the last royal chef of korea. The royal chef cut off his hand with this knife so that he would not have to cook for the Japanese that had taken over. Now, the Japanese wants to return this knife to the Koreans and they are holding a cooking contest to determine the next owner of this knife.

Our main character is Sung-Chan (Kim Kang-Woo), who used to work at Woonam-Jung which is owned by the descendants (descendant of the apprentice, more like it) of the royal chef. Due to some reason which I won't tell you, he was kicked out ...

I don't want to give too much away, but it was a good and entertaining movie, so you guys go watch it!

Fraiche - Not So Fresh

This is a long overdue post on Fraiche in Culver City, the reason being I wasn't really crazy about it. Disclaimer first, I only went here for an office holiday party, and we had a pre set menu etc, so it may well be I didn't get the representative dishes to convince me that Fraiche was as awesome as I had heard.

It was a three-course menu, and for starters I ordered the beets with goat cheese and pistachios. I have to first say I have heard many many good things about this dish, which was why I ordered it. Upon first glance, the beets weren't as colorful as I am used to. But I won't judge based on that, bright colors may not be everything.
The first few bites of the beets were good and enjoyable, but I could not finish the dish. As I was eating each bite made me feel somewhat ... queasy? It was like the beets were, well, anemic! The beets were a bit bland than I would like, and to top that off with loads of also-rather-bland goat cheese was too much. I stopped eating so I won't feel sick. Is this normal? Or is it one of those let's-give-the-office-party-ppl-second-rate-ingredients?? Maybe it was just us, maybe some people like it way better that way. Dont' know. But no one around my seat finished their beet dish. It was 'good' at first few bites, then 'okay', then on to 'ugh' ...

For the main course I had the duck with black rice. This dish was pretty good but the duck was overcooked and, hence, dry. I did like the black rice though.

I had the chocolate bread pudding for dessert. This was also a bit dry, especially as far as bread puddings go.

The other choice for dessert was the lemon meringue pie. I tried a bit from someone else's plate, but it was way too sweet even for my sweet tooth.

For all the hype I've heard about this place, I was rather disappointed. Is it just because what we got were not as good as a normal Fraiche meal? Tell me, should I go back and give it another try?

Fraiche
9411 Culver Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232
(310) 839-6800
http://www.fraicherestaurantla.com

Another trendy sushi spot

Last Friday I took a lawyer friend of mine to dinner, to thank him for all his help in some matter against BofA (if you're interested, see this post).

He suggested we go for sushi, and requested that the place also serve martinis. I figured that would limit me to the trendy sushi restaurants. I decided to try a place I have never been to, and since Hokusai had some good reviews on citysearch, I thought I would give it a try.

The place was loud, as expected. We arrived on time but the table wasn't ready, so we waited about 15 minutes. They did have a list of martinis. I ordered a cantaloupe martini and he ordered a lemon drop martini. The martini was very strong, and not sweet enough for my personal taste.

They had something called a 90211 roll that I really wanted. It had wagyu beef, foie gras, and black truffles. Unfortunately, they were out of wagyu beef :( so I settled for other things.

We got some sashimi/carpaccio dishes. This was the tuna wasabi
I thought this was pretty good, although too spicy for me! (I'm weak sauce). The tuna was pretty fresh and the sauce was delicious. Again, spicy though.

They mistakenly placed this tuna carpaccio that was meant for another table on ours:
They said it's ours now and on the house since it was their mistake. Underneath all those stuff are slices of tuna. I really like this dish, since it had lots of mayo-based sauce and I love mayo. It is quite different from other carpaccio dishes I've had before and it's quite a refreshing change.
And free is always good too! :)

We also ordered some regular sushi. Some salmon, salmon belly, hamachi belly, etc
The fish itself is not bad although not comparable to real sushi places like Sasabune, Asakuma, Mori etc. The slices were small though and they put too much rice.
This place was definitely better for the carpaccio/appetizer dishes than the sushi.

We got the chocolate moelleux for dessert. Good, standard chocolate souffle:
Better than what a lot of places dare to call "souffle", though not the best.

All in all, I liked the appetizers and the creativity in the dishes, but sushi and the fish itself is subpar.

Hokusai Restaurant
8400 Wilshire Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90211