Preview: Upcoming Nameless Restaurant in Downtown LA

There was a nameless underground supper club in downtown associated with Daily Dose Coffeehouse. It may still be nameless, but soon it will no longer just an underground supper club.
The supper club maintained by developer Sarkis Vartanian, Chef Christian Page, and Ran Zimon is about to go public. Soon, the loft upstairs at Industrial St will be open up to serve prix-fixe multi course dinners (priced around $35) and simple breakfast and lunches at the coffeehouse downstairs.
They recently held a friends and media preview dinner for this supper club.

Chef Christian Page had previously worked with Chef Brian Bistrong at The Harrison in New York (Chef Bistrong now owns Braeburn in New York), so when this project started, he decided he must get Bistrong on board.

Chef Bistrong flew in for a day just to help prepare this preview dinner.

Guests mingled over hors d'oeuvres , including Nick Griffith from Intelligentsia since the supper club plans on serving Intelligentsia coffee once they open.



Our meal started with some French Onion Soup with oxtail, broth poured tableside.
I enjoyed this variation of french onion soup with the tender oxtail meat, though I did miss the melted cheese.

Blue Prawn with vinaigrette and heirloom tomatoes
A crisp, well prepared shrimp and sweet juicy tomatoes. A nice dish although compared to the other dishes to come that night, this became unmemorable.

Pappardelle with Braised Osso Buco
Pappardelle with some type of meat ragu is a dish I would order anywhere. The version here does not disappoint. A hearty dish with al dente pasta, tender meat and flavorful sauce.

Roast chicken, spinach, paprika sauce
I'm always wary about eating white meat at restaurants, but this one is surprisingly moist. The paprika sauce had a nice restrained spice as well.

Skirt steak, served in cast iron skillet
Have I told you I love skirt steak? More so than any other cut, skirt steak always has more flavor. If done well so that it doesn't become tough, that is. The one Chef Page and Bistrong prepared was certainly both flavorful and tender.

This main entree also came with three different sides.

Sesame-crusted asparagus

Roasted cauliflower

Carrot Puree
This sweet and creamy carrot puree ended up being my favorite side. If they fed me this when I was a kid, my eye sight might not be as bad now ...
(instead they fed me carrot juice. )

Ran Zimon runs his own pastry company and will providing all the desserts for the supper club.
During this dinner we had Chocolate mousse cake

Chocolate walnut tart
Rich with dark chocolate and crunchy. It's a great decadent end to my meal.

After dessert, Ran Zimon decided to bring out a special treat. I don't know if you'll get this at the supper club or not but you should hope you will: a plate of middle eastern-style tartare.

We're still not sure when the supper club is opening its doors to the public or what its name will be, but stay tuned,

Daily Dose Coffeehouse's Nameless Supper Club
1820 Industrial St.
Los Angeles, CA 90021

Real New York Bagel and Lox, at its Best

Anthony Bourdain listed it as one of the 13 places to eat before he dies, but this place goes beyond that. Russ & Daughters has been a specialty purveyor since 1914 and this institution has been handed down four generations of the Russ family.

You can get their smoked fish to go, or some caviar, or a gift package. Bourdain talks about their traditional Jewish style herring and their smoked sable. Me, I was there to grab a bagel and lox for my flight back home. I didn't think I should attempt taking herring on the plane and eating it. (Should I?)

There's always a line to order, and when you get to the front you better know what you want. Which can be difficult. Very difficult.

The bagel: plain, onion, everything, sesame, etc?
The cream cheese: plain, scallion, tofu, or - if you want to be extra indulgent - caviar?
The lox: Scottish, Nova, Norwegian?

I wanted to focus on the cream cheese and lox, didn't want to splurge extra, and for bagel it's always scottish salmon for me, so this is what I ended up with:

Plain bagel, scallion cream cheese, scottish smoked salmon

Priced around $9, how was it? First, the bagel. It was the only bagel I ate in New York and it was better than the ones in L.A. Anything better in NYC? Probably, I wouldn't know. The scottish salmon was of course excellent. Russ & Daughters definitely acquired high quality products for their smoked fish. But I can get high quality lox elsewhere, so in the end, it's all about the cream cheese for me. It wasn't just the variety, it's the fresh double-whipped creamy spread, with the fresh chopped scallions.

Was it worth the $9? Oh yes.
(Was it worth the extra cab fare for the detour between Times Square and JFK, plus the wait time while I get the food? Well ... maybe if I had walked down the street for Katz also, because that ended up being one expensive cab fare :P )

Russ & Daughters
179 E Houston St
New York, NY 10002
(212) 475-4880
www.russanddaughters.com

Summer Guest Chef Series at Melisse

There's no word on 5x5 dinners this year, but Chef Josiah Citrin of Melisse won't leave you hanging. This summer he has invited his fellow Michelin-starred chefs around the country for one-night stints at Melisse, where they will prepare a special 5-course menu.

Here's the chef line-up:

Sunday, June 27th
Chef Christopher Kostow of The Restaurant at Meadowood in Napa Valley


Monday, July 26th
Chef April Bloomfield of The Spotted Pig in New York


Monday, August 23rd
Chef David Kinch of Manresa in Los Gatos

Local Chef Ray Garcia of Fig in Santa Monica will be preparing an amuse bouche for each of the dinners

Each menu will be priced at $150 per person (tax and gratuity not included)
A portion of the proceeds will be donated to The Special Olympics

For reservation please call 310-395-0881 or visit OpenTable.

Balblair: Tasting The World's Only Vintage Single Malt Scotch

Balblair scotch distillery has been around since 1790 but the name is fairly new to the American audience. Two of their products have finally made their way into the American market.

They claim to be the only distillery which bottles their scotch in vintages, just like wine.

Balblair 1991 ($129.99) and Balblair 1997 ($64.99) are the first two vintages that are available for purchase in the U.S. Distillery Manager John MacDonald handpicks the casks that he deems to have reached the peak of maturation each year and releases them as the single malt vintages.
To introduce these two vintages, Balblair recently invited some media and scotch lovers to a tasting party at The Edison (the ambiance there is a perfect fit with the bottle's design), where I sipped scotch and ate bruschetta with other bloggers and members of the LA Scotch club. I started the night out big with the 1991.

Balblair 1991 just received a rating of “Excellent Highly Recommend” in the Ultimate Spirits Challenge. Reminds me a bit of butterscotch and has a smooth and long finish.

The Balblair 1997, on the other hand, is spicier, has more bite but not as smooth and the finish isn't as long. I personally prefer the smoother 1991, but the characteristics of the two bottles are quite distinct and worth separate considerations.


By the way, the gorgeous picture on the gift box is supposed to be a hill behind the distillery. Makes you want to go visit, doesn't it?

At the tasting, a bowl of chocolates was prepared for us to pair our scotch with, starting from milk chocolate to 55% to 61% to 73% dark. Of course, I stuck with 61% and above :)
Dark chocolate and scotch? Yes, please. I will definitely keep that in mind next time I pop open my bottle of scotch.

*Photos courtesy of Balblair, bcs they look so much nicer than the ones I took.

Reminder: Tomorrow Eat a Baco, Feed a Senior

The food truck fundraising, Cart for a Cause, has been in full gear for a few weeks now. Tomorrow (Tuesday June 1st), the food truck benefiting St. Vincent Meals on Wheels will be back at 5900 Wilshire around 12-2pm tomorrow, serving food from Lazy Ox Canteen's Josef Centeno.
Not only is each $10 meal you purchase comes with delicious food made by chef Centeno himself (he was actually in the truck when I visited!), a POM drink, pistachios, and a Miss Lilly cookie, but each purchase will also deliver a hot meal to one home-bound senior!
If that's not enticing enough for you, know that Chef Centeno will be serving up the famous "Baco", his flatbread-meets-taco signature dish made with pork belly, beef carnitas, caraway pepper, and salbitxada.
Yeah, you know you want it.

Next week they'll roll in Chef Susan Feniger from STREET. To get updates and schedule details, check out their twitter page @CartForACause.

Los Angeles Mag Brings You in the Kitchen with LA's Best Chefs

Los Angeles Magazine hosts a series of culinary events featuring cooking demonstrations with some of LA's best chefs.

The next "In The Kitchen" event will take place on June 16th with Chef Ray Garcia from FIG Restaurant in Santa Monica. The event costs $40 per person.

Here's what you can expect:

The last In The Kitchen with Chef John Sedlar from Rivera started out with a Casino Cocktail prepared by one of Rivera's bartenders. There is also wine served during the "cocktail hour" as well wine paired with your main meal prepared by Ian Blackburn of Learn About Wine.

Passed hors d'oeuvres were prepared by Eddie Sell, The Firehouse Chef (that's right, he's a chef and he's a fireman. He's a whole other interesting story on his own).
The shrimp ceviche with the tiny bits of blue tortilla chips was wonderful - the flavors smooth and not too acidic, the chips really added a nice textural contrast. Bruschetta was latin-ized by spicy salsa.

The events take place at Synder Diamond showroom in Santa Monica, but just because it's a showroom don't expect to be standing while eating with your plate on top of a displayed washing machine. The showroom is decked out with round tables, black tablecloth, complete with fresh roses as centerpieces.

Taking the "stage" in front will be your guest chef of the night. Last time, chef John Sedlar brought along his executive chef at Rivera, Kevin to help him demonstrate how to prepare two delicious dishes.
Chef Sedlar will show you how to go from these raw scallops:

to this:
Scallop Arabesque (here's the recipe)
The menu for the night will typically be one savory dish followed by one dessert.

Chef Sedlar prepared Chocolate Torte with Caramel Lime Sauce (recipe)
That's not all. You won't be leaving empty handed. Each attendee received a goodie bag filled with various items. My loot: a bottle of wine, Los Angeles Magazine's newest movie, and other treats including this chocolate cupcake from Vanilla Bakeshop:


Don't forget, the next In The Kitchen event with Chef Ray Garcia from FIG will take place on W ednesday, June 16, 7 – 9 pm at Snyder Diamond (1399 Olympic Blvd, Santa Monica).

Tickets: $40. Call Estrellita Dacanay at (323) 801-0034 to purchase.

Giveaway: $80 for (Almost) Anything!

Remember the pasta maker giveaway that 97 of you didn't win?
Well, here's a chance to get that again, and more! Or get an ice cream maker instead, or whatever you want.

The same company, CSN Stores, approached me to do another giveaway. This time the giveaway is an $80 gift certificate to spend on whatever you want on any of their 200+ online stores. They have online stores selling everything from the pasta maker you didn't win, the Le Creuset dish you've been wanting, to Bar Furniture, to baby cribs.

You can go to their main page at http://www.csnstores.com/ and browse through them! One thing though, the $80 certificate won't cover your shipping fee (but they do have free shipping on a lot of their items).


You can get up to 2 entries. Here's how to enter:
1. Leave a comment with your contact information below and what you might buy from CSN Stores.
2. Tweet: "Win $80 to spend at @CSNStores from @gourmetpigs! Here's how: http://bit.ly/aMSniM"
Once you tweet, leave me a separate comment telling me you did so (easier for me to count the entries this way).


You have until the end of next Friday June 4 (midnight) to enter. Good luck!

Get Ready for Hungry Cat's CrabFest VI ! (CrabFest V Recap)

June 27, exactly a month from now, marks CrabFest VI at The Hungry Cat in Hollywood. That not only meant that I had to call and make a reservation immediately, but I also better hurry and review ... last year's CrabFest V.

Shows you how much I procrastinate. Wow.

CrabFest at The Hungry Cat happens one Sunday a year, where a crab-centric prix fixe menu takes over the restaurant. Last year's $60 menu included 5 courses + 2 sides.

Bartender Matty Eggleston has long since been gone from Hungry Cat, but he had developed the cocktail menu there at the time. I'm not sure how much of it had changed, perhaps not at all.

The ones manning the bars that day made solid drinks and Matty was actually on his day off and was eating crab at the counter.

I didn't like the drink I ordered but I loved the Black Eyed Plum that LA&OC Foodie ordered, made with plum, lime, and cachaca.



Our feast started with the Crab Roll "amuse", sitting enticingly in front of me.
I loved the creamy crab salad, not overwhelmed by the mayo, it let the fresh and sweet Maryland blue crab meat shone through. I loved it on top of the crisply toasted dinner roll. Too bad this was an "amuse" and I only got one. If this was a la carte, I would've ordered another.

"Pride of Baltimore" crab soup, grilled bacon fat, cornbread.
A hearty bowl full of crab flavor. I don't know if you can see it, but there was a lot of crab meat floating in the bowl.

Whole pan-roasted softshell crab, haricot verts, pancetta, corn.
This was probably my favorite course of the day. Not heavily seasoned, the focus is on the crispy yet meaty soft shell crab with a big burst of juice when you bite into it. The juice from the crab combined with the pancetta was decadent, but the haricot vert is there to cut it.

Two sides were served to provide a break from all the crab: tomato and pecorino cheese, and potato salad.
The juicy tomatoes were pretty impressive, and it paired nicely with the mild sharpness of pecorino.

The main attraction came with little wooden mallets. Steamed Maryland blue crab, six for each person.
Sure, cracking the crab for the meat was a lot of work, but it's all part of the fun, and the sweet crab meat inside is well worth the effort.

The aftermath:
That might or might not be all mine. Uhm.

For dessert: peach crisp.
It was unfortunately served cold. Cold crisp, really? It was okay, and perhaps they would be too overwhelmed with the crowd if they have to heat up their crisps for each person, but I would've enjoyed the dessert more if they did.

Well, regardless. We came for CrabFest. The steamed crabs and the rest of the crab courses were well worth the $60.

Here are LA&OC Foodie's and Mattatouille's much more timely reports of the same feast.

The Hungry Cat
1535 North Vine
Hollywood, CA
323-462-2155

Paella Thursdays at La Cachette Bistro

Sometimes what draws people to try a dish isn't just the list of ingredients, or the fact that it's a special menu item, but how excited the chef is about it.

I received an email from Chef Jean Francois Meteigner from La Cachette Bistro, saying that he had found spanish rice, piquillo peppers, saffron, etc and will start doing paella every Thursday at La Cachette Bistro. When I came in to try it, Fabrice Lorenzi (the GM) also mentioned how proud Chef Meteigner is of his paella. How could you not try it?

It's a classic paella with generous amounts of seafood. Last Thursday the Spanish rice, piquillo peppers, chorizo, were cooked in saffron with mussels, clams, prawns, scallops, and chicken.
The short grained Spanish rice is supposed to be very important to make a true paella as long-grained rice wouldn't absorb the liquid it's cooked in appropriately. Here, the rice is cooked perfectly al dente, surrounded by the fragrance and flavors of everything else. From the seafood to the chicken, everything was prepared wonderfully. Not just the bone-in chicken wing, I even enjoyed eating the white meat which here was tender and moist.

Other seasonal specials are of course available.
Morel mushrooms from Oregon are built into a beautiful feuillete.
The light and flaky pastry contrasts nicely with the chewiness and earthiness of the morels.

The cherry cobbler also came with a special touch: a homemade vanilla ice cream made with tempered chocolate and corn flakes.
You may not be able to tell they were corn flakes when you eat them but they added a really nice crunchiness. To top it all off: the chunks of tempered chocolate combined with the cherry filling was divine. I want chocolate to accompany all my cherry cobblers from now on.

The paella is served every Thursday and is priced ~$26.

La Cachette Bistro
1733 Ocean Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 434-9509
www.lacachettebistro.com

How Merlot Takes Revenge

After going wine tasting in the Santa Ynez Valley, I finally sat down and watched Sideways, the movie that propelled central valley Pinot Noir to fame and unjustly gave a bad rap to Merlot. Do you like Bordeaux? Do you know that Merlot is one of the primary grapes that go into Bordeaux?

Finally, Merlot producers and other wine professionals decided things have to turn around. Well, there's only one way to do that, I suppose: let consumers try high quality Merlot.
Ian Blackburn of Learn About Wine organized a Merlot-centric wine event humorously called Revenge of the Merlot.

The event was held at the Elevate Lounge. While the main event was at night, I was invited to attend the "trade tasting" during the afternoon. Twenty nine wineries/importers were in attendance showcasing their wines, totaling more than fifty wines.

Despite its bad reputation in the movie, Merlot is the third most planted grape variety in the world with 640,000 acres to its name. The name Merlot came from the Occitan word meaning "young blackbird."

I was fortunate enough to attend the panel tasting, thanks to LAW & SauceLA's press invitation.
The seven wines we tasted were from:
1. 2006 Merlot, Gundlach Bundschu, Sonoma (~$30). Presented by Jeff Bundschu.
This wine had a sharp smell, but a fruity taste, medium body, and actually goes down pretty smoothly.
2. 2005 (Merlot w/ 15% Cab-Franc), Newton, Napa Valley. Presented by their winemaker, Chris Millard.
Mellower and earthier aroma than #1 but was actually more tannic. Richer and fruity, and the sharp tannins don't really linger.
3. 2006 Merlot from Carneros Valley, Silverado, Napa Valley (~$30). Presented by Russ Weiss.
Bold and darker flavors with a little herbal notes.
4. 2005 Oakville Merlot, Swanson, Napa Valley ($36). Presented by their winemaker, Chris Phelps.
5. 2007 Montes Alpha, Chile ($24). Presented by Alex Guarachi, President of TGIC Imports.
6. Cakebread Cellars, Napa Valley. Presented by Christopher Huber, VP of the Sales dept.
7. 2006 Jackson Park Merlot, Matanzas Creek, Sonoma ($49). Presented by their PR person, Joe Cicero.
Fruity, distinct spice, bright, with nice and light tannin. I enjoyed this.
Winemakers, owners, and other experts from each winery served as a panel and introduced their respective wines as discussion was led by Ian.

Oh, the panel also mentioned a new documentary about Merlot coming up, called Merlove.
(OK, cheeky title, but I'll watch it anyway).


One of the highlights for me was trying Twomey, a sister winery of Silver Oak. The main reason for my excitement was because I've tried to go to their tasting locations both in Calistoga and Healdsburg - both times on a Sunday, when they are both closed.
Twomey's Merlot is made using an old (19th century) and now rare technique called soutirage traditionnel, where the wine is never pumped.


I didn't taste all the wines available that day (I hadn't been spitting consistently) ...
Organic Cellar spotlighted a Prosecco Merlot, a refreshingly crisp sparkly. This was a nice change from all the red wines abound.

Another interesting booth is the TGIC Importers.
They had a variety of Merlots from Argentina, Chile, and more. He told me to first try the Pascual Toso 2007 Merlot from Argentina as it was to be the "most surprising," he said.
The Pascual Toso was surprisingly rich: fruity and had bright flavors. An easy wine to drink. Not a complex wine, to be sure, but if I'm looking for something in this price range (~$10) it's definitely a bottle I would consider getting. The Santa Ema Reserve Merlot from Maipo Valley, Chile was mellower, deep, and smooth.

There are certainly a lot of great Merlots around the world. Miles from Sideways may not drink any "f***ing Merlot" but he was so whiny throughout the movie anyway ... are you really going to listen to him?