In Search of a Taste of Home: IndoKitchen

Indonesian cuisine in Los Angeles is not as common as Thai or Vietnamese, but as a student living in LA indefinitely, I still have to try some good representation of my country's cuisine. I've tried out the Indonesian restaurants on the westside through downtown, and also Pondok Kaki Lima at Duarte Inn, but there are still a few restaurants in the SGV I have yet tried.

So, to celebrate my exam passing a couple months ago, I had a pre-party dinner with Wandering Chopsticks, Kung Food Panda, and an old classmate, at Indo Kitchen in Alhambra.

I like avocado smoothies with chocolate syrup which is a typical Indonesian dessert, so of course I got one here - I'm celebrating after all.
Unfortunately the one here is not so great. It tasted like the avocado was not fresh, and the shake had a bitter aftertaste. I didn't manage more than a few sips.

As a starter I ordered the Ketoprak, which is a Javanese dish typically consisting of tofu, vermicelli, bean sprouts, etc, in peanut sauce.
A pretty good rendition, albeit it doesn't have all of the usual ingredients.

We also got one of my favorite dishes from childhood - goat Tongseng.
We usually make tongseng from leftover goat curry by adding vegetables (mainly cabbage) and then eat this the next day. Tongseng is usually not as spicy. The tongseng here is pretty good. The goat is a bit gamey (which I like) and tender, the flavors and spices are right on.

We also got their special fried chicken (I don't know why I neglected to take a photo of this!) which were also pretty good and flavorful.

Of course, we also got some rendang for Kung Food Panda who was new to Indonesian food. Rendang - braised beef curry, is a safe dish that people usually recommend to the newbies.
The rendang here is not bad, but could be better. Normally you would use smaller chunks of meat such that the result is more tender, easily cut with just the tip of your fork. Since Indo Kitchen uses bigger chunks, the meat is not as tender as it could be, and the sauce doesn't seep through into the meat completely. Still a pretty good dish - the meat is not tough and the sauce is flavorful - but could be made much better with just one simple change.

Overall a pretty good Indonesian restaurant, and I think the conclusion is mostly the same as the other Indonesian restaurants in Los Angeles. Indonesian cuisine spans thousands of islands with different cultures - and food cultures. It's impossible for one kitchen to get them all right, so at each place, order wisely and you'll be satisfied.

Indo Kitchen
5 N 4th St
Alhambra, CA 91801
(626) 282-1676
www.indokitchenalhambra.com

Petrossian is Revived. More than just Caviar

It occasionally happens that even a foodie can't figure out where to go for a nice Sunday brunch. The old places seem boring, but can't think of a new place to try. So when Petrossian came up as a suggestion, I suddenly remembered a recent article about its renovation in one of those daily newsletters like Daily Candy or Tasting Table. Perfect idea!

Petrossian is famous for its caviar, but its West Hollywood outpost has had a cafe attached to it for many years. This has recently been renovated to a spacious modern space.

The menu selection was surprisingly varied (including a foie gras salad! Hey, salad is healthy, right?), although I wasn't sure what to expect before coming there.

Besides the a la carte menu, they also offer a 3-course champagne brunch for $35. I opted for this and got a glass of Louis Roederer Brut Rose.

The first course was a choice of soup selection and I opted for the White Asparagus Veloute.
The veloute was smooth and creamy while maintaining the foaminess of veloute. It was outstanding, with a nice little onion kick. Highly recommended.

For the main course, I went with the Paris Croque Madame (Ham, gruyere on brioche with Bechamel sauce, sunny side up eggs)
Croque madame is the perfect breakfast for me. Eggs, cheese, ham, toast ... Not to mention Brioche toast here. Perfect. Runny sunny side up, nicely toasted brioche, lots of gruyere. Even a bit of salad to cut all that richness so you can go for another bite, since the first bite was immensely satisfying.

As I was deeply impressed with the panna cotta with caviar at Ludobites, and since Petrossian is known for their caviar, for dessert I went with:
Classic Panna Cotta, white peach espuma, with an extra addition of caviar ($6 extra)
Beautiful layering here: panna cotta, white peaches, topped with the espuma.
The second time I had panna cotta with caviar in a week. The one at Ludobites, though, had caviar as the main focus while here the caviar is just an extra. That bit of saltiness does give it a nice touch, but it isn't the point here.

The panna cotta was very dense and rich, more so than the usual. The white peaches were sweet and crisp, and everything was complimented by the light peach foam on top. An excellent and very memorable dessert, I would recommend this to anyone and would definitely get it on future visits.

My first visit to Petrossian was such a pleasant surprise. The newly renovated space had a clean and spacious look, and the food was excellent. I hope they'll keep up the performance.

Petrossian Boutique & Cafe
321 N Robertson Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90048
(310) 271-0576

Fooddigger at Ludobites:"Pushing the Boundaries"

A dinner hosted by Fooddigger is no mere dinner. Before there was the whole suckling pig prepared specially for us at Ford's Filling Station. Then there was the amazing sushi dinner at Shibucho paired with vintage Bordeaux, most of which were older than me.

Here at Ludobites, as expected the wine-collecting Fooddigger co-founders Brian and Marshall came bearing some great wines which they hope to pair with the mystery meal prepared by Chef Ludo. Before the dinner started, we had fun comparing each other's Flavor Match scores based on a short survey we took on Fooddigger a few days before. Apparently my best flavor match of the group was KevinEats.

I've been to Ludobites three times before, but that night's dinner was a big surprise even to me. I felt like I finally got closer to Ludo's true tour de force.

The most memorable and notable dishes for me that night were these:

Tuna sashimi with sushi-rice ice cream.
With all the usual ingredients and flavors, Ludo deconstructed and reconstructed it to a wholly unexpected dish. The sushi rice ice cream tasted like rice, and even had similar density to rice, but the texture and temperature is completely different.

Chorizo gazpacho, onion ice, with cornichon
The chorizo gazpacho tasted like, well, chorizo, and very pleasantly so. Bursting with that spicy flavor but without the oil and grease. The onion ice, which is the green island in the middle, cools down the heat in your mouth, so you can keep eating more and more.

Foie gras tart, maple syrup, mushrooms
The big soft slabs of foie gras contrasted with the crunchy texture of the raw mushrooms. The fat is cut with the sweetness of the maple syrup. Not to mention the truffle essence that really takes the cake.

Vanilla panna cotta with caramel and caviar.
Panna cotta with caviar seemed so strange to everyone at first, but together everything worked harmoniously well. The saltiness of the caviar combined with the thick caramel is strongly reminiscent of salted caramel, which complements the rich and sweet panna cotta very well.

Thanks to Fooddigger setting up this dinner for us bloggers, we got to try some of Ludo's dishes we probably would never have at Ludobites. Some dishes Ludo himself said he had done in Bastide's 16-man kitchen and that he wouldn't do it again at Breadbar's small kitchen. Luckily we got to try it before he realizes what a feat it was ...

I no longer remember what wines we had that night but you can find more on the other bloggers' posts: Kung Food Panda, Gastronomy, Alli411 (not up yet), Two Hungry Pandas, Grubtrotters, Teenage Glutster, Rants&Craves (not up yet), KevinEats (not up yet), DianaTakesABite.

I was expecting something special out of this Fooddigger dinner, and it certainly delivered. I thought that what they said about the vision they had for these dinners and Ludo's ideas are quite a match: It's all about pushing the boundaries.