Friday, January 24, 2020

Crustacean Beverly Hills, Beyond the Garlic Noodles

Even though I've been in LA for a while and have even had the An family's food at AnQi in Costa Mesa and even the famous garlic crab at the original Thanh Long in San Francisco, I actually have not made it to Crustacean until recently. Sure, I've had the garlic noodles at food festivals, but that's not quite the same.

Luckily, I was recently invited for a tasting menu so I made my way there for the first time. It was the middle of the week but the Beverly Hills restaurant was hopping. It was quite crowded both with dinner guests and people drinking at the bar (after-work drink crowd, I presume). There was a live music performance going on, which takes place on Wednesdays from 4-7pm.

Our tasting menu for two started with these tuna cigars, with quite the eye catching presentation. A cigar box was presented to us and smoke wafted out upon opening.
Crustacean
The tuna cigars were made of feuille de brick, tuna, avocado silk, Vidalia onion, and tobiko caviar.
Crustacean

The smoky presentation continued on with the cocktail I ordered, the Hightea Penicillin. The Penicillin traditionally consisted of scotch, ginger, honey, and lemon juice and here it's topped off with black tea and lavender cloud.
Crustacean

Thursday, January 16, 2020

Ktown's Caffe Concerto Gets New Chef and Tasting Menu

Caffe Concerto in Koreatown has been around for a while, serving Italian food with Korean inflections (you can read my previous review here of their pasta including a kimchi carbonara).
They recently hired a new head chef, Terry Kim, and have added a tasting menu component (the rest of the a la carte menu remains the same).
Concerto Tasting
After the amuse bouche we started off with some beautifully plated Tuna tartar and Granny Smith apples
Concerto Tasting
This was a good rendition of a classic, with the sweet apples juxtaposing the fatty tuna nicely.

The tuna was followed by a Tomato salad, persimon dressing, cherry tomatoes, tomato sorbet, parsley oil, olive crumbs
Concerto Tasting

Monday, January 6, 2020

Bar Avalon Brings Cozy Wine Bar and Dinner Spot to Echo Park

Echo Park got a new wine bar back in October with Bar Avalon, which came by way of Revelator Coffee. This intimate spot offers interesting wines and a small but solid dinner menu.

The wines here are listed by order of latitude and the list offers both old world and new world wines. The sommelier is always on hand to tell you about their more interesting offerings like Unti Segromigno from Dry Creek Valley.

The menu is divided into four sections including small plates, little bites like deviled eggs, and bigger entrees. We tried the Plancha Blue prawns, n'duja, preserved lemons ($14). Can never go wrong with blue prawns!
Bar Avalon

Pork Rillette ($14) from the "tasty bits" section
Bar Avalon

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