Showing posts with label wilshire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wilshire. Show all posts

Friday, June 6, 2014

New Cocktails Hit Santa Monica at The Charleston

Realizing there wasn't really a spot for craft cocktails on that strip of Wilshire Blvd in Santa Monica, The Charleston's new GM, Chris Cheng, decided to launch a brand new cocktail list. There's no famous bartender involved, but his experience working with Beau du Bois at The Corner Door helped him create a solid starting list.

One of my favorites was the Cootie Catcher, made with gin, honeydew, luxardo triplem, lemon, and orgeat. Name aside, it's rare to find a honeydew cocktail and the honeydew flavor is nicely enhanced here. The orgeat they use is St. Vincent, which is infused with orange blossom and rose water - it's a local product made by one of the bartenders at Bestia!

Honeydew cocktail

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Culinary College with Chef Andrew Kirschner

Culinary College was back for its second run with chef Andrew Kirschner from the Wilshire Restaurant. Hosted by Los Angeles magazine and Snyder Diamond, the event is again hosted in the Snyder Diamond showroom in Santa Monica.

I was early, so I sat there sipping a glass of 2008 Viognier from the Santa Ynez Valley, picked by Ian Blackburn from Learn About Wine, waiting for the rest of the girls to show up. I was joined later on by Wandering Chopsticks, Caroline on Crack, Estarla, Shop Eat Sleep, and Faux LA Hipster.

We start out with some appetizers prepared by Chef Bridget Bueche from Sub-Zero/Wolf.

First up: Wood plank salmon with miso base, mizuna, japanese long onions.

Before the food was served, a large piece of salmon was displayed sitting on the wood plank, teasing us with the glaze and the smell.

Each dish is paired with a wine, selected by Ian from Learn About Wine. Ian did not only pick wines that will go well with the dishes, he also made sure to choose affordable wines that you or I may actually go out and buy. The salmon was paired with a Pinot Noir from Sweeney Canyon.
Sweeney Canyon is a family-owned vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills of Santa Barbara County, near the Santa Ynez River, which gives their grapes a unique complex flavor.

While eating and sipping, we watched chef Bueche whip up our next dish using a Japanese claypot.
Just watching the chef season the beef and open up the claypot of the cooked beef was enough to get my appetite going.

Here it is: Claypot-baked, slow-cooked beef with craked pepper, coriander, mushrooms.
This was amazing! The beef was so tender, and the mushrooms were great. I just wish the dish was bigger :P The mushrooms are Hokto mushrooms grown in San Marcos, CA. The dish was paired with a 2004 Semler Cabernet Sauvignon, grown in the Malibu canyons.

After licking our dish clean, we were ushered into the back room, the 'main stage' where tables are beautifully set.

Because of the number of attendees, the class is not hands-on, but you can watch chef Kirschner prepare the dishes and take notes. Note the slanted mirror on top of the stove - so you can watch what's going on there too!
Chef Kirschner showed us how to prepare two dishes.
The first is a Shrimp Summer Roll with Chili Garlic Dipping Sauce.
Paired with a Curran Gewurtztraminer from Santa Ynez Valley.

Second course is the Steamed Black Mussels in Red Curry Coconut Broth (find the recipe here)
These mussels are certainly delicious and I can see why they are so popular at the restaurant. The curry broth is bold in flavor yet not too spicy. I'll definitely order this at Wilshire Restaurant. Here the dish was paired with a Sweeney Canyon Chardonnay.

We all came home with a swag bag filled among others with a bottle of 2004 Semler Cabernet Sauvignon and the newest Los Angeles magazine.

Read about the first class here.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Recipe: Steamed Mussels in Curry Broth (CulinaryCollege/Andrew Kirschner/Wilshire)

Los Angeles Magazine teams up with Snyder Diamond to hold Culinary College, a cooking class series featuring established Los Angeles chefs. The second class in the series featured chef Andrew Kirschner from the Wilshire Restaurant in Santa Monica (event review to come).

In the Snyder Diamond showroom, chef Kirschner shows us how to whip up his well-loved steamed mussels dish.

Steamed Black Mussels in Red Curry Coconut Broth
- Chef Andrew Kirschner. Wilshire Restaurant, Santa Monica, CA.

















Serves 4

3lbs -- Black Mussels- Cleaned
1.5 cup - Coconut Milk
2 T -- Thai Red Curry Paste
1 T -- Paprika
2 T -- Lime Juice
2 T -- Lemon Juice
2 T -- Soy Sauce
2 T -- Mirin
1 cup - Dry Sherry Wine
2 T -- Honey
1 T -- Lemongrass, minced
1 T -- Ginger, minced
1 T -- Garlic, minced
1 T -- Kaffir Lime Leaf, minced
1 T -- Coriander, whole
1 t -- Cumin, ground
6 sprigs - Thai basil, chopped
2 T -- Fish sauce

Place all ingredients except mussels into a heavy sauce pot and simmer over low heat for 1/2 hour. Remove from heat, strain, cool and reserve.

Preparing mussels: place mussels in sauce pot with above mixture, cover pot and cook on high flame until mussels are steamed and just opened.
Serve with grilled sourdough bread.



The next Culinary College class will be held on August 19 and feature chef Jason Travi (of Fraiche and Riva). Cost is $50 pp. Please call Estrellita Dacanay at Los Angeles magazine 323-801-0034 to purchase.

Monday, November 3, 2008

24/7 Comfort Food

This was one of those late nights, with class ending at 9 pm on Mondays. Since half of LA closes on Mondays and half closes at 10 pm, 24/7 places like BCD Tofu House are lifesavers.
Although they have many branches, the Wilshire one is the most popular and I can only assume that there's a reason for it.

This late at night there's usually a short wait for a table - about 10 minutes. As with most Korean places, they bring out small plates of banchan. Kimchi, bean sprouts, and fish cakes are common fares, but BCS gets extra points for their fried corvina - whole small fish for each patron.In addition to soon tofu they also serve kalbi, bulgogi, bibimbap, all of which you can get as a combo with a smaller portion of soon tofu. I got the beef soon tofu- mild, of course, since I can't eat spicy.
Not really comparable to Beverly tofu, for one. The one here is rather ... bland, in comparison. They also give less tofu and meat, and of lower quality. But it's not bad. It's still comforting and filling. At 10 o'clock at night, it's very satisfying. I used to love BCD but not that I've gotten spoiled by Beverly it's harder to come back here unless the other one is already closed.

The kalbi is tender and flavorful.
The meat is sometimes a bit fatty, but overall a tasty dish.

Another thing that BCD Tofu gains extra points at is this: Their rice is served in a stone pot, and then they scoop out the slightly burnt rice from the edges and serve it with water.
This make a nice, soothing rice 'soup' that is just soo right after all that spiciness from the soon tofu.
BCD Tofu House will always remain on my radar, since it's really quite often I find myself looking for food late at night! 24-hour places hold a very special place in my heart :)

BCD Tofu House
3575 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90010
(213) 382-6677

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

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




Hokusai on Urbanspoon

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