CAN CAN Cleanse: A Juice Cleanse With A Soup Twist

Are you into the juice cleanse trend? I've tried a juice cleanse for a day before, and while I liked the taste of the juices and didn't really mind not eating for a day (I don't know if I could do it longer), I did miss having something savory and salty. Well, CAN CAN Cleanse may have solved that problem. The cleanse substitutes a warm soup for one of the juices.

They sent me a one day cleanse to try, which consisted of eight glass jars of juice, tea, and soup. The juices are delicious, just as good as the other juiceries. The lime and cayenne master cleanse is sweeter and less spicy than the one I've had at Kreation before, this cleanse starts with a lemon lime juice, and instead of either lemon or aloe water, they gave me chamomile mint tea and watermelon juice. Warm chamomile tea would be my preference over water any time.

Of course, there's also almond milk and green juice. You know the juices are fresh because of the separation that naturally occurs.

The soup I got is the zucchini basil soup. It's healthy and not that creamy, but it still curbed my cravings for savory things during the cleanse. The soup is seasonal and the newest selection is celery root sage soup. The new tea is rosemary nettle, which sounds pretty exciting to try.

An Intimate Sushi Omakase Experience at Nozawa Bar (Beverly Hills)

When they built Sugarfish in Beverly Hills, they had planned for Nozawa Bar all along and kept a room in the back for that sole purpose. Now, Nozawa Bar is open and taking reservations for ten people, two seatings per night for a sushi omakase experience. It's not Nozawa wielding the knife, but Osamu Fujita has long worked with Nozawa and has his stamp of approval. After my omakase meal there, I would say perhaps the setting and timing actually allows for a more refined experience than the busy Sushi Nozawa was in Studio City.

I knew my sushi, or thought I did, but for more than a couple of courses at Nozawa Bar I had a few moments where I went "no way, that wasn't ...". There were moments of learning that season really matters, and preparation matters. More on that later, on to the meal first. 

As I said, there are two seatings per night for everyone (at 6PM and 8:30PM), so don't be late! I was five minutes late and missed Fujita-san slicing up the jelly fish for the first course. I didn't miss eating the course, though, luckily (everyone is served the courses at the same time).

The crisp jellyfish was a nice opener to whet your appetite.
Sashimi plate of tuna and octopus before moving on to nigiri sushi

The nigiri courses start out with a bang with the chu toro. This a blue fin tuna chu toro, although the fattiness is close to oo toro.

Just like Nozawa's style, the rice is served slightly warm so that the sushi feels like it's melting in your mouth.

Ika (squid)

Fresh and firm squid on top of a shiso leaf.

Switching to the opposite spectrum of texture is a perfectly creamy Santa Barbara uni

A generous serving of it, too!

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CAST: The Reinvented Restaurant at Viceroy Santa Monica

Whist at The Viceroy in Santa Monica has reinvented itself as CAST, but Chef Tony DiSalvo is still going strong in the kitchen. The new name, CAST, draws focus to its proximity to the ocean and the seafood dishes.

Pay attention to the crostini section, and don't miss the sea urchin crostini with sea salt, lemon, and larda ($6 each). Perfectly creamy, and the light dressing of salt and lemon brings out the rich flavors even more.

Equally worthy but less of a splurge is the burrata crostini with pesto, tomato ($3 each). This was also one of the creamiest burrata I've had in LA.

The crostinis are thin, meant to serve as a vessel to the uni and burrata without masking the flavors.

Oh, if you are on Instagram, be sure to take a photo and tag @viceroySM. You will get a free glass of sparkling wine for doing so! For a glass of white wine that will go with seafood dishes, we enjoyed the 2010 Supernatural Sauvignon Blanc, Napa, California ($13).

It's not all seafood here, of course. Chef DiSalvo kept his famous Lamb Kefta meatballs because riots might break out if he ever takes it off the menu. At the moment they are served with orange, pistachio, and yogurt ($10)

We started our feast with the Diver scallops, dungeness crab risotto, snap peas, shiso vinaigrette ($18 or $33 for full size - I believe the one pictured is the half size)

Perfectly cooked scallops, creamy risotto with chunks of sweet crab, crisp snap peas. What a nice seafood dish, the flavors are light yet satisfying.

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