Monday, February 18, 2019

EN Japanese Brasserie is West Village's Stylish Japanese Spot (New York, NY)

There are so many great restaurants, including Japanese restaurants, in New York City that it's hard to choose or experience them all. Last fall I tried one that has actually been a mainstay in West Village for more than a decade, EN Japanese Brasserie. I hadn't paid attention to it before until the restaurateur opened Chateau Hanare in Los Angeles.

The restaurant is upscale and sleek, and the menu highlights many traditional Japanese cooking including homemade tofu, sushi, soba, and more. Considering they opened more than a decade ago, it's all the more impressive. EN offers three different kaiseki menus (including a vegan one) but I went a la carte on my visit.
EN Japanese Brasserie
Some of the highlights I tasted: Uni yuba sashimi (tofu skin sashimi from Kyoto topped with fresh uni, $24) - because I'm personally a fan of both tofu skin and uni
EN Jp Brasserie
Toro salmon aburi sushi ($8). Salmon belly is one of my favorite cuts, especially seared like this.
EN Jp Brasserie

Saturday, February 9, 2019

A Hard Hat Tour of Buffalo Trace Distillery (Kentucky)

I recently took a road trip from Boston to LA, and I made sure to stop in Kentucky to visit one of the bourbon trail distilleries. A friend of mine recommended a tour of Buffalo Trace Distillery - specifically, the hard hat tour.
Buffalo Trace
The hard hat tour is a special tour because it takes you behind the scenes of every step of the production at Buffalo Trace distillery. We started from where the trucks bring in the grains to the cooking process and the fermentation.
Buffalo Trace
Now, I've visited a number of distilleries in the past, but Buffalo Trace was a new experience to me because of the scale of it all. The distillery, which is owned by Sazerac, doesn't just produce whisky for the brand Buffalo Trace but a total of 12 different brands. They make 2.6 million gallons of whiskey each year!

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Winter DineLA Menu at Commerson

It's been a while since I've done Dine LA Restaurant Week, but I recently checked out a new (to me) restaurant, Commerson on La Brea. I've read that this place is one of the underrated gems in LA, so I was excited to try it.

Commerson's Dine LA dinner menu is $39 per person for three courses. The first course option includes:
Red snapper ceviche with avocado and plantain chips.
Commerson dineLA
The portions were quite good for the price and as you can see, the ingredients they use were obviously fresh.

One of the other choices was the butternut squash agnolotti with parmigiano reggiano and brown butter sage.
Commerson dineLA
This agnolotti is always a good pasta dish to have in the colder months, and Commerson's rendition was a good one.

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