mh2mh "always thinking about my next meal"

Fraiche is good. My first visit was their first week of lunch service. Now I’ve pretty much eaten everything I’m ever gonna eat on their lunch menu, several times over. And some things on their dinner menu. They’ve changed up the lunch menu a little bit, but I think it’s time for more changes. They’ve made no changes to the desserts on the lunch menu, and that really needs some change up, because now I’m just bored. How many times can I eat that delicious chocolate pots de creme?

I did have the privilege and honor of experiencing Albert Trummer’s absinthe. His own secret brew, and the whole wine glass fire show. Incredible, amazing, wonderful, and delicious. It was really something. Oh Albert Trummer, I miss you.

They’re going to change up the evening specialty cocktails in the next week or so. We’ll see how that goes.

I don’t know what took me so long to eat here, but I finally did. Maybe I never knew they serve breakfast till 3pm. IMO all restaurants that serve breakfast should serve it all day or at least till 3pm. Anyway, I had breakfast for lunch, after I had breakfast for breakfast.

Their hash browns were AWESOME. Crispy brown on the outside, and completely fluffy and moist and soft on the inside. Wow, it was so good. Cooked all the way through, no bad surprise biting into raw potato.

The scrambled eggs and turkey sausage were ok. They need to stock up on the Cholula hot sauce, as that apparently is the hot sauce of choice for everyone who dines there, including me. They ran out when we were there.

Four stars because I just love places like this. It’s a small friendly neighborhood diner, serving up basic good diner food, but with lots of variety because the menu is huge. Plus of course those incredible hash browns. Every neighborhood oughtta have a place like this.

I don’t know if they changed their bread recipe or it was just that I went late in the day so it wasn’t as fresh(?). But their bread used to be the highlight of the bahn mi, and from this last visit, it was not so good.

I took a chicken bahn mi home, and my car reeked of raw meat, like at a butcher’s. I guess that raw meat smell seeped into everything.
I like their chicken, it’s cooked dry and shredded, and flavorful. I like it that way for this sandwich.

Still the best wonton noodle soup! That’s what the 5 stars are for.

The noodles are good quality and cooked perfectly, toothsome, no mush. The wontons have that fresh mouth feel (song hau), and just the right size, small enough to pop in my mouth, but not too small, plenty of shrimp, and really great flavor. Bok choy is fresh, crisp. Broth is clear and flavorful. And all this for only $4.25.

I can’t believe I had almost forgotten about the great wonton noodle soup here. But that’s probably because there are always scads of people waiting for a table and I’m always too hungry to wait that long.

So I went back for tea. And I gotta say, that was the best tea I’ve had in a long time. There are lots of bad afternoon teas being served around L.A., and profferred off as good teas, and people somehow buy into it. But the Ramsay tea was actually very good.

The sandwiches were freshly made, all with high quality ingredients. For instance, the mozzarella in one of them was a beautiful fresh mozz, not some cheap supermarket sliced stuff. And the basic lox was also excellent.
The sweets were also very good. I didn’t get to try all of them, as they don’t give you one type per person, which makes sense, as they would just be sugar overload.
The teas themselves were very nice. Everyone gets their own pot of tea.
And get this—you can get seconds on the food! Unheard of! I must say, this is very generous of them. Of course, no one should be a toad and try to eat their day’s allotment of food at one tea service.

Service: overall good. Some of the servers seemed nervous. There was a mixup of teas. All the teas came out on a tray, each in the same nice wrought iron pot. I think all but two of us got the right tea at first. For mine, it took three tries. But they were accommodating and polite.

However. Flies got into the dining room. All restaurants really need to find a way to keep the damn flies out. I’m not eating in the streets of a third world country. I’m paying top dollar for food at nice restaurants. I shouldn’t have to deal with flies landing in the whipped cream.
————
Dinner:

3.5 stars. Food was good, solid. Some of the flavors were too strong. I like big flavors, but it seemed like they were trying too hard to say look we’re not afraid of bold, instead of remembering to simply complement flavors well.

I had called twice specifically to ask about tm and a la carte. Both times I was told, if the party is less than 7, then everyone could order as they pleased, tm or a la carte. I thought that was very unusual, but they assured me. When we got there, we were told no, that’s not true. Fortunately we all wanted to do a la carte.

I waited for my friends at the bar; had to try one of their overpriced drinks just because. Got the $16 pineapple mojito: muddled fresh pineapple w/ mint, spiced rum. It was a really nice drink. But not $16 nice.
The bar menu has some small plates,sushi. I wanted to see what their uni would be like. The price was $6. Then I found out that was for ONE piece of sushi. The uni was excellent. The rice was good. But $6 for one piece of basic sushi, give me a break.

Dinner. I had many different parts of a pig.
1. Chilled English pea soup with cured salmon, creme fraiche and caviar. The soup was wonderful, beautiful fresh peas flavor. The salmon was good. The two together, not so much. The salmon was too salty for the soup. Even though it was a tiny mound of salmon, the soup was a very small pour, so the ratio was off. There was too much salmon to soup. The salt just overwhelmed the delicate pea flavor.
2. Smoked pork belly with roasted scottish langoustine, celeriac and apple. It was garnished with some sort of very sweet preserved fruit, I think. The singular piece of langoustine was grossly undercooked. The pork belly was very tender, very good. The sweet fruit thing garnish was too sweet for the dish, it just made the whole thing even heavier.
3. Broiled black cod, pig’s tails, celeriac puree. The pig tails were chopped up, just crispy like bacon. Again, heavy dish. According to the menu they sent me there’s supposed to be kumamoto oysters in this dish; don’t remember what the menu there said, but there were no oysters.
4. Braised pig’s head with English peas and some sort of small mushrooms. I shared this with a friend, fortunately, because this was very very rich. It’s shaped into a little loaf. Again, from sent menu, the mushrooms were supposed to be chanterelles. Don’t remember what the menu there said, but those were no chanterelles.

What I recall trying from my friends’ plates:
1. Wild asparagus risotto with chive flowers. Wonderful! Great flavor and nicely cooked risotto.
2.Pacific yellow fin tuna w/ pickled daikon, crab beignets, sesame soy dressing. The beignets were smaller than the size of a dime. And they tasted like apples heavily dusted with cumin.
I thought I picked a lot of other food from my friends’ plates—or maybe they picked a lot of mine! :)

Dessert:
They have six desserts. We were a group of six. We ordered all of them except the creme fraiche panna cotta. Instead, we got the special: tarte tatin. We shared all of them.
1. Meyer lemon pudding cake with confit blueberries, tarragon and buttermilk sherbert. The cake was too dense.
2. Pineapple souffle with toasted coconut thai curry ice cream. Nice souffle, too much curry.
3. Chilled coconut tapioca with passion fruit, candied ginger, milk chocolate and star anise gelato. Very good, great flavors. But somehow I don’t remember the star anise flavor.
4. Cara cara orange four ways, cinnamon ice cream and rose water sabayon. This was my favorite! Especially the rose water sabayon—beautiful.
5. Milk chocolate sticky pudding with roasted banana and black cardamom ice cream. This was a hit with some of my friends, but I thought it was ok.
6. Tarte tatin. Very nice, a little too sweet for me.

I was very full. The small plates, which aren’t that small are grouped into three pricing categories: $14 (pea soup), $18 (black cod), $22 (pork belly). The pig’s head was a market special at $18.

The space. There sure is a lot of chrome. Big wide big pieces of chrome. Very 80s. The ceiling in the 2 dining rooms are light colored wood slats & beams, sort of like an east coast beach house. The 2 small private rooms had stamped ceilings, glaring gold chairs. There’s also 2 big private rooms. We sat in the back dining room which I think is the much better of the two, since there are two walls of big windows (chrome shutters), and it’s removed from the hotel hallway.
The banquettes and booths are powder blue or powder pink vinyl, pleather-like. Mine had a big mess of ink stains.
Overall, decor was so cacophonous. Too many disparate elements.

Well Gordo, your brand that you try to push is perfection; this was not that. And you really oughtta pay attention to your first L.A. venture. It’s really insulting that you only came around once, and briefly, since your restaurant bearing your name opened.

Food: excellent.
Space: very nice.
Service: good.

Went for dinner awhile ago, food was great. This time we went for brunch. I had the pork belly confit—talk about double indulgence. Each entree selection comes with choice of granola (I think), salad, soup, and something else, which was surprising to to me, because this is high quality dining, and at their modest prices, it was a really good deal.

Finally made it to Colori Kitchen.
Food: Outstanding.
Service: friendly and also annoying.
Smell: gross.

I had the pasta (that squared off spaghetti, can’t remember the name) with pancetta in a cream sauce. It was so incredibly good. We saw the cioppino come out to the next table and that looked so good too. Next time.
The menu is pretty basic, and actually not too many dishes appealed to me, but only because their descriptions didn’t sound very exciting, but I’m wondering if the execution is really good so that each dish is actually wonderful. Their prices are very reasonable, so I’ll make more opportunities to try out other dishes, especially that cioppino.

We shared the house made canoli for dessert. I’m no canoli expert, but I have had my share of mediocre ones. These were very good. The shell may have been a tad overcooked. Anyway there were three of them.
When they brought it over, they felt they had to adamantly give us directions in how to eat them: use your hands. No, really? Gee, maybe I’ve never eaten a canoli before in life? WTH. For the third canoli, I decided to cut it in half so we could share. As soon as I put knife to canoli, they ran over and were shocked shocked, and completely disappointed that we didn’t follow their strict instruction. WTF. Are the new downtowners food stupid? Has the restaurant come across so many food newbies that they feel a need to tell us how to eat? Most of the service was like that, friendly but with an air of, you’ve never had this kind of food before, it’s called Italian.

Smell: we were the first ones in when they opened. We were hit with the scent of cleaning fluid mixed with urine. Once the kitchen got going it was ok, and ok through dinner. But at the end of dinner, I could smell that smell again.

Four stars because the food was so good.

This is a review of Chef Niki’s Chef’s Table omakase dinner.
Chef Niki Nakayama was formerly at Azami on Melrose. She is now exploring, experimenting, and doing her own thing for the Chef’s Table. When Inaka the deli and seafood market closes, it is transformed to Niki’s chef’s table, a multi-course dinner, $80pp, 10 people max, free corkage.

We were a group of 7, and had the place all to ourselves, it was closed to everyone else. We had Chef Niki all to ourselves. It was way awesome cool. Like having a private dinner with your friends at a secret restaurant, and having the chef all to yourself. Prior to the dinner, I communicated with Niki about the general foodie background of our group, and anything in particular any of us don’t eat. When we arrived, Niki chatted with us, she is so friendly and down to earth. Our waiter was also very friendly and quite jovial.

Now, the food:
1. Lobster with avocado ravioli, the avocado was in some sort of clear little round sack, I don’t know how she did that. Ok, my description is probably not very good, but the dish was.
2. A trio of kumamotos, each with a different sauce: orange saba, yuzu, ponzu.
3. Sashimi: Japanese snapper, toro, scallop from Japan.
4. My friends all had the kobe beef from Japan, and all got very quiet while the beef was blowing their minds. Since I don’t eat beef, Niki made for me: Chilean seabass—it was perfectly seared, so fresh and beautiful. Both dishes came with truffled mashed potatoes.
5. Shitake mushroom stuffed with shrimp, in a dashi broth, with mitsuba.
6. Foie gras with unagi risotto.
7. Sushi: sweet shrimp, Japanese snapper, Scottish salmon, Spanish mackerel, kanpachi, uni.
8. Dessert: sake braised fig, green tea creme brulee, banana tempura, with vanilla bean sauce.

Omg I need to post the pics. It was a wonderful, delicious, excellent dinner. Thank you again, Niki!!
In a couple of years, Niki will have her own place in the Palms area. I can’t wait!

I called Palate the day after my dinner because of our horrible service experience there. I’ve never done this before. Finally, the General Manager, Francois Renaud, got on the phone and I expressed my complete displeasure with our waiter. He tells me that Mr. Everything Is To Die For Because You’ve Never Eaten Out Before waiter has been in his line of work for 25 years. That doesn’t exactly appease me.

Mr. Renaud does not extend an invitation to return. Let me be clear, that is so not the reason I called. Also, I’ve received such invitations in the past and they just make me uncomfortable. So I’m not sure that I would have accepted it anyway. But, the fact that he didn’t extend such an invitation was rather ungracious, I thought. This, together with my experience there at a Daily Candy event, makes me think that Octavio Becerra had been with corporate Patina Group for much much too long. It’s all about the bottom line. Maybe when the hot newness of this place dies down, they’ll rethink this.
———————-
Food: 3.5 stars, maybe 4.
Service: 1 star, only because this is the lowest rating possible here.

Six of us dined here last night. We shared a number of different items, and each got one of the larger plates, plus a couple bottles of wine.

Shared:
Porkfolio— excellent charcuterie, what I was able to taste of it, since we got one order for all of us.
6 cheeses— excellent
Japanese tomatoes, a special—nice and sweet
Pickled fennel—lightly pickled, very good
Pickled apples—lightly pickled, very good
Risotto with shaved black truffles, a special—very nice, the risotto could have been cooked a little more.
I think that’s all for the shared items.

I tried the soup, it was some sort of squash, the color of pumpkin: very good, lots of butter.
I had the sea bass with clams, good. The fish was a little bit overcooked.
Tried the duck confit: it was okay, a little bit dry.
The house-made butter was excellent.

Desserts:
Varlhona choc pudding: too sweet
A bread pudding: again, too sweet
pumpkin creme brulee: very good.

Service: maddening.

Our waiter first: kept trying to rush us to place an order, any order. He kept sighing and frowning and very outwardly showed impatience. We were having a great time conversing and there was one person in our group that none of us had met before, so we wanted her to feel welcome. Also, we were trying to figure out what we wanted to order to share and how much of each item.

Our waiter second: treated us generally like we’ve never eaten out before. Again, with the sighing and frowning and treating us like food barbarians. Then he asked if this type of menu was new to us. Really? Small plates are new? Oh I am so livid right now just typing this.

Our waiter third: never offered the prices on anything that’s not on the menu, and seemed really put off when I asked. WTF.

Our waiter fourth: didn’t refill our wine glasses at first. I had to do it. But he did figure out his job after that.

Our waiter fifth: asked if we liked everything, especially certain dishes, but he asked in a way that presumes that we must certainly have loved it, because he had already decided that we don’t eat out much, and because I guess for him this is the most ethereal food he’s ever worked around.

Our waiter sixth: when he brought the check, he was then all smiles, trying to get a good tip after his completely unprofessional and insulting behavior. Only because I was having such a good time with my friends and didn’t want to make any sort of negative wave for the evening, I smiled and said, yes everything was good, and gave him the now-standard 20% tip. I should have given him less, but that percentage just comes so automatically to me now.

Our waiter seventh: he was so pleased in getting a good tip from us, now he is all smiles. He probably figured from the time he poured the water that he may not get a 20% tip because he had decided in his small mind that he had a right to insult us. The reality was, he was serving a group of six hard core foodies who eat out everywhere, all the time.

Total tab for six, including vino, tax and tip: $460. The level of cooking doesn’t quite measure up to the price. But overall the food was good and worthy of a return visit for certain dishes. However, the service brought this restaurant way down. But because the food is good, I might have to call them to let them know about the incredibly insulting waiter. But then again, I may not take time out of my life to tell them they didn’t properly train someone, and just screw it altogether, let my money do the talking, and not return.

I guess Pann’s is good for what it is. But I think I’m done with American fried chicken. I’m sticking to Asian fried chicken, where there’s flavor.

Chicken wings: normal size, not bionic like some reviews I’ve read. Normal is good. Very nicely crispy, nicely fried, and juicy. But no flavor!
Biscuit: it was pretty good, but hardly ethereal, and not very memorable. Margarine is gross. I never choose to eat it.
Eggs and country potatoes: standard fare, nothing special.
Country gravy: excellent. But then again, I am a gravy fiend and love all gravies, fake and real. Plus it has bacon in it, what’s not to like.

I ate a lot of fat without the benefit of flavor.