Location: 1725 Naud St, Los Angeles, CA 90012 (323) 545-4880
Date: July 26, 2018
Cuisine: Korean Fusion
Rating: Big dishes amazing
It’s with gigantic expectation that NY restaurateur David Chang opens his first LA outpost.
Looking on the map, I was pretty skeptical of the weird between Chinatown and Dodger’s Stadium location — a totally annoying spot for me to get to during traffic! Two brutal hours! It took Fred much less time to get here from the OC!
The area is extremely warehousey, much like the “Arts District” but even newer.
The have a sort of hipster city built down here out of old warehouses.
With lots of bespoke graffiti.
And Majordomo, of course.
Which has a pretty big enclosed and outside space.
As you can see.
Inside is one of those cavernous loud warehouse spaces.
High naked ceilings. Don’t come here when it’s raining! They also have the currently hip bathroom setup with the coed shared sinks exposed out in the main room. Not my thing. What if you want to clean up in private?
From my cellar: NV Pierre Gerbais Champagne Extra Brut Grains de Celles Rose. 90 points. Tastes like a fruity young dry rose still but with bubbles.
Today’s menu.
Chilled Shrimp summer melon, cucumber, fish sauce vinaigrette. Really nice interesting dish. Vaguely Vietnamese with one of those sweet/tangy/fishy light sauces. The combo of fruit, crunchy cucumber, and shrimp though was really interesting and partially Vietnamese, partially Shirazi salad, and partially all it’s own.
Our main event, wine wise, tonight was a blind flight of 5 Meursaults, 4 Coche, one ringer. Larry was supposed to bring the 09, but he ended up in the hospital. Poor Larry.
1998 Coche-Dury Meursault. 95 points. The regular Meursault but an aged one at least, a special wine. It is a classy Burgundy with a lot of roasted almonds and nuts, but still a refreshing acidity. It shows some aging signs I would say at his peak, great company for food. Getting better with time and air. Missing a little bit more complexity in the finish. Anyway nicely balanced.
agavin: tied with the 2011 for white of the night
2004 Coche-Dury Meursault. BH 91. Soft mineral reduction does not materially detract from the green fruit, citrus, stone and slightly smoky nose that introduces detailed, pure and attractively intense middle weight flavors that possess excellent vibrancy on the taut, linear and refined finish. This isn’t quite as complex or concentrated as the ’02 version (see herein) but the sheer persistence is most impressive. And in the same fashion as the 2002, this has reached an inflection point of maturity where it could be enjoyed now or held for a few more years depending on how one prefers aged white burgs. For my taste, I would hold this for another 2 to 4 years but many people will find the current state of maturity to be perfect now.
agavin: nice out of the gate and for a long while.
2006 Coche-Dury Meursault. BH 89. An expressive and attractively layered nose of citrus, yellow orchard fruits and a hint of roasted nuts trimmed in a note of subtle wood toast that is also picked up by the rich, full and generous flavors that possess a seductively textured and balanced finish that delivers fine intensity and impressive persistence for a villages level wine. Recommended.
agavin: flabby out of the gate (we thought it was the non-coche) but really opened up and grew.
From my cellar: 2011 Coche-Dury Meursault. 94 points. An elegant, pure and very pretty nose is now displaying just touches of both wood and some secondary development though it’s clear that the ripe orchard fruit and citrus-infused aromas are still developing. There is a lovely sense of energy to the delicious, round and caressing middle weight flavors that exhibit a subtle mineralitly that continues onto the nicely intense and sappy finale that delivers excellent persistence and particularly so for a villages level wine. This is really lovely stuff and while it could easily be enjoyed now, I’d be inclined to allow it another 5 to 7 years of bottle age first.
agavin: big, long and full of acid to start and just kept getting better.
2013 Bernard Boisson-Vadot Meursault Les Chevalières. 93 points. This was served single blind. The Coche flint and acid was obvious. Except this for was Boisson Vadot. Started off a dead ringer for Coche but as the Coche all picked up complexity with air this b came a little one dimensional. Certainly held its own as a Coche ringer.
Bings (flat breads) with Spicy Lamb and Eggs & Smoked Roe.
A close up fo the stuff you put on the pita. The lamb was vaguely Greek/Turkish or something with the yogurt and the stewed meat quality. Yummy though. The eggs were more complex and pretty excellent. You mash it up a bit to get the roe, egg, chips etc on the bing. I put the ham on at the same time for max effect and it was very good.
Hiding behind the coche!
A gift of the house: Macaroni & Chickpea black truffle, black pepper. Really good. Like a cacio e pepe, but with an interesting cheesy/sweetness and that fabulous truffle flavor.
More carbs! Crispy Rice shrimp, corn, bacon. Form favor is Korean, but the flavors were different and the crispy rice reminded me of those Persian dishes.
You mix it up and it was bright and delicious.
Crispy Pork Belly kohlrabi, Bibb lettuce, Domojang. The pork was very crispy, really nice, but it was all about the XO-like Domojang sauce.
Fred brought: 2002 Domaine G. Roumier / Christophe Roumier Chambolle-Musigny. VM 88. Moderately saturated medium red. Lively, pure aromas of raspberry and flowers; I had the impression of getting back to my preferred style of Burgundy Supple and round, but juicy thanks to an edge of acidity. Subtle notes of red fruits, flowers and minerals. Finishes with dusty tannins.
agavin: reviewers way under rated this fresh lovely young village wine.
We also pre ordered Boiled Whole Chicken (2-3 people) rice, morels, hand torn noodles.
This was some absolutely first rate chicken. Pretty much Hainan chicken with the spice already rubbed on, much more Chinese than anything else.
The hand torn noodle soup was like some of the best (Chinese) mushroom noodle soup you’ll ever have, and they have amped it up with not only truffle butter.
But a pile of real truffles too (replacing the morels from before).
Our wine lineup.
Which Eve shows off for Instagram.
We also happened to be “crashed” by Charlie Fu and friends at the next table over.
Wine service is so good here they also brought some lousy juice.
The dessert menu.
Strawberry Kakigoro. Shiso, burrata. Strawberry and shiso shaved ice with burrata sauce and dehydrated strawberries. It was mild in flavor, but very intriguing and refreshing. Plus it was amazing paired with the coche. Made it taste like strawberry coche. I think a nice high acid White Burg would be great with a little Boiron Strawberry Puree!
Mandorla Tostata Stroopwafel Gelato (Toasted Almond) made by me for Sweet Milk Gelato — toasted Sicilian almonds and Dutch Stroopwafel, because, why not? Some of Charlie’s guys declared it the best gelato they have ever had — makes a dad proud!
Overall, we had a great time at Majordomo. You do need a decent sized party for the awesome large dishes and you need to preorder. When we got there at 6:45pm there were only 1 each of the beef and pork left!
The service and wine service were both spectacular. I was really surprised as these loud hipster places often don’t have good wine service but we were really taken care of and this added a lot to the evening.
The larger pre-order dishes like the rib and chicken are amazing and insane. Tonight the food seemed even better than the first time, even if we did have a lot of (delicious) carbs. Maybe it was the Coche. Coche makes everything taste better.
