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Archive for December 2019

Expedition Nozomi

Dec30

Restaurant: Nozomi

Location: 1757 W Carson St # L, Torrance, CA 90501. (310) 320-5511

Date: November 13, 2019

Cuisine: Sushi

Rating: Great value, really good sushi

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My friend Steven came recently to one of our Chinese dinners and wanted to “return the favor” by showing us one of his favorite sushi spots in Torrance.
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Nozomi is in the heart of the vastness of little Japan that is Torrance.
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This is a real deal sort of Japanese place with the tatami rooms, etc.
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The menu.
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Yarom brought this wine, which was good for a new world (fake) chard.
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Lunch specials come with a salad.
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And miso soup (of course).
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Sashimi Lunch (can’t remember if it was “special” or not). Good sized chunks of very fresh fish.
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Sashimi Lunch. You get the nigiri and the cut roll.
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Cut Toro Roll.
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Uni and Ikura (salmon egg).
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Toro, red snapper (tai), mackerel, crab (kani), clam, squid, and eel. All good stuff.
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Negi-Toro ball. Chopped toro and green onions.
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Toro handroll — one can never have too much toro.
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Spicy salmon handroll. Nice and crunchy.

Overall, very good sushi. Not the best I’ve ever had, but super good for the price. If this were near me I’d come once a week for lunch — sadly it’s all the way down in Torrance.
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Next door they had this crazy chestnut and bobo place.
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Chestnut donuts!
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And more.
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And two types of fresh roasted chestnuts.
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Plus the 85C for weird Taiwanese baked goods and coffee.
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Unbearably cute.
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And the sea salt coffee.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For LA sushi reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Sushi Sushi = Yummy Yummy
  2. Sasabune – Dueling Omakases
  3. Let’s Go Again
  4. Seaweed Sushi
  5. Hamasaku Lunch
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: lunch, Lunch Quest, Nozomi, Sushi, Torrance

The Witcher (TV) Season 1

Dec26

Show: The Witcher

Genre: High Fantasy

Watched: Season 1 – December 23-25, 2019

Summary: Loved it, but I was prepared

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It’s been a while since I wrote a TV review, but after binge watching the show, and given my love of Fantasy, The Witcher (both novels and games), and the general process of adaption, I pretty much had no choice.

This is a show written for fans and perhaps not for the uninitiated. It’s unabashedly High Fantasy and is (mostly) extremely faithful to both the source novels for plot and character and to Witcher III in terms of visuals. This last surprised me as the show (I believe) has no connection with the games other than that they draw on the same source material — but it really does (again mostly) look like them. It’s loosely adapted from the first two books, short story collections The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny with chunks of the novel Blood of Elves worked in. These are simultaneously both great material to work from and challenging to adapt, as the world and characters are sketched impressionistically via a series of short stories — and this “episodic” feel permeates this first TV season .

Essentially, season one is preamble, being the tale of this unique alternative history Slavic fantasy world and three (at first) disconnected characters: Geralt (the witcher), the sorceress Yennefer, and the princess Ciri. The trio inhabit parallel stories on a collision course — but not yet obviously connected.

And while I loved the show, it’s not without its issues, so let’s break down the parts:

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Characters and their actors:

Henry Cavill nails Geralt of Rivia. I’m not a Man of Steel fan — although that was mostly the barfarific writing — but he really inhabits The Witcher. Sure, Geralt isn’t exactly the most emotionally available character in the history of fiction, but Cavill brings exactly the right confidence, ambiguity, and charisma to the bleak “hero.” His pale stringy hair and cat-like contacts give him this wide eyed stare — but it works — as does the gravely voice and the continual grunting. Geralt’s combat skills are superbly fluid and perfectly in line with the character.

Freya Allan is ghostly and intensely slavic as Ciri. Just the right kind of vulnerable and a distinctly elven quality. Also great. I heard there was some initial thought of switching up her “race” and I’m glad they didn’t.

Now the mages are one of those total modern melting pots of ethnicity and looking — but the conceit works well with them both because they presumably hail from around the world and because their appearances are sculpted as much by their own magics as by nature.

Compared to Geralt and Ciri, I was more mixed in my opinion of Anya Chalotra’s Yennefer. Early Yennefer is pretty good, and her transformation quite intense. But while post-transformation Yennefer looks the part, she doesn’t bring to it the level of forceful (and petulant) intensity that I have always considered to be a hallmark of the sorceress. Basically, she lacks some of the swagger that is essential to Yennefer.

Anna Shaffer’s Triss was very flat, not at all what I was looking for. But many other characters were solid, particularly Cahir, Tissaia, Mousesack, Eist, and others.

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Visuals and setting:

Art direction was excellent. Maybe not quite as sweeping as the games, but very similar in style and often haunting. It brought the slavic setting starkly to life. Costuming is a bit varied, but so is the game. Sometimes gritty and medieval, sometimes colorful and a bit more Renaissance. Often the backgrounds were very desaturated. This was fine.

I was not bugged by the gratuitous nudity. This is at its heart an early 1990s fantasy series. It has elves and dwarves and nudity. That’s just part of its thing.

The spell fx could have been better at times. Sometimes they were good, but sometimes a touch offscreen or fake. This is a world (and a show) with a lot of direct magic. It’s not like Game of Thrones where the magic is “subtle” like Melisandre’s. No, this has mages hurling bolts of energy and opening up portals and all that. They handled it ok, but the magic could have benefited from looking even “more expensive” and dramatic.

The creatures on the other hand looked great, as did the settings generally.

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Music and sound:

First rate. Particularly the sound track. I loved the video game sound trackers, and this one is good as well — similar in its exotic quality.

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Writing:

Writing was generally good, but I had two problems. Sometimes the dialog seems overly modern, particularly some comic characters like Dandelion (returning to his Polish name Jaskier in the show). And the patching together of the short story based material periodically led to jarring transitions and some tonal shifts. The show maintains the grim pathos, high fantasy, and snatches of humor characteristic of The Witcher. All of these tones being there in the source material, but I wonder about the ability of new viewers to follow the multiple interwoven time frames — which taking a page from Westworld offer only minimals clues for distinguishing the period — particularly given that many important characters in this show do not age significantly (Geralt and the mages). It’s also a show that like its source material throws about the complex “noun soup” of a complex fantasy world and its moderately complex politics. Part of the enjoyment for a fantasy or SciFi reader — and a part not appreciated by people who aren’t steeped in these genres — is the joy of trying to piece together the rules and details of the world without too much handholding. And The Witcher show is fairly true to these roots.

So, given that I’ve read the books and played the games and “get” the world of The Witcher, it’s hard for me know how a new viewer would experience the show. My wife — having neither read nor played — did watch with me, and she enjoyed the show as well, but she also likes fantasy and was peppering me with questions. So if you’ve seen the show, and particularly if you are new to the franchise, feel free to tell me your experience in the comments.

So overall, despite some cheese and some flaws, I really enjoyed the show and am deep in that cathartic sadness that follows the end of a good season. Fortunately it’s already been renewed. I know the professional critics hated the show and the fans loved it. And I think that’s because unlike Game of Thrones, which is a bit of a crossover gateway drug into fantasy, The Witcher (and I speak of the franchise overall) is something rarely done at all, and even more rarely done well on TV: an unabashed masterpiece of genre fantasy — and that’s all right because I love genre fantasy.

For my thoughts on Witcher III (it rulez), click here.

Yep, there are even knights cursed to be hedgehogs

Related posts:

  1. Witcher 3 – Middle Impressions
  2. Game of Thrones – Season 3 Goodies
  3. Game of Thrones – Season 2 Trailer
  4. Game of Thrones Season 4 Trailer
  5. Game of Thrones – Episode 4
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Television
Tagged as: Adaption, Anya Chalotra, Fantasy, Freya Allan, Henry Cavill, season 1, The Witcher, TV review

Ancient Italian (wine) at Sixth & Mill

Dec25

Restaurant: Sixth & Mill

Location: 1335 E 6th St, Los Angeles, CA 90021. (213) 629-3000

Date: November 11, 2019

Cuisine: Italian Pizza

Rating: Super Tasty Pizza, but far (for me)

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This post documents an interesting combo event. My friend Walker, member of the Foodie Club, put together this event at his friend, Chef Angelo Auriana’s new pizza place downtown (located next to his other restaurant, Berea).
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Chef Angelo’s pizza is his very own version of the pizza Napoletana, which was initially exported by the first waves of immigrants in the 1800s and quickly became what most people abroad identify Italian food by.

Beside the pizza, the cuisine of sixth+mill focuses on other traditional recipes that capture the uniqueness and versatility of the regional southern Italian food and include appetizers, fritters, homemade pasta, meat & poultry, seafood and desserts, keeping an eye on traditions and looking at today’s necessity of lightness, healthiness and simplicity.

The dining experience at sixth+mill  evokes joyous times of travel and memories through a casual-refined atmosphere that recreates the feel of a night by the Gulf of Naples and it is the platform to celebrate and share the culture and the life style of the Italian people.

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It’s in the left half of the Berea building, and is a bit of a transplant from Vegas as the chef opened this concept there first.

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Inside is a mix of contemporary and “factory.”
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Walker organized this HUGE (too huge) dinner with like 50-60 people to showcase the pizzas and his ancient and unusual Italian wines. The chef is in the blue in the middle of the above picture.
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I also brought some wine. From my cellar: 2010 Borgo del Tiglio (Nicola Manferrari) Collio Friulano Ronco della Chiesa. AG 94. Borgo del Tiglio’s 2010 Ronco della Chiesa shows what this hillside site in Cormons can do in cooler vintages. Still bright, focused and intensely saline, the 2010 bursts from the glass with grapefruit, lime, mint and crushed rocks. The 2010 will probably be appreciated most by readers who like tense, vibrant whites. Next to some of the other vintages, the 2010 lacks a little mid-palate pliancy, but it is quite beautiful just the same. I especially like the way the 2010 opens up nicely in the glass over time. (Drink between 2013-2020)
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Mozzerella from Southern Italy with peppers.
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Margarita with Gorgonzola. Pretty normal Margarita, but for the strong flavor of Gorgonzola — took it up a notch for me. Very salty and strong.
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Parmesan with purple cabbage and almonds. A strongly cheesy pizza with a bit of crunch and a hint of bitter from the cabbage.
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From my cellar: 2007 Paolo Bea Montefalco Rosso Riserva Pipparello. 94 points. I’m a sucker for Bea and my infatuation may blur my objectivity as a result. However, it would be disingenuous of me if I were not to gush over this bottle. A tree full of ripe cherries, pie spice, asphalt, charcoal, smoke, mushrooms, damp forest floor, teriyaki…it was a feast for the senses. After 11 years of age it’s still fiercely tannic but it’s not enough to bother considering the character. The finish lasts for minutes. I realize that making wine like this is scary and the results aren’t for everyone but my God, I am thankful that the Bea’s have the guts to do it.
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Mushrooms with butternut squash and arugula.
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Oxtail and smoked mozzarella. Strongly meaty, probably my favorite.
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Margherita fior di latte with Apulian EVOO and oregano.
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Gnocchi with Alfredo sauce. Cheesy and very very soft. Perfect pillows of potato.
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Much of the wine lineup.

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This was Jerome and Emma’s first full evening in Los Angeles (just in from the Netherlands) and we dragged them through 2+ hours of LA traffic!

The wines are all pictured below. Far too many to write up. This was an oddball event. I’ll break it down.

The pizzas were very good. Not 2+ hours in traffic good — no pizza in LA is — but good. I’d happily have them if there were closer. They are about the same (good) level as Pizzana. There wasn’t enough food for my taste, mostly because of the format (more on that later), but what we got was great.

The wines were very interesting. These are unusual varietals that I, of course, know because of my Italian wine studies, but unusual. Mostly far Northern Italian wines made from Spanna (a Nebbiolo variant). But you NEVER see these wines nearly this old! They varied from a bit rustic or acidic to delicious. This is surprisingly long lived stuff. Pouring was a bit uneven due to the format.

The format problem with this dinner was the size. There were huge numbers, perhaps 50-60 people, and first of all the restaurant can’t produce pizzas THAT fast, so they would periodically drop one on our table, giving us a piece each, then we would wait for a good while as they kept dropping pizzas on the other 10 tables before switching to a new pizza type. Initially there was only the salad and 4 small (slices of) pizza(s). We begged for the 5th pizza and the gnocchi, but it still wasn’t really enough. I think the concept originally was for it to be smaller and for the chef to try the wines and improvise on pizzas, but because of the scale he couldn’t really do that. The wine also suffered in pacing because Walker was opening and pouring EVERYTHING so he was one busy bee — but he still couldn’t get around fast enough at the beginning. These are pretty hard bottles to even open as the aged corks take some time to work through.

But anyway, other than the ludicrous LA traffic getting to the Arts District fairly early, it was a lot of fun.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

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Related posts:

  1. Italian? – Tom George
  2. Heroic Wine Bar
  3. Fraiche – Ultimo Wine Dinner
  4. Wine in the Sky – 71Above
  5. Italian House Party
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Angelo Auriana, Arts District, DTLA, Foodie Club, Italian wine, Pizza, Sixth & Mill, Walker Wine Co, Wine

OC Viet Crawl – The Sequel

Dec23

Restaurant: Góc Ha Noi Corner

Location: 8516 Garden Grove Blvd, Garden Grove, CA 92844. (714) 867-6665

Date: November 11, 2019

Cuisine: Vietnamese

Rating: Excellent opener

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Our previous OC Viet Crawl — in which we drive down and spend the afternoon “crawling” between Vietnamese restaurants — was such a success, that it spawned a mini crawl and this followup sequel — all new places!
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First up is this place — 11am, almost time for breakfast.
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Clearly some other kind of restaurant before it was Vietnamese.
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Maybe a diner?
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The counter has an altar-like aspect.
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The big menu.
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In case you wonder where the bodies are buried — must be in here.
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Someone needed an iced tea.
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Gio tai (crunchy sausages). The description made me order them. There were slightly crunchy bits inside what seemed to have a texture similar to a fishcake — spongy. Meaty taste of course.
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Herb salad to go with other stuff, and some kind of sauce.

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Bun Rieu Cua Lot Ha Noi. Ha Noi soft-shelled crab tomato tofu vermicelli soup. Tangy sweet and sour soup. Quite delicious.
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Banh cuon thit cha nurong ha noi. Steamed thin rice paper with Ha Noi grilled pork, fresh herbs, and fish sauce. Really nice meat flavor and as ever great contrast with the herbs and soft rice paper.

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Bank breaker!

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We didn’t get these, but they made for a pretty photo.

Overall, nice little place with friendly service and tasty food.

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Restaurant: Mai Phung Restaurant

Location: 8415 Westminster Blvd, Westminster, CA 92683. (714) 890-1155

Date: November 11, 2019

Cuisine: Vietnamese

Rating: Excellent opener

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Stop two is this little parking lot side place.
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We had to wait a bit as there was a crowd already at noon.
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Smaller more focused menu.
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They make and sell their own hot sauce here — it was hot!
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Bun Cha Na Noi. Special Na-Noi style grilled pork served with vermicelli. More grilled meats on noodles.
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Fish sauce as usual. Dumped over the meat and noodles this was supremely tasty.
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Banh Canh Tom Cua Thit Heo. Crab, shrimp, and pork thick noodle soup. This is one of the main specialties here. Both the broth and the noodles (like udon) were thick. Mild, but delicious and great texture.
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Another crushing blow to the wallet.

Overall, small place, small menu, but it was tasty — and popular.

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Restaurant: Quan Hy Restaurant

Location: 9727 Bolsa Ave, Westminster, CA 92683.

Date: November 11, 2019

Cuisine: Vietnamese

Rating: Excellent opener

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Place three is a bit larger and more upscale.

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Their was also a line, both inside and out — and on a random Monday!
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The inside is more upscale.
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With a cool fish pond in the floor.
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Which Yarom somehow didn’t notice until he stepped right into it!

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The menu.
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A bit of wine — it’s afternoon after all.
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Banh beo. Steamed rice cakes with shredded shrimp etc.
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Gratuitous zoom. You put a bit of fish sauce on these and slide them down. Soft gooey texture.
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Mi Quang doc biet co sura. Yellow noodles with shrimp, pork, vegetables, and jellyfish. Jellyfish! Yay.
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Cam suran ram. Grilled ribs and vegetables served with steamed rice. Lots of grilled meats today!
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Oooh, $10 more! What shall we do?
Overall, they had a slightly bigger menu, but not huge — still I’d like to try some other dishes.

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Restaurant: Hien Thanh Restaurant

Location: 9741 Bolsa Ave #108, Westminster, CA 92683

Date: November 11, 2019

Cuisine: Vietnamese

Rating: Excellent opener

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Our penultimate place is just around the corner from the last so we hoofed it.
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This is even more mom & pop.
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Tiny really, without much decor.
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But a huge menu.
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Not much English on the menu, but this was a kind of steamed eggplant. Texture was like fish, or perhaps jackfruit, but it tasted great.
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Carmel Fish. Scrumptious. A bit of an oily thing flavor, but in a good way.
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A kind of stuffed tofu in tomato sauce.
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The usual.

Overall, a surprising place. It was a bit old school so I was wary — but the food was great, particularly the fish.

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Yarom and kirk pose at the mall entrance.

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Restaurant: Tan Cang Newport Seafood Restaurant

Location: 10541 Bolsa Ave, Garden Grove, CA 92843. (714) 554-3996

Date: November 11, 2019

Cuisine: Vietnamese Chinese

Rating: More of a Chinese restaurant, and pricier, but great lobster

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Yarom has been wanting to come here for a while since we go all the time to the SGV location.
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This is the original — and clearly it’s a bit “Vietnamese.”
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But it also looks like a Chinese restaurant — and basically is a Chinese restaurant.
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Lobster tank.
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From my cellar, some sparkling rose.
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Clams in basil sauce. Savory and delicious.
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House Special Lobster on garlic noodles. This was a big 4 or 5 pound lobster with tons of meat and a fabulous sauce — although they billed it as a 6.5lb lobster. ha!
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The noodles were thick and eggy but particularly delicious under the lobster — still I like Garlic and Chive’s version a hair better.
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Pea Tendrils sautéed with garlic. The usual tasty colon sweeper.
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Oranges.
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The price here was considerably higher — particularly because of the lobster. The owner was incredibly nice and hung out with us for awhile. If she was a touch younger Yarom would have proposed (again)!

Related posts:

  1. Viet Noodle Bar
  2. Little Saigon Mini Crawl
  3. Little Saigon Mega Crawl
  4. Mandarin Plaza Crawl
  5. Chicken Crawl – Dong Nguyen
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: crawl, Góc Ha Noi Corner, hedonists, lunch, noodles, Orange County, Vietnamese cuisine, Wine

Noodle Harmony

Dec20

Restaurant: Noodle Harmony

Location: 735 W Garvey Ave, Monterey Park, CA 91754. (626) 656-6562

Date: November 8, 2019

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: Pretty good — I love me some Szechuan

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My AFF group (Asian Food Friday) wanted to go to Korean but I steered them to the SGV to try out a new Szechuan place that’s been on my “list.”
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Noodle Harmony. I always like to try new Szechuan places.
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It’s in the mini mall at one of my favorite corners: Garvey and Atlantic. Right next to Capital Seafood.
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Decor is that new casual style. No big tables. The place was pretty empty.
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The menu.
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My “notes” for ordering. I did it in waves so we could control the order and pacing.
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Cucumber Salad. This was a nice garlicky (but not spicy) take on this classic opener. Always refreshing.
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Jellyfish Salad. Some great jellyfish with that really nice chew/bite. Tangy spicy sauce.
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Mung Bean Cold Noodle. I love this dish in general, but this version was a bit heavy and needed a more tangy sauce.
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Green Onion and Chili Paste Cold Tofu. Loved this dish. Great salty/tangy flavor and really nice silken tofu texture. TONS of garlic.
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Szechuan Spicy Chicken. Cold. Not a bad version. Lots of flavor. Bone sucking good.
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Szechuan Style Dumplings. Very nice version. Lots of tasty pork inside, a bit of chili oil outside. Good dumpling skins.

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Steamed Beef with Rice Paste. This is a Szechuan classic. Tender (I mean really tender) soft beef coated in rice paste which has this interesting carby and toasted quality. Very nice version.
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Dan Dan Mein. The classic Chengdu street food. This was one of the better versions I’ve had in the US recently. It had lots of flavor and that mixed mala, meaty, a bit of nutty taste.
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Traditional Tri-Delight (rice) Noodle Soup. Cuttlefish, pork stomach, pork, mushrooms. This soup showcases a fish cuttlefish. Very interesting. Quite delicious too.
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I brought a bunch of gelato in honor of AFF.

Cran-Cherry Cassis Sorbetto — French Cranberries and Amareno Cherries with a bit of Crème de Cassis — tart! — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — Currents from Avignon, blended with Creme de Cassis –#SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #sorbetto #cranberry #cherry #current #cassis

Ruby Chocolate Gelato — base made with Callebaut Ruby Couverture Chocolate and a Stracciatella of ruby chocolate mixed with berriy puree — this isn’t a flavored chocolate but a special “ruby” cocoa bean Callebaut has bred with a natural pink color and fruity finish — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #Callebaut #chocolate #RubyChocolate #ruby #berry


Matcha Almond Latte Gelato – Ceremonial Matcha Green Tea and Sicilian Noto Romano Almond gelato base — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato –#dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #almond #matcha #GreenTea #Sicily

A new “dessert reinterpreted” gelato — German Chocolate Cake Gelato — Valrhona Chocolate base with house-made coconut pecan praline “icing”! — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — oh my! — #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #chocolate #valrhona #GermanChocolateCake #Icing #coconut #praline #pecan

Overall, service was great. We were pretty much the only people there and they were extremely friendly. Food was good, but not the best Szechuan I’ve had by any means. Menu is pretty limited. Definitely a lunch place. Everything was fine. Nothing too sloppy or anything, but most dishes just fine. A few were standouts though. Dan Dan, tofu, jellyfish, maybe the steamed beef.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Szechuan Impression Tustin
  2. Quick Eats – Tasty Noodle
  3. Không Tên – Brunch
  4. Otafuku – Carb Coma
  5. Happy Table 2X
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: AFF, lunch, Noodle Harmony, SGV, Sichuan, Szechuan Chinese

Rayas Auburn

Dec18

Restaurant: Auburn [1, 2]

Location: 6703 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90038. (323) 486-6703

Date: November 6, 2019

Cuisine: Modern California

Rating: Really good fine dining

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Auburn is a much anticipated recent opening in LA’s often bankrupt fine dining space. I went back in May but now I’m returning for a special Sage Society dinner featuring the wines of the illustrious Chateau Rayas.

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The rarest and most spectacular of all the Southern Rhone producers.
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The restaurant occupies the space formerly belonging to the legendary Citrus, then Alex, then Hatfields (all of which I enjoyed).
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They’ve partially roofed over, divided and modernized the space, removing the 80s-90s LA garden feel (which I kind of liked, but it’s certainly still very attractive).
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The kitchen is large, open, and bustling!

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Chef Eric Bost’s (back center) debut restaurant Auburn juxtaposes the higher echelon of traditional fine dining with an emphasis on guest exploration and conviviality while paying homage to Los Angeles’ uninhibited culinary identity in a space designed with honest materials by local makers.

Chef Eric Bost grew up in North Carolina, running around his grandparents’ restaurants at an early age. Upon graduation from business school, he enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America. After an externship at Le Cirque in NYC, Bost traveled across Europe, where he met his future wife, Elodie, and made Paris his home. During their time in France, Bost worked his way through some of the world’s best restaurants, including Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée and Les Ambassadeurs at the Hôtel de Crillon. His experience led him to be chosen by Guy Savoy for his opening team in Las Vegas in 2006. Two years later, the restaurant received 2 Michelin Stars with Bost as Chef de Cuisine. Within months, he was appointed Executive Chef and maintained their prestigious rating, garnering numerous accolades along the way. With the opening of Guy Savoy Singapore in 2010, Bost established a restaurant consistently voted amongst the best in the country. Most recently, Bost was the Executive Chef at Los Angeles’ beloved République. Now, after nearly a decade at the helm of revered restaurants, Bost ventures on his own with auburn.

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Our special dinner was in the private room near the entrance.
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NV Saint-Chamant Champagne Cuvée Royále (from mag). Rare but lovely Champagne.
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An intro snack. Tartlet of some sort. Lots of herbs.
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2009 Gonet-Médeville Cuvée Théophile Grand Cru Rosé. 96 points. Another rare and spectacular bubbly. This rose was fabulous.
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The box!
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Basically chicharróns (aka fried pork rinds). They have a ton of crunch and a bit of vinegar and salt flavor, not unlike salt and vinegar potato chips.
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President of Martine’s Wines, Greg Castells introduces the wines. All the wines tonight are imported by Martine’s and came either from Rayas itself, their collection, or Liz’s. Martines has a really spectacular lineup with some of the best wines in the world.
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Liz Lee is our hostess — and she always organizes an amazing evening.

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Our special menu “produced” by Liz.
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Bread and butter.
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Zone on this rather spectacular bread. It’s some kind of (pretty) country loaf made in house. Served warm and amazing.
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The butter is avocado butter and infused with herbs. Really nice match with the bread.
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2012 Château Rayas Côtes du Rhône La Pialade. 93 points. Pours light and transparent with clear flecks of orange. It opens up to a strong and singular navel orange nose on the nose. Over time it becomes accented with a touch of Christmas spice, game, and mossy undergrowth. The palate has high acid, low tannin, and has elevated but not obtrusive alcohol. Nice long finish replaying the orange, light spice and game. Called it bang on… ’12 Pialade.
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We open with the lightest of the major Rayas wines.

2013 Château Rayas Côtes du Rhône La Pialade. 92 points. Drinking a full bottle, p & p, light red, strawberries, flowers, roses, tea leaves, sweet core, still fairly tannic and picked up weight so I don’t think it’s at peak drinking.
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Abalone Mushrooms. Roasted over embers, eggplant, Aleppo chili, watercress, almonds, burnt onion essence. First dish up was amazing, particularly for being vegetarian. The fabulous reduction sauce really sold it, but so did the nice meaty mushroom.
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2007 Château Rayas Côtes du Rhône Château de Fonsalette Reserve. VM 93. Bright red. Black raspberry and floral aromas are complemented by Asian spices, anise and white pepper. Racy, finely etched red berry and cherry flavors stain the palate and become deeper and sweeter with air. Shows no rough edges and finishes with superb focus and sweet, sappy persistence. This puts most Chateauneufs in the shade.
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2009 Château Rayas Côtes du Rhône Château de Fonsalette Reserve. VM 92. Bright red. Intriguing aromas of black raspberry, cherry-cola, Indian spices and lavender. Suave, gently sweet and focused, with very good mid-palate power and intense, spice-accented red fruit flavors. Finishes with dusty tannins that add focus and gentle grip to the very long, sappy finish.
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Lamb Tartare. Charred persimmons, pickled marigolds, grains of paradise. Very unusual tartare presentation.
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2008 Château Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pape Pignan Reserve. VM 91. Bright red. High-pitched aromas of redcurrant, raspberry, rose petal, and Asian spices, lifted by a mineral quality. Suave, silky and alluringly sweet, offering penetrating red fruit flavors and slow-mounting florality. This refined, focused wine stains the palate with perfumed flavors of raspberry and garrigue. This has the juicy acidity and spine to reward cellaring but I find it awfully delicious now.
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2009 Château Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pape Pignan Reserve. VM 94. Vivid red. Intensely fragrant nose displays an exotic array of red fruit, incense and floral scents. Sweet raspberry and cherry flavors offer both depth and impressive energy, with silky tannins adding support. Spiciness and florality build on the long, juicy finish, which emphasizes raspberry and candied licorice. This Chateauneuf gains weight with air, but maintains freshness and clarity.
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Quail. Treviso glazed with blackberries, crushed juniper, lardo. This bird had a nice char note and a smoky richness from the lardo. Another great reduction too.
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Now into the bad boys:

2008 Château Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pape Reserve. 95 points. Vivid red. Pure, expressive aromas of red and dark berries, potpourri, licorice and rose. Juicy, spicy and fresh, with sexy raspberry and cherry flavors accentuated by smoky minerality. Intense and light on its feet, finishing very long and aromatic, augmented by firm mineral cut and very impressive clarity.
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2009 Château Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pape Reserve. VM 96. Deep red with a bright rim. A kaleidoscopic bouquet evokes red and dark berry preserves, blood orange and lavender, with deeper cherry pit and licorice qualities adding power. Sweet, expansive and pure, offering intense raspberry, bitter cherry and floral pastille flavors supported by a firm spine of acidity. Shows excellent clarity and power on the finish, which is given shape by fine-grained, sweet tannins. I underestimated this wine from barrel last year.
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Duck. Koji aged pan-roasted kohlrabi, young mustard leaves, roasted duck-mustard jus. Lovely.
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2006 Château Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pape Reserve. VM 94. Medium red. Vibrant strawberry, raspberry, anise and floral aromas could fill a room. Juicy and sharply delineated, offering sweet red berry and cherry preserve flavors with compelling accents of licorice, sassafras, lavender and smoky minerals. Extremely elegant wine with outstanding finishing cut and persistence. Not many grand cru Burgundies could match this for finesse.
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Veal Sweetbreads, pig’s trotter and celery root ragout, matsutake mushrooms, chicken skin, roasted veal jus. I’m not usually a trotter or a sweetbreads fan, but this was a great dish. Rich and meaty. Fabulous reduction again.
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1995 Château Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pape Reserve. JG 94. The 1995 Châteauneuf du Pape from Château Rayas is an outstanding wine that is just about into its plateau of peak maturity, but could still do with at least a couple more years in the cellar to allow everything to fall precisely into place. The bouquet is a classic Rayas mélange of cherries, raspberries, coffee, ground pepper, garrigue, roasted venison and woodsmoke. On the palate the wine is ripe, full-bodied and rock solid at the core, with moderate tannins, fine grip and a very long, blossoming and nascently complex finish. This still has a bit of chunky, muscle-bound adolescence to shake off and a few more years in the cellar should do this nicely, allowing the wine to snap into focus and start to show more of the inherent elegance of this great terroir. It is a ripe vintage for Rayas, but handles this very nicely indeed. (Drink between 2020-2050)
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1997 Château Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pape Reserve. VM 90+. Full red. Spicy aromas of framboise, leather and pepper; very rich but fresher than the Pignan. Thick but lively on the palate; very suave and rich. Not nearly as open today as the above. Peppery finish displays excellent persistence. This is very strong for the vintage.
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1998 Château Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pape Reserve. VM 92+. Medium red. Deep, smoky aromas of strawberry, roasted plum, raspberry and roasted meat. Big, sweet and peppery in the middle palate, but not yet expansive. Larger-scaled and more roasted than the Pignan but today it not showing the sheer concentration or sappy, primary red berry sweetness of the great Rayas vintages of recent decades. Still, this opens out very nicely on the long finish, which features dusty, fine tannins.

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Dry Aged Ribeye. Red wine braised oxtail, red flame grapes, roasted and raw turnips, soy-cured daikon. More reduction! Very nice bit of meat.
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1997 Château Gilette Crème de Tête. 93 points. Lovely. A bit like cream soda.
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Apple. Chantilly (cream). The cream was almost tart (like a cream fraiche). Rather delicious for being so minimalist. One of the senior employees did tell me that in the future my gelato was welcome :-).
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Mignardise of candied rhubarb. Like little funny sour fruit rollups.
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The wine lineup.

The wines were spectacular. It was very interesting — and perhaps unique — to try the progression of the Rayas wines like this all in one evening. I’ve had them all at one time or another, but never in series. This is a very unique winemaker with it’s own peculiar and wonderful style.

Overall, food was fabulous Audacious for LA fine dining, very interesting style that blends foraged seasonal ingredients, a love of great reductions, more than a bit of wood-fire, and a real respect for getting the most out of vegetables. This is certainly the best new fine dining place I’ve tried recently in LA.

Service was great.

The overall evening, like all Sage Society events, was fabulous and meticulously arranged.

For my catalog of Chinese restaurant reviews in China, click here.

Or for epic Foodie Club meals, here.

Related posts:

  1. Valentino Rayas
  2. Awesome Auburn
  3. Sauvages in the Forest
  4. Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the Sun
  5. Salt’s Cure
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Auburn, Chateauneuf du Pape, Greg Castells, Liz Lee, Martine's Wines, rayas, Sage Society

Da Lat Rose – A Gastrobiography

Dec16

Restaurant: Dà Lat Rose

Location: 468 N Bedford Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. (310) 205-8990

Date: November 5, 2019

Cuisine: Vietnamese Modern

Rating: Really interesting, more traditional, but still modern

_

This year our group has struck up a friendship with Elisabeth and Catherine An of Crustacean and we’ve not only visited the main Crustacean — Hedonist style — but they have now invited us to come back just before launch to their new high end place, Dà Lat Rose.
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The main entrance.

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Da Lat Rose is a passion project between Chef Helene An, founder of House of AN / Crustacean Beverly Hills and Chef Tony Nguyen.

Located above the iconic Crustacean restaurant in Beverly Hills, Da Lat Rose is not just another restaurant – it is a culinary biography of Heleneʼs dramatic life events. Beginning with her birth as the daughter of a Mandarin Scholar in 1944, the 12 course tasting menu shares course-by-course of Helene’s journey from her life in Vietnam to being a refugee in America. Toward the end of the menu, Chef Helene focuses on the future of culinary advancements and transition of the kitchen at Da Lat Rose to Chef Tony Nguyen, who also celebrates his own Vietnamese American heritage as the menu concludes in the final courses.

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As with most dining experiences in Vietnam, the evening will begin in the Bia Hoi, where guests can enjoy a fun street-style food experience, before they journey “down The Street” into the main dining room.

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The build out is gorgeous and elaborate — this is just one corner of the bar.
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The gather in the bar to begin our meal. It should be noted that this meal was a bit crazy. It was supposed to be about 10-12 but since the restaurant was only soft opening, they asked Yarom to add more people and he ran it up to 18 or 19 and that created a crazy wine situation with a tremendous number of wines but a challenge in pouring them around. It worked passably given that fact, but barely.

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The tables are custom and inspired by the barrels that Vietnamese eat on street-side.
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Custom-made Vietnamese fruit beer.
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Elisabeth An is our hostess tonight.
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The mini menu for the bar.
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NV Krug Champagne Brut Grande Cuvée Edition 167eme. JG 96. The new release of Krug Grande Cuvée “167eme Édition” is stellar. The wine is from the base year of 2011 and utterly transcends that vintage, but, of course, it includes nearly two hundred different wines in the blend, with the oldest reserves dating all the way back to the 1995 vintage. Fully forty-two percent of the cuvée this year is made up of reserve wines. The cépages for the 167eme Édition is forty-seven percent pinot noir, thirty-six percent chardonnay and seventeen percent pinot meunier. The wine shows its lovely preponderance of pinot noir on the nose, wafting from the glass in a beautifully complex blend of apple, white peach, a touch of patissière, very complex soil tones, caraway seed and a gently floral contribution in the upper register from the pinot meunier in the blend. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied, complex and nicely broad-shouldered, with great depth at the core, refined mousse, bright, seamless acids and outstanding focus and grip on the very long, complex and beautifully balanced finish. This is simply outstanding and should age effortlessly for fifty to seventy-five years! (Drink between 2019-2090)
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A Tumultuous Time. Grilled Razor Clams, grilled over white coals, Vietnamese balm.
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Once removed, and doused with a bit of lime this is a delicious clam with nice chew and bright flavors.
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2002 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut. JG 97+. I last tasted the 2002 Cristal back in the autumn of 2013, when the wine was still a bit on the young side, but it has now started to really blossom beautifully and is really entering its plateau of maturity in 2018. The 2002 Cristal is composed of a blend of fifty-five percent pinot noir and forty-five percent chardonnay, with none of the vins clairs having gone through malo and the finishing dosage ten grams per liter in this vintage. This has been a brilliant vintage of Cristal since its inception and at age sixteen, the wine is just beginning to properly blossom and show some of its secondary layers of complexity, The nose jumps from the glass in a refined blend of pear, apple, fresh almond, gentle smokiness, a touch of the tangerine to come, chalky soil tones and brioche in the upper register. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and a powerfully-built vintage of Cristal, with a great core, elegant mousse, bright, racy and well-integrated acids and stunning mineral drive on the very long, complex and perfectly balanced finish. This is a great vintage of Cristal, and though it is now beginning to show some lovely generosity and secondary layering, a bit more cellaring would still be richly rewarded. (Drink between 2018-2075)
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In Hiding 1948. Bamboo Rice, toasted turmeric, lime leaf chicken oyster, roasted quail jus, garlic chive. Another tasty bit: chicken fried rice Vietnamese style.
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2009 Dom Pérignon Champagne Luminous. It’s the same I think as the normal 2009 — some people think maybe a bit more sugar.
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Raft to Refuge. Spot Prawn, lemongrass garlic butter, bird eye chili salt. This was dipped in a candle filled with melted garlic olive oil.
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We then cross over the “bridge”  and literally over Crustacean to the main dining room.
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Large, and with more elaborate build out.

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Look at these funky chairs.
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Every table has custom “cones” of bronze with the house story on them.
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And they offer you a selection of antique chopsticks.
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Some notes.
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And tonight’s menu.
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2012 Louis Jadot Bâtard-Montrachet. BH 93. There is a hint of menthol sitting atop pretty aromas of acacia blossom, spiced pear and white peach scents. The delicious, muscular and pure broad-shouldered and powerful flavors possess fine size and weight that continues onto the concentrated and impressively persistent if presently compact finish. Those who enjoy their white burgs young should note that while this is very promising there isn’t great complexity at this early stage so I would very much be inclined to allow this to age for at least 8 to 10 years first. (Drink starting 2020)
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2014 Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Abbaye de Morgeot Cuvée Clement Emma. 88 points. Very clean and precise, crisp, light mouthfeel with long finish. Intensely stony. Somewhat surprised how very accessible this is as a pop and pour.

agavin: someone slipped in here (as Yarom padded the dinner) with a much cheaper wine. It’s not a bad wine, but it’s below the official dinner standard.
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Welcome Banh Mi Bread Service. It’s a deconstructed Banh Mi, here are the pickles.
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And the meats — various cured head cheeses and pates etc.
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And the bread.

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Along with special honey butter and pate. All of the above was to be assembled onto the bread.
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2010 Domaine Jacques Prieur Montrachet. BH 94-96. This is ever-so-slightly riper than the Chevalier and a bit more aromatically complex as well if not more elegant. There is outstanding richness, volume, muscle and unconcealed power to the large-scaled heavy-weight flavors that somehow manage to avoid any sense of undue ponderousness before culminating in a massively long finish that is almost chewy and tannic. This will require plenty of bottle age but it should be great in time.
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2013 Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Folatières. BH 91-93. This too is gorgeously pure with its airy, cool and complex nose that is composed by notes of white flower and freshly cut citrus fruit that are trimmed in just a hint of pain grillé. The highly energetic and intensely mineral-inflected middle weight flavors possess good richness but also terrific delineation on the firm finish that is dry, long and moderately austere. (Drink starting 2023)
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Duo of Banh Xeo. Da Lat Style: A5 Tallow, rau ram, melted bean sprout, wood ear & shiitake mushroom, cucumber & garlic lime cloud. This version interprets the flavors from the traditional version (below). It has a more sophisticated and subtle flavor profile.
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Traditional Style Banh Xeo: shrimp, chicken, bean sprouts, mushroom, onion, snap peas, endive, herbs. This is basically an omelet with various stuff inside eaten with herbs and the sauce. Delicious and fairly simple.
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2008 Mongeard-Mugneret Grands-Echezeaux. JG 95+. For as long as I can remember, Domaine Mongeard-Mugneret has produced one of the greatest examples of Grands Echézeaux in all of Burgundy, so it comes as no surprise that their 2008 is stupendous. The absolutely beautiful, youthful nose soars from the glass in an inspired mélange of dark berries, plums, espresso, woodsmoke, incipient notes of gamebird, a kaleidoscopically complex base of soil and a judicious base of cedary oak. On the palate the wine is deep, pure and very primary, with a rock solid core of fruit, laser-like focus, beautiful, nascent complexity, ripe, seamless tannins and tangy acidity lifting all these elements in a peacock’s tail of transparency and purity on the very long finish. This will be an absolutely brilliant example of the vintage, and a decade down the road, it may well prove that I have slightly underrated this beautiful wine. (Drink between 2018-2060)
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2011 Domaine Denis Mortet Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Lavaux St. Jacques. VM 96. Layers of blue and purple fruit, smoke, licorice, violets and cloves all flesh out in the 2011 Gevrey-Chambertin Lavaux St- Jacques. Layered, silky and expressive to the core, the 2011 shimmers across the palate with gorgeous intensity. The 2011 is naturally not quite as rich as the 2012, but it is compelling for its combination of intense fruit and floral/savory overtones. (Drink between 2019-2021)

agavin: another nice wine way under the target. or maybe it was a bonus
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Avocado to top below.
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Master & Monastery. Goi Da Lat. Banana blossom, kohlrabi, red water radish, crispy rau muong, white fungus, avocado. Basically a Vietnamese salad.
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1995 Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé Bonnes Mares. JG 94. I was highly critical of the 1995 vintage at Domaine de Comte de Vogüé when the wines were young, but the wines have aged far better than I ever imagined possible out of the blocks and I seriously underestimated these wines. The 1995 Bonnes-Mares offers up a lovely, musky bouquet of red and black cherries, vinesmoke, a complex base of soil tones, mustard seed, gamebirds and a discreet base of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and very elegant in profile, with superb complexity, a lovely core of fruit, melting tannin and lovely length and grip on the poised and classy finish. A really lovely 1995 red Burgundy! (Drink between 2015-2050)
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2006 Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé Bonnes Mares. BH 94. This too is quite restrained with almost exclusively red berry fruit and intense floral aromas that are high-toned and pure while complementing the supple, textured, dusty and extremely precise flavors that exude a quiet power on the brooding and linear finish that delivers outstanding length. This will require every bit of a decade to resolve the very firm structure. This is less elegant than the 1er but more powerful and the distinguishing character of the ’06 Bonnes Mares is the serenity that it projects. I thought that it would be good but this knocks on the door of being genuinely great. (Drink starting 2018)
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The presentation for the next dish.
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The Union. King Crab Banh Khot. Coconut béchamel, royal keluga caviar. Delicious little bite.
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2002 Domaine Xavier Liger-Belair Richebourg. 95 points.
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From my cellar: 1999 Louis Jadot Romanée St. Vivant. BH 93. Deep ruby. The nose here is an elegant and very pure combination of floral and spice notes sitting atop ripe black pinot fruit that is still entirely primary with plum and violet-infused flavors that possess excellent density and terrific length. The intensity builds from the mid-palate and explodes onto the firmly tannic finish. This is built to age. (Drink starting 2016)
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Some herby toppings for the next dish.
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1975 Bodegas Vega-Sicilia Ribera del Duero Único. VM 94. The 1975 Unico (magnum) is a bit forward, especially in its aromatics, but not at all unpleasant in this context, given how youthful the 1982 and 1990 are! Still holding on to considerable depth in its fruit, the 1975 offers up an intriguing array of black cherry, plum, smoke and molasses.
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2003 Bodegas Vega-Sicilia Ribera del Duero Único. VM 95. Inky ruby. Highly aromatic scents of ripe cherry and dark berries, singed plum, cured tobacco and succulent herbs, with a vanilla undertone. Sweet, expansive and powerful, offering intense black and blue fruit flavors with smoke and floral accents. Rich and full but surprisingly lively, with excellent finishing thrust and sweet, harmonious tannins adding grip. Shows the ripeness of the vintage to good effect; this is a somewhat approachable and exotic Unico, especially with some air, but it has the concentration to age slowly.
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Finding Hope in Guam. Bun Rieu. Traditional style: Dungeness crab, tiger prawn, stewed heirloom tomatoes, egg roe, rice noodle, red fish paste in light lemon leaf broth.
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With the toppings.
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2003 E. Guigal Côte-Rôtie La Mouline. VM 96-97. Saturated ruby. Superripe dark berry and cherry aromas, with an intense violet accent and a hint of minerals. Remarkably dense and packed with cherry and dark berry flavors, but with an energetic lift of acidity arriving on the back. Gets sweeter with air, taking on wild strawberry and raspberry qualities. Finishes with fine, dusty tannins and a fresh kick of raspberry. These 2003s are slated to be bottled in February of 2007.
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2003 E. Guigal Côte-Rôtie La Landonne. VM 95-96. Ruby-red. Powerful, brooding blackberry and creme de cassis aromas are further deepened by suggestions of dark chocolate, espresso and tar. Huge, mouthfilling and sweet, with an amazingly dense texture and superconcentrated kirsch and blackcurrant flavors complemented by baking spices and smoked meat. The impressively long finish shows great depth and powerful tannic spine. Hands off this monster for a long, long time.
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2011 E. Guigal Côte-Rôtie La Landonne. VM 95. Glass-staining ruby. Powerful, expansive aromas of black and blue fruit liqueur, smoky Indian spices, sandalwood and olive, and an exotic floral nuance that gains strength with air. Deeply concentrated but surprisingly lively, offering palate-staining dark fruit and violet pastille flavors and a strong, building spicy quality. Velvety tannins add grip to a strikingly long, sappy and penetrating finish, which clings with noteworthy tenacity. (Drink between 2020-2030)
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In Collaboration. Duo of Thit Kho. Da Lat Style: Pork cheek, braised quail egg, Vietnamese caramel, activated charcoal rice, fermented mustard greens.
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Pickles to optionally add on top.
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Traditional style: caramelized pork, coconut water, shallots. Very simple pork stew. You jazz it up with the pickles.
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Rice.

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The traditional style served over rice with pickles.
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2005 Colgin IX Estate. VM 95. The 2005 IX Estate comes across as a bit clenched and tightly wound. Still, two recent tastings both suggest it doesn’t quite have the depth, intensity and potential as the best wines in this flight. Ultimately, the 2005 IX Estate is a wine of two very beautiful dimensions, but not three. Iron, smoke, lavender and a host of ferrous notes are quite expressive, while the fruit remains pushed to the background. (Drink between 2015-2025)
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1974 Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon Monte Bello. VM 100. I have been fortunate to drink the 1974 Monte Bello three times in the last year. I served this bottle, from my cellar, blind to a group of hard-core Francophiles at the end of a dinner that showcased the best of Burgundy and Bordeaux. Every person in the room thought the wine was Bordeaux. No one came close to guessing California, much less identifying the age of the wine or the vintage. When the 1974 Monte Bello was revealed, there was only silence at the table. Tasted from a perfect bottle, the 1974 remains almost unnaturally deep, powerful and intense. It is an eternal wine whose life will only be determined by how well corks hold up. Put simply, the 1974 Monte Bello is one of the greatest and most singular wines I have ever tasted from any region in the world. (Drink between 2016-2036)
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The Legacy Lives On. Wagyu Bo Kho. Snake river farms wagyu, su su “Buddha’s palm”, heirloom carrots. A Vietnamese modern beef stew.
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1989 Trimbach Riesling Clos Ste. Hune. 95 points. Perfectly mature CSH with just incredibly unique flavors of petrol, old honey and distinct minerals. Tangy still with great acidity and an oily texture which leads to a complex finish of spices and minerals. This shows this magnificent terroir perfectly.
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Another bottle of same.
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Celebration. Coconut Tapioca Che. Jackfruit, pandan, lychee, ranbutan, lognan. Quite yummy, if very Southeast Asian in flavor with that soupy and chewy texture.
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Sweet Lingers. Little Bites. Vietnamese yogurt gin fizz.

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Chrysanthemum tea almond tofu.
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Black sesame ball.
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Ruby Chocolate Gelato — base made with Callebaut Ruby Couverture Chocolate and a Stracciatella of ruby chocolate mixed with berriy puree — this isn’t a flavored chocolate but a special “ruby” cocoa bean Callebaut has bred with a natural pink color and fruity finish — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #Callebaut #chocolate #RubyChocolate #ruby #berry

Cran-Cherry Cassis Sorbetto — French Cranberries and Amareno Cherries with a bit of Crème de Cassis — tart! — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — Currents from Avignon, blended with Creme de Cassis –#SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #sorbetto #cranberry #cherry #current #cassis
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The wine lineup.
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Spectacular hosts, Elisabeth and Helen An on the left with Erick and I.
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Overall, this was a kingly evening. Boy did the Ans treat us right and we had an incredible menu, amazing service, and great wines.

The experience and the food both upstairs is more Vietnamese than at Crustacean below. Sure, a very high end Vietnamese, and still quite fusion, but more Vietnamese. The traditional style variants on our menu aren’t on the normal menu — they were special for us — but they also threw the “Da Lat Style” dishes into more relief in a very intriguing way. I do have to say that I enjoyed the newer style a bit better, as it was similar flavors but a bit more polished — despite the fact that I love pretty traditional Vietnamese food. Anywhichway it was delicious.

Wines were “interesting” tonight. Most were quite nice bottles, but the format of 18-19 people just doesn’t work well. Pours were small but surprisingly got around. Still, it’s too many different wines for this many dishes. Leading to a dizzying assault in the second half of the meal. And pairings were a bit awkward because this food really wants mostly whites and Champagne and there were lots of big red wines — and all of 1-2 dishes that were actually red friendly. Some people care a whole lot less about wine pairing than I do. After a bit of a confusing start (mostly because we handed them a confusing task) the somms managed to really get the wines down in the second half of the meal. I was impressed. But it was still too many small pours and no time to savor. In the end doing it this way I can’t remember the individual wines at all.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!
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Related posts:

  1. Great Whites at Napa Rose
  2. Kings at Crustacean
  3. Rosé Rules
  4. Italian House Party
  5. Phong Dinh – Hedonists go Vietnamese
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: An Family, BYOG, Crustacean, Dà Lat Rose, Gelato, hedonists, Vietnamese cuisine, Vietnamese Fusion, Wine

Jiang Nan Spring Double Dinner

Dec13

After a reconnaissance lunch, the hedonists head back to Jiang Nan Spring for a giant 2 table banquet dinner that included beggar’s chicken! Click here for the details.

Related posts:

  1. Jiang Nan Spring
  2. Homestyle Korean Double Dinner
  3. Put a Spring in your Step
  4. Cocoa Island – Decadent Dinner
  5. Totoraku Double Meat Madness
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Jiang Nan Spring, Shanghai Cuisine

Karaoke Night – Chosun Galbee

Dec11

Restaurant: Chosun Galbee

Location: 3330 W Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90019. (323) 734-3330

Date: November 2, 2019

Cuisine: Korean BBQ

Rating: Solid KBBQ fun

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Instead of a wine dinner night, this dinner is a big school parent KBBQ and Karaoke night.
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We had two huge tables at K-Town classic, Chosun Galbee — above is the ladies table (guys table behind the camera).
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We drank beer and solju — together in my case as I learned from some of my Korean friends 2 weeks before.
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Salad.
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Glass noodles with beef. Slightly sweet and tasty.
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Banchan.
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Love the potato salad with the raisins.
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But my favorite is the chewy spicy squid (orange shredded carrot looking stuff).
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Kimchee and pickles.
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Seafood pancake. Delicious.
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Shrimp and veggies on the grill.
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Almost done.
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The beef comes out.
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Various condiments.
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Like this lettuce wrap with included beef and sauce.
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Chicken.
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More meats.
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Fried Rice with stuff.
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Interesting fermented tofu soup — quite nice.
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More beef.
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And even more.

This was an enjoyable dinner — of course they only ordered about half the beef rounds I would have (it was a group set menu) but it was delicious regardless. Very classic K-Town style.

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Then off to Pharaoh for some private room Karaoke.
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Walk like an Egyptian.
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But sing like a bunch of LA school parents!

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. White Glove Dining – Get Bbul
  2. 8 (Million) Ways to BBQ in LA
  3. Late Night Medicine
  4. Yunnan Night
  5. Night of the Whirling Noodles
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: bbq, Chosun Galbee, Karaoke, KBBQ, Korea-town, Korean BBQ, Korean cuisine, Ktown

Second Dinner – Korean Army Stew

Dec09

Restaurant: Chunju Han Il Kwan

Location: 3450 W 6th St, Los Angeles, CA 90020. (213) 480-1799

Date: October 29, 2019

Cuisine: Korean Army Stew

Rating: Hearty spicy goodness!

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After a great Brunello dinner downtown, Liz, Erick and I felt the need for some K-Town Second Dinner fun. So off to:
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Chanju Han Il Kwan, a Korean Army Stew place. Notice that it’s right next to Seaweed, the Armo Sushi place I went a week or so before.
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The interior is drop ceiling meets Korean classic. I like the wood panels.
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Banchan! Tofu and veggies.
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My favorite here is the chewy spicy fish cake (the orange thing in the center).
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The crunchy pickle kimchee (lower left) was great too.

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Spicy kimchee pancake. Good stuff late at night.
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The main event: Korean army stew. It’s basically chili-garlic paste with the kitchen sink dumped in, including ramen and spam and rice cakes!
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A close up. Hearty and delicious.
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Red bean (purple) rice.

This was simple, cheap, and tasty. Definately hearty too. I was so stuffed after (it was, after all, second dinner!).

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Korean Closer
  2. Homestyle Korean Double Dinner
  3. Korean Kwicky
  4. Hanjip Korean BBQ
  5. Quick Eats – Da Jeong
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Army Stew, Chanju Han Il Kwan, Korea-town, Korean cuisine, Second Dinner

Fiorita Centro

Dec06

Restaurant: Drago Centro [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Location: 525 S Flower St, Los Angeles, CA 90071. (213) 228-8998

Date: October 29, 2019

Cuisine: Italian

Rating: Great high end Italian

_

Back to Drago Centro for “another” Brunnello dinner, featuring the wines of La Fiorita. Liz Lee of Sage Society kinda co-hosted, but this wasn’t a full on Sage dinner (hey, only 4 courses — Liz would have had 10!). But any trip to Drago is good anyway, as Celestino and I have been friends for 20 years!


Located on busy Flower in DTLA.

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La Fiorita is a new and up and coming Brunello producer — more on it in a sec.
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But first a bunch of us including Erick and Liz snacked on the patio with:

Arrancini “rice balls”.

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Fried zucchini. About the only good zucchini is a fried zucchini!
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Crab toasts.
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Then we moved inside to this large central table.

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A bit about the winemaker.
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On the left is Natalie Oliveros, owner of La Fiorita. She’s a NY native with a love of wine and all things Italian. In the back is Chef Celestino Drago.

Photos are a bit rough tonight as I was evacuated from my home because of the California wildfires and had to use the cel phone camera!

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2015 La Fiorita Brunello di Montalcino.
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2014 La Fiorita Brunello di Montalcino. VM 89. Medium red. Clean, fresh aromas of cranberry cocktail and spicy herbs. Then spicy in the mouth too, with savory herbs and red cherry flavors offering good intensity. Starts very savory and broad, then nicely integrated acidity gives the wine a more buoyant and linear mouthfeel while providing good grip. Finishes long and clean. A much less fleshy, tactile and musky Brunello from La Fiorita than the wines typically made here over the past decade, and I have to say I like this style better. (Drink between 2020-2027)

agavin: drinking great right now

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Tonight’s menu — short by my standards.
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Australian A5 wagyu steak tartare, shallots, chives, parmesan cream, truffle tuile. Nice dish, but if it’s Australian, it’s not “really” A5 — at least not the way the Japanese do it. No way are the Aussies — as wonderful as they are — going to massage the cows like the obsessive Japanese.
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2011 La Fiorita Brunello di Montalcino. 90 points. A bit more sour.
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2008 La Fiorita Brunello di Montalcino. VM 88. Bright red-ruby. Subdued but precise aromas of strawberry, cassis and licorice. Nicely layered and rich, displaying an enticing sweetness to its red berry and red cherry flavors. Finishes a bit simple and only moderately persistent, but with fine-grained, pliant tannins and a strong note of violet. This attractive Brunello is ideal for early drinking.DSC04691
Fresh fettucuni, shaved black truffle. Very nice simple pasta emphasizing the truffles.
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2012 La Fiorita Brunello di Montalcino Riserva. VM 88. Good bright ruby-red. Aromas of blackberry and violet, plus a whiff of smoked meat. Big, deep and rich on entry, with black pepper and spice notes complicating savory dark berry and licorice flavors, but turns mountingly astringent in the middle and on the long, mouth-puckering finish. This broad, structured but ultimately only moderately complex wine could use a touch more grace and charm. (Drink between 2024-2029)
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Braised ossobuco, broccolini, cipollini, creamy poleanta, salsa verde. Modern form factor on the ossobuco, and I actually prefer the classic messier one — particularly with a great risotto! Still this was good and one could scoop out the marrow!
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NV Vigna Dorata Franciacorta Brut Saten. Nice inexpensive bubbly.
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Chef’s selection of assorted cheeses.
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The wine lineup.

Overall another fine evening at Drago Centro. The wines were great, Natalie Oliveros a lot of fun, and the food and company fabulous as well.

Still, as it was only 3 savory courses (plus our warm up) it was off to Korea Town for second dinner for us — Korean Army Stew!

For more LA dining reviews click here.

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Related posts:

  1. Drago Centro
  2. Vietti Centro
  3. Eating Montalcino – Le Potazzine
  4. Italian House Party
  5. Eating Assisi – Buca di S. Francesco
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Brunello, Celestino Drago, Drago Centro, DTLA, Italian cuisine, Wine

White Glove Dining – Get Bbul

Dec04

Restaurant: Get Bbul BBQ

Location: 3189 W Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90006. (213) 380-7070

Date: October 21, 2019

Cuisine: Korean Seafood BBQ

Rating: First time and I liked it

_

On reading this, you must recognize that this is “Second Dinner.” After a special Krug Champagne dinner event — with 5 or so courses of modern cuisine — four of us just didn’t feel full enough so headed out to Korea Town to “snack.”
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Never been to this kind of Korean Seafood BBQ so I was excited to try.

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The interior — hoods as usual.
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The menu. We ordered most of it of course.

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This plate has seen some heat. Anyway, we ordered the works.
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Various condiments for wrapped up one’s BBQ. Radishes, sauce, egg (both yolk and white), carrots, peppers, cabbage etc.
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More fixings.
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Leaves and oniony stuff.
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Salad.
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Soy and garlic.
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Hot sauce. It is a Korean restaurant after all.
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Coming off our Champagne tasting we decided to go with Solju / Beer shots. Sort of like a sake bomb. You fill a glass about 3/4 with beer.
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Then drop a shot-glass of solju (Korean vodka) in to make sure it’s extra strong. Tastes great too!
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Crispy fritters with mayo. Great drinking food.
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Seafood pancake. This was a delicious one too.
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Corn “pudding” with dynamite or whatever on top and baked.
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Cold sliced pig foot salad. Yum (really was good).
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Korean fluffy egg.
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Our modest seafood plate arrives.
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The BBQ is real coals.
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Eel (left) and hagfish (right). Not sure I’ve had hagfish before. It looks like snack. Abalone was on the far right.
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They cut up the chunks as it BBQs. Hagfish had a delightful chewy texture white the eel was nice and rich.
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Dinner comes with special Korean Michael Jackson “white gloves” so that you don’t burn your hand while working the hot grill. They really helped actually.
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Clams. When they open you eat them.
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Spicy Soft Tofu Soup with Seafood. Delicious and a bit spicy.
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Spicy noodle and tofu soup. Because when it’s time for second dinner, you need a second stew too!
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Cheesy clams and scallops on the BBQ. The cheese melts into a yummy mess.
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Some kind of conch or clam back there.
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Giant oyster!
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Grilled shrimp.
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The four of us actually managed to eat most of this feast — pretty impressive after having this dinner right before!

I’d like to come back to Get Bbul a bit hungrier and get even more, but what I had was very good and quite interesting. I’ve never had this kind of grilled seafood with these exact trappings and it was quite interesting.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Tasty Dining – Wuhan Dry Hot Pot
  2. Big Bottle Madness at Kali Dining
  3. Quick Eats: Tofu Ya
  4. 8 (Million) Ways to BBQ in LA
  5. Eating Boston – Shaking Crab
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: beer, Foodie Club, Get Bbul BBQ, Korea-town, Korean BBQ, Korean cuisine, Ktown, Seafood, Second Dinner, solju

House of Krug 2019

Dec02

Restaurant: House of Krug

Location: You wish you knew

Date: October 21, 2019

Cuisine: Modern

Rating: Great food, great champagnes

_

Sage Society organizes some of the best wine maker dinners around and they’ve done quite a number with everyone’s favorite Champagne house…
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Krug! This one, organized as usual by Liz Lee, featured a rare appearance by Krug family scion Olivier Krug.
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They really know how to do up a place.
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Krug greats you as you enter (and everywhere).
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The main room of the rented “House of Krug”.
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Even the closets have been Krug-a-fied.

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We start out with:

NV Krug Champagne Brut Grande Cuvée Edition 167eme. JG 96. The new release of Krug Grande Cuvée “167eme Édition” is stellar. The wine is from the base year of 2011 and utterly transcends that vintage, but, of course, it includes nearly two hundred different wines in the blend, with the oldest reserves dating all the way back to the 1995 vintage. Fully forty-two percent of the cuvée this year is made up of reserve wines. The cépages for the 167eme Édition is forty-seven percent pinot noir, thirty-six percent chardonnay and seventeen percent pinot meunier. The wine shows its lovely preponderance of pinot noir on the nose, wafting from the glass in a beautifully complex blend of apple, white peach, a touch of patissière, very complex soil tones, caraway seed and a gently floral contribution in the upper register from the pinot meunier in the blend. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied, complex and nicely broad-shouldered, with great depth at the core, refined mousse, bright, seamless acids and outstanding focus and grip on the very long, complex and beautifully balanced finish. This is simply outstanding and should age effortlessly for fifty to seventy-five years! (Drink between 2019-2090)
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Scallop and caviar.
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Caviar. The good stuff!
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I can’t remember but they were really good.
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“Chicken” liver truffles. Delicious.
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The crowd gathers to begin the learning part of the evening.

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The amazing Liz Lee starts off and introduces…
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Olivier Krug!

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Then we move into a side room to do a side by side tasting.
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There is a place for everyone with their own Krug comparison placemats.
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2006 Krug Champagne Vintage Brut. 94 points. Seems to live in a league of its own. This is way too young and I’m sure we baby killed, but it was fun to get to try. So complex. Some annise, some coriander, some more herbal notes. It’s got a lot less toast than I usually associate with the house. Served in a burg glass which worked well for it. Very nice wine.
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NV Krug Champagne Brut Grande Cuvée Edition 162eme. 95 points. This is Jungian archetypal Krug. Rich and concentrated, with a balance of oxidative nutty tones and plenty of bright acidity-driven freshness. It’s really a complete package. These older GCs are really some of the best champagnes out there (I’m thinking of an older 2005 disgorgement that I drank recently, too).
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Our special mats.

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The kitchen.
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And the dinner table.

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Crowd gathering to sit.
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The menu.

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Nice place settings.
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Caviar, crab gelee, braised onion, yuzu, parsley. This dish was light and airy as a fluffy cloud to “support” the caviar.
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Housemade linguine, celeriac puree, leeks, lemon, truffle. Very light lemon truffle pasta. Quite lovely.
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NV Krug Champagne Brut Rosé Edition 23eme. VM 94. The NV Rosé 23ème Edition is wonderfully nuanced and layered, with lovely richness to play off a core of bright red berry fruit. Although not especially complex in this release, the Rosé offers lovely immediacy and tons of pure pleasure. Crushed berries, chalk, mint and white flowers are nicely softened in this super-expressive, beautifully persistent Rosé. A few more years in bottle will only help. The 23ème is a Champagne of pure and total pleasure. This release is based on 2011, with reserve wines back to 2000. (Drink between 2021-2041)
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Grilled duck breast, foie emulsion, pomme mousseline, truffle. A nice rare piece of duck and perfect with the incomparable Krug rose.

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Brie d’affinois, tomme brulee, leonora, Parmesan Reggiano.

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Mignardises. I particularly liked the white iced (almond?) cake.
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The chef (right with the hat) and one of the Krug organizers.

Overall, another amazing evening. Krug really does an incredible job setting the scene and this was a unique evening. Food was very good but not quite the number of courses that Foodie Club beast Erick and I are used to — we like at least 10-15 — so we had to go out with some new friends to Korea Town for “second dinner.” Really, any excuse for second dinner is a good excuse!

For more LA dining reviews click here.

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Related posts:

  1. Krug Providence
  2. Krug at Il Grano
  3. Krug at Spago
  4. Veuve Clicquot at Spago
  5. Billecart Republique
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Champagne, Hollywood, Krug, Liz Lee, Olivier Krug, Sage Society
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