Here, Eat This! The Adventures of Kiki Maraschino

I am so excited! Tonight is the night that Angeleno Magazine hands out its annual awards as chosen by Food Critic Brad A. Johnson. That means delicious samples, and lots of them! Not to mention free-flowing drinks and all of my favorite chefs and bloggers. Time to party!

This year’s award winners…

Best New Restaurant: Lazy Ox

Best New Chef: Michael Voltaggio (most recently of The Langham)

Chef of the Year: Michael Cimarusti, Providence

Restaurant of the Year: Hatfield’s

Pastry Chef of the Year: Zoe Nathan, Huckleberry Café & Bakery

Outstanding Wine & Spirits: The Bazaar

Outstanding Service: The Grill on the Alley

Vanguard Award: Water Grill

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Upscale dining at an elegant restaurant like Nobu West Hollywood may seem unrealistic for some of us, especially these days. But as we have learned, the frugal diner’s secrets for eating beyond their reach is to arrive for lunch and/or to eat from the bar menu. Nobu’s new “Chef’s Tasting Tapas Menu,” or Omakase, for those of us who like to sound cool, allows us a taste of pure heaven for only $40 a person. We are talking about pure heaven. Your palate will grow little wings and fly around the room in ecstacy.

The “Chef’s Tasting” offers six courses following the traditional Omakase structure. First a cold plate arrives with three small dishes, then a hot selection of two items, and finally a single dessert.

The cocktail bar is stylish but welcoming. The room is rather dark, with the stark contrast of red and black lightened by the use of natural materials like woven branches and wood. The room and the menu are both well-suited to either an informal business meeting or a romantic tryst.

Last week LAist was invited to try the “Chef’s Tasting” menu. The server first asks about preferences and allergies. After I finished pointing out menu items, asking questions and talking about ceviche and foie gras, the waiter gave me a look like, “This person clearly does not understand the meaning of chef’s choice.”

We started off with cocktails, for me the Matsuhisa Martini made with vodka, Hokusetsu sake, and ginger garnished with cucumbers. It was a nice clean drink that wasn’t too sweet. My dining partner tried the Cucumber Martini. It was sweeter than the other martini, but the sugar was not overwhelming. It was a nice pairing for the food and refreshing with the spicy and salty complimentary bar snacks – tempura edamame, nuts, homemade corn nuts, and peppers.

The cold plates that arrived were identical.

The first bite was Whitefish Tiradito, sushi chef Matsuhisa’s take on a Japanese-influenced Peruvian ceviche. The thin gossamer slices float in a light marinade that tastes of lemon and mirin.

The next dish is composed of two pieces of Yellowfin Tuna Tataki with Cilantro dressing. The fish is so pure it barely even tastes of the sea. Cilantro, yuzu and ponzu dress the fish but don’t overwhelm the purity. Being used to raw tuna served tartare or thinly sliced, the big chunks seem more beefy, and yet the texture isn’t that of beef either …surprisingly, it is almost the texture of a stone fruit, like a fresh peach.

Last on the cold plate is Nobu’s signature Yellowtail Sashimi with Jalapeno. The thinly sliced fish is wrapped around cilantro and draped as delicately as a kimono.

We tried two more cocktails for the round of hot tapas. The Champagne 95, though much sweeter than the other drinks, was delicious, mixing Grand Marnier, Creme de Peche, Pineapple juice and Domaine Chandon. The Japanese caiprihanha was made with muddled shiso leaves instead of mint. The taste was not too different, as the plants are in the same family, but it was less intense and a bit more herbal-tasting than mint.

For our “Hot Tapas” we each received a different pairing. I was lucky enough to receive the Gyoza filled with wagyu beef and foie gras. Well, maybe not lucky so much; maybe I hynotized the server by repeatedly pointing at the gyoza on the menu. The dumpling wrapper was as perfect as could be. I savored the meatiness, the umami, the richness of the dumpling. My server asked which dipping sauce I had liked better, but I hadn’t even dipped the gyoza. I wanted to taste it in its naked purity.

The Ginger Panko Encrusted Scallop was also too delicious on its own for me to bother with the sauces. That scallop was so good it made me want to punch someone in the face. Somehow it felt unfair that such delicious tastes exist in the world and only a select few get to taste them. I felt extremely fortunate to be dining at Nobu that night.

Speaking of only a few people getting to taste things, my dinner companion received a Wagyu Taco with a thin crisp yet delicate shell filled with a slightly sweet chopped wagyu beef. It was gone before I could even get the teensiest taste and when I asked him what it was like, he would only say, “F-ing amaaazing.”

 The Miso Cod arrived on a single butter lettuce leaf that fanned out like a Dale Chihuly glass-blown scallop shell. The sear around the edges intensified the fish’s natural flavor, making it one of the strongest flavors of the night.

Some diners would be ready for dessert at this point, but the addition of one or two items from the “Hot Tapas” menu to share makes it a more satisfying meal (“Tapas” are priced between $7 – $12 each). At this point we are veering off of the Omakase menu for a little detour. Some items come with two or three pieces, so consult with the server before deciding how many plates you would like to add.

We chose to add on the Foie Gras and Crispy Soba. The soba was formed into a little cracker, like a gourmet rice cake. But the star of the plate was the seared foie gras. It was adorable, like a little Barbie foie gras, but afforded two or three bites. The teriyaki-style sauce was unusual, but provided the same sweet balance of foie’s natural fruit accompaniment.

In spite of the Ted Nugent reference we also tried Wagyu Dango in a pool of wasabi and saffron aioli. It was a dumpling, a wagyu meatball enveloped by a crisp rice shell. Sticking out from the top of the dumpling like a mohawk was a deep-fried shiso leaf, transluscent as spun sugar, fragile as a butterfly wing, and thin as parchment. It melted on the tongue with a whisper of salt in the blink of an eye.

Our final dish was Suntory Whiskey Iced Cappucino. It was multilayered like a parfait. Layers consisted of a light chocolate mousse, chocolate espresso rice krispies, and whipped cream infused with the crisp, clean Japanese whiskey.

When I close my eyes and remember the meal at Nobu, I begin to think of calligraphy and fine brush strokes, watercolors and color washes. There is a subtle beauty to each dish. They exemplify perfection in simplicity, the serenity of the subtle. When something is simple it must be done exactly right. The flavors must be balanced with the precision of the sushi knife — salt, acidity, umami, coolness and heat, sweet and sour, it was all there in the citrus and the soy, the yuzu and the shiso. But above all there was respect for the main ingredient, whether it was the folding of the Yellowtail or the dusting of the perfect scallop. $40 is a small price to pay to surrender yourself to the chef and allow him to show you the sublime.

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Why is lunch on Ventura Boulevard always cause for so much shouting? “It’s up on the right. No, further down…wait…wait…you passed it!” Laurel Tavern, which only started serving lunch last month, is helpfully painted black to stand out from the neighboring businesses. It is your standard gastropub, perhaps one of our best imports from England since the Beatles …well, maybe Radiohead. The ceiling is high, and large windows that open out to the less-than-bucolic street still give the room an open feel that makes you feel less guilty about sitting in a bar drinking beer at noon.

The menu is a mix of small plates for the people who came to drink and more substantial offerings for those who came to eat. You have to discuss portion sizes with the bartender since descriptions on the large chalkboard menu don’t offer hints. Some salads are big, some salads are small, and some salads are just right. Like Father’s Office, you order at the bar and the food is brought to the table. Unlike Father’s Office, you are greeted with a smile and an explanation of protocol at the door.

Unfortunately the lunch menu is limited, so there are no roast marrow bones or pork belly skewers. Fortunately, what is on the menu is still pretty good. The goat cheese salad is comprised of fresh mixed greens topped with a baked pear and a bright vinagrette.

The giant Laurel burger is topped with gouda and served in a cake pan so you can bake your own dessert if you really need one. The french fries do stay hot and crisp in the unusual pan.

The mussels even passed our East coast transplant’s strict seafood test. The artichoke is charred black. A well of intense lemon vinagrette rests in each half. But be prepared for black fingers from the artichoke’s char (and if you park on Ventura, don’t forget to feed the meter).

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You can find the Oinkster on Colorado in Eagle Rock by keeping an eye out for the giant red A. That’s A for umm, Angster? Bravo to them for keeping the same landmark building and sign as the previous occupant, Jim’s.

Everyone seems to love Oinkster. They slow-roast their pork and cure their own pastrami. The french bread is tightly stuffed with massive amounts of meat until it is as round as a burrito. The giant sandwiches must be eaten with caution, as they are ready to burst at any moment. Not first date food. For the pulled pork, we highly recommend their killer barbecue sauce It comes on the side and sometimes you have to ask for it.
The hamburgers are also gigantic, with thick, meaty patties. The onion is sharp, the tomato is Farmer’s market fresh, and the housemade ketchup has a bite. Best of all, the burger is topped with a rich Gruyere.

In the crazy fries department, the Oinkster fries come topped with grilled onions, cheddar cheese and their own Thousand Island dressing. It is just as interesting, but not as horrible as it sounds. Our only suggestion is that the cheese should be sprinkled on the bottom instead of the top so that they melt into the hot fries.

If you have a sweet tooth, Oinkster’s serves up hand scooped shakes made with Fosselman’s ice cream and specialty cupcakes, especially their famous peanut butter and jelly cupcakes.

Service is above and beyond friendly. Employees are downright chatty — they make everyone feel like a regular. No matter how hip this place is, there is no nasty hipster vibe. Sometimes the line is kind of long, but as in any establishment with food this good and a positive staff, the patrons are happy to wait. The customers are happy, the servers are happy, I’m happy. I suspect you’ll be happy too.

Keep an eye open, according to Squid Ink, Andre Guerrero may be opening “a second Oinkster, possibly in Culver City or downtown.”

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 LA’s newest traveling food recently made its debut near the Silverlake Farmers Market. With flavor combos like Salty Cucumber Lime, Lemon Mint Blueberry and Cantaloupe with Anise, these are not your standard frozen fruit bars. And at $3 a pop they are an affordable splurge.

The custom-made bike and freezer box created by owner John Cassidy are based on a Dutch design to ride on two wheels instead of the standard three-wheeled bike. There is no truck or a hitch, so sales are limited by leg work. They can only go as far as John can pedal.

Paletas were one of the inspirations for the frozen treats. Michelle Sallah, a professional chef, was excited to discover the paleterias when she moved to LA and eventually married her love for playing with flavors and partner John Cassidy’s love for bikes to create Popcycle treats. Michelle comes from a diner family, and has worked at the Spotted Pig in New York and Bar Marmount in LA. She knows from experience that owning a restaurant is a 24-7 job. She and John wanted to work together, but in a project that would still allow them freedom. They worked and developed their idea throughout the last year.

Michelle is playing with mixes of savory herbs and juices as well as other innovative recipes. For example, the “Arnold Palmer” is Raspberry Iced Tea and Lemon. The produce is purchased at the local farmer’s market and they use organic ingredients. Michelle is careful to use only as much sugar as the treat needs. The flavors are intense, but not so strong or unusual that children won’t enjoy them too. The bike only had 2 treats left when we arrived. They had saved them for me after I tweeted, begging them to wait while I zoomed over. So we only tested out the Lemon Mint Blueberry, which was an explosion of flavors, like a frozen lemon bomb.

The bike can hold up to 200 frozen treats at a time, but will usually roll with around 100. Michelle wants it to be non-stressful for them, and a special experience for customers. There is a modern-day treasure hunt element to chasing food trucks and bikes, and she hopes there will be an exciting element to rotating flavors. Keep it small, keep it local, and you can maintain a personal vibe with customers as well as quality.

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That’s right, Slaw Dogs, not Slaw burgers. True, they are a newcomer to the Pasadena scene, and yes, they specifically focus on hot dogs, but this little spot serves up some of the fattest, juiciest, and most creative burgers in town. In fact, owner Ray Byrne was originally considering opening a burger joint before he opted for dogs.

Their burger is the all-American classic, an Angus ground chuck burger with American cheese, piled high with lettuce, pickles and thick onions so intense you can still taste them hours later. This thing is a monster. But it is only the beginning.

It seems like Ray has to constantly be creating, and every time I just say, “Give me a burger” he comes up with something new and innovative. One day it was “The Less is More Cheeseburger (aka anti-brioche burg)”, with American cheese, Dijon-chipotle mayo, double caramelized onion and a Parmesan crisp. On another day the juicy patty was topped with thick slices of pork belly and deep-fried shiitake along with a mystery sauce. I highly recommend just putting yourself in his hands and letting the master do his work.

Slaw dogs is all about spectacular toppings and sauces, but it wouldn’t work if it wasn’t centered on quality beef and sausages. The Angus ground chuck is perfectly cooked to a medium right through to the middle in spite of the size. We have already drooled over their side dishes like sweet potato fries and truffle-parmesan fries in the original Slaw Dogs post, but this time we tried out the onion rings, and they were big, greasy, crunchy and thick.

The burgers are so enormous, the last few bites can be a messy game of burger Jenga. Of course, that may not happen if you don’t spend 10 minutes letting the sauce soak into the bun while you take pictures. Ray is also working on customized buns, so he may engineer a hardy bun that will be able to take everything he can heap on it.

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In case you have been living in a cave, a monastary, under a rock, or some other stereotype, Spain and the Netherlands will be duking it out tomorrow. Watch the glory and the tears with your fellow Angelenos…

Join Susan at the STREET this Sunday morning (starting at 11am) to watch the World Cup Finals!
In addition to the regular menu, check out

AND they have a full bar!

You can’t get closer to South Africa than Springbok Bar and Grill in Van Nuys. The pub was founded by native South African friends to “not only create a fantastic, comfortable and friendly environment to watch Rugby, Cricket, Soccer and American Football and Baseball, but also to create a great menu showcasing the cultural diversity of Southern Hemisphere foods.” They will be offering South African specialties like curried beef samosas. 

The traditional futball pub, The Cat and Fiddle has 3 TV monitors, a 32″ and 50″ at the bar and 46” in the Casablanca Room. They also have a spacious patio for when you need to get a breather from the sweaty, shouting fans. They serve a traditional English breakfast, crepes, and Bass on tap. Who could ask for more?

Lucky Baldwin’s is a cozy pub in Pasadena serves a traditional English breakfast and Belgian beers on draft. They have a little shop where you can buy English candy too.

You can also go to any pub in the entire city of Santa Monica.

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LA Weekend started out with Jonathan Gold moderating a panel about hot dogs with people “who have forgotten more about hot dogs than most of us will ever learn.” Joe Fabrocini from Fab’s in the valley, Sue Moore from Let’s Be Frank, who started making her own dogs 5 years ago in San Francisco, and Duane Earle from Earlez, south of the 10 Freeway.

Gold started off talking about his family’s quest for the ultimate Chicago Dog and the hot dog spots gone by. Earl, who was a charmer and raconteur, grew up working a hot dog cart in New York. They discussed the importance of the dog itself versus the toppings. Fabrocini said everyone’s favorite dog is the dog they grew up with. He emphasized that you cannot fry any dog and call it a ripper — a ripper is a specially made hot dog for deep-frying.

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Much of the buzz at Track 16 art gallery one night was surrounding the Dosa Truck parked outside. Thanks to their menu of samosas, masala fries, and their main attraction, filled dosa “wraps” at reasonable prices, there was a constant buzz around the truck.

Leena Deneroff always dreamed of turning her love for central Indian food into a career someday. She imagined a little cafe somewhere. The recent popularity of food trucks has given her the opportunity to realize her dream. A relative newcomer at only a few months, Leena was happy to discuss the process of getting the dosa truck on the road.

The logistics of making dosas to go was a little more complicated than expected. According to Leena, with a traditional taco truck you can fry the meat and heat the tortillas, doing all of the cooking in the truck. But Indian food requires a lot of prep work. Everything is made from scratch. Just perfecting the dosa batter recipe and figuring out fillings that would not ooze out of the delicate fermented bread was a laborious task, but a labor of love. 

She resolved the matter of messy dosa fillings by coming up with an Indian pesto based on methi (fenugreek leaves) white sesame oil, garlic and chili. Her masterpiece is “The Slumdog” which includes the pesto, fresh spinach, potatoes and paneer.

I asked, “Did you consider a heartier bread, like naan?”

“But it’s called the Dosa Truck”

“Well, then it would be called the Naan Truck.”

“But I love the dosa.”

Other items on the menu are samosas, mango lassis, and dosas with stuffings like spinach, mushrooms and cheese, sweet potato masala and “Mumbai Madness” a masala dosa with potatoes. If you are lucky, they will be serving their special masala fries. They wisely use a generous spice mix instead of drowning the fries in sauce, keeping them nice and crispy. The menu is strictly vegetarian, and items can be made vegan upon request. Most of the menu is priced at 6 and 7 dollars, except for the fries, which are a well-deserved 2.50.

Since they serve samosas, I asked whether they might be considering serving my favorite dish, samosa channa, where the samosa is covered with insanely spicy chickpea channa and a variety of condiments. Leena said that since they now have figured out how to make huge amounts of potatoes of the grill, they may be branching out to channa.

Leena tries to avoid the typical truck spots, like Wilshire, and focuses on art openings and (surprise) yoga studios. Leena says her next stop will be at the Highland Park Art Walk this Saturday. Follow them on Twitter to get the latest location. Try some masala fries yourself and you’ll be hooked. As their business card says, “ommm good”.

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