I just blogged about my recent experience at Test Kitchen on my other blog 365losangeles, but I'll be a little more critical in this post for all the foodies who might be interested...
For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Test Kitchen is a unique restaurant. Chefs take over the restaurant for two or three days and come up with a prix fixed menu that features innovative dishes that they might not normally be able to create in another restaurant. The cuisine is frequently bold and daring. Sometimes you will get a few duds, but it's all in the name of experimentation.
This past weekend, Top Chef alumni Marcel offered a six course menu for $55 per person.
The price doesn't include drinks or tax or tip. Test Kitchen adds on an 18% tip on all tabs, which I found to be a little presumptuous. The service was not consistent. A couple of waiters were great and described the dishes perfectly to us. Others just gave us a couple of scanty details and left it at that. Our waitress forgot our drink order and we ended up not getting it. There are long wait periods between dishes and it took 2 hours to finish our meal (I actually like slow meals because it gives me more time to talk and relax, but this is just a warning to those of you who might get antsy sitting for that long).
Kombu Cured Hamachi: Crispy Rice, Pineapple, Avocado
This was one of my favorite dishes. The pineapple is the yellow rectangle underneath the hamachi. It is thinly sliced and topped with seaweed, toasted rice, jalapeno, avocado dollops and a foam. I tasted each ingredient individually before wrapping it up into a hamachi "taco".
Scallobut: Flavors of puttanesca, artichoke
This dish was very clean and simple. A scallop and a halibut cheek sit next to a deconstructed puttanesca with anchovy, olive powder, roasted cipollini onion, tomato and toast. Parsley and garlic dollops frame the composition. The scallop was barely raw in the center--a beautiful thing.
Wagyu Beef Tongue & Fried Egg: radish, beet, arugala, beans
Break open the fried egg and you'll find a perfectly runny yolk dripping out. Three types of beets, arugula, radish and beans adorn the Wagyu tongue. The tongue melted like butter in my mouth. My only criticism is that the dish came out luke warm, like it was sitting out for a while.
Vadouvan Lamb Chop: Cauliflower, Amaranth, Mint
This was my other favorite dish of the evening. In the background is a cauliflower puree that is saturated with butter. The lamb sits on top of an almond, pomegranate, mint and feta "cous cous". It is topped with more foam.
Ricotta Fritter: Baby peach panna cotta, agave
The green thing on top of the panna cotta is a Japanese baby peach. It was just about the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. The panna cotta was brilliant. The fritter tasted like salty old oil, sadly. It was fine when eaten with the panna cotta because it hid that "off" taste, but by itself I found it unpleasant.
Macadamia "Sponge Cake": textures of strawberry
The sponge cake was made all in the microwave, our waitress bragged. What a strange thing to be proud of, I thought. This was such an interesting dish. The cloud of strawberry foam was topped with this carbonated filled strawberry jelly. It popped in my mouth just like the "olives" at the Bazaar. The whole thing was lightly sprinkled with pepper and topped with celery leaves. It all worked, strangely enough!
Keep your eyes on the Test Kitchen calendar. On October 7 and 8, three Top Chef alumni will be in the kitchen! Check it out here.
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