Test Kitchen: Marcel Vigneron

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.

Rustic Canyon, Santa Monica

Crispy White Polenta photo by Carol L. on Yelp

Rustic Canyon is right across from its sister daytime restaurant Huckleberry. Rustic is only open for dinner, and it offers Farmers'-Market-fresh ingredients and an ever changing menu that is dictated by the produce offerings at the markets. I didn't get to take pictures of our meal, but I'll give you a play by play...

We had reservations at 6:15 pm on Saturday and were seated right away. I was struck by how much smaller the restaurant looked on the inside than the outside. It is a wide space, but shallow. Our friendly waiter brought out some delicious olives to start.

We ordered:

Figs with roasted fennel, burrata, honey, black pepper ($14): This was a great starter... All the flavors worked very well with each other, and the burrata melted in our mouths.

Crispy white polenta with farm fresh egg, wild mushrooms and parmesan ($16?): Brad wanted this all to himself. The egg on top was sunny side up, so we broke the orange yolk and let it spill all over the polenta. The polenta was cooked perfectly--crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside--and the wild mushrooms brought a rugged earthiness to the dish.

Butternut Squash Mezzaluna with pumpkin seeds, sage and brown butter ($15?): Half moon pastas stuffed with butternut squash. The pasta was made in house and was both al dente and silky. Topped off with crispy roasted pumpkin seeds.

Whole trout with greens, currants and capers ($24): The trout came out split in half. It was crispy and brown on the edges and just so delicate in my mouth. The only problem I had was that I got a mouthful of tiny bones near the head. I guessed they missed a spot. But other than that, it was divine.

The prices are from my memory, so they might be give or take a few dollars. The total was $90 including tax and tip. Not a cheap night out, but certainly date-night worthy.

We didn't order any wine, but I heard that they have an excellent selection. I will be back to try their doughnuts and hot chocolate (they didn't have it when we went) and other seasonal offerings.

Rustic Canyon

Oaxaca Living Food

Brad and I were at the Mar Vista Farmer's Market on a Sunday. Our empty bellies were nagging at us, so we found ourselves in the hot food area... The smells of made to order crepes, burritos and ribs beckoned us and Brad darted off to get a giant apple sausage quesadilla.

A raw foods booth that specialized in Oaxacan cuisine caught my attention. I couldn't believe my eyes... I mean, how L.A. is that? Not just raw food, but Oaxacan raw food? Wow. I felt sorry for them because they weren't as crowded as the rest of the booths, so I got a sample of the raw zucchini pasta. I've had a lot of raw zucchini pastas before (Leaf, Juliano's, Rawvolution), and this one was on par with the rest of them. They even came with little "meatballs" made of nuts. I bought one (I think it was $9). It was just the light lunch I was looking for. They also sell whole young coconuts that you can drink the water from and then eat the flesh.

I love this farmer's market more than the Santa Monica ones because it's less crowded, there's still a live jazz band, and there are even picnic tables. It is open Sundays 8:30-2 pm.

LA Mill Coffee Boutique, Silver Lake

We met up with our friends Ron and Fran (and Vincent!) for brunch at LA Mill Coffee in Silver Lake this past weekend. I am in love with this place!

We started with house-made brioche doughnut holes (6 for $3.50). The doughnut holes were so light, it was like eating sugar dusted clouds. They came with an airy vanilla whipped cream (additional .50). We were in heaven.

Brad ordered the Steak and Eggs ($11). Soft scrambled eggs were accompanied by flank steak, chives and a house-made steak sauce.

I got the Arctic Char Tartare ($15) with creme fraiche, capers, hard boiled egg and toasted house made brioche. The arctic char melted on my tongue, its flavor punctuated by salty capers and sweet sour pickled onions. Egg yolk was presented crumbled on the side, and egg whites were chopped up, providing an interesting texture.

We'll definitely be back to LA Mill soon. If you go, don't forget to get the coffee--they're famous for it!

A Confetti Corn Salad Bento

I made Brad this corn salad bento out of these leftover ingredients we had in the fridge:

raw sweet corn kernels cut off the cob

cucumber

tomato

jalapeno yogurt cheese from Trader Joes

ham deli slices

apple cider vinegar

salt and pepper

I love raw sweet corn! The apple cider vinegar balanced out the sweetness, and the jalapeno cheese added a nice spicy kick.

Kogi Truck

Spicy Pork and Short Rib Tacos

I know, I'm a little late blogging about Kogi! I finally tried the godfather of the gourmet food trucks after seeing that they were going to be outside Chego on a weekday afternoon. They were actually an hour late due to "truck troubles", but that's ok. After waiting in line for a few minutes, I ordered a short rib and pork tacos ($2 each) and a short rib burrito ($5).

I enjoyed the tacos more than the burrito. I found it kind of weird to have bulgogi beef and cheese together in the burrito. The burritos also had quite a few tough bits of beef tendon that I had to discard. The tacos didn't have cheese in them, and they had a great sweet-salty flavor. I would definitely get the tacos again, just as long as I don't have to wait in line for too long!

The inside of a short rib burrito

How to make a Japanese Style Sweet Egg Roll

So many bentos! Here is my latest creation... On the top: broccoli, sweet egg rolls (tamagoyaki), asparagus, carrots, okinawan sweet potato sandwich with mayonnaise filling.

On the bottom: brown rice sushi, another sweet potato sandwich, raspberries.

Want to learn how to make tamagoyaki? It's really simple. I looked on Youtube and found this informative video on how to make it. The narrator girl is kind of funny ("ghetto brushes are awesome!"). Click here to view the video.

Take A Bao, West L.A.

I did some wedding dress shopping at Century City Mall (I think I may have found a dress!) and then met up with Brad at their food court. "Food court" isn't even the right term for this place, really. When I think of a food court, I think of gross oily food, dirty dishes left on tables, and crying kids. None of that at this mall. I saw ladies all dressed up clutching their Louis Vuitton purses eating at this food court. Ah, West L.A..

We ate at Take A Bao (clever) and I got two baos (hoisin beef and signature pork) with a huge side of salad for $9. It was surprisingly really good. Brad got the fish bao (that just sounded weird to me, but he said it was good) and the miso pork. At Take A Bao you can choose either a white bun or a whole wheat bun.

We also got a yummy side of sweet potato fries that came with a creamy spicy dipping sauce. We both agreed that we will be coming back here for more--the flavors, prices and portions were great!

C-Level Lounge, San Diego

Lobster BLT

To finish our weekend of feasting in San Diego, we had brunch at C-level Lounge which is located near the airport. The view is stunning--you dine right on the water. Besides the atmosphere, I also loved the food and the portion size (generous!) at C-level. I got the lobster BLT and Brad got the Seared Ahi salad with black rice and mango salsa. Our table shared the fried artichoke hearts and we also ordered a Ginger Garden drink (ginger syrup, mint, lime, basil, ginger ale). We left stuffed and completely satisfied. Great choice!

Seared Ahi with black rice and mango salsa

Fried artichoke hearts

Ginger Garden

Click here for more info about C-level.