Birthday...Lucques!

My friend Mike invited me to his birthday dinner this weekend. The dinner was at Lucques, one of LA's top restaurants. I had eaten at AOC, one of Suzanne Goin's other restaurants. I really liked AOC, so my anticipation for Lucques was really high.

The reservations were for 7:00PM on a Saturday evening. We arrived 15 mins late and the restaurant was bustling. There were nine people in our party and we were seated immediately in the area between the main room and the patio. The restaurant has a very comfortable atmosphere and the noise level makes it feel very casual. Lucques is famous for it's Sunday Supper, but the reason for it's success is based on the simple menu with top ingredients.

Lucques menu is a single sheet with a handful of starters and entrees. The meal begins with a basket of nice rustic bread, fleur de sel, oil cured almonds and the namesake olives. This was the first time I had ever had these olives and I can see why they named the restaurant after these olives. They were delicious. Mike is a wine connoisseur and he brought five bottles of amazing wine to be paired with our food. The starters all sounded very interesting and unique. I order the veal sweetbreads with grilled cornbread, wild mushrooms and pedro jimenez, the most popular starter at our table was the fried squash blossoms with manchego, marcona almonds and green romesco. When the starters were delivered, they had swapped the sweetbreads(SB) with squash blossoms (SB), the server said it would take 6-7 minsutes and apologized. So while everyone else ate, I waited for my dish and tasted everyone else's food. The green garlic soup with crushed potato and salt cod crostini was very good and the squash blossoms were incredible, the green romesco definitely gave the dish some pop. When my sweetbreads finally arrived, I dove right in. The grilled cornbread which was the base for the mushrooms and pan fried sweetbreads, was very soggy and had lost all of it's integrity. The overall flavors of the dish were great, but it was lacking in texture. There were some bumps in the service, but the meal was off to a good start.

For my entree I ordered the stuffed jidori chicken with hand-cut noodles, pancetta, asparagus and morels. Other entrees at our table included the alaskan halibut with black rice, sugar snaps, kumquat sambal and carrot-coconut broth, grilled lamb loin chops with turnip purée, citrus-glazed carrots, tamarind and dates, suckling pig with whole grain mustard, curly endive and warm artichoke-potato salad and tasmanian salmon with potato cake, cucumber salad, yogurt and pistachio aillade. All of the dishes had unique flavor profiles and ingredients, but the plating was simple and not pretentious.


My chicken my incredible and maybe the surprise dish of the night. The sauce was rich, the chicken was stuffed with a nice mixture of vegetables and the skin was nice and crisp. The hand made noodles really made the dish feel hearty. I sampled some of the other dishes the halibut and salmon were both very good.

We closed out the meal with several desserts including, churros y chocolate with cinnamon and dulce de leche ice cream, hazelnut milk chocolate cake with coffee and salted caramel, lemon curd and ricotta tart with blueberries and three cheeses with currant and walnut toast. The desserts were all delicious, my favorite was the hazelnut cake.

I thought Lucques lived up to my expectations and I think Chef Goin's dishes were all very inventive. I looked forward to trying the Tavern her new restaurant concept and coming back to Lucques for Sunday supper.

Golden Deli

Sorry for the delayed post. On our way back from Coachella, we stopped for lunch at the Golden Deli Vietnamese Restaurant in San Gabriel. I had heard alot about the food at this place and was excited to try it out.

We arrived just passed lunch time on a Monday. The restaurant was still very busy. My friend ordered the #1 and summer rolls. I ordered the Bun and some type sausage dish. The #1 at most Pho restaurants is the classic Beef Noodle Soup, with sliced rare beef, beef tendon and other beefy goodness. The pho looked great, but it's all about the broth. The sausage dish was very interesting, it was served with all kinds of condiments and summer roll wrappers. The peanut dipping sauce was delicious. My bun was also fantastic.


Overall the dishes we had were all very good. But in my opinion some of the Pho restaurants in the SF Valley are all just as good.

The Counter - Westlake Village

The Counter has finally unveiled there Westlake Village(WLV) location. The burger joint which opened on April 7th, has locations all over Southern California. I had been anticipating the WLV opening for quite awhile.

So a few of us went for Easter dinner. It was busy, but there was no wait. For those that have not been to the Counter before, there tagline is "Custom Built Burgers". When you are seated, you will get a clipboard with a step by step process of how-to build your custom burger. You start off with selecting the meat, Beef, Chicken, Turkey or Veggie, then the toppings, premium toppings, sauce and bun. They claim there are over 312,000 combinations. They also have a Signature Burger menu with classic combinations and plenty of sides.

My friend Mike brought a bottle of wine, 2003 Domaine Denis Bachelet Gevrey Chambertin Vieilles Vignes. This was a beautiful red wine that paired very well with the burgers we ordered. Our meal started with an order of the Fifty/Fifty, regular fries and Sweet Potato fries. The fries were cooked well, crispy exterior and soft and fluffy interior. They were served with some type of Thousand Island style dipping sauce. A good quantity of fries for three people to share.



My burger might have been more appropriate for breakfast, I went with a combination of English Muffin, 1/3 pound beef patty, Jalapeno Jack cheese, Honey Cured Bacon, Horseradish mayo and a fried egg. I ordered my beef patty medium rare, the patties are served medium regularly. My burger was good but not the best I've ever had, then again I wasn't expecting that. The meat was cooked properly, not seasoned enough though. The bacon strips were so small, I didn't see them and thought they had forgotten to add them. I'm not sure I even got any Horseradish mayo on my burger. All in all it was good, but knowing I can get a burger from In-n-Out for half the price and much more flavor, I was left wanting more.

My friend's burger looked amazing and he stated it was the best burger he had ever had. Sarah's "Burger in a bowl" looked pretty healthy, but she didn't have much to say about it.

The Counter serves beer and wine, this location also has a couple of flat screen TVs and a seat yourself bar. It's a nice casual place to grab a basic burger and hang with friends. For my next visit I'm going with a basic combination and I'll let you know how it is.

Los Angeles Taco Trucks

Evan Kleinman's radio show Good Food now has a video series. The first episode talks about LA taco trucks, if you haven't tried one, you should. I'm waiting for the day to try out Kogi.

Cafe Luck

Cafe Luck is located in Santa Barbara just off of State Street a few doors down from The Palace Resturant. The restaurant opened Sept 2008 and it's menu is French Bistro inspired. I'm lucky enough to be great friends with the assistant to the owner and looked forward to the meal.



The restaurant has a very casual feel, as do most places in Santa Barbara. There were three of us and we had reservations for 8pm on a Saturday night. We were seated immediately seated and I started to peruse the menu. I wanted to see if menu had what I was expecting for a French Bistro. The menu was divided into standard bistro style categories, Fruits de mer, soups et salads, hors d'oeuvres, plats principaux, and plats du jour decorate. I was hoping to see some classic French dishes and most were included, Steak Tartare, Moules Mariniere and Duck a L'Orange. Since this was my first visit and my hosts had eaten at Cafe Luck several times, we decided to get some dishes that they had really enjoyed and some items they have never tried.



The meal started with a half dozen oysters, a mix of Fanny Bay and Blue Point, served with a Mignonette Sauce. The oysters were very mild and not very meaty, but not bad. The oysters were paired with Champagne, Baumard Carte Turquoise Cremant De Loire Brut NV, it was very crisp, a bit pricey but nice. Next came the Escargot and Steak Tartare, the Escargot was served without the shells and bathing in garlic butter. It was very good, not chewy but had just enough texture and what can be bad about butter and garlic? The Steak Tartare was not as impressive, the tartare was missing just a bit of acid, the tartare I had at Comme Ca was much better.

The last of our starters was the "Farmers Salad", a version of the classic warm Frisee salad with Poached Egg, for anyone that enjoys bacon and eggs, this is a great starter. We ordered two of these salads and one of them had a poached egg that was overcooked. The yolk is very important to the success of this dish. Nonetheless the lardons, the vinagrette and the fingerling potato chips all worked well together.

It was time to move on to the Entrees and our first bottle of wine. We had a hard time trying to figure out what to order, we were kinda full, but also wanted to try something different. I had my mind set on the Whole Roasted Chicken with Truffle Butter. Since we had "connections" we went to the source and asked the executive chef what we should get. He suggested that if we get the chicken, we should get the whole fish en croute. We went with his suggestion, even though the chicken would take 45 mins to prepare. We were also recommended the 2007 Brewer-Clifton Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir to go with the rest of our meal. The chicken, fish and wine were all high ticket items and my expectations were also high. The wine was very good, I'm not a connoisseur of wine, but I do know what I like. This wine was good.

The whole fish was brought out with the salt crust partially removed. The fish was then removed from the bone and plated with roasted fingerling potatoes and assorted vegetables. The vegetables included grilled pearl onions, grilled tomatoes and baby zucchini, they complimented the subtle flavors of the striped bass. The bass was moist and the salt crust added a nice flavor, the roasted potatoes were very salty. Overall the fish en croute was very good, unfortunately our appetites weren't and we still had the whole chicken coming.

The roasted chicken was presented whole in the roasting pan. The chicken was then carved and served on a platter. It was served with the Pomme Puree and Roasted Baby Vegetables and Croutons. The Pomme Puree was super smooth and rich, I'm afraid to know how much butter was used to make it. The roasted baby vegetables were also very nice, there were baby carrots, Swiss Chard and Pearl Onions. But a very nice surprise were the croutons served with the vegetables. When you dipped the croutons into the delicious pan juices from the chicken and then dipped it into the pomme puree, it was close to heaven. That's saying something when your completely full. The chicken skin was nice and crispy, the meat was moist, but there was no sign of truffle flavor. Most of the chicken was packed up in a to go container.



The surprise of the evening was still to come. With barely any room for air, we decided to take a look at the dessert menu. We ordered the Pot de Creme and a Passion Fruit Sorbet. The Pot de Creme was a new add on to the menu,let me just say this, it was awesome. It was an absolutely perfect way to end the meal. The custard was silky smooth and had a very nice sweetness. Normally a creme brulee is served in a ramkin style dish, Cafe Luck served their creme brulee is a more of a cup like container. It had a smaller opening on the top so their was less of the bruleed sugar. This was nice, the sugar was not needed as the custard was the star.

Overall Cafe Luck was good, but the price is way too high for the French Bistro dishes they offer. Even with a discount, our bill exceed $280. If I do go again, I will try to tame my cravings to taste everything.

Mu Dung San BBQ

I took some friends to AYCE Korean BBQ for lunch this past weekend. I decided to take them to Mu Dang San, my last visit there was good and the price is right. We arrived at a little past noon and the restaurant was mostly empty. We order the all you can eat for $16.99 each. The panchan was nothing spectacular, but I really like the Gaeran Jim they serve (Steamed Egg), a great way to start the meal. We ordered the standards, Galbi, Bulgogi and the marinated chicken to start off. I was really impressed with the Galbi on this visit. The cuts were thicker then usual, the bulgogi and chicken were also very tasty. One of my favorite things about Mu Dang San is their duk bo sam (rice noodle wrappers), a nice change of pace from rice. Wrapping the grilled meat with sliced jalapenos and pickeled bean sprouts or cucumbers is amazing.

Our meal continued with more Galbi, BBQ Pork and Beef Stomach. Everything was great and we left completely stuffed. AYCE Korean BBQ is fun, delicious and affordable, not to mention everybody loves it. Look forward to trying, Parks BBQ and ChoSan Galbi.

Cafe Firenze

I've been wanting to try Cafe Firenze for awhile now. With Chef Fabio Viviani making it to the finals of Top Chef and his restaurant being pretty close to my house, I thought why not. I also heard that it was really good.

The occasion was my sisters birthday and we had a party of four. Our reservations were for 6:30 on a Thursday evening. Located in Moorpark, CA. the building used to be Bauduccos, which closed over a year ago. The entrance leads directly into the martini bar, martini happy hour goes on Mon-Fri from 4-7pm. The decor is rustic and has a old world feel. Our table was well lit, almost too much light. We ordered a bottle of Acacia Pinot Noir and we also had a couple of martinis from the happy hour menu. With a quick glance at the menu, I noticed the specials right away. There were two things that stuck out to me, there was a Squid Ink Pasta with Clam and Sea Urchin Roe sauce, the second item that stood out was the Rabbit Cacciatore.

Before we jumped into the entrees, we started of with an appetizer trio and the Beef Carpaccio salad. The trio consisted of two small crab cakes, a shrimp wrapped with Panchetta and Burrata served on top of a grilled eggplant. The star of the trio was the Burrata, it was silky and smooth with a drizzle of Olive Oil. The shrimp and crab cakes were good, but nothing special. The Carpaccio salad was delicious, the bitterness of the arugula went well with the beef and Parmesean.

I decided to go with the pasta dish, the rest of the group went with the Grilled Ribeye steak, the larger portion of steak had a mushroom sauce. We also ordered a Fettucini Bolognese Arribiatta to share. I was so excited to see my pasta dish, but the looks were deceiving. It was completely bland and I honestly thought there was no Sea Urchin in the dish. The steaks were inconsistently seasoned but were cooked well. The best dish was the Fettucini Bolognese, which was very spicy and the pasta was cooked perfectly. My Squid ink pasta was bland and tasted like pasta tossed in oil. We did order a Flourless Chocolate Cake which was served with a scoop of Gelato. I didn't have any, but was told it was good.



With the prices of these dishes and all of the hype surrounding the chef, I was very disappointed with our meal. The one thing I have yet to mention was the service. I have rarely experienced service so poor that I contemplated giving the server no tip. Our dinner took over two hours, this was not due to the number of courses or the kitchen not expediting our food quick enough. During our two hour meal, our server literally checked on us four times. The time between her visits were up to 30 mins. The bus boys did their job keeping our water glasses filled and clearing plates, but our server was missing in action. We noted all of this on a comment card, but I'm not sure I'm going back.