Just got back from here tonight. Overall, pretty disappointed.
What seem like new menu items, the 1) ankimo and 2) spaghetti squash, were both big misses for me and my wife. Spaghetti squash had an odd cinnamon taste and was underwhelming. Ankimo torchon was fine but the dish was missing something else; the ankimo had to be really good to standalone the way it was served.
Pork belly dish flavors were great but ultimately let down by an overcooked protein. Prawns needed the bread (which we got).
welcome
I just wonder how good this place actually is.. seems a little hypey but I haven’t gone yet so who am I to judge…
Max really knows his shit about food and wine and isn’t afraid to critique. Jordan loves food and is an entertaining dude. I enjoy most of the pods and appreciate Max in particular for saving me $$$ on high end restaurants I shouldn’t patronize.
Did they like it? Saw Jordan at A Ti today
their early visit didn’t live up to the hype for them.
they liked
they didn’t love
Did get around to listening. No clue who either of these dudes were before!
Interesting analysis on the squid and the corn; corn wasn’t on the menu on my visit, but I did think about Max’s take on these two as I was eating at Alto last night (a corn stew that had it not tasted like corn, I certainly would’ve been bummed.)
I liked this restaurant more on a second visit. The food has character; I can’t think of any close comparison. It’s all elegant and prepared well, using good ingredients. This restaurant would make my list of top 100 LA restaurants, probably around the 50s where the LA Times placed it.
is this peony or warrior speaking?
i went for the first time last week. the desert was the best dish, and i don’t really like desert. everything was great, but i’m not dying to go back a second time–at least until they change out seasonal menus.
Peony liked the restaurant more this time also, but I didn’t want to speak for her.
Yeah — the main drawback with the restaurant is the limited menu. Also, I’m sure that more than one person has complained about the small portion sizes. You have to get bread or dessert to eat a normal calorie, satiating meal.
They change most of the dishes every 3-4 weeks other than dessert!
I finally thought of an apt comparison: Heritage in Long Beach. Similar in pretty much all aspects.
Went here this past weekend and I really liked the place, it was homey & chill, elegant, but also had decor you would see at a listening bar (thought the music was great too). had a seat right next to a window where I looked out to some beautiful landscape architecture and after every sip of wine i looked out the window and was thinking wow where the hell am i? what a great property! everything combined together creates a fun and captivating dinner experience.
The highlights were their signatures: the onion bread with that brebis cheese from Wisconsin and cauliflower was lights out, I had to put in another order right before those pine nut cookies with the cucumber puree on top came, which were also incredible.
I really liked the lobster dish, it was like ceviche on crack, excellent. Finally, some great use of pomegranates. The wasabi leaf octopus dish was great but also disappointing, the octopus was charred really well and it was no doubt some good octopus, however the wasabi leaf was very mild, was hoping for a nice pungent addition but it did not add much flavor profile to the dish. All in all, it was another good octopus dish at the end of the day, but did it stand out with all the other octopus dishes around the city? Probably not and I wish it did based on the concept
The least popular dish of the night was the cold spaghetti squash w/ passionfruit. I definitely respect the dish and I’m glad I ordered it, but some dishes you like more than others. Although the crunch from the toasted rosemary and brown butter balls was a nice touch. The snap pea salad showed that the produce here is as fresh as it gets although the salad itself was not memorable. I don’t think I would call this place a wine bar as many reviews have done? Food is much better than the natty wine list. All in all, some dishes here were complex at a very high level and some dishes were maybe too safe.
I like the short menu; it makes decisions easy for me and due to seasonal changes, it makes me want to come back again. I would come back for seasonal onion bread toppings alone.
good to know, thank you! menu looks mostly the same this week, but i’ll keep checking in. i think also the first course might also be a mainstay? i haven’t looked into it too deeply, though, i could very well be wrong.
First course is always the onion bread but they change the toppings on it
The onion bread was the one thing Peony and I were divided on.
I thought it was great and much better than the first version I tried. I enjoyed the combo of oily bread, brebis cheese, and pickled heirloom cauliflower.
Peony, however, thought it was over-doughy and that the bread lacked flavor. For context, she dislikes Pizzeria Sei for a similar reason.
We both agreed that we prefer the montaditos at San Laurel, which Peony offered for comparison.
Agree with this re: Baby Bistro, though I don’t find it true of Sei. I had an earlier iteration fwiw, and I found a lot of the other dishes at BB elegant in a way the bread wasn’t, maybe by design.
Chef Miles is doing a collab dinner at Rustic Canyon on 3/2. $110/person. https://www.instagram.com/p/DVE9xdGEqjV/
A refreshing experience and an awful lot of fun. I was surprised by the amount of bold flavors for a restaurant that spins so much of a narrative about sourcing.
I thought that the criticisms in this thread were resolved, we had multiple resets of plates and cutlery, dishes were adequately explained. You go to this sort of restaurant to experience a point of view, stop worrying about every dish and fire the menu.
Banging menu last night. All seafood. Gorgeous light summery dishes in the melon/celtuce with chili vin and the mussels escabeche with potato.
maybe my favorite bread set (tied with escarole from a few months ago) with pimento cheese and mushroom Sofrito.
Cookie retired in favor of tapioca with rose geranium and lime on top of strawberry with a lil pistachio brittle situation. Still an unbeatable value for 2 with the pairing for 50.
