Jonathan Gold’s 99 Essential L.A. Restaurants - Part 2

From The Hungry Cat to Providence

Comments (0) By Jonathan Gold Thursday, Jun 30 2005

...continued from page 2

Meals by Genet At the heart of Fairfax Avenue’s Little Ethiopia, Meals by Genet is more or less an Ethiopian bistro, which is to say a homey, soft-lit dining room that looks at least as French as it does African. The menu is short: crisp-skinned fried trout, half a dozen stews, and Genet Agonafer’s delicious version of kitfo,a dish of minced raw beef tossed with warm, spiced butter. And herdorowotis jaw-droppingly good, vibrating with what must be ginger and black pepper and bishop’s weed and clove, but tasting of none of them, so formidably solid that the chicken, which is well-cooked, becomes just another ingredient in the sauce. Even an Ethiopian grandmother would approve. 1053 S. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 938-9304,www.mealsbygenet.com. Lunch and dinner Wed.–Sun. 11:30 a.m.–10 p.m. Beer and wine. Catering. Street parking. MC, V. Dinner for two, food only, $19–$27. Ethiopian. Mei Long Village Even if Mei Long Village served nothing but dumplings — terrific steamed baostuffed with sweet red-bean paste, flaky sesame-flecked pastries filled with root vegetables and bits of pork, flying saucers of what seems like Chinese filo dough surrounding a meager but intense forcemeat of sautéed leeks — it would be worth a visit. Mei Long Village is also the perfect place to try any of the famous Shanghai standards: sweet fried Shanghai spareribs dusted with sesame seeds, garlicky whole cod braised in pungent hot bean sauce, big pork lion’s-head meatballs, tender as a Perry Como ballad, that practically croon in the key of star anise. The new-wave Shanghai classic jade shrimp, stir-fried with a spinach purée, is especially good, firm, subtly garlicked, garnished with deep-fried spinach leaves improbably glazed with sugar. And did we mention the stir-fried jellyfish head with ginger? Oops! Must have slipped our minds. 301W.ValleyBlvd.,No.112,SanGabriel,(626)284-4769.Opendaily11:30a.m.–9:30p.m.Beerandwine.Takeout.Lotparking.MC,V.Entrées$8–$12.Chinese. Metro Café At first glance, Metro Café might be one of the least promising restaurants in Los Angeles, a faux-’50s diner attached to a stucco chain motel. But the strange, fragrant dishes everybody seems to be eating bear little resemblance to the food listed on the menu. Metro Café is basically an informal Serbian restaurant disguised as an American diner, or at least an American diner that sometimes serves a Serbian dish or two: white-bean soup, flavored with ham imported from a Santa Monica deli; spareribs grilled with lots of garlic; or a grilled trout, nothing fancy, plopped on a bed of garlicky greens. If the owners are feeling charitable, there may be crepes for dessert, special, secret crepes stuffed with Nutella and raspberry jam. 11188WashingtonPlace,CulverCity,(310)559-6821.Breakfastandlunch7a.m.–3p.m.,dinner6–10p.m.Noalcohol.ParkinginTravelodgelot.MC,V.Lunchordinnerfortwo,foodonly,$12–$24.Serbian. Michael’s Look around you, man. Art, the real stuff — Rauschenberg, Stella, Graham, Hockney. Luxury foodstuffs identified by port of origin. A garden patio like all of us dream of having between the lanai and the swimming pool. Heavy silver, Christofle. And organic pork chops, and grilled quail, and sautéed shad roe in season, and a cellar full — full! — of older Zinfandels and obscure Merlots and oaky, buttery Chardonnays that would be beautiful enough to make you weep if you ever got to taste them, because Michael’s, whose cooking under chef Nadav Bashan is nearly as Italian as it used to be French, still feels a little like an exclusive party that somebody forgot to invite us to. 1147ThirdSt.,SantaMonica,(310)451-0843.Mon.–Fri.noon–2:30p.m.&6–10p.m.,Sat.6–10:30p.m.Fullbar.Takeout.Valetandstreetparking.Allmajorcreditcards.$28–$40.California. Mimosa In an era where two splashy new restaurants out of three try to re-define cooking as we know it, there is a certain guilty pleasure in Jean-Pierre Bosc’s thoroughly unambitious restaurant: steak-frites instead of wok-charred escolar;chicken-liver pâté instead of seared foie gras with honey and figs. Few Food Network scouts are likely to get excited about the “tarte tatin” of pungently herbed tomatoes on a buttery puff-pastry tart shell smeared with pesto, though it’s the sort of dish you’d like to eat every night; or the Alsatian-style tarteflambée,a thin, crisp pizza crusted with an eggy cheese custard and a few slivers of smoked ham; or the thick, proper Provençal fish soup; or the plate of French charcuterie. In fact, Mimosa resembles an ordinary restaurant in almost every way except one: The food is really good. 8009BeverlyBlvd.,LosAngeles,(323)655-8895.DinnerTues.–Sat.6–10:30p.m.Beerandwine.Valetandstreetparking.AE,D,MC,V.Reservationsrecommendedonweekends.Entrées$11–$26.FrenchBistro. Mission 261: Choose to accept it. Mission 261 Mission 261 may be the most ambitious Chinese restaurant ever to open in the United States, a mammoth Cantonese banquet hall fitted into a sprawling adobe complex built 100 years ago as San Gabriel’s city hall. The suckling pig, a house specialty, is made from an animal so young it is practically prenatal; the braised pork belly is the essence of melting fat; the fried whole chicken with fermented taro is practically a sacrament. The steamed rock cod is the standard by which all local Chinese kitchens should be mentioned, and if you’re into plundering the endangered species list, Mission 261 does that too. And the dim sum is extraordinary, possibly the best in California at the moment — less a teeming mass-feed than a sort of aestheticized dim sum meal, where you sit with a pot of really great chrysanthemum tea and a few small plates of attractive, exquisitely prepared food, the clatter of plates replaced by the contemplative sounds of live Chinese music. 261MissionDrive,SanGabriel,(626)588-1666.Mon.-Fri.10:30a.m.-3p.m.,5:30–10p.m.Sat.-Sun.9a.m.–3p.m,5:30-10:30p.m.Fullbar.Takeout.Lotparking.AE,D,MC,V.Entrées $10–$13.Cantonese. Musso & Frank Grill Before Musso & Frank Grill became a martini-fueled Hollywood clubhouse, the place where Faulkner blew out his liver and generations of character actors learned to show up on Wednesday for the chicken pot pie, the restaurant was practically a showcase for what was then considered California cuisine, a genteel marriage of the local produce, abundant local fisheries and masculinized lunchroom cooking: avocado cocktails smeared with sweet, pink dressing and frigid bowls of chilled consommé; great, naked planks of boiled finnan haddie and dainty plates of crab Louie; creamy Welsh rabbit served over crustless triangles of toast and kidneys Turbigo. This is what the cosmopolitan life was like, before cosmopolitans. 6667HollywoodBlvd.,Hollywood,(323)467-7788.OpenTues.–Sat.11a.m.–11p.m.Fullbar.Validatedparkinginrear.AE,DC,MC,V.Entrées$15–$40.American. Noe In a bland, ultrahotel setting like Noe’s, you might expect the food to be as blandly generic as the nondescript art on the walls. But Robert Gadsby nurtures this sense of dislocation, playing with the inside of your skull in ways that Gerhard Richter or Thomas Pynchon might recognize. Take his triptych of foie gras, for example: one part prepared autorchonin the French manner; the next whipped into a mousse glazed with a Coca-Cola gelatin, in the fashion of D.C. chef Jose Andres; the third fried like country ham and served on a tiny skillet of truffled scrambled eggs. Noe is a strange place for a talent to flower, but in this rocky soil, perhaps Gadsby’s food has found its home. 251S.OliveSt.(insidetheOmniHotel),downtown,(213)356-4100.Sun.–Thurs.5–10p.m.,Fri.–Sat.5–11p.m.Fullbar.Takeout.Valetparking.AE,MC,V.Entrées$18–$32.ProgressiveAmericanWithJapaneseAesthetics. Nook Sometimes you get the feeling that the owners of Nook are running less an American bistro than a joke about an American bistro. As faithfully as they reproduce the fundamentals of the kind of fancily unfancy restaurants that pepper every urban neighborhood from San Diego to Augusta, Maine, they are also poking fun at it with every dried-cranberry garnish and each day-boat scallop, each obscure Belgian beer and each boutique Oregon Pinot Noir, each crusty roast chicken and dish of iconic macaroni and cheese. Almost every aspect of the restaurant, from its double-height communal table to the admonition on the menu that cell-phone use interferes with the controls on the deep fryer, is as ironically pitch-perfect as the Neil Diamond songs on a Silver Lake DJ’s iPod. 11628 Santa Monica Blvd., No. 9, West Los Angeles, (310) 207-5160;www.nookbistro.com. Lunch Mon.–Fri. 11:30 a.m.–3 p.m., dinner Mon.–Sat. 5–10 p.m. Beer and wine. Lot parking. AE, MC, V. Dinner for two, food only, $30–$60. Norman’s Norman Van Aken’s style of cooking, sometimes called Floribbean cuisine, processes Caribbean recipes through the matrix of French technique, often inflecting a dish with an Asian flavor or two: the kind of French toast you’d hope to find in an $800-per-night Antigua resort, for example, piled with seared foie gras and gingered lime zest, or duck cracklings served with a loose polenta that can’t decide whether its flavors come from Valencia or the Yucatán. Craig Petrella must have been the most talented chef in Van Aken’s restaurant empire, because it is impossible to discern where Van Aken’s ideas ease off and his own ideas begin. Except that I think I like the West Hollywood restaurant much better than the Florida original. 8570SunsetBlvd.,WestHollywood,(310)657-2400.Tues.–Thurs.6–10p.m.,Fri.–Sat.6–10:30p.m.LoungeopenTues.–Sat.at5:30p.m.Fullbar.Takeout.AE,MC,V.$27–$39.NewWorld. Orris Hideo Yamashiro’s Orris is sometimes described as an Asian “tapas bar,” a place to drift in for a glass of Viognierand a snack. Orris is something else, closer to a Mediterranean take on new-wave izakaya,a Japanese pub, than to anything you might ever come across in Spain — sweet shisito peppers sprinkled with shaved Parmesan cheese and crunchy bits of fried proscuitto; smoked scallops garnished with fat salmon eggs; Dungeness crab salad in a sweetish ginger dressing. This is food to wash down with sake, not with a glass of sherry — don’t miss the lamb tatakiwith rosemary and sheep cheese. 2006SawtelleBlvd.,WestLosAngeles,(310)268-2212.LunchMon.-Fri.11:30a.m.–2p.m.;dinnerMon.–Thurs.6–10p.m.,Fri.-Sat.5:30–10:30p.m.AE,MC,V.Beer,wineandsake.Limitedlotparkinginrear.Smallplates$6.50–$14. Ortolan If you are a fan of intimate, dungeon-like restaurant spaces, dining rooms so dark that diners are issued little flashlights along with their menus, and presentations that extend to mushroom soup served in test tubes and fish seared on hot river rocks, then Ortolan may be the restaurant for you. Actually, Ortolan’s basic premise — high-level French cooking served in a supper-club setting — is a fairly attractive one. And chef-owner Cristophe Eme, who comes to the restaurant from L’Orangerie, is remarkably skilled: the squab, served as a roasted breast paired with a leg confit, is exceptional, as are the crisp langoustines. 8338W.ThirdSt.,LosAngeles,(323)653-3300.Mon.–Thurs.6–10p.m.,Fri.–Sat.6–10:30p.m.Fullbar.Valetparking.AE,MC,V.Entrées $29-$39.French. Philippe the Original The place is so much a part of old Los Angeles that sometimes it feels as if it isn’t really a part of Los Angeles, as if it belongs to an older city without chrome. The French-dipped sandwiches of lamb or beef are wet and rich, with something of the gamy animal pungency of old-fashioned roast meat. And if you enjoy the sight of eyes bulging and nostrils flaring as people encounter depth charges of ultrahot mustard in their sandwiches, there’s even something of a floor show. 1001N.AlamedaSt.,LosAngeles,(213)628-3781.Opendaily6a.m.–10p.m.Beerandwine.Fortakeout,mustcallaheadandordermustbeover$40.Lotparking.Cashonly.Sandwiches$4–$5.American. Vat’s incredible! Mr. Phillips stirs the sauce. Phillips’ Barbecue Crusted with black and deeply smoky, the spareribs at Phillips’ Barbecue are rich and crisp and juicy, not too lean. Beef ribs, almost as big around as beer cans, are beefy as rib roasts beneath their coat of char, tasty even without the sauce. They are the best ribs in Los Angeles, perhaps the only ribs that can compete on equal terms with the best from Kansas City or Tuscaloosa. And the extra-hot sauce, so crowded with whole dried chiles that the ribs occasionally look as if they have been embellished with Byzantine mosaics, can be pretty exhilarating. Tucked into a mini-mall between a liquor store and the local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous, the original Phillips’ might be a little hard to find, although if you keep your window open, you should be able to sniff it out from half a mile away. But the newest location, in the well-scrubbed chalet-style Crenshaw building that until recently housed the well-regarded Leo’s Bar-B-Q, is only a couple of blocks south of the 10. 4307LeimertBlvd.,LosAngeles,(323)292-7613.2619S.CrenshawBlvd.,LosAngeles,(323)731-4772.Mon.11a.m.–8p.m.,Tues.–Thurs.11a.m.–10p.m.,Fri.–Sat.11a.m.–mid.Noalcohol.Takeout.Lotparking.Cashonly.$11–$14.Barbecue. Pink’s Consider the Pink’s dog, uncouth and garlicky, skin thick and taut, so that when you sink your teeth into it, the sausage . . . pops . . . into a mouthful of juice. The bun is soft enough to achieve a oneness with the thick chili that is ladled over the dog, but firm enough to resist dissolving altogether, unless you order it with sauerkraut. And why wouldn’t you? Avoid the fries. 709N.LaBreaAve.,Hollywood,(323)931-4223.OpenSun.–Thurs.9:30a.m.–2a.m.,Fri.–Sat.9:30a.m.–3a.m.Noalcohol.Lotparking.Takeout.Cashonly.Dogs$3–$6.American. Pollo a la Brasa If you are anywhere near Koreatown when the need for takeout chicken strikes, follow your nose to Pollo a la Brasa, a Peruvian chicken joint all but concealed behind a fortress of hardwood logs. The smoky, crisp-skinned chicken here, sizzled over a hot wood fire and served with the incendiary Peruvian herb sauce aji,is what happens when you cross a chicken with a smoldering log. 764S.WesternAve.,LosAngeles,(213)382-4090.LunchanddinnerWed.–Mon.11a.m.–10p.m.Noalcohol.Takeout.Lotparking.Cashonly.Foodfortwo$5–$10.Peruvian. Providence Ever since Michael Cimarusti left the stoves at Water Grill, well-heeled Los Angeles fish lovers have been waiting expectantly for his new restaurant in the old Patina space, which was widely rumored to become the Los Angeles equivalent of fish palaces like Le Bernardin and Oceana in New York. At this glowing new restaurant he managed to fulfill even those super-high expectations — this is among the best restaurants ever to hit Los Angeles. It just doesn’t get better than Cimarusti’s tartare of live spot prawns served with buttery leaves of brikpastry, sautéed squid with piquillopeppers and meltingly soft slivers of stewed pig’s ear, or a terrine of foie gras with muscatgeleethat may be the best foie gras preparation in this foie gras–happy town. 5955MelroseAve.,HancockPark,(323)460-4170.Mon.–Sat.6p.m.–10p.m.Fullbar.Takeout.Valetparking.AE,D,MC,V.Entrées $30–$40.ModernAmericanSeafood.