LudoBites 8.0

It may seem counter to my bloggerly being, but until this latest round, I'd never attended LudoBites.  Something about all the frenzy that surrounds it makes me want to run in the other direction.   Between the phone-in hoops you have to jump through to get a reservation, and the gaggle of female bloggers who, under the 'Ludobitches' moniker, have branded themselves as groupies of happily married chef Ludo Lefebvre, it all just sounded like a scene I'd rather not deal with.   It's like my reaction to Downton Abbey -- when everyone is freaking out about something, I decide I'm too cool.  But then, one night in late January, a friend's plus-one bailed and I was invited to sit in.  And I couldn't deny my giddiness.  I got in to LudoBites!  With zero effort!  And as will no doubt be the case when I finally break down and watch Downton Abbey, I totally ate my words and thought it was amazing.

LudoBites is a really fun concept: at his whim, Chef Lefebvre takes over the kitchen at some restaurant for a very limited time, and creates a full menu of shareable items, all with his signature mix of the best ingredients combined in unexpected ways.  When I got there, the air seemed charged with the collective excitement of all the diners who made it into the fleeting pop-up.  The T-shirt-clad waitstaff provided excellent service, and affordable carafes of tasty house wine (in addition to a list of wines and beers) made you feel that, despite the high caliber of the food being served, this wasn't an ostentatious meal.  Our group of six ordered everything on the menu, and were treated to a string of strange and wonderful tastes and textures.

The meal started off with pure indulgence: chicken tandoori crackling, followed by brioche with yuzu seaweed butter.  The former, the creamiest chicken liver mousse dolloped on a square of crisp chicken skin.  Salty, fatty, mineraly goodness; tastebuds piqued, big-time.  The latter, a fluffy, buttery brick of brioche so comforting that a child would swoon over it, but spread generously with a decidedly grown-up compound butter with the bright Asian notes of yuzu and salty seaweed.  I seriously spent the rest of the meal contemplating getting an order (or nine) of the brioche to go.

One of the most elegant dishes of the night was simply called 'Scallop, Leek, Potato, Black truffles' (first photo), a combination of soft, mellow flavors, punctuated with dots of an herb sauce and pops of briny roe.  One of the most challenging was Uni Crème Brûlée, a bizarre combination of sea urchin, sweet custard, a hint of coffee, and salty salmon roe.  Once you got past the initial shock of completely uncharted culinary territory, it was actually quite delicious.

Raw beef has surely never looked as beautiful as it did in a dish of Raw Beef, Radish, Beets, Eel.  Thin slices of radish and tart green apple, and a blood-red beet puree offset the richness of the meat. 

Opulence came in the form of soup.  Based on its looks, I expected the dish of Foie Gras, Tamarin, Turnips, Daikon to be a ramen-like broth, characterized by fattiness and salt.  So, I was totally shaken by the first spoonful, with its intense tamarind sourness.  I was also taken aback by the amount of foie gras in the dish: I don't know, it was just...a lot.  Not my favorite, but others at the table loved it. 

OK, that's enough.  I realized when I wrote two epic posts on the Istanbul Eats walking tour that I don't particularly like writing posts that are endless lists of every bite.  I get bored, so I suspect you guys do, too (correct me if I'm wrong?).  Sure, there were more outstanding dishes --  an excellent red wine braised duck, perfectly cooked John Dory, and a kooky take on lemon meringue pie that tasted as delicious as it looked whimsical were just a few.  So, I offer you a link to the rest of the photos from the night, artfully shot by my date, Erin Ramos.  And instead of the itemized list, I leave you with this.

The best part of the night for me (aside from the part where in my head I decide that Chef Ludo himself designed the night's awesome 90s-hip-hop playlist) was my vantage point.  Overall, I wasn't thrilled with the space:  Lemon Moon is a cafeteria in an office complex, and the ambiance of its bright, spacious dining room just didn't match the excitement of the night.  But it has an open kitchen, and from my seat, I could watch as one chef prepped plate after plate, using an empty glass display case as his work station.  He was meticulous about every detail, and I watched as Chef Ludo peered intently over his shoulder, hanging on every drop of sauce, making sure each dish was just perfect.  In that moment, all the LudoBites fanfare made sense: every item I was served was at the highest level.  Chef Ludo and his team took great pains to achieve harmony from a wild array of complex flavors, to make every plate beautiful.  A world of mindful effort is behind every bite.  He's pulling out all the stops, putting all he has out there.  In that moment, I totally got the LudoBitches.  There is most definitely something hot about a man who works so hard to ensure that I, that all of us there, feel taken care of (and seriously, the French accent doesn't hurt, either).  This meal made me feel taken care of -- how can I dare act too cool for that?

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LudoBites' last night is tomorrow night!  Get there!

Items of Note

More real stuff coming, but this is real stuff too.

1. These are two trees on my street. Aren't they pretty?

2. This is an Ascaso espresso machine. I am desperately in love with it. Anyone have 700 dollars burning a hole in his or her pocket?

Shoot, didn't think so. (PS, this model is called The Dream. Fitting.)


3. This is 2 photos of The Golden State, taken by Tasha of Blackburn and Sweetzer. Almost ready for prime time, this hub of beer and sausage and Scoops is. She chatted a bit with Jason and Jim, the owners, last week. Check it out, along with more pictures, here.


4. This is another pair of photos taken by Tasha. She's good, isn't she? This time, it's of the Norm Maxwell Gallery, which is also on Fairfax, next door to the Golden State. She talked with Norm, the owner of the gallery, presumably around the same time she talked to Jason and Jim. He features urban art: some local, some international, some affordable, some pricey. I'm really excited about what he's bringing to Fairfax. Check out Tasha's post, with lots more photos and lots more from Norm, here.


5. This was the spread at Din Tai Fung (the new space, which is quite bright and modern and pretty!), last Sunday morning. Lots of amazing dumplings obviously, but see that near-empty plate of fried rice in the corner? Yeah, the reason it's empty? Because that humble mix of rice, scallions, and egg is magically delicious.

Dumplings are tasty, but they can be deadly. Thank goodness they come with instructions!

6. This was a wonderful winter night. Local friends and visiting friends, drinks in the lounge at Casa Del Mar (which is to say couches, fireplace, cozy), and a heated game of Apples to Apples. When it's cold outside, laughing keeps you warm.

7. This is a painting by Ryan Callis. You can find it right now at Taylor De Cordoba gallery on La Cienega. Inside the slit, it says "It's OK". Which, in fact, is true.


Okay, I think that's enough items for today.

Oh wait, one more! Check out the timestamp on this post. Friends, it's 1234-time! Go on, sing the song!

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The Golden State is at 426 N. Fairfax Blvd., between Oakwood and Rosewood, and might be open by mid-February?
Norm Maxwell Gallery is at 430 N. Fairfax, just north of Golden State.
Din Tai Fung is at 1108 S. Baldwin Ave. in Arcadia. Note that this address is for the original restaurant. The new space is just around the corner, behind the original. If you're going for weekend dumplings, get there before they open: a line forms.
Hotel Casa Del Mar is at 1910 Ocean Way in Santa Monica.
Taylor De Cordoba is at 2660 S. La Cienega in Culver City. Ryan Callis' works are on display there until February 14, but pretty much all of their artists are great.

Anisette: What to Feed the Person Who Eats Everything

Let's start with Annie and Eric. Annie and Eric, who smuggled fourteen cheese -- fourteen cheeses -- in their suitcase back from Paris.

Annie, whose tearful dreams of avocados and tacos lead her from New York to the Motherstate (her term) like the scent of a pie cooling on a cartoon windowsill, and who'd hop in her car at any time of night and drive to Glendora if it's strawberry shortcake season at Donut Man. Eric, who has brought home an entire half-pig (warning you, click at your own risk, graphic pig photography, pretty gross), and from the pig has created porchetta, sausage, bacon, and (again, gnarly photos ahead) headcheese. Annie and Eric, who took me to 'inoteca for dinner when I visited them in NY, then proceeded to order salads, paninis, bottles of red, one after another, then of course the decadent truffle egg toast, something like twelve cheeses, and a bottle of prosecco, all after a day spent at the Feast of San Gennaro, which, for those uniniated into the guido-ish world of Mulberry Street, is a street fair through Manhattan's Little Italy devoted entirely to stuffing your fat face until it's twice as fat. Annie and Eric are not messing around.

So, they're in town for Christmas, Annie's called on me for brunch (along with our dear friend Samantha, herself known for some late night Donut Man outings), I know we had to do it up.

Anisette. It's French, it's fancy, it did not disappoint.

Brunch at Anisette just felt great. You walk in and immediately feel the the sliver of a restaurant's sparkly ambiance. Gorgeous Frenchy details, worn red leather banquettes, a wall lined with absinthe bottles and magnums of Veuve all the way up to the lofted kitchen. Waiters rush by with trays filled with every shape of glassware -- stems, bowls, and tiny carafes. The staff were notably smiley, as were the clientele, a fact that I must say was a little disconcerting at first, considering how much we were all paying for a casual weekend brunch. But, what the hell, it's vacation. And we have New Yorkers in our midst. We went large.


I don't remember much of what we talked about, (well, other than that we had to curb the swearing, what with the adorable child next to us playing with her croque monsieur), but my goodness, we ate. With the first round of bloody Marys, mimosas, and coffee, we ordered a small basket of flaky pastries. The croissant is the only one worth mentioning, but the basket came with jams and a perfectly piped squiggle of vanilla bean butter! Heaven! Eric, being Eric ordered himself 3 oysters, and they too were well-trimmed: served on a bed of crushed ice with a tiny bowl of mignonette. The bloody Marys were notable too, for more than just their potency -- one was all sorts of savory, with mustard, horseradish, more mignonette, and giant blue-cheese-stuffed olives, and the other, called the Farmer's Market, was a cool refreshment, with muddled cucumbers and fresh dill.


But then came food, along with another round of drinks, natch. The broth accompanying Eric's mussels was velvety with a bit of cream and lots of fresh tarragon, and Samantha's eggs benedict looked fine, but the duck confit hash was the thing. Bits of dark shredded duck had the texture of the richest jerky you've ever tried: the smallest bites were slightly chewy, bigger chunks were like butter. A 'melting' duck egg sat over top, its creamy yolk seeping through the hash as soon as I broke it open. Swoony.

Oh wait, just remembered what we talked about. We were absolutely redundant trying to get Annie and Eric to move to Los Angeles. We really need to do this more often. The Motherstate needs Annie and Eric, though I'm not sure if we can afford them.

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Anisette is at 225 Santa Monica Blvd., between 2nd and 3rd st. Call for a reservation: (310) 395-3200. In addition to brunch, they're open for lunch and dinner, and have a full bar.