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Showing posts with label pico. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pico. Show all posts

Tasting Menu at Shunji (West LA)

Shunji is one of the hot recent restaurant openings, with Chef Shunji Nakao's serving his "contemporary" omakase in an inconspicuous stand-alone building on Pico Blvd. There are only a handful of tables and a few seats at the sushi bar, and the chef prepared most of the dishes personally (some get fired in the kitchen).

His printed menu looks like the standard Japanese restaurant, but we had read about his omakase (the omakase was not printed on the menu) and just asked for that.

As an amuse bouche, a small bowl of jelly with cucumber and vinegar sauce
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Next is a plate of small bites of vegetables, ankimo topped with caviar, a ball of purple potato with blue cheese and persimmon, and sweet potato with feta and truffle
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Unsure if we were supposed to eat these in a particular order, we moved in one direction and it moves from rich (ankimo) to the palate cleansing, crisp, unadorned vegetables to the creamy potatoes

The scallop sashimi, topped with arugula flower, was so fresh
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Sotto: Beyond the Test Kitchen

Chefs Steve Samson and Zach Pollack (formerly of Pizzeria Ortica in Costa Mesa) recently opened up Sotto on the first floor of the old Test Kitchen space. Sotto focuses its menu on Southern Italian cuisine with a wood-burning Neapolitan pizza oven.

After hearing great reviews, I finally made my visit. The Test Kitchen space looks quite different now, but it was just as packed (and a little loud).

We started the meal with tomato-braised octopus ai ferri, chickpeas, preserved lemon, chard, bottarga ($14)
Octopus
Sorry, David Chang, I like my "rustic Italian shit" including this one. There's just something about a hearty tomato-based dish, especially with this tender octopus and the chard.

Casarecce, braised lamb ragu, egg, pecorino ($15)
Casarecce, braised lamb ragu
Casarecce, which means "homemade", is basically a short, partially rolled pappardelle. They're rolled loosely and look like scrolls. Al dente and almost chewy, it's hard to imagine what would go better with these pasta than chunky lamb ragu.

Grilled lamb ribs in agrodolce, sesame seeds, mustard green salad ($22)
Ribs

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