LA's "Haute" Asian Cuisine? Lukshon vs WP24 vs Red Medicine, Part 3: Red Medicine

When I started doing this series of posts, i debated a while whether or not I will go to Red Medicine. I had gone to their stint at Test Kitchen, but ideally I should try the "final product". However, I just couldn't bring myself to go after their whole drama with the LA Times' reviewer SIV, where they not only kicked her out of the restaurant but also posted her photo online, threatening her position as an anonymous critic. I haven't agreed with many of her reviews lately but that is really beside the point. I found their "revenge" unprofessional and juvenile.

Finally, I decided not to go. I had very little desire to.

The tasting menu at Test Kitchen and their current menu both seemed reasonable at first glance, $40 for the Test Kitchen menu and $21 or less for the protein entrees. It turned out, however, that the portions were quite small.

Many of the dishes we tried were excellent. We all loved the cured amberjack served on french melons, and the pork belly "banh mi".

Fatty and crunchy texture and lovely pickled carrot. I definitely could've used more than one piece of this.
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LA's "Haute" Asian Cuisine? Lukshon vs WP24 vs Red Medicine, Part 2: WP24

High end Chinese food is not a new venture for the Wolfgang Puck empire, and I still love the Shanghai lobster curry at Chinois on Main (the one in Vegas is not as good), but Puck wanted to go higher. To the 24th floor of the new Ritz Carlton in downtown LA, to be exact.

While I haven't tried the dining room menu at WP24, I did get a tasting of their bar menu with small plates ranging $12-14 and sushi rolls ranging $14-18. No, not cheap, but were you expecting it to be?

While I didn't love everything, I was actually pretty impressed at the quality of the dumplings here. The one thing I fear most about bad dumplings is a thick, tough skin, but I encountered no such thing here.

Chinese Crystal Dumplings (King Crab, Shrimp, Kurobuta Pork) $12

The skin here was actually tender, and the dumpling was filled with quality ingredients. The sauce wasn't shy of spice.

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Menu Planning - Week of 3/7/11

Today's my man's 29th birthday! I've been with him since he was 18... almost 11 years, can you believe it? I can  : )

So no cooking tonight! We are going out to eat to celebrate this amazing man's birthday! We are going to a new (and expensive, I might add) restaurant we haven't been to yet called Tony's. I'm excited! 

But the show must go on after today. Still gotta cook the rest of the week.

And like always, gotta use those rollover minutes. I mean meals. 

We will be recycling this chicken pesto mushroom recipe from last week. We didn't get around to making that one. As well as some kind of chili recipe. Yep, didn't use up that ground chuck either.

Monday 3/7/11:  PJ's 29th Birthday! Out to eat at Tony's Restaurant

Tuesday 3/8/11:  PJ works late, pick something up

Wednesday 3/9/11:  Chili w/ Green Chili Cornbread

Thursday 3/10/11:  Chicken with Pesto Mushroom Cream Sauce

Friday 3/11/11:  Marinated Pork Tenderloin

I am doing my usual link-up to Menu Plan Monday at I'm An Organizing Junkie.


What's on the menu this week, peeps?


Peace, and bacon grease!

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Asparagus with Creamy Mustard Sauce

Martha, Martha, Martha.

Martha had to know that this creamy mustard sauce wasn't her best work.At first glance of the recipe, PJ already had decided that he wasn't going to like it. Especially with that vinegar in there. And not cooked. I had hopes. Plus, at this point we had to make it. It was for Martha Mondays. He does benefit from the good food I make, but I guess it means he also has to suffer through some of the not-so-tasty meals. This being one of them. 

Like I said, I had hopes even though he didn't. I don't even think I served him any sauce with his asparagus. I didn't want to pour mine directly over my asparagus, so that I could still enjoy my roasted asparagus even if I didn't enjoy the sauce so much. When I dipped my finger in the fully combined sauce to taste it a bit, I gagged, I'm not gonna lie. It was pretty gross. The vinegar was overwhelming. PJ dabbed his finger in to confirm that it really was disgusting. His face explained everything. But I, being the good food blogger that I am (modest?), had to still get a good picture of my vinegary sauce even if it wasn't gonna be eaten. So after I got all of my pictures finished, I had that sauce on my plate. I had already decided in my mind that it was nasty, but I just decided to give it another try with the asparagus. And you know what? It was actually way better. I spread a tad over some asparagus pieces and actually enjoyed the flavor it gave. No longer did I taste the overwhelming vinegar flavor, thank goodness. By the end of the meal, I was actually thinking to myself that I could maybe even make that sauce again. But I must remember to never taste it by itself! 

Unfortunately, we doubled the recipe in the beginning because we were having scallops and mushrooms also, and thought we would want more sauce to dip our scallops in also. But after we each tasted it, we realized we really could have made half of the recipe! Also, we didn't have dijon mustard so we just used regular mustard. And we didn't steam the asparagus, we roasted it.

Asparagus with Creamy Mustard Sauce

adapted from Martha Stewart

*Mustard Sauce

• 4 tablespoons mayo
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 2 teaspoons mustard
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

*Roasted Asparagus

• asparagus with ends off
• drizzle of olive oil
• sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and garlic powder

Rinse asparagus and tear off the ends. Place on a pan and drizzle with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Roast asparagus in the oven at 425 degrees for 14 minutes.

Meanwhile, for the sauce, stir together mayo, olive oil, white wine vinegar, and mustard in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Drizzle over or serve with roasted asparagus. 

PRINTABLE RECIPE

FYI I love that adorable bowl, don't you?! I got a matching soup bowl, tiny dip ramekin, a medium sized ramekin, and salad plate. I love it so.

I am sharing this recipe with Martha Mondays.

Peace, and bacon grease!

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LA's "Haute" Asian Cuisine? Lukshon vs WP24 vs Red Medicine, Part 1: Lukshon

While high-end Asian restaurants are nothing new, they seem to be popping up even more than usual in Los Angeles lately. Some of them are branching out towards the Southeast Asian cuisine, as well. The openings of WP24, Red Medicine, and Lukshon in the past year were some of the most highly anticipated restaurant openings in town. LAist's samkimsamkim suggested I do a post about all of them. Well, I guess I should, so here's a look at these three restaurants.

First, Lukshon. Sang Yoon gained his fame after opening Father's Office, and there was much excitement surrounding Lukshon, which recently opened two doors down from the 2nd FO in Culver City. Reservations fill up quickly, and don't bother walking in when it rains as they lose 1/3 of their seating area.

My meal started out strong with the Baby Monterey squid, chiang mai pork sausage, candlenut, mint, rau ram ($15)

Tender yet chewy squid, stuffed to the gills with spicy and juicy sausage, and topped with small pieces of fried calamari. This one's a must-try.

Foie Gras ganache, carob, ceylon cinnamon, tamarind gastrique, almond, puffed rice ($16)

I liked the tamarind here, but it's pretty hard to enjoy once the gastrique is gone - granted my companion would only eat half of a cube. I felt like I needed some toast.
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Al Fresco Dining: Piazza at Zucca Ristorante (Downtown Los Angeles)

Outdoors or patio dining area is pretty common for LA restaurants, but what about a restaurant where the outdoor area is now a whole other restaurant? Patina Group's Zucca Ristorante in downtown LA recently launched its outdoors dining area as Piazza, Zucca's more casual, inexpensive (prices range from $6-12) sister restaurant featuring a small but solid menu of antipasti, pizzettes, and pastas.

We started our dinner with the soup of the day: black lentil soup with bacon strip ($6),
The hearty bowl of soup is warming and filling on a cold night. It was flavorful without being too salty. The crunch of the bacon strip was a nice touch.

Next, a board of Prosciutto crudo, mozzarella e olive (parma ham, burrata, marinated olives) - $8

We devoured the creamy burrata immediately and could've easily had another serving! The ham was fatty and flavorful, but I didn't get how the olives are supposed to interplay with the others.
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I lied.

See this?


Yeah..... didn't happen.


That's all!


Peace, and bacon grease!

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