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NYC: Per Se (July 2012 #1): Dinner with Tad
Authors: Victor and Tad
Restaurant: Per Se
Exec Chef: Thomas Keller
Chef de Cuisine: Eli Kaimeh
Date: July 24, 2012
Tad: Another day, another meal at Per Se. I have to admit that I am somewhat disappointed that we Victortook so many photos. I mean, taking a few for this blog is fine, since it is all part of our mission to evangelize good food. But it makes us seem like we’re tourists. My parents raised me better.
Victor:
-I borrowed my friend’s Fuji X100 (a real camera!), and these pictures are considerably better than my iPhone pictures haha. Also, one of the lights above us was much brighter than it should have been; I liked that a LOT it gave us much more lighting for our photography. The server eventually dimmed the light, though… but not before we were pretty much done with the meal and had taken all our pictures!
LA Kaiseki/Sushi: Urasawa (July 2012)
Author: Victor
Restaurant: Urasawa
Chef: Hiroyuki Urasawa
Date: July 5, 2012
Notes:
I decided to stop by Urasawa once again while I was in town, and I went with two old friends. Here’s an excerpt from my friend’s site about this meal—it was basically his first really good sushi meal!
“This all changed this summer. My friend invited me to join him for a meal at Urasawa when I visited Los Angeles in July. I was able to see the craftsmanship and attention to detail that contributes to each course in person and experience the end result. The sushi really stood out to me. The balance of flavor and the just-right density of the sushi rice just worked so well for each of the sushi courses. Yes, the items placed on top of the sushi rice were exquisite, but Hiro and Ken could have put almost anything on top of that rice and the end result would still be amazing.
The seed was planted in my head. Amazing food isn’t just about the individual ingredients on the plate, but how they are put together. And I wanted to see what else is out there. I started reading more about food online and talking with my friend about other restaurants to try in the future. I then remembered that I have a copy of The French Laundry Cookbook, and dug it out. Suddenly the recipes made a lot more sense. The goal is to make every component that goes into a dish as perfect as possible. I then searched online for “french laundry at home” to find other people’s experiences with the recipes, and stumbled upon Carol Blymire’s blog “French Laundry At Home”. The post that Carol wrote after cooking every dish in The French Laundry Cookbook was extremely inspiring and has a list of great first recipes to try. I decided that this is where I’m going to start my gastronomic adventure.”
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LA: Mélisse (June 2012): “Foie for All”
Author: Victor
Restaurant: Mélisse
Exec Chef: Josiah Citrin
Date: June 6, 2012
Notes:
-California’s foie-gras ban went into effect on July 1, 2012, and I was going to go to Asia for a month in a few days after this meal, so I decided that I should at least get some foie gras in California while I still had the chance.
-The theme of the entire menu was foie gras; it was basically one of many restaurants’ ways of saying “screw you” to those who fought to get it banned.
Monte
Victor
tadv3
Happy Noms 