La Botte - Santa Monica

On a particularly crummy day, after a failed attempt at retail therapy, it became apparent that a nice dinner out would be just what I needed.  To me, trying new restaurants is like taking a mini-vacation; it's always exciting.  A spontaneous dinner trip, much like a spontaneous vacation, can cure a bad mood in a heartbeat, especially if the destination is as fantastic as La Botte.

La Botte was on our list of 'restaurants to try', but we had no idea how or why it got there.  Obviously we put it on the list, but couldn't remember where we'd gotten the hint to do so.   'The List' contains all the big fancy restaurants and the big famous chefs we hear about, and some smaller names that we somehow stumble upon.  Knowing very well that a spontaneous trip to the most popular restaurants would leave us without a table, we opted for the lesser known places, and somehow honed in on La Botte.  I consider us especially lucky to have been able to call the restaurant at 730pm on the evening we intended to dine, and make a reservation for 830pm...and it was Friday night!

We walked in and realized, within a couple minutes, that the reason La Botte was on our list was because it's a Michelin-starred restaurant, as we were informed by a large sign with the marshmallow guy waving and smiling at us.  That's right, the same Michelin that brings us tires for our cars also tells us where to eat and who's who of chefs in restaurant-land.  I find it a bit odd that we take, as gospel, the advice on the best restaurants from a bunch of guys that make tires, but the coveted Michelin star (or two or three stars) is like the Academy Awards for restaurants and chefs, and don't we all run out and watch the Oscar-winning movies after they've been recognized by the illustrious Academy?

Nevertheless, there we were at our first Michelin-starred restaurant, and I have to say, aside from the huge sign, I'd never have gotten the "who's who" feeling from this place.  Not because it wasn't a nice place, but because it was quaint - cute and quiet, with just the rumblings of restaurant, without the noise of the over-dressed, over-excessed crowd of trend-followers.  The decor is simple and lovely  - the room lined with bottles and bottles of wine in a gigantic wooden rack, and tables simply decorated with tea light candles in holders that allowed the light to shine in a sweet pattern on the tablecloth.  The staff is friendly and surprisingly entertaining, goofy almost, which I consider a key ingredient to the experience of eating at La Botte, as so many fine dining establishments train their waitstaff to be uber-professional, which I find stuffy and uncomfortable. 

Everything on the menu sounded incredible, so in order to avoid a drawn-out decision-making session, we opted for the tasting menu.  Yes, it's a lot of food, and yes, it's more expensive, but there's something wonderful about not having to make decisions and something exciting about not knowing what you're going to eat next.  "Please just make my tummy happy, chef.  And yes, we'll have some wine. Red please."

And so our first dish arrived, the cold appetizer - ahi tuna tartar.  Ugh, I thought, tuna tartar is so overdone.  It's lost all sense of intrigue and interest because you find it literally everywhere.  I hoped to be shocked and amazed by this tuna tartar, so I eagerly dipped my fork in the sauce and took a small bite of tartar.  Shocked and amazed and relieved, I was so happy that my tuna tartar did not have the usual harsh ginger, soy, and wasabi flavoring (and why would it? it's an italian restaurant).  This tartar is sweet with a balsamic reduction and accompanied by smooth avocado puree, and is so pleasant and refreshing to eat.  Topped with an edible flower, it's a beautiful start to an incredible meal.  Still, I would have preferred something a little more unusual, a little more Italian.  But that's what you get for avoiding food decisions!

Next up, our hot appetizer - potato leek soup.  Again, I thought, "soup? really?"  Fortunately, I've been on a leek kick lately and was excited about that aspect at least.  Well...I polished off my soup like it was a snowy day and I had just finished shoveling the driveway (which I've never actually done since I have spent most of my adult life here in sunny california missing the fluffy white winters).  The potato leek soup is not on the regular menu, but was a special at the restaurant for the day.  So lucky were we to have gotten such a wonderful off-menu item that we may or may not be able to get ever again. 

Our first pasta dish, a clone of which is currently underway in our kitchen, was a plateful of the most scrumptious gnocchi imaginable accompanied by some incredible flavorful chanterelle mushrooms.  Another off-menu item, which is quite unfortunate, because it is likely one of the best things I've ever eaten (are you listening, Food Network producers of 'The Best Thing I Ever Ate'?)  The tasty little pillow-like gnocchi are lighter and fluffier than I ever thought they could be.  The chanterelles are rich and earthy, but the powerful flavors are restrained enough to play the supporting-actor role to the subtle pasta, allowing the gnocchi to shine in a starring role.  Truly incredible. (FYI...the attempted clone in my kitchen was very good, but not quite La Botte-tastical).

The second pasta dish (two pastas is better than one!) was the pistachio pappardelle with braised lamb ragout, a regular menu item.  This one had a tough act to follow with the gnocchi, but still, it was very good.  I had a bit of a difficult time picking out the pistachio flavor beneath the pronounced lamb flavor.  I generally find that lamb has such a strong flavor that any subtly in accompanying flavors, like pistachio, gets completely overpowered and lost to the meat.  A touch of saltiness might have helped a bit, possibly in the form of parmesano-reggiano generously grated over the top (which the waiter offerred but never returned with).

So...these are all generously sized dishes here.  I'm not talking one or two noodles.  Each of these pasta dishes could have been a nice-sized meal, but we got two, and then a main dish.  By the time the meat came, we were stuffed, but the waiter so enthusiastically shoved plates of meat in front of us and informed us that the main dish was spectacular this evening.  Wagyu beef with chanterelle mushrooms (it must have been chanterelle day at the farmer's market) and roasted artichokes.  Wagyu beef, also known as kobe beef, is well-known for its intense marbling which enhances the flavor and tenderness of the meat.  This was my first wagyu/kobe experience, and I was amazed at how tender the meat was.  The accompanying flavors are quite similar to the gnocchi with the same chanterelle earthiness, but this dish feels much heavier given the intensity of the meat.  Perhaps it was the fact that we'd just polished two plates of pasta, a bowl of soup, and some tartar.  I forced the last biteful of wagyu and prayed that my dessert would still fit.

Sometimes I wish I went out just for dessert.  It is my favorite part of the meal, but I am almost always stuffed to the brim by dessert time.  I commend the chef at La Botte for his choice of dessert to finish off our tasting.  The light and sweet berry sorbet is completely refreshing, and the token chocolate dessert, made with special European chocolate, is creamy, rich and indulgent; a perfect pair of sweet treats to finish of a remarkable meal!

I waddled out of La Botte, plopped myself in the car, unbuttoned my pants for the ride home, and promptly proclaimed, "...so that's what a Michelin star tastes like!"

Pizzeria Mozza - Mozza2Go

Mario Batali is a genius.  Who else can get away with wearing orange crocs around?  This guy has given me a new re-found appreciation and a completely new perspective on Italian cuisine (not to be mistaken with Italian food - meatballs, lasagna, spaghetti).  Combine his talent working with fresh ingredients straight from Italy, most of which I've never heard of, with the amazing bread-working talent of Nancy Silverton (and also Joe Bastianich who often partners with Mario), and voila, you have the best pizza ever made...and Pizzeria Mozza, the smallest and busiest, but by far the best, pizza joint I've ever seen.

I've been twice now (required reservations both times), first long before this blog was born, and most recently in a more unusual fashion.  We actually made reservations for a wine class the restaurant was holding in the back room (closet).  They bring in the restaurant wine-director and six types (three white, three red) of wine that come straight from winemakers in a specific region of Italy, this time the Trentino-Alto Adige region, which is somewhere in northern Italy.  Of course, the whole point is to taste the wine, but they don't just give you a tiny tasting pour you'd get in Napa Valley, they poured almost half a glass of each wine.  Clearly, this is meant for people that don't get tipsy after half a glass, as you're expected to comment on and identify components of the different wines.  Given that this is not something I'm not yet sophisticated enough to accomplish even sober, I sipped my wine, nodded my head and smiled, letting myself go ahead and get tipsified.

Finally, I thought, they brought in some "antipasti" to demonstrate food pairing with the different wines - apples, asparagus, and speck (prosciutto-ish).  I really don't know if my judgement was yet altered when we received our food pairings, but I could swear those are the best apples I've ever had.  I think they had pepper on them actually...confusing, I know, but really they were amazing apples.  The asparagus was also phenominal, but that's because it was wood-grilled and topped with grated Italian cheese (not the parmesan substance that comes in a green carton at the grocery store, or even the stuff they dump on your plate using that turny thing at Olive Garden).

That was all to pair with the white wines, I later learned.  Red wine time = pizza time!  They generously plopped fresh wild mushroom and cheese pizzas on our table.  Funghi misti, fontina, taleggio & thyme, according to the menu.  Yum, according to me.  I don't care if there's funghi on my pizza when it tastes this good. They use shiitake mushrooms, button mushrooms, and a constantly changing third mushroom (we think this time it was oyster), along with a combination of cheeses, providing a perfect balance of sharp and earthy savory flavors.  The crispy wood-fired crust is absolutely amazing, and as the crust is my favorite part of all pizza, I was thrilled with the flavor and texture of this crust. 

As if we hadn't already had enough, we decided that some pizzas to go would be most necessary.  Since I didn't anticipate the need for more pizzas two weeks prior, we knew we wouldn't get a seat in the dining room, but thanks to the nextdoor Mozza2Go, we could order a couple Mario/Joe/Nancy amazing pizzas, wait 20 minutes and head home to gorge ourselves in the privacy of our home with our friends, and a cheap bottle of Trader Joes wine.  Ok, so the drive, with a detour, is long enough for us that we had to reheat the pizzas when we got home.  Nancy kindly leaves a note on reheating, pleading "Please do not microwave my pizza. Place in the oven at 350 for 12 minutes and enjoy!" (By the way, Pizzeria Mozza is kinda near Wilshire, and if you go far enough west on Wilshire, there's a Sprinkles - the detour I mentioned.  I did make this case and we did get cupcakes. That's what you do when friends are coming over...it's only appropriate.)

The first time we visited Mozza, someone nearby had a sausage pizza and the entire room filled with the incredible aroma of fresh fennel.  Desperate to try the homemade fennel sausage, we ordered the fennel sausage, panna (italian cream), red onion & scallions pizza, and the Coach farm goat cheese, leeks, scallions, garlic & bacon pizza because it sounded amazing.  Both are fantastic.  The fennel sausage is homemade, and therefore definitely worth trying, but sausage isn't usually my favorite pizza topping, and this didn't really change that for me.  The goat cheese, leeks, garlic and bacon pizza, however, might have changed my life.  This is a fantastic combination of ingredients, flavor and texture, and executed so perfectly, complete with lightly charred edges on the ridiculously thinly sliced vegetables and the crispy crust.

The only real trouble with Mozza2Go is that you can't order the gelatos they serve in the dining room.  It's a real shame, too, because they have the best gelato I've ever had.  Besides just the gelato, they do have a much more extensive menu in the dining room than on the 2Go menu, so if you absolutely need bone marrow or some other weird delicacy, make some reservations well ahead of time at Pizzeria Mozza!

Piccolo in Venice

dineLA Restaurant Week always sneaks up on me.  In fact, I was lucky enough this year to have gotten a reminder a couple days before it started so I didn't miss it completely.  Honestly though, a couple days advanced notice is hardly enough to sift through all of the restaurants that participate in Restaurant Week and finally decide on which one or two to visit. 

We actually turned this decision into a science project, complete with an Excel spreadsheet with sort and filter functionality.  Ultimately, it really just came down to the special Restaurant Week menu offerings (each restaurant has a set three-course menu that will run you either $, $$, or $$$), which are fortunately available for pre-viewing on the dineLA website!  There are a lot of really amazing-looking restaurants that offer Restuarant Week menus, but so many of those menus feature a choice of chicken (fancified because its 'Jidori' chicken...seriously), beef (usually with some French fancification), or salmon (which isn't fancy but some people think it is).   Knowing that none of these have much chance of impressing me, we decided to avoid the places with "boring" choices, even if they were the big name, fancy restaurants.

Piccolo, located in Venice Beach, immediately caught my attention because their special menu offered FIVE courses instead of the standard three.  Five is more than three...more is better.  Piccolo's got extra credit for the fact that there was NO chicken, beef, or salmon on their Restaurant Week menu.  We generally don't jump for joy over Italian food, mostly because Italian food in America is so often spaghetti with meatballs or lasagna or something else slopped with marinara sauce.  Careful scrutiny of the Piccolo's menu revealed no such marinara nor meatball, and therefore we had our winner!

I had a heck of a time making reservations at Piccolo's, which I later learned is due to the fact that they only have twelve tables in the restaurant.  Cute!  After a bit of restaurant research, I also learned that Piccolo's essentially told the Zagat ratings people to take their guide and shove it you-know-where due to a disagreement over the restaurant's rating (they actually asked to be removed from the guide).  Finally...a restaurant with some personality!!

A trip to Venice is always a bit of an adventure. In the past, I'd only been through Venice on a bike in daylight, when the crowd is a bit weird.  This time, it was night and I was in heels and the crowd was weirder...and had a bonfire.  Piccolo's is on the corner right by the main Venice Beach walkway, so the weird street crowd certainly adds to the experience.  It's a tiny place, but absolutely adoreable inside.  They have an open air kitchen, authenic Italian decor, and a narrow curvy staircase that I wish I had climbed to find out what's at the top.  This is a perfect date restaurant, in my opinion, because there's just enough hustle and bustle that you have to lean in just a bit to talk to the person across the table (and nothing is over-garlic-ed to make that problemmatic).

Wine should accompany Italian food, so we picked out a half-bottle even though it's not included in the special set-price menu (that's where they get you!).  The waiter recommended something non-Californian (Italian...duh), so naturally I had no idea what it was, but it was absolutely delicious (and non-headache forming, for me at least).   In an effort to slow the wine's effects (or at least that was my excuse),  I dove straight into the basket of fresh bread.  Breads actually...there were different types: a classic and beautifully baked Italian bread, and some tiny knots of cheese-flavored bread that were absolutely heavenly.   I did not ask for more bread to avoid embarrassment, but looking back, I'm certain it would have been worth every bit of the embarrassment to eat a basketful of the delicious knots of cheese bread...perhaps then I wouldn't continue to dream about them...

For our first courses, we chose a duck prosciutto with a gorgonzola "drizzle" and a watercress salad with pine nuts, fresh shaved parmesan, and hearts of palm.  Both dishes were incredible.  I've never had anything with gorgonzola that wasn't completely overpowered by gorgonzola flavor, but they somehow manage to let the prosciutto shine with the surpisingly subtle gorgonzola flavor in the drizzle.  The watercress salad is light and fresh, but bold with delicious flavor and texture from the perfectly complementing ingredients.

Next to the table were seared scallops with a truffle shaving over parmesan fondue, and seared ricotta with wild mushrooms and pancetta.  Nothing else I can say will make your mouth water any more than it already is, and it should be.  My only complaint here is that I wished I had more, but with three other courses on their way, I was better off without more.

In true Italian form, our pasta was served separately from the "main course."   Pumpkin garganelli with porcini mushrooms, leeks, and fresh parmesan.  The pumpkin flavor in the pasta is subtle, but absolutely delicious paired with the creamy leek sauce and earthy porcinis.  Our main course was a baked pheasant breast, rolled in speck (prosciutto-like pig product), and stuffed with truffled-honey roasted pears.   I was actually shocked at how much I liked this given that I generally don't go nuts over fowl.  I'll admit the pheasant itself was a bit dry (typical fowl!), but the speck was crispy and salty and so much more pleasant than the typical bacon-wrapping.  The roasted pear stuffing provided a perfect balance of sweet to accompany the savory meats.

Thank goodness Restaurant Week menus all include dessert...I always want dessert!  I will admit that, although I always enjoy my dessert, I am particularly critical of desserts, and few desserts really shock me.  Piccolo's desserts, however, blew me away: flourless chocolate cake and chocolate-cream pastry puffs.  The flourless chocolate cake is incredibly rich and creamy, but not the typical super-sweet uncomfortable richness so common in chocolate desserts, and the pastry puffs are perfectly light and fluffly, like chocolate flavored clouds.  I used to think it was only in movies and commercials that people closed their eyes when they ate something delicious.  I actually closed my eyes to eat my dessert, and I still don't really understand why, but it was THAT amazing. 

You can keep your Olive Garden and meatballs...I'll take a table at Piccolo's any day!