Hatfield's

I'm making good headway on my lists of "To-Try restaurants." This list is mostly of higher end restaurants, which doesn't mean I only want to eat fancy foods. It's just that these types of places are good to keep in mind in the event of any special occasions that happen to come up. Our outting to this particular place was just that, a celebration for Dumpling Man's graduation from residency and a bon voyage to Portland.

Zhu Zhu told me Hatfield's was sooooooooooooooooooooooooo good, like soooooooooooooooooooooo good. Zhu Zhu has been to many restaurants in LA, so I trust her. It was a rather large group of us: my mom, Dumpling Man and his parents, Triple T and her mom, and RCM. We tried to have an earlier dinner, so that Triple T could get her mom to the airport in time to catch her flight to the great country known as Canada! We got there around 6:15 and it was rather empty, but of course come 7-8pm it starts to fill up.

Hatfield's recently moved locations to this newer and larger space. It has this beautiful completely open kitchen. I was quite fascinated at how clean and orderly the whole place was. It didn't really seem like a restaurant kitchen, but maybe more like a test kitchen? There just didn't seem to be a lot of "cooking" going on. I guess I imagined things to be more on a large scale. Like giant pots of things, or large open flames, or multiple ovens with things being put in and pulled out. If you paid attention more closely you could see people working with small pots and saute pans on the stove. Maybe this is just how high end restaurant kitchens operate.



The amuse bouche was a salmon tartar served on a cabbage slaw. It was just OK I think. I'm not a big fan of slaws that much.

After reading a lot of the Yelp reviews, it seemed imperative we try the Croque Madame, their signature dish. It was not part of the seasonal pre fixe we went with, but I figured it was a good idea everyone order it in addition. Unfortunately given our later than planned start to dinner, our waiter did not think the kitchen could get 8 orders of the Croque out in time, so he instead suggested 4 orders to split. The waiter was a wise man. This dish was heavenly!! The brioche bread was perfectly crisped and buttery. The yellowtail sashimi was slightly warmed through from all the other accoutrements which I didn't like so much but I'm sure was what they were aiming for. The prosciutto added a great saltiness to the dish. The sauce served as a great binder for all the flavors. The sunny side up egg contributed more richness which probably was unnecessary but I think thats what makes it a croque madame. All in all, it really was as fabulous as everyone said it would be.

For the remainder of our meal, the majority of us went with the $59 Seasonal Pre Fixe which consisted of any combination of 3 courses plus our choice of dessert. Between me and Dumpling Man, we tried all possible courses.

I started off with the Monterey Bay Squid Salad served with sauteed blue lake and yellow wax beans, ginger chermoula. The dish had good flavor, I suppose from the chermoula although I don't remember much ginger going on. The BIG downside, the beans for overcooked! A place like this overcooking something as simple as green beans? Tsk Tsk. Also the squid was tender, maybe too tender? Overall the dish was lacking any punchy texture.

Marinated Yellowfin Tuna served with mint, watercress, Urfa Bieber creme fraiche. I had only a few bites, but this was a far superior 1st course than the latter. The tuna was fresh and the flavors were clean and simple. I don't remember much to the yellow stuff on the plate although I'm sure it went well with the dish.


Charred Octopus served caramelized fennel, saffron vanilla braied palm of hearts, red wine olive puree. I do like octopus, but theres always the fear you might end up with something chewy and tough. This was at the other extreme. I dunno what they did to that octopus but it was like super duper soft, unpleasantly so. I enjoy the bit of chew to octopus, but this was so soft, bordering on mushy, I had to remind myself what I was eating. If I ignored the lack of texture, I could really enjoy the taste of the octopus which was really enhanced with the char. The palm of hearts had this odd flavor which was probably the vanilla, and it didn't fit in with the rest of the dish. As for the puree? I dislike olives for the most part.

Santa Barbara Black Cod "En Croute" served with oven dried tomato, kalamata, roasted eggplant puree. The fish was well cooked, moist, and light on flavor. Another puree missed the mark again. At this point my brother was beginning the place liked to serve baby food.


Pan Roasted Wagyu Flat Iron Steak with yukon gold potato puree, herbed fava beans, maitake mushrooms. One of the more solid dishes of the night. The meat was perfectly cooked, tender, flavorful. And the baby food on this plate was actually tastey and complimentary. How can you go wrong with mushrooms too?


Mama Dumpling Man did not go with the pre fixe because she can only eat chicken and cooked fish. So she got the Pan Roasted Alaskan Halibut with herbed asparagus, hom shimeji mushrooms, pickled scallion vinaigrette. Another solid, well cooked fish. Don't think I'm much a fan of fava beans, but they went well with the dish.



Braised Pork Belly with carrot vadovan puree, caramelized corn and barley, sweet and sour onions. The pork belly was pretty tender, but the skin lacked any sort of crisp to it. The puree actually did have a baby food taste to it because it was so carroty and sweet. I didn't like the barley either. And the sweet and sour onions? I thought it was sauerkrat! The dish wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. My brother got the same dish but was sitting in a different part of the table and his picture came out way better than mine.



Ahh, dessert! One of the best parts of dinner. Because of our late start, half the party had leave to go to the airport before dessert was served. Boy did they miss out! Dessert was just amazing. Papa Dumpling Man was in heaven. I never seen him smile so much.

Cinnamon Swirl Brioche Pudding with pear confit and maple syrup ice cream. This was probably the most special dessert. The bread pudding was served warm, it was moist with light cinnamon flavor. I also loved the ice cream. All ice creams served in these fancy restaurants have such interesting flavors and always taste so rich, creamy, and smooth, not anything you could get in your grocery store aisle.



Hot Chocolate Souffle Tartlet with chicory chocolate chip ice cream. This dish was good, but nothing special. Just a good chocolatey cake.

Some sort of lemon tart. If you like lemon things, this tarts for you. It had a sweet but wonderful tartness. The ice cream really complemented it well.


Sugar & Spice Beignets with Venezuelan chocolate fondue, preserved ginger milkshake. These were so nice and crispy (maybe a bit too crispy?) on the outside yet still pillowy on the inside. The chocolate fondue made a nice dipping sauce, but it was the milkshake that was the most special. Papa Dumpling Man looooved it. He was drinking it up with a big smile on his face. Ginger in sweet things is a more common thing I'm coming across these days. I think it really works.


Banana Cream Daquoise with pecan toffee, bitter chocolate sorbet. I don't like bananas thaaat much so I didn't actually taste this dessert, but my mom didn't think it was so good.



Tangerine Semifreddo Bombe with honey nougat glace, fresh citrus compote. I just had a bit of this and it just tasted like orange ice cream, haha. Nobody seemed that impressed.


We parked on the street, but some parked in the valet lot. I thought this was great.

I doubt they would ever take more than 2 minutes to get your car considering its just behind the restaurant, but its nice they put it out there.

Overall, the Croque Madam and desserts really won me over and I would definitely come back just because of them. In retrospect, it would seem I thought the majority of the dishes were just OK if not total misses. This is true, but for some reason I really enjoyed myself here. Our server was friendly and accomodating, better than our server at Grace who didn't even attempt to engage. The ambiance was very comfortable. If I come back I'll try to avoid dishes with any purees and I'll send back any dishes that have overcooked beans.



Hatfield's
6703 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90038
(323) 935-2977

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Mama's Lu Dumplings (That's NOT a Typo!)

We are always in search of new dumpling places. I stumbled across this place on yelp a while ago, but there weren't that many ratings at that time so I was not willing to take a risk on a potentially crappy restaurant. Since then, this place has amassed a good following for being good and cheap. I think when the place first opened up they had some crazy deal for the XLB, maybe buy one get one free or something? Triple T and RCM went and they weren't that impressed, but Dumpling Man and I decided to give it a try.

The place is pretty typical of a fobby restaurant, shoddy service and dingy conditions, but tastey and cheap food. All the portions were pretty great! Plenty of leftovers to take home. We coulda gone with 3 dishes instead of 4 and been completely satisfied, but we over did it.

The shanghai rice cakes were my kinda rice cakes. They were disappointingly pale, but had great flavor mostly because of the fabulous "wok hei" taste. Dumpling Man very much dislikes anything that has that "wok hei" taste. Sometimes I wonder if Dumpling Man really is Chinese at all. Aside from the taste, it had a nice plentitude of veggies, mmmmmm!


I dunno why we ordered this. I like this dish at Dumpling 10053, but I agree it is quite heavy and too much for only 2 people to eat. This dish was certainly subpar, and a waste of space. First you gotta start out with a great onion pancake which this certainly was not. It was just greasy and soft. We had a lot leftover of this one.


I love snow pea leaves stir fried with garlic. I mean LOVE LOVE LOVE. Once upon a time I tried buying and making it myself. I learned that the quality of snow pea leaves sold in the market is not the same sold in the restaurants, which makes sense since whenever you order this in the restaurant its freaking in the double digit range! Who charges double digits for a mound of greens??? Sometimes it can be more expensive than the protein! Anyways, its usually worth it because the vegetables are so tender and really pick up flavoring nicely without becoming mush piles. Anyways, when I tried making it at home I realized that you end up throwing a lot of it away because part of the snow pea leaf is very tough and should not be cooked. It was a tiring effort that I decided not to undertake ever again. This dish at Mama's Lu was maybe about $6-$7? I was shocked, but I could tell there was a difference in the quality. It wasn't as tender as the kind sold for like $14-$16, but I really enjoyed it anyways. You just can't get snow pea leaves outside of a Chinese restaurant.



I forget what was in these dumplings. They weren't that special. I'll give anything to know what Luscious Dumplings puts in their dumplings cuz no other place compares. Most places serve dumplings that you probably coule make at home. Dumpling Man is not impressed with home made tasting dumplings. Unlike most people, he does not want to feel like his grandma made the dumplings.



Lastly, the XLB! These were pretty tastey in a homey way. Nothing like the DTF xiao long bao, but flavorful without tasting like there's MSG in them like the XLB @ Mei Long Village. They had a good amount of soup in them and decent crabbiness. Skin was a bit thick, but I sorta prefer my dumplings that way. Not the most impressive XLB, but certainly meets my minimal standards and certainly worth eating since its so darn cheap.


All in all, I would certainly come back here. I dunno if I can convince Dumpling Man to come back though! I think the total bill came out to $25 including tip ?? Pretty good if you ask me!


Mama's Lu Dumplings
153 E Garvey Ave
Monterey Park, CA 91755
(626) 307-5700




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Eating My Way Through Memorial Day Weekend

The H.o.P. strikes again! We did what we do best, EAT! Here's the quick rundown:

Holiday weekend plans in my house always seem to revolve around food, especially when my sister is running the show =)

On the way to running some errands, we stopped by a papuseria, or maybe it was just an El Salvadorian restaurant in Costa Mesa or Newport Beach that served papusas. First time I've eaten a papusa, but according to wikipedia:

"A papusa is a traditional Salvadoran dish made of thick, hand-made corn tortilla (made using masa de maíz, a maize flour dough used in Latin American cuisine) that is filled with a blend of the following: cheese (queso) (usually a soft cheese called Quesillo found in all Central America), cooked pork meat ground to a paste consistency (called chicharrón, not to be confused with fried pork rind which is also known as chicharrón in some other countries), squash (ayote), or (pataste), refried beans (frijoles refritos), or queso con loroco (loroco is a vine flower bud from Central America)."

It was definitely not a light eat, but it was served with slightly pickled cabbage slaw that really took the edge off the heaviness. We got 3 varieties, queso, chicharron, and shrimp. The shrimps were so punny, you could barely taste them. Really, they all sorta tasted similar. Not something I'd seek out but interesting to try for the first time.




We headed over to Mitsuwa for their 2010 Umaimono Gourment Food Fair. Apparently Ippudo Ramen were one of the many vendors in attendance. New Yorkers stand in line for hours to have a bowl of this famous ramen. Why it is so famous? I don't really know. What was so special about it? I don't really know. Was it really as good as the hype? Certainly not! It was tasty I suppose, but I like my Santouka ramen easily over this bowl. Especially since I don't have to stand in a huge line, not just waiting to get a bit to eat, but also to find a place to sit! Man was Mitsuwa teaming with foodies. People were stalking near empty tables in hopes of snagging some food court real estate. I think my brother actually got in a little confrontation with some lady who came out of nowhere and took the table he'd been waiting for.




Anyways, on to the food. The ramen was definitely flavorful having that richness from stewing pork bones for hours, but nothing out of this world. Maybe New Yorkers have lower standards when it comes to ramen? I don't think they have Shinsengumi or Santouka out there. Maybe if they did, Ippudo wouldn't be all that.




The fair also had various sorts of fish and squid cakes, as patties and on sticks. I don't know why, but I love all sorts of mystery meat concoctions. Fish balls, shrimp balls, sausage, hot dogs, meatballs. You make it, I'll eat it! I won't say that all the fish and/or squid cakes were that good, but I happily devoured them.





My brother and Triple T had already tried the takoyaki balls at another Mitsuwa and said they weren't that good. Despite that, the H.o.P. had to try it.


These guys were so cute, posing in the picture, when really all I wanted was pics of them making the takoyaki. Poor guy got his head cut off =(


I guess a major complaint was that the balls are just mush pills slathered in sauce. I would agree. The chunk of octopus in the middle was mostly flavorless, but at least it wasn't chewy. This was my first time having takoyaki that I could remember so I guess I don't have a basis for comparison. I would still be up to trying takoyaki in the future.

So after we were stuffed silly we proceeded to do some light shopping in the Mitsuwa market and found some interesting creations.

Who would eat that?!?! A croquette is already fried, and now you go wrap it in bread and slather it in mayo?? Not as bad as a deep fried Twinkie but I think it belongs in that food category of totally unhealthy and unnecessary!


To continue our Japanese food festival, we went to this place in Costa Mesa called Kappo Sui. My brother heard of it from his very Japanese friend. This place is so Japanese that they have an English menu and a Japanese menu with entirely different items. We tried to order a bit of everything from both menus. I apologize at my poor descriptions because I don't even know what I was eating half the time. The waitress would try to translate items off the Japanese menu and as long as the main ingredient didn't sound like something awful or weird we were willing to try it.

We started off with a refreshing octopus salad. It was probably one of my favorite dishes of the night being citrusy with tasty pieces of octopus.



Of course we had to get aegdashi tofu. I guess there was something different with this one cuz there was all this extra junk on top. I'm not quite sure what all that white mush was but it was sorta slimey like maybe they took a grated daikon and added something to it to make it so slippery. It was a good aegadashi tofu but not the best. The best aegedashi has this gelatinous batter on the outside. So strange but soo good.


The sushi was pretty standard. Good quality. Can't remember much more than that. I don't think the place is necessarily special for sushi as it is for all the small dishes.




A delicious croquette!


Miso cod.


Amberjack. Fishier than I would have preferred, but with a nice grilled smokey taste.


Chawanmushi. Did I spell that right? An egg tofu custard. Freaking HOT as hell, kept burning my lips and mouth trying to get some. It had this wonderfully silky smooth quality about it. Also a flavorful dashi broth surrounding it.



This was a surprising favorite. Amberjack cheek, which I had never had before. I'm not sure what the pickled thing on top was, but it had a refreshing citrusy taste, that complemented the taste of the raw fish very well.


We weren't sure what sort of noodles were. It sounded something like Inanie? Inaninani? It was served ice cold with a dipping sauce on the side. Sorta like how soba is served, but the side sauce was different and the texture of these noodles was much more on the al dente side. We also ordered these noodle hot like udon. It was also very enjoyable and so clean tasting.



This was probably one of the more expensive dishes of the night. Grilled prawns. Oddly enough the tastiest part was the head, which I usually avoid. Sucking brains out of poor sea animals is not so enjoyable to me. In fact most of the time its the nastiest tasting part, but for some reason, these suckers had good brains, hahaha. The body of the shrimp was overcooked and mushy, what a shame! I wanna say 2 shrimps costs $18? I could only guess at what the japanese menu was advertising.



All in all, I felt like I was a real Japanese person after eating here! It also helped being surrounded by buncha Japanese Japanese people, haha. Oddly though the crowd was either Japanese Japanese or totally American, ordering chicken teriyaki and sushi. It would be nicer if the restaurant made the place more welcoming to foreigners instead of having a totally non English menu that hides away all the good more authentic things. I'd definitely come back again, maybe with a Japanese speaking person in tow to avoid the whole awkwardness.


Kappo Sui
20070 Santa Ana Ave.
Costa Mesa, CA 92707
(714) 429-0141






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JiRaffe

So to celebrate my birthday which was well-forgotten by the majority of my family, especially my mom who didn't even remember to call me the day after like my brother and sister-in-law, but like a whopping 2 or 3 weeks later! Safe to say I was annoyed and unreceptive to her apologies. Anyways, my brother wanted to take me out, but I had to share my celebration with Mother's Day. Boohoo I said, but I did want to try out a restaurant off my "to-try list" which includes Osteria Mozza, Hatfields, The Bazaar, Melisse, and Jiraffe. My brother had already tried Melisse and was not that impressed and Osteria and Bazaar were booked, so Jiraffe it was.



The restaurant is located in Santa Monica, very close to 3rd street. It's two stories which is interesting with a very relaxed decor. It doesn't have that poshy weho or BH air, but still feels clean and nice. The menu was pretty straight forward, no tasting menus which disappointed me. I love tasting menus so I can get a variety of dishes to try from. They did have a pre-fixe menu which didn't appear all that exciting.

Amuse bouche - some chilled bell pepper soup
It tasted like bell peppers but not in an enhancing way. It did not excite my mouth.


For my starter...
Sautéed Wild Pacific Shrimp - baby arugula, white beans, shaved fennel, and lemon vinaigrette


I apologize for the blurry pic, but I was still trying to fiddle with the camera...unsuccessfully obviously =( Anyways, this was probably the most delicious dish of the night. I am a HUGE fan of shrimp and these shrimp were PERFECTLY cooked, sweet, and tender. The little salad of arugula, white beans, and shaved fennel was a great accompaniment. The sweet savoriness of the shrimp was well complimented by the tang and crunch of the salad.


Unfortunately I cannot remember what this dish was =( It was given to us by mistake tho, and the waiter kindly let us have the dish on the house while we waited for the dish we actually ordered. I remember that white blob in the middle was burrata and it had such a smooth delicious creaminess which I've come to enjoy in this cheese now.




Purple Peruvian Gnocchi with rock shrimp, pearl onions, Mandarin tomato concassé, and herb-infused tomato nage

This what we actually ordered and it was soo good! The gnocchi were pillowy and soft and the cream sauce was not super heavy and the shrimp, well you know me and shrimp! All in all, light, creamy, flavorful!




On to the main courses!
Prime Caramelized Pork Chop served with long grain wild rice, smoked bacon, spiced apple chutney, and aged cider sauce





This This was definitely a reinvention of a classic american dish...i think. What do I know of classic american fare? Not like I ate that growing up! But I here about pork chops and apple sauce or apple something and I imagine this was supposed to be a take on that. The pork chops were so tender and juicy. I was not a fan of the wild rice as it usually is all hard and "full of texture." I like my rice white and texturely homongenous. Overall, a solid entree.


New Zealand Lamb Rack served with yellowfin potato samosas, vegetable moussaka, and thyme-scented lamb jus

Some people don't like lamb because of its gamey-ness, that particular "lamb" smell. I like that lamb taste. Lamb is also something special since I don't cook it at all because of its priceyness over beef, chicken, and pork and because I'm not too familiar on how to prepare it. So when I get the opportunity to go out, I'll usually order lamb over the more mundane beef and certainly over chicken. As you can see, the lamb was cooked perfectly medium rare and didn't have too much fat on it. The side dishes had much to be desired. The vegetable moussaka was made of eggplants and squashes I think. It wasn't that good. And the potato samosa was like mashed potatoes rolled like egg rolls. They were a better accompaniment, but not all that impressive.

Some halibut dish? Part of the special pre fixe menu for that evening. It was very moist, maybe too moist. I think it was undercooked in the center and my mom requested it be sent back to finish cooking. They graciously took it back, no questions ask. I forget if they gave us something on the house for such an egregious error.


We definitely went overboard with the dessert. Triple T (Terror from Toronto & Taiwan) and my mom ordered the pre fixe menu which came with a pretty simple but solid rasberry tart. I wanted something more decadent of course.


So I ordered Brioche Bread Pudding with chocolate chips, cranberries and homemade white chocolate ice cream. It wasn't that impressive and frankly not that memorable.


Dumpling Man did not want bread pudding, so being the Dumpling Man he had to order some version of a molten lava cake. Behold! Chocolate Truffle Cake with tahitian vanilla bean ice cream and chocolate, raspberry sauce. Tasted pretty standard, and not that memorable.



Triple T and RCM (Root Canal Man) had to have the Duo of Crème Brulee tahitian vanilla and manjari chocolate served with fresh baked cookies of the day. It wasn't the best creme brulee in my opinion. Not smooth enough, but it did have the perfect brulee, crispy and caramelized.



So although my reviews on the dessert seemed lackluster, I found the desserts pretty standard, neither bad nor out of this world but definitely a good way to end dinner.


As you can see the portions at JiRaffe are sizable, the quality is seasonable and fresh, and the taste is solid. I highly recommend this place for a nice occasion, especially if you hate small portions and feeling like you need to hit up the Kogi Taco Truck after dinner to fill up your still empty stomaches.

JiRaffe

502 Santa Monica Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90401
http://www.jirafferestaurant.com/





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Messob

Long ago, someone amongst my foodie friends decided "Let's eat Ethiopian food!" The excitement soon simmered into a hot mess of complaints and excuses ranging from "That lemony bread is kinda weird" to "I don't feel like having GERD tonight" to "I don't like eating with my hands" to "I want something soupy instead" to "Let's wait until [insert any friends name who happens to be busy or out of town] comes back." But FINALLY we went! At the recommendation of an Ethiopian friend, we traveled a whole 5 minutes over to Fairfax where Little Ethiopia makes its home to try a place called Messob. Now, I find myself quite conversant in the cultural diversity of food, but when it came to ordering off Messob's menu I was like "jigga wat?!" Luckily the waiter recommended The Super Messob Exclusive which included:
-Doro Wot
-Siga Wot
-Yebeg Siga Alitcha
-Yater Alitcha
-Kitffo
-Tibs
-Yatakilt Alitcha
-Alitcha
-Yemisir Wot
-Collard Greens

Don't ask me what any of that means. I cut and pasted it from the website menu! We also ordered another meat dish on top of all that for fear our tummies would revolt in dissatisfactory hunger.

For 4 adults with large appetites, this was plenty.



I don't know which mush pile was which dish, but they all sorta blended together with no dish really standing apart as far as flavor profiles were concerned. I was glad there was some salad on that plate as it served as a good palate cleanser for all the spicier foods.



BEHOLD! Sour bread!!!!


It wasn't as sour as I had anticipated. It went well with the food, and I think it served as a main ingredient in some of the dishes in the combo plate. The downside was the gritty sandy texture left on our hands after touching the bread. I was working really hard to avoid touching any of the food so my hands would stay as clean as possible, but alas, the bread won me a trip to el bano to wash my hands.

I enjoyed my first Ethiopian food experience. I think the other members of my party were also satisfied but we all agreed that Ethiopian would not be a food we would likely crave anytime soon. None of us can really explain why, as the food was delicious!


Messob
1041 S Fairfax Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90019
(323) 938-8827
http://www.messob.com/




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