Figs are in Season

Restaurant: Fig

Location: 101 Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica, Ca 90401. 310-319-3111

Date: January 14, 2011

Cuisine: Farmer’s Market American

Rating: Solid!

 

It’s fairly impressive that the Santa Monica Fairmont invested in getting a REAL chef (Ray Garcia) and turned their in-house restaurant into a place that’s worth going to even if you don’t have any other reason to be in the hotel. I’ve written extensively about all the new LA Farmer’s Market driven restaurants, and this is a place in line with Gjelina (REVIEW 1, REVIEW 2), Rustic Canyon (REVIEW 1, REVIEW 2), or Tavern (REVIEW 1, REVIEW 2). You can’t really go wrong with any of them, although each has its own distinctive personality.

Bread is in the bag. It comes with this arugala butter. Even better than normal butter.

The menu. You can also find it online HERE, but they change it constantly based on the seasonal ingredients. Notice that they even tell you which produce is in season at the bottom.

 

The by the glass wine list.

I wanted something light and got a glass of this Husch Anderson valley Gurtz. It was ok, but reinforced my opinion that old world imitations of German whites don’t really compete.

 

For a fairly casual place, it’s nice to get an amuse. Mandrin orange with micro greens.

“Apple and Butter Lettuce, Pecans, Cabecou, Spring Herbs.”

This was a special. Shrimp ravioli (singular), with ginger, micro salad, and grapefruit. This was really good, but very different. The Ginger/Seafood/Citrus pairing was very nice and light, and went well with my wine.

“Pumpkin Tortellini Blue Hubbard Squash, Sage.” Other than being mysteriously overpriced at $28 this was a very nice dish, and my wife LOVES pumpkin Tortellini. Still, it wasn’t quite as good as the completely classic form from Verona/Mantua with the amaretto cookies and the simple butter and sage sauce.

“Meat Pie, Chanterelles, German Butterballs.” This was the ultimate “shepherd’s pie.”

Inside is braised waygu beef cheeks! Very tasty, rich meaty inside with a fluffy layer of mashers on top. My style of meat and potatoes.

The dessert menu, but we were too full.

The hotel has this very cool tree out front in the valet circle. Parking is free with validation, which is nice given that hotel parking (Peninsula, you know who you are) can sometimes be crazy expensive.

I like fig, and we’ve been 5-6 times. The atmosphere by the pool/garden is very nice too, particularly during the day. But the food is very good, and changes frequently, which I like. They have a lot of meats and cheeses too. Once I ordered the “Foie Gras and Chicken Liver Parfait, Fig Marmalade, Grilled Baguette,” but it was just too fatty EVEN FOR ME!

Bistro LQ – 27 Courses of Trufflumpagus

Restaurant: Bistro LQ [1, 2]

Location: 8009 Beverly Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90048. (323) 951-1088

Date: January 20, 2011

Cuisine: Modern French

Rating: Legendary. Trufflumpagus is still squatting inside my skull.

 

Back in December my Foodie Club friends and I had heard about this crazy “19 course truffle dinner” Bistro LQ was going to offer. It’s done only on Thursdays, and only with advance notice (2+ weeks). So I called up at the end of the year and made a reservation for eight. Filling the spots was rather easy. I’d eaten here before (CLICK HERE FOR THE PREVIOUS REVIEW), but this was going to be different.

It’s worth mentioning too that the service was first rate tonight. On my previous visit it had been a little rough around the edges, but they have it all sharpened up. They were also super welcoming and there was NO CORKAGE for the truffle dinner. I LOVE no corkage.

It ended up being 27 courses, almost 6 hours, and 8 bottles of wine (with 6.5 drinkers!).

Prepared for battle, we sally forth with no less than a dozen wines — for eight people!

With this many wines we begin with a white (really it should be 2 or 3). I literally ran across Chateauneuf du Pape to pick up two extra bottles of this fantastic blanc. Parker gives it a 95. “The 2007 Chateauneuf du Pape blanc is even better. Meriting the same rating as I gave it last year, it is a delicious, beautifully textured, light gold-colored white revealing plenty of white peach, apricot, nectarine, and honeysuckle notes as well as a distinctive florality and minerality. More honeyed and fuller-bodied than its 2008 counterpart, it should drink beautifully for 7-8 years, then go into an oxidative state. It is somewhat of a gamble as to what will happen thereafter. Beaucastel’s limited production luxury cuvee first produced in 1986 is their 100% Roussanne Vieilles Vignes offering. Fifty percent is barrel-fermented in one-year-old barrels, but no new oak is utilized.”

Amuses to begin. Oxtail with caramelized onions and… you guessed it… truffle.

“Amuse of Kushii oyster poached in truffle butter.” This tasted like… well a good oyster with shaved truffle on it.

“Cucumber ice cream with truffles and apple balsamic vinegar gel.” Now here we get interesting. This was surprisingly yummy.  Who would have thought, cucumber ice cream and truffles. But the sweetness and cool notes of the cucumber blended nicely with the early shroom.

 

Burghound gives this 93/100. Notes of strawberry. Very nice effort. Those of my fellow diners who haven’t had good pinot noir had their usual response: Wow, this is a really good wine!

“Cold poached quail eggs mold in pork aspic with sunchoke and fresh truffles. Terrine of fois gras.” I think I prefer my fois warm. Cold like this it did have a nutty quality, but it’s also a bit like a slab of fat.  Wait… it is. The egg I liked, as I’m a sucker for runny yolk.

“Celery-root, goat cheese, and yellow beets.”

“Panacotta infused with truffle and tonka bean in a sea urchin emulsion.” Wow! This dish was amazing. The Panacotta had a perfect creaminess, almost like Burrata (MORE ON THAT HERE). The Uni sauce was perfect, sweet and without a hint of fishiness, and the generous shaved truffles packed a punch.

 

Now the “light” reds. Parker gives this Burgundy 96. “Fashioned from a parcel located in the heart of its grand cru (mostly from 25-year old vines though Raphet asserts that “there are still some very old ones”), the 2003 Charmes-Chambertin Cuvee Unique explodes with red fruit aromas. Sappy, bursting with red cherries, this is a sensual wine made for hedonists. Medium to full-bodied, deep, and concentrated, it has serious depth of fruit, loads of smile-inducing spices and an exceptionally long, supple finish filled with superbly ripened tannin. Drink it over the next 11-14 years (incidentally, I served the 1996 at this year’s International Pinot Noir Celebration’s salmon bake in Oregon and it was terrific, wowing all who drank it.)”

“Venison tartar with truffle, celery root truffle remoulade and a hint of yuzu.” Good stuff here too, particularly the venison. This had been my favorite dish the previous time I was here, but then it was larger and with quail egg instead of truffle. I liked the egg actually, but this was still good.

Wine Spectator gave this wine the #11 slot for 2009 and 96 points. “Dried dark fruit on the nose, verging on date and prune. Full-bodied, with a dense palate of ripe fruit and supersilky tannins. This is a deep and beautiful red, delivering lots of subtle character. Fascinating. One of the undiscovered treasures of the vintage. Best after 2011. 2,000 cases made.”

“Scottish hare truffle consommé soup with hare filet, hare blood cubes and hare shu-mai.” Very interesting soup (broth added below). The hare was very gamey, and there were the sausage cubes. Blood sausage.

And with the consume added. The broth was very good, and there was some huge amount of truffle here. I don’t mind gamey — at this certainly was. It reminded me a bit of some of the rustic sausages I’d get in the Spanish countryside, the ones that instantly teleport you to the pig sty with each bite. Here it was the hutch instead.

“Truffle tapioca pudding with langoustines in a truffle crust.” Also a very nice dish. Very interesting texture to the tapioca. It was hard to get all the elements together in one bite.

My faithful readers will easily recognize the Beaucastel. The 1998 gets 95 points. “This wine performed even better than my high accolades in issue #131 suggested. The 1998 Chateauneuf du Pape is the greatest effort produced since Beaucastel’s 1989 and 1990. It reveals more accessibility, no doubt because the final blend included more Grenache than normal. Its dense purple color is followed by sweet aromas of blackberries, licorice, new saddle leather, and earth. There is superb concentration, full body, low acidity, and high tannin, but it is surprisingly drinkable for such a young Beaucastel. Ideally, it needs another 3-4 years of cellaring, and should keep for 25-30 years.”

“Scallop, truffles and leeks, in butter sauce.” The scallop was cooked perfectly (not over or under done). The sauce was pretty much to die for. We didn’t have any bread (I think if we had, it would have killed us), but I nearly licked the plate.

“Poached egg, truffles and leeks, in butter sauce.” The same prep but with a poached egg for a member of our party that doesn’t eat scallops.

Back to the classics. 1990 was a fantastic vintage in Paulillac. “Even though this is usually a delicately-styled Pauillac, the 1990 appears to be less well-endowed than some of the other recent top vintages of Pichon-Lalande, such as 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, and 1989. It displays medium dark ruby color, an attractive bouquet of vanillin from new oak, ripe blackcurrants, and spices. It is not as concentrated as I would have hoped, but it does exhibit good body, glycerin, and ripeness, as well as an overall sense of beauty and grace. While stylish, it could have benefitted from more length and intensity. Anticipated maturity: 1995-2008.”

“Chili rellenos with sepia, truffle mole.” This was kinda spicy. The mole was awesome though, and the relleno itself… well fried, which went well together. Somehow there was sepia (cuttlefish) in here. I didn’t really notice.

“Mushroom and cream soup, with truffles.” More shrooms!

“Miso soup, poached sea scallops and foie gras with truffles.” Here was my warm fois.

With the soup. The broth was somewhere between a miso soup and a consume, which was better than a straight traditional miso would have been.

“Oxtail and truffle sopes.” Wow again! Like amazing BBQ beef, and the bit of sopa and generous truffle didn’t hurt. The sauce was a bit spicy sweet, certainly a Central American kinda taste.

 

A massive monster from Sardinia, the Parker 94 point, “2005 Shardana is an awesome Carignano endowed with exuberant dark fruit, smoke, licorice, sage, rosemary and tar. This is a fairly big, masculine wine with great intensity, depth and roundness. It needs another year or two in bottle for the tannins to settle down. The Shardana is formidable, though, and a terrific choice for hearty cuisines. Anticipated maturity: 2011-2021.”

“Roasted beef loin with truffle.” Meat. Truffle.

“Beef bone marrow and truffle tartine with huckleberries.” This was also amazing, the “meat” just disolved in the mouth. Great feel and incredible richness.

“Pork loin with truffle.” It seems ALL the meats are included

“Wood pigeon, figs and truffle ragu with corn.” Also nice, I liked the corn, and the pigeon was nicely tender and pink. Not nearly as gamey as the crazy (but good) Scottish Woodcock (SEE HERE).

“Veal sweetbreads and sautéed duck foie gras soft taco with chanterelles.” I’m not normally a huge sweetbread fan. I mean the idea of eating baby cow brain is a bit off-putting, but this was an incredibly tasty dish. Spicy, sweet, very interesting textures. I hadn’t expected the Latin influences in this meal, but I really enjoyed them.

“Simple frisee salad with truffles.” This was just what we needed at this point. It was very light and citrusy. I enjoyed the crisp sting of the raddichio.

 

Parker gives Bordeaux 94 points. “Only the fourth vintage for proprietors Francoise and Alain Raynaud, this wine comes from an old vineyard (the vines are among the oldest in St.-Emilion) within the city of Libourne. A cutting edge vinification with cold maceration and aging sur lie, stirring of lees, and an obvious respect for the terroir and the goal of capturing the essence of a vineyard have all been lofty goals of the Raynauds. The powerful, multi-layered 2000 should rival 1998 as the finest Quinault produced. It boasts an opaque purple color as well as a gorgeous concoction of crushed blackberries, blueberries, and black currants intermixed with violets, licorice, and subtle smoky oak. It cuts a broad swath across the palate with an expansive chewiness in addition to terrific concentration, purity, and overall equilibrium. In spite of that, it is remarkably light on its feet. It is hard to find fault with this wine, making the cascade of local criticism of Raynaud all the more difficult to comprehend. Anticipated maturity: 2006-2018.”

Lots of condiments for the cheese! Walnut and hazelnut, Roasted Cumin Seeds, Canneberges Chutney with Cloves and Walnuts, Apple Gellee, Huckleberries Gellee, Bell pepper Mustard, Tomatillo and Figues Compote, Pumpkin Ginger Truffle honey, Homemade Green Ketchup.

The honey, cumin, and nuts were on a separate plate.

The “less gooey” plate.

And the “more gooey.” I was getting way too drunk at this point to write down the cheese varieties.

“truffle mousse served with truffle madeleine.” You wouldn’t have thought it’d work, but it did. I really enjoyed the mouse. Still, at this point I probably could have used some very powerful NON TRUFFLE desserts to prevent what’s happening now — truffle burps, 12 hours later.

 

“pear gratin with truffles and caramel.” This was also good, and the truffle was understated. The texture was really nice and soft, the carmel/pear combo great as one would expect.

“truffle financier and warm cotton candy syrup.” This was mild and truffley. I didn’t really need more truffley.

“chocolate crosmesquis with orange flower scented truffle cream.” But this was pretty awesome.

It exploded into chocolatey goodness.

“Petite Fours.” I tried two of the macaroons, they were pretty damn good.

Our wine lineup all together, so you can appreciate how bad my hangover is.

Overall this dinner surpassed purple epic and went straight to legendary orange (3lite geek cred to anyone who knows what this means!). Most of the dishes were great, and a few stunning. We had a great time — and the last hour was a real blur. But I’m not exactly feeling my best this morning.

For another Bistro LQ meal, click here.

Or for other Foodie Club meals, click here.

 

Book Review: Girl Walking Backwards

Title: Girl Walking Backwards

Author: Bett Williams

Genre: Lesbian cuming of age YA

Read: Jan 10-15, 2011

Summary: Less than Zero meets Rubyfruit Jungle.

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This book is rather brilliant, but isn’t for everybody. In my review of Lost It (CLICK HERE), I had inquired if anyone knew any YA that was racy, and this was recommended. It’s written in a breezy first-person past with a kind of stream-of-consciousness lightweight quality that made me have to look to make sure it wasn’t persent tense. The prose is very very good — fitting the material perfectly.

Skye is a fifteen-year-old growing up in Santa Barbara, and she’s basically raising herself. Her mother is a self-help seminar junkie and all-around new age psychotic, her dad (divorced) lives in LA where he directs films and has sex with pretty production assistants. Neither seem to think about her at all. She has a boy friend, sort of, but wants a girlfriend. She drinks and does drugs, but she isn’t a bad girl.

Somehow this character rang very true for me, and the voice is intensely personal and likable. Even the hare-brained situations seem very real, and like Less than Zero the substance abuse and self destructive behavior believable. The voice effortlessly shifts with the state of mind — often altered — and does a first class job conveying that. For some, this might be a hard book to read, particularly if one were right-wing, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Bret Easton Ellis‘s above mentioned masterpiece feels like watching a train wreck. While Girl Walking Backwards doesn’t have the terrifying “all rashed and looks dry and I can see that it’s been shaved” moment, and is ultimately transcendant.

Finally, his is a book that is very candid about sexuality.

Not only do we have various incidents of masturbation, near sex, and actual sex, but they aren’t even the focus. This isn’t gratuitous, it’s just frank. This isn’t about a girl becoming a lesbian, or coming out. It’s about a girl trying to find her footing in a world without foundations.

Gjelina Scores Again

Restaurant: Gjelina [1, 2, 3]

Location: 1429 Abbot Kinney Blvd, CA 90291. (310) 250-1429

Date: Jan 11, 2011

Cuisine: New Californian

Rating: Perfect lunch!

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My brother and I love Gjelina’s for lunch. Nowhere else in LA is the casual New American done so right. This is my second review, you can find the first here.

Today’s menu. It changes up constantly, although there are similar themes.

They always have Burrata, which my loyal readers know I just adore (CLICK HERE for my home version).  This is “Burrata with Salted Anchovy, Pepperonata & Mint Pesto on Toasts.” Interesting. This has a vague resemblance to the classic Spanish dish done so well at Botin in Madrid (CLICK HERE to see). The anchovies were the salted kind, although good ones. I would have preferred the fresher Spanish fish, but it was still a soft and tasty dish.

“Wood Roasted Cauliflower with Garlic, Parsley & Chili.” We always get this here, as it’s one of the best Cauliflower dishes I’ve had. Sour, tangy, and a tiny bit spicy.

This was a new pizza I hadn’t tried before. “Duck Sausage, Black Trumpet Mushroom, Garlic, and Mozzarella.” Good, but not as good as their “Lamb Sausage, Confit Tomato, Rapini, Pecorino & Asiago.” Or perhaps I’ve just become jaded by Ultimate Pizza.

Pizza at Gjelina’s always comes with the red pepper, parmesan, and oregano. A sort of high class variant of what you’d have on the table at a New York or Jersey pizza joint.

“Niman Ranch Lamb Burger with Harissa Aioli, Roasted Tomato & Arugula,” is usually on the menu, and for a reason. Not only are the seasoned fries great (particularly with the aioli and the harissa), but the burger is totally succulent lamb city.

Close up of that pink!

And the best thing at Gjelina: “Butterscotch Pot de Crème with Salted Caramel & Crème Fraiche.” This is an absolutely perfect desert to my taste. Rich creamy butterscotch creme, carmel, and a bit of salt.

No disappointments here.

If you liked this New American, click for reviews of similar places: Rustic Canyon (REVIEW 1, REVIEW 2), Tavern (REVIEW 1, REVIEW 2), or coming soon, Fig.

TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 4

CONTINUED FROM PART 3 ABOVE. And the whole series [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS:

 

Season 5:

Season 5 and 6 pretty much tie for the best of the seven! Pretty incredible how this show just keeps on getting better and better until the final season. With this season everything slips into a serious groove, but what’s really surprising is the depth of emotion pulled out of the viewers. Nearly gone are the episodic “one off” episodes (discussed in my Lost vs The Love Boat post), instead the story just rolls from one episode to the next with only a few exceptions.

The first episode (“Buffy vs. Dracula“)  is light, but it ends with a shocker, one that is reinforced in episode 2 (“Real Me“). Suddenly, and without explanation only-child Buffy has a little sister named Dawn. What casually might seem like a gimmick to spread the show demographic younger in fact becomes completely central to the season’s plot and deepens the character interactions immensely, particularly for Buffy. The season’s “big bad,” Glory — my second favorite after the Mayor — is a Hell God in need of a magical key to break open the barriers between dimensions. Some crazy monks rebuild the entire reality of the world to hide the key as Buffy’s sister, having altered all reality and history such that she existed all along. Pure genius.

What this really does is turn Buffy’s nice little dyad with her mother into a full-fledged family, upping the personal stakes immensely. And it isn’t all supernatural. Joyce (Buffy’s mom) develops a brain tumor in a long and very emotional arc that ties in brilliantly with the family aspect and with Dawn’s growing understanding of her esoteric nature. This comes to a series of shattering culminations in “Blood Ties” and “The Body.” This last episode is probably the best of the entire series, or at least tied with “Once More with Feeling,” and is a stunning piece of television. Written and Directed by Joss (as most of the great episodes are), it is a tour de force of film making. Free of music, almost free of the supernatural, but jammed packed with horror, reality, and emotion, this is a seriously tear inducing hour. And it includes network television’s first on-screen lesbian kiss!

Wisely after the disruptions in some of the formulas from the first three seasons that college (season 4) brought on, season 5 brings the gang into a stable new orbit. Giles has purchased the Magic Shoppe and this replaces the library as the central hub. Xander and Giles are back in full orbit, and Anya, Tara, and Dawn integrated into the team. But it’s Spike, and his new every episode role and gradual character transformation that really livens things up. In an amusing, poignant, and brilliant turn he falls for Buffy (hopelessly — at least for now) and she literally ends up making him a better man. But this doesn’t stop him from still being sordid, hilariously. “Fool for Love” in particular is a brilliant episode in which Buffy forces spike to recount the story of his creation (by Drusilla) and his killing of two other slayers. Plus the Buffybot is pure genius, and real Buffy’s turn playing the bot to get the truth from Spike truly touching.

There are some serious themes of loss and alienation going on here, growing and growing as we head toward the dark territory that is season 6 — Love it! The weight of the world, the family crises, and the burden of protecting Dawn, take their toll on Buffy. This comes to the world shattering conclusion in the finale, Joss’s brilliant “The Gift,” which even on the third viewing had me crying. Seriously, this show is that good!

As the poignant music surges, and Buffy runs from Dawn to dawn across the platform — Death is your gift!

Quick Eats: Brentwood

Restaurant: Brentwood

Location: 148 S Barrington Ave Los Angeles CA 90049. 310-476-3511

Date: Jan 9, 2011

Cuisine: American

 

Brentwood is a local bar/restaurant perfect for the Sunday night with-the-kid dinner. It’s pretty straight up American, very tasty, but a bit overpriced. The menu can be found here.

Their bread is good. I (and my two year-old) particularly liked the flat cracker-like bread.

“Tomato & Farmer’s Market Vegetable Salad.”

“Swan Depot Seafood Salad, jumbo shrimp, baby Maine shrimp, Dungeness crab,iceberg lettuce, 1000 island dressing, fresh dill.” This is essentially a crab and shrimp Louis salad. The seafood is very fresh, the dressing good, so if you are partial to Louis (and I am), then that’s all a good thing.

“Fish & Chips, beer battered Alaskan halibut, fries, tartar sauce.” While overpriced, this is a very good fish and chips. The fish is very most and well cooked, the batter perfect, the fries crisp, and the tartar sauce very tangy.

“Short Rib Tacos, vegetable rice, black beans.” Interesting hybrid dish. Fresh corn tortillas, and soft rich short rib.

Paired with beans, creme fraiche, and pico de gallo. I had them cook the pico down because of my raw tomato hate. It tasted like oniony tomato soup.

Combined in the taco it was pretty delectable, mostly because of the rich tasty short rib. Perhaps a little avocado or cilantro might have made this perfect.

The small little bar. Not pictured here is that I had a nice “2006 Sancerre, Rolland Tissier et Fils.” A very crisp white, perfect with the salad. Not absolutely ideal for the short ribs, but it worked well enough.

This is a good little place, and the service is very accommodating. Despite the high price tag the kitchen has a “knack,” so I approve.

Food as Art: La Terraza

Restaurant: La Terraza

Location: Madrid Spain

Date: June 29, 2010

Cuisine: Molecular Spanish Gastronomy

Rating: Fantastic!

 

We spent the month of June in Spain and this included a legion of fantastic meals. Recently I covered a traditional Spanish place (REVIEW HERE), but La Terraza is radical modern Molecular Gastronomy, similar to the stellar Calima (REVIEW HERE), or LA’s — believe it or not — more restrained Bazaar (REVIEW HERE). Modern Spanish was reinvented at El Bulli in the Northeast corner of Spain. As we weren’t exactly in the vicinity, and didn’t have the impossible to get reservation, we had to make due with La Terraza whose chef, Paco Roncero, cooked at El Bulli for years. In fact, there is still some form of association.

A special cart prepares signature liquid nitrogen cocktails.

“Passion, mint, and coffee, nitro.” The frozen drink is shoved back into the passionfruit. The combo sounds weird, but it was delicious. I love passionfruit.


The menu. This is the “regular” tasting menu. They also customized a vegetarian and fish version for my wife.

Parker gives this 94. “Clos Mogador is produced by the esteemed Rene Barbier who has hit homeruns in both 2003 and 2004. For starters, the 2003 Clos Mogador, a dark ruby/purple-colored wine, offers an impressive nose of toast and smoke, earth, charcoal, and blue fruits. It is dense, layered, and very concentrated with the structure for 6-8 years of additional bottle age.”

The all white decor was pretty cool — shoved in here in a 19th century casino.

We begin with a whole series of amuses. This is “Olive Oil Butter.” A little crisp is filled with clover.

Then the butter is squeezed out of the little tube and then enjoyed.

“Polenta crisps.” A little like corn puffs.

“Popcorn nutty cake” and “Meringued Peanut.”  The cake had a texture like dust, but it tasted like popcorn! The peanut tasted like peanut butter, but the texture was… well… meringue.

“Cut of Parmesan.” The outside was light and crunchy, the center had texture like ice cream, but the flavor of Parmesan. Fun and delicious. As you can tell from  these playful amuses, a common characteristic of this cuisine is the playful interplay of unexpected textures and flavors.

“Cod Kokotxas in pil-pil.”

“Liquid ham croquet.” The ham and cheese croquet is a classic Spanish dish. This deconstructed version is a ham and cheese sphere with bready crumbles. The cheese popped in the mouth.

This is one of vegetarian substitutions. “Deconstructed Waldorf Salad.”

Check out the insides.

“Scallops, beetroot, and yogurt.” The beet is in sorbet form.

“Salmon marinated in miso with cucumber, pineapple, and fennel salad.” This has a relationship perhaps to the Nobu “miso marinated cod.”

One of the special substitutions, a fish with mushrooms.

“Oyster tartar.” Raw marinated oyster bits with a little pile of foam.”

The substitution. A bit of fish with a vegetable risotto.

“Extruded fois gras ‘noodles’ with green apple sorbet.” As fois gras is typically served with apples this is a rather unusual variant. The fois seems to have been deep frozen with nitro and extruded into little noodle like shapes. Fois is always tasty.

“Pesto Gnocchis and baby squids.” Very interesting mix of textures and flavors.

Afterward, it resembles modern art.

“Asparagus tips, almond soup, crayfish, and summer truffle.”

The almond soup. The soup is traditional. You can see the white asparagus tips. This was a really nice dish.

“Grouper with green bean cream.”

A different fish with cucumber “noodles.”

“Waygu with Iberian pork ravioli.” Rich and meaty!

“Violet, ‘madrorflo,’ strawberries and aniseed.” The red dust like stuff was like frozen sweet strawberry dust.

“Olive and citric ravioli with frozen chocolate dust.”

“Liquid bailies bombo.”

“Peach Palet,” “Alter eight tile,” and “Air biscuit.”

Spain won the world cup semi-final and the streets went crazy with honking cars.

How do I get a job designing video games?

If I had a penny for every time I’ve been asked this question…

Game developers have only a few broad types of employees. Excluding administrative ones like office management, HR, and IT, broadly the team has Programmers, Artists, Sound Engineers, Game Designers, and Testers (some also have Producers, but at Naughty Dog we didn’t believe in them, so we distributed their work among the team leads). Of these jobs, only “Game Designer” is “purely creative” per se. Truth is, on a good team all game jobs are creative, but designers are alone in that they don’t have a craftsmany trade.

Except they do, because game design requires a lot of craftsmanship. The trick is, it’s not something you can have learned anywhere else but by making games.

Programers can write some other kind of application and demonstrate their coding skills. Artists can show off awesome models, animation, textures, lighting, sketches etc. Externally, at home or school, an artist can learn to use art tools to build good looking art. It can be seen. He can say, “I modeled all of that in 2 weeks, although my friend did the textures.”

Game designers have to learn on the job. While all good game designers LOVE video games, not all lovers of video games make good game designers. There are different sub-types of designer, and all of them require many specific skills and personality traits. Creativity, organization, obscene work effort, organization, creativity, organization, organization, cleverness, willingness to take a beating, willingness to stand up for and demand what you believe is good, grace to admit when you idea sucked ass.

So how do you learn this stuff? How do you demonstrate it to a prospective employer. Tough.

Some you learn by playing insane amounts of games. Better yet, you make games. But… unlike a programmer or artist, it’s kinda hard for a designer alone to make anything. So you need to hook up with a great artist friend and a great programmer friend and make something cool. There are school programs now for this too, but the projects don’t have the sustained scope, scale, brutality, hideous cruelty, pain, and near death quality that real game development has. No. Not even close, not even a tinsy bit.

An old method was to become a game tester, and hope that the brass would notice your organizational skills, creativity, etc and promote you to a junior designer position. Probably this will sometimes still work. It requires a lot of stamina and a high tolerance for day-old hot wings, dirty bare boy-feet, and stale crispy cremes. But then again, if you can’t stomach that stuff you don’t belong in games.

You could also try and grab some kind of coveted internship and try to prove yourself. Also requires extremely high self motivation. Then again, if you don’t have that than forget trying to be a game designer anyway.

Maybe the bigger companies take junior designers with no experience. At Naughty Dog we never did.

But it’s still possible with an artist friend and a programmer friend to make a cool iPhone / Flash / etc. game. Do it. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. When a couple of them are good, you’ll find a job.

NOTE: I originally posted this on Quora, and if you want to see the whole thread CLICK HERE.

Also, if you want to read more of my posts on Writing/Creating, CLICK HERE.

Quick Eats: La Serenata

Restaurant: La Serenata

Location: 1416 Fourth Street Santa Monica, CA 90401. 310-656-7017

Date: Jan 8, 2011

Cuisine: Mexican

 

When I first started going 15-16 years ago, La Serenata was fairly eye opening — coming as I did from the world of tex-mex=Mexican. LA has so many different kinds of south of the border food. This place has always felt at least a little less Americanized and farther from street food. Plus, it’s right behind the promenade and perfect for a quick “before the movies” bite. The menu can be found here.

Cadillac Margarita, blended, no salt. Pretty good, although not in the same league as the ones I make myself at home. I take my home Margarita’s VERY serious, as seriously as I do my Ultimate Pizza. Any of the legions who have attended my 4th of July parties where I go through 7-10 gallons will attest! When it comes back in season I will blog in detail about my blend.

La Serenata always serves a soup with the meal. They vary by the day, but usually consist of some form of vegetable combined with cream and blended. This is mushroom. I’m partial myself to this kind of soup because cream is well… good.

The chipotle sauce. Can we say blood-red?

A round of the simple cheese only quesadillas. Popular with the two year-old set. And adults.

La Serenata offers several fishes every night, each of which can be paired with an assortment of half a dozen sauces. This is salmon in “La Salsa Serenata,” a cream and mushroom sauce.

Vegetables, beans, and homemade corn tortillas.

“Carne Deshebrada en chile Colorado,” shredded beef in a red chile sauce with onions and potatoes. You’d be hard pressed to find a more American dish — and I don’t mean the USA, I mean the continent. This is tasty stuff tucked into the tortillas.

The place has a festive “fake Mexican village” decor, but the food is very tasty, and doesn’t have that blah feel that too many generic Mexican places have. All very tasty. Plus, once you pound down three Cadilac Margaritas, you’d be hard pressed to tell.

Book Review: The Windup Girl

Title: The Windup Girl

Author: Paolo Baciqalupi

Genre: Sci-Fi

Read: Jan 5-9, 2011

Summary: Interesting Science, mediocre Fiction.

 

This novel won the 2009 Nebula and tied for the 2010 Hugo. It’s set in an approximately 100-200 years-from-now dystopian future Bangkok ravaged by gene engineered diseases. Fossil fuels are nearly exhausted and society eeks by on “megadont” (gene hacked elephant) and human power.

At first I found this intensely gripping, as the depiction of the future world is crystal bright and highly novel. The prose is fantastic, bordering on slightly literary. The problem is that the story has a lot of characters, five or six main points of view, and I found it very hard to care about most of them. I only really liked Emiko, the gene hacked whore/slave looking for a better life. The American gene thief was okay too. The rest of them I could hardly focus on enough to follow their rambling monologues. Once the relative novelty of the world ground down a bit, I just couldn’t keep myself interested in what was happening. There’s plenty of plot, but it’s moderately byzantine, and I just didn’t care.

Because books are all about the characters. Contrast The Windup Girl with something like Song of Ice and Fire (which I need to write up, but is being adapted into an HBO series). The plot and world in that book are intense, but Martin makes you care for all (well most) of the characters. The Windup Girl has a lot of repetitive rantings. The elderly Chinese guy for example goes on for about two pages in his second chapter about his distrust of banks. Sure this was supposed to instill the sense that he no longer trusts any institution (for good reason), but it just felt self indulgent. The seedy scenes with the titular character in sort of future Patpong where cool though, albiet disturbing.

Let me get back to the world, as this is the biggest strength of this book. The author clearly spent some serious time in Bangkok, and the  foreign, yet vaguely possible future was pretty damn good. I don’t really buy the relying on springs for power, and there’s very little impact here of either nanotech or computers, both of which I think will dominate the 21st century. Still, it was pretty cool. There’s a serious element of “environmental preachy” between the lines, which I suspect is a factor in it’s award winning status. Award gives love a leftist cause. Not that I’m not pro-environment, I’m just not a “causist.” The book reminded me of Neuromancer and Diamond Age in that they described really cool and consistant worlds, but had inadequate character development. Diamond Age in particular is pretty darn boring once you get over the world (which is great). Two many characters, no reason to care about them, opaque and weird motives.

Personally, I think authors should focus tighter on character in these “new world” type books. For example, Consider Phlebas worked for me. People bag on it’s story, but at least it focuses fairly well on a particular guy’s adventure, and the world is amazing. There’s only so much you can do in one book, and a totally new world is a lot. Occasionally someone managed both, like one of my all time favorite novels, Hyperion, but brilliant as that is, even it still suffers from switching the POV so often. But boy does he work some serious pathos into a number of them.