L.A.
Complimentary 冬至晚餐 @ CUT with Complimentary Dessert
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MB Post revisit
Christmas is almost here, and its about time to have a Christmas dinner with friends before baby Aiden is born. Last year, we went to the CUT at Beverly Hills with Benny & Janice; this time we took a longer commute, revisiting the MB Post.
n/naka
After a whole day of drama —a roller coaster ride filled with mood swings, I was able to get my hand on the newly released silver GX1 at Samy’s Camera during their No Tax special promotion. As mentioned in the previous post, Samy’s computer system does not show any GX1 in stock at all. But in reality, they do have a few of them hiding in the back. It actually took the sales person 10 mins to look for it. While I was waiting for him to bring out my GX1, there were two more customers asking for the same GX1 but both were told there’re no stock. SPECIAL thanks to Benny & Emily who helped ask the sales person to put one on hold for me earlier in the afternoon.
I believe this would be a perfect camera for shooting photos and videos of little Aiden, the much faster AF and better ISO performance would definitely have the advantage over the aging GF2, although their dimensions are very similar. Most of the pictures below are taken by the GX1 without much tweaking needed to the settings. Anyhow, it was about dinner time after picking up the camera and tonight I’m meeting with Benny & Emily for dinner at n/naka before “they” pick up Janice from LAX.
n/naka is known for its interpretation of kaiseki dining; with only 3 different omakase menus to choose from, its not hard to pick which one we want because the third one is a vegetarian menu. 
It took me a while to look for the n/naka as there is no sign outside the restaurant.
Emily & Benny arrived just after me. They’re on a “mission” tonight. (GF2 @ ISO1600)
Full house tonight, we were lucky to secure a table by reserving just 2 days ahead.
n/naka is a small restaurant, with about only 20 seats available.
Huge wine cellar.
Tsujita LA Artisan Noodle
Tsujita LA is a brand new Japanese cuisine opened just about a month ago. This tiny restaurant located at the heart of Sawtelle has plenty of street parking available within walking distance, but can only seat 30 guests. This place was highly recommended by our foodie buddy(Toorima.com) and since it serves both raw and cooked dishes; it served a duo purpose for my cravings and my wife’s needs.
Don’t let the name fool you, Tsujita does not serves ramen at night.
A bowl of charcoal greets you upon arrival.
The ceiling was designed by Takeshi Sano, using 25,000+ drum stick shape like wooden sticks to create the cloud image.
A very unique design chopsticks pocket, which can be use as chopsticks stand as well.
ink.
Tonight, we finally get a chance to try the Michael Voltaggio’s ink, one of the most highly anticipated new restaurant around town this year. Ink was just opened a little more than a month ago, with reservation ALWAYS fully booked a month in advance.
Note: Ink only opens up its reservation web site 30 days in advance at 4am everyday and all tables usually booked by sunrise. Michael Voltaggio is the winner of Top Chef – Season Six. He was once the executive chef of The Dining Room at The Langham Hotel, Pasadena; where he scored them a Michelin star during his vacancy.
After a few tries without securing a table, Benny told me this:
So, on the following weekend, I woke up at 4:01am and made the rsvp.
A month later, here we are at ink.
We were very early, and they had us waiting at the bar while getting the table ready.
ToORiMa’s cocktail with a big ice cube.
Scotch: lemon, ginger, clover honey, angostura bitters
This is my cocktail: Bourbon (pineapple, anise), well, its not the most amazing cocktail I ever had, and could had been better if it served chill cold.
Cookbook available too.
There’re still a lot of empty tables, 630 is too early for a lot of folks.
Flatwares sitting on top of a piece of marble.
brussels sprouts, pig ears, house-cured lardo, apple. I always love brussels sprouts, but not Amy, it may be too oily for her. She end up not feeling too good and didn’t eat much during dinner. BTW, the pig ears was very crispy, but missing the surprise factor.
charred avocado, hen of the woods, whipped fish sauce, mushroom chicharron. I didn’t really try this dish, although the rest of them said this was pretty good.
ToORiMa: this is shaving cream.
After the first two not-so-special dishes, the dishes upcoming had a lot more surprises for us.
bigeye tuna, parsnip-sesame cream, grapefruit, soy gel. We were guessing the soy gel is the oyster sauce. This dish was a little too salty, although the ingredients goes very well together.
kale, burrata, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin preserves, yuzu. This will open up your appetite, very tasty salad.
One of the two surprisingly good dishes of the night. Beef tartare, horseradish, hearts of palm, sea bean chimichurri.
The tartare goes so well with the horseradish powder and giving a very unique refreshing taste, so mouthwatering.
spaghetti, giant squid, squash, hazelnut-ink pesto, piment despelette. I’m not a big fan of squid ink pasta, this is just ok to me.
skate wing, red pepper dashi, shishito peppers, kelp pasta, fennel. This is the stingray filet, pan seared. The fish was so juicy and tender. We all agree this is much better than the sea bass (see below).
lamb neck, chickpea poutine, yogurt curds, chive puree. Braised lamb neck paired with the yogurt curds, made me feel like curry with lamb. This is another surprise dish we like so much.
sea bass, cream of dehydrated potato, black olive oil, lemon, caper. I felt a little disappointed. The sea bass was a little too dry, definitely over cooked.
berkshire pork, charcoal crust, macaroni and cheese, leeks. The pork was cooked to medium, but it still no where close to what we had at CUT. Although the charcoal crust gave it an interesting taste and the leeks’ root seems to be ToORiMa’s favorite, he finished big chunk of it.
butternut squash risotto, chicken wings, egg yolk, toasted wild rice, aromatic broth. The risotto rice was just ok, but the chicken wings was excellent. I can taste the freshness of the chicken, it doesn’t taste like one of those months long frozen chicken.
veal cheek, red curry, nante carrots baked in salt, fried and sticky rice. The veal cheek was very tender and almost melt in my mouth, however, the carrots was so salty i spit it out right away. Although ToORiMa say its not salty at all, I think he got a much higher salty tolerance than me. =D
wagyu hanger steak, turnips, coffee=cardamom soil, mustard, vadouvan. The steak was cooked to medium rare but still a little too chewy to my standard.
apple, crème caramel, burnt wood sabayon, walnut. A special treat for Amy as she didn’t have much of appetite for the whole night.
Someone is going crazy, probably in food coma?
Yay, we both got a new hair cut today. =)
