The Bazaar, Los Angeles

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you're well rested and ready for 2011. I'm not much of a New Year's resolution type person because any day is a great day to make changes in your life, so why wait until New Year's right? Buttt, if I really had to make New Year's resolution, it would be to take life one day at a time, don't sweat the small stuff. Everything will work out for the best! It always does.

I'm gonna start the New Year with a post from one of my favorite cities to visit, L.A! I love L.A. partly because it is so over the top, but mainly because I can always count on my cousin H to show me a great time.

On my last visit, we met up at The Bazaar in Beverly Hills for dinner. We got reservations to eat at the bar, and had an awesome and exciting meal full of ooh's and ahh's as each dish came out.
José Andrés is the man behind The Bazaar, and is known for bringing the small plates concept to the US. In addition to his endless awards, he also trained at El Bulli early on in his career.

The food at The Bazaar is a combination of both traditional and avant garde Spanish tapas.
Our exciting meal began with a "Salt Air" Margarita, a traditional margarita with salt foam. It was good but a little on the strong side. Their cocktails may seem expensive at first glance but you're paying for the alcohol and the creativity that goes along with it.

"Salt Air" Margarita

My favorite dish of the night was the “Philly cheesesteak”, air bread filled with gooey cheddar, and topped with thin slices of Wagyu beef. Not only was it delicious, but it was fun to eat too.

“Philly Cheesesteak”

My second favorite dish of the night was the Organized Caesar with quail egg and shredded Parmesan. It doesn't look like a Caesar salad and you don't eat it like one, but it tasted exactly like one! Each roll was wrapped with a thin slice of jicama.

Organized Caesar

The Japanese taco was grilled eel, shiso, wasabi, chicharron, with a cucumber taco shell.

Japanese Taco

The embutidos platter was a combination of chorizo, lomo, salchichon. My favorite was the lomo, shaved pork tenderloin.

Embutidos Platter

The fermin platter consisted of Jamón Serrano Fermin (dry cured ham), Jamón Ibérico Fermin (dry cured, free-range Ibérico ham), and Jamón Ibérico de bellota Fermin (the finest free-range Ibérico ham, acorn-fed). There were slight differences in textures between each ham, and no doubt, Jamón Ibérico de bellota was the best.

Fermin Platter

The two meat platters were served with a Catalan style toasted bread with tomato.

Catalan Style Toasted Bread with Tomato

The papas canarias is another dish I recommend. Salty potatoes served with mojo verdé. The potatoes were boiled in sea salt water, and the sauce had a fresh cilantro taste.

Papas Canarias

"The ultimate Spanish tapa!" is a traditional Spanish potato salad (ensaladilla rusa) with potatoes, carrots, mayo, and tuna belly. I'm not a huge mayo fan so it wasn't quite the ultimate tapa for me.

"The Ultimate Spanish Tapa!"

The Ottoman carrot fritters were awesome! They were served with apricots, and a pistachio sauce.

Ottoman Carrot Fritters

The croquetas de pollo (chicken and bechamel fritters) tasted kinda like chicken pot pie in fritter form.

Croquetas de Pollo

The great thing about sitting at the bar is that you get to see what goes on behind the scenes. At one point in the night, a lady was making liquid olives as we all watched with amazement. Noticing us, she asked if we wanted to try some. YEAAAA, of course we want some! :)

The liquid olives were AMAZING. They burst apart the moment it enters the mouth, resulting in a rush of fresh olive puree. I could sit there and eat a big plate of these if I could.

Liquid Olives

At this point, I was insanely full, and didn't get to enjoy the watermelon tomato skewers the way I wanted to. The skewers were served with Pedro Ximénez reduction and lemon dressing.

Watermelon Tomato Skewers

The last dish was the tortilla de patatas "new way". Slow cooked egg at 63C, potato foam and caramelized onions served in a real egg shell.

Tortilla de Patatas "New Way"

After dinner, we were moved to The Patisserie for dessert. It was a cute little area, but it was isolated from the rest of the restaurant and we found the service rather slow.

H had the creamy chocolate heart with coffee and cardamom. It was good but it didn't wow us like the tapas dishes did.

Creamy Chocolate Heart

I had the Greek yogurt panna cotta with apricots and muscat gelatin. Their desserts are good but if you're not a huge dessert person, I would skip it and stick to the tapas.

Greek Yogurt Panna Cotta

There were other dishes that I wanted to try like the fois gras cotton candy but I was way too stuffed. Check out this blog post by blogger Caroline on Crack for some other cool dishes.

The Bazaar (SLS Hotel)
465 South La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, California, USA
Telephone: 310-246-5555

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Omnivore's Ottawa Supper Club at Atelier, Ottawa

Before I dive into my San Diego posts, I wanted to post my dinner from Atelier before too much time passes.

Ron Eade and Mike McCracken hosted the first Omnivore’s Ottawa Supper Club last week, and I was glad to be a part of it. Aside from bringing food aficionados together, the Supper Club was also created to help support outstanding restaurants in the city on a somewhat slow evening of the week.

Atelier was chosen as the first venue for OO’s Supper Club, and I was happy to return to see how the menu had evolved since the last time I was there.

For those who already know Atelier, skip on to the next paragraph. For those of you who don’t, Atelier is a forward-thinking restaurant, strictly offering a 12 course meal that puts a twist to everyday meals. The menu is regularly $75, but if you can organize a big enough group, a small discount is available. For OO’s Supper Club, dinner was $87 plus tip and a glass of wine.

If you’re ready, here comes the 12-course meal that took just over 4 hours to complete:

To start, we had the delicious BBQ bread. Atelier likes to offer their bread in chip flavors, and they have even served pickle bread in the past. I would have loved to try that one.

BBQ Bread

Next was the creamsicle, a cinnamon based creamsicle with orange and apricot fruit dots, toasted almonds, and curry leaf. This was excellent, and the different flavors blended really well together.

Creamsicle

The second course was the soft shell oyster. This was a BC Marine Gold oyster served on top of an edible celery salt oyster shell. This was served with clamato jelly, and whipped celery juice with a celery leaf. It was like an edible Caesar drink.

Soft Shell Oyster

Next was the caesar salad. This dish was a play on textures, and it also incorporated their famous test tube spoon. The green salad was frozen romaine lettuce juice, and the toppings that normally go on top of a salad such as dressing and bacon bits were in solid form inside the test tube. This was definitely a unique dish, but I found it far too bitter for my tastes.

Caesar Salad

Dressing on Top of Caesar Salad

The fourth course was the scallop. The scallop was pan seared, and then faux grill marks were placed on top of the scallop using dehydrated jalapeno powder. This was served with a citrus salsa, black olive paste, lemon balm sour cream, orange + blood orange cells, and thin slices of popcorn cumin corn chips.

The scallop was delicious, the jalapeno faux grill marks were genius, and the cumin corn chips were really neat. A tid bit of info: Atelier sources all of their seafood from Whalesbone.

Scallop

The tuna dish was lightly seared Albacore tuna with Atelier’s own lovely Tagoroshi spice blend. This was served with a lime, ginger + radish gel, green beans, dried nori (seaweed), cucumber salsa, cucumber jelly, toasted brazil nuts, fleur de sel, and pickled ginger. The tuna was amazing, and it was one of my favorites of the evening.

Tuna

The next dish was a play on Mike’s Hard Lemonade. It was a smoking frozen lemonade cloud, served on top of a lemon vodka granita and vodka jelly. On the side was lemon powder and lemon gel.

Mike's Hard Lemonade

The texture of the frozen lemonade cloud was like a hard meringue brittle. I love anything sour, so this was a great palate cleanser for me.

Mike's Hard Lemonade

The sixth course was mashed Yukon Gold potato served with black truffle, a caramelized onion punch card, and a piece of unpasteurized Quebec Sauvagine cheese melted on top. Sprinkled around the dish was elk kielbasa powder. I had something similar the last time, but I think I liked it even better this time around. The cheese was to die for.

Potato

Ok, so I have a confession to make. The above potato dish was not mine. I got so excited when my mashed potatoes came out, I forgot all about picture taking, and dove right into it. When I realized that I had forgotten to take a photo, I begged Ron Eade to take a picture of his. Luckily, he was talking so much, he hadn't started on his dish yet.

This is what my photo would have looked like had Ron not generously lent me his plate for a photo:

Potato

Next was duck confit paired with sunchoke puree, goat cheese gnocchi, and sautéed fig. This was a very lovely dish, and the gnocchi was made well.

Duck

The eighth course was named pork. This was pork tenderloin cooked sous-vide. It was served with a mustard plum sauce, butterscotch gel (with real Scotch in it), green apple puree, lemon thyme, dehydrated white onion, parmesan cheese, and parmesan foam. All of the different tastes went well with the pork, but I never thought to eat butterscotch together with mustard plum sauce.

Pork

The bison was another course cooked sous-vide. It was lightly pan seared, and served with asparagus, a sweet potato mash, cooked beet marinated in vinegar, mushroom, spruce tip aioli, and a spruce tip au naturel. The beet juice was splattered on the plate for an artistic effect.

This dish was served with a torched rosemary plant for aroma.

Bison

Right before dessert, smoking “anti-napkins” came out for a cool cleanse. These nitro-napkins were dipped in liquid nitrogen, which caused it to smoke. The sensation didn’t last long, but they were super cool.

The first dessert was called Jamaican Me Crazy. As usual, Chef Michael Holland came up with extremely fun and creative desserts that surprised everyone. This was rum soaked chocolate cake served with coconut meringue, all-spice pie dough, banana pudding paper, dehydrated mango, passion fruit + pineapple gel, AND the best part of the dessert, JERK SPICE ICE CREAM. I loved loved loved the ice cream, and like anything jerk, it had an intense kick of flavor.

Jamaican Me Crazy

The second dessert was called breakfast. This was a really fun dish, and I was smiling the whole time I was eating this. You had all the breakfast essentials: bacon 'n eggs, cereal, and pancakes. The bacon was in ice cream form, and the egg part was an egg sabayon. The pancakes and syrup were served in the reverse. It was maple syrup pancakes with a pancake sauce and flap jack croutons. The cereal was a cocoa butter sphere covered with crushed Corn Flakes, and filled with a vanilla milk center. Dotted all around the plate were orange and coffee dots. This dish is brilliant once you get it.

Breakfast

To finish off the meal, we were served bite sized ice cream sandwiches. This was a lime sandwich with Corona ice cream.

Ice Cream Sandwiches

It was another outstanding and exciting meal at Atelier. Although there were a few dishes that were similar to my last experience, they changed it enough to keep things interesting.
Check out my past meal at Atelier here.

Atelier
540 Rochester Street
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Telephone: 613-321-3537

Sample Menu

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FoodMODE at Ottawa Home Show

I found out that FoodMODE magazine was hosting a series of kitchen demos at the Ottawa Home Show, so I decided to go check it out today. I was not disappointed, and was actually surprised at how well organized things were.

The FoodMODE kitchen demos helped folks gear up for the summer time by creating presentations with a BBQ and grilling theme. Each demo consisted of a chef/local farm pair, so that you could eat good food and be educated on why eating local is better, all at the same time.

Today's line up was a great one. It was:

- Ron Eade of the Ottawa Citizen and Omnivore's Ottawa blog teamed with Keith Salisbury from Natural Lamb Farms cooking gourmet lamb burgers, and
- Marc Lepine of Atelier Restaurant paired with Aartje den Boer of The Pickle Patch cooking kurobuta pork belly (photo of Marc and Aartje below).

I didn't get to Ron's demo early enough to snag a front row seat for photo opps, but believe me when I tell you that his lamb burgers were amazing. They were very moist and lean, but more importantly, the burgers didn't have that overpowering lamb flavor you normally get when eating lamb dishes. The burgers were served with crostini, aioli, and a balsamic syrup reduction. The Katahdin lambs at Natural Lambs Farm are grass fed, and have a lower cholesterel content compared to domestic or New Zealand lambs.

Marc Lepine was up after Ron Eade, and he made a sous-vide kurobuta pork belly with a black olive caramel sauce, fizzy apple slices, and BBQ bread. The pork belly was first cooked for 18 hours in his kitchen, and then lightly grilled at the show as a finishing touch. His dish also tasted great.

In Marc's presentation, he explained the concept of his "molecular gastronomy" restaurant, and also explained how Atelier is different from others. He brought his sous-vide machine for show and tell, and was truly excited to be educating the audience on the different techniques used at Atelier.

In the photo below, Marc is torching rosemary while explaining how scents can trick your brain into thinking you are tasting something you really aren't.

For those that are not familiar with the term 'kurobuta pork', it is very similar to the idea of Wagyu beef and meat marbling. Aartje revealed that her pigs are fed beer to help with the marbling effect, but it is still too early to see if her technique is working. Either way, I think it is extremely cool that our local farms are employing techniques that I always thought were foreign.

Overall, I really enjoyed myself. The presentations were informative, and I am now inspired to eat more local.

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Atelier, Ottawa

The Ottawa dining scene has come a long way in the last few years. A lot of new quality restaurants have been popping up out of nowhere, and it's great to see Ottawa developing as a dining city.

One restaurant I've been eyeing since its opening back in November was Atelier. Molecular gastronomy is an emerging cuisine, and I must say that Ottawa is blessed to have a great 'molecular gastronomy' restaurant of our own. Marc Lepine and his talented team use cutting-edge techniques to create dishes that you don't see everyday.

Atelier only offers a 12-course tasting menu, and every dish introduces you to new flavors, textures, and ideas. Don't expect anything to be traditional, and be prepared to be stationed for at least 3 hours. If you have an open mind and a sense of culinary adventure, Atelier is well worth your money and time. Their menu changes often, so it's not necessarily a place you would just try once.

Here's a detailed tour of my dinner at Atelier this past weekend.

Our meal started off with BBQ bread served with a marshmallowy-textured butter. The bread was really good, and it tasted like BBQ chips in bread form.

Our first course was the caviar creamsicle. It was a Vodka creamsicle covered with sustainable caviar, and dusted with lime fuzz. The salty and fishy caviar combined with a cold neutral ice cream made for a very interesting dish.

Next came the tuna. Although good in taste, I didn't find it that interesting of a dish. It was Albacore tuna sashimi covered with lime cells (lime frozen, then shattered) served with a sweet watermelon and a mustard sauce. Radishes and water chestnut leaves were used for garnish.

The third course was a play on soup and crackers. The crackers were alternating slices of duck pâté, and honey crisp. A hot cream of cauliflower soup was poured over the crackers, and when the crackers melted, the flavours fused together, creating a wonderful taste. This was one of my favorite dishes. I don't normally care for sweetness in my dinner food, but the honey crisp added a very nice touch to the dish.

The fruit salad was a dish that enhanced both your sense of taste and smell. The spoon had a torched cinnamon stick pinned to it, and it provided a nice scent close to your nose when you ate the spoon sized course. It consisted of a wedge of blood orange, a dehydrated olive, and almond crumbles. This was a neat flavor combination, and the dehydrated olive was tasty and not too overpowering.

The scallop course may have looked plain, but there were a lot of interesting tastes and textures going on. It was a perfectly seared scallop with chive sauce, candied orange peel, Jerusalem artichoke brown butter puree, and a vanilla lemon sponge. The lemon sponge was delicious, and it tasted like candy in sponge form.

Next came the mashed potatoes, another one of my favorites. To set the mood for this dish, a mini torched rosemary tree was brought out for aroma. It smelt lovely, and served as a good conversation piece. The mashed potatoes came with three different garnishes: leek, caramelized onion ribbon, and black truffle. I was most excited for the truffle, but I actually liked the onion ribbon best. This dish was sprinkled with elk kielbasa bits.

The 7th course was a play on gin and juice. It served as a palate cleanser, and was absolutely delicious when mixed together. While each element was very interesting on its own, the ingredients needed to be mixed together for the dish to really come together. It consisted of tonic foam, gin jellies, a thick cranberry sauce, grapefruit cells, and grapefruit sorbet.

The spoon for this dish was multi-functional and the arm of the spoon was a test tube filled with orange juice. The intent was to uncork the spoon, and pour the orange juice into the dish.
Atelier's cutlery changed often throughout the night, and they were just as interesting as the food.

This particular test tube spoon originated from Spain.

Another play on a traditional dish was the butter pheasant. It mimicked Indian butter chicken, and was a curried pheasant served with brussel sprout leaves, persimmon puree, toasted pine nuts, and caramelized turnip. The persimmon purée went extremely well with the pheasant.

Next was the beef carpaccio. On top of the beef carpaccio was an olive oil rock, mustard cream, parmesan foam, shaved parmesan cheese, and dehydrated onion. The olive oil rock was olive oil in powder form. While it was neat to try, I found it a little too big in size, making it too overpowering in this dish.

A huge trend right now is cooking sous vide or "under vacuum". It is a technique developed in the 70's that consists of food being cooked for a long period of time in an air tight plastic bag in low temperatures well below boiling point. We had the sous-vide bison that was cooked rare to medium rare. On the side were dehydrated beets, celeriac puree, blue potato, mushrooms, gooseberry mustard, and some sort of foam that didn't have a lot of taste to it (can't remember the flavor).

The bison was cooked perfectly, and melted in my mouth. This dish was my favorite of the night.

With St. Patty's day coming up, pastry chef Michael Holland created all the desserts with the Irish holiday in mind. A big kudos to him for creating such amazing desserts! Not only were the dishes fun, but they were memorable and delicious.

The first was lucky charms. CK and I laughed so hard when this dish came out because it is his favorite cereal. They don't carry Lucky Charms in Australia, so when he comes home, he loads up on this stuff. It drives me nuts because it is such a sugary cereal and I always bug him to eat a healthier cereal.

This dish was caramelized lucky charms cereal, with a cocoa butter shell filled with vanilla milk.

The dish first comes out dry, and you must break the lucky charm covered shell in order to reveal the sweet milk.

The next dessert was purely a Guinness treat. It was Guiness chocolate cake with Guinness ice cream, and Guinness foam. This was served with pear purée, tissue paper thin pear skin, caramelized pear, chocolate pudding, and cinnamon wafers. The Guinness ice cream was the best part.

The last course was an Irish Elvis truffle: a white chocolate dyed-green truffle with a peanut butter and banana cream filling, and bacon bits sprinkled on top. Both the idea and taste of this truffle was wild, and the salty bacon combined with the sweet filling produced a very exciting taste.

What added to the overall dining experience at Atelier was the surprise element. They prefer that you not look at the menu before your dinner so that you are eating with an open mind. We had no clue what dish was coming next, which made it all the more exciting. No worries about remembering what you ate, you are given an autographed menu at the end of the meal to take home.

We were invited to go back to the kitchen after our meal, and it was great meeting the Chefs and seeing them in action. Marc was a very humble chef, and Sarah and Michael were extremely friendly and were great to talk to. Michael was kind enough to show me a quick demonstration on how to create windy noodle using liquid nitrogen and thick fruit puree.

For anyone with eating restrictions, Atelier is very accommodating, and is vegetarian friendly. They also offer a wine pairing menu that focuses on Ontario wines.

Atelier is honestly a bargain compared to other restaurants of the same caliber. The good news is that I now don't have to kill myself trying to get reservations at restaurants like El Bulli, Alinea, or The Bazaar anymore (and figuring out plans on how the heck I'd get there).

Atelier
540 Rochester Street
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Telephone: 613-321-3537

Sample Menu

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