SLS Hotel @ Beverly Hills Trilogy, Last Chapter: SAAM

First Chapter:
http://foodmakesmehappy.blogspot.com/2010/07/sls-hotel-beverly-hills-trilogy-first.html

Second Chapter:
http://foodmakesmehappy.blogspot.com/2010/07/sls-hotel-beverly-hills-trilogy-second.html

10 p.m.

12th Course: Japanese Baby Peaches

The little green things are Japanese baby peaches, how cute is that?!
This dish was served with Burrata cheese,
It's a type of fresh Italian cheese,
Imagine the flavor of creamy Mozzarella cheese then you'll get how Burrata tastes like.

13th Course: Hot & Cold Foie Soup with Corn

Cold foam on the top and hot soup on the bottom,
Scoop your bite all the way down to the end and enjoy it all at once,
Nice contrast of flavors, 
The sweetness from the corn also has a strong presence in this dish,
Definitely my top three favorites of the night.

10:30 p.m.

14th Course: Norwegian Cigalas

The little cup in the back contains lobster head broth,
Intense flavor, almost comes with a wee bit bitterness,
Not a big fan of it.

15th Course: Not Your Everyday Caprese

Kind of like regular caprese reconstruction,
SAAM applied the same spherification technique here used for the black olives,
As a result, you get a small liquefied mozzarella cheese ball,
The sensation of cheese burst in your mouth is..."fun!"

16th Course: Kurobuta Pork Belly

Kuro means black, buta means pig/pork.
Served with honey lemon vinaigrette and baby vegetables,
Look at that baby zucchini flower, so adorable.

This dish is good, but I tried pork belly from Bouchon by Thomas Keller before,
His was better.

17th Course: Wagyu Beef Cheeks

The three highest quality beef from Japan are:
Wagyu, Kobe, and Matsusaka.
Wagyu and Kobe are more common in the United States,
I haven't really seen Matsusaka here yet (hopefully we'll get some soon, it's so yummy!).

This dish was served with passion fruit seed and pumpkin seed oil,
On the side, porcini onion and mandarin orange.
Meat itself was awesome, almost melt in your mouth,
Sauce-wise, so so, I couldn't get away with that sticky, oily texture on my tongue.

18th Course: Summer White Truffle Risotto

Extra order of the night since SAAM had white truffles from Italy that night,
Very "truffle-y" with al dente risotto.

11:30 p.m.

19th Course: Philly Cheesesteak

Served by a small bronze monkey.

The bread itself is very thin, with gooey cheese in the center,
Philly cheesesteak reinterpretation.

20th Course: Dragon's Breath Popcorn

Fun, fun, fun dish!
The waiter tossed the popcorn into nitrogen liquid,
Moments after, we were asked to chew it with our mouths closed immediately,
A mirror was also provided so we can have a good look of ourselves,
But why "dragon's breath?"

I think you get the idea here.

21st Course: Rose Clementine

Served with rose water foam,
Absolutely loved that foam.
I recalled that the "American Beauty" from Extraordinary Dessert in San Diego was one of my favorite drinks, and it was made with rose water also,
I think I'm just in love with rose water, such elegant aroma.

12...midnight

22nd Course: Lychee and Coffee

Coffee jelly on the bottom with lychee crumble and white chocolate.

23rd Course: Sexy Little Sweets

Little sweets infused with Saffron, passion fruits...
Up to this point, it was way passed midnight,
My stomach was full so pardon me,
I didn't even try all the bonbons from this plate...
This might be my first time say...too much sweet stuff...

My long 4 hours journey at SAAM came to an end,
And that doesn't include the time passed at Bar Centro before our dinner reservation,
Wanna try another 20-something courses tasting menu?
Nah...at least not within the next 6 months.

Cindy's Rating: 7

SAAM @ SLS Hotel
465 South La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90048
http://www.slshotels.com/
http://www.sbe.com/sls/bazaar/

SLS Hotel @ Beverly Hills Trilogy, Second Chapter: SAAM

First Chapter:
http://foodmakesmehappy.blogspot.com/2010/07/sls-hotel-beverly-hills-trilogy-first.html

8:30 p.m.

From Bar Centro to SAAM,
Our dining experience has finally begun.

It surely is an "intimate" room,
Only 7 or 8 smaller tables with our larger, longer table in the middle.

This post gonna contains a lot, A LOT of pictures,
To make the story short,
The tasting menu comes with 22 courses created by Chef Jose Andres,
SAAM happened to have white truffles that day,
So our menu became 22 "+1" courses.

8:45 p.m.

I pushed the wine pairing away and embraced my champagne instead.

1st Course: The Golden Boy (in the making)

Final product -

Alcohol first. Yes, just make us drunk before serving the dishes.
Pardon my tiny knowledge regarding alcoholic beverages,
Little is known regarding the first course (maybe that one drink at Bar Centro already knocked me out (> _.<)" )
The drink was infused with lemon, and some gold dust sprinkled on top,
Tastes kind of salty. Yes, that's my only input for the 1st course.

2nd Course: Lotus Root Chip

Thinly sliced lotus root, deep fried, and sprinkled with star anise powder.
Very good with or without alcohol,
Never realized star anise powder can be used this way.

3rd Course: Olive Oil Bonbon

Some interesting techniques were used for this course,
The Spanish extra virgin olive oil was reserved in a sugar/sea salt casing,
Simply grab the tip with your hand and savor the combination of all these ingredients.
Hmm..too bad I'm not a big fan of olive oil tasting..

4th Course: Bagel & Lox Steam Bun

Cheese in the center,
Salmon roe and fresh dill on top of the steam bun,
Not bad, but I think the uni bun from Bar Centro has better taste and texture.

5th Course: Tuna Handroll 2009

Wonder if they have a 2010 version of this dish..
The handroll was wrapped in super thin filo, admire the skills used.
By the way, don't be fooled by the picture,
One roll is about half the size of my pinky finger.

9:30 p.m.

6th Course: Black Olives Ferran Adria

One uncommon technique was used here called spherification,
To make it sounds easier,
You take the liquid-form ingredient and drip it into calcium chloride solution,
The end result is sphere-like droplets with semi-solidified casing and liquid center.
Fun!

7th Course: Jose's Combination

Ham from Spain, paired with caviar.
I totally screwed up this course,
Was supposed to "gently" roll the ham towards myself and eat the whole thing together,
Somehow my clumsy fingers made a mess and all the caviars were scattered throughout my plate...
It was good though.

8th Course: Buffalo Wing

The wing was deboned and marinated prior cooking,
Blue cheese and celery were also used for this dish.

9th Course: Crispy Nigiri

Yellow jack served on rice crisp. So so.

10th Course: Chipirones en su Tinta

Comes with flavored squid ink sauce and some kind of Japanese veggies (black stuff).
Asian readers,
Don't you think that black thing looks kind of like 豬血糕??

11th Course: Linguini and Clams

Linguini was made with dashi broth in a gelatin form,
Served with yuzu vinaigrette and black garlic,
Talking about black garlic, not sure what kind they used in SAAM,
But the black garlic back in Asia was more like fermented garlic.
*This dish was very good.

10 p.m.

(Champagne in front of candle light)
I still had more than half of the champagne left,
Taking it slow....just like our long lasting meal...2 hours already...

To be continued...

SAAM @ SLS Hotel
465 South La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90048
http://www.slshotels.com/
http://www.sbe.com/sls/bazaar/ 

SLS Hotel @ Beverly Hills Trilogy, First Chapter: Bar Centro

Last night was the beginning of my interesting food journey at the SLS Hotel,
Started out with a few bites and drinks at Bar Centro,
Then changed venue to SAAM, the intimate chef's tasting room,
Well well, that was a "journey" indeed,
Our dining experience went from 7 p.m. till after midnight,
You see why I had to made my blog entries "trilogy" style?

SLS stands for Something Lovely's Started,
It's one of the luxury collections managed by the renowned Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide.
Besides standard extravagance hotel services, SLS also offers exquisite food and beverage venues such as:
The Bazaar (Chef Jose Andres's creation in a lounge-like environment)
Bar Centro (cocktails and mostly Spanish influenced food)
Rojo y Blanca (tapas)
Patisserie at SLS (sweets!)
SAAM (Chef Jose Andres' prix fixe menu)

6:45 p.m. @ Bar Centro

The entire space (including SAAM) was born under the creative eyes of Philippe Starck and Moss (Murray Moss, Franklin Getchell),
Unique details can be found not only in large piece furniture, but also various small objects such as menu and candle holders.

Feasting our eyes with SLS' amazing interior design and furniture selections weren't enough,
It was 7 p.m. and our dinner reservation at SAAM was at 8:15 p.m.,
Our stomachs were rumbling,
To make our time go by faster, a few drinks and tapas will do the trick.

7 p.m.

Pardon my blurry pictures, everything happened too fast.
Our waitress brought over this cotton candy drink - magic mojito,
Well, she actually brought over a glass of cotton candy and the alcohol part on the side,
As she quickly (really quickly that I wasn't fully prepared to take pictures) poured the mojito over the candy, my drink was completed, in a blink.

It's not as sourish as regular mojito,
Yet it comes with a slightly burned cotton candy aroma,
Very good, delicious for both the eyes and the taste buds.

My friend's monkey drink (beg for forgiveness again, what is thy name!?)

The waitress noticed we had 3 gigantic cameras sitting around,
Nice of her, she specially pointed out the monkey face so we can take pictures before the drink gets devoured.

7:30 p.m.

Drinking alcohol with empty stomach is not recommended,
So two orders of small bar food were sent to us,
"Bunuelos (cod fish fritters, honey aioli) -

Solid balls of fish, seriously, I got a full bite of fish meat in that tiny round thing,

The sauce has a strong honey aroma, can't really taste the garlic at all.

7:50 p.m.

Sea urchin sandwich -

A wee bit Asian influenced dish, using Asian buns instead of Western bread for the sandwich,

P.S. Sea urchin is like garlic to me, they're both good with everything!

8:10 p.m.

Bill arrived. Closed the tap and we're ready for our real food treat, SAAM.

To be continued...

*Cindy's Rating for Bar Centro: 8

Bar Centro @ SLS Hotel

465 South La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(310) 246-5555
http://slshotels.com/
http://www.sbe.com/sls/bazaar/

Tokyo Table 東京食堂 - Irvine Location

People used to categorize Irvine as a "residential area."
The place has nothing but a bunch of expensive houses and apartments,
With a few grocery stores and restaurants scattering here and there.
Well, things have been changed because of this recently opened plaza,
---Diamond Jamboree Shopping Center---
It's similar to Diamond Plaza located in Rowland Heights,
But of course it's bigger and better.

Basically I can simply use three words to give you an overall image about this shopping center,
Asian, Asian, Asian.
Seriously,
I think at least 70% of the Asian population has been hanging out in this plaza since its grand opening.
I'm not complaining here because I contributed my small part for that 70%.

There are so many Asian stores in the plaza,
It's like a gigantic Asian magnet monster that keeps sucking Asian people into its stomach.
There's a Korean grocery store with a interesting name called H,
There are also several already famous restaurants like Tokyo Table, Guppy House, CeFiore, and 85 Degrees C,
What's even better? Spa, kareoke, and who knows what other goodies gonna move in and become part of the Asian magnet!

So this is where I went for dinner the other night in this Asian invaded plaza-


Immediately after I walked into the restaurant,
I see a bar area on the left,
You know, the area where you can watch sports and get wasted at the same time,
And then the dining area is on the right-


Here's where we were seated-


Me and my friend were impressed by the atmosphere that Tokyo Table created there,
Well, of course you can find tons of places like that in Los Angeles,
But we're talking about Irvine!
Can you give me the name of another restaurant that has this sort of vibe and mood in Irvine?

Here's the menu (cover)-


Inside the menu-


Menu with lots of pictures are always welcome.

We decided to start our night with Asahi and mango infused sake-


I was very pleased with the bottle and the container for sake,
They were so cute!
The mango infused sake was pretty sweet with minimal alcohol taste,
I think it makes a perfect drink for light weighted girls.
(That equals...me?!?)

Chicken karaage with spicy tartar sauce-


I can never resist the temptation of ordering fried chicken in a Japanese restaurant,
Especially the ones that come with tartar or mayonnaise flavored sauce.
The one from Tokyo Table was good, but not outstanding,
So far my number one chicken karaage still goes to Shin Sen Gumi.

Yuzu hamachi carpaccio-


Probably the best dish we ordered that night.
Kinda spicy because of that green little thing in the middle,
I don't know the name for that,
So if anybody here knows the name, please drop a line and let me know!
(Shishito maybe?)
This dish also has this tangy flavor from the yuzu sauce,
Spicy + tangy = great appetizer.

Beef tataki on balsamic sushi rice-


Not a good choice,
I was "mesmerized" by the word tataki there and ordered this item,
Sadly...it just tastes like seared beef on rice...it's that simple.

Garlic shrimp with rice (ishiyaki)-


Our waitress came and cooked the shrimps with this sizzling hot stone pot,
After the ingredients got cooked through,
A bowl of rice was poured into the pot and blended with the shrimps.
Very simple dish and the rice surely tastes wonderful (and buttery).

The overall experience was pretty good,
The service was excellent,
The environment was trendy yet subtle,
The food was mediocre though,
I mean, we did have a few nice dishes, but they weren't outstanding,
Will I come back again?
Yeah, there are still a few items I would like to try,
Maybe my rating will be higher for Tokyo Table after trying those dishes.
(Mochi cheese gratin, Yuzu pepper chicken, Fresh homemade tofu)

Overall Rating: 5 for the food and place alone but 6 if counting their excellent service

Tokyo Table 東京食堂 - Irvine
2710 Alton Pkwy
Irvine, CA 92606
(949)263-0000

http://www.tokyotable.com/index.php