Le Comptoir at Tiara Cafe: Gary Menes Amazing Pop-up

Gary Menes, the talented and peripatetic chef has alighted for a spell at Tiara Cafe, hosting his pop-up restaurant Le Comptoir during dinner service when the restaurant is otherwise closed.  The 12 seats at this restaurant are at the counter, hence the name of the pop-up.  The experience of dining at the counter is intimate as you can watch the chefs prepare your meal while you sit side by side with your fellow diners.

I had first heard of Chef Menes from Jo of My Last Bite who raved about his cooking.  I never made it to Marche or Palihouse when he was there and finally managed to taste his food for the first time on a recent Friday evening at Le Comptoir.    The menu is 5 courses for $46 and is vegetarian.  Diners have the option of swapping out one course for foie ($18 supplement) and another for meat ($5 supplement).

The meal began with an amuse of beet above lime pudding.

The house-made bread was excellent; this is not a restaurant for carb-phobes, as the bread is all but irresistible with a great crust. 

1st course: Corn soup: sierra gold potato, french shallot, corn veloute, farinette, yogurt, celery.  The corn veloute was remarkable.  One of my favorite dishes of the year.  I love corn and the consistency of the soup was wonderful with the sweetness of the corn shining through.  The tableside service of the pouring of the soup was also dramatic and reminiscent of restaurants like Jean Georges.  The best soup I have had in a very long time.

The alternate selection for the first course is the foie gras terrine.  It was rich and spread nicely on the bread but given a choice between having the foie or the soup, I'd choose the soup.  I never thought I'd say that corn soup wins over foie, but Chef Menes has a way with vegetables and soups and it would be a shame to miss whatever soup he makes that evening.

2nd course: A signature dish at the pop-up is the Sunny Side-up Egg with young lettuce, herbs and sorrel jus.  The lettuce and butter arrive first and then a hot pan sizzling with the egg inside.  We were instructed to add the butter then the herbs and lettuce and mix together.  I enjoyed this but I found that by the time I added all of the ingredients, the yolk had solidified due to the heat of the pan.  I am not sure if that was the intent or not, but I recommend mixing up the yolk when this dish arrives so you can experience it still runny.

Lettuces, herbs, butter

Egg in pan

Complete dish

3rd course: Cauliflower, faro picolo, grapes, leeks, apples.  Again this dish is deceptively simple.  A vegetarian dish with grains, sweet apples and grapes and the roasted cauliflower.  There was a lot of flavor on the plate, including the dramatic leeks.

4th Course: Wagyu filet and 72-hr braised short rib, hearts of romaine, carrots, forbidden rice, currant relish.  ($5 supp).  The charred romaine had a great texture and the wagyu, both filet and short rib was dripping with intense flavor and richness.  The carrots added a note of sweetness to the dish and enlivened the plating as if they were monoliths on the plains of my plate.

5th course: Sourdough donut holes, cinnamon sugar, nutella, candied walnuts.  I didn't love the sourness of the donut but did enjoy the nutella.  Again the plating is just so.

There is an optional four course wine pairing for $24 and otherwise your only other decision is whether you want the soup or the foie, and the meat or the vegetable, which on the evening I was there was blue hubbard squash, brussels sprouts, dried cherry marmalade, smoked scallions, santa barbara chanterelles, spanish padron peppers.

Le Comptoir is open Thursday - Saturday and has three seatings nightly, at 6 pm, 8 pm and 10 pm.  Reservations can be made by emailing lecomptoirla@gmail.com
Follow Chef Menes on Twitter @garymenes

It has already made Jonathan Gold's 99 Essential Restaurants.  Le Comptoir may be ephemeral, but it is well worth finding.  Get while the getting is good, else you will have missed out.

Tiara Cafe: 127 E. 9th Street, between Main and Los Angeles Sts., DTLA

ColLAboration: A Pop Up Craft Beer Garden

Saturday's ColLAboration event combined two trends of the Los Angeles food and drink scene: pop-up restaurants and craft beer.  The event was a collaboration between four of the leading members of Los Angeles's craft beer scene: Ryan Sweeney of Eagle Rock's Verdugo Bar and West Hollywood's The Surly Goat, Brian Lenzo of Blue Palms Brewhouse in Hollywood, Clay Harding of Alhambra's 38 Degrees Ale House and Tony Yanow of Tony's Darts Away in Burbank and the soon to open Mohawk Bend in Echo Park.

The event celebrated the 1 Year Anniversary of Tony's Darts Away and was the first in a planned series of pop-up beer gardens.  The inaugural event was held in a parking lot in Burbank, a block away from Tony's.  Tickets were sold in advance online or at any of the participating bars.  Your ticket came in the form of a glass and cost $10 per person.  Beers were either $6 or 4 for $20, via an efficient token system.

ColLAboration was by far the smoothest run food or drink festival I have ever been to.  Tickets sold out in advance, although a limited number were available on-site the day of.  They deliberately avoided selling too many tickets, so that attendees could get beer with minimal lines.  If you had purchased your ticket in advance there was no line to get in and most of the afternoon the lines for beer were nonexistent to two minutes with the exception of when a rare beer was announced over the speakers and a ten minute queue developed.

They provided ample bathrooms (port a potties) and even had a fenced in "smokers pen" for the cigarette fiends in the crowd.  No lines, a genial crowd, fair prices - what's not to like?  They even arranged for several local restaurants to deliver to the event, so people could get food to wash down their beer.  Tony's was also selling food on-site in the form of folks wearing hot delivery cases, ballpark style, walking through the crowd selling their vegan treats.

Sweeney (above) had told me about a Sierra Nevada Dubbel, called Oliva, which he thought I would like.  A couple hours later I was the first person at the event to get a glass of the elixir, which was even better than I had hoped.  I didn't know that Sierra Nevada made any Belgian style beers.  Their stock went up a lot with me.  I ran into several of LA's beer aficionado crew, including Jimmy Han of the soon to open Beer Belly,  HC of L.A. and O.C. Foodventures, Chris Day of Sotto, Steve Armstrong of ShangriLA Food Blog and Brand X, among others.  Unfortunately I left before Josh of FoodGPS and Esther of E*StarLA arrived.

There will be several more pop-up ColLAboration beer gardens this summer and I am looking forward to attending as many as I can.  If you went this past weekend save your glass, as it is your admission ticket to the next event.   Unlike some beer events where you pay one price for all you can drink, ColLAboration was all about quality over quantity, although the pours were rather generous.  Good beer, a good vibe and good weather; this event hit the trifecta.  Stay tuned for news on the date and location of the next fest.

Follow ColLAboration on Twitter and on Facebook.

Artisinal LA: Handcrafted Deliciousness this Saturday & Sunday

If you are the type of person who frequents farmers' markets, shops at Etsy, appreciates the local or handmade or just likes to munch on quality snacks, then Artisanal LA is for you. It is a weekend long community shopping, tasting, and learning experience showcasing local, sustainable and handmade foodstuffs from Los Angeles on this Saturday and Sunday, October 23-24 in the penthouse of downtown's historic Cooper Building. Tickets to the event are $10 in advance or $15 cash at the door.

Your ticket includes local craft beer and spirits tasting, totebags, demonstrations and workshops and the opportunity to shop from more than 75 vendors including Cake Monkey Bakery, Lindy & Grundy's Meats and Perishable, the pop-up pickle shop from Chicks with Knives.

The workshops include home butchering, local beekeeping with backyard beekeepers, garden cocktail infusions and many more.  Some of the proceeds will go to benefit the LAUSD Edible School Gardens, to bring gardens that grow fresh vegetables to more of the 900 public schools in Los Angeles.

If you plan on going to graze on all the fresh vittles, I highly recommend buying your ticket online, both to save some cash and to make your experience smoother.  Tickets at the door are cash only and when they reach capacity they will not sell any more tickets in person.

Seeds, veggies, chocolate, pickles, meat, caviar demos....  what more could you want?  Follow Artisinal LA on Twitter for all the latest news and updates.  The location is 9th St & Los Angeles St and parking is available in the building for $10.

The Cooper Building: 860 S Los Angeles St, 11th Floor Penthouse, Downtown LA 90014

Jeremy Fox Dinner @ Animal - May 18th, 2010

Last night I ate dinner at Animal Restaurant, where for one week chefs Vinny Dotolo and Jon Shook are collaborating with guest chef Jeremy Fox, the former chef of Ubuntu in Napa, on a series of vegetarian dinners.

Each dinner is a tasting menu ($70) and has the option of adding one of two wine pairings ($35 or $65). Last night's meal consisted of eight courses, with the first two served together. The concept of a vegetarian meal in a restaurant named Animal and devoted to rich meaty cuisine is ironic and they have fun with it.

Marcona Almonds with lavender sugar, sea salt, olive oil & Crunchy 'French Breakfast' Radishes with whipped chevre with nori, black salt

The almonds were served spilling out of their container in a generous presentation. One of my tablemates said that they tasted like the children's cereal Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and we all agreed. The breakfast radishes were served with nori (seaweed) infused creamy goat cheese and black salt. The salt flavor was intense if you got too much of it in one bite. The radishes were presented simply in a signal of what was to come with the rest of the vegetable focused meal.

Spring Peas with white chocolate, 'chocolate' mint, macadamia

The peas were presented as three quenelles on a plate with the mint on top and small bits of white chocolate and nuts scattered on the plate. There were both mashed and whole peas and the dish was both beautiful and delicious. One of my favorites of the evening. The white chocolate was in very small doses and the dish played off of the mint chip flavor of ice cream.

'Pee Wee' Potato Salad - 3-hour favas, anchovy 'flavor', parmesan

This dish was the least successful of the evening. It was served cold, as most potato salads are, and the flavors just didn't come together cohesively. We did not taste anything resembling anchovy flavor. Parmesan shreds were on the bottom of the plate and were light as clouds.

Heirloom Carrots, Rescoldo Style, in Root Embers with parsnip, vadouvan, cocount, citrus

The carrots were of several different colors and the stalks were still on. The stalks had been roasted or crisped so that they were crunchy while the body of the carrots were soft; a nice textural contrast.

Triple Corn Anson Mills Grits - smoked cast-iron corn, agretti

This dish was nice and smoky. The grits were very smooth and the agretti stuck up out of the bowl like the tentacles of a sea creature. It was a deceptively simple dish and one of the favorites of the evening at my table.

Slow Roasted Beets: ruta-kraut, 'calaloo' amaranth, horseradish

The beets was a flavorful dish with the "saurkraut" on top and the horseradish flavor, a typical pairing. Often in LA you only see beets in salads, so it was a pleasant change to see them be the star of this dish. This dish was also paired with both a rose wine and a Bok beer.

Chocolate Puffed with Wild Rice Pudding: strawberry gel, rose geranium, green strawberry

This was the other dish that didn't work for our table of four. The presentation is dramatic with the layers in the jar, capped with the green strawberry with its stem still on and sticking out of the jar. There were various textures with the crunchy rice and gooey pudding but it all just seemed like a mess and was unpleasant. I had never seen a green strawberry served in a restaurant before.

Summary: Overall all four of us really enjoyed the meal. The food was beautifully presented and mostly delicious. It was vegetarian food but did not go for the mock-meat thing and there was no tofu or seitan used. The vegetables themselves were allowed to shine and the flavors were good and you we did not feel at all deprived of meat. The service was also first rate, especially Helen Johannesen, the manager and wine director. We felt that the value was good and that the $70 was well worth it. The wine pairings were mostly good (one Barolo was not pleasant) and if anything, too generous. The champagne from Marc Hebrart and the Silvaner Halbtrocken by Gysler were especially good.

I was fortunate to have eaten a meal at Ubuntu while Jeremy was cooking there and it was spectacular. Go and sit at the bar if you can't get off the wait list, but this is something special and if you enjoy food, go!

LudoBites @ Gram & Papa's

The LudoBites popup @ Gram & Papa's is more than halfway over and last week Whining 'N Dining, her husband and I had a great dinner trying about half of the menu. We ran into MidtownLunchLA and spotted KevinEats in the room. Wouldn't be LudoBites without the blogging community out in full force.

My camera was not able to capture all of the dishes we had as some pics came out too dark and others too bright but:


Marinated King Salmon, German ButterBall Potato, Red Wine Vinaigrette, Creme Fraiche. ($15) This was my favorite dish of the evening. The flavor of the salmon was so clean and the combination worked.


Snapper Ceviche, Heirlooom Tomato, Jalapenos, Red Onions, Meyer Lemon Paste, Olive Oil. ($14) This dish was also successful but less spicy than I thought it might be. I hadn't had ceviche with tomato before or at least so much tomato it was also a tomato salad. Heirloom tomatoes may have even been better than the fish.


Rack of Lamb, Fresh Goat Cheese, Smoked Eel, Artichokes, Potato Mousseline, Mint. I did not sample the smoked eel component of this dish but my dining companions enjoyed it. The lamb was delicious, this was my 2nd fave after the salmon. The consensus at the table was that this was a very good dish but was not good value for the price ($26). - better to get two appetizers than get the lamb entree.



Macarons, Organic Strawberry & Chantilly. ($12) What is not to like?

We also had:

Brie Chantilly Napoleon, Honey Comb, Frisee Salad, Balsamic ($7)
Scallop, Almond Puree, Pickled Grapes, Capers, Curry oil & Cauliflower Ice Cream ($14)
Seared Foie Gras "Pina Colada" ($29)
Squid "Carbonara", Pancetta, Poached Egg (63 degrees), Parmesan Snow, Chive Flowers ($18)
Dark Chocolate Souffle, Vanilla-Whisky Ice Cream, Hot Chocolate Cream ($13)

The brie was a nice start but not as special as the other dishes. The scallop was tied for best dish by my two dining companions. It was plated beautifully with the pickled grapes in a row and then a parallel line of the scallops, then a streak of green and finally the ice cream.

For the foie which included a small lobe, my dining companions brought along a bottle of Sauternes, the dessert wine which is the traditional pairing with foie gras. It was a treat and we continued to drink it with dessert.

The squid was another well presented dish. It was playful in that squid stood in for the noodles usually used in spaghetti carbonara. The parmesan had been played with to have the consistency of snowfall and the plate was strewn with purple flowers.


The Brie Chantilly


The Scallop


The Squid "Carbonara"

This pop-up of LudoBites is priced like a real restaurant and has an actual a la carte menu for you to order from. My last non-LFC ludobites was the infamous night at Royal-T Salon in which the sous-chef walked out partway through service and the menu abruptly switched to a prix fixe. Fortunately for us, everything went much smoother and there were no hiccups in our dinner. LudoBites @ Gram & Papa's is BYO although there is a small corkage fee.

Gram & Papa's: 227 East 9th Street between Los Angeles & Santee Streets. Phone: (213) 624-7272. Do NOT phone for reservations as all reservations are handled through LudoBites. Website: ludobites.com