My Favorite Korean BBQ Restaurant

My favorite Korean BBQ restaurant in Los Angeles has a website!

Cham Sut Gol will satisfy all BBQ lovers. The panchan here is always fresh and wonderfully prepared. They use charcoal BBQs; only a few in LA do.

Their marinades are fantastic, but if you don't like marinades, the quality is good enough to order unmarinated meat, too!

Lychee Martini

Look at this beautiful beverage! I will be trying to catch up with more exciting food thoughts soon. In the meantime, here's a recipe for a martini that is the perfect prelude to your Asian dinner. The original lychee martini was introduced to us by our friend, Mimi.

Marc's Lychee Pomegranate Martini

Ingredients for 2 martinis

2 martini glasses
4 shots Ketel One/Grey Goose or why not?, Svedka vodka
2 shots lychee syrup(from your can of lychees)
1 tsp. freshly muddled pomegranate juice, no seeds
ice for shaking
shaker
lychees for garnish
pomegranate seeds for garnish

1. Put martini glasses in freezer while you are preparing martini.
2. In a shaker, add 4 or 5 ice cubes, 4 shots of vodka, 2 shots lycheed syrup, and pomegranate juice.
3. Shake passionately for about 10 seconds.
4. Remove martini glasses from freezer.
5. Pour martini into glasses(sans ice cubes).
6. Garnish with 2 lychees and a few pomegranate seeds.
7. Have a toast.
8. Enjoy!

Top Chef Finally Serves the Right Formula!

I have been watching Top Chef on Bravo for three seasons now. This reality cooking show has been great entertainment, but save for the all-too-few Anthony Bourdain appearances and fleeting moments of actual chef-like performances, it really has seemed more of a plug for the Glad products and Kenmore Kitchen appliances than a bonafide cooking competition.

Last night's episode was an exception and showed what a truly great cooking competition this could be. Last night was about Classic French cooking and the Top Chef producers decided to bring out the big guns for judging. I was giddy the entire episode. Upon seeing Andre Soltner, I thought I was going to cry! This chef is a star, a hero, if you will, to cooks all around the world.

In New York city, contestants had to cook for Sirio Maccioni, the owner of the legendary Le Cirque restaurant. He served the five contestants a signature dish- Sea Bass Paupiette. Chef Daniel Boulud, another NYC heavyweight, created this dish when he was the executive chef at Le Cirque. The wannabe Top Chefs had to recreate this dish so that it matched the one that has been served to VIPs at Le Cirque for over 20 years.

I had made a couple of poor attempts at making this dish at home. Once again, I decided to give it a go. Tonight I used salmon. This is what it looked like:


Honestly, it looked pretty good, and it tasted delicious...but it really made me appreciate how tricky it is to cook this simple dish. Even though the potato was finely sliced, it wasn't the kind of crispy goodness that I had wanted. And if you really want a four-star result, you CANNOT take short cuts(I tried on the sauce and it really didn't have that rich luxurious texture you would imagine with great stocks and, perhaps, better wine.

It's amazing how important technique is to ensure a refined end product. I take my hat off to all those contestants tonight. Almost all of them nailed it.

Chef Daniel Boulud's recipe for Crisp Paupiette of Sea Bass in Barolo Sauce if you want to try it yourself.

Anyway, Top Chef really shined last tonight. And I am so glad that my fellow yellow person won both challenges! Go Hung!

Hail to Thailand!

What a great way to start off my first official blog- by mentioning the wonderful article in the LA Times about looking for the "other" menu while dining in Thai Town. I will always have a soft spot in my tummy for Thai Cuisine. A few years back, I made two trips out to Thailand and then took a Thai cooking course in Berkeley with Kasma Loha-unchit, author of "It Rains Fishes: Legends, Traditions, and the Joy of Thai Cooking", a wonderful collection of authentic Thai dishes. Every one I've tried rocks my world and I highly recommend this book if you want to impress yourself and others with some amazing curries and stirfries.

So apparently, the Thais, like the Chinese, have "secret" menus at their restaurants. I'm looking forward to checking this out because even when I go to Thai Town, I find some of the dishes, quite frankly, suck. At least they are not made with fresh ingredients, which I might understand if you lived in Nebraska(where it might be tricky to score some Thai Basil or Tamarind Paste). But here in LA, there should be no excuse for not making everything with fresh bird chilies, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves...you get the point. Anything you want can be found in a Thai Town grocery store. I find it insulting that several popular restaurants in Thai Town will take shortcuts and use prepackaged ingredients.

But then again, I guess that's how they are able to have lunch specials for $3.99.

Anyway, here is the link to the article that appeared in the LA Times today:

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-thai19sep19,0,4880707.story?coll=la-home-middleright

And if you are in Northern California and want to take a Thai course that will change your life, visit Kasma's website:

http://www.thaifoodandtravel.com

Kasma also does two-week cooking classes/tours in Thailand, taking you to small villages and off-the-beaten-path kind of places.

Stay tuned for future posts. I will be sharing recipes of some great dishes and introduce, for the first time, my "mish mash" recipes.

Good eatin'!
L