The Skinny Critic

WP24: High-end Chinese meets downtown LA

WP 24 is the newest restaurant from Wolfgang Puck, located downtown LA on the 24th floor of the Ritz Carlton. Upon arrival you walk through a HUGE bar area, so big in fact that it seems never ending, all surrounded by breathtaking views of downtown. The bar is incredibly modern, dark and cold.  Even when half full it seems empty and impersonal.  Not my favorite bar design.

The dining room itself is another story.  Hidden behind doors, it is an elegant room, also dimly lit but much warmer than the attached bar and lounge area. 

The menu is a hail back to Wolfgang's Asian fusion days, as it draws specifically from China. As Jonathon Gold notes, you'll be paying a hefty price tag for these "fine dining" Chinese dishes.  What's guaranteed is the freshest ingredients and time put into each dish...try to find that at your local Chinese place.

Appetizers all sounded delicious that it was hard to choose! Crispy suckling pig with quince-apple puree and chinese 10 spice our waiter said was a must.  Fall harvest pumpkin and king crab hot & sour soup sounded incredible with kobocha squash and fried ginger. Steamed curried lobster-shrimp sui mai and shrimp har gow with a chili garlic dipping sauce sounded so unique.

Our table decided to share four different appetizers: the star of them all? The hot and sour soup! It was the BEST hot and sour soup I've ever had. 

The loser of the group was the suckling pig. It was dry and bland.  The steamed baby bao buns with slow cooked pork belly were decent and I will say it's hard to find bao buns of this quality in LA.

For our entrees we shared the whole sea bass which is cooked in a fragrant salt crust and finished with black vinegar, ginger, shallots, scallions, and mala flavored oil.  This dish was delicate and wonderful.

We also had the grilled lamb chops marinated with Korean gochu jang chili. It came with a pickled ginger sauce, crispy garlic and wild arugula salad. The meat was very flavorful.

The spicy assam prawns that are Indian spiced were a huge disappointment. They sounded incredible on the menu with curry leaves, garlic, mustard, yogurt, cardamom, and fenugreek.  But they fell flat.

The "Szechuan Style" Steak Au Poivre was also an excellent entree. Another dish where the quality of the ingredients was really apparent. It was served with a smoked chili shallot sauce, scallions and la you hot oil.

Desserts were a little disappointing. Perhaps it's because the waiter spoke so greatly about them. We tried a couple but neither were very memorable. We tried the marjolasian with layers of dark chocolate with white espresso mousse, cashew nougatine and coffee ice cream. Sounded delicious but fell rather flat.

We also tried the toffee pudding, which was just too heavy.

WP24 900 W. Olympic Blvd. (213) 743-8824

Dinner at Rivera

Le Cordon Bleu Hollywood has an Epicurean Club that is responsible for organizing dinners around town at the nicer restaurants at a reasonable price for the students. The idea behind it is to push those that don't usually explore fine dinning to do so.  Unfortunately, what usually happens is those that already go out a fair amount sign up, and those that don't do not.  Oh well...

I however got to benefit from the most recent dinner at Rivera.  Having eaten here only once before and having enjoyed my first experience I was excited to return.  For only $60 were were given over six courses - a wonderful deal, and a meal that probably would have cost over $100 per person were we not there with school. 

A good friend of mine from school actually started working at Rivera about a month ago.  He joined us at the dinner and was able to go into extreme detail about every dish we received.

We started with the xnipek - yea, try pronouncing that...it's a yucatan style charred-habanero dog's snout salsa with mini chips. The salsa has a kick to it that comes a few seconds after the first bite. We were also brought the tortillas florales, one of the dishes that the restaurant is known for, their house made nixtimal tortillas with "Indian Butter" -an incredibly smooth and creamy guacamole with serrano and lemon. It really did have the consistency of butter.

Our first official course was a plate of raw mushrooms, beautifully accented with Spanish Olive Oil, a chimichurri sauce, lemon, fresno chili and chives.  It was quite the assortment of mushrooms and included blue foot, pickled beach, king oyster and chanterelle. I've never before had raw mushrooms as a part of a dish at a restaurant and while I thought they would be rubbery, they were actually very fresh and light with the perfect amount of flavor from the garnishes. 

The next course was the tamal with braised pork short rib and a chipotle creme fraiche. The chipotle creme fraiche made this dish. It was the perfect accompaniment to the tamal. 

Pacific halibut was the third course and was served with fresh tomatillo and a spicy yellow pepper sauce. I've never tasted fresh tomatillo before and I wouldn't say that I'm a big fan. It is referred to as the mexican green tomato and has the consistency of a marinated cucumber. 

My favorite course of the night was a grilled quail with black beans and oyster mushrooms. Although the quail was a bit overdone, the sweet black bean sauce really brought this dish together.  

Braised pork shoulder could have been a bit juicier and more tender for my tastes. It was served with perfectly cooked yam and purple potato in a yellow pepper sauce and topped with a paper thin potato chip.

We finished off the evening with a chocolate torte with drunken pineapple and a Mexico city sundae with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and pine-nuts. The torte was a bit dense but very popular among the chocolate lovers in the group.

Something needs to be said about the creativity behind the plating at Rivera. Out of all the restaurants I've eaten at, I think Rivera has some of the most unique and fun platting I have ever come across. 

Also of note is the bar at Rivera. The cocktail list is seasonally driven and well above the average bar at a restaurant. I had the jugo de pena with cava, pineapple, blanco tequilla and thai basil. It was refreshing but a tad bit sweet.  The cocktail list is inventive and fun and the bar is worth a visit on it's own.

 

Rivera 1050 S. Flower St. (213) 749-1460

Rivera

*Skinny Seal*

Another fabulous establishment has opened downtown and although currently easy to get into, the lines are sure to form as the word gets out on how perfectly executed the meal is at Chef John Sedlar's Rivera. 

After a more than stellar review by LA Times food critic S. Irene, I expected the place to be packed and overwhelmed.  Leaving the car at valet we walked by a clam and somewhat serene kitchen with floor to ceiling windows out to the street.  Line chefs looked relaxed as they sliced fresh fish behind a leg of Iberico.  We entered the restaurant, a modern dark space with a long bar and were quickly taken to our table in a side dining room.  The restaurant has a fairly formal feel for the playful food that comes out of the kitchen.  The menu is Latin inspired from Chef Sedlar's global ventures and has major influence from Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, the American Southwest, Spain and Portugal. 

In trying to decide between wines I asked the server to make a recommendation.  She recommended the Malbec, but I told her I wanted to try something Spanish and settled on another.  She brought my choice and also a sample of the Malbec to try and it was indeed very good.  

We started our meal with the tortillas florales and Indian butter, which were made to butter and came with real flowers pressed in them.  We also had the xnipek, a spicy salsa with thinly cut tortilla chips. 

Our meal got more interesting as we moved into the mains.  The staple of the evening was the duck enfrijolada. Duck con fit layered between two dark blue corn tortillas with a touch of goat cheese and surrounded in a Chile rioja sauce. 

 This was one of those dishes that makes you return to a restaurant, again and again.  The presentation was beautiful and the concept unique, but the smokey, sweet flavors were superb. We also shared the seared black cod with Serrano ham.  The server said it was her favorite dish on the menu and although the fish was prepared perfectly, the accompanying cool cilantro salsa was not my favorite. On the side we had the frijoles negros: black beans that took me back to childhood and my fathers baked beans. They were sweet and smokey and surprisingly spicy but I couldn't help but finish the bowl.  

Rivera is a spot worth the drive downtown as it is the kind of cuisine one hopes to find in LA: inspired high end Latin.  

Rivera 1050 S. Flower St. #102 (213) 749-1460