Share a song that makes you laugh.

Show us the wallpaper on your cell phone.
Submitted by jacolily.

Show us the very last picture you took. No cheating!

Show us an example of architecture you find interesting or inspiring.

Hapalove tagged me.

"The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leave them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer."

 

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?

Working where I'm working now.  Living with my ex (that Chinese girl from Bangkok).  Walking my dog.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?

1. Go to the Air Conditioned Lounge and win concert tickets from 94.9, if they're giving them away.
2. Go see a movie with a friend (Mongol).
3. A bunch of stupid cr@p at work that needed getting done.
4. Put some more vacation pics up on flickr (didn't get to this).
5. Look up "wendigo" on wikipedia.
   

3) Snacks I enjoy:

Cheez-its, wasabi peas, chicharon, my homemade blood orange ceviche.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

• Buy a house on Maui and an apartment in Manhattan.
• Pay to get some completely inane proposition on the ballot, just to say I did.  Or spend a bunch of money running for office - but be completely honest and unreserved in my comments (to the point of using the phrase "my opponent is a jerkoff" in EVERY commercial).
  
• Afford gas.
• Open a gourmet bar/eatery.
• Hire somebody to give charities the runaround for me.  But give SOMEBODY a bunch of cash so they'll name a building after me!
  
• Travel more!
• Buy a $1500 ukulele.  And maybe a few guitars.
• Keep my current job, and start doing progressively outrageous and inappropriate things, and see how long it takes to get fired.  Keep a blog of the process.

5) Places I have lived:

Pasadena, CA
Somewhere in Virginia, near DC ( I was 2! ).  Let's just say Arlington.
Torrance, CA
Paso Robles, CA (and am thus infatuated by wines from here)
San Diego, CA (La Jolla, Encinitas, Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Pacific Beach, University City, Del Mar).

- some family members claim Galveston, TX for a short bit - others claim I wasn't born at that point -

6) Jobs I have had:

Research analyst, telemarketer for political organizations, prep cook, appetizer cook, oyster shucker, pasta cook, dishwasher, dog-walker, guy behind the counter at a deli making sandwiches (made one for Huey Lewis once!).

7) Bloggers I am tagging who I will enjoy getting to know better:

Aquanetta, S@ngarangadingdong

Show us a photograph from a wedding.
Submitted by Connie.

I took this at my ex's cousin's wedding.

Who was the last person you offended?
Submitted by May.

Hopefully YOU, you stupid, stinky, worthless hunk of yesterday's fuck.

As part of a belated birthday celebration with the Detective and her family, we ended up throwing a small late lunch / early dinner party on Saturday.  We picked up a dozen dungeness crab at 99 Ranch and I battled them into a few pots.  They sure were feisty little suckers, but I triumphed eventually.

I received as a gift from a wonderful friend the very first edition of the Michelin Guide for Los Angeles (2008) - which in turn led me to the guide's website.  The Michelin Guide has only quite recently begun branching out to the United States, now publishing guides for New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas and LA.  As with any form of criticism, especially well-respected ones, the Michelin has hardly been free from controversy or even critiques of the critics.  Of course, one should always take any recommendations and reviews, even the most esteemed, with a grain of salt.  Opinions, standards of excellence, and tastes will always vary - even amongst "experts".  Still, much of the fun of criticism is that it often generates a basis for discussion and informed, thoughtful debate.  And great criticism provides recommendations and useful information for individuals to plan out and pursue their own explorations so that they can form their own conclusions.  In the end, it assists one in weeding through jungles of possibility and helps us find the signal in the noise.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the exclusivity of Michelin's multi-star ratings, no restaurant in Los Angeles received three stars on the Michelin zero-to-three star scale.  But even inclusion in the guide without stars still means that patrons are going to be in for at the very least an above average meal and/or experience.  Even one-star is coveted by restaurateurs and usually means that the restaurant probably kicks copious amounts of culinary ass.  Currently, only five establishments in the United States hold the three-star distinction, including a mere three in New York, an international food Mecca where one might expect find a lot more "top" establishments.

The only three-star restaurant here in California, as you could probably guess, is the French Laundry in Napa.  Another Keller venture, Per Se in Manhattan, has a three-star rating as well.  Finishing off this short list are Jean-Georges and Le Bernadin in New York which share company with Joel Robuchon in the MGM casino in Vegas.  Sadly, I've yet to eat at any Michelin three-star restaurant - although I've set foot in (i.e., poked my head into) Joel Robuchon and Le Bernadin before.  We had reservations at Le Bernadin one night but sadly had to cancel.  My friend Lance proposed to his wife at this restaurant on another evening (Yoko Ono was eating there at the same time).  On a Le Bernadin side note, if you get the chance, check out this past season's No Reservation episode where Anthony Bourdain heads back into the kitchen at Les Halles - during the massive dinner rush, you can watch Le Bernadin's Eric Ripert barely survive working the high volume grill station for one night only.

I have eaten at one Thomas Keller restaurant, Bouchon in Las Vegas, which I found outstanding - it did not earn even one star from Michelin.  The Napa Bouchon earned one.

As far as the list of Vegas starred eateries go, I've only been to Mesa Grill and Bradley Ogden.  I ate at Bradley Ogden alone while on a business trip, and it was freaking awesome.  The Mesa Grill was decent.  Nobu Vegas also got a star.  I've been to two Nobu's, but both were in Manhattan, including the original and Nobu 57.  Neither of these earned a star.  Yet, I've heard that none of the secondary Nobu's really compare to the original Nobu.  Hmmmm.  Regardless of stars, the Manhattan Nobu's were fantastic.  There's a Nobu in San Diego now!  Color me excited. 

On the New York list, two of my favorite restaurants EVER, Babbo and Gramercy Tavern, also have a single star.

I've had a great deal of fun the past two days browsing through the LA guide (the only one I actually own) - especially since I'm most familiar and experienced with the Los Angeles area and food scene, being a Southern Californian and spending most of my weekends in LA.  I've just been skimming the guide so far, and still to go through the book more thoroughly before being capable of giving a truly comprehensive review, but I will reveal a few of my initial impressions.

Overall, the only thing I've found annoying about the reviews I have read is how many times the guide goes out of the way to mention the fact that you might see "famous stars" at this place or that.  Heck, it's LA - I've seen folks like Don Johnson and Jason Alexander at hole-in-the-wall Thai places and shabu shabu joints.  Heck, I walked into Zach Braff's bathroom stall by mistake once.  You can run into stars at KFC.  The guide should just mention this once, like on the cover, and be done with it.  Otherwise, the descriptions I've read so far have been well-worded and useful.

Not surprisingly, with the largest population of Japanese in the United States, and the third largest Japanese population outside of Japan, Los Angeles has a lot of high-end, downright incredible sushi restaurants, and the guide really smartly reflects this.

As far as Michelin stars go, only three LA restaurants got two stars: Mélisse, Spago and Urasawa.  I haven't been to any of these.  Urasawa is a ten-seat sushi bar in Beverly Hills which, while pricey, is considered one of the best in world, and along with Masa, is by all accounts the best in this nation.  Despite the world-wide name recognition of Spago, I've never really had that much of an urge to go.  I was completely overwhelmed by one of Puck's places in Vegas to which I was dragged for a work function.  While there's no denying the huge influence, both positive and negative, Puck has had on Californian and American cuisine, as well as on American food culture, celebrity chef-hood and "culinary entertainment", you can only see Wolfgang's face on so many frozen food packages, get tired of sun-dried tomatoes in EVERYTHING too often, or eat at too many California Pizza Kitchens and other unrelated Ed LaDou-esque wannabes, before coming under the impression that Puck is past his prime. Or at least "old hat."  And given the fact that I found his caving in to the moronic anti-foie gras and anti-veal gastro-nazis to be utterly cowardly, and that he cut in front of me in line at a Grammys after-party when I was trying to get served some Spanish cheese from Ben Ford*, I haven't really been too excited by his existence as of late.  Well, OK, the raves about CUT, his "re-imagined" steakhouse have had me somewhat intrigued.  And Spago is Spago.  I should probably re-open my mind on Wolfgang, get it a chance and try it some time.

*Ben Ford is Harrison Ford's son, the chef at Ford's Filling Station, a supposedly terrific LA restaurant that has been on my list of places to try for awhile now.  Ford spent time learning in the craft in great kitchens like Chez Panisse (only 1 star, WTF?).  After a brief conversation about cheeses from Spain, Ben Ford introduced me to the superb combination of stinky bleu cheese, honey and walnut.

Osteria Mozza, which I recently gave a gushing, "I just had a flavorgasm" review, was not included in the guide, because it was not open during the evaluation period.  The inside flap goes out of the way to promise that Osteria Mozza will be included in the next edition, so it might be looking at one star at least.  Pizzeria Mozza is included with no stars, but the menu at the Pizzeria seems more straight-forward and casual than the Osteria, although I'm sure it's of the highest quality.  And it really hasn't had the time to prove its consistency.

The inside flap also wants you to know that GORDON RAMSAY IS COMING to LA soon.  Lock up your daughters, if they're cooks at least.  By the way, what does the Rams eat while in LA?

"In-N-Out burgers were extraordinary. I was so bad, I sat in the restaurant, had my double cheeseburger then minutes later I drove back round and got the same thing again to take away."

Anyway, of the one-star LA eateries, I've been to three:  Patina (hey, Michelin, I saw Tony Shalhoub There once - isn't he a Lesbian?), Valentino, and the Water Grill. The flagship of the Patina empire is certainly innovative and consistent enough to merit a star.  The best non-sushi related seafood restaurant in LA, the Water Grill, is not on the coast, it's downtown.  They deserve it.  Valentino served what was easily one of the best three Italian meals I've had in LA, B.B. (Before Batali).  The others were at DeNiro's AGO and the Patina Group's Zucca, which were either overlooked or didn't make the cut.  I'm probably most surprised by AGO's absence.

It is the first edition, so some glaring omissions can probably not be helped. Of course, someone as pedantic as myself could probably go on and on about who deserved how many stars, and what was and was not included.  Well, that's like three-fifths of the fun!  The important thing is that it's a great guide, full of so many fantastic recommendations I need to try, and proven favorites to which I need to return.

Of the one-star rated ones I have yet to try, I've already been most interested in CUT, as noted, and Nobu Matsuhisa's first major restaurant before Nobu, the infamous Matsuhisa.  But the rest of the one-starred restaurants all seem pretty tasty.

This guide adds a lot more things to the big list of places I should eat.

Check out the "Search Inside this book" tab at Amazon for most of the list of other restaurants included but not listed at the Michelin site - i.e., the non-starred ones - up through S.

Some other, starless faves in the guide (probably not an exhaustive list):  AOC, Cafe des Artistes, Lucques, Violet, Grace (sea urchin & pumpkin risotto, y'all), Cafe Pinot (Patina), Nick & Stefs excellent steakhouse (more Patina), The Hump (divine sushi at Santa Monica airport - you can FREAKING GET BLOWFISH HERE), and Typhoon (Pacific Rim fusion, including loads of insects, no joke, again at the Santa Monica aiport).

A couple of other notable exclusions, just off the top of my head (besides AGO and Zucca):  1. Ketchup - a couple of other Dolce Group ventures did make the guide (Dolce Enoteca and the Geisha House - which may be tremendous or could be an abortion of epic proportions**).  I know, it's diner food gone gourmet, but it's GOOD and fun, and they make a variety of delicious ketchups fresh in house.  Fans of fresh condiments everywhere should rejoice.  2. Ciudad - I've been here a few times and really liked the cuisine of the "Two Hot Tamales."  Sure, their Border Grill made the book, and sure, I've never been there, so maybe it is a lot more worthy of inclusion.

Like I said, I've just been skimming so far, so I've probably missed a couple of things, included and excluded.  The guide's scope simply doesn't extend to the south bay, Long Beach or Orange County, so anything there was not missed so much as simply not covered.

** Waitresses actually dressed as geishas, man.  You decide.

Saturday night, the Detective took me to Osteria Mozza for my birthday dinner.  Osteria Mozza is Mario Batali's newest restaurant in Los Angeles, open less than a year, on the corner of Highland and Melrose, next door to Pizzeria Mozza, Batali's first venture in LA (he's also branched out to Vegas in the past few years).  While the Pizzeria is more casual, specializing in rustic yet innovative pizzas, Osteria Mozza is more focused on creating a somewhat more artful, finer dining experience akin to Batali's flagship restaurant in New York Babbo, easily one of my favorite restaurants in the world.

Like at Babbo, the food was simply pure genius - and we walked away claiming it was one of the best meals we'd ever had, meaning it literally.  Batali's work and presentation can be downright minimalist in comparison to the cuisines of other celebrity chefs, but undeniably perfect and outstanding.  The dishes at Osteria Mozza, designed by Executive Chef Matt Molina in collaboration with Batali, were no exception.

I've read some reviews, some quite recent, that the service at Osteria Mozza could be awful, but this was not the case Saturday - perhaps someone has been keeping track of reviews online and they have begun to correct this.  Or maybe they've worked through all the growing pains of a new restaurant.  I was pleased with both how knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the food our waiter was - in LA/Hollywood, even at nicer places, you can end up with a lot of bored, arrogant twits who would rather be somewhere else, like on the cover of People or performing fellatio out back for crack.  Our waiter and the rest of the staff at Osteria Mozza however were friendly, pleasant and attentive, in my opinion - although the Detective did comment that the woman who served us our primi had "absolutely no personality." 

If I were to criticize the service at all, it would only be in comparison to the impeccable service at Babbo, or the divine service of some place like the Gramercy Tavern.  For example, both Babbo and Osteria Mozza have telephone book sized wine lists made up exclusively of Italian wines, a massive specialized catalog of offerings that even quite a few American enophiles and enthusiasts would not be all that familiar with.  At Babbo, the sommelier came right over when he saw me flipping through the list - he took the time to discuss the philosophy behind the list and offered a number of suggestions.  At Osteria Mozza, when we asked our waiter about a wine, he himself quickly offered a suggestion or two, rather than call over the sommelier.  Waiters offering suggestions would be perfectly acceptable in most situations, but when you have a sommelier in house, that's really to whom that task should fall.  The sommelier only showed up to bring over and open the bottle - making him a glorified runner at that point.  That said, mainly being a technical nitpick, the waiter came up with a great suggestion for a bottle that worked well with most everything.

The decor and feel of the restaurant reminded me a lot of Babbo, although the walls were a prettier blue. 

Each dining area was built around a central food preparation station/island - at Osteria Mozza this was a Mozzarella Bar - which acts as a sort of metaphorical bridge between the kitchen and the patron spaces, further connecting the eaters to the art and process of the dish creation.

Before ordering, like at many restaurants, we were offered a selection of breads - white, wheat or multi-grain.  These, however, were creations of Mozza co-conspirator, baker extraordinaire, Nancy Silverton.  No butter or olive oil was offered.  None was needed.  The bread is so good, no accompaniment is necessary.

We were going to order an antipasto before choosing the rest of our dishes, but they interestedly enough have a policy where all food must be ordered at once so that the courses can be properly paced (except for any post-secondi selections).  After inquiring with our waiter about how many dishes to order, we decided to just do one appetizer, and then each get a pasta and a main course.  Although the menu was set up in traditional Italian style, the portion sizes might have been a tad too large (although some frugal single dish orderers might complain too small for the price).  We didn't bother with a contorno - Batali sneaks a few vegetables onto his main course plates anyhow - but were too full for a cheese and/or dessert course after the secondi, which was something of a pity.

 
For the antipasto we chose one of the Mozzarella Bar selections, the sheeps milk ricotta, flown in from Rome, with radicchio, spiced walnuts, honey & fried rosemary.  Silverton is in charge of the Mozzarella Bar, making this section of the menu her arena , with Batali's input of course. The cheese and such were served on slices of her toasted bread.  The cheese itself was spectacular, and all the other elements worked together in a fantastic upgrade of the classic cheese/honey/nut combination.

 
We each picked a primo, and of course shared them equally.  I got the Goat Cheese Ravioli with five lilies and the detective the tagliatelle with oxtail ragu.  Both dishes were incredible.

For the secondo, I decided upon the Grilled Quail wrapped in pancetta with radicchio & sage honey.

Tthe detective went for the Grilled Whole Orata wrapped in radicchio with olio nuovo, which was artfully stuffed with mint, flat leaf parsley, basil and tarragon, served with sea salt and the olive oil on the side.  While the orata was whole, it had also been completely deboned (a technique supposedly appropriated from Joel Robuchon and/or Edwin Ferrari). 

Unlike the primi, which we split equally, we only tried a few bites of each other's secondo, if mainly because the detective almost never came up for air.  I heard the occasional "mmmmm" from her, and that was about it.  Both dishes were beyond wonderful.

There was a great deal more I'd like to have tried on the menu (including, like at Babbo, a multi-course pasta tasting menu).  I will definitely be heading back.