I didn't have much faith that we were going to have a good place here. We found it very difficult to find a place to stay that was central, had two beds, and wasn't $4000 per month. At the last minute Todd booked us a room in a great area that was relatively inexpensive. I figured quality would suffer.
I'm thrilled to say that I was wrong.
We met Blair, our landlord who is 42 but looks (possibly significantly) under 30, and he walked us to the apartment. As promised, it's really just a few minutes from the train station.
On Ideas in the Making
if You've followed me for a while (which I doubt judging my my reader count) You know I'm a bit of a foodie. Being a foodie is weird, cause while I hate, and I mean hate, to spend money, I just really enjoy eating good food with food friends. for One I like creative food, that takes combinations you wouldn't think of and mixes them with all sorts of textures or ideas that have you going "WoW" all the time. I guess to me food is like a mix of fine-art and stimulation. I wouldn't lie it feels good to eat good food, but one can also argue it feels good, if some in pure terms better, to eat say, a super chewy, crispy chocolate-chip cookie, or ice cream or something, yet those foods don't really blow you away or leave you in awe at how someone came up with it, although sometimes you do wonder what the recipe is. Ultimately I just really enjoy food that is modern, and conceptual, I am not a big fan of Haute cuisine or something that doesn't leave me absolutely amazed at how someone came up with it. Thus for my first restaurant review: INK
INK is a restaurant in los angeles manned by Michael Voltaggio. The restaurant focuses on fresh ingredients, creative textures and combination of flavors, and sometimes presenting familiar concepts in different ways. When you first enter the restaurant it hits you that this is like just about every other hipster/modern-contemporary new-american style place. No white mantels, waiters in jeans and shirt for the most part, and successful lawyers and businessmen in suits mixed in with hoodie wearing, laid back, foodie hipsters.
The first thing that got me is the menu. Its absolutely filled with everything you could possibly imagine: Kale, check, lamb, check, cuttelfish, check, hamachi, check, pig ears, check. It doesn't stop. My friend and I ordered the Beef tartare, Trout, potato polenta, lamb belly, pig ears and kale, dungeness crab. Each plate as follows
The most standout play 9/10-10/10 was the beef tartare. First the combination of beef tartare, hearts of palm (which I believe are made into powder via liquid nitrogen) Rye, horseradish and seabean chimichurri is crazy. To begin, the raw beef was of insanely high quality, it was like having a super rich buttery taste in your mouth, but then the acidity of the pieces of cranberry?(I'm not even sure on this one to be honest) and the cold powder of hearts of plam, with the crispy flakes that come just give your mouth a texture sensation I can barely describe. It all just mixed so well, and every flavor felt like it deserved to be there. Aboslutely the best dish of the night, right up there with the desert.
The second best dish was the dungeness crab. First, like every other dish that night, the crab was of the very best quality, flavorful and light just with a rich taste of the sea. But what was really outstanding wast he combination of the crab with the house tofu and the crispy nori that came on top, the texture sensation of the incredible tofu, the light crab and the crispy nori was pretty ridiculous, how someone thought of mixing tofu with crab in that manner blows my mind, regardless, amazing dish.
