food panda

Benu One of the things that I cringe the most has always been paying for overpriced Asian food, especially if it's Asian Fusion. PF Chang's? Ugh. Lukshon? Still not interested. Red Medicine? After that mediocre meal at Test Kitchen , my interest in trying Jordan Kahn's menu is at a nil. (That's besides the fact of what happened to SIV, which I found unprofessional to be frank). However, Benu has been a restaurant I've had my eye on ever since Corey Lee, the former chef de cuisine at The French Laundry moved on to helm his very own restaurant in San Francisco. Call me a hypocrite, but if Chef Lee was good enough for Thomas Keller, he's good enough for me. After given the green light from my buddies up North, I booked a tasting at Benu this past weekend. 19 Course Tasting Menu at Benu Upon entering the restaurant, I looked at the space. Clean, and modern, just what a restaurant should be these days. Buckwheat Sesame Crisps Instead of a bread course, we were given...

Breadbar I'll be the first to say, since my recent trip to NYC, I haven't been interested with the food scene in Los Angeles. The recent restaurant openings of Sotto, Son of a Gun, and Lukshon has not interested me one bit, and probably never will. However, when I was invited by Darin to a benefit dinner at the Breadbar in the Century City mall headlined by Hiro Urasawa of the famed Urasawa, I knew I had to try it. Ever since my previous dinner at Urasawa, I've been meaning to try his cooking again. Menu Along with Hiro Urasawa ( Urasawa ), we had Noriyuki Sugie (Breadbar), Michael Cimarusti ( Providence ), Walter Manzke (Formerly Church and State ), David Myers (Comme Ça), and Ramon Perez (Sona) collaborating on this 6 course tasting menu. Priced at $110 sans tax and gratuity, all of the proceeds from this dinner (along with another dinner at Comme Ça) goes directly to the Japan Earthquake relief aid. A great cause, and hopefully for us, a great meal ahead. Bread Basket ...

Redd One of the benefits of having your hometown being a 30 minutes drive to the Napa Valley is the access to all the fine dining close by. However, it's not a luxury that I've enjoyed until recently. On a recent trip up (in fact, it was my lunch before my dinner at Bottega ), my friends and I decided to catch an early lunch there before going to the vineyards for wine tasting. Menu I loved the dining room at Redd. It's so clean and open. I wish I had taken a shot of the space. Since we knew we had a heavy dinner in a matter of hours, we decided to go light and ordered family style. Bread Service It's hard to go wrong with some warm crusty bread. Though I had to make sure I leave plenty of room for the dishes coming up. Corn Soup - smoked salmon panini As a starter, we went with a cream corn soup. The texture was smooth and creamy. It was quite delicious. The accompanied smoked salmon panini was tasty by itself and worked well with the corn soup. The soup was the defini...