FOOD: 71Above

We have a fun Christmas tradition with our friends Chris and Carol where we gift each other with a fabulous dinner sometime in the next year. This means we get a good excuse to spend time together, to enjoy great dining, and celebrate Christmas several times a year. Win win win. Last night, we enjoyed such a “Christmas dinner” at 71Above – the stylish space with exquisite food and breathtaking views from the top of the US Bank Tower (the highest if not officially the tallest tower on the LA skyline). This was a great addition to the upper-end DTLA scene when it opened nearly two years ago. Chef Vartan Abgaryan (formerly at Cliff’s Edge) makes creative modernist takes on local ingredients, symphonies of flavor plated like works of art. We started with bubbly rose and an amuse bouche of three colorful and creative bites, including cucumber with sumac and passionfruit, and a lipstick radish with a dollop of soft cheese and ground pistachio. The hearty crusty wheat bread was warm and delicious, always a good harbinger. Our windowside table, looking east and north, overlooked downtown, the lights of Dodger Stadium, and the vast city stretching out in the distance. We started around 7pm, so enjoyed the last soft patches of sunlight and then watched the city transform into a jewel box nightscape as the evening went on. The menu is a prix fixe three-course dinner. Of course with four of us, we could share bites of different things. Our first courses included a fine gazpacho with thin slices of sour plum and cucumber; squash blossoms stuffed with rice, peanuts, and charred scallions with poblano chile and coriander; and oysters poached in champagne with fresh uni, caviar, and a tarragon leaf. Our second courses included a risotto with arugula, nettles, and preserved lemon, dramatically presented with sunflower petals around a center of ground olives; asparagus in black garlic honey and pea puree, with snap peas and pea tendrils; an almost dessert-like fois gras on brioche with macadamia, cocoa nibs, blueberry, and tarragon; and a handkerchief pasta with golden beets, goat cheese, and a pistachio pesto. Our third courses included spring lamb rack, loin, and croquette made from other lamb cuts with red walnuts and raisins; New York steak with a celery root bone marrow puree and onion jus; diver scallops with white asparagus and shaved fennel. Desserts included a coconut custard with tapioca pearls, puffed sweet basil rice, toasted coconut, young soft coconut meat, and matcha sorbet (like a modernist take on buko pie); a pistachio paste with pistachio sorbet and a colorful circus tent of white chocolate, cassis, and lemon cremeaux; and a caramel milk chocolate structure with a Sydney Opera House of hazelnut brittle, butterscotch shortbread, cocoa meringue, and brown butter hazelnut ice cream. In all, a fantastic evening of great food and great company. (See complete set of food pics here.)

FOOD: Manuela

Wonderful dinner downtown catching up with some old friends. We met at Manuela, a restaurant typifying the explosion of creative energy that is the DTLA Arts District. An old grain mill taking up an entire city block has been transformed into a Hauser & Wirth Gallery complex, with Manuela as a restaurant opening onto a central open courtyard. One side of the courtyard has been planted as the herb and vegetable garden for the restaurant, and the home for the chickens to provide fresh eggs. The old brick walls of the inside of the restaurant provide an organic extension of the art gallery to showcase rotating art displays. The food is Los Angeles farm- and dock-to-table, but with a Southern accent. Having just met the chickens, the deviled eggs are a must to start, yolks whipped with buttermilk and dill with a dash of red pepper on top. A cucumber sour cocktail (Hendricks gin, cucumber, parsley, egg white) was just the right note to toast Memorial Day weekend. “Barbecued” oysters were cooked just barely enough to melt the light dusting of Parmesan breadcrumbs while the oysters still tasted fresh and briny. Arugula with goat cheese and spiced pecans made a bed for the early peaches and cherries that are already in the market. Hot, light-as-air flaky cream biscuits, served on a board with mandoline-thin slices of country ham (like Virginia lardo), and honey butter, all together melting on the tongue with divine lightness. Most dishes here are quite conducive to sharing, so fortunately with four of us, we could get a good selection of the many great offerings. Local yellowtail was perfectly grilled with the tasty char of grill lines on the skin, served with tender young snap peas, green garlic, and shallots. A Peads & Barnett pork collar was beautifully charred on the outside and tender inside, rubbed with caramelized shallots, large-grain mustard, and a bit of rosemary. Diver scallops were butter-browned to light crispness on the outside, served atop grits with hen-of-the-woods mushrooms and little chunks of bacon. Roasted cauliflower was lightly sweetened and brightened with date vinegar and almonds. As the menu says, “you ain’t done yet”. For dessert, a rich chocolate torte came with popcorn ice cream and popcorn (cause who doesn’t like sweet and salty), and some light-as-air churritos came with a dulce de leche dipping sauce. Wonderful food, wonderful company, wonderful way to start the holiday weekend. (See complete set of food pics here.)

Jaffa, Kenneth Hahn Park Views, and Marilyn Sanders' Fierce Flowers

“Modern Israeli” is the latest flavor to hit the LA restaurant scene, and Jaffa on 3^rd St is a prime new example. If you get to Jaffa early, as I did, you might have to wait a few extra minutes for the lavosh to finish baking, but you’ll be glad you did. The fresh-baked flatbread – warm, spongy, with browned spots, and good bready flavor – makes a perfect wrap for the cornucopia of Israeli flavors, generally including a base of Israeli salad (chopped greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, red onion), tahini (sesame purée), zhug (a Yemenite condiment of hot peppers ground up with coriander), and pickles. I tried the “sabich” which featured thinly sliced and crisped eggplant, hard-boiled egg, hummus, and mango amba (a middle-Eastern savory chutney). It had a nice fresh crunch against the soft bread, with different bits of the complex flavors popping up in different bites. The accompanying taboulleh was a very fresh tasting variety of finely chopped greens with bulgur wheat in a citrus and light oil dressing. Oh, and that Jaffa shake! Made with almond milk and tahini (maybe with bits of halveh?) and dates, with a drizzle of date syrup on top. The space is lovely too. (I wish I’d taken a picture before it got busy and it felt invasive to get a good scene shot.) There’s a covered sidewalk patio area, but even the inside is largely opened up, with two oversize windows with opened shutters and tables creatively built into the sill, so that some people are literally sitting in the window. The décor palate is mostly light/white and wood, with bold blue water glasses on every table and blue bottles here and there adding a nice color pop, and fun blue and white irregularly shaped dishes.

After lunch, I went to check out the Kenneth Hahn Park, atop the Baldwin Hills, where I’d heard they have great views over the whole LA basin. It seemed a lovely day for it, with just enough clouds to be scenic but not obscure the views. Indeed it was a rewarding vista easily earned with a short hike. While I didn’t find a complete 360-degree spot, I did find one spot I could stand and take in at least 270 degrees, from Palos Verdes due south all across the Santa Monica Bay to the west, the Hollywood Hills to the north and around to the downtown LA skyline. It is amazing what you can see. Need to get back here with my real camera, as the iPhone doesn’t do it justice. I could see much of Catalina Island beyond Palos Verdes, and not just in silhouette. I could see the distinctive Googie “theme restaurant” at LAX, and watch planes landing and taking off. I could see the entire bay out to Point Dume. It is a marvelous vista of this vast and vibrant city.

Descending from the park, I headed to the Fabrik Projects gallery on La Cienega, to see a Marilyn Sanders photography exhibit called The Ferocity of Flowers. The flowers in these striking photos are very recognizable, yet she makes you see them in new ways. Normally, color is one’s dominant impression of flowers, but these photos are all sepia tone or silver gelatin prints. Without color, one is drawn instead to contemplate their shape and structure, and the way that light plays on them. On many of these, the play of light is fascinating, as it is sometimes direct, sometimes reflected, sometimes backlit translucence, or all of those interacting at once. Translucence and reflection illuminate shape and structure in unexpected ways. The other thing that makes these photos intriguing is the scale. She gets very close, closer even than the usual flower macro shot, creating an intimacy and an altered sense of proportion. Some of those pistils and stamens looked like something I could reach out and dance with. Some of the petals looked like a surface I could imagine sliding on or climbing. In one shot of lilies, a light source from behind creates a thin glow along the edge of the petal, the way one might see the first glow of dawn breaking over giant sand dunes in the Sahara. I wanted to ascend it. Beautiful and fascinating.

See the complete set of photos from this day here.

Dumplings, Highland Park, and Beyond The Streets

Today’s off-Friday exploration began at Mason’s Dumpling Shop, a new arrival in the increasingly happening Highland Park. These dumplings did not disappoint. The snow crab and pork soup dumplings had a delicate flavor that balanced both meats. The trick to soup dumplings, I learned today, is that the stock is chilled into a gelatinous aspic so it can be rolled up into a dumpling, and then the flavorful gel turns to soup when the dumpling is steamed. It is a test of chopstick skill to pick up the dumplings without piercing them and letting the soup spill out. Less delicate but even more flavorful were the pan-fried pork dumplings, spicy meat filling and the wrapper pleasingly browned and slightly crispy. I also had a seaweed salad with chili garlic dressing just to have a bit of green to go with my dough-and-meat fest.

After lunch, I took a walk along Figueroa, one of the two main streets of Highland Park. This neighborhood is reminding me of what Echo Park felt like 10 or 15 years ago. There’s a layered history of a part of town once fashionable, falling out, and starting to rise again. Liquor stores and pawn shops are starting to be replaced by hot new foodie spots, trendy coffee, record stores, barber shops, and even one combo record store / barber shop. Abandoned once-grand buildings that lined this stretch of the classic Route 66 are getting new life. Some classics, like the Highland Theatre, are alive again, and some of the Route 66 era kitsch, like a giant plaster “Chicken Boy” can still be seen. Just recently, the sidewalks were graced with a series of 14 tile mosaic murals depicting historic scenes of Highland Park, including the original Tongva indigenous people, the Rancho San Rafael land grant, the Ebell Club, and the Judson Studio (famous for its stained glass). There’s even one of the Highland Theater and Chicken Boy. Wanting a warm drink on this “May gray” day, I almost stopped into a hipster coffee house, but then a sign in Spanish on an older generation establishment caught my eye advertising atol de elote, a warm Guatemalan drink made from ground corn and sweetened milk. That hit the spot.

This survey of street art was a perfect prelude to my afternoon destination, an art exhibition called “Beyond The Streets”, just a couple miles down the arroyo in the industrial no-man’s land between Chinatown and Lincoln Heights. If you want to do an ambitious art installation that requires large sprawling spaces, a warehouse in this part of town seems to be the go-to spot. This provocative and at times immersive exhibit is all about street art and graffiti, including photographers who have chronicled street art, pop art inspired by graffiti, artists who grew up spray-painting walls and subway cars before moving to canvas and galleries, and even some actual graffiti. Parts of the show document “famous” graffiti and celebrate the anti-establishment attitude of the artists in a way that’s probably intentionally troubling to people like me who appreciate the artistry while also appreciating that there is a line where it crosses into vandalism. (Ironically, when you enter this exhibit, you are asked to explicitly state that you do not intend to damage or add to the art in any way, and you’re not allowed to bring in your own spray paint.) If you have any appreciation for pop art, you would enjoy this show, and some of the installations are truly impressive. Lee Quiñones, who became notorious for painting murals on schools and handball courts around New York City, has recreated one of his handball courts here, life size, and you’re free to play handball on it if you like. Several of the exhibits you can completely enter into, including a “gangsta garden”, an ironic version of a barrio strip mall church, a “temple” that reinterprets classic European sacred spaces, and recreation of the Venice Beach skateboarding pavilion that you’re welcome to skate on. Some exhibits were massive, such as a 30+ foot high wall that formed a large half circle, completely and intricately painted. Many were quite eye-popping, some amusing, some a bit challenging. I ended up spending three hours wandering this vast sprawling exhibition. It’s on through July 6, and then it heads to New York. Check it out! (See complete photo album here.)

STAGE: The Band's Visit

Saw another wonderful musical this evening, The Band’s Visit, along a similar theme to yesterday’s show, of a small town unexpectedly hosting foreign visitors. In this case, an Egyptian police orchestra heading for an Israeli cultural exchange program ends up in the wrong town, and spends the night. It’s an inventive excuse for some great Arab music, charming vignettes of characters in a remote town, and sultry songs.

STAGE: Come From Away

Another fantastic musical this evening, Come From Away. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, dozens of airplanes were diverted to the small town of Gander, Newfoundland, a remote part of Canada, where a town of 7000 people unexpectedly hosted thousands of confused passengers for several days before US airspace was reopened. This moving and charming musical tells that story, as a great ensemble of a dozen actors plays several dozen roles. Who knew such a heartfelt evening of theatre, and such a heartwarming tale of hospitality could come from the world’s worst air travel experience. After the show hanging out at the stage door to greet the actors, we met a couple who traveled from Newfoundland to see this show. They were getting the cast to autograph a Newfoundland flag. Such nice people, just like in the show!

STAGE: Dear Evan Hansen

This evening we saw Dear Evan Hansen, the winner of last year’s Tony for Best Musical and five other Tony awards. The award-winning lead actor was recently replaced by Taylor Trensch, who we’d seen in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Don’t know what that other guy was like, but the new guy is outstanding. What a great show, very moving, an original gripping story, and great performances all around. Of course we hung out at the stage door to greet the stars.
(Update 10/2018: We loved this show so much we saw it again when it came to LA.)