Breakfast at Nickel Diner (Los Angeles)

I don't want people to think that when I say this blog is about my "culinary adventures" that I only mean fancy meals at pricey restaurants.  In fact, some of our very favorite places to eat are local, hole-in-the-wall, greasy spoons.  What I am really looking for in a great restaurant is a good environment, helpful and friendly service, and most important of all, delicious food. 

That being said, my husband and I are currently taking a four week wine education class which happens to be located in Downtown Los Angeles.  Since we live about an hour north of Downtown L.A., we don't generally make it down there as much as we would like.  Therefore, we are taking this opportunity to visit one new restaurant each week in the Downtown L.A. area.

This week, instead of dinner, we opted to go out for breakfast before our class.  We decided on a place called the Nickel Diner.   I had read about Nickel Diner in Los Angeles Magazine, and then it was highlighted on Guy Fieri's show, "Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives."  It's a retro diner, but with  gourmet flair.  The menu includes classic diner fare, but with some unique and creative twists.

Now, the Nickel Diner does not take reservations, and the inside is fairly small. We heard that there is often a long wait to get a table for breakfast.  We arrived at about 9:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and we were seated immediately.  By the time we left, about an hour later, there were a lot more people outside waiting to be seated. 

We started our breakfast off with a house "specialty", the maple bacon donut.  Now, I've tried a few different maple bacon donuts in my time, but this one would go right to the top of my list.  First off, the bacon was crumbled and spread all over the top of the donut.  Other ones that I have tried have just put a whole piece of bacon on the top of the donut, which makes it nearly impossible to eat. Also, with that method, you don't get bacon with every bite.  With Nickel Diner's version, I got a good amount of freshly made, crumbly bacon in each bite.  Second, the maple glaze over the top had just the right amount of sweetness, and wasn't overly sugary or mapley, like others I've had.  Finally, the donut itself was super fresh and had an almost cake-like texture.  The balance of flavors was a flawless mixture of sweet and savory, and my husband and I devoured it!

Nickel Diner is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but we were only focused on breakfast.  Their breakfast menu includes a variety of innovative and tasty sounding egg dishes, along with pancakes with homemade fruit compotes, and french toast made with homemade cinnamon swirl brioche.  Everything sounded delicious, but after thoroughly reviewing the regular menu, we each decided on one of the daily specials.

My husband loves a good Mexican breakfast.  We had heard that Nickel Diner had a pretty solid huevos rancheros, and he makes a point to try the huevos wherever he goes.  But as fate would have it, the morning we visited the Nickel Diner, they had chilaquiles on the list of specials.  In general, chilaquiles consists of crispy tortilla chips, topped with eggs, and mixed with salsa and beans.  We've had chilaquiles before, but noticed that everyplace does them differently, and none of our staple breakfast joints regularly offer chilaquiles.  For these reasons, he immediately switched his choice to the chilaquiles. 

As hoped for, the chilaquiles boiled down to the match between the egg yolks and the tortilla chips.  The eggs were perfectly poached.  Cutting in to them released the rich, oozing yolk to mix in with the dish, and the remaining whites had perfect texture.  The tortilla chips maintained just the right amount of crunch after soaking up the fresh, tomatillo salsa, beans, and egg yolk.  Basically, he ended up with scrumptious breakfast nachos.  The perfect forkful had some egg white and some chips, and was mopped with the soupy, eggy mixture on the plate.  This was Mexican breakfast at its finest.  My husband  thoroughly enjoyed the chilaquiles.

I decided on the Daddy's Breakfast Burrito, which consisted of eggs, chorizo, mushrooms, pepper jack cheese, and potatoes.  Everything was wrapped in a giant flour tortilla, and smothered in fresh salsa verde.  It really should have been called the "Big Daddy" burrito, because as you can see below, the burrito was the size of my plate.

Daddy's Breakfast Burrito (before):

The burrito was a delicious combination of a lot of high quality components.  The chorizo had a good amount of heat, and the potatoes inside were somehow able to maintain their crispiness.  The salsa verde was fairly mild, but very fresh.  I actually added a bit of Tapatio hot sauce to give everything a bit more kick.  Even though I thoroughly enjoyed my burrito, it was so big that I was only able to get through about half of it, before giving up on the rest. 

Daddy's Breakfast Burrito (after):

By this point, I was completely stuffed.  I was a bit disappointed, because  Nickel Diner is known for their desserts. Unfortunately, I could not manage another bite.  However, I did get a good look at their mouth-watering dessert tray on our way out. All of their desserts are homemade, including several different types of cakes, cobbler, and even homemade Pop-Tarts, shown on the right side of the tray below.

For you chocoholics, they even make their own homemade version of a Ding-Dong.

All of the desserts looked fantastic.

We both said we would definitely return to Nickel Diner.  My husband wants to go back and try the huevos rancheros, and I'll probably have a breakfast consisting of nothing but Pop-Tarts and Ding-Dongs!


See Guy Fieri visit the Nickel Diner on "Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives".

Dinner at Trois Mec (Los Angeles)

So, I had been reading and hearing a lot about a new L.A. restaurant called Trois Mec, with a French head chef named Ludo Lefebvre.  Now, foodies may recognize "Chef Ludo" from his Iron Chef America battle against Mario Batali, or more recently, as one of the four judges on the cooking reality show, "The Taste."  I had heard about Chef Ludo some time back, as a chef who was pioneering the idea of "pop-up" restaurants in L.A.  His LudoBites, "pop-up" restaurants would send out e-mails to subscribers advising them that he would be setting up a restaurant, usually for about a week or two at a time, in random locations around L.A. Given Chef Ludo's reputation, and the limited time each location would be open, the reservations were very difficult to obtain.  I subscribed to his LudoBites website, and received e-mails indicating each time reservations would be made available at the various pop-up locations.  Several times, I attempted to obtain one of these highly coveted reservations, but to no avail.

Therefore, when I heard that Chef Ludo was setting up shop in a more "permanent" location, I was intrigued.  Would these reservations be any easier to get?  Sadly, the answer is still no.  Reservations are only available through the website www.troismec.com, and they are only released to the public at exactly 8:00 a.m. every Friday morning.  If you don't get a reservation in the first five minutes, you're out of luck.  I tried this method a few times, but never managed to secure a reservation.

Then, luckily for me, fate intervened.  As I was driving in my car one morning, I heard one of those radio commercials for Mastercard.  Normally, I would just tune out these commercials, however, this one was talking about how having a Mastercard can allow you access to special "priceless" events around L.A.  As an example, the commercial stated that Mastercard holders could have access to the toughest restaurant reservation in L.A., which was Trois Mec!  My ears perked up, since I have a Mastercard, so I decided to investigate this matter further. I went on to Priceless.com, and low and behold, one of the "priceless" events that they were offering was a reservation for two people, at the chef's counter, at Trois Mec.  They offer one of these reservations to the public on Wednesday mornings each week, and I just happened to log on at the exact right time, and scored the coveted Friday night seats!  (Now that we've already eaten here, I decided to share this secret reservation tip with the public.)  We went for our dinner at Trois Mec on Friday, June 28th.

Now, the first thing diners must know, is that Trois Mec is situated in a small strip mall, in a space formerly occupied by Raffallo's Pizza.  Although the inside of the place was completely gutted and re-modeled, nothing was changed on the outside.  The Raffallo's Pizza sign still flashes it's lights, and there is absolutely zero signage indicating that Trois Mec is inside.  Further, all of the front windows are opaque so no one can look inside and see that the place is now an upscale restaurant.  The front looks like the photo below.  You really have to know Trois Mec is in there, otherwise, you'd never find it. 

The place is pretty small on the inside.  There are four tables against the wall, and an eight-seat kitchen counter where diners can watch all the magic unfold in the kitchen.  The total capacity of the restaurant is only 26 people, which allows for an intimate dining experience. When you first walk through the door, you are greeted with a friendly staff yelling "bon soir", in the same manner that they yell "irrashaimase" at a sushi restaurant.

The Trois Mec menu is pre-set each night, and includes five courses and a variety of "snacks."  Guests can also add on wine pairings for each course, which we decided to do.  We love to do the wine pairings, to see how the food enhances the wine and vice versa.  Once we were seated at the counter, we were provided with the menu for the evening.

We were first provided with an apertif, which I think had some ginger in it, and was basically meant to prepare our palates for what was to come.  The next item we were served was the first in an array of pre-meal "snacks."  The snack was called buckwheat popcorn, which was served in a small bowl, and meant to be eaten with your hands.

  

This "popcorn" was salty and crunchy, and reminded me of a combination of corn nuts and Grape Nuts cereal.  I wasn't so sure about it at first, but it became more and more addictive with every bite.  Along with the buckwheat popcorn, we were served a glass of Normandy apple cider.  The sweetness of the cider paired nicely with the saltiness of the popcorn.

The next "snack" was a brioche steamed bun topped with nori butter.  It was a bite-sized piece of bread with a salty, seaweed butter on top.  Because it was steamed, it was light and airy.  This snack also paired well with the cider.

The next tasty morsel was a tandoori madeline.  Imagine one of those buttery madeline cookies from Starbucks doused in tandoori powder with a spicy kick.  Sounds strange, but tasted great.

Our final "snack" was a tempura fried baby corn with mojo verde sauce.

Now, I have had my share of tempura, but never any using baby corn.  The tempura batter was light and crispy, and not too greasy, and the mojo sauce gave it just the right hint of spice.  It was really delicious.

We finally moved on to our actual first course which was a combination of avocado, sushi rice, salt cod cream, lime, and cilantro.  The salt cod was smooth and creamy, and not too fishy (which cod often tends to be).  Along with the thinly sliced avocado and sushi rice, it had all the flavors of a sushi roll, but it was much more delicate.  This course was paired with an unfiltered sake.  To be honest, I am not a big sake fan, however, this pairing worked very well together because of the Asian flavors in the dish. 

Our second course was peas in a bone marrow custard with crispy shallots.  It was presented like a soup, however, the bone marrow custard was more like a consomme than just a simple broth.  It had a very complex flavor and worked well with the crispy shallots.  I really enjoyed the fresh peas which tasted like they were just popped out of their shells and put on the plate.  Instead of pairing this course with a white wine, which is what I would have expected due to the lightness of the dish, it was paired with a Bandol Rose which worked surprisingly well.

Our third course was a dish of potato pulp, brown butter, bonito, onion soubise, and salers.  Potato "pulp" is basically a peeled and cooked potato which is put through a ricer, so that it comes out at fluffy little potato bits.  The "pulp" was put on the plate, then doused with a ladle of brown butter.  Crispy bonito, which are salty, dried flakes of fish often used in Japanese cuisine, were sprinkled on top.  I did not know what "onion soubise" was, but I have since looked it up and learned that it is an onion sauce which is based on a Béchamel sauce, with the addition of onion purée.  I also did not know what "salers" were, and it turns out that salers is a specific type of cheese from the south west part of France.  So, to recap, the plate had potatoes, butter, salt, onion, and cheese!  How could you go wrong?  It tasted like light and fluffy mashed potatoes, with some rich, intense added flavors.    The potatoes were paired with a gamay wine from the Loire Valley.  The light red wine paired nicely with the rich flavors of the dish.

The fourth course was the only protein of all the courses, and consisted of Iberico pork, clams, leeks, and parmesan.  Iberico pork is a free range pork from Spain, which is raised on acorns to produce meat with excellent marbling.  We watched as one of the cooks grilled the pork over a wood burning grill, and managed to achieve a perfect medium rare.  Then we watched as the meat was given time to rest, in order for the juices to reabsorb into the meat.  Next, it was sliced into thin pieces and passed down an "assembly-line" of three other cooks, who each had a specific role to play in the creation of the dish.

One cook carefully placed the clams around the pork.  The next had tweezers and gently placed each individual leek on to the plate.  The next covered the pork in the parmesan "foam" and finished garnishing the dish.  It was an expertly composed dish, and one of our favorites of the meal. It was paired with a muscadet, which is a white French wine, which is made at the western end of the Loire Valley.

As if we hadn't eaten enough already, the chef decided to add in an extra course for the evening, which was a truffle grilled cheese sandwich, with "campfire" ice cream.  With the words truffle, grilled cheese, and ice cream, how could we refuse?  The dish was a crustless piece of perfectly grilled cheese sandwich, with the added bonus of truffle, just in case it wasn't already decadent enough.   The grilled cheese was also cooked on the wood burning grill.  Interestingly, the grilled cheese was served with a quinelle of what they called "campfire" ice cream.  A "quinelle" is a technique used in many restaurants to present mousse, ice cream, sorbet, whipped cream, etc.  It is an elliptical shape made by passing the mixture back and forth between two spoons.  We were sitting directly in front of the lead chef as he took special care creating each individual quinelle.

The "campfire" ice cream had a unique sweet and smoky flavor which I had never tasted before in an ice cream.  The chef explained that they actually put wood chips in the ice cream mixture in order to infuse the really smoky flavor.  The ice cream paired well with the grilled richness of the sandwich.  This course was paired with a chenin blanc.  The acidity of the chenin blanc paired well with the incredible richness of the dish.

Our fifth course was dessert, which was a Napoleon with vanilla cream and berries. 
It was paired with a sweet, sparkling Gamay wine, which was a creative and successful pairing.

Finally, we were served a plate of mignardises, which are small sweet tid-bits served at the end of the meal (after dessert), usually with coffee.  We watched as the cooks carefully prepared these tiny morsels right in front of us.

We were treated to bite-sized dark chocolate squares finished with habanero salt, along with lemon-ginger tarts.  These little treats were an excellent way to round out a great meal.

Overall, we had a fantastic dining experience at Trois Mec.  The food was not only elegant and beautiful to look at, but also tasted great.  Each course was more imaginative and creative than the last.  Sitting at the counter afforded us a view of everything that was happening in the kitchen throughout the service, and watching the care and precision with which everything was prepared and presented was just amazing.  I would definitely recommend starting now to try and obtain a reservation at this new L.A. gem.

Dinner at Rivera Restaurant (Los Angeles)

So back in May 2013, Johnathan Gold, who is a food critic for the L.A. Times,  published a list of the "101 Best Restaurant in Los Angeles."  As self-proclaimed foodies, my husband and I decided that we would try to visit as many of these places as we could.  Mr. Gold's list contains a huge variety of places, from Michelin-starred, well-known places, to smaller hole-in-the-wall gems.

So we read the list, and one of the first places we decided to try was Rivera restaurant in Downtown Los Angeles.  We chose Rivera primarily for two reasons: First, because it is in an area of Downtown L.A. that we  rarely visit.  It is fairly close to Staples Center, however, if we are headed there, we will usually eat somewhere at L.A. Live.  Second, because it was supposed to have a great collection of tequilas, and my husband is a sucker for tequila.  
 

My first, general observations were that Rivera had a good overall atmosphere,  and a friendly and knowledgeable staff.  The place specializes in "Latin-fusion" cuisine, from various parts of the world, so we had to ask our waiter some questions about the menu and he was happy to oblige.  We each started with one of their unusual cocktails.  My husband loves Mezcal, which comes from the agave plant, but is smokier than tequila.  Therefore, he tried a drink called the Barbacoa, which consisted of lemon juice, agave nectar, ginger, chipotle, lime, mezcal, red bell pepper, and a piece of beef jerky for garnish (yep, actual beef jerky)!  It looked like this:

 Now, I'm not a tequila or mezcal drinker, but I had to have a sip.  It was quite complex, spicy and smoky, but it was very tasty.  I had a cocktail called a Jane's Addiction, which was similar to a vodka lemon-drop, but not as sweet, and very refreshing. Rivera was definitely off to a good start!

Next, we ordered two appetizers:  First, we had the housemade tortillas with "Indian butter."  The tortillas had edible flowers pressed into each one, making them each little pieces of art.  They were beautiful, and I had never seen anything like it.

The "Indian butter" was more like a very smooth, and also spicy, guacamole.  Spread on top of the tortillas, it was delicious.

Second, we had a platter of jamon iberico, which is a type of cured ham from Spain, and considered to be the finest ham in the world.  The pigs are fed only acorns and herbs to allow for superb marbling of the ham.  The jamon comes from the thigh and hind leg of the animal.  We received a generous portion of the jamon, along with housemade sourdough toast to eat it with.  It was also very tasty.  The leg was proudly displayed in the middle of the restaurant, like a trophy for all to see, as the cooks gently shaved portions off of it and on to large platters.

For our main courses, I had brazilian feijoada, which was described as seared jidori chicken breast, with brazilian bean and chorizo sausage stew, with a malbec reduction.  (We are suckers for anything with chorizo in it!)  The chicken was prepared in the "sous-vide" method, where it is sealed in an airtight plastic bag, and then submerged in a water bath for longer than normal cooking time.  The intention of this method is to cook the food evenly, and not to overcook the outside, which keeps the meat juicier.  It was quite effective as the chicken was very juicy, and the chorizo and bean stew was an excellent accompaniment.

My husband had duck enfrijolada, which was braised duck with blue corn tortilla, black bean puree, chevre, and red wine chile sauce.  It came with some purple potatoes on the side.  The dish was beautiful, with edible flower petals on top.  The flavor was more sweet than spicy, and he described it like a BBQ'd pulled-pork sandwich, only with duck meat instead.  It was a little one note, as the tortillas became a bit mushy with all the sauce and the bean puree.  It could have used some type of crunchy element to give is a bit more texture.  The purple potatoes were pretty, but tasted just like regular potatoes, and did not add much to the dish.

We were pretty stuffed by the time we finished our entrees, but my husband wanted some tequila for "dessert", so we decided to scope out the dessert menu.  My husband ordered a tequila off of their extensive list, however, they were out of the one that he chose.  Instead of just telling him they were out of that tequila, the bartender (excuse me, "mixologist") personally came over to our table and asked my husband about his tequila preferences, and then gave him some suggestions for similar alternatives.  The bartender then brought over a couple of different tequilas for my husband to sample.  I thought this was a very classy move, and exuded the type of good service that should be expected with an expensive meal. One of the tequilas that the bartender gave him a sample of is pictured below.  My husband ultimately chose a tequila he had tried before, however, he was able to discover something new, which is always a sign that the bartender knows his stuff!

While all the tequila discussion was going on, I spotted something on the dessert menu that I had to try.  It was called xochimilco.  (I mostly just wanted to hear the waiter pronounce it!)  It was an ancho chile chocolate cake, with avocado mousse, lime pepper sauce, and a spicy pepita brittle.  The description sounded so unusual and delicious, we decided to split it.

Once again, the plate was beautiful.  The sweet and spicy flavors worked fantastic together, and whatever else the chef put in the avocado mousse made it taste like a sweet, avocado frosting for the chile spiced, chocolate cake.  My husband also said the dessert paired really well with his tequila.

Overall, we had a very enjoyable meal at Rivera.  The food was beautiful, as well as, quite tasty.   I would say we both enjoyed this culinary adventure, and we would recommend it to anyone headed into Downtown L.A. looking for a special meal.