An L.A. Visit or "Oysters and Uni and Chicken, oh my!"

It had been two-and-a-half years since I’d been to LA and to those of you who don’t travel very much or have no reason to visit Los Angeles very often, that may seem perfectly normal but for me, that was an eternity. I used to live there and even after I moved back to New York, I would hit LA about twice a year. So as a result, things have changed a bit and I found myself playing catch up on my visit in late-March. For example, Culver City has turned into a hot bed of eating and drinking joints and as a result, the income level of the nabe has risen. (All of this info is from a hasty survey of a few friends. Don’t hold me to its scientific authenticity.)

At any rate, Tuesday saw me eating two equally delicious meals at restaurants within a mile of each other and on opposite end of the financial spectrum. Lunch took me to K-Zo which bills itself as “Tokyo-style sushi, nouvelle-Asian small plates” and an extensive sake menu. The menu was expansive and expensive and the food was gorgeously presented, to wit:

Oysters, uni and caviar at K-Zo in Culver City, LA

While at $14, this app was pricey (especially since the oysters were barely 1.5” across), the presentation and flavors were fantastic. Uni (sea urchin) is one of those foods that if it’s “off” the first time you try it, the memory of that experience can prevent you from ever trying it again. As luck would have it, I am a recent convert to this most luxurious of sea foods and have only had top-quality stuff. The rest of the meal, while high quality sushi, expertly prepared was merely good sushi. Honestly, it’s my fault. I rushed my order and defaulted to familiar territory (spicy tuna and avocado-fresh water eel hand rolls, tuna sushi, tempura shrimp rolls) where I could have been trying monkfish liver or seared albacore sashimi. Then again, those items aren’t all that adventurous. Basically, K-Zo was a pleasant place for lunch, but at $80 (including some poor hot sake that I shouldn’t have ordered, considering their extensive cold sake list) it was shockingly overpriced.

In between lunch and dinner I visited Surfas, a restaurant supply warehouse with as many URLs as kinds of butter:

Good Lord! The butter case at Surfas, Culver City, LA.

First there’s the basic URL: http://www.surfaslosangeles.com/ Then there’s the cafe (with free wifi) and Surfas’ mail order site. Not sure what the point of three distinct URLs is, but whatever the reason, if you’re in LA, Surfas is worth a trip. If you’re a foodie and anywhere from an enthusiastic amateur chef on up to a seasoned pro, the joint is like Disney World is to a 10 year-old. There’s food, of course. The freezer case of sausages was particularly drool-worthy. A small but notable cheese and salumi counter and, of course, all sorts of things a good restaurant needs, like giant containers of Fleur de Sel de Camargue (along with Hawaiian, Himalayan and any other kind of salt you can imagine). The butter case alone made me wish I was living in LA and could buy one of each and bring them back to my house and make terribly rich sauces until the wee hours. Then there’s vanilla from Tahiti, Madagascar and Mexico. Had I an unending budget and a waistline immune to fat, I would have bought one of each and done many ice cream experiments. Well, maybe there will come a day when I will shop at Surfas like a local. Until then, I will have to subsist on their mail order.

Mmmmm, vanilla!

Dinner was at the venerable LA institution, Versailles. This Cuban no-frills joint has a few locations in the city, but the one everyone seems to go to is the Culver City outpost on Venice and Motor. There’s not much to say about Versailles except two things: Firstly, I never get into discussions about Cuban politics when I am there (I suspect I’d be banned) and secondly…. garlic chicken, aka #6. The menu is as vast as it is tasty. I have had shrimp and I have had the roast pork/chicken combo. I think I even once had a calamari steak. That’s all just really stupid. Sit down, order a Negro Modelo and pretend to peruse the menu. When they come back with the beer, order the #6. In roughly 5 minutes you’re presented with about half of a chicken, perfectly roasted, slathered in garlic sauce and onions with a side of fried plantains. (See? If I didn’t tell you to order the beer first, there’s a good chance you’d end up with the chicken fiest and that’s no good.

One might be concerned with the speed at which the food arrives, as if they were nuking frozen, pre-cooked pullets in the kitchen. Not so. It’s just that they know that if there are 150 people in the joint, about 145 of them will order the garlic chicken so they’re constantly cooking the bastards! I feel bad for the rest of the menu and the chefs because they really do turn out some excellent food, but the chicken, with its crispy skin and moist meat and piquant citrus garlic sauce is truly the stuff of legends. After all, the place has been churning out these flavorful fowl for almost 30 years!

Jesus. That was just the first day!