A post taken from from "yelp.com" food blog, on Grace restaurant, in Los Angeles, CA:
Yay! Another 5 star review! I LOVE writing 5 star reviews. Better yet, I love eating 5 star meals! To set the scene, here we went to Grace at 6 on a Sunday night. When we arrived, we had the entire place to ourselves, which was nice, but it filled up a bit later.
For appetizers, my mom and I shjared the fois gras, which was perfectly cooked with an ice wine gelee and a liver reduction with apricot polenta. It was plated gorgeously with the beautiful three dishes front and center. YUM!!!! My brother had a trio of fish special, which was tuna tartatre with seaweed salad and ponzu, alaskan halibut sashimi with yuzu gelee and ice wine vinegar, and north sea eel with hijiki and hot mustard. The seaweed that came with the tuna wasn't my fave as it was kind of overpowering, but the halibut and the ell (and especially the yuzu gelee!) were just lovely, and tasted like they must've been swimming earlier in the day. My girlfriend had a beet salad, which soundssimple, but was delicious, with Humboldt Fog cheese, and an onion relish underneath the greenns that gave the dish a sublte, smoky/sweet undertone. Dad had the fried, stuffed squash blossoms that came with a burratta cheese--YUM! I was sort of like a jalapeno popper, but with squah blossoms. Fried and yummy but not so heavy that you couldn't stomach the entree.
Speaking of entrees, here they come. I had the braised pork, which our amazing waitress Angela suggested. When she told me it was smoked over hikory all night, I just sat there gaping, starting to salivate, and when I fonally got it together, ordered witb glee. When it came it was so huge (like a brontosaurus chop!) and falling-off-the-bone fantastic that my mother stared at it, saying "Oooh! Can I taste that?" and then, "Oh, can I *share* that with you (of course we did)? My goodness it was fantastic. It came with garlic rapini and sliced potatoes with fried chorizo. Muriel, it was heaven.
Mom got wild boar with spaetzle and some other yummy vegetables that were hard to make out (I did notice some brussel sprouts). the boar was perfectly cooked and quite tasty without being gamey. It was somewhere betweek pork and venision. Great.
My girl got halibut that was so crazy good, she actually said it was the she's ever had. It had fresh peas and green gnocci and a primavera sauce, and when I tried it It felt like I was tasting butter, it was so melt-in-your-mouth.
My bhrother and dad got the black bass with roated purple califlower, artichokes, and summer truffles in a lobster reduction. I actually didn't try it, but I did try my brother's lobster reduction (dad got his without it), and it was wonderful. Sweet and lobstery with a hint of wine. It would be the perfect thing to eat with a crustly bread. Ooh! The bread was good. So was the butter. The bread was these little ciabattas from Il Fornaio.
Fo dessert, we all think we ordered the best thing. I had the Boca Negra cake, which was this crazy cake that was so rich and dark chololately, I could even come close to eating it all. It came with a curried (read: cardomom-y) rice cake underneath, siam tea ice cream (that was nice, but everyone else thought was sort of gingery-it wasn't), and best of ALL?! the passion fruit caramel. I happen to personally believe that fresh, sweetened, passion fruit is the best taste on earth. It's tropical-y, tasty,and tart in that key-lime-pie-but-better sort of mouth puckering, rich way that makes you feel like you're having a mouth-gasm with every bite. So yeah, I enjoyed *my* dessert.
Mom had an almond apple pithivier, a sort of apple tart that I failed to try as I was wrapped up in my own dish. My girl got the butterscotch doughnuts, which is a rarity for her, as she usually goes with all things chocolate, but the lovely Angela suggested these, so she went with them. And boy were they amazing. W're going to go back for them. They were stuffed with a butterscotch cream filling that tasted sweetly homemade and not like traditional butterscotch. I don't know how to explain it, but to say it was this sugar-covered fried gorgeousness that one person at your table should for sure try.
The whole thing cost about $75 a person (without tip), including two drinks and two $20-a-bottle corkage fees. And whiile I recognize that there are some people in the world who make that in a year, if you dine out at fancy restaurants regularly or occaisionally (and hopefully you give to charity, too), this is a wonderful one to go to. And don't forget to ask for Angela to serve you. She had every aspect of service down to a T, from service to suggestions to fielding all of our (and let's face it--we ask a LOT of them--and sometimes all at one time) questions. She was amazing, as was everything else about the place! Grace can wear its 5 stars proudly.
07/01/2007
Yay! Another 5 star review! I LOVE writing 5 star reviews. Better yet, I love eating 5 star meals! To set the scene, here we went to Grace at 6 on a Sunday night. When we arrived, we had the entire place to ourselves, which was nice, but it filled up a bit later.
For appetizers, my mom and I shjared the fois gras, which was perfectly cooked with an ice wine gelee and a liver reduction with apricot polenta. It was plated gorgeously with the beautiful three dishes front and center. YUM!!!! My brother had a trio of fish special, which was tuna tartatre with seaweed salad and ponzu, alaskan halibut sashimi with yuzu gelee and ice wine vinegar, and north sea eel with hijiki and hot mustard. The seaweed that came with the tuna wasn't my fave as it was kind of overpowering, but the halibut and the ell (and especially the yuzu gelee!) were just lovely, and tasted like they must've been swimming earlier in the day. My girlfriend had a beet salad, which soundssimple, but was delicious, with Humboldt Fog cheese, and an onion relish underneath the greenns that gave the dish a sublte, smoky/sweet undertone. Dad had the fried, stuffed squash blossoms that came with a burratta cheese--YUM! I was sort of like a jalapeno popper, but with squah blossoms. Fried and yummy but not so heavy that you couldn't stomach the entree.
Speaking of entrees, here they come. I had the braised pork, which our amazing waitress Angela suggested. When she told me it was smoked over hikory all night, I just sat there gaping, starting to salivate, and when I fonally got it together, ordered witb glee. When it came it was so huge (like a brontosaurus chop!) and falling-off-the-bone fantastic that my mother stared at it, saying "Oooh! Can I taste that?" and then, "Oh, can I *share* that with you (of course we did)? My goodness it was fantastic. It came with garlic rapini and sliced potatoes with fried chorizo. Muriel, it was heaven.
Mom got wild boar with spaetzle and some other yummy vegetables that were hard to make out (I did notice some brussel sprouts). the boar was perfectly cooked and quite tasty without being gamey. It was somewhere betweek pork and venision. Great.
My girl got halibut that was so crazy good, she actually said it was the she's ever had. It had fresh peas and green gnocci and a primavera sauce, and when I tried it It felt like I was tasting butter, it was so melt-in-your-mouth.
My bhrother and dad got the black bass with roated purple califlower, artichokes, and summer truffles in a lobster reduction. I actually didn't try it, but I did try my brother's lobster reduction (dad got his without it), and it was wonderful. Sweet and lobstery with a hint of wine. It would be the perfect thing to eat with a crustly bread. Ooh! The bread was good. So was the butter. The bread was these little ciabattas from Il Fornaio.
Fo dessert, we all think we ordered the best thing. I had the Boca Negra cake, which was this crazy cake that was so rich and dark chololately, I could even come close to eating it all. It came with a curried (read: cardomom-y) rice cake underneath, siam tea ice cream (that was nice, but everyone else thought was sort of gingery-it wasn't), and best of ALL?! the passion fruit caramel. I happen to personally believe that fresh, sweetened, passion fruit is the best taste on earth. It's tropical-y, tasty,and tart in that key-lime-pie-but-better sort of mouth puckering, rich way that makes you feel like you're having a mouth-gasm with every bite. So yeah, I enjoyed *my* dessert.
Mom had an almond apple pithivier, a sort of apple tart that I failed to try as I was wrapped up in my own dish. My girl got the butterscotch doughnuts, which is a rarity for her, as she usually goes with all things chocolate, but the lovely Angela suggested these, so she went with them. And boy were they amazing. W're going to go back for them. They were stuffed with a butterscotch cream filling that tasted sweetly homemade and not like traditional butterscotch. I don't know how to explain it, but to say it was this sugar-covered fried gorgeousness that one person at your table should for sure try.
The whole thing cost about $75 a person (without tip), including two drinks and two $20-a-bottle corkage fees. And whiile I recognize that there are some people in the world who make that in a year, if you dine out at fancy restaurants regularly or occaisionally (and hopefully you give to charity, too), this is a wonderful one to go to. And don't forget to ask for Angela to serve you. She had every aspect of service down to a T, from service to suggestions to fielding all of our (and let's face it--we ask a LOT of them--and sometimes all at one time) questions. She was amazing, as was everything else about the place! Grace can wear its 5 stars proudly.
07/01/2007
posted by sara leib at 9:47 AM
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