Pizzeria Mozza: Rome, who?

Pizza is sort of a funny thing. By American standards, it’s defined or at least commonly accepted as a large slab of baked dough smothered in cheap greasy cheese, fried meat products, a sprinkling of vegetables and seasoned with good old fashioned guilt. It’s the tasty comfort food we love so much that has turned us into one of the fattest countries in the world. Having resisted bad pizza in LA for years, I opted to try one of the rumored best pizza joints this side of the LA River.

Welcome to Pizzeria Mozza.

The Italian baby of Chefs Mario Batali, Nancy Silverton and Joseph Bastianich, this place carries with it the weight of Batali’s Iron Chef and food television fame as well as the smorgasbord of unpronounceable Italian meats sure to find their way onto your plate. A visual setting full of warm colors, low lighting and a true representation of Italian family-style boisterous and comfortable conversation, the pretentiousness of local LA feels miles away.

The dinner began as many do, with an impossible and randomly selected online reservation for 2 followed by a 20 minute wait while the previous party sat on their arses chit chatting about what can only be guessed as the dawn of the age of reason and how man came to be?

The first course besides the obvious glass of delicious Stone Pale Ale beer was the Roasted olives al forno. Warm, slightly bitter with a delicious bite, this little opener with its mix of olive samplers in a sea of virgin olive oil was a great start.



Roasted olives al forno

I followed my anxious little palette to the pizza menu and was overwhelmed with words and ingredients I didn’t understand and couldn’t speak, but somehow it all sounded extremely sexy, damn Italians. After research and grumbling stomach pressure from my dinner companion that night, we made our selections and dove into the “Coach farm goat cheese, leeks, scallions, garlic & bacon” and “Pizza alla Benno: Speck, pineapple, jalapenos, mozarella & tomato.”

So my goat cheese extravaganza? Amazing. Earthy, delicate, slightly pungent and ripe with soft, roasted garlic and the perfect balance of brick-oven crust just made me yearn for a country I’ve never even been to. The buttery leeks, bacon and crumbles of goat cheese just made me go slightly over the edge. Cows? Who? What?



Coach farm goat cheese, leeks, scallions, garlic & bacon



Ah, so the Pizza alla Benno: Speck, pineapple, jalapenos, mozarella & tomato…Personally, I can’t say no to speck. It’s salty, it’s light, it puts bacon to shame. The balance of sweet pineapple bits, sour tomatoes and beautiful kick of the jalapenos put a new twist on the idea of building a great pizza. Batali and company almost outdid themselves here with these 2 entrees.



Pizza alla Benno: Speck, pineapple, jalapenos, mozarella & tomato

Until…

We hit desert: Butterscotch budino, Maldon sea salt & rosemary pine nut cookies. Enough to make a non-desert kinda guy swoon over the table in buttery gelatinous ecstasy, this little cup of butterscotch pudding is what the fat girl inside of me craves after, well, anything. Silken, light, rich and balanced with a topping of fresh whipped cream and sticky caramel, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.



Butterscotch budino, Maldon sea salt & rosemary pine nut cookies.

And that pool of Homer Simpson-style drool now accumulating at the corners of my mouth while I dream of butterscotch clouds at night? Well worth the extra laundry.

Hey, don’t judge me. I’m eating.

Survey Says: If you don’t have the bills for Rome’s finest, take your appetite here instead. They don’t supply moist towlettes so bring your own in case you develop a drooling problem like I did

http://www.mozza-la.com/pizzeria/about.cfm

Bottega Louie: dined, drooled and now deaf.

Lauded by some as a one of the better new casual Italian restaurants in LA, I found myself agreeing with those “some.”

Not for the romantic nor the intimate, Bottega Louie is a veritable uproar of conversational eating where the noise level bounce-back from the stark white warehouse-style walls is almost louder than the food. The French moldings and white marble floors do little to ease the pain. But alas, the restaurant saves itself with its surprising and affordable Italian lunch and dinner menus.

Walking in, you’re greeted with smiles and a display of pastries fit to feed even the snobbiest of the LAPD. The menu doesn’t disappoint either. Apparently from the 600+ Italian recipes juggled by the kitchen staff (and thankfully not memorized), you’ll be able to pick from some classic favorites for the timid folks or some “new Italian” for the loud and outspoken.

In the interest of keeping this blog from this nobody somewhat interesting and also to prevent boring myself to death as well, I opted for the Portabella Fries to start. For you mushroom and fried fat lovers out there, this appetizer combines the best of both worlds. Take slices of Portabella mushrooms shaped like steak fries, batter them and fry them to golden brown perfection and provide a special sauce worthy of its own spot on the menu and you’ll have a winner. Scrumptious.

Portabella Fries

After that, I selected the Trenne pasta entrée dish thinking how it could it possibly compete with these orgasmic fries? Another winner, Bottega Louie has created a twist on traditional penne pasta with meat sauce. Individual pieces of penne are fried to a soft crisp and placed on a bed of Braised prime rib-eye with Tuscan black kale. The crunch of the pasta with the hearty rib-eye meat balances out to create a new and delicious take on eating pasta al dente. ..really al dente.

Trenne Pasta

I wouldn’t come here expecting food like how Mom used to make (unless Mom knew how to bust out 600+ recipes), but expect some pleasant surprises.

P.S.
Bring earplugs and save the dinner conversation until after dinner. If you're willing to bring a date, ask your date to forgive you in advance.

http://www.bottegalouie.com/

The Counter. Oversized burger anyone?

I’m an American, born, bred and semi-raised with touches of Vietnamese and Chinese influence. So naturally, I’m open to any American with a twist since I’m clearly not the pot to be calling the kettle black.

The Counter sort of reminds me of that-a burger joint that has all the basics down but throws in a twist or two just to keep your mouth interested. If you’re a fussy eater or a delusional bourgeoisie, then The Counter’s custom burger menu options just might satisfy your ravishing appetites. The selection of cheeses (inclusive of Gruyere and American Cheddar to name a few) are a pleasant surprise, but the ability to have a deliciously messy fried egg or homemade guacamole as part of your ensemble, may just be what pushes both this burger and the muffin top above your pants, over the edge. From the menu selects, you have an array of sauces fit to dip sampler foods for the next 5 hours. Pick the amount of meat you want, the buns to match and how raw you want it. Hmm, while this is starting to sound more like an escort service than a burger joint, trust me it’s simple, cheap comfort food done well. The food may not leave you dreaming of meat patties covered in an avalanche of toppings late at night, but you’ll certainly be back.

1/3 lbs burger, sharp provolone, lettuce, tomato, avocado, honey bacon and a fried egg. 

I imagine that much like any custom-build-it-yourself-anything, less is more and know your flavors before you start piling the restaurant onto your poor, now invisible meat patty. Personally, feta cheese and garlic aioli on an English muffin bun just doesn’t sound very ulcer-friendly.

And what burger would be complete without a side order? I myself went for the trio of fried finger foods (sweet potato fries, shoestring onions and regular fries). Staying fit is overrated-at least it is when you’re staring fried food in the face. The sweet potato fries were pretty ho hum but the delicately battered onions hit the spot. Of the sauce trio, I was the biggest fan of the garlic aioli.

Fried sampler trio. Not on the menu, but just ask for it (sweet potato fries, shoestring onions and regular french fries)

So from my brief experience here, the burgers may not be the cat’s meow, but I’ll settle for an unpretentious and affordable purr on the west side any day.

http://www.thecounterburger.com/

Ludo's Bites at Breadbar Los Angeles

You walk in politely thinking that dinner will be some kind of concoction where the name is fancier than the ingredients. The steady influx of patrons carrying bottles of alcohol covered in wrinkled paper bags does nothing to assuage your feelings of guilty and pre-emptive judgment.

It’s just that sort of place…quaint, simple and completely under the radar.

It’s not where you might expect James Beard nominee and recent Top Chef Masters contestant, Ludo Lefebvre, to surprise and potentially cause your salivary glands to overwork themselves, but here he is…at Breadbar.

With the instability of the economy around us and the media that never lets us forget it, Chef Lefebvre is taking a big risk here. Some few months ago, he left the flashy underworld of Las Vegas and came back to LA to start what many call a guerilla-style pop up restaurant.

• Step 1: Find small restaurant (or bar that serves bread???) that also lacks dinner menu.
• Step 2: Partner with restaurant and create dinner menu.
• Step 3: Save on overhead and make guests bring their own booze.
• Step 4: Be a tease and leave before you become part of the tired LA scene. Think three months max.

Therein lies the recipe for inspiration and the non-committal culinary world. I would assume it’s similar to the one men have been using in relationships for centuries, but I can’t cite a resource for that statement so we’ll call it “a woman’s intuition.”

So when you get there (reservations recommended), sit down and order. The menu changes daily and it’s small, so between three of you, you might very well order the entire menu and have no need to be rolled out the door.

Think French with a twist. Lefebvre likes to mix textures, temperatures and obviously flavors. The food doesn’t taste like what you might expect only because you really don’t know what to expect. The appetizers were overwhelming but thankfully I selected the Poached egg 65 degrees, morels, smoked mornay sauce and toast which has completely spoiled my idea of cooked eggs. Soft, rich and delicately savory with the balance of creamy sauce, egg yolk and the salt of the morels, I can no longer eat eggs over 66 degrees.  I also attempted the Chorizo, cantaloupe and cornichon, and while an interesting twist on room temperature soup with spices and iced pureed cantaloupe to match, I found it far too rich to finish as a soup.

65 Degree Egg

On entrees, get the Laquered pork belly, mustard ice cream, napa cabbage and imaginary choucroute. The tang of the fatty pork with the cool bite of the mustard ice cream will surprise you and then melt in your mouth. The choucroute was more of an extra, the other components were the lead actors. The Grilled hanger steak, beer emulsion, black sesame miso, potato chips, charcoal oil isn’t a bad choice if you enjoy smoky flavors and very earthy elements. Beware: start eating as soon as you get served because the chips begin to get soggy if left in the emulsion too long.

Laquered Pork Belly

On desert, there was no wow factor. Simple comfort flavors, but nothing to call home about.

By far the highlight of the night was meeting Lefebvre himself. A delicious specimen that dares to rival even his own food, his newly cut coif was messily spiked and his plain t-shirt displayed his downright irresistible tattoo sleeves on his tan arms. When he opens his mouth with that thick French accent and tells you to stay away from French men (because they’re trouble), his sense of humor and playfulness makes the connection to his food more evident.

In short: Go for the food. Stay for Lefebvre.

http://www.ludolefebvre.com/ludo-bites/