Sunday, September 6, 2009

Umm, did you say Foie Gras Lollipops?

With Karena off on her Eastern European vacation (jealous!) I thought I'd share some pics and stories about a dinner I had recently Jose Andres newest, and only, west coast outpost: The Bazaar in Beverly Hills at the SLS Hotel (tres chic). Jose Andres owns some of my favorite restaurants in DC: Zaytinya, Jaleo, Cafe Atlantico, and Minibar. So when I heard he had finally opened shop in California I HAD to visit, and it really wasn't hard trying to convince my fabulous LA friends to come with. Andres is known for small plates, tapas-style food and The Bazaar is no different. We picked the tapas tasting menu ($45 each) which was pretty reasonable given the amount of food we got. Obviously, there was sangria too. (I'm new to blogging so lets not get fancy here)



We started off with Jicama cilantro shisho wraps with a coconut dip






Salt cured potatoes with a lemon, cumin, cilantro dipping sauce
(one of the group favorites!)





Caesar Salad wrapped in Jicama with a quail egg on top





Sweet potato chips with cumin, star anise Greek
yogurt. My friend Hannah made the mistake of going to the bathroom when this arrived. We had devoured it by the time she got back. Ooops!






Roasted eggplant, red bell peppers, and onion (This was kind of boring. I feel like I can make it at home)




Butifarra Catalan pork sausage, white beans, mushrooms
(I don't even eat pork, but they were too good to pass up!)




Not your everyday caprese: Tomatoes, mozzarella, pesto, basil, croutons (note: we're getting ready to hoover this and the server tell us to use our spoons. Whaaat?! Yeah, they're not balls of mozzarella, they're little liquid capsules of the cheese and they kind of explode in your mouth. LIQUID MOZZARELLA? Awesome)



The final course of dinner: Foie gras cotton candy lollipops. The Bazaar's signature dish. The flavors and textures were kinda gross and kinda cool, but so delicious. Definite favorite!





Now, time for dessert
!



Fresh berries with homemade coconut sorbet






Triple chocolate mousse with chocolate disc, and crumbles on top. It also came with a little pod of chocolate for you to top off the crumbles







Greek yogurt panna cotta with apricot and apricot FOAM. It was fizzy!









Flan with vanilla and fruit





So all in all, dinner at The Bazaar was pretty fabulous. I definitely recommend it for anyone who is planning a little trip to LA or lives there. Fun little story- we were seated right by the open kitchen, so it was great to look in and see all of this amazing food being made. I wasn't wearing my glasses but I saw one of the chefs and his wildly out-to-here hair, and I thought, that looks a lot like that guy Marcel from Top Chef.

I put my glasses on and confirmed, yes, its him. I always thought he was kind of a goon, but the food was good so I can't hate. This also explains the foam on the Panna Cotta. I wish Tom Collichio had been there to tell him to "Take it easy with the foam". Ahh well.

Hope everyone is having a great Labor Day weekend! -Selin

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hell yeah that sounds amazing! I wish I had the dinero to truck up there and enjoy the feast.

Don't hate on Marcel! >.< I kinda like that guy...he's confident, not arrogant! (though he needs to do something abt that hair)

Jamie said...

haha, nice one selin..."hey dude, colicchio says to take it easy with the the foam!"

Anonymous said...

"that explains the foam" haha! did you mean 4 - 5$ each, or are those small plates ACTUALLY 45$ ?! either way, they sound fancy and delicious.

Marcel's Girlfriend said...

Nicely done Selin! No shoutout to the fabulous sangria? It was tasty tastey!

Selin said...

No no, all of that food was $45/ per person total! Though a lot of the things on the menu were in the $4-5 range....

Mike voltaggio from this seasons Top Chef is the other head chef at the Bazaar, so funnily enough that place is laden with Bravo reality TV stars... so random!

Juwanna Man said...

so random to see top chef alumni??? here's how i would edit you:

"i thought that guy looked like marcel from top chef...so i put on my glasses to confirm that it was indeed marcel. what a pleasant coincidence and an unplanned companion to our foie gras. we certainly did not act starstruck, we didn't update our facebook statuses, we didn't send out mass texts to our friends who also love bravo reality, and we absolutely did not ask the waiter to send marcel over."

Marcel's Girlfriend said...

Ok I wasn't star struck, I update my status when I want coffee or when I am bored in class as well. ITS JUST A PART OF OUR MICROBLOGGING SOCIETY JESSICA.

Besides he came into the bathroom while I was in there with cotton candy around his jont and things got pretty physical. So it's more like star fucking ok?