NEWS: Angeleno Magazine's Chef's Night Out

Brad A. Johnson of Angeleno magazine, and The Tasting Panel's Anthony Dias Blue are co-hosting the annual Chef's Night Out and Restaurant Awards to honor local chefs and resterauteurs and to celebrate the release of Angeleno's food issue.

The dinner benefits the Children's Institute, an organization that works with children and families affected by violence, abuse, and trauma. Tickets are $150 for the event (food from the featured chefs with wine and spirits pairings), and $250 for VIP tickets which includes access to a special reception and the awards ceremony.

The event will be held at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel and Bungalows this Sunday, July 26. The chefs at the event include:

• David Myers from Sona, Comme Ça and Pizza Ortica
• Lee Hefter and Thomas Boyce from Spago
• Lee Hefter and Ari Rosenson from Cut
• Susan Feniger from Street
• Anthony Zappola from Craft
• Brian Moyers from BLT Steak
• Ray Garcia from FIG Restaurant Santa Monica
• Warren Schwartz from Westside Tavern
• Evan Funke from Rustic Canyon
• Monique King from Nine Thirty
• Vernon Cardenas from Katana

The chefs and restaurants that will be receiving awards that evening include:

• Restaurant of the Year: Melisse
• Chef of the Year: (Tie) Suzanne Tracht, Jar and John Riviera Sedlar, Riviera
• Best New Restaurant: Church and State
• Best New Chef: Steven Fretz, XIV
• Pastry Chef of the Year: Adrian Vasquez, Providence
• Best Restaurant Design: Cecconi’s
• Best Wine Service: Osteria Mozza
• Vanguard Award: Capo

The awards reflect the upcoming issue of Angeleno, in which Johnson lists his top 50 restaurants of Los Angeles. “This annual event celebrates the 50 best restaurants in Los Angeles. I dined at more than 200 restaurants again this year to narrow L.A.’s food scene to the elite Top 50. It was a daunting marathon of eating that included everything from pig’s ear to white truffles. We might be in a recession, but L.A.’s restaurant scene is as exciting as ever. If you haven’t been to Mélisse or Jar in a while, you’ll be amazed at what they’re up to. And if you haven’t yet discovered downtown’s Church & State, or if you still haven’t heard of a rising star chef named Stephen Fretz in West Hollywood, it’s high time you booked a table. These are the 50 restaurants every Angeleno needs to know, right now,” Johnson said.

For ticket information, visit www.childrensinstitute.org or call 213.807.1959.

RESTAURANT: Ludobites at Breadbar

We've been meaning to try Ludobites basically forever. I've never been able to try any of Chef Ludovic Lefebvre's cooking before, and I have to admit I've also had an unshakable albeit tiny crush on him, ever since I laid eyes on this picture:

Normally, this is not my type of thing at all - the sort of Fabio-romance-cover-cheesecake genre of handsome, but apparently the idea of a man bringing a fish to me straight out of the ocean that he caught with his bare hands is appealing on some sort of primal level I didn't even know I had. (It helps if you know said man would also be able to prepare it brilliantly after wrestling it from the sea just for you.) Hopefully J is paying attention and perfecting his fish-wrestling skills even as we speak.

I had a lot of fun at the restaurant. I like the size of the dishes, which is small so that you may order several things and share, but big enough that you don't have to spend a fortune just to fill yourself up. The dishes were also a lot more fun than I was expecting. There were a lot of playful elements and unique concepts, and I didn't know to expect that.


The first thing I ordered was listed as "Chorizo, Cantaloupe, Cornichon." It sounded like a kind of light starter of little things on a plate, but turned out to be a cold soup! What it was: liquified chorizo with cubes of cantaloupe and a cornichon slush (really - it was pickle in a frozen slushy texture). Oddly enough, it worked. The soup had a nice flavor that I think would have been a tad too much without the melon for contrast and the pickle slush was odd but it actually blended in nicely and enhanced the overall flavor. And it was so pretty!


The above was my finisher: lobster medallions with honey-sherry vinaigrette and rosemary. It was a chilled lobster piece with a gelled dollop of vinaigrette on top and herbs sprinkled over. Really nice and refreshing, although I probably could have done with a tad less of the dressing, but the herbs were great.

I also had scallops with red port creme fraiche, bacon and potatoes. The bacon mashed potatoes were probably my favorite thing I had during the night. The potatoes were really smooth with little chunks of thick bacon. The scallops were good, but mine was a bit gritty even though it was a diver scallop. Still, that's a possibility with any scallop and it was cooked well.

Other items we had included: Poached Egg 65 degrees, Morels, Smoked Mornay Sauce, and Toast (I didn't have any of this dish, but it looked ridiculously good); and Fried Chicken in Duck fat, and saffron cornbread). The chicken was very good, juicy and flavorful and J claims it is the best fried chicken he has ever had. I personally loved the cornbread. Saffron is one of my favorite flavors and it went well with the cornbread, which was really moist, more like a soft corn cake than a piece of cornbread.

It's BYOB so make sure to bring a bottle of wine you like. Dishes range between $11-$24 (with the exception of the giant cheese plate, which is $35) with our dishes ranging from $11-$19 apiece. So it's not a cheap or casual meal, but it's a great place for a date night where you still want it to be a bit relaxed and fun.

Ludobites is going on through August 22 at Breadbar on 3rd street. See Ludo's website for details and reservations.

RECIPE: Parmesan Pull-Apart Rolls

A recent issue of Gourmet had a bunch of different dinner roll recipes. You don't have to persuade very hard to get me to make bread products. Baking is one of my favorite things to do, and now I have a whole bunch of rolls to try.

The first ones I tried were these Parmesan dinner rolls and they came out great. Before I made them, I looked over the comments on Epicurious and I was a little bit hesitant because a bunch of people said that these didn't taste good. To try to counter that, I added some herb salt I have to the top before baking, just to add some extra flavor.

However, the flavor on my rolls came out nice, even apart from the addition of the salt. I wonder what kind of cheese the people who complained used. I got a hunk of parmigiano reggiano and grated it myself using my Microplane, which is what the recipe called for. If you didn't use real parm reggiano, or you used the pregrated kind that comes in a powdery-like form, then perhaps that made a difference. I would definitely go for the real stuff and grate it out yourself just to be sure. It's a good workout for your arms. ;)

The one thing I didn't have for this recipe was the round cake pan it called for. However, I just used a rectangle one of similar dimensions and it worked fine. As long as you have something where the rolls can fit in similar proportion I'm sure it will be okay.

RECIPE: Parmesan Pull-Aparts