Wildcraft Sourdough Pizza is Worth Checking Out

Truffle Pizza from WildCraft Sourdough in Culver City

There's always a new pizza place in town in L.A., which is good for the eternal pizza maven in me. I've probably had 800 Degrees more than 10 times now, Sotto more than 20, and probably half a dozen occasions of Hollywood Pies. The last version is arguable the only legitimate Chicago-style deep dish pizza available in Los Angeles. WildCraft opened quietly a few months ago in Culver City, on a stretch that doesn't really need any more restaurants, but also doesn't have a stand-out pizzeria in a vein of Pizzeria Mozza.

WildCraft did a rather modern, refreshing build out of the former Le Saint Amour space that evokes something of a mix between Chego (which is more casual) and Flour & Water (in San Francisco's Mission District). The pizzas are made in a wood-fired oven that's visible from the Culver Blvd. side of the restaurant, which makes the high bar-style seating along the middle of the restaurant an appealing place to sit. They've also adopted these elevated marble table trays that allow for more room, and a place to put things like water glasses, extra plates, and even pizzas if one dares.

This time around, we only managed to order two of the pies, but I felt like they were pretty indicative of what you might expect with the rest of the pizza menu. The Truffle Pizza pictures above was excellent, with meaty mushrooms, fontina (which might be one of the best cheeses when melted), taleggio, fried sage and truffle oil. Yes, truffle oil is mostly detestable, but I'm not as opposed to it as most food writers. It's one of those things that you should only "feel" not really taste, because an over-use of the stuff immediately makes every dish extremely cloying. This pizza was pretty balanced between the toppings and the very sour crust, which becomes apparent with every bite. This dough is a departure from the other types of pizzas available in L.A. and it might not be very popular with the pizza cognoscenti.

We also enjoyed the Spicy Sausage Pizza, which came with tomato sauce, fennel sausage, fior di latte, garlic chips, provoline, and calabrian chilies for spice. The crust managed to get a light blackening though it still was still baked all the way through, unlike some of the specimens that come out of Sotto's oven (still probably my overall favorite in the city). I'll have to head back for some of WildCraft's non-pizza items but overall it's a feather in the cap for Downtown Culver City's rather boring selection of restaurants.

WildCraft Sourdough Pizza
9725 Culver Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90232
310-815-8100

Your Early Paiche Preview, in Photos

I got a chance to check out Ricardo Zarate's Paiche that's opening soon in Marina Del Rey during a press preview yesterday. It's not really an indication of the quality or the excellence of the restaurant, per se, just sort of a test run to get people interested in the place and build up hype. And hype this place will have - mostly because of Zarate's almost-celebrity chef status and the power of the concept, which is an evolution of what one might have experienced at Picca, Zarate's very popular Peruvian "cantina" that really broke the mould of what people thought the cuisine could really be. At the original Mo-Chica, Zarate prepared classic Peruvian dishes with a slight twist, in addition to introducing Angelenos to some dishes like causas to what Peruvians have been eating for a long time.

At Paiche, he takes the Japanese influence upon Peruvian cuisine to another level, using the medium of the izakaya as an interpretation of those flavors and ingredients that are so unique to the South American country. So think more sashimi, "sushi" that uses potato instead of rice as a template, and fried bites that are great for sharing with your tablemates.  I think the success of Paiche will rest mostly on the Westside locals who are starved for some compelling restaurant to hang out in - one with a great bar to go along with unique food that might eventually become one of the most innovative Peruvian restaurants in the country, much like Zarate accomplished at Picca (and to a slightly lesser extent, the new Mo-Chica). The trio of restaurants will surely garner Zarate and business partner Stephane Bombet into the upper echelons of media coverage, meaning Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, GQ, and more.  Here's a photo collage of the dishes I sampled last night.

 Exterior of Paiche

 Table setting. Those chopsticks are bound to be stolen...and they completely remind me of Harry Potter wands. But those custom tabletops are a beauty - woodworkers and people into fine furniture will love them.

 The bar at Paiche, which is front and center, featuring a long list of very good cocktails that have a creativity to them that exceeds most restaurants. The flavors and balance need a little work, some are very acidic, some with an occasional conflict of ingredients, but overall very drinkable and enjoyable with this kind of eating, which is very high in flavor to begin with.

 The maracuya caipirinha, using fresh passionfruit and limes. I know most caipirinhas use a ton of lime, but I almost wish there to be less lime and more sweetness from the passionfruit. I know this will be a very popular order, and helps to work up an appetite.

Rock shrimp tempura, spicy chancaca (a sort of orange-flavored honey sauce) with soy dressing, and rocoto aioli.

 Yuquitas, which are yuca beignets stuffed with melty manchego cheese and parmesan, almost like a fried Brazilian pao de quiejo because of the gumminess of the yucu.

 Ensaladas de quinoa. Warm quinoa salad (that I'm sure my friend Diana would love) with wild mushrooms, crispy quinoia, and huacatay (Peruvian black mint) sponge.

 Uni Shrimp Toast with a sweet rocoto sauce.

 Eggplant (with a nice smokey flavor) with miso sauce and shaved parmesan.

 Selection of ceviches served sashimi style, with salmon, albacore, yellowtail, and halibut. The yellow sauce is Ricardo's classic leche de tigre sauce, which is a tangy, addictive citrus marinade that's the base of Peruvian ceviches.

 Chicharron de pescado. Ricardo's restaurant also feature great fried bites, and this one is no different. The lime yuzu aioli is an addictive side sauce.

 Ensalada rusa, seared albacore with steamed vegetables, aji amarillo yuzu mayo, and boiled quail egg.

 Paiche, which is a very large Amazonian fish, served tiradito style. Lightly seared, aji amarillo sauce, and sweet potato mousse (a classic Zarate ingredient).

 Amaebi, filo wrap on a sweet shrimp with jalapeno-ponzu dressing.

 King crab with fresh scallop.

 Dessert - puff pastry filled with sweet potato.

  

The Last Ice Age: Hakushu whiskey, sous-vide Asian pear, meyer lemon, lime.

Paiche 

13488 Maxella Avenue

Marina del Rey, CA 90292

310-893-610

Projected opening date: Early April  

Eating My Favorite Dish on My Birthday at a Former Mexican Restaurant in Koreatown

I forget how cold L.A. can get after a long, indian summer that lasted until late October. When my birthday rolls around every December, I get to bust out my favorite jackets (I don't really own sweaters) and bundle up in the evenings with extra blankets. It's also when I get the irresistible urge to eat more Korean food than ever. Korea is a cold ass country. Ask my friend Erik who lived there for a few years and decided to move back to L.A. because it was just too cold (he's now back in Korea). The Korean people have been weathered and blistered in the darkest, longest of winters. It's in my DNA to want warm, comforting food. My ancestors, who once wandered the low mountains of Northern Korea, probably huddled around fires in straw huts cooking up the delicious delights I now enjoy in places like Surawon.

Surawon is pretty unremarkable for a Korean restaurant in L.A. It's housed in a former Mexican restaurant, uses some of the weirdest lighting arrangements ever, and smells a bit like a dive bar. Upon walking in, one will notice that many tables hold large, disk-shaped cauldrons of bubbling soup, or jungols in Korean. These are the primordial soups of Korean cuisine, where various seafoods and meats and veggies are piled into a broth, laden with spice and sit with a low simmer, a bit like a Chinese hotpot, but with no dipping involved. They're big enough for a standard-issue nuclear family.

I was here on my birthday, which felt like a late autumn day instead of an early winter one, with a steady breeze and trees flaking off turned leaves in preparation for the cold months. I'd come off of a rather difficult afternoon, a long conversation with my mother after we had lunch at a sushi joint. I won't get into the details of the talk, except that since then I've been grappling a bit with acceptance. What it means to be accepted for who one is, or chooses to be, or chooses to live. It's a hard thing for someone who has so many expectations. I try not to over-aggrandize the situation I'm in except that there's a point in one's life when you decide to become your own person, or become the subject of something else. And even becoming your own person is a type of submission; it's a submission of your own will for what you value the most. And that thing depends on who you are, but for me, it was, and is, something I believe in.

I don't always eat my favorite dish, mostly because I haven't found the version I like most. I mean, of course I enjoy my mother's version. I like my dad's version. But I'm looking for my favorite version of yookhwejang, a sort of over-looked dish in the canon of Korean cuisine. It's not particularly interesting in the purview of other great dishes. Deng jang chijae is a quick one people pick, or bulgogi, or bossam, or neng myun. My favorite is this spiceful dish, tinted an intense red, whose piquancy varies upon the addition of jalapeno (an American variant that you won't find in Korea). The balance is found between the strings of brisket, strands of potato vermicelli that lurk beneath the surface, and the stalks of green onion that wilt under the heat. You pile in small mounds of white rice, which soak up the broth and become a type of canvas for every bite, each dependent upon what you're able to glean with the spoon. You start sniffling because the heat makes your nose runny. Steam hits your eyes and the pieces that fall of your spoon splash back in, speckling your shirt or sleeves along the way with little red dots that become mysterious to people you meet after the meal. You ask for more napkins because the meal is started to make you sweat.

It's in that moment, where you're drained, desperate for relief from the heat, slurping up soup in masochism, not so much from the spice, but because the glutamic content from the beef broth hits a critical point of addiction - that there's a reactive bliss of comfort that comes from after the strain. You breathe for a second, slouching ever so slightly, and take a few chopsticks full of banchan, followed by another spoonful of rice that's soaked up the spicy red broth like a sponge.

Rochelle and I finished off the meal in relative silence, maybe discussing a few things here and there, nothing significant, not that any conversation was relevant. I just felt happy enough that I was able to enjoy my favorite dish in the entire world with my favorite person in the entire world. I'd accepted that this was my last-meal dish, and I think, perhaps, I got her one step closer to agreeing with me. But who knows, she might want kare-kare or sinigang for the last meal before we go to heaven, because either way I know for sure it won't be my last bowl of greatness.

Surawon
2833 Olympic Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90006
Oddly only open from 6-11 p.m., a rarity for Koreatown.

Quick thought on why young people like dining out

The New York Times posted an article today about why young people spend all their money on eating good food. It's because we want to have good memories of eating out and enjoying our youth. Apparently in the swell 90's it was easy enough to this with $11 bottles of Kendall Jackson wine in $1,200 apartments in Manhattan. Well, the world isn't as cheap any more and the hipsterification of food has resulted in, well, food being the new thing in which young people love to waste what little money they've earned post-college. But what the writer really missed was not so much how a show like Girls is reflecting this trend, but rather Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and the rest of social media is propagating this lifestyle.

Social media is equally about "sharing" what one is doing versus "boasting" about one is doing. There should be a boast button on these types of outlets, because that's pretty much what it is. I think I would dread having to, you know, grow up, like get married and have kids and stuff like that because that would mean less opportunities to boast. It's quite terrible. I know several people tweeted or Facebook updated their meals last night, and it caused a flurry of reaction and activity. Young people don't want to feel left out of this kind of enjoyment, so they'll throw out the big bucks while they have disposable incomes. Once things like bills, car payments, diapers, and mortgage payments roll around, we won't have the hundreds of dollars a month to spend on lavish meals. I'll think twice the next time I tell people about my ridiculous meals on Twitter or Instagram. And then, I'll still post because everyone does.