TBA
Fooding
Was not specifically familiar with Thai coconut pancakes (kanom krok) til seeing the purveyors of MyMangoStickyRice were opening a new food stand! The little coconut pancakes remind me vaguely of Chinese rice cake/pudding (boot jai goh? put chai ko?) but being they're made with coconut milk, kanom krok are both somewhat softer yet more firm. Both are slightly sweet. Not quite sure how I feel about the toppings: ube, corn, or green onion, added halfway through cooking, are enough to make them more interesting at least?
After putting it off due to prior lack of interest, finally made a trip to Chef Junya Yamasaki's recently opened YESS Restaurant that night, for the first day of the Local Bluefin Tuna Pop Up Celebration menu. A locally-caught 206lb tuna was aged for 7 days, then showcased in this special set menu.
YESS Restaurant had an extended gestation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the result is a beautiful venue in the Arts District. Old brick building, high ceilings, expanses of light wood, and a very expensive kitchen filled with the smell of wood smoke from the almond wood they cook with. Numerous staff in clean white uniforms cater to customers and work the kitchen, and at the end of the meal the management team admitted they had some work to do, especially with pacing, given this was the first day of the set menu as well as their first attempt at a set menu.
Unfortunately the food was not as good as hoped. Pricing is premium but not exotic (aka cheaper than many Michelin 1*), and a bit too high to justify for me. Amuse brioche was a rather plain cold cucumber, the opposite of what most chefs do as far as flavor profiles. The aforementioned 7-day aged bluefin tuna then dominated the rest of the meal, with akami/chutoro/otoro sashimi following. This was very good, but the abundance of excellent sushi and sashimi in Los Angeles means standing out is tough. An underwhelming tuna tataki followed, where the tuna was overwhelmed by the other flavors. Roll-your-own-handroll was fun in theory but maybe less practical in reality, although this was easily the second-best dish.
Tatsuta was a tie for third-best dish, a potato-flour-breaded set of deep fried chicken pieces, resulting in a softer breading with a very different feel than traditional karaage. Seared otoro steak was perhaps a bit too seared, or (more likely) it's just me preferring such quality otoro being served raw instead of even modestly cooked.
Wintermelon soup with meatballs were superb, perhaps the best dish. Balance and execution were on point. Sadly the last dish, smoked head negima, was again a bit lost in all the other flavors used. I commend the use of the entire fish, but even with a bowl of properly cooked rice to help appreciate the sauces used, this felt like a less satisfying ending than hoped.
In the end it was good to finally visit YESS Restaurant and taste Chef Yamasaki's latest handiwork, even if it felt like I had little justification to return anytime soon.