Me, Julia, and Julie at Osteria Mozza
Hello all, I am back to blog after my pre and post-bar sojourn. I know you missed me! ;-)
So Julia and Julie are my co-food gourmet gourmands. We love to try all the new hot spots here in LA. When Osteria Mozza opened about a year ago it was IMPOSSIBLE to get a reservation. Even my DAD couldn't get in. However, last spring Julie managed to get us in! (She's crafty). We also went with Rania and Ken. Even though we had a reservation we still had to wait 45 minutes for a table!!! If I were Irene Virbila, I would have just left. But, they did provide two rounds of this delicious amuse bouche with fresh mozzarella and black olive tapenade, so this persuaded me to not get pissed off.
Yes, that is my beautiful hand and blazer
Julia and I waiting for our table, and happy we have wine
I started with the grilled octopus with potatoes, celery and lemon. It was delicious! It's reminiscent (i.e. practically identical) to Agostino Sciandri's version (which can be found at Caffe Roma and Sor Tino). But I love it! My mom used to make octopus with lemon and garlic when I was a kid-- of course none of my friends wanted to eat it, but I knew it was delicious!
I get so happy with Octopus on my fork!
Julie got the Bufala mozzarella with pesto, salsa romesco, tapenade & caperberry relish. WOW! The pesto and tapenade were definitely my favorites. And if this place can't find a good mozzarella, nobody can.
The four sauces
Everyone else just got salads, which were tasty but not extraordinary (because I can't remember them, haha!)
For my second course I had the Grilled Quail wrapped in pancetta with radicchio & sage honey. O. M. G. I love quail. And perfectly cooked quail is almost impossible to find. AND deliciously and crispily wrapped in bacon?? I was in heaven.
Grilled Quail wrapped in pancetta
Julia ordered the Bucatini all’Amatriciana. Amatriciana sauce is a spicy tomato with pancetta, it's one of my favorites! The thing is, if you have not been to Italy, how would you know that? I had to translate the whole menu for everyone.
Bucatini all’Amatriciana
Julie got the Maltagliati with duck ragu, which was fanstamical! I love duck ragu. It's really the only way to have duck, a very oily and low meat bird. But stew that sucker for many hours with some delicious pasta sauce ingredients, and it's delizioso!
Duck ragu
Rania got these vegetarian ravioli with a saffron cream and ramps (related to leeks). They were a special and they actually were... well, special! The sauce was delicate enough to highlight the interesting flavor of the sautéed ramps.
Yummy ramp ravioli
Ken got a steak which looked awesome, but I didn't taste it.
But I had to save room for desert! This is Nancy Silverton we are talking about. And wow. But not wow in a good way. I could not BELIEVE how subpar they were. First off (let's do the bad news first): Piccolo Budino Caldo di Cioccolato. It says it comes with bourbon gelato, but it tasted like straight grappa (which is this nasty stuff Italian men pretend to like because it grows hair on their chests). The chocolate cake itself was great... but it was just a great molten chocolate cake... which you can get at many chain restaurants. So I get it, they wanted to make it more hip and interesting, but the super alcoholic gelato was not a good choice. And THEN they top it off with SALT! I know that making saltier deserts is a big thing, but actually sprinkling salt (and this was not a delicate fleur du sel, it was actually table salt) all over a desert is gross. I actually stopped our waiter, I assumed it was a mistake, and said, "this has salt on it," and he assured me it was supposed to. Gross! It took me out of my desert savoring moment and wondering what the hell they were thinking. Originality is not always a good thing when it comes to food.
Beware of the salt!!!!
Onto the next dessert: Panna cotta on top of a berry tart. The panna cotta was delicious. The berry tart, was very Italian, but the pastry was not that flaky and it just lacked flavor overall, and contrasted with the lemony flavor of the panna cotta in a way that made me think once again, "what were they thinking?"
Panna cotta with mediocre tart
The only thing we really liked were these delicious fried crispelle, with delicious gelato and Nocello soaked raisins.
The only desert I would order again
I see now they have kind of revamped their desert menu, but if I were you, I would ask for no salt.
Bottom line is, this place has good food, but for the price, I would rather spend a little bit more and go to Valentino, or spend about the same and go to Osteria Latini. You're just paying for the celebrity chef factor and they aren't even there.
Rania and Julie, just happy to be fed
