Osteria Mozza

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

Café des Artistes

Normally I don’t eat French food. I come from a long line of French-hating Italians. In fact, if someone offers my dad French wine, his standard line is: “I don’t drink that French shit.” However, I did take French in high school, and I’ve been to France multiple times (and the food is good there). Since Ryan likes French food, and has made me at least tolerate it through our many visits to La Poubelle, AND since our good friend Steve is actually French, I thought, why not? Now, the only other decent French place I’ve been to besides La Poubelle (which is very casual) is Le Petit Bistro when I went senior year with my French class. And all I remember is it was expensive and not that good.



Julie and me


So, for Juju Wednesday (Julie and Julia put together dinner dates around town—hence the juju name), we went to Café des Artistes. I was in the middle of finals, so this was a welcome respite from learning the intricacies of international law and criminal procedure. Of course, the first thing I look for on the menu is frog legs. And they don’t have them. I mean, what self respecting French restaurant doesn’t have frog legs??? But they did have Moules et frites (steamed black mussels and french fries), which is the national dish of Belgium. The last time I had moules et frites I was actually IN Belgium (and that was awhile ago) so I decided to order it. And I ordered a decent Vignonais which was only $32. This wine was introduced to me by that French guy I dated for a nanosecond (which I thought was appropriate since we were at a French place), but he ordered the Coppola version which cost twice as much. French guy did have excellent taste in wine. And women. Haha! But I digress.



Ryan, Julia, and me



What did everyone order? To start with, Ryan and I shared the oysters. They were ENORMOUS, really fresh, and really good. They were literally the largest oysters I have ever consumed (and I have consumed my fair share of oysters). Laura got the goat cheese salad. Other people ordered various salads, but the tastiest thing was the sausage with Moroccan dip which Steve and Julia ordered. The sausage was juicy and succulent with just a hint of caraway seed, and the sauce was filled with different exotic flavors (probably turmeric, etc.) and quite tasty.

For the main course, Julia ordered stewed beef short ribs over fettuccine. The meat was excellent. It just fell apart on my fork. It was stewed in this tasty brown wine sauce, and I could have eaten tons of it. I didn’t bother tasting the fettuccine, because we all know French people don’t know how to make pasta (Steve confirmed this). Laura had escargot as a main course. Gross. I have tried them multiple times. Invariably I suck off the butter and garlic and spit out the snail. She said they were good though. Bryan ordered some fish thing over beans. It looked healthy so I didn’t ask for a bite. Julie, my hero, ordered the mac & cheese. Great cheese flavor, nice cheese crust, but the casserole was just oily noodles. A thicker roux was needed to stand up to the tasty crust. Steve ordered filet mignon, surprising me by not ordering the ribeye. It came with french fries (and who can do those better than the French?). And those were yummy fries! But my favorite fries by far are either garlic fries or greek fries. These fries were basically like really really good McDonald's fries. Rania got the mushroom ravioli, which I didn’t try. I had just met her, and I'm a little bit of a closet freak about my food obsession, so I didn't ask. As for my mussels, they were good, but the sauce needed more flavor. A little dash of white pepper and more garlic to liven it up would have been perfect. At least the fries were good!



Me squeezing Laura


Now for the desserts. This is the area where the French can actually outshine the Italians. Julie and I ordered the brioche bread pudding. It was nothing short of AMAZING. It was drizzled with this delicious caramel sauce. Each piece was dripping with custardy goodness. We also ordered the crème brulee, which was decent, but not fantastic. I’m really picky about crème brulee. I want to see fresh grated vanilla bean in that custard! The true dud of the evening was the flourless chocolate cake. It was more like a flavorless flourless brick than cake. I definitely needed the vanilla bean ice cream to even get it down. Obviously the pastry chef didn’t use the right sugar to butter ratio. I mean, I’ve had Pillsbury brownies that were better than this thing. LONG LIVE JUJU WEDNESDAYS!