Plate by Plate 2013

Plate by Plate is an annual tasting event run by Project by Project. The event has iterations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. This was my second year attending the event at the beautiful Vibiana in Downtown Los Angeles. Each year the group selects a charity in the Asian-American community as a beneficiary. Theater company East-West Players was this years recipient.

There were about 40 restaurants in attendance serving a lot of great food. I was excited that there were quite a few establishments which are very new to the Los Angeles food scene and that I have not yet had a chance to try. Here is some of the nights food

From Peruvian chef Ricardo Zarate's latest venture were yucca benigets. These surprised me. I was expecting something heavy, but instead the result was very light. The serrano sauce was also very flavorful.

Patina was the only restaurant serving my favorite meat, lamb. Great dish.

Stella Barra Pizzeria was among those serving both a savory and a sweet dish. The tomato salad was wonderful, packed with heirloom tomatoes at peak ripeness. The custard was decent.

Among my favorites was Saddle Peak Lodge's duck mousse. I visited their booth at least 5 times.

Another highlight was the ceviche negro from Petty Cash Taqueria consisting of sea bass cured in squid ink.

Lukshon served a dish I had at my last visit to the restaurant, a tea leaf salad with red prawn. You really can't go wrong with friend shrimp heads.

Shrimp spiced with paprika from Taberna Arros y Vi.

I thought this sort of crostini from Allumette was one of the more inventive dishes of the night.

I'm not a big fan of chocolate, but helped myself to several servings of Rivera's chocolate torte with candied habaneros. Very moist cake with a nice kick of flavor.

Redbird is a soon to be opened restaurant at the Vibiana. This crab salad was very good and didn't involve too much filler.

You can always rely on Starry Kitchen to serve some of the more inventive cuisine at any food event. The gumbo had a very deep flavor. I wasn't really a fan of the panna cotta.

I believe this was my first time having octopus in a curry. As you can see, Edie very much enjoyed Lazy Ox Canteen's rice pudding.

Lexington Social House served yellowtail crudo with compressed watermelon, tobiko, and frozen wasabi. This was actually voted best dish of the night.

Two preparations of oysters were on hand. First was a friend oyster slider from Little Bear

and second was a simple raw oyster served over a piece of succulent pork belly. Both were great.

Ramekin served an impressive spread of pastries, sorbets, and ice creams. After trying most of the ice creams and sorbets, my favorites were the earl grey ice cream and the ambrosia melon sorbet.

Patina Pasty served three modernist desserts, a deconstructed black forest cake, a mango and passion fruit custard, and liquid nitrogen macrons.

There were plenty of other dishes of which I neglected to take a picture. Other favorites included Seoul Sausage Co.'s deep friend been curry balls, Circa's Tunisian spiced prawn, and Bashan's sword squid.

Of course, there was no lack of drinks.

Like last year, Ketel One Vodka sponsored an open bar, giving patrons a choice of six drinks. I thought the drinks were much better than those served last year

1886 at the Raymond also offered a nice selection of cocktails.

There were 4 vendors sampling various sakes and sojus, as well as Ventura Limoncello. I was slightly disappointed that there was only one winery on hand, serving two wines, but it was a very minor point. 

Plate by Plate provided, once again, a wonderful night of food, drink, and fun. Highly recommended in future years. 

The Cuisine of Uzbekistan

The January lecture from the Culinary Historians of Southern California was about the food of Uzbekistan, something I knew absolutely nothing about. The speaker, former LA Times columnist Charles Perry painted a very interesting portrait of the country. Historically, Uzbekistan, a majority Muslim country in central Asia, has been influenced by a wide number of cultures ranging from Ancient Persia to Mongolia to India to China to Soviet Russia. While the food has apparent influences from all of these peoples, the amalgamation has produced a unique cuisine.

The speaker brought in a some examples of cookware which he acquired in Uzbekistan:

The first is a large pot called a khazan. The picture does not reflect how large and deep it actually is. The pilaf dish which we would sample after the lecture was cooked in this dish. We were told that the odd handles on the rim are used to tie the vessel easily to pack animals.

I can't remember the name of this one, but it is sort of an inverse pot used for cooking bread.

Following the lecture we sampled several dishes:

Here we have Uzbek flat bread, an onion and pomegranate salad, Uzbek style pilaf, a walnut-raisin ball, and carrot preserves. Recipes are available here.  Everything was good. The walnut-raisin ball reminded me of baklava without the pastry. The combination of pomegranate and raw onion gave a unique flavor. The best were the carrot preserves. I don't think I would have identified them as carrots  had I not been told. They tasted like apricot.

To go with the lecture, an Uzbek dinner at EuroAsia in Encino was organized.

First up were two Uzbek salads:

This was a salad of tomato and onion. Nothing too exciting, but not had.

The second salad was much more noteworthy. This included thinly sliced radishes, beef, and fried onions. The radishes were very creamy, and I loved the crunch from the onions.

Next was Shurpa soup with various vegetables, beef and dill. Not too different from most vegetable soups, but good.

The next course was my favorite. Called sopsma, these are the central Asian version of the Indian somosa. The rendition here was filled with generous amounts of lamb and onion.

The fourth course was khanum. This is the Uzbek version of a dumpling. It was somewhere between a Russian Piroshki and some sort of dim sum. The noodle like wrapper was filled with beef and vegetables and steamed. 

The main course consisted of chicken kebabs and pilaf served with a tangy sauce. The pilaf was very good. In this version of pilaf, the surface starch is removed from the rice before cooking so that every grain remains separate. It also lacks the crispy crust present in Persian pilaf dishes. The chicken was actually very impressive. Despite being simple white meat chicken, it was very moist and very full of flavor. 

To go with dinner, one of the other guests picked up this bottle of Georgian wine from a liquor store next to the restaurant. It had an almost port like smell and a very dark, unfiltered look.It was not something of which I could drink too much.

This was a great dinner. I learned a lot about an unfamiliar cuisine and had some great food.