Beverly Soon Tofu

I am helpless against the addictive power of gochujang , that fiery, fermented chili paste that is an essential element of Korean cuisine. Accordingly, we recently visited Beverly Soon Tofu, a local standard- bearer in the hitherto unknown (to us) world of soondubu jigae, the beloved red stew, catalyzed by the chili paste and filled with uncurdled tofu and sundry other tasty vittles.

Located in the de rigueur anonymous strip mall in K-town, BST’s English signage curiously reads Beverly Tofu House. Once inside, BST charmingly attempts to conceal its Olympic and Vermont location by decorating its walls with wood-like cut-outs that attempt to evoke some mythical, tropical Korean idyll. (Instead, they just reconfirm the awesomeness that is the Town of K.) The tables take the form of bisected tree trunks, and the backless seats are ersatz stumps. The illusion is broken only by the massive posters advertising Bokbunjajoo Raspberry Wine and what I will only assume is the deliciousness of its fashionably Alize-esque flavors.

The food, unlike the design, is serious business, as is the demeanor of its presiding grandmotherly practitioner. (Miss Bird took a particularly liking to her, giggling gleefully in her Graco as the old woman loudly tore sheets of plastic bags from a giant roll. Was it the sound that tickled our baby’s fancy? Or was it little Miss Bird’s knowledge that this woman knew the score?) Our meal began with an assortment of carefully prepared and delicious small plates, the banchan. I enjoyed all of them, but two were standouts. The kitchen gave each of us an amuse-bouche of silky, sliced coins of white tofu perched in a bowl of delicate soy/sesame oil sauce, and strewn with finely chopped green onions and grated dry seaweed. This beautiful and sophisticated creation, neither spicy nor sweet, had an airy effect that set the stage for the more vivid flavors to come. Texturally, it was a little slice of heaven, the tofu melting softly on our tongues. I also was quite taken with the kimchi of cubed daikon radish and its sweet, tangy chili sauce; the complexity of the spicy sauce’s flavors elevated this tiny dish of kimchi beyond the realm of simple comfort food.

But we were here for the stew, and I am pleased to report that this majestically red and hearty creation had an addictively robust flavor. I especially liked the iteration with kimchi and beef (though I did not care for the oysters, which were slimy and vile). It’s hard to ignore that the mild-mannered, but dependable tofu it is a worthy counterpoint to its friend, the soondubu – the Ackroyd to the stew’s Belushi, if you will. Upon serving the sizzling bowls of stew, the server cracks a raw egg into the teeming melange; however, I found that the additional fat slightly undermined the dish’s austere appeal. Marisa, befitting her sagacity, was grossed out by it, and therefore smartly declined the egg. I also enjoyed our accompanying platter of sautéed spicy squid, which, lo and behold, was served in a spicy chili sauce with some onions. The dinner was such a hit that we visited BST twice in three days – once on “date night” and again a few days later with Miss Bird. We can’t wait to go back.

Beverly Soon Tofu Restaurant

2717 W. Olympic Blvd.
Koreatown

(213) 380-1113

The Tricky Subject of American Pizza

A case can be made that the best pizza in Los Angeles is the unlikely creation of a Jewish woman dedicated to Italian cuisine. Her restaurant is located on a stretch of Melrose Avenue best known for its retail shops specializing in teeny-bopper fashion, drug paraphernalia, and second-hand apparel. I'm talking, of course, about Evan Kleiman's 25 year-old Angeli Caffe. Kleiman is a pioneer in what was once known as "Cal-Ital" cuisine, which is essentially the marriage of Italian food and California produce. In Angeli's case, the "Ital" is both traditional Italian and Red Sauce cuisine, and the "Cal" includes a penchant both for great, locally sourced produce and a sliver – just a tiny, tiny sliver – of the California loopiness ridiculed in Annie Hall.

Angeli Caffe reminds me of Donald Fagen's uber-Eighties Nightfly album: at first, the menu and the room feel dated, but upon reflection, it is evident that Angeli is a gem. For example, the menu includes dishes such as fried calamari, spaghetti aglio e olio, spaghetti burro e parmigiana – all classics, but currently (and unjustly) unfashionable in Los Angeles. Then there's the dilemma of the ridiculous, Benes-esque "Insalata Californiana" in which Woody would get his sprouts (though not any mashed yeast). Nevertheless, Angeli exudes hominess in part due to its genuine, hospitable staff, but also because it possesses a muted stylishness that recalls the Italian trattorias of New York, if not Italy itself. Thus, Angeli has aged gracefully. I was only mildly surprised to learn that Thom Mayne's inimitable architecture firm Morphosis designed the place.

Angeli's particular genius is its bread. The small spherical loaf has a soft interior and crusty exterior that is at once rich-tasting and austere. When sliced horizontally, the loaf is put to good use with the panino grosso; with its Italian meats, cheeses, marinated onions and roasted peppers, this artery-clogging boat of deliciousness is an excellent riff on the Italian sub. But the dough, with all of its taste and texture, is put to much more productive use in Angeli's pizza. Lately I've been alternating between the workaday margherita, the basic mozzarella cheese pizza, and the spicier and more interesting puttanesca, which is tomato sauce-driven, gently accentuated by shards of black olives, red pepper, anchovy, garlic, and capers, though no cheese. On a few recent occasions, we've also ordered their utterly delicious pizza with pepperoni and caramelized onion. With its basic tomato sauce, Angeli has the chops to be a great Red Sauce joint. This sauce has a pleasant sweetness and textural plumpness that makes it a joy to eat with ravioli or even vegetarian lasagna. (If I had to be vegetarian, but wasn't allowed to kill myself, I could survive well on a diet of Angeli's vegetarian offerings. I'll go so far as to say their meatless Lasagna Angeli is superior to their Bolognese version.) At this moment in time, I'm compelled to order dinner from there at least once a week, so it's a good thing that prices are quite reasonable. The wife wants me to point out that they also make a decidedly solid Caesar salad, thereby disproving my theory that such a salad should not be ordered in an L.A. Italian restaurant. This week, I was especially delighted to learn that Angeli also makes a mean chocolate chip cookie. (To our devoted Tribeca readership, I apologize. I started going to Angeli a few weeks after your visit. A certain small red-headed Red Sox fan and his parents may have enjoyed Angeli more than a La Brea Avenue competitor.)

Invigorated by my discovery of great local pizza, I decided to take my show on the road and revisit some old favorites in the Cleve. (If nothing else, our recent Passover visit to the Cleve provided me with an excellent opportunity to throw my people's daffy dietary dogma about dough to the wind.) So for a pre-Seder nosh (oh, suck it, my fellow Jews), I ordered a large pepperoni pizza from Geraci's, the beloved University Heights institution, which opened in 1955. (For you investment bankers out there, Geraci's is in its 54th year of operations.)

Geraci's is an old-school red sauce joint, famous for the thickly sliced, charred pepperoni that adorn its pizza. This type of food, basic and sentimental, never truly found a home in L.A., which is all more the reason that it was my first stop in Cleveland. What I found was tasty, but hardly a revelation. Those pepperoni were as good as ever, but the surfeit of melted cheese and oily, spongy dough overwhelmed the sauce, diminishing the pie's overall quality. (Still, I ate half of it before Seder and snuck into the kitchen for another few slices during Seder.)

H-Bomb and J-Wy of the West Village, who graciously flew to the Cleve to meet the Fress's most recent collaboration, accompanied us to Justin's and my longtime favorite, Presti's Bakery, in caricatural Little Italy – "on the Hill," as they say. Presti's is famous for its pizza. They also used to be famous for late-night doughnuts, but they went out of business shortly after I left Cleveland. (Connect the dots as you will.)

As the legend goes, Rose and Charles Presti Sr. opened Presti's Bakery in 1903 using recipes that were codified on the family's journey by boat from Sicily to America. The bakery moved around and, by 1943, settled into a tiny storefront on Mayfield Road on the east side of Cleveland. In 1999, Presti's moved out of the old storefront and into a modern, antiseptic café on the same block. All of a sudden, Presti's had this expansive space with a massive kitchen and plentiful seating. With a lot more money at stake, the dictatrix who ran the joint was relegated to the back, and customer service became the province of middle-aged moms and even a nose-ringed CIA student or two. Presti's offerings naturally expanded, though without the benefit of those mythical Sicilian recipes. For example, on this particular visit, I observed a croissant, sliced horizontally, with a slice of desiccating melted American cheese inserted in the middle. Somehow I don't think this creation is central to the Sicilian tradition.

During my formative years, Presti's sold loaves of bread, slices of pizza, and little else of note out of this storefront. The presiding figure was a short, slender elderly woman with Mussolini's temperament. She brooked no dissent and wasn't exactly giving the customers a hearty welcome. I once saw her threaten a rowdy toddler with a rolling pin. This utter charmlessness was her charm, and she neither noticed nor cared that we found her antics entertaining. We'd order a few slices, perhaps a stromboli, and when weather permitted, sit on the rough-hewn wooden bench out front. Then we'd enjoy our pizza while watching the neighborhood drama. The stage was set by the large storefront across the street whose unavoidable sign read "Brotherhood Loan Company." Such a blatant disregard for contemporary mores and laws against loansharking was just priceless. J-Wy and I would watch the locals do their best to act like Scorsesean wiseguys. My favorite was the gentleman wearing the black satin baseball jacket emblazoned with Giorno Di Paga on the back. I also particularly enjoyed a debate between two goombas about whether Phoenix was in Colorado or Arizona. (In my mind, the argument has yet to be resolved.)

During our Passover visit, J-Wy and I returned with our ladies for our beloved pizza. Presti's sells a handful of varieties, but I'd be unable to name a single one other than the cheese. (Though I will admit to a dalliance with the artichoke pizza around 15 years ago, and would place a small wager that that artichoke pizza is still served daily.) For the record, the pizza is kept at room temperature in large rectangular sheets and is cut into rectangular slices. The pizza is better when it is still hot from the oven, but I never mastered the timing necessary to get it. Suffice it to say, it's well before lunch time. Presti's sadly dispensed with its fascistic tendencies when it moved, and now it even asks customers if they want their pizza warmed in a microwave. Not only is this practice pathetic, but the staff never warns that a microwave would only vitiate the dough's texture. They might as well ask people if they want mayonnaise on their pizza (or anything else for that matter.)

Presti's cheese pizza is of historical interest because it provides a link, however legendary, to 19th century Sicily. But its enduring greatness owes to its kaleidoscopic unpredictability. The thin-crusted dough is delicious, but it varies in taste depending on what section of the sheet it is coming from. On the rectangle's periphery, the dough is crusty and has a more pronounced crunch, while the interior slices are much softer. The tomato sauce varies along the spectrum of sweetness and spiciness, but it is always delicious. It could be cigarette ashes that provide the occasional bite. The quantity and configuration of the mozzarella cheese also varies; it can cover most a given slice, or sometimes just a small portion of it. The most flavorful slices are always the middle slices, which have no crust whatsoever. Somehow they have a little more sauce and absorb a little more olive oil. They're definitely heavier than the peripheral slices and infinitely more delicious.

Presti's pizza represents a Spartan style, suitable only as cheese pizza for a tiny bakery. No restaurant could serve it and hope to pay the rent for more than a few months, which is why today's Presti's offers such a gallimaufry of comestibles. That said, it's easy to see how Geraci's with its pizza pies became popular when I was growing up. Geraci's pizza is much more accessible and can adapt to any number of toppings, which is what most people want. It's like Domino's, except that it's good. Still, as I contemplate the evolution of American pizza, it seems as though something was lost in pizza's journey from a traditional Italian staple to an American ubiquity. Thankfully, Evan Kleiman reinvigorated the genre back in 1984. Her pizzas share a lineage with Presti's because of their mutual emphasis on quality dough, and the purity and simplicity of traditional flavors. But Kleiman is not tethered to the distant past. Twenty-five years after opening, Angeli Caffe continues to make a consistently revelatory pie. In a neighborhood that boasts Nancy Silverton's über-hyped – and admittedly delicious – Pizzeria Mozza, Angeli makes the only LA pizza that I actually crave.

Angeli Caffe

7274 Melrose Ave.

Los Angeles

(323) 936-9086

www.angelicaffe.com

Geraci’s Restaurant

2266 Warrensville Center Rd.
University Heights

(216) 371-5643

Presti’s Bakery

12101 Mayfield Rd.
Little Italy

(216) 421-3060

www.prestisbakery.com

Spago, Beverly Hills

As much as I try to believe my adopted hometown is burgeoning with sophistication, Los Angeles sometimes just fails me. Or perhaps the whole process of burgeoning has failed to take root west of Doheny.

There is no other way to justify the continued existence and popularity of the self-caricature known as Spago. Wolfgang Puck was once lauded (along with Alice Waters) as a being a “seminal influence” in an “entire cuisine . . . a still-evolving culinary style that can sampled from one of [California] to the other.” (I’m skeptical that an entire cuisine can be founded on a menu whose principle innovations include smoked salmon on baked, flattened dough and the intermixture of Shun Lee-style “Chinese” food and French technique, but I’ll indulge the fantasy for a few minutes. Of course, the logical conclusion of such madness is CPK, the smooth jazz of cuisine.)

Despite Puck's contributions and skill, he is now content to meander around the large dining room and prattle on with patrons for hours on end. Accordingly, the Puck evolution has come to a halt. With its staid and virtually unchanging menu, Spago has morphed into a Cheesecake Factory in a suburb that is inexorably morphing into an ersatz Caruso lifestyle center. Bizarrely, it is the original Cheesecake Factory, established in 1978, that appears to be the anachronistic holdout in the Beverly Hills retail corridor. To exacerbate matters, Puck’s sole recent contribution to the culinary world, or perhaps it was Barbara Lazaroff’s investors’, is the $160 steak.

Teeming on a recent Monday night with businessmen , tourists and cougars, Spago is much more of a banquet hall than a quality restaurant. For a wedding or, better yet, a rehearsal dinner, the food would have been solid. Other than that, I saw an expensive menu littered with “fusion” items and a few Austrian standards, e.g., wiener schnitzel, that while tasty and fun, were of middling quality and would not be served by a Kurt Gutenbrunner kitchen.

My veal sweetbreads had that off-putting texture of soft chewiness that originally soured me on this offal. (I have been craving sweetbreads ever since savoring the rustic brilliance of Ali El-Sayed's version at his Kabab Café in Astoria.) The pan-roasted duck breast, served in slices, simply lacked flavor. I can’t point to anything that was objectively wrong with it, but I also can’t cite any quality that distinguished it, aside from forgettableness.

A dessert of unwieldy fried dough and out-of-season strawberries lacked sweetness and would not have passed muster at the Geauga County Fair.

A few comments from the wife:

First of all, I had to change the stupid title of this entry, which was in no way reflective of my otherwise adorable husband's brilliance and wit. When Steve writes about Beverly Hills, he immediately gets his panties in a bunch -- which is absolutely hilarious because we'll probably end up living there someday. (Ha, ha! Suck it, Steve! You know it's true!) Anyway. Steve's perspective on things is skewed by an existing bias against anything west of Doheny, which makes him a total fraud because he's fancier than H-bomb in Marc Jacobs at Blue Hill. While I am happy with a big salad or a burger or a spicy tuna handroll at the local sushi bar, Steve actually has to fly to San Francisco to eat at Gary Danko on his birthday or he whines like a little girl. Clearly, his vitriol is completely misplaced. Don't we seem to despise most in others what we unconsciously recognize in ourselves?

But I digress. Enough about Steve's hypocrisy and back to Spago, which is, admittedly, as The Trusted Arbiter of Style once decreed, over. The decor is straight out of Cleveland, the menu never changes, and the crowd is just a shade younger and hipper than the pre-dead patrons of the Hillcrest Country Club Grill Room. But I will give Spago this: It is consistent. You can count on a number of things at Spago: It will take hours. A nip-tucked Wolfgang Puck will work the room like a pro, shaking hands, kissing babies, acting like he knows who you are, and pretending that he cares. And the food will be good. It won't change your life or even challenge your assumptions about cuisine (that was 25 years ago), but it will be totally serviceable and often terrific.

For my appetizer, I ordered lemon-herb blini topped with creme fraiche, red onion, and, alternately, smoked sturgeon with black caviar or smoked salmon with red caviar. The pillowy blini were light and delicious, while the smoked fish and caviar combo delighted me to no end. Was it innovative? Not a lick. But it was exactly what I wanted, and the dish was absolutely delicious. For my main course, I ordered the striped bass with lobster and roasted root vegetables. It was great; just really well-cooked with balanced flavors. Moreover, in deference to my irrational and paralyzing fear of fish skin/scales, the kitchen removed any trace of the dreaded stuff -- how awesome is that?

I will concede that the desserts were uncharacteristically lame on our recent visit. My mother, whose birthday we were celebrating, was psyched to throw dietary caution to the wind and get down on her birthday -- especially since she'd just run into Sherry Yard at the Beverly Hills Sunday Farmers' Market stocking up for the week. The fact that Ms. Yard was purchasing grapes should have been a serious red flag as none of the selections really floated the birthday girl's boat. So we opted for two desserts to share as a table: a mediocre strudel and the doughy thing to which Steve referred. The doughy thing -- not fried, more of a pancake-souffle hybrid -- was actually somewhat addictive, reminding me a bit of a poor man's Bistro Jeanty clafoutis. Sprinkled with powdered sugar and studded with sweet strawberries and grapes, it was kind of awesome in an inelegant, dude-have-you-got-the-munchies-too? sort of way.

Overall, we did have fun at the dreaded Spago, which seemed to please everyone at the table --except for the grumpy, implacable Wolverines, who groused after dinner that they needed to go to In-n-Out, even though they both cleaned their plates.

Spago
176 North Canon Dr.
Beverly Hills
(310) 385-0880

Brunch at Jar

After an evening of fancified sushi, I needed a Sunday morning of serious fressing. So we went to Jar, which has a reputation as a foodie’s steakhouse despite this description’s oxymoronic implications. As a rule, I avoid steakhouses because I’d rather go to Soot Bull Jeep or Fatburger than drop a bill on an overcooked steak in a stuffy room filled with the usual assortment of country clubbers, white-collar criminals, yachtsmen, syndicators, and corporate drones. But Jar’s executive chef, Suzanne Tracht, comes from that royal Waters-begets-Silverton/Peel/Goin lineage, and with the lovable and genetically hungry Artie in town, I had a good opportunity to return to another quality restaurant in the neighborhood.

Jar began the brunch with a large wedge of coffee cake for the table. The cake was denser than I expected, topped with nuts and very good. Artie thought it needed more cinnamon, perhaps because the familiar swirl didn’t traverse the wedge, or maybe it just needed more cinnamon. Regardless, I liked the cake’s moist consistency.

We had a tacit agreement with the affable waiter: he would recommend the better dishes, and we would tolerate his confusing us for Georgianne Walken. So Artie and I split the corn pancakes, chilaquiles, and pot roast hash, while Marisa got the lobster benedict.

I have asked my wife to share her thoughts on her brunch:

In an effort to balance the scales of kashrut and make up for other nice neighborhood Jewish girls who, unlike me, don’t have the presence of mind or fortitude of spirit to enjoy a little traif, I ordered the lobster benedict, sans the lobster béarnaise. (I maintain that béarnaise is an utterly repulsive concept, though excellent fodder for Mel Brooks jokes). The lobster benedict came in its usual form atop an English muffin with a poached egg. But where most restaurants use Canadian bacon (or what I call “ham”), Jar uses Cantonese-inspired Char Sui pork as well as some “pea tendrils,” or soggy greens. Sweet and smoky, the Char Sui has a flavor preferable to the favored meat of Saskatoon; but unfortunately, it dominated the dish’s other, milder flavors. I ended up taking the dish apart, forsaking the desiccated English muffin and grazing on the eggs, Char Sui, lobster, and pea tendrils. I could barely muster more than a few bites. Despite the glorious self-righteousness that comes along with a low-carb breakfast, I felt somewhat cheated by the whole experience. Thankfully, Stevie and Artie were happy to share their bounty, leading me off the path of virtue and down the road of excess, right to the palace of wisdom where there are platters of absolutely delicious corn pancakes waiting for the hung-over glutton in all of us. I do loves me some Jar. You know you love me. XOXO, Gossip Girl – ahem, I mean, Marisa

The pancakes were not only the first serving of such that I’ve found edible in years; they were actually very good. Owing to their excellent batter, the pancakes were light and had a fresh baker’s quality. The kernels of corn were inside the pancakes and added an element of sweetness which obviated the need for maple syrup. These pancakes bore no gustatory resemblance to the thin starchy bricks served in homes and diners that had previously soured me on the Sunday staple.

The chilaquiles, essentially Latino matzoh brie, were infinitely better than the Jewish version. Serving a dressed up version of the classic dish, Jar fried and then layered strips of tortillas with eggs, salsa, shredded roasted pork, and crème fraiche. Why Jews have excluded roasted pork from the Passover standard (and then served it only once a year) is an enduring mystery. Suffice it to say, once roasted pork and salsa are added to the recipe and matzah is replaced with tortillas, the outcome is bound to be good. And it was.

The star of the brunch was the pot roast hash, a jumble of brisket, eggs, potatoes, onions, mushrooms and served with superfluous coffee gravy in a gravy boat. Jar annoyingly anointed its pot roast a “signature” dish, a conceit that I would expect only from eateries listed on the NYSE like Morton’s. Hash is leftover meat sautéed with vegetables, potatoes--whatever is around really--and in the hands of Suzanne Tracht, it was delicious. The brisket was most flavorful, much more so than the pork in the chilaquiles, and there was no sense that it was sautéed. It was soft and tender as opposed to the traditional crispy, and thus retained its essence as a pot roast. The eggs were intermixed into the center of the large portion, and it all blended together messily, which is to say seamlessly. The dish was a hash after all, not an omelet, and it impelled our enjoyable visit to Jar the next week for dinner to try the actual pot roast.

Jar has an impeccably designed dining room and bar which captures its modern steak house raison d’être. (Even when I was a just barely more pretentious undergrad studying philosophy with a bad habit of mining the depths of the thesaurus, I was self-conscious about using such an obviously heinous term like “raison d’être” in a paper. Not anymore, especially since I am Heinous. Just try to confute my views on Jar.) Jar’s designer, Brett Witke, raided one of those retro-modern furniture galleries along Beverly and imposed a great clean look on the place. The room’s walls consist of polished brown wood paneling which give the room a sense of tradition. They link Jar to proud, if mediocre anachronisms such as Taylor’s Steakhouse, and forewarn that creamed spinach will be served. But the wood paneling’s lighter tone and variations, the modern decorative artwork affixed thereto and the dark and wide hanging convex lamps splayed throughout the ceiling signify an updating of the whole steakhouse concept. While the muted light and lack of windows can induce mild claustrophobia during the dinner hours, the natural light at brunch was quite pleasant.

Jar
8225 Beverly Boulevard
Los Angeles
(323) 655-6566
www.thejar.com

A.O.C.: The $100 Blog

A.O.C. is a frustrating restaurant, one that we primarily visit with out-of-town guests. Its popularity makes it difficult to get a table on short notice during prime hours, and the bar always appears at least two-deep on the many occasions that we have driven by. On top of that, the food can be inconsistent when the dining room is full. Nevertheless, the wine list is solid, the small “Cal-Med” dishes tend to be thoughtful and vibrant, and ultimately, we're always up for a plate of prosciutto and cheese. And in all of our visits dating back to New Year's Eve 2002, we've had several outstanding dishes from A.O.C., including, among many others, seasonal offerings and specials such as the lobster salad, soft-shelled crab, and sheep's milk cheesecake.

So over the past few years, our occasional visits by ourselves have been spontaneous -- and on the early side, in order to avoid the crowds and an overly taxed kitchen. Last Thursday, after a late afternoon appointment in Century City in which we suffered the indignity of sharing an elevator with Michael Bolton of all people (whom Marisa had to recognize), and spared by geography from another Ashkenazi-driven Rosh Hashana assault on my gustatory sensibilities, we sidled up to the wine bar at A.O.C. for an early dinner.

We began with a regular item on the A.O.C. menu, the roasted dates with parmesan wrapped in bacon, a stalwart dish for us in our date-obsessed household. While delicious as usual, the roasted dates betrayed Suzanne Goin’s “farmer’s market” philosophy to such a degree that she rendered the cover of her cookbook, Sunday Suppers at Lucques pure puffery. The artful cover has a photograph of a cluster of fresh yellow barhi dates, a paradigmatic farmer’s market item, since they are available for a few weeks toward the end of summer (i.e., now). Last week, the barhi dates at the Bautista family’s date stand at the Hollywood Market were at their finest: the golden clusters were fresh and plump, just like on the cookbook’s cover, but lush with a sweetness that no photo can convey.

So at the height of barhi season and with the promise of the cookbook cover and Goin’s fancy James Beard award, what does A.O.C. have to offer? Niente. Zero. Just the standard roasted date with bacon and cheese that they always have (and we always order). There would be no thoughtfulness on display at this assembly line. It’s a good thing Yom Kippur is around the corner, because deception and complacency warrant serious atonement.

We also had the fried tetilla, a soft Galician cow’s milk cheese and, like the dates, another standard appetizer for us. The tetilla is served thinly and in portions not much larger than a silver dollar along with a smidgen of quince paste and the spicy romesco sauce However, this time, the fried tetilla was a greasy mess. While it looked crispy and brown, the nasty taste reminded me of the fried mozzarella sticks I used to get in my fifth grade bowling league.

The next disappointment was a salad of eggplant, essentially baba ghanoush, served on a piece of thick toast and accompanied by a sizable cube of smoked ricotta, roasted peppers, and soppressata. The dish exemplified incoherence as the four ingredients bore no ascertainable relationship to one another, and I was uncertain about whether I should put any of the accompanying items on top of the baba ghanoush. I can speculate that there are two reasons why these ingredients were served: there is no way to justify the $11.00 price tag on a miserly portion of otherwise unaccompanied baba, and the kitchen knew it was bland and had to compensate. It would be unthinkable for Marouch to serve its brilliant smoky version with all of this clutter. Even the eggplant bhartha at nearby Electric Karma is better -- and that's just when it's delivered.

The best dish of the meal was the salad of corn and shrimp with green harissa and lime for $12. The lime and green harissa were a great complement to the market fresh corn, and the type of dish I come to A.O.C. to eat. But the portion was not large and the shrimp were not especially flavorful. The corn would have been fine sans shrimp, but then $12 for a small bowl of corn would not be appealing to diners. But neither is bland shrimp and corn for $12, which felt like petty larceny.

The menu advertised a tantalizing sounding market fish with "yellow tomato, pancetta, and opal basil." What arrived was a downright Dali-esque serving of sea bass over two slices of red tomatoes, a salsa of small Gerberesque roasted stone fruit, and flavorless pancetta resembling red dental tape, all under a glop of creamy sauce that Marisa surmised was yogurt-based. Like the baba before it, the dish was a mess and I was unsure how the ingredients corresponded to one another. The kitchen did prove that bass can be overcooked.

The final dish was a small bowl of clams with garlic and amontillado sherry. For $15, I expected an outsized portion, but there were less than a dozen clams. The broth was inert and the garlic undetectable. The sheep's milk cheesecake was very good, and a whole other animal from the standard "New York" cheesecake that my arteries and tongue dread. If it weren’t for the cake and the outstanding braised veal cheeks with risotto carbonara that I had at Lucques a month ago, I’d write off the whole Goin franchise. I am still a Frida Kahlo fan, though.

A.O.C.

8022 West Third Street
Los Angeles
(323) 653-6359
http://www.aocwinebar.com/