Pardon My Crumbs: Rivera

It's been a cold and blustery few days in L.A. Actually, if I'm being honest our perpetual "72 and sunny" weather has recently given way to heavy downpours, gusting winds and bouts of flooding. The say April showers bring May flowers, but it seems we're a few weeks ahead of schedule. Looking outside at the dark clouds, I'm suddently hit with a craving for a cocktail of a similar name. No, not a Dark and Stormy, but "A Oaxacan The Clouds," served at Chef John Sedlar's latest restaurant, Playa. I first had the cocktail over a month ago at the restaurant's Friends & Family night, and I've actually has it on my mind ever since. You know how certain tastes or flavors just seem as though they were created with you in mind? That's how I feel about A Oaxacan The Clouds, which mixologist Julian Cox (Rivera, Las Perlas) created with Del Maguey Mezcal, roasted farm tomatoes, agave nectar, crispy sage, and Piment d’Espelette (aka, French chili pepper). (Editor's note: Dave Fernie created the cocktail, not Julian Cox).

Playa's "A Oaxacan The Clouds"

As I've gotten older, I realized that I enjoy two drinks more than any other: champagne and mezcal (separately). Readers of the blog who came along on my taco + mezcal tour of Zihuatanejo, Mexico in October won't be surprised at the latter choice. But here's the deal; in my opinion, champagne isn't the best drink of choice on chilly, rainy days like today. On the contrary, days like today require a drink with spice, smoke and savory undertones. Three tastes that A Oaxacan The Clouds delivers on in spades. Upon your first sip -- scratch that, before your first sip -- you're hit with the subtle smokey aroma from the Mezcal. For Mezcal newbies, the drink is a cousin to tequila. However, rather than being made from agave, it's made from the maguey plant, a form of agave which is oven-cooked to give it a distinct smoky flavor.

Where There's Smoke... There's Mezcal

That first sip then brings the smoky aroma to life, then gives way to a taste of savory sweetness (yes, there is such a thing) of the oven-roasted tomatoes. The sweetness is compounded by a touch of agave nectar, but plays a second, even third fiddle to warming effect of the mezcal and tomatoes. Each sip burns ever-so-slightly as it makes its way through your mouth and down your throat. The warmth is magnified by the spice in the piment d'espelette, a chili pepper grown in France that lends a bite of heat to the Mezcal's smoke. Don't worry; physically it's a good hurt, but emotionally it's complicated. Each sip leaves you wanting more but leads you closer to an empty glass. Finally, take a few bites from the juicy cherry tomato and crispy sage skewer and you've just added another level of earthiness, not to mention a mini palate cleanser. Then lucky for you, you get to pick it up and sip again (and again).

Make no mistake, A Oaxacan The Clouds is meant to sipped. Savored, even. If only I had one at my desk right now...

Tonight I was one of the lucky few to get a reservation to Test Kitchen's second (of four) night schedule "testing" the menu for Red Medicine, L.A.'s upcoming punk-meets-Vietnamese restaurant. For a little background, Test Kitchen is a new restaurant concept by Bill Chait (Rivera, Spark Woodfire Grill) and Brian Saltsburg (Boyz Night Out Supper Club), giving some of L.A.'s top chefs a temporary space to "test" out dishes in the works for future restaurant projects. It's a brilliant concept; various chefs rotate through the Test Kitchen and share their potential plates with the palates of Angelenos.

Test Kitchen's Dining Room

Place Setting

Considering I live about a stone's throw from Red Medicine, I was very excited to taste Chef Jordan Khan's creations. Khan has previously described the restaurant's concept as "punk meets Vietnamese," while Test Kitchen website dubs it as "contemporary Vietnamese featuring local ingredients and modern cooking techniques." As a huge aficionado of Vietnamese cuisine, this thrilled me; I love the simple execution but bright, mind-blowing flavors in traditional Vietnamese dishes: homemade pork Banh Mi sandwiches with pickled carrots and cilantro, crisp green papaya salads, chicken meatballs in lettuce cups and glass noodle salads loaded with fragrant mint and basil, salty fish sauce, earthy peanuts and a spritz of tangy lime juice. For me, flavors just don't get better than that. Not to mention, anyone bold enough to describe their cuisine as punk is bound to have some serious rock star food.

My homemade Banh Mi Sandwich (recipe here)

We arrived right on time at 6pm -- Test Kitchen is located in the Pico Boulevard space that previously housed Spark Woodfire Grill -- and were immediately escorted to the bar. Matthew Doerr, Red Medicine's Bar Manager, was mixing up five featured cocktails as well as bespoke/dealer's choice libations. I ordered a bespoke cocktail -- "anything with basil and vodka in it" were my only instructions. The basil turned out to be wonderfully fragrant, with a hint of citrus from grapefruit juice and tartness from the ginger beer. My guest ordered the #5 (Red Medicine doesn't name their cocktails), made with Plymouth Gin, Lemon, cherry heering, kambucha and sparkling. His reaction? It was ordinary. However, later in the evening he ordered the #3, which was anything but ordinary, made with Redemption Rye 2yr, Luksusowa, pickled peaches, lime, mint and ginger beer. It was fantastic. I am not a whiskey drinker and the combination of the whiskey with the pickled seasonal peaches, hint of mint and lime was great.

Bespoke "Basil" Cocktail | Basil, ginger beer, grapefruit, vodka

The #5: Plymouth Gin, Lemon, cherry heering, kambucha, sparkling

The #3: Redemption Rye 2yr, Luksusowa, Pickled Peaches, Lime, Mint, Ginger Beer

We sat down and the dishes just started coming. The whole idea behind Test Kitchen is that, aside from cocktails, you're not ordering anything. There are no substitutions, there are no vegetarian options. There is a wave of twelve prix fixe, family-style dishes that just start making their way to your tabletop, ready or not. You're there as a test subject, not as a decision-making diner; which was just fine with us.

Test Kitchen's Red Medicine Menu

The servers were incredibly enthusiastic, attentive and for the most part, quite knowledgeable about each of the dishes coming from the kitchen. As you can see from the menu above there was no shortage to the ingredients in each dish, which has the potential to cause problems for both the servers' memories as well as the execution of the dishes themselves. Which unfortunately ended up being the case; while there were truly some dishes we enjoyed very much -- the green papaya salad, chicken dumplings, crispy Brussels sprouts, skirt steak and coconut bavarois were excellent stand-outs -- at the end of the day we felt as though Red Medicine was trying a bit too hard to transform Vietnamese food into extremely upscale fare. Which made me sad; any reflection of "punk" in Khan's Vietnamese cuisine was sadly missing. There is certainly a time and a place for modernizing indigenous cuisine -- Rick Bayless has mastered it in his conception of Topolobampo and most recently, L.A.'s very own Red O -- but Red Medicine's menu seemed to sacrifice bold Vietnamese flavors in favor of creative textures and edible, tweezer-appointed flora and fauna. To quote the great Coco Chanel, "Always take off your last accessory you put on." In my opinion, the same rule should be applied to Red Medicine's menu: less it more. Use less dehydrated coconut milk, charred friseé and puffed tapioca and more expressions of the bold Vietnamese flavors true fans of the cuisine know and love.

Again, this is only my opinion and there were some lovely dishes. The whole point of Test Kitchen is to gauge the reception of dishes being considered for a future restaurant concept, so I certainly cannot fault them for experimenting. It was clear that the kitchen was full of seasoned professionals, the wait staff was well trained and the owners were very invested in the success of the menu, welcoming us both in and out of the restaurant. But my idea of a true "test" kitchen would be to solicit the feedback of the diners themselves, especially those invested enough to make a reservation for an extremely limited, four-night run. Maybe it's my marketing research background coming into place, but it's just a thought.

Radishes | Coco-butter, lime, dried soy