A Few Bites of LA
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Have you ever seen a prettier shrimp? It's on the menu at Osteria Mozza: one giant prawn on a plate of pasta. You pull off the head and allow the drippings to shower over your plate. Then you eat the shrimp - with great delight - and finally twirl the pasta around your fork. So delicious.
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This is the satsuki rice porridge at Orsa and Winston, a wickedly delicious concoction that borrows from both Italy and Japan. More rich risotto than spartan porridge, it's topped with sea urchin, scallops, salmon roe. I couldn't stop eating it.
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I loved the restaurant's pickle plate too: each one so gently cured it retained its crunch. It was as if the word "vinegar" had been whispered across the plate.
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And the house-cured culatello is superb.
Stopped by Hearth and Hound for dinner one night. It's one of the coziest restaurants I know, dimly lit, the table widely spaced so you can have a conversation. And on warm nights the patio is the place to be.
That spicy chicharron is a great way to start.
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An admirable puntarelle salad revels in its anchovy dressing.
There's a wicked grill - flames leaping - and almost everything on the menu meets that fire. These shrimp perhaps? There's no better way to get messy hands....
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Black cod with orange sauce.
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And if you eat nothing else here, don't miss the charred cabbage. Laced with meat drippings and plopped atop a little oyster-scented puddle, it will change, forever, your notion of cabbage.