Kitchen Cellars, Street Eats & Food Noir Stylings: The Taste Los Angeles 2011 - Feature
The evolution of The Taste built on the separation last year of Beverly Hills interacting with the balancing parts of Downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood since the strength of an area rests in the sum of its parts. Each arena specifies its own thought process in terms of culinary with a necessity of prowess.
Beginning with "Secrets Of Kitchen To Cellar" held in the auspice of the landmark Beverly Hilton, different local interactions pointed to new directions but also resolute thoughts.
Sam's By The Beach served a luscious progression of meat lasagna but the Oliviero at The Avalon scintilated with a flavorful gnocchi with parmesan that was undeniably grand.
Palomino in Westwood offered a wonderfully diverse house salad replete with salami that livened with a sense of pepper while Public Kitchen at The Hollywood Roosevelt livened with their ciabatta pork sausage and lemon chiles adding just the right amount of zest.
While Kerrygold's Dubliner Irish Stout Cheese qualifies as some of the most enticing on Earth, Chaya Beverly Hills, with its spinach and chicken salad, heightened the terrestrial experience on multiple levels.
Chakra, a hidden gem located just off Doheny, tantalizes the spice with their chicken tikka marsala but Cafe Del Rey with its spicy ceviche and tacquito-inspired pairing waxed exceptional.
With tendencies of sheer brilliance, Il Pastaio integrated their baked spaghetti wrapped in eggplant and encompassed it with mozzarella cheese for a heavenly walk on the wild side.
Moving into Hollywood, the "Tacos Tequila Tryst" event provided an angle for the numerous Mexican restaurants moving to perfect the ideal of the would-be "tapas taco" - quick to eat but utterly rich in taste with a price point to beat.
While The Mission Cantina revolved with its chicken taco with an infinite hot sauce, Mercado, with its pollo-fused cooking method sprinkled with a pesto green sauce and feta cheese, swirled the taste buds.
B-Sweet, well known in the LA area, went global with its tacos, integrating a Indian base mixture with a sense of curry for a unique fusion, surprisingly integrating notions of taste while La Flor de Yucatan, despite staying with a traditional mixing of red sweet onions, didn't quite step up to par.
Pinches Tacos brought it back full circle with some pork taco with a spicy habanero sauce that jumped with pizzazz.
The most enduring taste of the evening though balanced with MexiKosher, located on Pico Blvd, which found a way with great spice and sauce to integrate a great veal product into the taco progression with exacting and delicious results.
The notion of the "Street Eats" mentality which has made Los Angeles' food trucks the talk of many a foodie globally reflected in the event of the same name highlighting the nouveau and diversity the reigns from Hollywood Soundstages to East LA.
The Grilled Cheese Truck moved the first idealization with a signature melt blending cheese with BBQ smoked pork and caramelized onions which peppered the mouth with gusto.
The Steel City Sandwich Truck, with roots in Pittsburgh, continued the flavor with a mix of traditional pierogi and a duck- infused version that bathed smooth and flawless with a distinctive aftertaste.
The Great Balls On Tires Truck, specializing in meatballs of all sorts, placed a one-two punch with a pesto-based recipe and a true Italian mozzarella which left patrons wanting for more.
Roy Choi, who many claim responsible for bringing this new renaissance of food trucks to Los Angeles with the success of his Kogi Truck, spoke about the necessities of food and not competing with other cities, citing that this is part of the culture and necessarily still evolving.
Bringing the idea full circle involved bringing the food structure to the continually burgeoning Downtown LA scene.
Closing down Broadway between 8th and 9th in front of The Orpheum Theater provided a cornucopia of visions as the neon light swirled.
While Mac N' Cheeza wandered fresh with their jalapeno-infused creation, Las Perlas bunkered down with an exceptional blanco tequila fused cocktail called "The Spicy Daisy" which felt both dangerous and delicious with its choice of ingredients of Agave Nectar, Royal Combier & Chinaco Tequila.
In the middle of the melee, a mix of Arabian, beatnik and Asian music styles clashed and voraciously materialized with Dengue Fever who, in creating their sound envisioned a hybrid that is both mainstream and decidedly niche in the best possible way.
Moving back to culinary, Mohawk Bend envisions a garlic invigorated progression on a hummus perspective which was both interesting and distinctly alien while Auntie Em's Kitchen mixed up a risotto salad intermixed with a seaweed blend.The Taste truly encompasses the structure of all the forms of food in Los Angeles creating an event both intimate and intrinsic. From the high-end restaurants of Beverly Hills to the Food Truck culture of Hollywood to the fusion-based experimentation of Downtown, the city's culinary mark continues to evolve.