Wednesday September 8, 2010

Christian and I went to the Padres game last night and watched them win their second game after their 10 game losing streak and then went to the racetrack today…closing day. Booo. I am bummed that I didn’t take the time to go earlier this year, but I have been traveling so much and it just didn’t work out. We only stayed for 4 races and I made an entire 80 cents profit on my amazing betting skills. I usually do awful and Christian loves to make fun of my losses. I like to go to where they parade the horses around on the paddock before the race and see which ones are out of control and frothing at the mouth. Or I pick whichever name sounds appropriate. A horse whose name has anything to do with alcohol always gets my bet. We were going to stay til the end but decided that it was best to get on the road and head to LA…on the way up we got a last minute reservation at The Bazaar! SCORE!

The Bazaar by Jose Andres is inside the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills (decor by Phillipe Starck) and is pretty much the #1 restaurant in LA at the moment. It’s a little confusing in that they have a regular dining room and a tasting room. We were seated at the Rojo y Blanca section, with an option for regular tapas and modern tapas: aka molecular gastronomy! The SAAM seating is the 22 course tasting and is only available Thursday through Saturday. (Surprisingly cheaper than I thought, too…only $120!) I definitely need to come back and do the tasting. Like next week maybe. The good thing about tapas menus is that you can try a lot of things without committing to full dishes. Some of the items were only $5 or $10. Some people like a big entree…I love to sample a lot of things. I am notorious for only ordering off the appetizer menu sometimes when I eat at a new place.

 We each had a Tortilla de Patatas “new way”: potato foam, egg 63 (what is that you ask!? An egg cooked at 63 degrees celsius to match the texture of the foam. I have no idea what that even means.) and at the bottom of the cup (which is not a real egg btw) was amazing carmelized onion. The tiny little spoon began to frustrate me as I tried to get it in my mouth as fast as possible so I ended up shooting the damn thing. I highly doubt it was supposed to be consumed that way, but I also doubt that we were the first to do that.

Local Melon and Jamon Iberco with 25 year old Pedro Ximenez: sliced cantaloupe with Iberco ham. It was really delicious…the salty pig and the cool sweet contrast of the melon. Wow.

The Pedro Ximenez was sprinkled in with the melon and jamon…it’s basically a cooking sherry that they served in tiny little gelatin chunks. A nice surprise!

American Caviar Cone: a light filo (phyllo) dough cone with creme fraiche and caviar. TO DIE FOR.

Japanese Tacos: grilled eel, cucumber, shiso, wasabi and chicharron.

The eel was warm and the cucumber “tortilla” was cool. Pretty tasty. I could have eaten a dozen of these.

We shared a cheese plate of Idiazabal (sheep), Murcia al vino (goat) and Manchego ‘pasamontes’ (sheep). The bread was lightly toasted and served with a bruschetta like tomato spread.

Jamon overload!

Christian ordered the Hilly Cheesesteak: air bread, cheddar cheese and mushrooms. I didn’t even try to steal a bite because I was ordering shit that he would never eat and that wouldn’t be fair. He said it was light and fluffy upon first bite but then the cheese was just oozing everywhere. Do not ask me why he ordered the one without the meat at first.

It was so good that he ordered the real one Philly Cheesesteak: air bread, cheddar, mushrooms and Wagyu beef. I should have snagged a bite of that one, but I was getting full and my foie gras was on it’s way.

The winner of the night was the Foie Gras Floating Island Soup: it was so amazing! I took my time eating it… I wanted it to last forever. It was made with a corn nut base and had crushed corn nuts on top. Foamy, frothy and utterly delicious.

Foie Gras Cotton Candy: yes, a small cool chunk of pate surrounded by cotton candy!

Christian had to be a little brat and ask for an order of his own cotton candy.

For dessert you are transported into a different part of the restaurant…. The Patisserie! There is a huge assortment of small things like chocolate bonbons and lollipops as well as traditional dessert items.

We had the Lime Fizzy Rocks (think like that weird astronaut ice cream you had as a kid) and on the right was Passion Fruit Marshmallow and bonbons made of lemon ginger, star anise and earl grey. At this point I was too full to even properly enjoy dessert so I didn’t force it. I will be coming back very soon for the tasting. In fact, I might just stay in LA for a week and go there every night to tackle the entire menu.

They have a retail store here as well. It’s a strange eclectic collection of items for sale. Lingerie to jewelry to….

…trendy little gifts for people that like weird stuff. (Jennie)

Thank you Christian for another amazing meal… on your dime! Hahahaha I love being unemployed…everyone loves to buy me dinner!

Friday 1.8.10

Let’s take a moment to acknowlege my niece Nikki’s  25th birthday as well as Elvis Presley’s.

Ok, let’s see… what happened today? Slept in, did some work in the room, ate a crappy snack before heading into the show, had a meeting at the circle bar, went to dinner, went to a club, went back to circle bar, went to bed late and had crazy sex. That’s about it! I hope you enjoyed my blog.

Just kidding.

I would love to know what device erases my past in minutes?

Here is Pat jamming his finger into the various types of Fleshlights. I hear these things are absolutely amazing… I bought one for 917 over the summer and he said it was awesome. We talked on the phone while he used it. (Damn! Another thing I forgot to mention that I finally tried last year… phone sex!) They come in mouths, buttholes and vaginas and have different textures in the chambers. If I had a genie show up right now and grant me one wish it would be to have a penis for a week. I thought about having one for a day, but someone convinced me that I needed a full week to fully appreciate what goes on and to experience all of the tricks it does.

This is a man I think. Pat refused to take a photo with it. In fact, he wouldn’t even look at it.

I didn’t take a lot of photos at the show because most of the pics we got were of Pat with his camera. I have to tell you how convenient it is knowing these models so well, because when there is a huge ass line we simply cut right to the front of it and get our autographs or photos or hugs. The fans get a little pissed when they are about to take a picture with their favorite porn star and Lauren and I stroll up and suddenly the model starts waving her hand frantically at us and giggling and smiling and looks away from their buddies cameras. At one point Boss Man Andreas decided that we HAD to wait in Phoenix Marie’s line and he refused to let us cut the line. 6 minutes. 8 minutes. 10 minutes. Jesus this is annoying.

Anyways, after the show we went to Mario Battali’s Carnevino inside the Palazzo.  I had been here before in the Spring and bravely ordered the sweetbreads because I had never had them. Bad idea. So bad in fact that I barely touched them and the waitress was super awesome and she took them off the bill. I decided to give it a shot again with a giant party of 11.

Here we have the iberco jamon which has only been available in the US since 2007. It is truly amazing and if you ever get a chance you should definitely try it. They recommended eating it with the little bread and lard combo you see here, but I inhaled it by itself. Pig that is fed a controlled diet is like a little piece of heaven for me. Any swine that is deemed the most expensive ham in the world at approximately $52 a pound is definitely going in my gut at every opportunity. If you read that wiki page, you see that since 12/09 there has been an abundance of it in Spain because supply outweighed demand. They are now giving this shit away to Spaniards… crap I think it’s time to make a trip to Spain.

The most boring, dull, flavorless beef carpaccio I have ever tasted. I didn’t even finish it!

We had ordered a plate of things that swim for the table to share (what am I saying, everything that lands on that table throughout the night is for me to share). Some oysters, deep fried cod balls, and the best thing was the uni on the lower left side of the plate. I love me some uni. For those of you who read this every day, I apologize for linking to the uni again, I am just trying to make sure new readers are educated on this little treasure.

Pat specifically requested that we not eat at restaurants with seafood and what do they put on the top of his dish/salad? Small fish with the eyes still on.

I actually tried one of the smelt and it was pretty gross. 818 said that he would make it better for me one day. We’ll see about that ever entering my mouth again. Ew.

I actually did that thing again where I don’t order an entree, but just mooch off everyone else’s plates for the remainder of the meal.

Bison

Lamb

Steak I think … not sure about that big ass bone though lol

… AND FTW … a $90 bowl of al dente pasta with butter and white truffles that Lauren and I fought over. It was fucking mother fucking magical. I felt like I wanted everyone to leave the table and let me eat this deliciousness alone and not bother me so I wouldn’t be at all distracted while enjoying each and every bite. Words cannot describe.

There is Derek (formerly of Mr Skin, but now with Playboy) and his giant head with Lauren. Derek and I have known each other for years and have actually been to a lot of places around the world together. We have shared many good times, meals, drinks and have about 178 photos of us standing side by side in various poses trying to exhibit exactly how large his cranium is and how small mine is. I am actually a little bummed out that I didn’t get one of those this trip.

This is the funny stand up comic we went to see a while back named Justin Martindale… he’s a regular at the Comedy Store in LA on Friday and Saturday nights… hilarious! I want him to move into my house, or better yet, my purse so he can make me laugh allllll dayyyyyy long.

Baker and Bobby Fairfield

There goes Tommy again making a dumb face and ruining another photo opp. P.S. Remember that time you sent me a text at 4 am complaining that I never take pictures of you?

And I want to wrap up part #1 of Vegas Day 2 with this cup of caramel and cheescakey stuff inside. (man, I am really pissing off the legit food bloggers by my descriptions of things.. “stuff” “yumminess” hahaha!)