For this month, it was TRUFFLES. I’ve never eaten a full blown truffle set meal. At $250 a pop and 600 consecutive phone calls over a span of 2 hours, I was able to get this reservation. Coupled with wine pairing, the meal was superbly awesome. Note for 2022 migration: this is an old post from my other defunct blog. This has 1 Michelin Star. I remember that after this dinner, I was getting tired of blogging all my Maude meals.

This is my 5th visit to Maude in 6 months. I guess I have the pleasure of doing this because I don’t have many financial responsibilities. This month’s tasting features pears, and again it did not disappoint me. I love pears, and I was curious in seeing how the chef uses it in his dishes. Note for 2022 migration: this is an old post from my other defunct blog. This has 1 Michelin Star.

This is the month for tomatoes. I generally love tomatoes. They can come in so many different sizes and textures, such that it makes it very tasty. I will say that the meal for me did not disappoint. We ended up getting the wine pairing which was about $70 extra. According to my buddy, the wine pairing was excellent throughout the meal and complemented the foods very well. I’ll just take their word for it.

The feature for Maude this month is corn, and it was way more awesome compared to last month. I like corn a lot, so I went in with some expectations, and I wasn’t disappointed. It really sucks to get reservations here. To get this particular reservation I called about 100 times in a given hour. If you look on my cell phone bill, you will see at least 60 5-second calls to them coupled with 40 some calls from a desk phone.

I wasn’t planning to go to this. I really wasn’t. However due to some ridiculous circumstances, I was asked to go, and I had to go. It’s been barely 2 months, and I went back to my favorite LA restaurant. One would expect and hope for the same experience considering how recent their first trip here was. So really, how was it? It was awesome. For comparison, you can also read my 2 month old review.

This could very well be my last post for food for a few weeks. Doing a special restaurant each week is getting rather grueling right now. I’ve decided to soften the blow, so I’ll go to Maude each month for the remainder of the year. This is #26 of 52 (or 26?) of my 2014 LA food expedition. For this month, the special ingredient is berries. Like my rhubarb meal that I went to 2 months ago, I was expecting this to be similar in that every dish would have strong presence and usage of some berry.

This is a hole-in-the-wall place that is a real hidden gem in the Palms neighborhood of LA. It’s Japanese cuisine served kaiseki style. There are only 10 seats per night as the meal lasts just about 5 hours. There is no sign on the front. There is simply the address. We got there at 6:50 PM, but the door was locked. It actually does not open till 7 PM on the dot.

What was so interesting about Maude was how each month has a different ingredient theme. I like this approach. Not only can you choose what you want to eat, but it also is cool to not have to think about what to order since the entire menu is a tasting menu. This so far is probably my favorite upscale LA restaurant (possibly attributed to the star of this month … rhubarb).

Scratch Bar has been on my radar for a while. I love out-of-the-box food creations and multi-course prixe fixed menus, and this restaurant had both of those. It’s relatively new, and it was not even packed at all. I ventured out here by myself after work, and I’m glad I did for an unforgettable night. This is #16 of 52 on my 2014 LA food expedition. Note for 2022 migration: this is an old post from my other defunct blog.

As a borderline 2 month anniversary of my abysmal attempts at eating a LA restaurant every week, I decided to try out this place called N/Naka in Palms. The owner of this kaiseki-style restaurant, Chef Niki Nakayama, is very meticulous with the menu and presentation in her dishes. Reviewers like to compare this place to Urusawa (a very high end Japanese restaurant which is on my list before the end of the year), and they also often say the food is by far the BEST Japanese restaurant in Los Angeles.