Valentines @ Red Medicine

Valentine's Day 2012 found my tastybutton and I in my hometown, the sunny city of Los Angeles. After spending a day on the set of "Community," we headed to Red Medicine, a restaurant I had heard a lot about. Headed by one of LA's biggest rising culinary stars, Jordan Kahn, Red Medicine serves modernized Vietnamese food with innovative twists and beautiful platings.

In honor of this most romantic of holidays, we enjoyed a 7 dish prix fixe menu, which allowed us to sample a broad selection of the restaurant's repertoire. Spoiler alert: every dish was incredible. Food was served family style, which I felt added to the overall romantic feel of the evening. Let me also say that having done meticulous research on various Valentine's Day prix fixe menus, this was actually one of the better deals in LA.

Amberjack

The fish was lightly cured, giving it a nice firm texture and wonderful, fresh flavor. The big revelation for me was the tofu cream, which could easily serve as a healthy substitute for creme fraiche with no real discernible loss in quality. Its mellow flavor did a great job in serving as a base for the other bigger flavors to shine.

Heirloom Black Carrots

A seemingly simple dish of roasted carrots and beets was actually made very unique based on the desiccated nature of the carrots, making them jerky-like in consistency and concentration of flavor. The preparation made the entire dish feel more substantial than a regular plate of vegetables. The beets meanwhile were much more familiar, serving as counterpoint to the more interesting carrots.

Foie Gras Chantilly

This was an optional dish, that sounded simply too interesting to pass. So for those of you who don't know what a chantilly is, including me), it is a sweet whipped cream used in pastries. If I had known that before ordering, I think I may have been more wary or more eager to taste it, or both.

Anyway, this ended up being one of two highlights of the meal. The foie was whipped to a creamy, ethereal consistency that made the ingredient lighter and less monolithic than it usually is. Meanwhile, the pistachio and pickled lychee elevated the dish immensely... Turns out pistachio is the perfect accompaniment to foie gras. I didn't really sense the crispy chicken skin, which is a bit of a shame.

Rice Porridge
Unlike many Asians, I've never been a fan of rice porridge or congee. I find the texture displeasing and the flavor to be nonexistent. Yet this became the other huge highlight of the night, imprinting itself in my very consciousness. What was the secret that elevated this dish to ethereal heights? Butter. There's a lot of it mixed into the porridge. And it is delicious. I ate way more than I should of of this dish... It continually blew my mind, with its various bursts of flavor from the various little accoutrements, while satisfying my soul with its rice and butter.

Wild Striped Bass

In all honesty, I don't remember much about this dish. I was in a food coma from the porridge. I know it was good, but that's all I remember.

Duroc Pork

Same thing here... Honestly should not have eaten all that porridge. I do remember thinking that I wanted the pork to have a crispier consistency on the outside, but I think all parts of the pig should be cooked to have some crisp given all that inherent fat the meat has to work with. This was more of a stewed preparation, and while tender, lacked a satisfying texture to end the savory courses.

Coconut Bavarois

A satisfying coconut porridge with a very strong coffee ice cream. Didn't have too much of this as I'm not a huge coconut fan and I was also, by then, very food coma'd.

Bitter Chocolate

Chocolate dirt that had a wonderful "chocolate cookie crumbs" theme. Delicious, but by this time, the white flag had long been raised.

Overall, a fantastic meal... Some notes:

1) I do think Red Medicine can benefit from a variation of presentation. As you can probably tell, they're big fans of making all their dishes look like gardens. While undeniably pretty, I think it'd have more impact when among other types of plating.

2) They take their cocktails very seriously here, and they were uniformly delicious. Definitely try their Earl Grey Gin Fizz, and their altered versions of Pisco Sour (with pineapple syrup!) and Americanos.

3) Damn that rice porridge and its delicious buttery goodness.

- JK