Degustation!

I've been wanting to check out the tapas bar, Degustation for a while now.

It was so delicious! I've been to several fancy-ish places to dine in the past year and this is the only one I would return too.

Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly what all the items are because we did a chef tasting menu and a lot of the items we had were not present on their current menu.

Our amuse-bouche. The item on the right was a mini burrito type thing filled with pureed mushroom, the middle; a mini croquette filled with a tomato cream and the left was a fried piece of fish skin with a vinegarette.

A crudo of hamachi (young yellowtail) dressed in a citrus vinegarette and topped with cilantro and mini potato chips.

Watermelon and tomato gazpacho. I normally am not crazy about gazpachos, finding them too acidic, but this one was very good. I think the watermelon's sweetness helped balance out the tomatoe's acidity quite nicely.

The chef's version of Eggplant Parmesan. A flash fried piece of eggplant topped with shredded Parmesan cheese with house made mozzarella cheese, basil, and tomato sauce.

A salad of grilled squash and mushrooms, dandelion leaves, house made ricotta cheese, strawberries and a poached quail egg. Dandelion greens are really interesting. Very bitter flavor. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

A freebie dish! Grilled octopus with celery and red onions dressed in a jalapeno vinegarette with a tomato dust. I thought the octopus was way too tough and rubbery in this one. The flavors were really nice in this one though.

My number one favorite dish out of all the courses. Fried sardine on top of a sardine and tomato risotto. All topped with a sunny side up chicken egg. I really liked the bold flavors of this dish.I loved breaking the yolk of the egg and then mixing everything up together.

This was a favorite as well. A slow cooked scrambled egg with greek yogurt and Parmesan cheese stirred in, topped with croutons and scallions and a shard of lamb bacon. I love my scrambled eggs loose and these eggs were as loose as you could get them. It was like a porridge consistancy. The saltiness of the cheese and the tanginess of the yogurt made these eggs sing. This is a dish I'm gonna try to recreate in my kitchen one of these days.

Rabbit terrine with pickled okra and radish. This was the only dish I was meh about. Yeah, I know it's rabbit, but this tasted like cold cuts I could get from any deli. A salami sandwich would give me the same satisfaction this dish gave. I guess it was just me, because the rest of my dinner mate loved this.

My third favorite. Wagyu steak and a hash brown on top on creamed spinach with fried peppers and a sweet onion reduction. This is the first time I've had wagyu beef, so I was excited about this dish. The wagyu was prepared so rare, it was practically raw, but it just melted in my mouth. This was a nice version of a classic steak and potatoes dinner.

Another freebie! "Peanut butter and Jelly" The chef said this is a new item on their menu and we were the first people to try it. This is a house made grape soda with peanut flavored foam on top. We were instructed to take the whole glass in one shot, but this dish had a physics problem. We all noticed after taking our shots that we got all the "jelly" but no "peanut butter." The peanut foam was all in the bottom of our glasses and we needed a spoon to get to out. This would have been much nicer if we could have gotten them together. Oh well. I guess the chef needs to work on this more.

Dessert! Also the last course. A caramelized torija with strawberries. This tasted like a very rich bread pudding made with brioche with a brulee'd coating. This was really good. This was really well balanced. Sweet, but not too sweet. Sour, from the strawberries. Creamy and crunchy at the same time. Some parts of the torija were over brulee'd so those reminded me of eating toasted marshmallows (note: I adore toasted marshmallows). Alice, one of the girls I ate with, couldn't finish her dessert, so I got double of this. Score!

Even though I had all that food, I was still feeling kind of hungry. So was my friend Nejii, but Nejii's always freaking hungry. So, we decided to get some Bon Chon Chicken after wards. Alice and Steve looked at us like we were crazy because they were stuffed to the gills. I've never had Bon Chon Chicken before, but it was so good! This is soy garlic flavor. I need to figure out how to make this glaze.