Dinner at Ombra Ristorante

The other night, I got together with my dear friends at Ombra Ristorante in Studio City.

The owner/ chef is our friend, Michael, who is a real talented chef of Italian cuisine (and he is also an expert of Italian wines). The restaurant has a nice welcoming feeling, just like we were invited to Mike’s personal dinner party.


There were 6 of us that night and we did all family style. After coming back from Piemonte, where I ate mostly meat and cheese (with virtually no vegetables!), Mike’s dishes were so refreshingly nice with a wide variety of freshest ingredients including a lot of vegetables, top quality seafood, etc. Antipasti included octopus salad, burrata & lentil, calamari fritto. Pumpkin and ricotta ravioli among primi was really nice.


Ahi tuna steak, lamb, and sausage…I don’t eat a lot of sausage normally, but his sausage dish was really outstanding.


Fromaggio and dessert.


And, lots of wine.

Fantastic dinner with great friends.

Bottarga Pasta and Champagne

I think I'm addicted to bottarga. I just go crazy about it so much.

I got a package of premium bottarga from my dearest friend...

There were two pieces. I kept one for for another use (I want to make bottarga onigiri - rice balls with the donabe rice!), and used one for tonight. To be precise, I used 2/3 of a piece for tonight's dish, because I snacked away 1/3 of it as I sliced it in the kitchen. (...because I'm a bottarga addict.)

To best enjoy the premium-quality bottarga, the simplest preparation is preferred. Bottarga spaghetti is one of my favorite pasta dishes. Here's my preparation.

Pasta with Bottarga and Wild Arugula

(for 2 servings)

Ingredients

7 oz spaghetti

1.5 tablespoons olive oil (I used the leftover from marinating the donabe smoked scallops!)

1 tablespoon butter

1 clove garlic, thinly sliced

1 dry red chili

a large handful of wild arugula

1 piece bottarga, half sliced and half grated

salt and pepper

Procedure

1. Boil the spaghetti in the lightly salted water according to the package's direction (make sure it's al dente)

2. 2 minutes before the spaghetti is ready, heat the olive oil and butter in a large saute pan. Infuse the garlic and dry chili for about a minute over medium. Remove the chili. (I like keeping the garlic, but if you like more classic way, you can just infuse an unsliced clove of garlic and remove it also.) Add 2-3 tablespoons of cooking water for the spaghetti.

3. Pour the drained spaghetti into the saute pan. Add the arugula and bottarga and quickly toss with the spaghetti.

4. Serve immediately with the coarsely ground black pepper.

I felt like I was in heaven! The dish was amazing. The bottarga had the nice chewy texture and the flavor was so dense and lightly salty. The dish made a magical mariage with Agrapart & Fils, Champagne Brut, Blanc de Blanc. The dish and wine together created the minerally sensation and I became a mermaid (in my head).

After half-way through of savoring the dish, a secret weapon was introduced. I sprinkled some broken Korean seaweed over the pasta. Yes, Korean seaweed with bottarga! They go wildly delicious together.

Heirloom Tomato Gazpacho with Tofu

Summer vegetables are so colorful and beautiful. I love them so much.



I made Heirloom Tomato Gazpacho again and it came out even better than the last time. This time, I served it with a large cube of tofu (from Meiji Tofu) and drizzled a little amount of lemon infused olive oil. Wow...tofu and gazpacho made such a perfect combination. It was almost too good.

Sarde Marinate and Donabe Tagine Potato

We picked up some seafood from Whole Foods today. While it's quite hard to find the good seafood at local grocery stores in LA, I think Whole Foods' Glendale normally has the high quality seafood compared to other grocery stores. And the fish guys there are always very helpful, too.

I got some whole sardines, so I filed them (it's not so much a fun part), seasoned with salt & pepper, sprinkled flour, and pan-fried them both sides. As soon as I picked them up from the pan, I put them in the marinade, and let them rest for a few hours. Here's the recipe for basic marinade.

Sarde Marinate (Marinated Fried Sardine)

In a small pan, heat 1/4 cup olive oil and 1 clove or garlic (smashed) together over medium-high heat. Turn the heat to medium and add a couple of filets of sardine, sliced dried red chili peppers, and sliced shallots (1 head) and saute for a couple of minutes. Add 2.5 tablespoons of white wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Once the fish filets are pan-fried, put them in a medium-deep dish. Sprinkle some diced tomatoes and pour the marinade over it immediately. Let the mixture rest for 3 hours to overnight. Serve with lemon wedges.

I served the dish with simple roasted potatoes with the tagine-style donabe (clay pot). The combination was perfect. You can find the tagine roasted potato recipe on toiro's website.

It was a beautiful evening to eat this appetizer in our patio. And, the dish went so well with 2007 Domaine de la Pauline, Sancerre. The wine was really nicely fresh and tangy, with the mineral and citrus flavors.