Restaurant Review #206: Boneyard Bistro, Sherman Oaks

Ribs

I decided to pay a visit to Boneyard Bistro for two reasons: their extensive beer list and the promise of sweet potato fries. Located on busy Ventura Boulevard amidst dozens of other restaurants, Boneyard Bistro is a bit hard to spot. We had no trouble parking on the street, but we may have benefited from the cold weather keeping people home. Still, the hostess acted like we should have made a reservation (which I always find annoying), but we somehow got what I considered to be the best table in the house--a corner booth next to the window.

The food is rather pricey for what it is (largely barbecue) and where it's located (things are supposed to be cheaper in the Valley, right?), so I ordered two appetizers for my meal instead of an entree. But first, they brought us mini cornbread muffins and crusty, flavorful bread accompanied by butter served at just the right temperature for spreading. I also ordered a hefeweizen beer. The beer list, divided by style, was quite extensive, but they didn't have the first two beers I asked for, which made me wonder how much of their overall list they actually had on hand. I ended up with the Avery White Rascal for $10 (a six pack of this beer is only $9.49 at BevMo!). With most bottles of respectable beer priced at $8 and up, I didn't really feel like ordering more than one. That's a lot of money for a twelve-ounce bottle of beer. On Mondays, however, beer is half-price. Monday is also fried chicken night, and several other nights have special themes as well. They serve brunch on Sundays.


Pulled pork dumplings

The first appetizer I tried, pulled pork dumplings in a barbecue beurre blanc sauce, was fairly disappointing. The sauce was a lot more strongly flavored than I anticipated based on the description--I guess I was focused on the beurre blanc part of the description, not the barbecue. There was so much sauce that it overwhelmed the filling, and the dumplings, which were more like ravioli, were difficult to cut into bite-sized pieces. The coleslaw, however, was excellent--not too mayonaissey and nice and crunchy.


Sweet potato fries

Fortunately, the sweet potato fries lived up to my expectations. Not only were they wonderfully crispy, which is difficult to do at home, the portion was huge, allowing me to enjoy some as leftovers. I combined my sweet potato fries with some aioli that came with a friend's dish, and it really complemented the fries perfectly. I think that aioli should be served with every plate of fries.


The Classic

Boneyard Bistro serves a selection of burgers with a range of toppings such as applewood bacon, sauteed onions, and sauteed chantrelle mushrooms. All of their burgers are made of Snake River Farms American Kobe-style Wagyu beef, which is leaps and bounds above other hamburger meat. This stuff practically melts in your mouth and is totally worth the seemingly ridiculous $20 price tag. In my experience, other places that charge $20 for a burger don't even come close. Also, I've looked into ordering this beef directly from Snake River Farms, and it really ain't cheap. I think that gorging myself on a $32 double burger would probably be a better idea than ordering the stuff raw--then I don't have to risk screwing it up with my lack of meat-cooking skills. Meditrina Cafe in Venice serves a similar burger, but Boneyard's is significantly better.


Dining room

While we were dining, Chef Aaron Robins visited every table. He didn't strike me as terribly personable, but he has a behind-the-scenes kind of job after all, and I still appreciated the effort he went to to make sure all his customers were enjoying their meals. The dining room is small, with a few private booths, generously sized dark wood tables, exposed brick walls, and framed mirrors. A large flat-screen TV near the kitchen detracts a bit from the otherwise warm atmosphere. Overall, the restaurant and staff had a very friendly, down-to-earth vibe, but I felt a little jilted when our server dropped the check on our table without ever asking if we wanted dessert. I thought that perhaps they didn't offer dessert, but the website says that I missed out on chocolate whiskey flourless cake, dulce de leche bon bons, and tawny ports.

Overall, I really liked this restaurant and I plan to return for more sweet potato fries, my very own burger, and with any luck, some dessert. I think I'll pass on the beer, though, and stop at BevMo on the way home instead.

Boneyard Bistro

13539 Ventura Blvd
Sherman Oaks, CA 91423
818.906.7427
Boneyard Bistro Website

Restaurant Review #205: Desserts at Patina, Downtown Los Angeles

Champagne Mousse, citrus salad, puff pastry, tangerine sorbet, mint pearls

When I was invited to Patina by a PR firm representing Ian Gresik, Patina's pastry chef, I couldn't have been happier. We scheduled our dessert tasting for 8:00 on a Saturday. Unlike most restaurants in Los Angeles, Patina was relatively empty at that hour, which is probably because much of their business comes from pre- and post-concert patrons at the adjacent Walt Disney Concert Hall. In fact, the restaurant started filling up as we were leaving around 9:30 or 10:00. The ability to enjoy dining at an upscale restaurant at a prime dinner time without the noise and the crowds is a real treat in Los Angeles.

Patina's dining room is sort of an odd space that looks almost like it was wedged into the building as an afterthought. The restaurant is L-shaped, with a glowing orange bar when you first walk in and the dining room coming into view after making a right turn. In this case, the setup certainly works to make the restaurant inviting for both dinner patrons and those who just want to stop in for a drink. The dining room ceiling is vaulted in some areas and almost uncomfortably low in others--I'm not sure if the idea was to create a space that felt both homey and airy, or if the space simply dictated that the ceilings had to be this way. The lighting is very yellow, which has the unfortunate effect of making the room look a bit dated. The light creates interesting patterns on the wavy wood-paneled walls that line the room, though. Booths along the wall face outward towards the other patrons and so do not provide the intimacy that many seek in such a seating arrangement, though they are a welcome relief from the setup of a banquette lined with uncomfortably-spaced, tiny tables that is common in so many of the city's top restaurants. All of Patina's tables are adorned with small vases of fresh, carefully arranged orchids, and details like the short, bubbly orange water glasses seem carefully considered to match the restaurant's decor.


Dining room

Our four-course dessert tasting menu consisted of miniature portions of a few of the treats that will be on Patina's spring menu. The first course, champagne mousse with citrus salad, puff pastry, tangerine sorbet, and mint pearls, was dazzling in its presentation. The mint pearls, a basic feat of molecular gastronomy, looked like caviar but had a consistency more like gelatin. They proved too elusive to hop onto a spoon for a solo taste-test, but combined with the dish's other elements, their subtle flavor added pizazz. Champagne probably described the mousse's color better than its flavor, but its taste was unique, with a subtle sweetness tinged with something slightly tart. The mousse's satiny texture can only be described as flawless. The puff pastry seemed over-baked and detracted from the dish's perfection, but given the amount of attention paid to the rest of the dish, its extreme crispness must have been intentional. The tangerine sorbet zinged with an intense citrus flavor.


Strawberry, lemon creme, mascarpone pearls, croquant ginger-strawberry sherbet

Strawberries aren't really a spring fruit, but Gresik says he would rather give his patrons what they like than adhere rigidly to a seasonal theme, and besides, the strawberries were surprisingly ripe. Gresik buys his ingredients at a local farmers market, which is key to achieving the intense and fresh flavors in his fruit-based desserts.

The combination of ginger and strawberry in a frozen treat was so perfect that I couldn't believe I'd never tasted it before (the brown sugar and ginger ice cream at Kiriko is another favorite of mine). The piquancy of the ginger enhanced the tartness of the strawberries. The lemon creme had a lovely texture, but seemed out of place amongst the more delicate flavors of the strawberries and the sherbet. The presentation was again carefully conceived, with the shape of the sorbet and the creme mimicking the organic shape of the strawberries, whose free-form presentation was tied together by the rigid geometry of the mascarpone pearls and the gradient red dot design (created with a tool, not done by hand).


Warm mojito souffle with lime sherbet

The warm mojito souffle sounded too trendy, and how could a souffle possibly taste like a mojito? I don't know, but it really did. The dish played on temperature, with the souffle arriving at the table piping hot and the sherbet served on an ice-cold spoon. The idea behind the setup was to poke a hole in the top of the souffle and pour in the sherbet, but purists will enjoy tasting these elements separately. While most sherbet seems a far cry from the fruit it's labeled after, by including a bit of lime rind, Gresik's lime sherbet actually alluded to fresh limes. I enjoyed this dessert, but more as a novelty than as something I'd want to eat over and over again, and I found the souffle a little too sweet.


Chocolate palet with affogato

The chocolate palet, a short disk of warm, rich, chocolate heaven, like a flourless chocolate cake but denser, came topped with a chocolate cigar that looked solid but was too delicate to touch without breaking it open and flooding the plate with a sweet, coffee-flavored substance. "Affogato " means "drowned" in Italian, and the term is also often used to refer to a dessert of ice cream drowned in espresso, which this dessert did, but in an unusual way.


Petit fours

Just when we thought we were at the end of the dessert tasting and I was commenting that I would gladly eat four more desserts, the pastry chef himself brought us a plate of petit fours, a variety of small desserts that may include cookies, pastries, and confections. In this case, the petit fours definitely leaned towards the confection side. We sampled a vanilla marshmallow, a sweet plum macaroon, a cinnamon truffle, an apricot gelee, peanut butter agnolotti, and a pistachio almond nougat. The agnolotti, a dessert take on a traditional Italian pasta, was the winner of the bunch, with its ethereal filling that captured all the flavor of sweet peanut butter with none of the heaviness.


Exterior

When asked about the inspiration for his unique desserts, which are a welcome change from the tired selections that tend to grace even the most otherwise innovative menus, Gresik explained that he dines out a lot and thinks about what he would like to eat at the end of a filling meal. Rather than traditional heavy desserts like cheesecake or flourless chocolate cake, he prefers concoctions that are light enough to still be enjoyable even when you've already had plenty to eat. His desserts are very successful in that regard, and given their ingenuity, are even reasonably priced at around $12 each.


Next door - Disney Concert Hall

Parking at Patina is a snap, but the convenience comes with a price. You can either valet your car at the door for $8, or park in the concert hall lot, also for $8, then walk about two blocks to the restaurant. For those who hate entrusting their most expensive possession to strangers, it's nice that Patina has a non-valet option.

My experience at Patina was one of the best restaurant experiences I've ever had. The service was nearly flawless and Ian Gresik's desserts were innovative and delectable. Patina recently earned a coveted Michelin star, and I'm certain that Gresik's creations contributed to the restaurant receiving such an honor. I'm already planning to go back--I only hope the main courses are as delicious as I know the last course will be.

Patina
141 S. Grand
Los Angeles, CA 90071
Patina website

Lunch: Tuesday-Friday,11:30am-1:30pm
Sunday, 11:30am-1:30pm on performance day only

Dinner, nightly:
Performance Evenings, 5:00 - 11:00 p.m.
Non-Performance Evenings, 5:00 - 9:30 p.m.