Just for the record, I want to state: I am not a food snob. Here's why: food snobs turn their nose up at things. I do not. A food snob is someone who can only get pleasure out of the good stuff: gourmet food, locally sourced food, organic food, etc. I, on the other hand, have found heaven (occasionally) at the Taco Bell drive through. To a true food snob, the best hamburger would probably contain Kobe beef and foie gras with a black truffle aoli. For my money, nothing beats a double-double (animal style of course) or a Fatburger with the works. Not that I would turn my nose up at the Kobe-foie gras burger, but you know what I'm saying.
I am what I like to call a food lover. As long as it tastes good, or is at least not so bad I want to spit it out (which has happened a time or two), I'm game. Like everyone else, there are a few foods that I enjoy more than others (I'm kind of obsessed with beets right now), but I'll try almost anything once. Lucky for me, I live in Los Angeles, a town where you can pretty much eat cuisine from a different continent every night night of the week.
There are still plenty of foods I haven't tried. Organ meat, for one--brains, heart, sweetbreads, kidney, testicles (dare I say), and the rest. I'm interested in trying these things, but I feel as though I don't need to run out and taste them. I'm going to let them find me. Maybe that makes me a lazy food lover, but I've been called worse.
Basically, I just wanted to set the record straight. I am not a food snob. Just remember, the next time you're reading a post and I'm talking rapturously about some obscure ethnic dish, that I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night craving a seven layer burrito and a taco supreme.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Lamill Coffee Shop
Okay, storytime. So I was reading some random food blog yesterday and it talked about a new coffee shop opening up in Silver Lake. Being a lover of coffee, and someone who is sick of going to Starbucks all the time (it's close to my house, so shut up), I'm always looking for a new place to grab a brew. I decided to check it out today. The place is called Lamill. It's in Silver Lake, right across the street from Michelangelo's. I can't for the life of me figure out if it's called La-mill or L-A-mill, so just pick one and call it that in your head from now on.
As it turns out, today was their soft opening, and (for reasons that will be discussed later) a great day to go. I perused their coffee menu. Impressive. They have one of those fancy Clover machines I've seen around a lot lately. Basically it's a machine that brews coffee by the cup, so you can offer seven or eight coffees of the day and every one will be extremely fresh. They have one of those machines at Intelligentsia, another Silver Lake coffee place I discovered recently (I'll cover that in another post sometime).
Lamill specializes in hard-to-find and artisanal coffee and tea varietals, organically sourced products, and interesting coffee beverages. After much debate (it all looked so good) I decided to go with a Sumatra Peaberry. When I went to pay for my coffee, I was told that it was on the house. Apparently for the soft opening, everything on the menu was complimentary. This made my heart sing with joy, as your humble food writer here loves nothing more than a good food bargain. The coffee was excellent, by the way. It had a fairly high acidity, which gave it an almost wine-like taste. Good stuff.
I figured my good fortune had to be shared, so I called up a few friends and we decided to go back for lunch. By the time we got back, the place was packed. We wound up waiting about an hour for the table, but it was totally worth it. The staff was very knowledgeable and helpful, almost to the point of annoyance (I probably could have gone without the minute-by-minute update of how our table was coming). We all ordered different things and tried each other's dishes so we could get the full effect of the place. Overall, the food was pretty darn good, if a tad on the pricey side.
We started off with a few of their signature coffee drinks. My friend ordered a Coffee and Jelly Donut. This was a shot of espresso with jelly on the bottom and a donut-infused whipped cream on top (don't ask me how the infusion works. I'm not much of a scientist). This drink was good but not great. Being somewhat of a connoisseur of donuts, I had high hopes going in. The espresso overpowered the jelly and the donut flavor was almost totally lost.
The drink that I had was called Coffee and a Cigarette. Yes, you heard right boys and girls. Coffee and a cigarette. And they served it to me inside, no less. What was this crazy bit of food science gone wrong, you ask? It's tobacco-infused whipped cream topped with espresso. Again, I have no idea how they infuse it, but it tasted pretty good. There was just the faintest hint of tobacco flavor perceptible beneath the overpowering flavor of really good espresso. The texture was interesting; it was really more of a mousse than a coffee drink.
A note about their signature coffee drinks: they are not available to go. And this, my dear friends, is why: they are served in small, roundish glasses, almost the size of a votive candle holder, then placed top clear cylinders of plastic. Basically, Lamill puts its coffee on a pedestal. Literally. While it may be a bit of self-flattery, it does look kinda cool. And it puts the small cup closer to your field of view, so you don't forget about that little cup way down there on the table.
Before we could start recreating Stonehenge with our coffee pedestals, our soup and salad came. My personal favorite was a butternut squash soup with an herbed creme fraiche and garlic croûtons. The presentation was nice, with the soup being poured into the bowl from a small pitcher tableside. My friend ordered the potato leek soup, which was also very good and had a similar presentation. The salad, a yuzu citrus caesar with roasted red peppers and tomato, was definitely tasty, but not special enough to warrant it's $12 price tag.
For our main course, we all chose sandwiches. I had The Farcell: a Spanish chorizo panini with sweet pickled peppers, green onion, and Spanish cheese. It was a tasty sandwich, but the thick slice of cheese in a fairly skinny panini kind of overpowered the other flavors. Also, there was a jarring textural contrast between the soft, melted cheese and meat and the raw, tough onions and peppers. It was the kind of thing where you take a small bite and accidentally pull out an entire pepper with your teeth. One of my companions ordered a prosciutto sandwich, which was quite tasty and deceptively simple: a good baguette, high quality meat, and decent cheese, heated to just the right temperature where the meat and cheese become one texture. It's like the best ham and cheese sandwich you'll ever have.
All of the paninis are served on a long sandwich board with a nice selection of goodies. Potato chips are always a welcome accompaniment to a sandwich, and Lamill's homemade version did not disappoint. On the tray also was a small dish of mixed olives and right next to it, something else that may have been the highlight of my entire meal. Hell, it may be the highlight of my week. Homemade pickled onions. Now I know what you're saying. "Pickled onions, how disgusting. Those little white things that my grandfather used to put in is gin Gibson." I promise you, these are not your grandfather's pickled onions. They were out of this world. The perfect combination of briny bite and caramelized sweetness. Texture-wise and taste-wise, these heavenly pearls made me weak in the knees. And I was sitting down. On my next visit to Lamill, I might just ask for a bowl of them.
Dessert was quite an experience, too. I had a chocolate mousse with avocado, tortilla streusel, candied pineapple, and chipotle pepper-infused whipped cream. It was served in grand streaks across the plate, as if it were part of a Van Gough canvas. It think if old Vincent's work had been this tasty, he might have sold a few more paintings while he was alive. It was definitely unlike anything I've tasted before, full of interesting textural juxtapositions. The streusel was heavy and crunchy, almost approaching Grape-Nut-like consistency. The chipotle-infused mousse lighter than air (almost). The flavors were just as interesting, ranging from sour to sweet, with a definite spicy kick at the end.
My companions has interesting dishes as well, like the Almost like a creme brulee, which was basically a creme brulee with the hard sugar shell on the outside.The other desert we ordered was a Pumpkin "Pie", which was quite tasty as well. I didn't try enough of the others to comment in detail, but they all looked marvelous. Here's a picture of the desserts (unfortunately it's the only picture we have from the meal)
Clockwise from bottom left (almost a creme brulee, Pumpkin "Pie", crazy chocolate mousse/avocado/chipotle pepper thing)
In conclusion: Lamill is a restaurant I'd recommend. If you're at all a coffee/tea snob, you really need to check it out, if for no other reason then to marvel at the list of interesting offerings. The food is quite good, occasionally outstanding (in the case of the onions, especially). It is a bit pricey, so for those of us on a budget it might remain a once-in-a-while kind of place. Just to give an idea, our meal came in at just under $150, quite a lot to shell out for lunch. But, we did have three drinks, two soups, a salad, four sandwiches and three desserts. So, we got a lot of food. And thank God, or whomever, that it was all on the house. Otherwise, I'd be writing a very well-observed review of Rally's Hamburger Stand. Well, that's all for now. Until next time, America...
As it turns out, today was their soft opening, and (for reasons that will be discussed later) a great day to go. I perused their coffee menu. Impressive. They have one of those fancy Clover machines I've seen around a lot lately. Basically it's a machine that brews coffee by the cup, so you can offer seven or eight coffees of the day and every one will be extremely fresh. They have one of those machines at Intelligentsia, another Silver Lake coffee place I discovered recently (I'll cover that in another post sometime).
Lamill specializes in hard-to-find and artisanal coffee and tea varietals, organically sourced products, and interesting coffee beverages. After much debate (it all looked so good) I decided to go with a Sumatra Peaberry. When I went to pay for my coffee, I was told that it was on the house. Apparently for the soft opening, everything on the menu was complimentary. This made my heart sing with joy, as your humble food writer here loves nothing more than a good food bargain. The coffee was excellent, by the way. It had a fairly high acidity, which gave it an almost wine-like taste. Good stuff.
I figured my good fortune had to be shared, so I called up a few friends and we decided to go back for lunch. By the time we got back, the place was packed. We wound up waiting about an hour for the table, but it was totally worth it. The staff was very knowledgeable and helpful, almost to the point of annoyance (I probably could have gone without the minute-by-minute update of how our table was coming). We all ordered different things and tried each other's dishes so we could get the full effect of the place. Overall, the food was pretty darn good, if a tad on the pricey side.
We started off with a few of their signature coffee drinks. My friend ordered a Coffee and Jelly Donut. This was a shot of espresso with jelly on the bottom and a donut-infused whipped cream on top (don't ask me how the infusion works. I'm not much of a scientist). This drink was good but not great. Being somewhat of a connoisseur of donuts, I had high hopes going in. The espresso overpowered the jelly and the donut flavor was almost totally lost.
The drink that I had was called Coffee and a Cigarette. Yes, you heard right boys and girls. Coffee and a cigarette. And they served it to me inside, no less. What was this crazy bit of food science gone wrong, you ask? It's tobacco-infused whipped cream topped with espresso. Again, I have no idea how they infuse it, but it tasted pretty good. There was just the faintest hint of tobacco flavor perceptible beneath the overpowering flavor of really good espresso. The texture was interesting; it was really more of a mousse than a coffee drink.
A note about their signature coffee drinks: they are not available to go. And this, my dear friends, is why: they are served in small, roundish glasses, almost the size of a votive candle holder, then placed top clear cylinders of plastic. Basically, Lamill puts its coffee on a pedestal. Literally. While it may be a bit of self-flattery, it does look kinda cool. And it puts the small cup closer to your field of view, so you don't forget about that little cup way down there on the table.
Before we could start recreating Stonehenge with our coffee pedestals, our soup and salad came. My personal favorite was a butternut squash soup with an herbed creme fraiche and garlic croûtons. The presentation was nice, with the soup being poured into the bowl from a small pitcher tableside. My friend ordered the potato leek soup, which was also very good and had a similar presentation. The salad, a yuzu citrus caesar with roasted red peppers and tomato, was definitely tasty, but not special enough to warrant it's $12 price tag.
For our main course, we all chose sandwiches. I had The Farcell: a Spanish chorizo panini with sweet pickled peppers, green onion, and Spanish cheese. It was a tasty sandwich, but the thick slice of cheese in a fairly skinny panini kind of overpowered the other flavors. Also, there was a jarring textural contrast between the soft, melted cheese and meat and the raw, tough onions and peppers. It was the kind of thing where you take a small bite and accidentally pull out an entire pepper with your teeth. One of my companions ordered a prosciutto sandwich, which was quite tasty and deceptively simple: a good baguette, high quality meat, and decent cheese, heated to just the right temperature where the meat and cheese become one texture. It's like the best ham and cheese sandwich you'll ever have.
All of the paninis are served on a long sandwich board with a nice selection of goodies. Potato chips are always a welcome accompaniment to a sandwich, and Lamill's homemade version did not disappoint. On the tray also was a small dish of mixed olives and right next to it, something else that may have been the highlight of my entire meal. Hell, it may be the highlight of my week. Homemade pickled onions. Now I know what you're saying. "Pickled onions, how disgusting. Those little white things that my grandfather used to put in is gin Gibson." I promise you, these are not your grandfather's pickled onions. They were out of this world. The perfect combination of briny bite and caramelized sweetness. Texture-wise and taste-wise, these heavenly pearls made me weak in the knees. And I was sitting down. On my next visit to Lamill, I might just ask for a bowl of them.
Dessert was quite an experience, too. I had a chocolate mousse with avocado, tortilla streusel, candied pineapple, and chipotle pepper-infused whipped cream. It was served in grand streaks across the plate, as if it were part of a Van Gough canvas. It think if old Vincent's work had been this tasty, he might have sold a few more paintings while he was alive. It was definitely unlike anything I've tasted before, full of interesting textural juxtapositions. The streusel was heavy and crunchy, almost approaching Grape-Nut-like consistency. The chipotle-infused mousse lighter than air (almost). The flavors were just as interesting, ranging from sour to sweet, with a definite spicy kick at the end.
My companions has interesting dishes as well, like the Almost like a creme brulee, which was basically a creme brulee with the hard sugar shell on the outside.The other desert we ordered was a Pumpkin "Pie", which was quite tasty as well. I didn't try enough of the others to comment in detail, but they all looked marvelous. Here's a picture of the desserts (unfortunately it's the only picture we have from the meal)
Clockwise from bottom left (almost a creme brulee, Pumpkin "Pie", crazy chocolate mousse/avocado/chipotle pepper thing)In conclusion: Lamill is a restaurant I'd recommend. If you're at all a coffee/tea snob, you really need to check it out, if for no other reason then to marvel at the list of interesting offerings. The food is quite good, occasionally outstanding (in the case of the onions, especially). It is a bit pricey, so for those of us on a budget it might remain a once-in-a-while kind of place. Just to give an idea, our meal came in at just under $150, quite a lot to shell out for lunch. But, we did have three drinks, two soups, a salad, four sandwiches and three desserts. So, we got a lot of food. And thank God, or whomever, that it was all on the house. Otherwise, I'd be writing a very well-observed review of Rally's Hamburger Stand. Well, that's all for now. Until next time, America...
First Post (Why I'm doing this)
Hey there guys. Zach here. For my first (semi-serious) foray into the blogosphere, I figured I should choose something near and dear to my heart. And my stomach. Namely, the ins and outs of food. Cooking. Restaurants. Wine. Booze. I'll cover pretty much anything related to eating and drinking, and do it in whichever way I see fit.
If you're looking for something that smacks of comprehensiveness, do yourself a favor and look elsewhere. There are plenty of websites out there with much more encyclopedic information. Me Want Foood is basically just a semi-pro food lover writing about whatever is on his mind that day.
If you're looking for something that smacks of comprehensiveness, do yourself a favor and look elsewhere. There are plenty of websites out there with much more encyclopedic information. Me Want Foood is basically just a semi-pro food lover writing about whatever is on his mind that day.
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