Spent some time finding this restaurant and ended up asking directions from the shop next door. Turned out the entrance was in the back, on the little Memorial garden for Sun Yat San. Too bad they gave out a Hollywood Road address with no other directions. The people behind us were also late looking for this place. So we were late.
This is a very busy restaurant with two seatings and we had to wait 20 minutes, and which was 30 minutes beyond the second seating time we booked.
So despite the wait, the fact this this was a hard restaurant to book can be a promising sign of good food to come.
Unfortunately that was no to be.
They had black truffles which they encouraged you to buy and shave over your dishes. Dishes on the average were small and price from $120 to about $200. The dishes were not originally designed for the truffles season and are on their regular menu, but they picked the ones especially suitable for truffles and put them on a separate list. Our piece of truffle was weighed on a small handheld scale and we paid $1,700 for it, for a table of six persons. I asked if this may be the tasteless kind and I was assured it was tasty.
First up was toasts with lardo. Not the way I has them in Italy, like sliced prosciutto, but mashed on the toast. Pretty tasteless on its own, but also tasteless with the shaved black truffles, which itself had no taste. I was entertaining guests and so did not argue.
The egg pasta was a small dish of simply boiled pasta, appetizer size for one. Without the truffles it would be tasteless and therefore strange to be offered it as a regular dish on its own, at $120!
Same for the dish of plain scrambled eggs.
The spaghetti Carbonara with sea urchins did not taste like a Carbonara nor was there any taste of sea urchins. Stoggy yellow sauce.
The Wagyu tartar was just OK and not to compare with the dish at Wine Beast where I had lunch.
We had numerous other dishes and none were memorable. In fact so forgettable I can't really recall them the morning after and had to ask the other diners.
But the chocolate cake was rich and very good.
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